Panetta: Trump needs daily intel briefings to make good decisions

Donald Trump
(Image credit: Ty Wright/Getty Images)

Leon Panetta — former defense secretary, CIA director, director of the Office of Management and Budget, and White House chief of staff — said in an interview on CBS' Face the Nation Sunday that President-elect Donald Trump needs to be better informed. Responding to reports that Trump is skipping most intelligence briefings, Panetta said he is concerned Trump does not have the knowledge he needs to make wise decisions once in office.

As president, "you can have a lot of bright people and they can present you a lot of options. But unless you've taken the time as president to understand those issues, to read into those issues, to understand the consequences of those issues, you cannot just rely on others to tell you what you should or shouldn't do," Panetta said. "Every president I know, and I worked under nine presidents, every one has taken their intelligence daily brief because that sets the agenda for what you have to focus on as president of the United States."

Also on Face the Nation, Trump's chief of staff pick, Reince Priebus, said the new president is "certainly informed." "He's getting briefed and it feels like every day," Priebus said. "I'm not sure if it is every day, but it's a lot.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.