There aren't many things that make you look more like a very important and ball-busting businessman than making and taking phone calls. Donald Trump has leveraged this extremely successfully over the course of his career, and he's showing no signs of stopping.

The Washington Post reports that Trump randomly calls senators at all hours of the day and night to chat about topics including golf and whatever he's just seen on TV, pulling them away from chopping wood or Skyping schoolchildren. Those are odd things to just call up for a natter about, especially if you're meant to be running America, but they're not even in the top five strangest phone calls Trump has been involved in.

The fake SNL call

Pete Davidson recalled that during Trump's 2015 appearance on Saturday Night Live, he pretended to take a call in order to brag about his book Crippled America: How To Make America Great Again. "He, like, faked a phone call during a table read," Davidson told Complex's Open Late. "Right as we started, he goes [miming picking up a phone], 'Uh, hello!' He goes, 'Oh fantastic, OK, great,' and then he hung up. And then he goes, 'Hey everybody, my book just went number one!'

"I swear on my life. And we were all like, yo, that phone didn't ring. And also, how did he have time to say that? Because you answered and went, 'Yup, oh my god, that's great.' He didn't even go, 'Hello? [Stage pause] Oh, wow, that's awesome man. We were all like, urgh."

Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto

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"Big day for trade, big day for our country," Trump said portentously at a stage-managed call to celebrate a new trade treaty. He was promptly upstaged by a malfunctioning speakerphone.

Bob Woodward

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Veteran reporter Woodward had tried repeatedly to talk to Trump for his book Fear. He eventually managed to get through, but too late for the book itself. That conciliatory call soon turned into Trump throwing Kellyanne Conway under the bus before telling Woodward: "I mean, you do know I'm doing a great job for the country?" Don't say that to Bob Woodward. He's unlikely to just accept it.

Theresa May

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A phone call last November which was meant to be a nice catch-up about Trump's midterm results (and a bit of a pick-up for May, who was in the middle of taking a kicking from all sides) turned into Trump berating May about how rubbish he thought her Chequers deal was, the Iran nuclear deal and trade talks from Air Force One. "Everyone knows he was throwing a complete wobbly for two solid days in France. Quite what caused it, we don’t know," a source told the Telegraph. "Had there been a call on that day with anybody it would have been tetchy. From what I understand, it was Trump the Grump that day, but we all have bad days."

Every time John Barron picked up the phone

Back in the 1980s, if Trump needed a bit of muscle to get a message out there but couldn't be seen to do it himself, a favourite tactic was to get his spokesman and good friend John Barron to do it for him over the phone. He called the New York Times to explain why Trump's workers had destroyed two sculptures he'd promised to the Metropolitan Museum of Art - they were "without artistic merit" apparently - and lied to Forbes over the phone about how much of his dad's assets Trump owned so he could get on its list of the 400 richest Americans. Barron was a useful asset to the Trump Organisation, until Trump testified during a 1990 lawsuit that he was, in fact, John Barron.

Every time John Miller picked up the phone

As Trump's 12-year marriage to Ivana came to an end in 1991, People magazine's Sue Carswell called Trump's office to talk to him about the relationship's breakdown and rumours of affairs. He wasn't about, but fortunately his publicist, John Miller was. Trump was doing really well, actually, Miller said, and had loads and loads of ladies on the go. He'd dumped one, Marla Maples, but had "three other girlfriends". Madonna had the hots for him, Miller said, adding "actresses just call to see if they can go out with him and things". Trump has always denied being John Miller, but Carswell said he had later described the call as "a joke gone awry".

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