One of the reasons that you want intelligent leadership in a president is because running and delegating, and making strong and informed decisions, are about 98 percent of the job.* President Donald Trump has boasted about his high intelligence in the past. Sadly, anything Trump boasts about is proven to be 100 percent false. In fact, there’s a more than good chance that if Trump boasts about something, he’s actually performing on the opposite end of the spectrum from that thing.
On Wednesday the Washington Post published a report that included comments made by members of the United States intelligence community. In it, they lament the growing distance between our country’s commander in chief and the people charged with collecting the important information needed to make decisions concerning national security. The intelligence community’s frustration with the orange dummy has led many to reportedly search out anyone in the White House not named Trump, in the hopes of warning policymakers about things anathema to Donald—like information and facts.
The President’s Daily Brief (PDB), a document that for decades has been drawn up specifically for the commander in chief, “has become more important for Cabinet-level officials than the president,” said a former senior U.S. intelligence official who until earlier this year was involved in drafting such documents. The official, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
Trump’s ascension to office has meant that the people putting together reports for the head of the government find themselves trying to dumb them down into a more USA Today-friendly set of “bullet points and images or graphics.” But even that is too much “reading” for Trump, and since the beginning of the year, reports have filtered out from the White House that even the PDB gets zero attention.
You don’t need to agree with or believe our intelligence departments 100 percent of the time if you are the president. In fact, it’s probably healthy to have a curious mind and a critical eye when ingesting the kinds of intel a president is likely getting at any given moment. But Donald Trump has neither of those things. In fact, while it has been something of a facetious bit of snark around the internet, speculation as to Donald Trump’s actual level of literacy seems warranted at this point.
You can read a more detailed analysis of the reported divisions between Trump and the intelligence community here.
*The other 2 percent is making speeches and not showing how nauseated you are being in a room with Sen. Mitch McConnell.