Donald Trump on Friday denied that he posed as his own spokesman in a phone interview with a People magazine reporter who covered him in 1991.
"No, 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," Trump said in a phone interview on NBC's "Today" show.
"I have many, many people that are trying to imitate my voice and you can imagine that. This sounds like one of these scams, one of the many scams. It doesn't sound like me," he argued.
A Washington Post report alleges Trump masqueraded as a spokesman for himself under the names John Miller or John Barron.
In a decades-old audio recording of a phone conversation obtained by the Post, a man purporting to be a spokesman for Trump called People magazine reporter Sue Carswell, who was covering the real-estate businessman's public divorce from Ivana Trump. The Post claims Trump posed as his own publicist for the interview.
The alleged publicist, John Miller, said he's handling PR for Trump, "because he gets so much of it." The People reporter, Sue Carswell, asked "Miller" why Trump ended his relationship with model Marla Maples for France's future first lady, Carla Bruni.
Miller explained that "[Trump] really didn't want to make a commitment" because "he's coming out of a marriage, and he's starting to do tremendously well financially."
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Miller boasted in the call about actresses like Madonna calling Trump "just to see if they can go out with him." He also said Trump had "three other girlfriends" while he was living with Maples.
In 1991, Maples identified Trump as the voice in the audio recordings during an interview with People, the "Today" show reported. Trump told Carswell, in a follow-up interview published two weeks later, the John Miller call was a "joke gone awry."
"What I did became a good time at Marla's expense, and I'm very sorry," Trump was quoted saying.
Carswell told NBC News Friday it's "absolutely" Donald Trump in the 1991 audio recording. "There's no doubt in my mind," she added.
According to the Post, Trump routinely called reporters and gossip columnists for decades pretending to be someone else in order to plant stories about himself to boost his image.
Asked about his comments to People, Trump said Friday: "I don't think it was me, it doesn't sounds like me. I don't know what they are talking about. I have no idea."
Trump also addressed his meeting with House Speaker Paul Ryan, saying he was "a little bit surprised" Ryan didn't endorse him on Thursday, but said "it's a process."