Biden says Trump should no longer receive any classified information

When asked in an interview with CBS Evening News anchor Norah O’Donnell whether he thought Trump should get a message, Biden said, “I don’t think so.”

“I’d rather not speculate out loud,” Biden said when asked what he feared if Trump continued to receive the briefings. “I just think he doesn’t need to have the – intelligence briefing. What value is he in an intelligence briefing? What influence does he have, other than the fact that he could slip and say something?”

Former presidents have traditionally been allowed to request and receive the same intelligence information as their successors.

A senior administrative official previously told CNN Trump has not yet submitted any requests at this point. There are many ways intelligence services can be presented, the official said, something the intelligence community would phrase should a request come in.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki told CNN on Thursday “The intelligence community supports requests for information from former presidents and will, as always, review incoming requests.”

Trump was not known to read fully or regularly the President’s Daily Letter, the highly classified summary of the nation’s secrets when he was in office. Instead, he was given verbal briefings by his intelligence officials two or three times a week, CNN reported.

Former Assistant Director of National Intelligence, Trump, Sue Gordon, wrote in a statement to the Washington Post following the Capitol uprising last month that Trump “in his absence may be unusually prone to bad actors with bad faith”.

Gordon, an intelligence veteran for more than 30 years, also said in 2019 that one of Trump’s most common responses to intelligence briefings was doubtful what he was being told.

In the clip of the interview that aired Friday, Biden declined to say whether he would convict Trump in next week’s impeachment trial if he were a Senator.

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“Look, I ran like hell to beat him because I thought he wasn’t fit to be president,” said Biden. “I saw what everyone else saw, what happened when this – this crew invaded the United States Congress. But I’m not in the Senate now. I’ll let the Senate make that decision.”

Commenting on the January uprising, Biden said to reporters, “I have been saying for over a year that (Trumps) are unfit for service. He is one of the most incompetent presidents in United States history.”

Last week, Biden told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins he thought the impeachment trial “must take place”.

The House of Representatives charged Trump last month with inciting the Capitol uprising that left five people dead.

In a pre-trial brief filed Tuesday, House impeachment executives accused Trump of being “solely responsible” for the deadly riot and said the former president’s actions, which spread false conspiracy theories about electoral theft, led his supporters to attack the Capitol and try to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power by preventing Congress from ratifying the election.

House impeachment managers on Thursday urged Trump to testify on his upcoming Senate impeachment trial, but his legal team quickly declined the invitation.

This story has been updated with additional information.

CNN’s Kevin Liptak, Jim Acosta, Jeremy Herb and Manu Raju contributed to this report.