Josh Hafner

USA TODAY

No one but Donald Trump knows when a Trump tweetstorm may strike. So said Sean Spicer, Trump’s incoming press secretary, at a University of Chicago event this week.

That means Trump can generate headlines (like the one above) on a whim. It means he can cause a random company’s stock to dip, as he did to Toyota Thursday. But it also means Trump’s unchecked dispatches—some clearly false or baseless—leave him increasingly vulnerable to facts, his own included.

“The media lies to make it look like I am against ‘Intelligence’ when in fact I am a big fan!” Trump tweeted Thursday, the day before a planned intelligence briefing on Russian hacking.

Except “the media” didn’t suggest Trump is against intelligence: He did.

Trump mocked intelligence officials just this week over the Russia briefing, suggesting they needed more time to “build a case.” Last month, his team tried to discredit the CIA as “the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.”

If Trump’s suddenly a “big fan” of intelligence, he might not be after Friday. Leaks from an intelligence report show the U.S. intercepted Russian officials celebrating Trump’s win, NBC News and the Washington Post reported late Thursday.

It’s For the Record, the politics newsletter from USA TODAY.

Trump and the intelligence community: It’s about to get (more) awkward

Russia had several motives for trying to sway the U.S. election, National Intelligence Director James Clapper told senators Thursday. He said Russia employed a “multi-faceted campaign” that included not only hacking but also fake news and propaganda.

A public report detailing the findings will drop next week, Clapper said. The hackers didn’t tamper with vote tallies, he noted, and it’s impossible to gauge how their leaks affected American voters.

Clapper had a request for his big fan, Donald Trump: Cut the name calling. A healthy skepticism about intelligence reports appreciated, Clapper said, but "I think there is a difference between skepticism and disparagement."

Maybe Trump will prove a bigger fan of Dan Coats, the former Indiana senator he’ll reportedly tap as the next intelligence director. Coats served on the Intelligence and Armed Services committees.

Today in draining the swamp: Trump hires an aide fired for Bridgegate and puts a Wall Street lawyer in charge of the SEC

So, how’s that swamp draining?

Trump this week hired an aide fired amid New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s Bridgegate scandal. Trump picked a Wall Street lawyer known for defending big banks as his SEC chair. And Rex Tillerson, the rich Texas oil tycoon with the name of a rich Texas oil tycoon, will get $180 million for retiring as the CEO of Exxon if he becomes Trump’s secretary of state.

So that’s how that’s going.

Also on Trump Twitter: A rant about Obamacare

Our next president called Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer a “clown” Thursday morning, claiming Democrats believed Obamacare was a lie and pushed it anyway.

It’s “time for Republicans & Democrats to get together and come up with a healthcare plan that really works - much less expensive & FAR BETTER!” Trump said, really going for it with the all-caps thing.

His “FAR BETTER” solution: “Repeal and replace Obamacare with Health Savings Accounts,” as stated on his site. So that’s how that’s going.

Around the transition:

$1 paychecks for federal workers? House Republicans want to make it possible (The News Leader)

ICYMI: Trump sat for a lawsuit deposition Thursday (USA TODAY)

He also threatened a border tax, and now Black & Decker will move more manufacturing back from overseas (USA TODAY)

International students worry over Trump’s past comments on student visas (USA TODAY COLLEGE)

Vacay the Obama way

The Obama family wrapped up their last presidential vacation in—where else?—Hawaii. You, too, can stay in a 6,000-square foot beach home they once lazed in for just $4,500 a night. It’s called the “Plantation Estate at Paradise Point.