Why Trump's mobile phone is causing havoc in the White House

Yahoo

11-06-2025

Credit: c-span
Ever since Rutherford Hayes installed the first White House telephone in 1877, a call from the president of the USA has not been something to be taken lightly.
The phone would ring. An intermediary – often a national security advisor – would ask the recipient of the call to 'hold for the president' before the president was put through. Immediately after the call, staff would provide 'readouts,' detailing what had been discussed. Even Barack Obama, the first president of the smartphone era, was persuaded to change his usage to fit the White House mould.
In his phone habits, as with so many aspects of his leadership, Donald Trump has broken decisively with tradition. He wields his iPhone just as he did in civilian life, relentlessly and with little thought of protocol or security. Friends, acquaintances, world leaders, journalists, golfers and people he has just seen on television are all liable to get a call out of the blue from Trump's personal mobile phone.
Hundreds of people are thought to have his personal phone number, while he has been known to pick up calls from unknown callers. As a result, the devices – Trump is said to have at least two and possibly three personal iPhones – have become arguably the most significant objects in world politics, as well as a source of consternation to his foes and security experts, and amusement to his supporters.
'Trump has no other management life, or business life, than on the phone,' says Michael Wolff, a journalist who has written four books about the Trump presidency, the most recent being All or Nothing. 'He is all broadcast. The phone is essentially another platform for him. He's calling and opening his mind. He's not really calling to talk to anyone.
'Being on the phone with him is a totally bizarre experience,' he adds. 'You get no words in edgewise. And the other weird thing is that he is the president of the United States and he doesn't get off the phone. You think the call is going to end almost immediately because it's the president, but it never ends. At some point you have to end it.' Last month, a press conference in the Oval Office was interrupted by the loud ringing of Trump's phone, which was sitting on the president's desk. 'It's only a congressman,' he said, before the phone rang a second time. 'It's a different congressman,' he said.
Trump's free and easy communications have caused much consternation among his security advisors, who fear that he risks opening himself up to an attack by a foreign power. In the days leading up to the election last year, it was reported in The Atlantic this week, China gained the ability to eavesdrop on Trump's personal phone, the latest in a series of increasingly severe breaches by foreign powers. While others in the campaign switched phones, or moved to encrypted communications apps, the Chinese hack left the president unperturbed. He had always used his phone; he wasn't about to stop now.
Ben Rhodes, a former speechwriter and deputy national security advisor to Obama, told The Atlantic that Trump's phone usage was 'an obvious massive risk – especially given what we know about Chinese penetration of phones in recent years'.
As well as straightforward hacking, experts fear that Trump's lack of concern for phone security might leave him vulnerable to other threats, including impersonation.
The National Security Agency (NSA), America's equivalent to Britain's GCHQ, 'will be tearing their hair out,' says Prof Alan Woodward, a cybersecurity expert at the University of Surrey. 'Trump has endless means of secure communications, but chooses to use his own phone. Your phone is no longer just your phone. If someone were to get spyware onto your phone, they all have microphones and a camera that can be turned on remotely. Imagine being able to be present in the Oval Office. They can tell you someone's location.'
None of this has deterred Trump, whose idiosyncratic comms style goes back to his first term. Where earlier presidents would tend to make outgoing calls, or receive only from a handful of known numbers, Trump is happy to pick up calls from a wide range of contacts. The British golfer Nick Faldo revealed the extent of his communications with Trump in a Telegraph interview this week, in which he stated that, for the past decade or so, the president has spoken to him after every major tournament, to go over the performances of players. Faldo claims to be able to call the president whenever he wants, as a party trick.
'For fun, I could be anywhere in the world and if somebody was talking about this and that, I'd say: 'I'll call him',' he said. 'And I always get through. Honestly. One hundred per cent of the time.'
