Donald Trump Denies “Masquerading” as His Own Spokesman

The Washington Post reported the presidential hopeful would call reporters to feed flattering stories about himself.

Donald Trump is shooting down a report by the Washington Post that claims the real estate magnate and presidential hopeful used to call members of the press pretending to be his own spokesman. According to the Post, he used the pseudonyms John Miller and John Barron—two names Trump admitted under oath in 1990 to using “on occasion.”

Speaking on the Today Show on Friday, Trump dismissed the allegations as a “scam,” saying the voice captured in the phone call recording did not resemble his own.

 

“You’re telling me about it for the first time, and it doesn’t sound like my voice at all,” Trump said. “I have many, many people that are trying to imitate my voice, you can imagine that. This sounds like one of the scams, one of the many scams.”

Earlier on Friday, the Post published audio from a 1991 phone call reportedly recorded by People magazine reporter Sue Carswell. In the audio, Carswell can be heard talking to a man who introduced himself as John Miller but sounds very much like Trump. The report goes on to cite other journalists who recalled a John Miller or John Barron contacting them, sometimes as far back as the 1970s, through similar guises to promote Trump with flattering stories.

To hear the recording in its entirety, head to the Washington Post.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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