Who is providiong Trump’s daily intelligence brief?

25 January 2025, by Eric Zuesse. (All of my recent articles can be seen here.)

Trump appointed Tulsi Gabbard to provide his daily intelligence brief (President’s Daily Brief, or “PDF) — the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) does that, and Trump chose her for this crucial post, but she has not yet become confirmed by the U.S. Senate. (Today, January 25th, the Secretary of ‘Defense’, Pete Hegseth, another “controversial” pick by Trump, was confirmed in a 50-50 tie vote, with V.P. Vance providing the crucial 50th Yes vote.)

However, Tump’s public statements as President thus far in his second term, have been so ludicrously ignorant of essential historical facts and current news-reporting from proven-reliable reporters and even from relevant official statements by the relevant Governments, so as to raise the question of what information he is getting in his daily intellikgence brief, and who is providing it to him.

On January 25th, the great geostrategic analyst Alexander Mercouris (who has rare total-recall memory and also first-rate logical-analytical skills to integrate the vast information he brings to bear on every detail he discusses in his daily videos) headlined “Trump Threats Backfire; Moscow: Trump Bluffing, Hardens Stance; China Saudi Ignore Trump Calls”, and provided essential information from open sources, which pertains directly to what the U.S. President’s daily intelligence brief OUGHT to be bringing to his attention. If whomever is now providing the daily intelligence brief, is NOT including to Trump the crucial information that Mercouris is here presenting, then I would not consider that person to be doing an adequate job, because Mercouris’s analysis makes clear that Trump is atrociously misinformed about very important matters that a U.S. President needs to know and truthfully understand. His ignorance and misinformation is dangerous. As Mercouris makes clear, Trump tragically starts his second term ignorant of, and confusingly misrepresenting, crucial facts.

On January 20th, the White House listed the individuals who are the temporary stand-ins until Trump’s appointees will obtain Senate approvals, and here is that complete list:

Gary Washington

Secretary of Agriculture

Jeremy Pelter

Secretary of Commerce

Robert Salesses

Secretary of Defense

Mark Averill

Secretary of the Army

Terence Emmert

Secretary of the Navy

Gary Ashworth

Secretary of the Air Force

Denise Carter

Secretary of Education

Ingrid Kolb

Secretary of Energy

Dorothy Fink

Secretary of Health and Human Services

Benjamine Huffman

Secretary of Homeland Security

Matthew Ammon

Secretary of Housing and Urban Development

Walter Cruickshank

Secretary of the Interior

James McHenry

Attorney General

Vincent Micone

Secretary of Labor

Lisa Kenna

Secretary of State

David Lebryk

Secretary of the Treasury

Judith Kaleta

Secretary of Transportation

Todd Hunter

Secretary of Veterans Affairs

James Payne

Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency

Everett Woodel

Administrator of the Small Business Administration

Matthew Vaeth

Director of the Office of Management and Budget

Stacey Dixon

Director of National Intelligence

Juan Millan

United States Trade Representative

Thomas Sylvester, Jr.

Director of the Central Intelligence Agency

Charles Ezell

Director of the Office of Personnel Management

Stephen Ehikian

Administrator of General Services

Michelle King

Commissioner of Social Security

Brian Driscoll

Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation

Jason Gray

Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development

Janet Petro

Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Caleb Vitello

Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

Though the FBI and the CIA (two of the 17 intelligence agencies that the DNI oversees) were listed there, the DNI itself — Director of National Intelligence — was not. So, we have no idea regarding the identity of the person who is currently performing this essential function.

As Government Executive magazine pointed out regarding the list, “With one exception, the temporary leaders are career officials.” “Federal agencies will be led in the interim almost exclusively by career federal executives, with Trump only bringing in one individual — the interim head of the General Services Administration — from outside government to serve as a temporary chief.” Probably, whomever the DNI stand-in is now would be a veteran of the existing Office of the DNI (called ODNI”).

In any case, I would assume that Tulsi Gabbard (whom the Deep State, America’s billionaires, probably overwhelmingly want not to be approved) doesn’t yet even have the security clearance in order to provide the PDF. So, let us hope that if and when she does become the DNI, she will do as good a job of summarizing and analyzing for the President the latest clasified information, as Mercouris does publicly analyzing the latest public information.

PS: If you like this article, please email it to all your friends or otherwise let others know about it. None of the U.S.-and-allied ‘news’-media will likely publish it (nor link to it, since doing that might also hurt them with Google or etc.). I am not asking for money, but I am asking my readers to spread my articles far and wide, because I specialize in documenting what the Deep State is constantly hiding — what the ‘news’-media ignore if they can, and deny if they must. This is, in fact, today’s samizdat.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.