Thread by @DavidPriess

Hi. It’s the President’s Daily Brief guy again.

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?”

Klain was "dumbstruck by the question.”

2/13
penguinrandomhouse.com/books/668293/c…

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.]

3/13

Let’s look at Trump’s predecessors to show how wrong this is.

And not just to one or two of them.

Let’s go back almost 50 years, to look at how each of the@modern commanders in chief have incorporated the President’s Daily Brief into their schedule each working day.

4/13

Gerald Ford not only read his daily book of secrets with interest each working day, but also took in-person, daily briefings about the PDB from intelligence community officers through his first year in office.

5/13

Jimmy Carter provided ample evidence for history (and to me in interviews) that he read his President’s Daily Brief every working day. He typically marked up his copies, scrawling questions and comments in the margins.

6/13

Ronald Reagan got material from his PDB through briefings every working day with his national security advisor.

He also read it regularly. All six of his national security advisors, and others in his White House, confirmed that for me.

7/13

George H. W. Bush not only read the book of secrets every working day but also welcomed a CIA briefer for a face-to-face briefing on those days that he was in Washington.

8/13

Bill Clinton took in-person briefings irregularly over the course of his two terms but had the book delivered every working day for reading. He and his top advisers told me that he devoured its content.

9/13

George W. Bush read his PDB carefully, giving it more time on his schedule than any previous president—becoming the first POTUS to take in-person briefings from intelligence officers every working day of his presidency, whether he was in DC or overnighting elsewhere.

10/13

Barack Obama read the PDB (for him, on a very special iPad) alone and talked about it with senior advisors every working day. And then he invited intelligence community briefers in a few times a week to expand upon its content or walk on new items.

11/13

So Meadows’s remark applied to only one recent POTUS: Trump.

That means he was either lying to Klain (maybe to try to reduce Biden’s access to intel) or simply ignorant of other presidents’ experiences. Either option demonstrates he was unfit to serve as chief of staff.

12/13

Interested in more detailed stories of presidents and their relationship with intelligence?

Check out my history of it all—featuring interviews with presidents, vice presidents, CIA directors, and many others:

/end

amazon.com/Presidents-Boo…