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White House will no longer issue readouts of Trump’s calls to foreign leaders

CNN: “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. Official descriptions of the President’s calls with foreign leaders — termed “readouts” in Washington parlance — offer administrations the chance to characterize in their own terms the diplomacy conducted at the highest levels between countries. While news is rarely contained in the rote, often dry descriptions, they do offer the only official account that a phone call took place. Readouts are still released internally.,,”

See also Buzzfeed News: “…Trump has adopted an informal stance on phone conversations since early in his presidency. Shortly after taking office, he passed out his cellphone number to foreign leaders, the Washington Post reported. And in April 2017, White House officials were reportedly surprised to learn that Trump, on his own, had a phone conversation with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. By contrast, past calls between presidents and foreign leaders have more commonly been extensively planned events, with experts briefing the commander-in-chief beforehand and advisers sometimes listening during the conversation. The resulting readouts also provided the White House with a chance to characterize how its diplomacy with other countries was going…”

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