Former President Donald Trump may be forgoing one of the standard protocols for presidential candidates who secure their party’s nomination.
As the Republican presidential nominee, he is now entitled to receive intelligence briefings in preparation for office. But Trump is wary of receiving sensitive information from U.S. spy agencies, telling the Daily Mail that he would rather not be briefed lest he later be accused of leaking information.”
“I don’t want them, because, number one, I know what’s happening. It’s very easy to see what’s happening,'” he told the outlet Wednesday in an interview at the North Carolina Aviation Museum.
“We have an incompetent leader, and we have two incompetent leaders,” he said, referring to President Joe Biden and his election opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.
“We have a Marxist that’s going to try and be president, and this country is not ready for a Marxist or a communist president, and that’s what she is,” Trump continued. “She destroyed San Francisco, she destroyed California, and this country is not ready for it.”
The former president has criticized the FBI and the Biden Justice Department for targeting him, especially after a raid on his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida where he was accused of storing classified government documents. Trump addressed his national security priorities during a speech in Asheboro, North Carolina ahead of his interview with the Daily Mail.
President Trump arrives in Asheboro, North Carolina. Live: https://t.co/4mE47IvoIb pic.twitter.com/IqTi538zA8
— Dan Scavino Jr.🇺🇸🦅 (@DanScavino) August 21, 2024
“So I don’t want that, because as soon as I get that, they’ll say that I leaked it,” he reiterated his desire to opt out of intelligence briefings which are conducted by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
“So the best way to handle that situation is, I don’t need that briefing. They come in, they give you a briefing, and then two days later, they leak it, and then they say You leaked it,” he said.
“So the only way to solve that problem is not to take it I don’t want it understood,” Trump added. “I’ll have plenty of them when I get in.”
Weeks after taking over the White House, Biden cited Trump’s “erratic behavior” for a decision to bar him from continuing to receive updates on national security developments.
“I just think that there is no need for him to have the intelligence briefings,” Biden said in 2021 even as former Presidents Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Jimmy Carter were still getting briefings.
