The president of the United States, Donald Trump has apparently received and returned a prank phone call from a comedian as he was returning to Washington DC aboard Air Force One recently. John Melendez, a veteran performer on Howard Stern and Jay Leno’s shows, known to his listeners as “Stuttering John” pretended to be Senator Robert Menendez on the call.
Melendez, told the media that he was “shocked” to receive a callback after a series of long-shot prank calls to the White House switchboard. “I just could not believe that it took us an hour-and-a-half to get Jared Kushner and Donald Trump on the phone from the Air Force One,” he said.
Melendez and his producer called the White House and asked to speak to the President. Melendez tried again, this time using a fake British accent and claiming to be an assistant to Senator Menendez. He had identified himself as Sean Moore (“S-E-A-N, as in Sean Connery, and Moore, as in Roger Moore”), an aide to Mr. Menendez who, he claimed, badly needed to speak to Mr Trump.
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In between barely suppressed giggles and off-color jokes with his producer they were patched through to Trump on Air Force One.
As far as the President knew, he was taking a call from Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat leader from New Jersey, who seemed to have an urgent legislative matter he wanted to raise.
Despite noting that the comedian’s phone number was not on their records for Menendez, the operator accepted Melendez’s explanation that he was on vacation. Melendez subsequently described receiving a call from Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, before playing the audio of the apparent call from Trump.
Earlier this week, Melendez himself posted on Twitter, “Tune into my new Podcast where I prank call the President & he calls me from Air Force One!”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Guardian, but a White House official gave a statement to the media: “The President wants to be accessible to members and likes engaging them and wants them to have the opportunity to connect. The downside of that is sometimes the channels are open too widely and mistakes like this happen.”
This is how the taped conversation apparently went,
“Hi, Bob. How are you? Congratulations on everything, we’re proud of you,” the voice presumed to be the president says, apparently referencing the resolution of a five-year corruption investigation into the New Jersey Democrat. “You went through a tough, tough situation, and I don’t think a very fair situation, but congratulations.”
The pair briefly discussed immigration, with Trump stating, “I want to be able to take care of the situation every bit as much as anybody else at the top level. I’d rather do the larger solution rather than the smaller solution.”
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The comedian also urged the president to choose a supreme court nominee who is not overly conservative, with Trump responding that he had “a big list of people” and that he would announce a nominee in 12 to 14 days.
Well! Comedians will do what they do but, Trump is not the first person in high office to fall for such a trick. Earlier in May, the British foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, held an 18-minute phone conversation with a Russian prankster pretending to be the Armenian Prime Minister. In 1995, Queen Elizabeth II spoke for 17 minutes with a Canadian radio host pretending to be the Prime Minister.