Trump Casts Doubt on Intelligence Community as He Receives First Briefing
Trump cast doubt on the intelligence community in an interview with Fox News.
— -- Donald Trump received his first national security briefing in Lower Manhattan today, but he cast doubt on the trustworthiness of some of the members of the intelligence community in an interview set to air Wednesday night.
The meeting between Trump and intelligence officials lasted about two hours.
As first reported by ABC News yesterday, Trump was joined at today’s briefing at FBI Headquarters by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Retired Gen. Michael Flynn. Each candidate is allowed to choose two people to bring with them to the briefing and security clearances are expedited in the event the guests don't have them.
During an interview with Fox News set to air Wednesday night, Trump was asked if he trusts U.S. intelligence.
"Not so much from the people that have been doing it for our country. Look what's happened over the last 10 years. Look what's happened over the years. It's been catastrophic,” Trump told Fox. "I won't use some of the people that are sort of your standards, just use them, use them, use them. Very easy to use them. But I won't use them because they've made such bad decisions.”
Earlier today, Trump held a round table on national security joined by top surrogates Sen. Jeff Sessions and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Trump was also joined in that meeting by campaign chairman Paul Manafort, newly minted campaign manager Kellyanne Conway along with newly hired campaign CEO Steve Bannon, the co-founder of Breitbart News.
"Today, Mr. Trump convened a meeting of some of the top foreign policy and national security experts in the country to discuss how to win the war against Radical Islamic Terrorism," the campaign said in a statement. "The participants talked about improving immigration screening and standards to keep out radicals, working with moderate Muslims to foster reforms, and partnering with friendly regimes in the Middle East to stamp out ISIS."
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