Fox News, MAGA hats and cookies: Inside Trump's West Wing

Trump likes to see whom he wants and call whom he chooses, and in the new term, he presides over a White House that mirrors the man, current and former aides say.

WASHINGTON — The military leaders who came to the Oval Office to discuss the new F-47 stealth fighter jet had a few surprises in store.

At one point in their sit-down with President Donald Trump, Mark Zuckerberg, the Meta chief executive, walked in unexpectedly. Worried that he didn’t have security clearance, officials asked the social media magnate to wait outside, two people familiar with the meeting said.

A young aide also came in during the meeting, showed the president something on her laptop computer and left. Trump’s cellphone rang a couple of times.

Expecting more privacy in the meeting with the commander in chief, some of the officials came away mystified and a bit unnerved. They quietly discussed among themselves whether the visitors and calls might have compromised sensitive information, with one asking whether they should be concerned about “spillage.”

Trump affectionately refers to the Oval Office as “Grand Central Terminal” because of all the comings and goings, a senior White House official said. One of the people familiar with the winter meeting about the plane used another term: “bizarro world.”