Trump's Phone Habits Subtly Confirm Melania's Protectiveness Only Extends To Barron

When it comes to phone security and privacy concerns, Barron Trump has a tight rein on his avenues of communication. As Page Six reported, for obvious privacy reasons, Barron is unable to give out his number to his friends and fellow students at NYU. Instead, Barron — who is apparently quite a popular figure on campus among his peers — has been communicating through Discord, a communication app used largely by gamers, as well as XBox. 

Melania Trump has a deep bond with her son, whom she shares with President Donald Trump, and has been very protective. She told Fox News in January that, after Donald was sworn in for his second term, she'd be splitting her time between living at the White House, as well as their homes in Florida and in New York, to be close to Barron. However, it seems any protectiveness she might feel when it comes to her son's phone privacy and etiquette doesn't extend to her temperamental husband.

As revealed in an article in The Atlantic in April 2025, Donald still actively uses his personal cell phone, and has no qualms about answering calls from random numbers. Reporters Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer wrote that they had to get creative after Trump cancelled a planned formal interview and slammed the publication on his favorite Truth Social platform, in one of his countless unhinged social media rants. So, they managed to get a hold of his private number and gave it a ring. To their surprise, Trump himself answered, and had no problems talking at length without any real oversight.

After Atlantic reporters Michael Scherer and Ashley Parker's authorized formal interview with Donald Trump was cancelled, they opted to take a different route. "So at 10:45 on a Saturday morning in late March, we called him on his cellphone. (Don't ask how we got his number. All we can say is that the White House staff have imperfect control over Trump's personal communication devices.) The president was at the country club he owns in Bedminster, New Jersey," their article in The Atlantic explained. "The number that flashed on his screen was an unfamiliar one, but he answered anyway. 'Who's calling?' he asked."

According to the article, Trump was "evidently feeling buoyed by a week of successes" and "was eager to talk about his accomplishments." So he did, at great length, with seemingly no real confirmation that the people on the other end of the line were actually reporters for The Atlantic at all. Civilians managed to get a personal call with the president of the United States, without any middleman, on an unsecured line. That almost overshadowed the things Trump actually said during the interview when it came to critics on social media.

Political columnist Matthew Yglesias, called out the revelation on X and jokingly referred to Trump answering an unknown number as an "Incredible boomer moment." Others wondered if that meant the president also received random sales calls. Democratic strategist Matt McDermott posted, "Wild that media hysteria over information security risks dominated an election yet Trump uses an unsecured cell phone and answers random calls, and nobody cares." Clearly, the pressure that has been put on Barron Trump to stay lowkey and digitally secure has not extended to the man sitting in the nation's highest office.