President Donald Trump receives his intelligence briefing every few days in oral form, breaking from the tradition that has seen past presidents read it every day with input from the briefer.
The Washington Post cited multiple sources as saying Trump has a different way of digesting the mountain of intelligence that has been presented to every president since the early 1960s.
Presidents typically read through a lengthy document in print form as their briefer reads through it with them. President Barack Obama's briefings were in digital form on a tablet computer.
According to the Post, Trump prefers that his briefings take place orally and he asks a lot of questions, sometimes to the point that briefers have to steer the conversation back to the topic at hand.
"Why are we even in Somalia?" or "Why can't I just pull out of Afghanistan?" are examples of what he asks, a source told the Post.
"He often goes off on tangents during the briefing and you'd have to rein him back in," an official said.
David Priess served as an intelligence briefer and worked under presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
He was quoted in the Post article as saying it's a "rare exception" for a president to be briefed orally. Priess followed up with several tweets Friday morning:
In December 2016, Trump said he wasn't interested in reading and hearing the same intelligence every day, noting that his top military advisers and Vice President Mike Pence would receive separate briefings as well.
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