President Trump appears to have been the victim of a prank phone call. Podcast host and former “Howard Stern Show” staffer John Melendez, better known as “Stuttering John,” claims to have placed the call on Wednesday while Mr. Trump was flying back from a campaign rally in Fargo, North Dakota.
While the White House isn’t commenting on the matter, the audio has been posted online in a podcast. On the six-minute call, Melendez claims to be New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez and appears to engage the president in a number of pressing issues, including immigration and the president’s pending decision on naming a Supreme Court justice nominee to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy.
At one point in the alleged conversation, the president congratulates Sen. Menendez on his recent acquittal on corruption charges, saying, “You went through a tough, tough situation and I don’t think a very fair situation but congratulations.”
When asked to confirm if the president was on the call, a White House official told CBS News: “We are not engaging on this at all.”
In a statement, Sen. Menendez told CBS News, “I welcome any opportunity to have a real conversation with the president on how to uphold the American values that guided our family-based immigration policy for the past century.”
To hear excerpts from the alleged conversation, watch the video in the player above.
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