The Secret History of Trump's Private Cellphone

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2 days ago

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Just before Election Day, a disturbing piece of information made its way to Donald Trump. Whenever he takes or makes calls on his personal cellphone, Trump learned, Chinese hackers could be listening and gathering intelligence.
Iranians had already hacked into his campaign's email system—which was not a problem for Trump personally, because he has never liked putting things in writing—and the Chinese had breached the emails of the Republican National Committee. But now the hackers had compromised the backbone of U.S. telecommunications networks, according to federal officials who publicly described the intrusion on October 25, which allowed them to eavesdrop on calls involving Trump; his running mate, J. D. Vance; and other political figures.
Some in the campaign took immediate action, abandoning longtime numbers, experimenting with burner phones, or switching to end-to-end encrypted applications, such as Signal, for voice calls so they would not route through central switching hubs.
But Trump appeared unperturbed by the news, two people familiar with the episode told us, on the condition of anonymity so they could speak frankly. For more than a decade, the once and future president had been warned of the enormous risks he took—as perhaps the top global target of foreign intelligence services—by using a personal iPhone with a broadly circulated number to keep in touch with dozens of friends and colleagues. His phone was a lifeline, though. He wasn't going to give it up.
Days later, when he won the presidency for the second time, his phone lit up, just as it had eight years earlier on Election Night 2016. 'You won't believe it,' Trump marveled in early-morning phone calls after the race was decided last year, according to an adviser. 'I've already had 20 world leaders call me. They all want to kiss my ass.'
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A little more than four months into his second term, the president's personal cellphone has become, in many ways, the most pivotal technological device in the federal government, directly linking Trump to the outside world. Lawmakers, friends, family members, corporate titans, celebrities, world leaders, and journalists regularly use it, knowing that, unminded by aides, Trump remains open to picking up the phone, even when he does not recognize the number.
'Who's calling?' Trump asked when he answered our call one morning in late March from the country club he owns in Bedminster, New Jersey. (It was a fair question; it could have been almost anyone.)
The draw of the phone is simple: Trump likes to call people. He likes to be called. Unknown numbers come with a thrill akin to putting a coin in a gumball machine and waiting to see which flavor rolls out. Surrendering the phone would be inconvenient, limiting, and so he keeps it. As for any efforts to control him and his cellphone use, 'I think people gave up on that years ago,' one adviser told us, adding that 'probably a ton' of people have Trump's personal number. A second ally estimated the number to be 'well over 100.'
Several aides told us Trump has two different devices, and at least one aide said they have seen him with three. (One of the phones, some aides suggested, is mainly devoted to his social-media use.) The lock screen of one, captured by a Reuters photographer Friday night, shows an image of Trump's own face, stern and commanding, with a finger pointing directly at the camera.
Trump has, at times, changed numbers; at least one number that he regularly answered as a presidential candidate in 2016 stopped working sometime during his first term. And another aide told us that Trump's phone had been given additional security features, though it is not clear what defense these would have offered against the Chinese hack, which targeted the back-end systems of telecom providers. 'He is not walking around with a run-of-the-mill iPhone off the shelf,' an adviser told us. The White House declined to explain more. 'We will not discuss or disclose security measures regarding the President, especially to The Atlantic,' White House Communications Director Steven Cheung told us in an emailed statement. Trump's obsession with keeping his personal phone is merely evidence that he is easy to reach and therefore 'the most transparent and accessible President in American history,' Cheung added.
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Still, Ben Rhodes, President Barack Obama's former speechwriter and deputy national security adviser, told us that 'it's an obvious massive risk—especially given what we know about Chinese penetration of phones in recent years.' Hacking is hardly the only concern. Joel Brenner, a senior research fellow at MIT's Center for International Studies and former head of U.S. counterintelligence, pointed us to a recent Wall Street Journal scoop by Josh Dawsey that authorities are investigating an unknown individual impersonating White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles in calls and texts. Security protocols—at times cumbersome—exist for a reason, he said, and Trump taking a call from a foreign leader without the proper preparation or staff present poses real dangers. 'We run the risk of interception, we run the risk of impersonation, and we run the risk of being unprepared,' Brenner told us.
What the president is doing is 'terribly dangerous,' he said, citing the possibility of Trump making major deals or concessions with other world leaders that his staff may be unaware of, leaving them to scramble.
