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For reporters, it’s hardly unusual to call sources on the phone to learn details or get quotes that will enliven their stories. Sometimes people will talk, sometimes they won’t.
But the president of the United States?
In an almost unfathomable level of access, reporters who call President Donald Trump on his personal cell phone often get an answer — and an interview — from the leader of the free world on the spot. There’s evidence that this is happening more frequently.
Paradoxically, it’s the same president who popularized the term “fake news” and has battled against the press for years on multiple fronts. Just last week, Trump’s lawyers threatened to sue CNN and The New York Times over their reporting on an initial government assessment of damage caused by bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities.
On the day of the June 21 bombing, Trump gave phone interviews to Jonathan Karl of ABC News, Kristen Welker at NBC News, Reuters’ Steve Holland, Axios’ Barak Ravid and both Bret Baier and Sean Hannity of Fox News Channel, according to an independent database of the president’s media appearances.
The next day, Trump spoke with Josh Dawsey of The Wall Street Journal — for all of 38 seconds, Dawsey noted — enabling the reporter to include a fresh presidential quote in the newspaper’s story about the bombing.
“I find it utterly remarkable,” said Ari Fleischer, former press secretary to President George W. Bush. “It’s classic Trump. It defies tradition.”
Who’s calling?
This spring, when he was denied an interview with Trump for an Atlantic magazine cover story, Michael Scherer dialed Trump’s number on a Saturday morning. “Who’s calling?” Trump answered. When the reporter identified himself, Trump berated him for past stories he’d written. But he didn’t hang up.
Scherer explained the story he was doing. Trump answered his questions, and was gracious about it, he said.
“The president likes speaking,” he said. “He wants to share his story. I think he feels that the more he shares his story, the better off he is. He just has a totally different approach to the press than any president I’ve covered.”
In a subsequent story, Scherer and colleague Ashley Parker explored how the telephone is like a lifeline to the president. Many other people besides reporters know the number. Trump has kept using it even after being told around Election Day of the likelihood that Chinese spies had the ability to listen in on his conversations, The Atlantic reported.
Dealing with the press — and by extension, the American public — is a significant part of a president’s job. But the interactions are generally much more formal and structured. That was the case with Trump in his first term, too; Scherer said the times he talked with Trump then, it was mediated by the White House communications office.
That wasn’t the case when they talked this spring, nor when Scherer called Trump’s phone for an interview the day of the military parade in Washington.
“There have been multiple times that people who work for the president have made clear that they weren’t happy he was talking to me,” Scherer said. “But they don’t get to make the decisions. It’s his decision.”
The president’s most frequent callers
Asked about the calls, White House communications director Steven Cheung said Trump “is the most transparent president in history, and we celebrate his willingness to fight back against Fake News media outlets who have shown a disgusting proclivity to lie about him and his administration. The American people are better served because President Trump engages with the press on a daily basis, and we are all so thankful for his leadership, which makes our jobs much more rewarding and gratifying.”
The calls almost certainly make the jobs of Trump’s staff harder if they’re not on the line, or aren’t given a briefing by the president about what he said, Fleischer said. Still, he said, “it’s who he is and the staff needs to deal with it.”
Karl and Welker are among Trump’s frequent callers. ABC’s Karl spoke with Trump by phone at least three times in June, according to social media and ABC reports. “I called Trump about 10 minutes ago,” Karl posted on X the night of the Iran bombing. “He didn’t talk details or next steps. But he wanted to say this: tremendous success tonight.”
About the calls, Welker told NBC’s Seth Meyers recently that “sometimes you just have to take a chance and it works out.”
The calls tend to be brief, often worth little more than a quote or two, said Brian Stelter, author of CNN’s “Reliable Sources” newsletter. They hark back to Trump’s real estate or “Apprentice” days when he could be depended upon by reporters for a pithy quote, he said.
“At the same time, if you can get the president by phone, by all means you should,” he said.
NBC’s Yamiche Alcindor spoke to Trump on June 23, reporting that Trump had said the bombing represented “a great day for America. It’s a great day for the Middle East and I’m very happy to have been able to get the job done.”
That Trump even took Alcindor’s call is noteworthy in one respect: The two clashed repeatedly at public news conferences during his first term, when she worked for PBS “NewsHour,” with the president once accusing her of asking a racist question. NBC wouldn’t make Alcindor available for an interview.
On the surface, Trump is doing these interviews at a time of broad attacks against the media. His administration is seeking to shut down government-run news outlets like Voice of America, and strip NPR and PBS of federal subsidies, both because he thinks their news products are biased against conservatives. He’s involved in settlement talks after suing CBS’ “60 Minutes” and settled a lawsuit against ABC News last winter. He’s sought to restrict access by The Associated Press to some presidential events.
No records are available for more of Trump’s media hits
His style of dealing with the media is the definition of unique, Fleischer said.
“Part of Trump’s success is his raw authenticity,” he said. “He’s unscripted. He’s not a typical politician, and it shows every day. So (the phone interviews) fits with who he is. A traditional, typical politician and a traditional, typical White House staff would never do this. He’s not typical. He’s not traditional.”
There are transcripts or video, sometimes both, available for 89% of the interviews that Trump gave during his first term. So far during his second term, roughly half of the interviews have such public records, said Bill Frischling, head of Roll Call Factbase, an organization that keeps track of presidential media appearances.
That drop is entirely due to the increase in phone interviews, Frischling said. So while Trump has been talking on the phone to more reporters, it also means fewer public records available to check what he said.
Scherer said he tries to be judicious in how often he uses Trump’s cellphone, and he holds tight to the digits. “It’s not my number to share,” he said. He can see a scenario where the number becomes so widely known that Trump will have to change it.
Until then, expect reporters to keep calling.
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David Bauder writes about the intersection of media and entertainment for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social.
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This story has been corrected to change the timing of the threat to sue CNN and The New York Times to last week, instead of this week.
David Bauder, The Associated Press
