***Guest Post from Lukewarm Jonah***
We have an amazing scoop here at The Jonah Show. I’ve managed to find John Miller, former Trump employee and secure an interview. He didn’t want to be on tape, but graciously agreed to let me transcribe our interview. Truly, this is a major break for us to interview someone who was very close to the now president of the United States.
Jonah: First of all, thank you so much for being here.
John Miller: My pleasure, thank you for having me.
Jonah: Let’s dive right into it, what is your relationship to President Trump?
Miller: I worked PR, public relations for him in the early 90’s.
Jonah: Just a business relationship then?
Miller: Well, a business relationship, but also a friendship. He trusted me, he knew I was good at what I do, so he hired me in a professional manner.
Jonah: I have to ask about the famous 1991 People magazine article that got a lot of press a few months ago.
Miller: Go ahead.
Jonah: Thank you, first of all, was that you on the tape?
Miller: Yes that was me.
Jonah: You know a lot of people who heard that thought it sounded like Mr. Trump.
Miller: I can understand people hearing those similarities but it was definitely me. I remember doing that interview.
Jonah: OK, now that we’ve got that out of the way, what about the things you said during the interview? Were they all true?
Miller: Well, no, not all of them.
Jonah: So you lied during the interview?
Miller: I did my job to promote Mr. Trump and in doing so said some things that weren’t exactly true. I was a publicist, part of my job was spinning things positively, and sometimes that included embellishing certain things.
Jonah: What in particular did you embellish?
Miller: I mean, I don’t know exactly what was said and what was an embellishment.
Jonah: I’m going to go through a few claims here and you tell me whether they were true or whether they were, as you say, an embellishment. Is that OK?
Miller: Yes that’s fine.
Jonah: Alright, did he ever date Carla Bruni, the former first lady of France?
Miller: No, I don’t believe I ever said he did.
Jonah: Let me look here, well no you didn’t say he ever dated her but you implied that she was interested in him.
Miller: That’s PR.
Jonah: Fair enough. The article does outright state that Madonna called and asked Mr. Trump out, so I ask you did Madonna ever call and ask out Mr. Trump?
Miller: No, they were at the same charity event and they talked and who knows what they talked about?
Jonah: But just to be clear, the part of the article that states Madonna called and was interested in dating Mr. Trump is false.
Miller: Yes, that part was embellished.
Jonah: Moving on, you talk about how well Mr. Trump is doing financially in the article. Was that true?
Miller: What you have to understand is that when you’re a businessman like Mr. Trump, you have to portray a certain image. I was helping him portray an image of a successful businessman.
Jonah: Are you saying that wasn’t the actual case?
Miller: Well I’m sure you’re smart enough to have done your research.
Jonah: About how he filed bankruptcy because of the Trump Taj Mahal that is mentioned in the article?
Miller: Yes, it’s all public record so I’m sure you know all about it.
Jonah: So all the talk about how well he was doing was false?
Miller: Well as I’ve said I’m sure you’ve seen the records, so no, obviously he wasn’t doing that well financially but he had an image to portray.
Jonah: You also talked about some of Mr. Trump’s exes and made some interesting claims about them. I’d like to ask you about some of those claims.
Miller: Alright, go ahead.
Jonah: Did Ivana want to get back with Mr. Trump?
Miller: Not to my knowledge no.
Jonah: So she wasn’t calling or contacting Donald to try and get back together?
Miller: No.
Jonah: Did Mr. Trump have three other girlfriends living with him when he was with Marla Maples?
Miller: No, of course not.
Jonah: So why did you say that?
Miller: I’ve already explained, it’s PR, it’s an image.
Jonah: Do you see anything wrong with what you did?
Miller: Not really, I was just doing my job. PR is a complicated business and I did what I was supposed to do. We all have to make sacrifices and choices about what we do for work. We all do things that we don’t necessarily want to do, but need to do.
Jonah: OK, well what do you think about Trump’s situation with his press secretary now?
Miller: Well I can tell you that if I was his press secretary, we wouldn’t be getting made fun of. I do feel sorry for some of the people who have gone through the position, especially Sean. I know that Mr. Trump’s message can be, let’s say confusing.
Jonah: What do you mean by that?
Miller: Well, you understand that I spun certain things in a positive light. That was my job. The press secretary’s job is to deliver a clear message from Mr. Trump. His message can be a little all over the place, a little disjointed.
Jonah: Go on.
Miller: The thing is, when you know Mr. Trump, and you know how to stay on message, then you can get across his point. What Sean had to do was figure out what Mr. Trump wanted to say in a short amount of time, and the problem is his opinions change quickly. What Sean had to deal with is delivering a message from Mr. Trump that could change. You see, I just had to stay positive and stay on message. Sean didn’t know how to stay positive and stay on message. He got rattled, and to be honest his message was more complex than the message I had to deliver.
Jonah: What would you have done differently?
Miller: I would have kept things simple. You need very basic, very general ideas. You don’t stray from those, keep it simple.
Jonah: But these are complicated issues that he’s dealing with, and as you said Trump’s opinion, and therefore message can change in a short amount of time. How would you deal with being sent out to say one thing, and then hours later being contradicted by Trump?
Miller: Honestly, there are things about Mr. Trump that will never change. If you really know what’s important to him, things like his image, you can go out there and say things that won’t be contradicted. The real problem is the complexity of the issues that these press secretaries have been dealing with. I can go out there right now, take questions without ever talking to Mr. Trump, and be able to give passable fluff answers that I know won’t be contradicted by Mr. Trump because I know him and know what he’s looking for. If I really got pressed on some specific issue, I’d just have to respectfully answer that Mr. Trump was looking into that issue and considering all sides. He’s doing his research and should have a concrete stance after he’s consulted some experts. You see if you don’t know something, you don’t want to admit that, and you don’t just want to say a stance that might change. That makes you look stupid, and it could make Mr. Trump look stupid. It all goes back to keeping it simple and staying positive. It really is PR, you make Mr. Trump look good and you look good. It’s that simple.
Jonah: Well there’s been a lot of turnover in the position of press secretary. Would you consider taking the position if it opens up again in the future?
Miller: I would think about it, but to be honest I’m more comfortable behind the scenes. I do public relations, I help promote other people, but being in front of the press every day isn’t my idea of fun. I’d rather see my name mentioned briefly in an article about someone else, then be the focus of the story.
Jonah: It seems like Trump could use some of your PR right now, his approval rating keeps falling lower and lower.
Miller: He definitely could use my talents right now, there are a lot of scandals that won’t go away and if I was running his PR people wouldn’t be getting distracted by his random outbursts, they’d be getting distracted by good news.
Jonah: On those scandals, the one that keeps hanging around are his ties to Russia. Are you aware of any business dealings he had there?
Miller: I’d rather not answer that question.
Jonah: We’ve had a very open and seemingly honest interview up until now, but this question you don’t want to answer?
Miller: That is correct.
Jonah: You’re smart enough to see how that looks to the average person, we’ve been having a nice conversation then suddenly you don’t want to answer a question. You know how that looks right?
Miller: I have no comment on that issue. In fact, we’ve spoken for quite some time and I have other work to do. I’d like to wrap this up if we can.
Jonah: Well, OK then. I want to thank you for your time Mr. Miller, I really do appreciate you taking the time to speak with me today.
Miller: No problem, you have a good day.
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