Trump now uses text messages

New phone, who dis?

Former President Donald Trump is now firing off text messages to a select group of individuals, The Post has learned, ending his long-time aversion to leaving a paper or digital record of his communications. 

Four people close to Trump, 76, told The Post they are aware of the ex-president’s foray into texting, with one saying that he began sending messages to “a few people a couple months ago.”

It’s unclear what exactly Trump is writing to his contacts — after famously preferring for years to speak on the phone or annotate printouts with a black Sharpie.

Still, some of Trump’s closest allies told The Post that they were surprised at the revelation — or that they were yet to join the former Twitter addict’s text chains.

Trump has acknowledged avoiding electronic communications, in part to limit his legal liability. As president, he had a habit of tearing up documents after reading them — forcing archival staff to tape them together. Some allegedly were flushed down the toilet.

The former president’s refusal to text presented a challenge to investigators from a House select committee who tried to figure out Trump’s thought process and actions as rioters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. 

“I’ve never texted with him,” Trump’s daughter Ivanka told the committee during an interview, adding that she didn’t even know if her father’s White House phone had text message functionality. 

“I have never heard of him using text message,” she added

“I don’t know anybody who’s texted him,” Kimberly Guilfoyle, fiancée of the former president’s eldest son, Don Jr., told the panel. 

Trump Jr. himself explained to the committee that his father “doesn’t text,” which is why the younger Trump reached out to then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows urging him to get the 45th president to “condemn this s—“ as the riot violence worsened.

Word of Trump’s embrace of texting came the same day that Meta announced he would be reinstated to Facebook and Instagram after being banned from posting on those sites for more than two years.

Trump, who is gearing up to campaign for the Republican nomination for president in 2024, has been telling confidantes he is eagerly anticipating the expiration of a “social media exclusivity term” with Truth Social, the app founded by his company Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), so he can get back on Twitter and Facebook.

In November, Twitter’s new boss, Elon Musk, lifted the ban on the former president that was put into effect following the riot at the Capitol.