One of the most consistent personal characteristics of former President Donald J. Trump — one that his advisers say has kept him out of even worse legal troubles — is that he refuse to be contacted by text or email.
Until now.
Mr. Trump, 76, who is preparing to enter his third presidential campaign and is still under scrutiny by investigators on various fronts, has finally become a texting man, according to three people familiar with the matter. his new habit. They say his messages have recently appeared in the phones of unexpected recipients.
The former president’s opposition to texting investigators frustrated the House of Representatives January 6 committee as they tried to track his thoughts and actions as he worked to overturn the case. election 2020. In his testimony before the committee, the former president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., said he texted the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, during the Capitol attack. because his father “didn’t text”.
That changed around the beginning of this year. Friends, confidants and even those not particularly close to Mr. Trump began receiving texts from his cell phone, most of them described as innocuous, for example. as New Year greetings or political observations. A spokesman for Mr Trump declined to comment.
The former president has long been constantly using his phone, but only to talk to it — or, before he was kicked off Twitter, to send tweets. (His former aide who helped set up his Twitter account once told Politico that when Mr. Trump, who initially relied on aides to write his posts, started tweeting himself, it was like a scene from a movie. “Jurassic Park” when velociraptor learns to open doors.)
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For years, those who contacted him sent him text messages that went unanswered. He cannot be reached by email. He sometimes asked aides to send electronic messages to reporters, calling them “telegrams,” like a telegram.
Now, his delay in embracing what has long been the default method of communication spanning generations signals not only LOL’s and BRB’s willingness to enter the world, but also a change of heart. slight change from his aversion to leaving traces on paper or electronic.
People who have worked for Mr Trump in the White House and in his own business say he prides himself on being “smart” as he leaves almost no records of communications and discussions. themselves in meetings. That included a junior legal associate in his office jotting down notes in real time in the 1990s, when Mr. Trump spotted the man scribbling, according to one expert. consultant worked for him at that time.
Those who have witnessed first-hand his instinctive aversion to record-keeping said they were shocked to learn of his new electronic habits.
“Is he also starting to take notes now?” John R. Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser, texted dryly when he learned that the former president was texting.
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Mr. Trump criticized Mr. Bolton, who has written one of the book-long narratives about Trump’s presidency, for taking notes during the meetings.
Mr. Trump also rebuked Donald F. McGahn II, his first White House adviser, for the notes he took. Mr. McGahn, when interviewed by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III during the Russia investigation, described telling Trump that he took notes because he was a “real attorney.”
“I’ve had a lot of good lawyers, like Roy Cohn. He doesn’t take notes,” McGahn recounted Trump’s quote, referring to his ruthless mentor and longtime adviser, who has become the prototype for what Trump looks for in a lawyer. .
A former Trump White House official, who requested anonymity to speak candidly, described the former president’s tendency to avoid leaving records so there’s “nothing to follow” as an “allegory”. may date back to the time of Roy Cohn”.
The fact that Mr. Trump is now sending messages has some of his associates concerned about what he might say. They’re relieved, though, about another shift: His phone now sends calls not from numbers in his contacts to voicemail, according to two people familiar with the change. this.
That change came this month, after an NBC reporter called Trump directly during Representative Kevin McCarthy’s desperate fight to be elected speaker of the House. Mr. Trump picked up the phone, giving a brief interview that made Republicans politically uncomfortable.
Mr. Trump’s stance on emoji remains unclear.
