'No, don't laugh': CIA chief begs crowd not to cackle after he says relationship with Trump is 'fantastic'

CIA Director Mike Pompeo insisted on Thursday that the intelligence community's relationship with President Donald Trump is "fantastic" -- but an audience in Washington, D.C. wasn't buying it.

During an interview at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Pompeo was reminded that Trump had repeatedly attacked the CIA and other members of the intelligence community both before and after becoming president.

"How do you describe where the relationship is between the White House and the intelligence community?" moderator Juan Zarate asked the CIA director.

"It's fantastic," Pompeo declared before he was interrupted by laughter from the audience.

"No, don't laugh," he pleaded. "I mean that. I can only give you my observations."

Pompeo admitted that the agency had changed the way it delivered intelligence briefings to accommodate Trump's learning style, but he declined to say how.

"Every individual, including every president has consumed their information in different ways," Pompeo remarked. "They've taken it at different times, for different durations, with less or more consistency than other presidents. I guess I would just say this: We deliver the president his product each day, he consumes it."

Watch the video below from C-SPAN, broadcast April 13, 2017.