The White House has stopped issuing public summaries of calls with foreign leaders


The White House is no longer publishing public reports summarizing phone calls President Trump has with other world leaders, two people with knowledge of the matter told CNN on Tuesday.
Known as "readouts," these are the only official accounts of phone calls, and were common under previous Republican and Democratic administrations. CNN reports it's unclear if this is just temporary or if the readouts are permanently over, but they are still being released internally. The last time the White House published a readout of one of Trump's calls was in mid-June, when he congratulated the Hungarian prime minister on his re-election.
In the last two weeks, Trump has had phone calls with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with the White House only confirming those calls took place after foreign media reported on them, without revealing what they discussed. When reached by CNN, a White House spokesperson declined to comment.
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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