Summary
Donald Trump has attended only 12 intelligence briefings in his first 100+ days of his second term, a steep decline from his already infrequent briefing schedule during his first presidency, POLITICO reports.
He began 2025 with just two in-person updates monthly, shifting to weekly in April.
Critics, including Sen. Mark Warner, say Trump’s disengagement endangers national security, as he also avoids reading detailed briefing materials.
His national security team is in turmoil, and recent cuts to CIA DEI programs have sparked fears of institutional regression and increased vulnerability to global threats.
Which really runs against the “Everything Trump does is actually Russia!” line that gets posted around here incessantly. There’s nothing Putin would want more than to have access to those briefings, but his useful idiot is too much of an idiot to be useful here. Trump is on Putin’s side, sure, but most of what he does, especially in this term, is the result of home-grown American authoritarianism, not orders from Russia.
Why would Putin need Trump to pass that sort of thing along anymore? That’s literally Tulsi Gabbard’s job, passing along info the Putin.
She was literally a known Russian spy even before the got confirmed.