White House Insiders Say Trump’s Private Phone Number Is Out There Being Sold: ‘It’s Out of Control!’

AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File

President Donald Trump’s private digits have become a hot commodity and the White House is receiving reports about a growing market of people trying to nab them one way or another.

The Atlantic’s Michael Sherer reported on Saturday, citing two administration officials, that the president’s private phone number is involved in “suspected horse-trading and black-market sales among influence brokers.” CEOs and crypto investors are reportedly offering money for the number while journalists are taking to trading the phone numbers of other world leaders in baseball card-like exchanges.

According to the report, Trump’s number has been “offered for sale to deep-pocketed interests seeking influence.”

What is unusual about the president is how accessible he is with journalists often noting with surprise that they can simply call the president’s private line. One of the officials speaking to The Atlantic said Trump can typically receive 10 calls from the press in two hours on his private line.

“It is literally call after reporter call,” one of the officials said. “It is just boom, boom, boom.”

Many of the numbers are reportedly not even saved under names. The number is now so widely circulated among press that White House officials have found themselves Googling independent names they’ve never heard before.

“It’s out of control,” an administration official said. “It’s like a wrecking ball.”

On top of CEOs offering money or “crypto bros” offering cryptocurrency, The Atlantic noted that they got their own offer for the president’s number.

Scherer wrote:

We were recently approached by another journalist who offered to trade more than two dozen cellphone numbers of significant stature for the one number of most significant stature. (We declined.) One person we talked with has heard that the going rate for this sort of swap is a one-to-one trade for another major world leader.

White House spokesperson Anna Kelly responded to the new report on Trump’s phone number and said, “President Trump is the most transparent and accessible president in history. The press can’t get enough of Trump, and they know it.”

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!