Thread by @DavidPriess

THREAD: This article errs claiming “American presidents typically meet with their top intelligence officials––or with those officials’ deputies––every day to discuss pressing national security issues.”

It’s not been typical—it’s been the exception.

1/6
thedailybeast.com/white-house-ab…

The President’s Daily Brief started in 1964 for Lyndon Johnson—building on the personalized product created for John Kennedy in 1961.

Neither president got steady daily briefings from intel leaders, other than for a few weeks after LBJ succeeded the slain JFK.

2/6

Nixon not only failed to take daily intel briefings, he may not have read the PDB much.

Finally, Gerald Ford became the first POTUS to get steady in-person briefings each day from an intel officer—a working-level analyst, not top officials—but only for just over a year.

3/6

Carter and Reagan didn’t take in-person briefings from intel leaders.

Bush 41, more than 25 years after the PDB process began, became the first president to see a CIA briefer every working day in Washington, for the length of his term. The CIA director often attended.

4/6

Clinton and Obama took PDB briefings irregularly, usually a couple of times a week, and not always with intel leaders.

Bush 43 expanded his father’s practice by taking his daily intel briefer with him when traveling.

Trump’s pattern seems closest to that of ... Obama.

5/6

So in 57+ years of daily, POTUS-focused intel reports, only just over 13 have seen a president meeting daily with intel officials.

Even then, those officials sometimes were working-level officers, not intel leaders/deputies.

I wrote a book about it:

6/6
amazon.com/Presidents-Boo…