The president-elect usually begins to receive daily intelligence briefings after the election winner is projected by the major TV networks, just like the sitting president, until their inauguration. Joe Biden has not received any briefings yet despite having been declared the winner five days ago.
President Donald Trump and his administration have refused to accept the results of the election, and have also not authorized the normal transition process for Biden and his team.
In past elections, the government’s General Services Administration would start preparing the president-elect and their team to begin receiving vital intelligence information prior to Inauguration Day, in order to give the president-elect an idea of the world situation and to help them craft their 100 day plan, traditionally given at the State of the Union address.
Former CIA officer David Press explained that the president-elect receiving the President’s Daily Briefing (PDB) has been a “tradition since the 1960s, when [it] was first created,” and “that the sitting president has offered it to the incoming president” in the past.
When the 2000 election results were being disputed, and it seemed as if Al Gore had won the presidency instead of George W. Bush, sitting president Bill Clinton shared the PDB with Gore.
Mike Rogers, a former GOP congressman from Michigan, noted on Twitter that sharing the PDB with Biden is not “about politics… [but] about national security.”
The passing on of the PDB is not a law, but a courtesy from the sitting president. As long as Trump continues to refuse a peaceful transition, it seems unlikely Biden will receive it anytime soon.
