The answer, it seems, is that they put on a show for its own sake.
Nothing new was divulged during the Wednesday meeting, according to a number of senators who attended and spoke with CNN afterward. After briefly appearing to discuss the crisis in North Korea, Trump passed the baton to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, Secretary of Defense James Mattis and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford.
It was a sobering briefing, and an important opportunity for the entire Senate to hear the emerging plans of the Trump administration to confront what is a very real threat to our security, Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Connecticut told CNN.
His Republican colleague, Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee (who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee), told the network that it was an OK briefing.
Republican Sen. John McCain, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, told CNN that I didnt hear anything new because I have been heavily briefed before. Its a very serious situation, just as I had (thought) before I went there.
The disenchantment was perhaps best captured by Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, who told CNNs Anderson Cooper that It felt more like a dog and pony show to me than anything else. I guess it has something to with this 100 days in office.
Saturday April 29th, 2017 marked the end of President Trumps first 100 days in office.
The list of his accomplishments was overwhelming, but, imagine how much more he could have accomplished for We, The People, had he not had to contend with:
A hostile House lead by never Trumper Paul Ryan,
A hostile senate led by never Trumper Mitch McConnell,
The hostile never Trump Fake News, not just in Maine but nationwide,
The hostile lawyers playing reporters and reporterettes in the White House press corps, or are they reporters and reporterettes playing hostile never Trump lawyers?
A hostile court system where two bit district judges get to overrule the President of These Uninted States on matters of national defense.
While we Trumpsters cannot do much about the judges and the fake news today, we can deal with the Congress come November 2018, for on Tuesday, November 6, 2018. During the mid-term elections, all 435 seats in the United States House of Representatives and 33 of the 100 seats in the United States Senate will be up for grabs.
Until then, we can boycott every advertiser of every fake news entity.