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The U.S. intelligence community is trying to persuade House and Senate lawmakers to drop the public portion of an annual briefing on the globe’s greatest security threats — a move compelled by last year’s session that provoked an angry outburst from President Donald Trump, multiple sources told POLITICO.

Officials from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, on behalf of the larger clandestine community, don’t want agency chiefs to be seen on-camera as disagreeing with the president on big issues such as Iran, Russia or North Korea, according to three people familiar with preliminary negotiations over what's known as the Worldwide Threats hearing.

The request, which is unlikely to be approved, has been made through initial, informal conversations at the staff level between Capitol Hill and the clandestine community, the people said.

The request, which is unlikely to be approved, has been made through initial, informal conversations at the staff level between Capitol Hill and the clandestine community, the people said.

At the last such threats briefing a year ago, the chiefs presented findings that diverged from the president’s statements on the longevity of Islamic State terror group, as well as Iran and North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. He blistered them on Twitter the following day, labeling them “passive” and “naive” while writing that “Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!"

Trump later claimed his top intelligence chiefs, including then-DNI Dan Coats and CIA Director Gina Haspel, told him that they had been misquoted in the press — even though their remarks had been broadcast and the video footage was publicly available.

The annual assessment from the intelligence community — which can take place anytime between February and May — traditionally features testimony from the DNI, as well as the heads of the NSA, CIA, FBI and others and includes both a public and closed-door segment. The officials offer their analysis on the latest threats and discuss, to the extent they can, what the U.S is doing to counter them, before moving to a classified setting.

This year’s briefing could prove even more hazardous than last year's for the intelligence community, which the president has alternately praised and denounced.

Several issues, like Pyongyang’s belligerence, have carried over into the new year. Lawmakers could also seek more details about developments such as Trump’s decision to kill a top Iranian general, Qassem Soleimani, and efforts to protect the 2020 election from foreign interference.

In addition, the 17-agency intelligence apparatus remains without Senate-confirmed leadership.

Coats and his deputy, Sue Gordon, stepped down in August. Joseph Maguire, the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center, was tapped to fill in as the country’s spy chief temporarily. But, five months later, Maguire is still in the saddle — and Trump has shown no hesitation about dismissing someone serving in an acting capacity, as he had done at the Pentagon and DHS.

Thus far, the wrangling over this year’s Worldwide Threats briefing has been kept at an informal, staff-level discussion because neither the House nor Senate Intelligence panel has issued formal invitations for leaders to appear. It’s unclear if officials are also trying to move the Senate Armed Services Committee’s Worldwide Threat hearing — which traditionally features just the DNI and the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.

The clandestine community’s pleas to close the public segment have been met with varying degrees of bipartisan resistance.

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Things are growing more heated in the Democratically controlled House, where the Intelligence Committee has not held a public Worldwide Threats hearing since 2016.

The last time the panel convened an open hearing with senior intelligence leaders was in early 2017, with then-FBI Director James Comey and now retired U.S. Cyber Command and NSA chief Navy Adm. Mike Rogers.