China has responded to a report that Trump's personal iPhone has been tapped: 'You can change to Huawei phones'

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China has responded to a report that Trump's personal iPhone has been tapped: 'You can change to Huawei phones'

Trump on phone

White House

President Donald Trump talks on the phone aboard Air Force One during a flight to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to address a joint gathering of House and Senate Republicans on January 26, 2017.

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  • President Trump likes to tweet and make calls from a personal iPhone.
  • Apparently, China and Russia are listening to his calls, the New York Times reported.
  • A Chinese spokesperson said "if there are concerns about Apple calls being listened-in on, then you can change to Huawei phones," which are not sold in the United States and have been accused of being Chinese spying devices.

President Trump hasn't given up his personal cell phone, unlike previous presidents, according to a report in the New York Times.

Security officials wish he would use an official, secured White House landline - instead of his personal iPhones - to call up his friends and associates.

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Why? It's because China and Russia are listening in on his calls, according to the Times report.

All parties involved are denying the report - especially China. Hua Chunying, the spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs called it "fake news."

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"This just provides more evidence of the New York Times creating fake news," Hua said in a statement, according to Bloomberg's translation.

"If there are concerns about Apple calls being listened-in on, then you can change to Huawei phones," she continued.

Huawei is China's homegrown technology giant, which now sells more phones than Apple. But U.S. officials have also accused the company of building backdoors into its technology in order to spy on Americans.

Russia's Kremlin also issued a statement about the report on Trump's iPhone. "We already treat such publications with humor," a spokesman said, according to Bloomberg.

It's unclear how foreign countries could tap the president's cell phone. Facebook's former chief information security officer explored the technical possibilities in a series of tweets, before concluding that, if true, the attack described in the report would be "novel," meaning the capability was not publicly known.

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In addition to his personal iPhones, Trump also uses an iPad, which he reportedly calls the "flat one."

Trump denied the report in a tweet. "The so-called experts on Trump over at the New York Times wrote a long and boring article on my cellphone usage that is so incorrect I do not have time here to correct it," he tweeted. " I only use Government Phones, and have only one seldom used government cell phone. Story is soooo wrong!"

The tweet was sent from an iPhone.

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