Over a dozen classified reports that were presented to President Trump in January and February included stark warnings about the spread of the coronavirus, The Washington Post reports. In the President’s Daily Brief (PDB), a top-secret report filled with information about national security issues that is handed over to the president each morning, intelligence agencies reportedly sounded the alarm for weeks that China was concealing the extent of the outbreak, as well as how rapidly it spreads, but the president continued to actively play down its threat. The report also laid bare the very real possibility of severe economic and political ramifications as a result of the outbreak, according to the Post. Trump, however, dismissed the message, the Post reports. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees the PDB, told the Post that “the detail of this is not true.”
