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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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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