Trump cannot be bothered to read security briefings unless his name is mentioned

According to Reuters, officials on the National Security Council who are preparing Trump for his upcoming trip to the Middle East are struggling to figure out how to brief the president in a way that will capture and hold his attention:

National Security Council officials have strategically included Trump’s name in “as many paragraphs as we can because he keeps reading if he’s mentioned,” according to one source, who relayed conversations he had with NSC officials.

This revelation is particularly striking in the context of the preceding paragraph, which says Trump prefers “single-page memos.”

The fact that the man holding the most powerful position in the world cannot be bothered to read even a single page unless each paragraph contains his name demonstrates, once again, that Trump is not fit to be the president.

The New York Times reported a similarly disturbing problem about briefing the president on matters of national security:

In private, three administration officials conceded that they could not publicly articulate their most compelling — and honest — defense of the president for divulging classified intelligence to the Russians: that Mr. Trump, a hasty and indifferent reader of his briefing materials, simply did not possess the interest or the knowledge of the granular details of intelligence gathering to leak specific sources and methods of intelligence gathering that would harm American allies.

Not only is Trump a “hasty and indifferent reader of his briefing materials,” and not only is his National Security Council forced to include his name “strategically” and repeatedly within their briefing materials, but National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster implied the intelligence community has ceased even providing Trump with many critical details.

“The president wasn’t even aware where this information came from,” McMaster said in defense of Trump’s leaking of classified information to Russia. “He wasn’t briefed on the source or method of the information either.”

Based on numerous White House sources, the president of the United States lacks the basic interest or capacity to process and retain information about the most critical issues facing the world. His own senior advisers also are reporting they do not feel they can trust him to be left alone with foreign leaders out of fear of what he will say.

During the campaign, Trump was asked whom he consulted about foreign policy. He infamously responded, “I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain, and I’ve said a lot of things … I know what I’m doing … I speak to a lot of people but my primary consultant is myself, and, you know, I have a good instinct for this stuff.”

While there were hopes among some that Trump would surround himself with experienced people once in office and be guided by their advice, the reality is Trump chafes at input from his expert advisers even now, including McMaster:

General McMaster, in particular, has tried to insert caveats or gentle corrections into conversations when he believes the president is straying off topic or onto boggy diplomatic ground.

Mr. Trump … has complained that General McMaster talks too much in meetings, and the president has referred to him as “a pain,” according to one of the officials.

As Trump prepares to travel to the Middle East, an area of the world with fragile and often volatile relationships, to meet with leaders in Saudi Arabia and Israel, even those who support Trump and are hoping for his success are worried about the potential impact of his ignorance and impulsivity.

One White House official told Reuters that if Trump makes impromptu remarks, the trip could “backfire, I mean it can seriously backfire.”

Trump is unfit to be the president of the United States. If it was not clear to some before the election, this fact has become clear now even to those within Trump’s own circle.