Trump Keeps Derailing White House Meetings to Call His Friends
The president reportedly called Rupert Murdoch to complain about Fox News coverage and to ask about the Israel-Iran conflict.
Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
Donald Trump’s notoriously short attention span often leads him to put Oval Office meetings on hold so he can call someone on the phone, according to a report.
The president is known to spontaneously pause official White House business just to speak with people unrelated to the meeting on his cellphone, NBC News reported, citing unnamed sources.
Among those Trump would call in the middle of meetings were Dana White, chief executive of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, and conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch.
“He’ll say, ‘Let’s call Rupert. Fox is killing me today,’” one official told NBC News.
The Murdoch-owned publication has been critical of Trump's economic policies.
Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty Images
The president even called Murdoch for his views on the conflict between Israel and Iran, and whether the U.S. should get involved. It’s unclear what Murdoch’s views on the escalating crisis were, but Trump—known to be influenced by what he sees on Fox News—eventually ordered military strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities in June.
Details of Trump’s willingness to drop everything just to talk to friends on the phone featured in a report detailing the unconventional and often chaotic nature of Trump’s second administration.
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That chaos includes meetings running into one another, with people expecting to stay at the White House for around 30 minutes sometimes stuck there for hours.
“If you’re in a meeting about [disaster] preparedness and the next meeting is about whatever, he’ll say, ‘Stick around,’” one senior administration official said.
Military leaders have also expressed concern about “spillage” of potentially sensitive information after Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg strolled unannounced into a meeting about the Air Force’s planned F-47 fighter jet.
A senior White House official described the meeting in which Mark Zuckerberg walked in on as “bizarro world.”
Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images
Trump’s willingness to talk on the phone no matter what, and his lax attitude toward potential security lapses, was highlighted in an April profile in The Atlantic.
While trying to interview the president, the magazine’s Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer said they easily managed to obtain Trump’s cellphone number and that the president happily answered their call despite it coming from an unknown number.
Elsewhere, an unnamed GOP senator told NBC News that Trump’s presidential habits in his second term haven’t really changed from his first, including how he “lives on the telephone.”
“He likes to be called. In fact, last time I was with him, he said, ‘Why don’t you call me anymore?’ and I’m thinking, ‘Because I don’t have anything to say and, No. 2, because you’re the president and you’re busy,’” the senator said.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast.
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