Thirteen dozen former national security officials, who served President Trump and predecessors of both parties, warned Thursday that a "serious risk to national security" has been created by the administration's refusal to formally recognize Joe Biden as president-elect.
Their declaration was the latest escalation of apprehension about the tenuous state of American democracy on the fifth day since election returns made clear Trump has been defeated.
Biden is on course to win 306 electoral votes and a popular vote margin above 5.3 million — at 51 percent, the biggest share for a candidate challenging an incumbent since Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated Herbert Hoover 88 years ago. Far from conceding defeat, though, Trump is holed up in the White House, helping raise money for a sprawling courthouse campaign in five swing states hoping to stall if not reverse the inevitable — so far, without offering any credible evidence he's a victim of significant election fraud.
Meantime, he has told administration officials to refuse all cooperation with the Biden transition. That has included the head of the General Services Administration, who has declined to follow her predecessors after all previous clearcut elections and sign the paperwork permitting the mechanics of the transfer of power to get started.
The former officials told GSA Administrator Emily Murphy to do so right away so Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris can see information "needed to address pressing national security issues, such as the President's Daily Briefing and pending decisions on possible uses of military force."
The signatories include former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, former CIA and NSA Director Michael Hayden; retired Gen. Wesley Clark and former U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power. Several of Trump's former ambassadors, National Security Council officials and Department of Homeland Security political appointees also signed.
Known colloquially as the PDB, the President's Daily Brief is a classified document compiled each morning for the president and his senior advisers by the director of national intelligence to assess the day's top national security threats and global hot spots. While Biden could not act, for the next 10 weeks, on anything he saw, it would inform his public statements and perhaps his national security appointments — and would allow him to be up to speed as soon as the decision-making falls to him.
The GSA administrator at the end of Bill Clinton's administration, David Barram, similarly declined to "ascertain" the 2000 winner until the Supreme Court ultimately ruled in favor of George W. Bush — but Clinton allowed Bush to read the PDB throughout the six-week standoff over the tiny margin in Florida.
"In this moment of uncertainty, we must put politics aside," the letter to Murphy said. "Further delaying the Biden team's ability to access the President's Daily Briefing and other national security information and resources compromises the continuity and readiness of our national leadership, with immense national security stakes hanging in the balance."
By Thursday afternoon, at least five senior Republican senators had called separately for Biden to be given access to the intelligence briefings even while Trump continues to fight the election: Majority Whip John Thune of South Dakota, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine and Jim Lankford of Oklahoma
"It's probably the most important part of the transition," said Collins, a member of the Intelligence Committee.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.