National security experts were concerned that President Donald Trump has ignored important briefings and instead prefers to watch videos of explosions from the Iran war, according to an analyst on Thursday.
Salon's Chauncey DeVega described how Trump has started to treat the war — which has killed 13 American troops and nearly 1,500 Iranians — as entertainment. In the past, presidents have sought information from daily security briefings. Trump, however, has not followed this method.
"As the war progresses, Trump is reportedly being shown daily compilation videos of 'stuff blowing up' — two-minute highlight reels of death and destruction, curated to hold his attention due to his famously short attention span," DeVega wrote.
This has impacted how he views the war and what comes next.
"Trump’s reliance on the videos risks creating an echo chamber effect where he is not getting the best advice," DeVega wrote. "Pushing back against the reports, the administration claims the president receives advice throughout the day from senior military leadership, the intelligence community, diplomats and foreign leaders. He also watches the news. But this does not appear to be reflected in the planning and execution of the war, or its long-term strategic implications for American power and global stability."
NBC News reported that these montages have added to the president's "increasing frustration" with how the media covers the war and skewed his views.
"Trump has pointed to the success depicted in the daily videos to privately question why his administration can’t better influence the public narrative, asking aides why the news media doesn’t emphasize what he’s seeing, one of the current U.S. officials and the former U.S. official said," according to NBC News.
Steven Cash, the executive director of the nonprofit the Steady State, an organization of more than 360 former national security and diplomacy experts promoting American democracy, told DeVega that Americans expect the president to listen to a range of expert voices to guide military actions.
"This does not appear to be what is happening," DeVega wrote. "Instead, the process has been reduced to a closed circle of advisers reinforcing Trump’s instincts while screens display short, dramatic clips of explosions and destruction. War, Cash observed, 'is not a spectacle, and it is certainly not a form of entertainment. Treating it that way is both obscene and dangerous.'"
Cash said the repercussions have been clear.
"The president has publicly suggested that basic strategic realities — such as the central importance of the Strait of Hormuz to the global economy — were somehow overlooked by ‘the experts,'" Cash said. "That is simply not true. These are among the most well-established facts in international security. When a president appears unaware of such fundamentals, it raises serious concerns about whether he is receiving — or is willing to absorb — the information he needs."