CIA Director Mike Pompeo defended President Donald Trump’s mental abilities in the wake of a book claiming Trump does not read or properly process information presented to him.
“Those statements are just absurd,” Pompeo said on “Fox News Sunday.”
When he delivers information to Trump almost daily, the President engages with it and is an “avid consumer” of the CIA’s work, Pompeo said.
In the past, Pompeo has described Trump as engaged with the intelligence in his briefings, and said part of Trump’s preferred briefing method involves visual aids and “killer graphics.”
On Sunday, Pompeo said that was true – and that he loves “killer graphics” also.
“It’s how you convey information,” Pompeo said. “This President reads material that we provide to him. He listens closely to his daily briefing.”
The White House has taken issue with the claims in Michael Wolff’s book, “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” since excerpts of it began to surface online ahead of its publication, with press secretary Sarah Sanders calling it “complete fantasy” and an attorney for Trump sending a “cease and desist” threat to the book’s author and publisher.
CNN has not confirmed all of the assertions in the book.
Trump on Saturday defended his mental abilities, using Twitter to call himself a “very stable genius.”
When the CIA director was asked what he would say in a psychological profile of a world leader who calls himself a “very stable genius,” he said would not dignify the question with a response. Pompeo added: “We’re keeping America safe, and President Trump is completely capable of working alongside of us and leading us in that effort.”
