Latest news with #RutherfordHayes
Atlantic
19 hours ago
- Politics
- Atlantic
Keeping Politics Out of the Military
Our security is dependent on those who are willing to fight our foreign enemies and die for their country. We honor them and their families because their bravery and courage protect our democracy. We respect our military precisely because its role in defending the nation means that the military does not get involved in politics. If we allow the president to politicize the military, that will undermine the trust of the American people in our national security. The mobilization of the National Guard in California has raised concerns about whether the reason for its deployment was based on real threats to law and order, or on political differences between the governor of California and the president of the United States. To protect the role of the military, the U.S. has historically made clear in its laws that federal troops should not be used for civilian law enforcement. In 1878, President Rutherford Hayes signed the Posse Comitatus Act, which bars the military from doing the work of law-enforcement officers. Even the statutes that authorize the president to activate the National Guard make clear that troops are to be limited to responding to 'invasions' or 'rebellions.' The U.S. is not facing either an invasion or a rebellion. Respect for the military's role is crucial for our democracy. That is why the law is designed to ensure that our armed forces are not politicized or misused. This rule-of-law tenet is the fundamental difference between a free society and an autocracy. Tyrants use the military as a pawn to solidify power, put down protests, and arrest opponents. Russian President Vladimir Putin has incurred as many as a million casualties among the soldiers he sent into Ukraine for his dictatorial goal of restoring the supposed greatness of the Soviet Union. Putin has found an ally in another ruthless autocrat, North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Un, who has sent forces to help Russia's fight in Ukraine. In China, the primary purpose of the military is to protect those in power. In each case, the tyrant demands—for his own survival—that the loyalty of the military is solely to him, not to the nation, let alone the people. Tom Nichols: Trump is using the National Guard as bait Doing a dictator's bidding is not how the military works in America. Our service members swear an oath of loyalty to the Constitution, not to the president. They follow the orders of the president as their commander in chief, but may do so only if those orders are legal and pursuant to the Constitution. Their job demands training, skill, and courage, certainly. The job also requires the capacity to make decisions based solely on the goal of accomplishing a national-security mission, not appeasing political leaders. As secretary of defense, I was a party to the kinds of tough decisions our military has to make. That judgment must not be damaged by those who seek to use it for political purposes. At the Pentagon, I bore the vital responsibility of deciding on the deployment of our men and women in uniform, and whether to put them in harm's way. The concern that some of those deployed would not return from a mission was always uppermost in my mind. Whenever we lost a serving soldier, I would receive a report and see their name. On those occasions, I personally wrote a condolence note to their family. The list of fallen warriors was also sent to the White House so that the president could do the same and convey the nation's gratitude to the family for the sacrifice that their loved one had made. Admiral Bill McRaven, the head of Special Operations Command at the time, made clear to me that every military judgment must be based on doing what's right to accomplish the mission. As the director of the CIA, I was in charge of the covert operation to hunt down the al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden at his secret compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. McRaven was the Afghanistan-based operational commander of the raid, in which two teams of Navy SEALs flew 150 miles at night. As they were about to land, residual heat from the day caused one of their helicopters to stall out and make a hard landing that left its tail stuck on one of the compound's walls. I called McRaven to ask what was going on. He was decisive in his response. 'I have called in a backup helicopter, and we will proceed with the mission breaching through the walls,' he said. 'The mission will go on.' I gave my approval. The mission was successful: The man who had masterminded the 9/11 attacks was finally eliminated. The kind of split-second judgment that McRaven showed is what our military is trained to do. In the recent success of the U.S. forces that were deployed to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, the military did a great job of planning and execution. America has the strongest military force on Earth, but all of the technologically advanced weapons, planes, ships, and equipment would not be worth much without the skill and training of our service men and women. At outposts throughout the world, they are our front line of defense. They are our national security. To maintain that security demands that we protect and respect the constitutional purpose they serve. If a president deliberately misuses the military for partisan reasons, he is weakening America's safety. Leadership of a military devoted to defending our nation is an honored role that goes back to George Washington and the creation of the Continental Army 250 years ago. During that long history, Americans have learned that presidential parades do not define their military; what does is their respect for the military's mission of protecting national security. Trust in the military is indivisible from trust in the Constitution. Both must remain inviolable.
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Why Trump's mobile phone is causing havoc in the White House
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.
Telegraph
11-06-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Why Trump's mobile phone is causing havoc in the White House
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.
