The president’s notes and private doodles he draws are completely confidential, never considered to be part of the archival records until the president says they are. This includes the conversations he has with his advisers inside closed doors which are never on the record. The president’s advisers could not be candid with the president, play devil’s advocate in discussions taking a counter position for discussion sake, use notes to prepare such remarks, if those notes were known were going to be preserved and second guessed by later historians out of context.
The President could not similarly write down such thoughts in notes to help him make a pro/con decision sheet if he knew it could be perused by Monday-morning quarterbacks second guessing decisions after a crisis ended and decisions might be more obvious in rear-view mirror retrospective viewing.
Where for example are the rough drafts of many famous writings of our founding fathers? They tore them up and burned them.
Great points. I can’t recall if it was a recent memory of Trump, or a recollection of a piece on Nixon or Reagan - but there was much to do about one of them meeting in private with some foreign leader. No advisors, no press. Maybe an interpreter.
The reason being is that then they could discuss things openly and frankly. Of course, it might have also included Trump and Putin finalizing their plans to take over the world too I guess.