- President Trump complained on Truth Social that AT&T wasn’t able to make his conference call happen
- Trump said it’s the second time this has happened and “we’ll use another carrier the next time”
- According to reports, between 8,000 and 10,000 people were on the call
President Donald Trump gave some major flak to AT&T on Monday for being “unable to make their equipment work properly” during a conference call with faith leaders.
Exactly what caused the problem wasn’t immediately apparent. AT&T said its initial analysis showed the disruption was caused “by an issue with the conference call platform, not our network.” The company didn’t identify which conference call platform caused the problem.
Fierce reached out to AT&T for additional details and will update this story if we hear back.
According to the president’s message on social media, there were “tens of thousands of people on the line.”
Indeed, the White House confirmed that between 8,000 and 10,000 leaders of Christian, Jewish and Muslim faiths were on the call, according to The Hill, citing an unidentified White House official. Although AT&T responded immediately, it wasn’t able to fix the problem and a member of the White House team resolved it, according to the publication. The call started 20 minutes late.
Trump calls out AT&T CEO
Before it was resolved, Trump complained on social media that it was the second time this has happened, saying “if the boss of AT&T, whoever that may be, could get involved – it would be good.”
The CEO of AT&T is John Stankey, who, as far as we can tell, has been nothing but publicly supportive of Trump. We doubt President Trump has the time or desire to listen to quarterly telecom earnings calls, but we do, and recall that Stankey addressed Trump’s threatened tariffs in his Q1 call.
Stankey noted tariffs could increase the cost of smartphones and network equipment, but made sure to state that Trump administration policies are facilitating the “laudable goal of creating more equitable global trade and improved domestic manufacturing capabilities.”
Of course, the flattering words didn’t make any difference to Trump when he was experiencing difficulties during the conference call. “We may have to reschedule the call, but we’ll use another carrier the next time,” the president said. “AT&T obviously doesn’t know what they’re doing!”
Trump’s complaint comes about two weeks after his two oldest sons launched Trump Mobile, a new MVNO that claimed to use the 5G networks of all three major U.S. mobile carriers.
Fierce reached out to the Big 3 carriers and none of fessed up to supplying the network for Trump Mobile. However, BestPhonePlans cell phone plan reviewer Stetson Doggett posted a video of the process he went through to activate a phone on Trump Mobile, with the underlying service provider being T-Mobile.