Donald Trump denies report about him using iPhones in tweet sent from an iPhone

Photo: Getty Images / AFP / Hector Guerrero

Donald Trump has said he "seldom" uses his iPhone in one of a series of tweets sent from an iPhone.

Responding to an article that alleged he could be accidentally divulging state secrets by chatting about them on his own insecure smartphones, he said that he only uses government-issued phones, that he "seldom" uses them anyway and that the report was too false for him to have time to correct.

"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 posted on Twitter.

"I only use Government Phones, and have only one seldom used government cell phone," he wrote, in one of many of his tens of thousands of tweets posted using an iPhone. "Story is soooo wrong!"

The message was posted from Twitter's own app for the iPhone, as shown by the company's own Tweetdeck client.

Mr Trump has repeatedly suggested he posts his own tweets, many of which are posted from the iPhone.

He has sent three tweets over the morning, including the one in which he claimed to rarely use his mobile phone, all of which were posted using an iPhone. All of Mr Trump's recent posts have been sent using an Apple handset.

Last year, it was claimed that the president tweets from a special iPhone that has only one app – the official Twitter client – installed.

The New York Times report suggested that Mr Trump had been given two government-issued iPhones, with special protections built in, that he was expected to use. But it said he was still using a personal one, in part because it had his contacts stored inside and allows him to call old friends.

The report alleged that Mr Trump was allowing Russian and Chinese spies to listen in on his calls when he spoke to old friends using his personal Apple phone.

Mr Trump's aides have repeatedly warned him that his cellphone calls are not secure and that Russian spies routinely eavesdrop on the conversations, but they say the president still refuses to give up his cellular phones, the NYT reported.

The officials said U.S. spy agencies had learned from people in foreign governments and by intercepting communications from foreign officials that China and Russia were listening to the president's calls.

China has a sophisticated approach towards the intercepted calls and is seeking to use them to determine what Trump thinks, whom he listens to and how best to sway him, the Times claimed.

Additional reporting by agencies