Politico – President Barack Obama is trying to put his successor on a course correction as he descends into the Oval Office.
President-elect Donald Trump, who will be sworn in as president in less than six weeks, announced Sunday that he will not be personally receiving the daily presidential briefing. He followed that up Monday by expressing doubt in the dubious consensus within the U.S. intelligence community that Russia is responsible for a series of hacks that targeted Democrats in the presidential election, questioning why the allegations weren’t broached before Election Day.
Obama, who has talked with Trump on the phone multiple times since his surprise victory, is publicly sending the message to cut it out.
“It doesn’t matter how smart you are. You have to have the best information possible to make the best decisions possible,” Obama warned late Monday. “If you’re not getting their perspective, their detailed perspective, then you are flying blind.”
“I’m hoping that this is one of those growing moments, that once you become president on Jan. 20 and then the 21st you get that first oh-my-God briefing — and he’ll get some of that, but he won’t get it all until after he’s president — that that kind of opens his eyes to about what Russia has been up to,” Rogers said. “He can still make the decision he wants to have a better relationship, that’s fine. But you need to do it fully understanding what the Russians are doing. And they are being very aggressive, and not in a good way.”
Obama’s hope, he said, is that future administrations carry out his effort to receive intelligence free of “political spin.”
It is quite amusing that President Obama announces his wish to diminish political spin in a statement that is nothing but political spin!
By criticizing Trump’s decision to have trusted advisers digest and filter out intelligence reports (from agencies that are proved to have their own agendas and biased leanings), Obama is clearing trying to erode the confidence the American public have in their newly elected leader.
This is hopefully some of the last “Non-Political” advice that we will see from our outgoing executive branch, but we here at GreatAgain.com are not overly optimistic.
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