The Secret History of Trump's Private Cellphone [View all]

Just before Election Day, a disturbing piece of information made its way to Donald Trump. Whenever he takes or makes calls on his personal cellphone, Trump learned, Chinese hackers could be listening and gathering intelligence.

Iranians had already hacked into his campaign’s email system—which was not a problem for Trump personally, because he has never liked putting things in writing—and the Chinese had breached the emails of the Republican National Committee. But now the hackers had compromised the backbone of U.S. telecommunications networks, according to federal officials who publicly described the intrusion on October 25, which allowed them to eavesdrop on calls involving Trump; his running mate, J. D. Vance; and other political figures.

Some in the campaign took immediate action, abandoning longtime numbers, experimenting with burner phones, or switching to end-to-end encrypted applications, such as Signal, for voice calls so they would not route through central switching hubs.

But Trump appeared unperturbed by the news, two people familiar with the episode told us, on the condition of anonymity so they could speak frankly. For more than a decade, the once and future president had been warned of the enormous risks he took—as perhaps the top global target of foreign intelligence services—by using a personal iPhone with a broadly circulated number to keep in touch with dozens of friends and colleagues. His phone was a lifeline, though. He wasn’t going to give it up.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/06/trump-private-cellphone-china-hackers/683006/?gift=201cWZnM2XBz2eP81zy0pIjBkWA8VK0NF-8HfVdQTTY