John Miller Tape

Overview

John Miller Tape refers to an audio recording of a man named John Miller, who identifies himself as a publicist speaking on behalf of Donald Trump, in a telephone interview conducted by a reporter for People magazine in 1990. Following the release of the recording by The Washington Post in May 2016, many speculated that Miller was actually a fictional persona invented and assumed by Trump himself to prop up his own importance to the press.

Background

On May 13th, 2016, The Washington Post^[1] published an article titled “Donald Trump Masqueraded as Publicist to Brag About Himself,” which reported that the New York City real estate mogul had routinely pretended to be a publicist for himself under the names "John Miller" and "John Barron" when speaking to the press, citing the accounts of journalists, his former aides and a 1990 audio recording of a phone conversation between People magazine reporter Sue Carswell and John Miller, a man identifying himself as Trump’s publicist (shown below) that the newspaper had obtained.

Notable Developments

That day, Trump denied he was the man heard in the recording during an interview on the morning talk show Today (shown below, left). Also on May 13th, Fox News host Megyn Kelly discussed the tape with Carswell, who denied giving the recording to The Washington Post and suggested Trump leaked the tape himself to generate publicity (shown below, right).

Meanwhile, the Fox News segment was submitted in a thread on /pol/, which subsequently reached the front page of the /r/The_Donald^[3] subreddit (shown below). Within 72 hours, the post gained over 4,400 votes (80% upvoted) and 400 comments.

On May 14th, former Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone appeared on Breitbart radio, where he defended Trump for possibly posing as his own publicist:

"Trump wanted to get his spin and his side of the story, so he handled the press call himself, probably because he didn’t want to pay a public relations expert. What difference does it make?"

The same day, Redditor MAGA_Navigator submitted a photoshopped picture of Trump standing next to himself titled "Trump announces his VP pick: John Miller" (shown below). In 48 hours, the post garnered more than 5,000 votes (76% upvoted) and 120 comments.

On May 15th, the show Last Week Tonight host John Oliver mocked Trump for his response to the Miller tapes (shown below).

Search Interest

External References