Subject: The 5-Minute Fix: The ghosts of Donald Trump's past
From: The Washington Post <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 13 May 2016 19:04:56 -0400

Read on the Web >> <http://link.washingtonpost.com/public/6720021>

THE 5-MINUTE FIX
 
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By Amber Phillips

I swear I was going to spend Friday's edition of The 5-Minute Fix talking about something in politics other than Donald Trump. But then this happened.
The Washington Post's Marc Fisher and Will Hobson uncovered examples of the de facto GOP presidential nominee posing as his own spokesperson in conversations with reporters in the 1970s, '80s and '90s. Here's an instance they describe (there's even audio!) of People Magazine reporter Sue Carswell inquiring about an interview with Trump in 1991:
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.”
Donald Trump and his girlfriend Marla Maples  in 1991. (AP Photo)
It's hard to say how this latest revelation will fit into the presidential race. By now, we've learned our lesson on prognosticating about how skeletons from Trump's past (or present) will hurt him.
But Friday's news was certainly entertaining. And it perhaps reinforced a lesson that Trump is learning on this political journey: Running for president means no stone in your life will be left unturned. Even that one time (apparently of many) that you called up a reporter pretending to be your own spokesperson and bragged about how many girlfriends you had.
Trump has also admitted before to using fake names
This story presents a potentially broader problem for Trump by calling into question his truthfulness. Trump said Friday he didn't regularly use fake name to talk to journalists. But as The Fix's Callum Borchers points out, he has admitted to using the name "John Barron" under oath before, albeit not directly to journalists:
"I believe on occasion I used that name," he replied during testimony on a 1990 lawsuit dealing with his employment of undocumented migrant workers from Poland.
On Friday afternoon, Trump hung up with Washington Post reporters while 44 minutes into an interview when they asked him about whether he ever had a spokesperson named John Miller.
This story is likely to become one more example of Trump saying one thing but actually doing another that Democrats can use in the general election to cast doubt on his candidacy.
Trump's Butler problem

Okay, one more Trump update for you. On Thursday, Mother Jones magazine uncovered a disturbing social media trail from Trump's former butler and estate historian, Anthony Senecal, including a post from this week calling for President Obama to be killed. The Secret Service is looking into his comments.
Beyond the threat to the president, Senecal's social media feed is pretty disturbing stuff. The Fix's Janell Ross dove in and had this to report back: "It reads very much like a man of 1716 somehow got hold of the Internet."
Trump's campaign said the guy hasn't worked for Trump since 2009. But here's where we can connect a line to the presidential candidate, via Ross:
Senecal is a birther among birthers — believing that Obama was born abroad, is a secret Muslim masquerading as a Christian and that this combination renders the president illegitimate. And while Trump has "disavowed" Senecal's social media content, it's difficult to totally separate the two.
Hillary Clinton's Rust Belt Trump problem?
(Melina Mara/The Washington Post)
In 2008 and again in 2012, President Obama won Michigan despite not investing a lot of money or effort there.
In 2016, his hopeful successor, Hillary Clinton, is not going to play it nearly that casually in the Rust Belt. The Washington Post's Abby Phillip (not to be confused with yours truly) reports that Clinton's campaign is going to aggressively defend states like Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
The reason?
These are states that are struggling economically, and Clinton's campaign worries voters there could be open to Trump's populist economic message.
Exhibit A: The Fix's Philip Bump zeroes in on Springfield, Ohio, which was one of the cities that fared the worst economically between 2000 and 2014, according to new Pew Research data. The percentage of residents in the middle class fell, while the percentage in the lower economic class rose:
(Philip Bump / The Washington Post)
Bump found the presidential voting record is mixed for counties like the one encompassing Springfield. But Democrats may have reason to worry, he writes: "In 2012, the first election after the brunt of the recession kicked in, nine of those 10 voted more Republican relative to the country than they did four years earlier."
The news also reflects just how unpredictable and mysterious Trump's appeal is to the rest of Washington. The political world just has no idea where he's going to do well -- perhaps because it still doesn't understand why he's doing well in the first place.
Your fake Trump name generator
Because, #Friday. Donald Trump relied on "John Miller" or "John Barron" to go incognito with reporters. So Bump decided the rest of the world should have one of those names, too. Click here to make your own fake Trump name. It looks like this:

PS: Here's mine:

Okay, y'all. That's a wrap! Have a fabulous weekend, and we'll see you Monday for what I'm willing to bet is another crazy week in Election 2016.

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