U.S. President Donald Trump congratulates Prime Minister Leo Varadkar of Ireland during a phone call from inside the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, U.S., June 27, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria
The White House is no longer going to provide readouts to journalists of Trump’s phone calls with foreign leaders, which means that the American people will have less information about what Trump is doing.
CNN reported:
The White House has suspended the practice of publishing public summaries of President Donald Trump’s phone calls with world leaders, two sources with knowledge of the situation tell CNN, bringing an end to a common exercise from Republican and Democratic administrations.
It’s unclear if the suspension is temporary or permanent. A White House spokesman declined to comment.
The phone calls are good for public transparency. The American people are informed of who the president is talking to and what they are talking about. The phone calls are also diplomatic tools that used heavily coordinated. A readout of a phone call between the president and foreign leader can be an important piece of foreign policy news and useful for an administration to get their message out there.
Trump does not want the American people to know what he is doing and saying, which is why he continues to hold private meetings with foreign leaders with no administration officials present. Trump despises transparency and accountability. He doesn’t want his country to know what he is discussing with Putin or Kim Jong-un.
The decision by the White House not to provide readouts of Trump’s calls is a bad day for democracy.
Trump is trying to engage in a secret presidency, and by placing his own paranoia ahead of his country, he will be allowing foreign governments to shape the news coverage of his calls. The result will be more bad press for Trump and another weakening of the global standing of the United States.
For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group.
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