Trump’s secret off-the-record phone briefings raise huge legal red flags

As the midterms near, President Donald Trump is increasingly relying on a campaign strategy that fuses his public office with his private political agenda in a manner ethics experts warn may pose a problem. According to reporting by the Washington Examiner, Trump is calling into “tele-rallies” to campaign for down-ticket Republicans with growing frequency, and his tendency to include it on his daily White House schedule is raising questions about conflicts of interest.

“In recent weeks,” writes the Examiner, “the White House has begun listing evening tele-rallies on the president’s public schedule, though the events themselves are not live-streamed on the White House’s official channels.” The paper spoke with Trump’s top political aide, James Blair, who explained, “Obviously, this is much easier logistically,” adding the White House typically doesn’t share the tele-rallies with the public, saying, “We just don’t broadcast it. Never have.” Per the Examiner, “Blair took a leave of absence earlier this year from his role as White House deputy chief of staff to run Trump’s outside political operation. He suggested that the tele-rallies are now appearing on the president’s daily schedule because he ‘just [doesn’t] work there anymore and [doesn’t] get asked, and therefore no one says to leave off.’”

But according to Peter Loge, professor of media and public affairs at George Washington University and the director of the Project on Ethics in Political Communication, the White House’s inclusion of tele-rallies on Trump’s schedule “blurs the lines between government and campaign operations.” As he noted, “President Trump has a history of mixing politics, self-interest, and government. Running politics on the official White House schedule is one more example of Trump treating the White House as something he owns, rather than something he borrows from the American people.”

Trump has held at least 16 tele-rallies over the course of his second term, two of which were held during the first year, while the remaining 14 took place in the past few months as Republican concern over the midterms grows. According to the Examiner, “On Monday night, Trump tele-rallied for Sen. Darline Graham Nordone (R-SC) and Michael Alfonso, the son-in-law of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who is running for Congress in Wisconsin. In some cases, the president has joined multiple tele-rallies for the same candidate, such as Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL), whose Senate campaign drew separate tele-rally appearances from the president in May and June. In other cases, Trump has opted to join multiple tele-rallies on the same night, such as Monday.”

But as the Examiner reports, “the actual efficacy of the tele-rally, at least compared to in-person stumping from the president, remains to be seen. Trump-backed Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) lost his primary last week just days after the president called into a tele-rally in support of his reelection campaign. Trump’s April 20 tele-rally with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) in Virginia also failed to stop the state’s ballot initiative that would have granted Democrats a favorable electoral map. The Virginia Supreme Court struck down the new map after the initiative passed.”