Obama photographer flags yet another wild difference with the Trump presidency

Lee Moran
Updated
Obama photographer flags yet another wild difference with the Trump presidency

Pete Souza, the Obama-era White House photographer, continues to point out the myriad wild ways in which Donald Trump’s presidency has so far differed from that of his predecessor.

Souza on Tuesday shared this throwback image of Obama reading:

View this post on Instagram

Robert Gibbs, Jay Carney and Josh Earnest never had to hold a press conference to announce that the President reads.⁣ ⁣

A post shared by Pete Souza (@petesouza) on Jun 30, 2020 at 3:28pm PDT

“Robert Gibbs, Jay Carney and Josh Earnest never had to hold a press conference to announce that the President reads,” Souza captioned the Instagram post, naming Obama’s three press secretaries.

It was an obvious dig at current White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany who, earlier in the day, had been forced to insist Trump “does read” following reports he ignored or was not briefed on claims that Taliban fighters received bounties from the Russian government in exchange for killing U.S. troops.

Souza also shared these old images from his time documenting the Obama administration to explain the process of the president’s daily briefing ― which Trump has previously claimed he doesn’t require because he’s “smart.”

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With the “President’s Daily Brief” aka the PDB back in the news, I thought it’d be a good time to re-post a couple of PDB photographs.⁣ ⁣ As I’ve mentioned previously, there are two components to the PDB: a written brief that is sent to the President every morning. And an oral brief by the Director or Deputy Director of the National Intelligence. ⁣ ⁣ President Obama received and read the written PDB early every morning in the residence. His first meeting every day in the Oval Office was almost always the oral PDB, every one of which I photographed during the eight years (I never said every aspect of my job was visually exciting.)⁣ ⁣ So here’s two photographs, one from each term, which shows the oral PDB with the usual people attending during that particular point in time.⁣ ⁣ Photo 1, Oct. 22, 2014: from left, Ben Rhodes, Lisa Monaco, Mike Dempsey (Deputy Director of National Intelligence), the Vice President, the President, Susan Rice, and Tony Blinken (Denis McDonough’s hand is shown at right; Avril Haines was usually in attendance as well.)⁣ ⁣ ⁣ Photo 2, Jan. 28, 2011: from lower left: Denis McDonough, John Brennan, Robert Cardillo (Deputy Director of National Intelligence), the Vice President, the President, Tom Donilon, Bill Daley, Ben Rhodes and Tony Blinken. ⁣ ⁣ Here’s an important distinction: any President that receives intelligence information has been briefed whether he received it in writing, in person or on the phone. So, for instance, if the President received the intelligence information only in the written PDB, it is a lie for the White House press secretary to then say the President wasn’t briefed on the information.⁣ ⁣ ⁣

A post shared by Pete Souza (@petesouza) on Jun 30, 2020 at 7:43am PDT

  • This article originally appeared on HuffPost.

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