The British journalist Piers Morgan is another recipient of Trump's phone calls. 'I've spoken with Trump on his phone probably for about 18 years,' he says. 'Unlike most world leaders he's just carried on using his phone. It's part of his daily routine. If he likes you and wants to talk to you he'll pick up, or he'll call you out of the blue. There have been other [world leaders] I could speak to on the phone, but none where it is so fluid and relaxed.
'A few months ago he called me when I was in a black cab, the day after Keir Starmer had been to the White House and promised him a state visit, to ask how it was going down in the UK. I was telling him and I could see the cab driver's face getting increasingly bemused and excited.
'After 15 minutes I put the phone down and said 'I'll see you soon Mr President'. The cabbie said 'Piers, I don't mean to intrude into your privacy but was that Donald Trump?' I said it was. He said 'I've been driving this cab for 35 years and never had anyone talk to the president of the United States in the back.''
For Morgan, Trump's phone style is an extension of the demotic, immediate style that his supporters love and his opponents loathe. 'It's what differentiates Trump to all the other boring, staid, formulaic politicians, whose first question in high office is 'How am I supposed to behave? Give me the rules.' Trump doesn't do that. He has taken a bet that more people than not like him just the way he is.' Those close to Trump say he has always been an avid phone-user, even before he entered politics. He was also the first president, or candidate, to realise the power he had to shape a news cycle by posting on social media.
'If he woke up and saw an anti-Trump story on the news, he would just tweet something,' Morgan says. '[The news reports] would all change in real time, dictated from the Lincoln Bedroom or whichever bedroom he uses. That was the power of his phone. How many world leaders would do that?'
'He calls a lot of people and a lot of people call him,' he adds. 'The phone is an extension of his office, as far as he's concerned. He's constantly calling people. That's how his gut instinct gets formed. It's a powerful use of presidential time.'
'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,'' one external adviser told The Atlantic. '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'.'
Presidential communications have evolved over the years. Herbert Hoover (president between 1929 and 1933) followed Rutherford B Hayes by installing a phone directly to the Oval Office. Obama was determined to keep his BlackBerry, becoming the first e-mail president, but was forced to severely limit his contacts book. Announcing the compromise following a battle with Obama's handlers, the president's spokesman, Robert Gibbs, said his boss would use the phone 'in a way that use will be limited and that the security is enhanced to ensure his ability to communicate'.
Trump is not the only world leader to have come under fire for their phone measures. 'For security reasons, they are supposed to keep a record of interactions between the president and other parties,' Alan Woodward says. 'If he has a call with Putin, a record is kept. But there's all these side conversations going on... Politicians, like everybody, feel like their mobile is a personal private space. But it's not. It's a radio device, communicating in all sorts of ways and communicating behind your back. You don't know what else is there.'
In 2021, when Boris Johnson was prime minister, it was reported that his personal mobile number had been freely available on the internet for 15 years, which Sir Keir Starmer, then the leader of the opposition, said was a 'serious situation that carries a security risk'. Starmer said he had switched to a more secure phone in 2008, when he became director of public prosecutions. Trump's government has already endured a catastrophic failure of cyber security – the editor of The Atlantic, Jeff Goldberg, was mistakenly added to a group on Signal, a messaging app, in which the US defence secretary Pete Hegseth, and others, discussed bombing Yemen (it was also reported that Hegseth had another Signal chat in which he had discussed the attacks).
Trump spokespeople have previously said that his phone has been modified to enhance security, without specifying any details. In an interview with Politico last year, Chris LaCivita, one of his campaign advisers, said he had given up trying to stop his boss from phoning people. '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?'
Besides, Michael Wolff is not convinced Trump is divulging many secrets on these endless calls. 'I'm trying to think what the security risk is,' he says. 'It's not as if any of it is a secret. He tells everybody the same thing. There are no confidences here. There's no real discussion of anything here. It's just 'blah blah blah'.'
When you are the American president, even your 'blah blah blah' has ramifications. Callers may no longer 'hold for the president', but much of the world still hangs on his every word.
Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.