Donald Trump reportedly posed as his own PR agent to brag about women who were interested in him, including alleged lies he told about the woman who would become the First Lady of France.
The Washington Post reports:
New York reporters and editors who covered Trump’s early career experienced in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s: calls from Trump’s Manhattan office that resulted in conversations with “John Miller” or “John Barron” — public-relations men who sound precisely like Trump himself — who indeed are Trump, masquerading as an unusually helpful and boastful advocate for himself, according to the journalists and several of Trump’s top aides.
The Post obtained a 1991 recording of someone who is likely Trump posing as a man named “John Miller,” claiming to be Trump’s PR man. Although “Miller” protests “I’m sort of new here,” “I’m somebody that he knows and I think somebody that he trusts and likes,” and “I’m going to do this a little, part-time, and then, yeah, go on with my life,” as he tries to pass himself off as genuine, there are tipoffs that Trump himself is posing as Miller to brag about himself.
The recording was made during an interview with Sue Carswell, a reporter at People magazine, who was supposed to cover the fallout of Trump’s disintegrating marriage with his wife Ivana, the start of his relationship with Marla Maples, who would later become Trump’s second wife, and Trump’s reputed numerous affairs.
“Miller” bragged, “Actresses just call to see if they can go out with him and things.” Madonna “wanted to go out with him.” “Miller” boasted that despite living with Maples, Trump had “three other girlfriends.” “Miller” told Carswell why Trump supposedly dumped Maples for the Italian model Carla Bruni, asserting, “He really didn’t want to make a commitment. He’s coming out of a marriage, and he’s starting to do tremendously well financially.”
As Buzzfeed reported, in late June 1991, NBC’s Today reported: “And Donald Trump is reportedly breaking up with Marla Maples, the woman said to have come between him and his wife Ivana.The New York Post is reporting that she’s been ordered out of Trump’s luxury high-rise apartment, and that Trump has begun dating an Italian model named Carla Bruni.” The next day, Trump confirmed that Bruni was the “new one” in his life. Bruni, furiously denied she was dating Trump. As Buzzfeed notes, “According to one biography, Trump himself planted the story for publicity.
But “Miller” apparently slipped; queried as to the importance of Bruni, “Miller” said, “I think it’s somebody that — you know, she’s beautiful. I saw her once, quickly, and beautiful . . . ” then he quickly returned to speaking about Trump in the third person. Trump had three children at the time.
Carswell said she suspected “Miller” was Trump, “It’s so weird that Donald hired someone who sounds just like him.” She played the tape for other reporters she worked with; they cinfirmed the voice was Trump’s. She played the tape for Cindy Adams, the longtime New York Post gossip columnist who had been close to Trump for nearly 20 years; Adams exclaimed, “Oh, that’s Donald,” Carswell recalled Adams saying. “What is he doing?” Finally, Carswell played the tape for Maples, who agreed it was Trump as she listened, then burst into tears as “Miller” denied that a ring Trump gave Maples meant Trump would marry her.
Carswell’s story “Trump Says Goodbye Marla, Hello Carla . . . And a Mysterious PR Man Who Sounds Just Like Donald Calls to Spread the Story” prompted an invitation from Trump to join him and Maples for an evening, which Carswell suspected was forced by maples because Trump had tricked her. Weeks later , when People reported males and Trump were engaged, Trump was quoted saying that the John Miller call was a “joke gone awry.”
In 1990, Trump admitted in court that testified in a court case that “I believe on occasion I used that name,” referring to “John Miller.”
Despite Trump having admitted that the John Miller call was a joke many years ago, on Friday, Trump called in to the Today program to deny that he was “John Miller.” He blustered:
No, I don’t think it — I don’t know anything about it. You’re telling me about it for the first time and it doesn’t sound like my voice at all. I have many, many people that are trying to imitate my voice and then you can imagine that, and this sounds like one of the scams, one of the many scams — doesn’t sound like me … It was not me on the phone. And it doesn’t sound like me on the phone, I will tell you that, and it was not me on the phone. And when was this? Twenty-five years ago?”
Carswell was far from the only reporter to be solicited by someone who may well have been Trump. From his early career, Trump would pose as someone else when speaking on the phone to reporters, often using the name “John Barron.”
The Post reports, “New York Daily News gossip columnist Linda Stasi said Trump once left her a voice mail from an “anonymous tipster” who wanted it known that Trump had been spotted going out with models. And editors at New York tabloids said calls from Barron were at points so common that they became a recurring joke on the city desk.”
Additionally:
A “John Baron,” described as a “vice-president of the Trump organization,” appeared in a front-page New York Times article as early as 1980, defending Trump’s decision to destroy sculptures on the facade of the Bonwit Teller department store building, the Fifth Avenue landmark he was demolishing to make way for his Trump Tower. Barron was quoted variously as a “Trump spokesman,” “Trump executive,” or “Trump representative” in New York magazine, The Washington Post and other publications.
Carswell, who now works for Vanity Fair, stated that the tape of the 1991 interview cut off in the middle of the interview, before “miller” could brag that actress Kim Basinger had been trying to date Trump.
Listening to the tape for the first time in decades, she commented, “This was so farcical, that he pretended to be his own publicist. Here was this so-called billion-dollar real estate mogul, and he can’t hire his own publicist. It also said something about the control he wanted to keep of the news cycle flowing with this story, and I can’t believe he thought he’d get away with it.”