But Trump treats his direct line to the world as an enhancement of—not a risk to—his presidency. 'I've been on the phone with him before, and he's just said, 'I've got to go. I have someone from another country calling,'' an outside adviser told us. 'He doesn't even know which country. He just sees the number and thinks, This might be a foreign leader I want to talk to.'
The first time Trump's team truly understood he would have a different relationship with his cellphone than did presidents past was Election Night 2016, the eve of his improbable victory. 'He was answering every phone call,' the outside adviser marveled to us, nearly a decade later, noting that none of the numbers was in Trump's contacts. 'He just answers the phone. He doesn't want to miss phone calls.'
Presidents have long loved their phones. Rutherford B. Hayes was the first president to install a telephone at the White House, in 1877, and Herbert Hoover was the first to put a line in the Oval Office, in 1929. But Obama stands out in recent memory as the president most obstinate about wanting to bring a personal smartphone into the White House. Obama, famously addicted to his BlackBerry, argued to keep his after his 2008 victory and ultimately prevailed, albeit in a hard-fought compromise that involved limiting his contacts.
Only a small group of Obama's friends and top staff received his BlackBerry email address, and only after undergoing a briefing from the White House counsel's office on security concerns. His device, which included security enhancements and was approved by national-security officials, was also configured so that emails from the president could not be forwarded. Rhodes told us that Obama's BlackBerry did not have a phone number attached for incoming calls—which instead had to go through the White House switchboard to a landline.
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For Trump, the first presidential candidate to personally harness the power of social media, his cellphone has long been his megaphone. It is as much a part of his curated image as his oversize red ties.
Trump is the ultimate Phone Guy. He wheeled and dealed in New York for decades from the landline in his Fifth Avenue office, even going so far as to impersonate a fictional spokesperson, John Barron, on the phone with reporters. Many advisers and friends told us they think the phone is Trump's best medium, the president at his most persuasive. In a different world, he's just 'Don from Queens,' calling in to talk radio to shoot the breeze and run through his gripes, about China ripping the country off and immigrants running amok.
During his first term, Trump often used the White House switchboard to make calls and screen incoming ones, but he just as frequently did not, in part because he assumed that nearly everyone in government was part of the 'deep state,' career bureaucrats working against him, and he worried that they would somehow listen in on his calls. To be fair, his concern was not without merit; transcripts and details from several of his official calls with world leaders leaked to the press, and one such call, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, ultimately led to Trump's first impeachment, after an intelligence analyst became alarmed by details of the exchange.
'His perspective was, 'I can't trust anyone on the White House staff, so I have to use my cellphone,'' a former Trump adviser told us.
Advisers tried to break his habit. John Kelly, the retired U.S. Marine Corps general who became Trump's second chief of staff in 2017, was particularly strict about operational security, several advisers, current and former, told us. Kelly repeatedly warned Trump about how vulnerable cellphones are—to hacking by the Russians and the Chinese, and also to the phones themselves being turned into listening devices by foreign or other bad actors. He and his deputies would regularly remove Trump's cellphone from the Oval Office, storing it in a padded box outside.
But Trump either didn't understand or didn't care. 'He'd just reject it and say, 'It's not true,'' one of the former advisers told us. 'He'd say, 'My phone is the best on the market.''
In Trump's second term, his advisers have given up trying to restrict his phone use, though they privately admit displeasure at his practice of taking calls from journalists and others without their knowledge. 'He calls people nonstop,' Trump's campaign adviser Chris LaCivita said in an interview with Politico during the Republican National Convention last year. 'I don't worry about it, because what are you going to do? Take his phone? Change his phone number? Tell him he can't make phone calls?'
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But just because Trump's aides have given up caring doesn't mean there aren't still major risks. Foreign adversaries could still gain access to Trump's private conversations—inside the Oval Office, on the golf course, in the residence. During his first term, advisers said they 'certainly assumed he was always being listened to.' The FBI described the 2024 Chinese attack on at least nine telecommunications companies as a 'broad and significant cyber espionage campaign' that included eavesdropping on 'a limited number of individuals who are primarily involved in government or political activity.' In addition to Trump and Vance, senior members of Kamala Harris's campaign were also informed that they were being targeted.
