THREAD: Today, I tried to recall other presidents’ reactions to national tragedies.
Because what I heard today sounded a bit ... different than my memories of how other presidents have risen to occasion.
Here’s some of what I found:
Abraham Lincoln post-Gettysburg:
“The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.”
Ronald Reagan after the loss of space shuttle Challenger and its crew:
“We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and slipped the surly bonds of Earth to touch the face of God.”
Bill Clinton after the Oklahoma City bombing:
“When there is talk of hatred, let us stand up and talk against it. When there is talk of violence, let us stand up and talk against it. In the face of death, let us honor life.”
George W. Bush after the 9/11 attacks:
“Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America.”
Barack Obama after the Newtown massacre:
“I can only hope it helps for you to know that you’re not alone in your grief, that our world, too, has been torn apart, that all across this land of ours, we have wept with you. We’ve pulled our children tight.”
When the country suffers a tragedy and enters a period of national mourning, presidents don’t always do the right things.
But at such times, the least we can expect is for the president to elevate the rhetoric to something greater than himself.
That’s all.
/end thread
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First of all, if you’re unfamiliar with the long tradition of unclassified worldwide threat briefings to Congress, catch up with this podcast episode I hosted 4+ years ago with Michael Hayden, Jim Clapper, and Andrew McCabe.
The Russia section last year had this interesting line: “Moscow will become even more reliant on nuclear, cyber, and space capabilities as it deals with the extensive damage to Russia’s ground forces.”
THREAD: Speculation has started in earnest about what will happen this year to the tradition of classified intelligence briefings for the major party presidential candidates.
And a lot of what’s being said is wrong, or at least incomplete.
Here’s ground truth —>
1/12
Major-party POTUS candidates have been offered intel briefings during the campaign since 1952.
(Not to be confused with the heavy intel support presidents-elect get—including, since the President’s Daily Brief began in the mid 1960s, a copy of the outgoing POTUS’s PDB.)
2/12
The tradition began in 1952, when President Truman—reflecting on his sudden succession to the presidency in April 1945—offered classified briefings to both candidates (Dwight Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson) seeking to succeed him.
THREAD: Tonight in Fredericton, New Brunswick, at a public event about US presidents and intelligence, I got a question I hadn’t heard in hundreds of engagements on the topic:
“Who are the oddest people to ever show up in a PDB briefing?”
Buckle up. Strange things ahead.
1/9
Usually, for more than half a century, the President’s Daily Brief goes only to POTUS and a close circle of senior national security officials—like vice presidents, national security advisors, secretaries of state and defense, and folks one step removed.
Usually.
2/9
But it ain’t always that way.
The PDB was born in 1964, for Lyndon Johnson—and within a few short years, this most secretive document was going to, among others … Press Secretary Bill Moyers.
THREAD: My quick reactions to the U.S. intelligence community’s Annual Threat Testimony, released and briefed to the Senate Intelligence Committee today.
Some surprises, and some disappointments. Let’s go—
1/13
First, appreciate that this annual testimony from intel leaders has a rich history—described in this 2020 episode of the Lawfare Podcast that I hosted with former DNI Jim Clapper, former DCIA and DirNSA @GenMhayden, and former DD/FBI Andy McCabe:
I’m here to explain how Mark Meadows’s newly reported remark about presidents and the PDB is woefully wrong—and reveals why he never should’ve been chief of staff in the first place.
Grab a drink. Let’s take a PDB journey.
1/13
First, the remark. In her new book “Confidence Man,” @maggieNYT writes that during the transition Mark Meadows asked Ron Klein, “How many days a week is Vice President Biden gonna want this daily brief?”
After Klain said Biden wanted to be briefed every day—saying that was how Biden had done it as vice president—Meadows countered,
"No president ever does that. That’s never happened.”
[This is where your narrator takes a deep breath. And another one. And another one.]