Former President Donald Trump may have called a Democratic politician while posing as a reporter, a new book claims.
In her book Confidence Man, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman details how Michigan Democratic Representative Debbie Dingell received a call from someone claiming to be a reporter, but who she believes was actually Mr Trump.
The excerpt was first reported in The Washington Post.
"When she answered, the man on the other end identified himself as a Washington Post reporter, and said he knew her husband from his investigations in Congress. The name he gave was not one she recognized," Haberman wrote.
The "reporter" allegedly asked Ms Dingell if she wanted an apology from Mr Trump.
"The man asked Dingell if she was looking for an apology from Trump. No, she replied, merely that people could be civil to one another," Ms Haberman wrote. "As the man talked, Dingell couldn't shake the idea that his voice sounded like that of the forty-fifth president."
Ms Dingell's husband, John Dingell, was a Congressman from Michigan who died in 2019. Later that year, Mr Trump suggested he went to hell.
During a campaign rally in Battle Creek, Michigan, Mr Trump told a story about how Ms Dingell allegedly said she appreciated the then-president ordering flags to be flown at half mast after her husband — the longest serving member in congressional history — died.
"John would be so thrilled. He's looking down, he'd be so thrilled. Thank you so much sir," Mr Trump claimed she said. Then he made the comment "maybe he's looking up, I don't know."
Ms Dingell criticised Mr Trump for the comments, saying she was hurt by the remarks and later on the same day he made the comments she voted to proceed with his first impeachment.
"I'm preparing for the first holiday season without the man I love. You brought me down in a way you can never imagine and your hurtful words just made my healing much harder," she wrote on Twitter.
If Mr Trump was the one on the call, it wouldn't be the first time he has been accused of trying to pass himself off as someone other than himself.
The Washington Post spoke with several reporters from New York who claimed that they received calls in the 1970's, 80's and 90's from a "publicist" for Mr Trump – using names including “John Barron” and “John Miller” – who they suspect was actually the former president pitching them stories and praise about himself.
There were suspicions that a letter to New York magazine in 1992, purportedly from a Trump secretary called ”Carolin Gallego”, was really from Mr Trump because of the similarities in speech patterns. The letter was about how popular the then businessman was with the opposite sex and included the line: “The most beautiful women, the most successful women — all women love Donald Trump.” Efforts by journalists to track down a Trump secretary called Carolin Gallego were unsuccessful.
