The presidential race was hovering in limbo in 2000 when outgoing President Bill Clinton decided to let then-Gov. George W. Bush read the ultra-secret daily brief of the nation’s most sensitive intelligence.
Clinton was a Democrat and his vice president, Al Gore, was running against Republican Bush. Gore had been reading the so-called President’s Daily Brief for eight years; Clinton decided to bring Bush into the fold in case he won — and he did.
President Donald Trump has not followed Clinton’s lead. As he contests this year’s election results, Trump has not authorized President-elect Joe Biden to lay eyes on the brief.
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U.S. adversaries can take advantage of the country during an American presidential transition and key foreign issues will be bearing down on Biden the moment he steps into the Oval Office.
Among them: Unless Trump extends or negotiates a new nuclear arms accord with Russia before Inauguration Day, Biden will have only 16 days to act before the expiration of the last remaining treaty reining in the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals. Perhaps U.S. spies have picked up tidbits about the Russians’ redlines in the negotiations, or about weapons it really wants to keep out of the treaty.
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Having access to the PDB also could help Biden craft a possible response to North Korea, which has a history of firing off missiles or conducting nuclear tests shortly before or after new presidents take office.
Biden has decades of experience in foreign affairs and national security, but he likely has not been privy to the latest details about how Iran is back to enriching uranium, or the active cyber attack operations of Russia, China and Iran. China’s crackdown on Hong Kong is heating up. And the threat from Islamic extremists, although curbed, still remains.
