Trump posed as his publicist

The voice is instantly familiar; the tone, confident, even cocky; the cadence, distinctly Trumpian. The man on the phone vigorously defending Donald Trump says he's a media spokesman named John Miller, but then he says, "I'm sort of new here," and "I'm somebody that he knows and I think somebody that he trusts and likes" and even "I'm going to do this a little, part time, and then, yeah, go on with my life."

A recording obtained by the Post captures what 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.

In 1991, Sue Carswell, a reporter at People magazine, called Trump's office seeking an interview with the developer. She had just been assigned to cover the soap opera surrounding the end of Trump's 12-year marriage to Ivana, his budding relationship with the model Marla Maples, and his rumored affairs with any number of celebrities who regularly appeared on the gossip pages of the New York newspapers.

Within five minutes, Carswell got a return call from Trump's publicist, a man named John Miller, who immediately jumped into a startlingly frank and detailed explanation of why Trump dumped Maples for the Italian model Carla Bruni. "He really didn't want to make a commitment," Miller said. "He's coming out of a marriage, and he's starting to do tremendously well financially."

Miller turned out to be a remarkably forthcoming source - a spokesman with rare insight into the private thoughts and feelings of his client. "Have you met him?" Miller asked the reporter. "He's a good guy, and he's not going to hurt anybody. . . . He treated his wife well and . . . he will treat Marla well."

Some reporters found the calls from Miller or Barron disturbing or even creepy; others thought they were just examples of Trump being playful. Today, as the presumptive Republican nominee for president faces questions about his attitudes toward women, what stands out to some who received those calls is Trump's characterization of women whom he portrayed as drawn to him sexually.

"Actresses," Miller said in the call to Carswell, "just call to see if they can go out with him and things." Madonna "wanted to go out with him." And Trump's alter ego boasted that in addition to living with Maples, Trump had "three other girlfriends."

Miller was consistent about referring to Trump as "he," but at one point, when asked how important Bruni was in Trump's busy love life, the spokesman said, "I think it's somebody that - you know, she's beautiful. I saw her once, quickly, and beautiful . . ." and then he quickly pivoted back into talking about Trump - then a 44-year-old father of three - in the third person.

In 1990, Trump testified in a court case that "I believe on occasion I used that name." He did not respond to a request for comment for this article.

In a phone call to NBC's Today program Friday, Trump denied that he was John Miller. "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," he said. "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."

Later, he was more definitive: "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?"

Trump has never been terribly adamant about denying that he often made calls to reporters posing as someone else. From his earliest years in business, he occasionally called reporters using the name "John Barron."

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.

Trump's fascination with the name "Barron" persisted for decades. When he was seeing Maples while still married to Ivana, he sometimes used the code name "the Baron" when he left messages for her. In 2004, when Trump commissioned a dramatic TV series based on the life of a New York real estate mogul like him, his only request to the writer was to name the main character "Barron." And when Trump and his third wife, Melania, had a son, they named him Barron.

Carswell this week recalled that she immediately recognized something familiar in the Queens accent of Trump's new publicist. She thought, "It's so weird that Donald hired someone who sounds just like him." After the 20-minute interview, she walked down the hall to play the tape to coworkers, who identified Trump's voice. Carswell then called Cindy Adams, the longtime New York Post gossip columnist who had been close to Trump since the early 1970s. Adams immediately identified the voice as Trump's.

"Oh, that's Donald," Carswell recalled Adams saying. "What is he doing?"

Then Carswell played the tape for Maples, who confirmed it was Trump and burst into tears as she heard Miller deny that a ring Trump gave her implied any intent to marry her.

The Post obtained the recording from a source who asked to be identified only as a person with whom Carswell shared the microcassette of the call shortly after the interview.

Carswell, now a reporter-researcher at Vanity Fair, was far from the only reporter who received calls from suspiciously Trumpian characters. Linda Stasi, then a New York Daily News gossip columnist, 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.