wrapping up his first term in office with a tradition that goes back decades, hosting the previous president for the unveiling of his official presidential portrait. on that day, in may of 2012. obama made this statement about the point of these portraits, as an enduring member of the presidents temporary time in office serving the people. now the white house is many things at once. it is a working office. it is a living museum. it is an enduring symbol of our democracy. but at the end of the day, when the visitors go home and the lights go down, a few of us are blessed with the tremendous honor to actually live here. i think it is fair to say that every president is acutely aware that we are just temporary residence. we are renters here. we are charged with the upkeep and tell our lease runs out. but we also leave a police of ourself in this place. we are renters here. charged with the upkeep until our lease runs out. in 2012, we did not know how precious those remarks wer
things at once. it is a working office. it is a living museum. it is an enduring symbol of our democracy. but at the end of the day, when the visitors go home and the lights go down, a few of us are blessed with the tremendous honor to actually live here. i think it is fair to say that every president is acutely aware that we are just temporary residence. we are renters here. we are charged with the upkeep and tell our lease runs out. but we also leave a police of ourself in this place. we are renters here. charged with the upkeep until our lease runs out. in 2012, we did not know how precious those remarks were. there was no president biden fighting for the soul of this nation. there was no president trump fighting to stay in office, no insurrectionists storming the capitol. no top secret classified records taken from the white house and stored in a florida closet. none of that had happened yet. in fact, we wouldn t see an official white house portrait unveiling again for an
during today s event, the former president echoed the point he made back in 2012, that presidents are renters at the white house, and that their time there is temporary. i ve always described the presidency as ays relay race, y take the baton from someone, you run your leg as hard and as well as you can, and then you hand it off to someone else. knowing that your work will be incomplete. the portraits hanging in the white house chronicle theit runners in thatth race. each of us tasked with trying to bring the country we love closer toy its highest aspirations. now the reason this event was heldth today and not during trump s term in office, the reason it hasp been a decade since we ve seen one of these unveilings is because for the first time in u.s. history, the incumbent president refused to honor his predecessor with this rite of passage. trump never scheduled the ceremony and given the content, it might have been awkward for trump given his intention of not leaving t
capabilities was found by fbi agents. it s not clear what the document is and what the country is but the list is small there s eight other countries besides the u.s. with nuclear capabilities. the post also reports, some of the seized documents detail top secret operations so closely guarded that many senior national security officials are kept in the dark about them. only the president, members of the cabinet or near cabinet level official could authorize other government officials to know these details of the special access programs. this reporting has not been confirmed yet by nbc news and the justice department declined to comment but what the president s spokesman is saying about it. and troubles for a top trump ally. nearly two years after being pardoned, steve bannon is expected to face a new criminal indictment in new york and turn himself in tomorrow. details on that case. and this afternoon, a reunion at the white house. former president barack obama and first
conducting an assessment to see just how much damage has been done. and the latest reporting from the washington post, only makes that work more urgent. odni s damage assessment is happening right now, despite a decision from a trump appointed judge, to use a special master to review all of the documents taken from mar-a-lago. the judge s order put a temporary halt on the fbi s criminal investigation, but it merely permitted the odni s damage assessment to continue unimpeded or at least that was the judge s intent. but that is not how it works in reality. here s how former cia officer david priest sees it according to the the wall street journal. it is at best difficult and more likely impossible to do a meaningful odni damage assessment while the fbi investigation is stalled. odni needs to know what documents were at mar-a-lago and who may have looked at them, that information is coming from the fbi s investigation. the odni assessment is operating in a vacuum without information