President Donald Trump apparently finds the idea of giving up his iPhone “too inconvenient.”
According to a new report from Politico, Trump at one point went at least five months without one of his phones being checked. By contrast, former President Barack Obama handed over his phone every 30 days.
From tweeting his reactions to the days latest news to calling friends, Trump’s particular use of an iPhone is without precedent for his position. He uses two at least two iPhones: one that makes calls and one with Twitter and news apps. The call-capable cellphone has a camera and microphone, as well as a GPS location tracker, though that feature is reportedly disabled on his devices.
Those features make the phone an enviable target for hackers.
“Foreign adversaries seeking intelligence about the U.S. are relentless in their pursuit of vulnerabilities in our government’s communications networks, and there is no more sought-after intelligence target than the president of the United States,” said Nate Jones, former director of counterterrorism on the National Security Council, said.
It’s unclear how frequently Trump trades out his call-capable phone, but according to Politico, Trump has resisted parting with his Twitter-capable phone for routine monthly security checkups.
A White House official told Politico that, due to “security controls” on the president’s Twitter-capable phone and within Twitter itself, the device “does not necessitate regular change-out.”
To be fair, if Trump didn’t have one of his phones, he might miss out on his nightly chats with Fox News host Sean Hannity before bed.
You can read all of Politico’s report here.
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