Prankster and former Howard Stern personality John Melendez somehow managed to contact President Trump aboard Air Force One while pretending to be a sitting United States Senator.
Melendez, host of “The Stuttering John” podcast, got through several layers of security to reach the president, who thought he was speaking to New Jersey Democratic Senator Bob Menendez when he eventually took the call. And while the conversation revealed the president being polite, friendly, and even congratulatory to a member of the opposition party, Trump, even in a “private” conversation, also obviously had no intentions of backing down from his promises to enforce border security and appoint conservative justices to the Supreme Court.
The call began with President Trump congratulating “Menendez” for beating a “tough, tough situation,” apparently alluding to the Democratic senator’s November mistrial on corruption allegations.
“Congratulations on everything. We’re proud of you,” said Trump “Congratulations, great job. You went through a tough, tough situation, and I don’t think a very fair situation, but congratulations.”
Melendez took the topic to an issue that was bothering his “constituents” — immigration — and asked Trump to go further than his recent executive order reuniting families at the border.
“I think we could do the whole thing … I think we could do a real immigration bill,” said Trump. “We have to have security at the border. We have to have it. I mean, look, we’ve got, sixty percent of the country, they have to have security at the border. And that’s a good issue for the Democrats, too, Bob. It’s not like, its good for you or good for me. it’s good for both of us.”
When the topic turned to Trump’s impending Supreme Court appointment, Melendez told Trump he would “help” if Trump didn’t “go too conservative.”
To that, Trump made no promises, stating that he had “a list” he was going to draw from.
Politico’s Annie Karnie tweeted that the White House has “been scrambling” to “figure out how this happened.”
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