As usual with such news, the sheer volume of Trump administration scandals and un-American policies has provided cover for Tuesday’s revelation by The New York Times that Chinese intelligence is eavesdropping on the conversations Donald Trump conducts on an unsecured cell phone. But it’s important that we don’t let this one slide out of public consciousness so easily, because it involves an infuriating and deeply disturbing practice by the president that should be objectionable to all Americans of whatever political inclination.
Although Donald Trump has access to a secure land line and two secure cell phones, he has nonetheless continued to use a third, unsecure phone for conversations with friends, apparently to avoid senior aides becoming aware that he’s had such calls. The Chinese are able to gain access to the president’s thinking, and in turn are working to influence Trump’s friends through Chinese businessmen and other contacts who can be armed with arguments they believe might help persuade the president in the direction they desire.
Lest you think that Trump may yet stop using his unsecured phone now that we know the Chinese (and Russians, too!) are listening in, well, no. U.S. intelligence officials have already informed the president that these rival powers are listening in to his calls. . . and he continues to use the phone anyway.
Let that sink in for a moment. He knows he’s being spied on, but he continues to use the unsecured phone regardless.
We can speculate as to what combination of arrogance and wish for privacy from his aides may be motivating the president, but we can at least understand his priorities with great accuracy. He would rather be able to hide personal calls from his own staff than hide information that could be used to compromise national security, not to mention his own policy goals, from hostile foreign powers. Days have passed since I first read the NYT piece, and my mind still boggles at the dumb betrayal of both national and personal interest. Yet it seems in keeping with what we know of Trump’s character — dismissive of experts, and unwilling to restrict his personal behavior.
In noting that the president uses his secure phones for more overtly official and classified business, the article suggests that no one knows whether Donald Trump lets slip classified information during calls on his unsecured phone. His staff members have been trying to tell themselves that this is a small worry, based on reasoning that can uncontroversially be termed not reassuring in the least:
Administration officials said Mr. Trump’s longtime paranoia about surveillance — well before coming to the White House he believed that his phone conversations were often being recorded — gave them some comfort that he was not disclosing classified information on the calls. They said they had further confidence he was not spilling secrets because he rarely digs into the details of the intelligence he is shown and is not well versed in the operational specifics of military or covert activities.
But because the president is so incurious and incompetent that there is a vast range of secret details he simply does not know and so can’t let slip is hardly grounds for relief. Secrets aren’t just constituted by bits of information; secrets also include strategy and tactics, and yes, how our president might be thinking about a particular matter when that thinking has not yet been made public. Under any reasonable notion of classified information, Donald Trump has surely spilled the beans to his foreign listeners during these reckless calls. But this is only the most optimistic take on what information he has let slip. Is it really credible that he has not once shared classified information, even accidentally? This accidental possibility, which gives the president maximum benefit of the doubt when evaluating his use of an unsecured line, is enough to render his current practice insupportable and insane.
There is nothing partisan about requiring the president to hide his private conversations from hostile foreign governments. This is not a right or left policy choice embodying a dispute over basic values; it’s a violation on non-partisan procedures to make sure the president isn’t spied on. It is, in other words, an indefensible practice on the part of the president.
The ironies and absurdities of Donald Trump letting America’s enemies listen to his private talks feel nearly limitless. This behavior is in no way compatible with his promises to “put America first” or “make America great again.” Rather, it’s a palpable expression of the president’s inability to put anyone’s needs — even the needs of the American people — ahead of his own. It’s also the final proof that his attacks on Hillary Clinton’s use of an unsecured email server — which Trump believed justified “locking her up” — were totally bogus; how else to understand that the president is engaging in parallel but far worse behavior than he ever accused Clinton of? And in light of his midterm election closing arguments about the dangers of our allegedly porous borders being penetrated by murderous Latinos, it’s worth noting his total disregard for essentially opening up the front door of the White House for any spy to waltz on through.
By allowing foreign intelligence to listen in to his conversations, Donald Trump is not just undermining himself — he’s undermining our country. Like it or not, he’s the president, and even his most committed opponents can’t prefer the manipulations of a foreign power to the bad policymaking of Donald Trump. Anyone with a single patriotic bone in their body should be outraged by this idiocy — and opponents to Trump should not be afraid to wield it as a weapon, both in the hope that the president stops engaging in it, and to make the case to Americans across the political spectrum that this is a man who doesn’t even share a baseline common commitment to keeping foreign spies out of the Oval Office’s business.