Joe Biden Gets Access To Trump Presidency "Secret Notes", For What?

Joe Biden (Sumber: Wikimedia Commons)

JAKARTA - The elected President of the United States (US), Joe Biden finally got the opportunity to read the Presidential Briefing or the President's Daily Brief (PDB). GDP is a secret summary of US intelligence and world events, a document that Michelle Obama calls the "Death, Destruction, and Horrible Things Book."

Reading GDP from the previous government has become a mandatory ritual in the process of government transition. Quoting Euronews, Tuesday 1 December, more than a decade ago, Biden read President George W. Bush's GDP during Biden's transition to vice president.

After that, Biden read President Barack Obama's GDP during his eight years in office. And now, after a four-year break, he is reading President Donald Trump's GDP.

"Steers will almost certainly ask Biden what he likes in terms of format and style," said David Priess, author of The Secret Book of Presidents on GDP History.

Obama's GDP is a document that is 10 to 15 pages long. Later in his presidency, Obama loved reading secret intelligence summaries on a secured iPad.

"Michelle calls it The Book of Death, Destruction, and the Horrible Things," Obama wrote in his recently released book A Promised Land.

"One day, I may read about terrorist cells in Somalia or the riots in Iraq or the fact that China or Russia is developing a new weapons system," Obama wrote. "Almost always, there is mention of a terrorist plot, no matter how obscure, thinly sourced, or not acted upon, a form of discussion on the part of the intelligence community, intended to avoid the kind of guesswork that took place after 9/11."

From now until Inauguration Day, Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will read Trump's GDP, which has delayed granting access to Biden and Harris while he fights election results. Trump, who prefers to absorb information in a visual way, likes short text and images.

"Trump himself said during his campaign and during the transition in 2016 that he doesn't like reading long documents - that he prefers the finer points," said David Priess, a former CIA who hasn't looked at Trump's GDP.

“Maybe Trump's GDP has charts, tables, graphs of things like that. Not a parody of someone who looks like a cartoon book, but something more visual. "

Written briefings, which Trump does not always read, are often followed by oral briefings with an intelligence official, although those briefings were not intermittent in October. Priess said he did not know why the activities had stopped or whether they had continued. But the verbal briefing stopped at a time when Trump spent most of his time campaigning.

Before Trump authorized Biden to get GDP as president-elect, Biden was given some background intelligence briefings. But the information is general in nature and does not include state secrets.

GDP over time

Another thing the president-elect got was a covert CIA action briefing, said former acting CIA director Mike Morell. "It is important for the elected president to get this briefing because on Inauguration Day, this secret act will be the act of the new president."

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy read GDP while sitting on a springboard in a swimming pool at his retreat in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. President Lyndon Johnson enjoys reading in the afternoons. Meanwhile President Richard Nixon relied on his national security adviser Henry Kissinger to peruse GDP and tell him what he thought he should know.

As grueling ballot recounts dragged on in 2000, President Bill Clinton decided that George W. Bush had to get access to his GDP in case he was the winner. Bush became the first president to read GDP before becoming elected president.

Biden got Trump's GDP slower than usual because of Trump's protests against the election results. Trump approved a briefing for Biden on Tuesday November 24, a day after his administration approved a formal transition process.

It is known that Biden will inherit the nuclear threat from North Korea (North Korea) and Iran, changing the political dynamics in the Middle East, decreasing the US presence in Afghanistan, and increasing tensions with China.