Trump often refuses to believe intelligence briefings from senior officials, former deputy director says

President reportedly sees briefings in terms of ‘making trades and deals’

One of Donald Trump’s most common responses to intelligence briefings is to refuse to believe what officials are telling him, according to the former US deputy director of intelligence.

Susan Gordon, who resigned as deputy director in August 2019, has said Mr Trump would often question information given to him and suggested officials struggled to present briefings in a way he would understand.

“He is probably the first president that arrived with no framework and a world that has massively available information with infinite people offering opinion that oft-times sound the same,” Ms Gordon said.

The president is noted for sometimes promoting conspiracy theories, such as debunked claims about Barack Obama not being born in the US and baseless allegations of widespread voter fraud.

Ms Gordon also said intelligence officials had to present information in economic terms for Mr Trump to understand it.

“He’s different [from other presidents] because he is much more economic in the way he sees the world and the intelligence community traditionally is much more political or military,” she said.

“So we were scrambling a bit to try to produce intelligence that was foundationally useful for someone who is interested in making trades and deals.”

The former deputy director said Mr Trump had two typical responses to intelligence.

“One, ‘I don’t think that’s true,” Ms Gordon said.

“The other is the second order and third order effects. 'Why is that true? Why are we there? Why is this what you believe? Why do we do that?' Those sorts of things.”

However, she described briefings with Mr Trump as “fun” because the president was “interactive”.

Mr Trump has sometimes rejected the conclusions of US intelligence services, particularly on evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

In February, Andrew McCabe, a former FBI acting director, said Mr Trump dismissed warnings by his security agencies about the threat posed by North Korean missiles.

Mr McCabe said the president was unconvinced because Vladimir Putin had told him North Korea did not actually have ballistic missiles that could hit the US.

When Mr Trump was told that his position was “not consistent” with any US intelligence, he allegedly replied: “I don’t care. I believe Putin.”