WASHINGTON — President-elect Joe Biden will begin receiving the classified presidential daily briefing, a spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence confirmed to NBC News on Tuesday.
“Following the statutory direction of the Presidential Transition Act, ODNI will provide requested support to the transition team,” said the spokesman. “This afternoon the White House approved ODNI to move forward with providing the PDB as part of the support to the transition.”
The PDB, as the briefing is known, is both a statutory requirement and a rite of passage for presidents-elect. It is the first step toward the transfer of responsibility for the nation’s most sensitive national security secrets from one presidential administration to the next.
Typically, presidents-elect begin to receive the PDB within days of winning the election. But this year, President Donald Trump’s refusal to accept his defeat was manifested in a nearly three-week delay of the start of the formal transition process.
Trump only agreed to authorize the start of the transition process late Monday — allowing the General Services Administration to provide federal funds to the Biden transition team — while still falsely insisting that the election was not yet decided and continuing to litigate the results in several states.
“What does GSA being allowed to preliminarily work with the Dems have to do with continuing to pursue our various cases on what will go down as the most corrupt election in American political history?” Trump tweeted Monday night. “We are moving full speed ahead. Will never concede to fake ballots & ‘Dominion’,” he added, referring to baseless conspiracy theories.