The Lawfare Podcast: Trump and His Intelligence Briefings with David Priess

Jen Patja, Shane Harris, David Priess
Wednesday, December 1, 2021, 12:00 PM
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The CIA has opened a window into former president Donald Trump's always interesting and frequently contentious relationship with the intelligence community. A newly published history confirms a lot of what we already knew about Trump's preferences—like that he didn't actually read his daily top secret briefing—but it also shows Trump as privately more appreciative of career intelligence professionals than his public broadsides against their deep-state bosses might suggest.


Shane Harris sat down with Lawfare’s David Priess, the man who wrote the book about the President's Daily Brief, to chew over a new chapter in the “Getting to Know the President” series by John L. Helgerson, a retired CIA officer and former inspector general. The understated title, “Donald J. Trump—A Unique Challenge,” gives you a hint that as with all things Trump, his relationship to the intelligence community was anything but business as usual.


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Jen Patja

Jen Patja

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Jen Patja is the editor and producer of the Lawfare Podcast and Rational Security. She currently serves as the Co-Executive Director of Virginia Civics, a nonprofit organization that empowers the next generation of leaders in Virginia by promoting constitutional literacy, critical thinking, and civic engagement. She is the former Deputy Director of the Robert H. Smith Center for the Constitution at James Madison's Montpelier and has been a freelance editor for over 20 years.
Shane Harris

Shane Harris

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Shane Harris has written about intelligence, security and foreign policy for more than two decades. He is a staff writer with The Washington Post, covering U.S. intelligence agencies and national security. He was part of the team that won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, for stories about the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and efforts to overturn the presidential election. In 2019, he was part of the team that was a finalist for the Public Service award for coverage of the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Shane has previously been a staff writer for the Wall Street Journal, the Daily Beast, and National Journal. He is the author of two books, "The Watchers: The Rise of America's Surveillance State" (Penguin Press, 2010) and "@War: The Rise of the Military-Internet Complex" (Eamon Dolan/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014). He frequently appears on national and international television and radio. He is also a co-host of the weekly podcast "Chatter." Shane graduated from Wake Forest University in 1998. He lives in Washington.
David Priess

David Priess

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David Priess is Director of Intelligence at Bedrock Learning, Inc. and a Senior Fellow at the Michael V. Hayden Center for Intelligence, Policy, and International Security. He served during the Clinton and Bush 43 administrations as a CIA officer and has written two books: “The President’s Book of Secrets,” about the top-secret President’s Daily Brief, and "How To Get Rid of a President," describing the ways American presidents have left office.

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