Joe Biden's national-security team later explained that the Chinese hack had given foreign spies the ability to 'geolocate millions of individuals, to record phone calls at will,' while as many as 100 targeted phones had likely had their texts and phone calls collected.
Although there have been efforts to excise Chinese hackers from the telecommunications infrastructure and harden the systems, there is still a risk of future attacks. Before leaving office, Biden's team asked the Federal Communications Commission to begin a rule-making process to require telecommunications companies to upgrade their network security, because the voluntary industry guidelines issued by the government had failed to protect the country. Trade groups representing the wireless, telecom, and broadband industries oppose new security mandates, arguing that they would impose 'onerous network-wide duties.'
'It is likely that the systems may be compromised again,' one cybersecurity expert who was part of the Biden review told us. This person said the vulnerability of the telecom foundation means that even White House landline phone calls could be compromised. 'The White House systems use American phone lines. If the core is compromised, it doesn't matter who is on the end' of a call, this person said.
In a video posted on X in late May, the Dilbert creator Scott Adams described seeing a call from a Florida number he didn't recognize and sending it to voicemail. When he listened to the message, he heard Trump's voice: 'This is your favorite president.'
'I thought to myself, No, did I just send the most important person in the world to voicemail?' Adams recounted, laughing and leaning back in his chair. 'And it turns out that I had. It was Trump, and he was just calling to check in.' Before the call, Adams had recently shared publicly that he has 'the same cancer that Joe Biden has,' and that he expects to die in the coming months.
In his video, Adams explained that Trump left 'a semi-lengthy little voicemail,' saying that Adams could call him back on this number. 'Now obviously I don't call him back, right, because that would just be ridiculous,' Adams continued.
Trump's habit of leaving lengthy voicemails is by design—not just because he's a phone guy but because he relishes giving people something they can play for friends and family. '​​Who doesn't like to get a voicemail message from the president of the United States?' one adviser said. When Trump finally gets ahold of someone after having left a voicemail, he will sometimes ask recipients whether they have played his voicemail for others, the person said.
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Hours after Adams missed his call from Trump, his phone rang again, and once again a Florida number blinked onto the screen. This time, the cartoonist knew enough to answer. 'No fucking way,' Adams remembered thinking. 'There's no way he's calling me again. And I answer it, and it's Trump. And apparently he had heard my situation, and he had lots of questions.' The call ended with Trump telling Adams to just ask if he needed anything, and he would make it happen.
As accessible as Trump is, even some who have his number are reticent about using it—or are at least strategic about it. One of the advisers we talked with told us they always try to find the best moment to call. 'If I call him, nine times out of 10, I've talked to somebody there and said, 'Tell me when to call,' and they've said, 'He just left dinner and just walked into the residence,'' this person told us. 'And I know multiple people who do the same thing, who game-plan it out and talk to the people around him and say, 'Tell me when it's a good time.''
The outside ally told us they are careful about how frequently they call Trump. 'I rarely call unless I'm asked to call. He's the president of the United States.' This person added that they've witnessed Trump pick up his phone and scroll through the list of chief executives and wealthy supplicants who have called, poking fun at their eagerness. 'That's why I'm really reluctant to call,' the ally explained. 'You don't want to be the guy who's the butt of the joke, who he's laughing at: 'Can you believe this guy is calling?''
Others give little thought to the timing of their calls. Trump's phone could be heard ringing during a recent press conference in which he discussed a proposed 50 percent tariff on Apple. The familiar sound of the default 'Reflection' ringtone—you know the one, the synthesized waterfall of xylophone tones—was a reminder that the tariffs targeted the company that makes his beloved device.
Before the press entered the Oval Office, the president had placed the phone on the Resolute desk, next to his two secure White House landline phones. 'It's a phone call, do you mind?' he joked when the ringing started, before looking at the screen and telling reporters, 'It's only a congressman.' Seconds later, the phone rang again. 'It's a different congressman,' he joked, as he struggled to silence his portal to the wider world.
Jonathan Lemire contributed reporting.
Illustration by The Atlantic. Sources: Mannie Garcia / Bloomberg / Getty; Sipa / AP / Getty; Alex Brandon / AP; Evan Vucci / AP; Rich Graessle / Icon Sportswire / AP; Matt Rourke / AP.
Article originally published at The Atlantic