'He never knows who it is': How 'famed gossip' Trump 'uses his phone as a weapon'
President Donald Trump's personal cellphone has become a direct line to the Oval Office, abandoning the traditional switchboard hell in favor of something much more immediate, The Spectator reported Tuesday.
The report quoted White House reporters, who have cold-called the president, as saying: “The best time to call is the weekend. Or early in the morning. Or late at night. Definitely not when he’s on the golf course."
They added that if he is in a good mood, “you might get a few minutes” — and if he’s not, “you’ll still get a usable quote.”
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The report noted that even veteran presidents haven't played phone tag like this. Former President Barack Obama held onto his BlackBerry, but his contacts couldn’t just call him at will.
With Trump, "you can just call," per the report.
TV show host Piers Morgan, who’s known Trump for years and speaks with him often, told the Spectator: “He uses his phone as a weapon of his office … to gather information … and to impart information.”
That kind of candor, and spontaneity, is shaping press coverage in real time. Reporters quoted in the article said Trump does it because he is "a famed gossip" and "simply loves taking calls."
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In Trump’s first term, reporters only got connected to him if the White House placed the call. Now? “Hundreds of people have Trump’s private cell phone number. When they cold-call him, he tends to answer," the report noted.
That accessibility has also sparked a new media ritual: the post-news-break press scramble. News breaks, Trump rings up a handful of reporters and anchors, who then rush to social media or live TV to announce they’ve just caught Trump’s reaction.
According to the report, Fox News personalities frequently appear first on his dial: Sean Hannity, Maria Bartiromo, Peter Doocy. As one senior Fox source puts it, “The calls go both ways.”
Many reporters dial his number when news breaks, hoping he’ll pick up. “He doesn’t save people’s numbers,” a veteran reporter noted. “So he never knows who it is.”
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After Trump’s explosive fallout with tech billionaire Elon Musk in June, he reached out to CNN’s Dana Bash, ABC’s Jonathan Karl, CBS’s Robert Costa, and Fox’s Bret Baier — all to assail Musk for having “lost his mind.”
Similarly, when Israel struck Iranian targets, Trump touched base with a broad spectrum of media — Bash, Baier, Fox & Friends’ Lawrence Jones, Morning Joe’s Jonathan Lemire, Axios’s Barak Ravid, Reuters’ Steve Holland, Wall Street Journal’s Josh Dawsey, NBC’s Yamiche Alcindor, among others, per the report.
