Donald Trump denied a report that he acted as his own spokesman under an assumed name in the 1990s. | Getty Trump denies he impersonated own spokesman in 1991 recording

Donald Trump on Friday vehemently denied a report from The Washington Post that obtained a 1991 telephone recording featuring a man named "John Miller" acting as Trump's media spokesman.

The Post's report noted that many New York reporters in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s often spoke with well-informed men sounding a lot like Trump but who went by the names "John Miller" or "John Barron."


Asked about the report on NBC's " Today " minutes after it published, Trump remarked, "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. You can imagine that. This sounds like one of the scams, one of the many scams. Doesn't sound like me."

Radio host Laura Ingraham ripped into the coverage, telling listeners that the media "are treating this like it's Watergate."

“No, it doesn’t matter,” Ingraham said after playing a clip of Fox News’ Chris Wallace discussing the reports in which he questioned whether it matters. “It’s stupid. But this is going to happen.”

On the tape, the man calling himself Miller gave a revealing look at Trump's personal relationships with women.

“Have you met him?” Miller asked People magazine reporter Sue Carswell, according to the Post's recording. “He’s a good guy, and he’s not going to hurt anybody. ... He treated his wife well and ... he will treat Marla [Maples] well.”

In the recording, Carswell asked Miller about his background, to which he responded, "I've basically worked for different firms," going on to say of Trump that he has "never seen somebody so immune to ... bad press.”

When co-host Savannah Guthrie noted that the Post's report included a contemporary quote from Trump in People magazine in which he remarked that a "John Miller" call " was a “joke gone awry," Trump responded, "I don't think it was me. It doesn't sound like me. I don't know even what they're talking about. Have no idea."

"The Post also says this is what you did routinely. You'd call reporters and plant stories and say you were either John Miller or John Barron. But, in fact, it was actually you on the phone. Is that something you did with any regularity?" Guthrie asked.

"No, and it was not me on the phone. It was not me on the phone. And it doesn't sound like me on the phone. I'll tell you that. And it was not me on the phone. And when was this, 25 years ago?" Trump asked.

Guthrie affirmed that it was from the early 1990s, leading into Trump's latest whacking of the media.

"Wow, you mean you are going so low as to talk about something that took place 25 years ago, about whether or not I made a phone call? I guess you're saying under a presumed name," Trump said. "OK. The answer is no. Let's get on to more current subjects. I know it's wonderful for your listeners, but we have more important things to discuss."

Questioning whether the report revealed anything new about Trump, Ingraham remarked that “the average guy out of Columbus, Ohio, who had his job sent overseas to Korea and is trying to figure out how he’s going to buy a birthday gift for his kid, I don’t think he cares one bit about this. He cares who’s going to fight for him.”

People should care more, Ingraham insisted, about the Obama administration’s latest Education Department directive to public schools, asking them to allow transgender students to use the bathroom facility that corresponds with their gender identity. (For his part, Trump said Friday that should be left up to the states to decide.)

“And we’re going to worry about what Trump said as a publicist in 1992 [sic]?" Ingraham asked. "It’s just ridiculous.”

Elsewhere, Ted Cruz supporter Glenn Beck lamented the fact that the report was just now surfacing.

“The media’s doing their homework now,” Beck said on his show Friday. “Or they’ve done their homework. They’re just now releasing it.”

