The President ’s Daily Brief , by definition , is a sizeable summation of what America ’s far - extend to intelligence community have intercourse . Yet in its world - realise scope , in its punctilious detail , in the collaborative year - round effort put forth by century of analysts sift through megabytes of information , the PDB — it ’s the government ; of course it has an acronym — is anything but brief .
" It ’s hard to fully capture how much work goes into the PDB . This dead take the whole news community , " says Tricia Bacon , who work as an intelligence activity analyst and had her fingerprints on PDBs that put down on the desks of Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama . " It is a monumental enterprise of energy and dedication . "
So brow jumped skywards within the intelligence community when President Donald Trump dismissed day-after-day intelligence briefing as , essentially , a wastefulness of his worthful time .
" I ’m , like , a sassy individual , " Trumpsaid on Fox News(starts at minute of arc 2:00 ) last weekend in explain why he already had skipped several PDBs . " I do n’t have to be told the same affair and the same words every individual day … "
As the president - elect , Trump has every right not to be brief , mention Bacon . Furthermore , when he becomes president in a few week , if he wants to make the PDB the President ’s Weekly Brief instead , he can . Though we ’ll need to transfer the acronym .
The 411 on the Presidential Daily Briefing
Ever since Harry S. Truman first sat down with what was called the Daily Summary in February 1946 , president have been reading a interior intelligence report almost every day .
It ’s morphed a fiddling and convert figure ; the Situation Summary , the Current Intelligence Bulletin , the Central Intelligence Bulletin . John F. Kennedy need a brief he could splay into his jacket crown sack , so the intelligence operation community came up with the President ’s Intelligence Checklist — yep , the PICL . Lyndon Johnson came up with the PDB in 1964 .
The construct , though , has rest the same .
" In the most basic way , it ’s a highly classified newspaper . Breaking effect , breaking intelligence , major issues that the president want to be aware of , " says Bacon , now an adjunct prof in the School of Public Affairs at American University in Washington , D.C. " But then it ’s have the whole extra element to it . ' Is the president journey , or meeting with a human race leader ? ' It ’s contrive to organize the president for any of his forthcoming meetings or trips or anyone he ’s host . It ’s really tailor to the Chief Executive . "
The PDB , according to theOffice of the Director of National Intelligence(ODNI ) — that ’s the agency that since 2004 has tuck intel from various agencies and synthesise it for the president in the PDB — can contain all sort of intelligence activity on sticky situations anywhere in the world . The intel comes from many different sources . Along with the ODNI ( part of the executive branch),16 other entitiescontribute to the PDB as needed .
The bounteous ones are map , like the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency . An government agency within the CIA better half with the ODNI in the last molding of the PDB .
Every branch of the armed forces has an intelligence arm that chip in , too . The Department of Homeland Security has a say , as does the Drug Enforcement Administration , the National Security Agency , the Department of State , the Department of the Treasury and the Department of Energy . The whole lean of politics contributors to the PDBis here .
On any give Clarence Day , the PDB will have articles write by intelligence activity analysts , as well as graphics , photographs , notes and details of a practically outright number of sore scenarios across the world . The PDB might even let in videos ; in 2013 , Obama requested that the PDB be transferred from newspaper publisher into digital format .
The PDB , then , is everything a president necessitate to recognize about the current worldly concern situation . As such , it is super - topnotch secret . Only the president lays out who scram copies . Only so many are tender . And they ’re all traverse under heavy security . Former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer , who dish under George W. Bush , called the PDB " the most extremely sensitized classified document in the government . "
Its purpose remain crystal - clear , too .
" In cosmopolitan , what intelligence is designed to do is … to prevent strategic surprise and give decision - makers an border . This is the merchandise that is designed to do that for the United States President and the president mainly , if not alone , " Bacon says . " The PDB is entirely geared toward giving the Chief Executive a conclusion advantage . "
Keeping the President Informed
What if the president does n’t need all that info , though ? What if that someone thinks they know it all ?
What if the chairperson evendoesknow it all ?
The PDB , Bacon aver , can and does develop during an administration . In the beginning , everything in the PDB may be painted in broad stroke to fetch a new United States President up to speed . " It ’s a complex public , " Bacon tell . " Not everyone can be an expert on everything . "
As a president demonstrates a grasp on the topics at hired man , the PDB can change , always at the discretion of the president . The Chief Executive can ask for more intel on a subject , or less . The PDB can become more elaborate , more nuanced .
The tonality for any chairwoman to remember is that the PDB represent just the tip of a mountain of intelligence , what older PDB staff member think the president want to know ( and what the president has ask for ) . But the quietus of that intel is there for the taking , too . Just by asking .
So is scrapping the PDB in favour of a less - often , PDB - light really a good theme in the grievous times in which we live ?
" It ’s the most important product the intelligence residential district produce . They want to produce what the president needs and what he want to see , " Bacon say . " But just ignore it ? That seems like an underutilization of a really important resourcefulness . "
