NATIONAL SECURITY/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “These are chaotic and anxious days inside the National Security Council, the traditional center of management for a president’s dealings with an uncertain world.
Three weeks into the Trump administration, council staff members get up in the morning, read President Trump’s Twitter posts and struggle to make policy to fit them. Most are kept in the dark about what Mr. Trump tells foreign leaders in his phone calls. Some staff members have turned to encrypted communications to talk with their colleagues, after hearing that Mr. Trump’s top advisers are considering an ‘insider threat’ program that could result in monitoring cellphones and emails for leaks.”
– David E. Sanger, Eric Schmitt, and Peter Baker, “Turmoil at the National Security Council, From the Top Down,” Feb. 12, 2017