...
By Joshua Rhett Miller
Senior Reporter
0
Share
Newsweek is a Trust Project member
See more of our trusted coverage when you search.Prefer Newsweek on Googleto see more of our trusted coverage when you search.
White House officials frequently say Donald Trump is the "most accessible" president ever – and judging by how easy he can be to get on the phone, they're not wrong.
In a new interview with Trump to coincide with his 100th day in office, journalists from The Atlantic magazine revealed how the unscheduled conversation came together: with a simple phone call out of the blue.
Trump answered his personal cell phone on a Saturday morning late last month while at his country club in Bedminster, New Jersey the same way most people do when they pick up an unknown number.
Read More on U.S.
"Who's calling?" the president of the United States asked, according to the magazine.
On the other end of the line were the two Atlantic reporters with whom Trump had previously agreed to an interview, Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer. But just days before the planned White House sitdown, Trump unloaded on the pair on Truth Social.
...
"Ashley Parker is not capable of doing a fair and unbiased interview," Trump wrote. "She is a Radical Left Lunatic, and has been as terrible as is possible for as long as I have known her."
Trump also fiercely criticized Scherer, claiming the writer had never penned a "fair" story about him, while deriding The Atlantic as a "third rate magazine" that would soon fold. But the leader of the free world picked up himself when the pair called on a lark days later, delivering on an impromptu interview the White House had previously cancelled.
That appeared to be water under the bridge by the time Parker and Scherer got Trump on the line, with the journalists reporting he was "eager to talk about his accomplishments" while acknowledging in a rare bit of self-reflection how his second administration felt different.
"The first time, I had two things to do — run the country and survive; I had all these crooked guys," Trump told the magazine. "And the second time, I run the country and the world."
The story of how The Atlantic interview came to pass reflects how unusually reachable Trump has always been to reporters — an accessibility that he has carried with him to the Oval Office a second time, and one that comes with considerable security risks, according to experts who spoke to Newsweek.
'It's Sloppy'
The Atlantic did not specify how it obtained Trump's cell number, but noted how White House staff have "imperfect control" of his personal communication devices.
Some cybersecurity experts told Newsweek they were troubled by the report, especially considering how many people and entities could likely access the president's personal number.
"If he's just using a standard Google or Android device, you have to assume there must be multiple governments listening to his every call, not the U.S. government," said Lee McKnight, an associate professor at Syracuse University's School of Information Studies.
Even if the phone is secure, like most devices used by military and other government officials, McKnight said he's still concerned about how widely Trump's cell number has been disseminated.
"That doesn't get away from the issue — who has access to the number?" McKnight asked. "Who can reach him directly? How many people can? That's been his freewheeling style — he's always been known to like to be, you know, reachable and bypass the normal filters of protecting somebody in the office of the president from all kinds of folks."
If Parker and Scherer managed to track down Trump's cell number, other reporters in Washington and New York would likely have the digits as well, creating potential vulnerabilities, McKnight said.
...
"In general for cybersecurity, the weakest link is the problem," McKnight said. "So even if the chain around him is secure, now there's all kind of potential bad scenarios happening."
If someone can reach the president directly, AI-powered deepfakes of world leaders could potentially be used against Trump, McKnight said.
"It's sloppy," he said. "From a cybersecurity point of view, the Trump administration has been incredibly sloppy."
McKnight noted how Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic's editor in chief, had previously been mistakenly added to a Signal group chat with White House national security officials that discussed sensitive military plans. North Korea, China, Russia, Iran and "other bad actors" are most likely taking heed, he said.
"That's my major concern," McKnight said.
McKnight believes amateur sleuths or hackers already know Trump's cell number, which could lead to unsolicited spoofing calls or other threats – much like the fake phone call the son of Altanta Falcons defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich made on Friday to NFL prospect Shedeur Sanders.
"So, you could have an audio deepfake of Putin, with little snippets of Putin's voice and interacting with it for whatever purpose," McKnight said. "You could walk through that scenario. It could be other world leaders, but deepfakes. If it's just Trump directly, he doesn't have time, he's a busy guy. Cybersecurity's not his thing, he shouldn't be the one filtering who's real and who's not on his own personal device. That's just not prudent."
Matthew Hicks, an associate professor of computer science at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, said he didn't see Trump's personal cell phone as a potential security threat so long as he limits whom he contacts to reporters, friends and associates
"Now, if he is giving orders via a personal cellphone, that could open the door to an attacker who can use a SIM swap attack to steal the president's personal cellphone number then deepfakes to issue executive orders, acting as him," Hicks said.
Hicks also questioned how extensively Trump used the device.
"I can assure you that any adversary that we care about already has this phone number," Hicks told Newsweek. "I think the important question is what the device is used for; if it is just to chat with reporters and friends, then I don't see the threat."
Messages seeking additional details from the White House about Trump's usage of his personal cell phone were not returned Monday. Attempts to reach Trump directly on Monday were unsuccessful.
"This is not president trump," Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr., told Newsweek in a text message, declining further comment.
View 0 Comments
Submit Correction
View Editorial & AI Guidelines