By Kanishka Singh
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday blamed AT&T for technical issues in a conference call he held with American faith leaders and urged the wireless carrier’s boss to handle the situation.
The president also said his administration may use another carrier’s service in other calls.
“I’m doing a major Conference Call with Faith Leaders from all over the Country, and AT&T is totally unable to make their equipment work properly,” Trump wrote on social media about the call on Monday.
“This is the second time it’s happened. If the Boss of AT&T, whoever that may be, could get involved — It would be good. There are tens of thousands of people on the line!”
AT&T said on X it had reached out to the White House and was working to “understand and assess the situation.” Trump did not elaborate on the specifics of the issue.
In a subsequent post, Trump apologized to faith leaders for what he described as a long wait on the conference call.
“We may have to reschedule the call, but we’ll use another carrier the next time,” Trump said.
AT&T shares pared gains very briefly after Trump’s post then recovered.
During his first White House term, Trump criticized the company, which at the time owned CNN, about the news channel’s coverage of his administration.
Earlier this month, Trump’s family business licensed its name to launch a U.S. mobile service and a $499 smartphone, calling it Trump Mobile, in a deal brokered by the president’s children.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh, Jasper Ward and David Shepardson in Washington; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Cynthia Osterman)
