Trump Ridicules Report About Risky iPhone Habits

NYT says China and Russia are eavesdropping on his iPhone calls
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 25, 2018 8:34 AM CDT
Trump Ridicules Report About Risky iPhone Habits
Donald Trump, then the GOP candidate, talks on a cell phone.   (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

A new report from the New York Times accuses President Trump of being so lax with his phone habits that Russia and China routinely listen in on his personal conversations. Trump, however, ridiculed the idea in a morning tweet. "The so-called experts on Trump over at the New York Times wrote a long and boring article on my cellphone usage that is so incorrect I do not have time here to correct it," he wrote. "I only use Government Phones, and have only one seldom used government cell phone. Story is soooo wrong!" The newspaper, though, reports that Trump still uses a personal iPhone—"no different from hundreds of millions of iPhones in use around the world"—to call longtime friends.

The story quotes current and former White House officials who say they are frustrated with Trump's disregard of electronic security. And while the officials say they're worried that Trump might spill classified info on his personal calls, the story by Matthew Rosenberg and Maggie Haberman suggests that China and Russia—particularly China—see a different benefit. Because of the calls, they now have a decent sense of Trump's trusted circle of confidantes—such as Stephen Schwarzman of the Blackstone Group—and they hope to sway these people on important issues in the hope that they will in turn feed the arguments back to the president. (Trump was accused of inadvertently leaking classified info during a meeting with Russian officials last year.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X