President Barack Obama thinks that a commander in chief who refuses to sit in on intelligence briefings would be “flying blind” in the White House.
“[Intelligence agencies] are not perfect, they would be the first to acknowledge that,” POTUS, 55, told The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah Monday, December 12.”If you’re not getting their perspective, their detailed perspective, then you are flying blind.”
Obama made the remarks one day after President-elect Donald Trump suggested that he didn’t need daily briefings once he’s inaugurated.
“You know, I’m, like, a smart person. I don’t have to be told the same thing in the same words every single day for the next eight years. Could be eight years — but eight years. I don’t need that,” the mogul, 70, said during an interview with Fox News Sunday‘s Chris Wallace, which aired December 11. “But I do say, ‘If something should change, let us know.'”
He added: “I mean, there will be some very fluid situations. I’ll be there not every day, but more than that. But I don’t need to be told, Chris, the same thing every day, every morning, same words, ‘Sir, nothing has changed. Let’s go over it again.’ I don’t need that.”
Obama believes that Trump might change his mind, though. “I think the president-elect may say one thing and do another once he’s here,” he told Noah, 32.
Obama also discussed his recent decision to order an intelligence review on Russia’s hack of the Democratic and Republican National Committees. “None of this should be a big surprise. This was reported on before the election. I don’t think there was any doubt among anybody in the media or among members of Congress as to who was being advantaged or disadvantaged by the political gossip that was being put out in drip-drip-drip fashion leading up to the election,” he explained.
“What is it about the state of our democracy where the leaks of what were frankly not very interesting emails, that didn’t have any explosive information in them, ended up being an obsession?” he continued. “And the fact that the Russians were doing this was not an obsession?”
