Trump Breaks With Long-Standing WH Tradition

Feds stop releasing 'readouts' of president's phone calls to world leaders
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 25, 2018 3:47 AM CDT
Report: Feds Have Stopped Releasing Trump Leader Calls
President Trump speaks on the phone with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in the Oval Office last year.   (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

It has become traditional for American presidents to offer "readouts" summarizing their phone calls with world leaders—but President Trump didn't get where he is today by bowing to tradition. Sources tell CNN that amid the backlash to Trump's Helsinki summit with Vladimir Putin, the White House has decided to stop offering the public summaries. Business Insider notes that while such calls tend to be highly coordinated, with "sterile and terse" descriptions of what was discussed, they often contribute to a good picture of an administration's foreign policy plans. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently spoke to Trump, but the administration didn't report the conversations, per CNN. (More President Trump stories.)

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