As one of Trump’s confidants said, “I call the president the two-minute man. The president has patience for a half page.” But McMaster understandably resented the fact that Trump was reading Porter’s version of CliffsNotes. Porter and Reince Priebus suggested an alternative approach: McMaster could deliver verbal briefings to Trump. Nothing in writing. “Everyone agreed we needed to stop giving the president paper to read,” one former National Security Council staffer recalled. “H.R. was uncomfortable with this. McMaster kept saying, ‘How are we not going to give the president any papers?’”
