Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said President-elect Donald Trump will need daily intelligence briefings once he is in the White House because "to make America great, you have to keep it safe."
"Threats can change overnight," Ridge, the former Republican Pennsylvania governor who was the nation's first homeland security chief, told Anderson Cooper on CNN on Wednesday. "It's not like, 'Pick up the phone and call me when events differ or circumstances change.'
"He'll find early on, as it relates to some of the nation-states we are confronting with or the threat of terrorism, that a 24-hour period could bring a dramatic shift in the nature of the threat and the nature of activities directed to America, our interests, and our allies.
"So, there may be a little on-the-job training."
U.S. officials told Reuters that Trump was receiving an average of one intelligence briefing per week, far fewer than most of his recent predecessors, while Vice President-elect Mike Pence gets briefings about six days a week.
"The thing he needs to understand is that they're driven to keep America safe and secure," Ridge said of the briefings. "He wants to make America great again.
"That's his mission. He is committed to it.
"But in order to make America great, you have got to keep it safe," he continued. "At the heart of all that is accepting and understanding the intelligence that the men and women of the intelligence community provide to you every single day."