A report in The New York Times this week claims President Trump has three iPhones in the Oval Office. Two have been scrubbed and altered for the highest level of security, but the Times claims that the third phone is a case of BYOD—bring your own device.
In other words, it is reportedly the President's own personal iPhone, which is just like the rest of us have.
The New York Times claims these devices are making the President's communications insecure, and that two other countries are taking advantage of the situation:
When President Trump calls old friends on one of his iPhones to gossip, gripe or solicit their latest take on how he is doing, American intelligence reports indicate that Chinese spies are often listening—and putting to use invaluable insights into how to best work the president and affect administration policy, current and former American officials said.
Mr. Trump’s aides have repeatedly warned him that his cellphone calls are not secure, and they have told him that Russian spies are routinely eavesdropping on the calls, as well.
President Trump and The New York Times don't really see eye to eye on much, as you may know. And the President claimed the Time's reporting is wrong, once again:
Twitter went nuts over the controversy, with more than 14,000 comments on this tweet alone.
Chinese leaders must follow the President on Twitter, or perhaps they read nytimes.com (do they allow that sort of thing?), because a Chinese official had some very interesting comments on the iPhone controversy.
The South China Morning Post reports on comments by Chinese Foreign Ministry official Hua Chunying:
If Trump is concerned about the security of his iPhone, he can consider switching over to a Huawei, or cut off communications altogether, Hua Chunying, the foreign ministry spokeswoman, said in response to a question about the Times report. She dismissed the report as another example of “fake news.”
“Seeing this report, I feel there are those in America who are working all-out to win the Oscar for best screenplay,” Hua said at the ministry’s regular briefing in Beijing on Thursday.
The United States has banned Huawei from supplying technology to the government, saying the company poses a security and privacy risk because of its ties to the Chinese government.
Trump did like one thing about The New York Times article: the fact that it reported China would attempt to spy on him:
The President has asserted for awhile now that China has interfered and is trying to interfere with the 2018 and 2020 U.S. elections.