UPDATE: Author Doug Wead told the Washington Examiner, “I confirmed with my source that it is Principals Committee.” He additionally told Fox News, which claims it “accurately quoted the book as describing ‘PC’ as standing for ‘politically correct’ in characterizing certain Obama administration meetings,” that the error in his reporting “was due to a misunderstanding between him and his source.”
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Top CIA employees reportedly disliked the Obama administration’s micromanaging of intelligence matters.
According to a new book by conservative commentator Doug Wead, titled Inside Trump’s White House: The Real Story of His Presidency, CIA officials complained about President Barack Obama’s level of involvement during a meeting with then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo.
“They met with the agency’s top five staff members. Someone from the White House asked about the major differences between the Trump administration and that of its predecessor,” Wead wrote, citing an unnamed White House source. “Was there something the Trump folks could be doing better? One answer given was that in the last administration, everything was being run from the White House.”
President Trump, on the other hand, was viewed more favorably for decentralizing control and giving more freedom to federal agencies, according to Wead’s source.
“The new Trump theory was to let them make choices. If they’re not making those decisions themselves, then we can always pull it back up. So that was the first thing,” Wead wrote.
Additionally, an excerpt confirmed by Fox News suggests that the Obama administration’s focus on political correctness left CIA workers frustrated.
“Next thing they said was that, in the previous administration, they spent a lot of time in the White House doing nonstop PC [political correctness] meetings,” he continued. “They would have a meeting every week, and at the conclusion of the meeting there was always the suggestion, ‘Let’s meet again in two weeks.’ Nothing was ever resolved. Nothing was ever good enough.”
Unlike his predecessor, Trump has been waging a war on political correctness throughout his presidency and even championed combating PC culture on the campaign trail.
“We have to straighten out our country, we have to make our country great again, and we need energy and enthusiasm,” he said back in 2015. “And this political correctness is just absolutely killing us as a country. You can’t say anything. Anything you say today, they’ll find a reason why it’s not good.”
The Trump administration has embraced that sentiment, with Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson saying last month, “I think this whole concept of political correctness — you can say this, you can’t say that, you can’t repeat what someone said — is total foolishness, and it’s going to destroy our nation.”
Wead’s book is due to be released on Nov. 26.
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UPDATE: Conflicting reports indicate that “PC meetings” referenced in Wead’s book means “Principals Committee” meetings. The Washington Examiner has reached out to the book’s author for clarification and will update accordingly.
This whole story is based on a quote about ‘PC meetings’ meaning ‘political correctness’
But doesn’t ‘PC’ mean ‘principles committee’ in the context of WH meetings? https://t.co/Kj1sA79p3D pic.twitter.com/yqpBj8hkcU— Robbie Gramer (@RobbieGramer) November 6, 2019
Can’t get over this whole Fox News story being written on CIA staff’s complaints that under Obama “they spent a lot of time in the White House doing nonstop PC [political correctness] meetings.”
Except PC = Principals Committee meetings https://t.co/XBsG9LeSy9
— Vera Bergengruen (@VeraMBergen) November 6, 2019