Washington – President Donald Trump’s intelligence chief is exploring ways to renew his routine intelligence information session to develop his confidence in the material and make him more aligned with the way he likes to consume information, according to five people with direct knowledge of discussions.
As part of that effort, the national director of Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has requested ideas from current and previous intelligence officials about the steps he could take to adapt the informative session, known as the president’s daily report, or PDB, to Trump’s interests and political habits.
An idea that has been discussed is possibly creating a video version of the PDB that is done to look and feel like a Fox News transmission, four people said with direct knowledge of the discussions.
Currently, the PDB is a digital document created daily for the president and the key members of the cabinet that includes written text, as well as graphics and images. The material that enters the classified informative session and how it is presented, can shape the decision making of a president.
According to his public schedule, since its inauguration, Trump has taken the PDB 14 times, or on average less than once a week, which is less often than his recent predecessors, including himself during his first term. An analysis of its public schedules during that same period, from its inauguration to May during its first year in office, shows that former President Joe Biden received 90 PDB; Trump received 55; and former President Barack Obama received 63.
People with direct knowledge of PDB discussions said that Gabbard believes that the cadence can be a reflection of Trump’s preference for consuming information in a different way from formal information, as well as their distrust of intelligence officials, which dates back to their first mandate, when he accused them of spying on their 2016 campaign. They also said that even if the presentation of the PDB changed, the information included it, the information included it.
When comments were requested, DNI press secretary, Olivia Coleman, said in a statement: “This so -called ‘reports’ is ridiculous, absurd and false. In real false fashion, NBC is publishing another false story of anonymous origin.”
A source familiar with the internal deliberations of the DNI said that during the Gabbard confirmation process in the Senate, “there was a bipartisan consensus that the PDB needed a serious reform. DNI Gabbard is leading that reform and is ensuring that the president receives timely intelligence reports appropriate, relevant.”
In a statement, the White House spokesman, Davis Ingle, referred to this report as “defamatory garbage of unidentified sources,” and said: “President Trump has brought together a world -class intelligence team with which he constantly communicates and receives real -time updates on all national security problems.
It is not unusual for PDB to adapt to individual presidents. The presentation of the PDB was adjusted to Trump in its first term to include less text and more images and graphics. Gabbard has discussed more extensive changes, according to people with direct knowledge of discussions. It is not clear how far their effort will come, but people with direct knowledge said that they have entertained some unconventional ideas.
An idea that has been discussed is to transform the PDB to reflect a transmission of Fox News, according to four of the people with direct knowledge of the discussions. Under that concept, as has been discussed, the office of the National Intelligence Director could hire a Fox News producer to produce it and one of the network’s personalities to present it; Trump, an avid Fox News spectator, could see the transmission PDB whenever I wanted.
A new PDB could include not only graphics and images, but also maps with animated representations of explosive bombs, similar to a video game, said another of the people with knowledge of discussions.
“The problem with Trump is not to read,” said other people with direct knowledge of PDB discussions. “It is in transmission all the time.”
People with direct knowledge of PDB’s discussions talked about the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss internal deliberations.
The United States intelligence officials have created videos in the past to present information to the presidents, including world leaders profiles, for example. The Hollywood Legend Charlton Heston narrated instructional films on highly classified issues for the Department of Energy and the United States Military Intelligence and Military Community. The films included information about nuclear weapons, which require Heston to have the greatest possible relevant security authorization for at least six years.
The former intelligence officials who worked at the Trump’s first administration said Trump preferred to be verbally informed and ask questions, but that they did not read memoranda or other long written material.
During Trump’s first mandate, the PDB became a scheme of the topics of a page with a set of graphics, verbally presented by an intelligence officer approximately twice a week, according to a history of presidential reports by John Helgerson.
To accommodate Trump’s style and preferences, vice president Mike Pence told the Breaders that “they lean forward on the maps,” according to Helgerson’s book.
But there has not been a PDB presentation of transmission or cable news style. Although the PDB has gone through several transformations under different presidents since it was created in 1946, it has been largely in a written format that was later informed to the president verbally.
Gabbard has also discussed the adaptation of part of the content in the PDB to the interests of Trump, such as including more information on economic and commercial issues and a less routine approach in the war in Ukraine, according to three of the people with direct knowledge of the discussions of PDB.
Including intelligence on issues that care about the president is not unusual. The PDB for Biden included gender and climate change problems, said one of those three people.
“You change with the priorities of the administration,” said that person, adding that due to Trump’s distrust to the intelligence community, getting the PDB embrace “is a very uphill fight.”
As director of National Intelligence, Gabbard Supervises and approves the PDB. A great staff of analysts and other CIA employees compiles the PDB, creating detailed text, graphics and videos based on the latest intelligence compiled by the United States espionage agencies.
NBC News has reported that Gabbard plans to move the office that prepares the PDB of the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, to the office of the National Intelligence Director a few miles away in McLean, apparently to boost the role of his office when presenting intelligence to the President.
The ODNI would need to expand your staff and acquire digital tools and other infrastructure to gather the PDB, said one of the five people familiar with discussions.
If the PDB became a video for Trump, it would probably be provided with something like its current form to other senior administration officials who receive it, said that person.
Because he has been taking the PDB a little less than once a week on average, Trump currently receives a product that one of the people familiar with PDB’s discussions described as the highlight of last week, in addition to anything new that day that day.
Discussions about possible changes in PDB occur in the midst of questions about whether Gabbard can politicize the intelligence process, especially after his chief of cabinet, Joe Kent, asked analysts to review an evaluation of a Venezuelan criminal gang that seemed to undermine Trump’s immigration policy, according to two sources with knowledge of the matter.
Two senior officials who led the National Intelligence Council were recently fired after the initial intelligence evaluation contradicted Trump’s claims that the Aragua train poster was operating under the direction of the Venezuelan regime, led by Nicolás Maduro. Trump cited statements about the alleged relationship of the regime with the poster as its justification to invoke a law of 1798 rarely used, the alien enemies law, to deport the suspected persons of being gang members without the due standard process.
It is common for intelligence leaders to establish their own staff, but the measure referred to the Democrats of Congress who already questioned some of Gabbard’s efforts to have more strict control about what intelligence reaches Trump.
“In the absence of evidence to justify the shots, the workforce can only conclude that its work depends on the production of analysis that is aligned with the political agenda of the president, instead of truthful and apolitical,” said Representative Jim Himes of Connecticut, the main Democrat of the Chamber Intelligence Committee, in a statement.
An administration official said previously to NBC News that the two officials were fired “because they could not provide impartial intelligence.”
