Mike Theiler
After butting heads with the intelligence community during his transition over his apparent disdain for daily briefings, President Trump now reportedly likes to keep his daily intelligence briefings short, straight to the point, and accompanied by “killer graphics.” CIA Director Mike Pompeo offered a positive assessment of Trump’s briefing habits on Monday in comments to The Washington Post, describing the president as a “good intelligence consumer.” But the report cited other officials saying the briefings, which are often short and conducted more as casual conversations than formal briefings, show a tenuous relationship between the president and the intelligence community. “Pompeo and Coats are doing their best to give him the most accurate daily briefing, but my sense is in the rank-and-file, they are very worried about how do you deal with him and about sharing with him sensitive material,” Mark Lowenthal, a former assistant director of the CIA and the president of the Intelligence and Security Academy, was cited as saying in the report. According to Pompeo, Trump has asked for his briefings to include as many visuals as possible—maps, charts, pictures, videos, and “killer graphics.” “That’s our task, right? To deliver the material in a way that he can best understand the information we’re trying to communicate,” Pompeo said.