The Obama administration found itself scrambling on Tuesday to defend President Barack Obama for his lackluster 42% attendance record on daily intelligence briefings, a finding from a new report issued by the non-partisan Government Accountability Institute (GAI).
When asked about the GAI revelation on Fox News, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki appeared flustered and unprepared.
“Well, I have no validation ofthose statistics,” said Psaki. “There are a range of ways that you can get your intelligencebriefings on the road, in the White House, and I know that he receivesthose whenever he can.”
Fox News host Brian Kilmeade then asked Psaki, “So you don’t believe the statistics are right that say he was only at 41 percent of the intelligence briefings?” Psaki replied:
Well Brian, I think the importantthing here to note is that there is information the president receiveson a daily basis. There is a range of officials in the administrationincluding the president that make the decision designate a terroristorganization, to make the decision to increase assistance to the Iraqisecurity forces, that made the decision to do strikes last week. Thepresident has been leading with the support of the national securityteam to take on this threat and take on this fight. And what we think weneed to be focused on now is what we do moving forward.
Notably, the Obama White House did not dispute the GAI report’s statistics. Indeed, it can’t: the findings were calculated using the White House’s own calendar.
According to the RealClearPolitics average of polls, just 35% of Americans now support Barack Obama’s foreign policy.