‘Stuttering John’ faked a pathetically bad English accent to get through to Trump on Air Force One

In the wake of comedian and podcaster “Stuttering John” Melendez‘s prank call to President Trump, many are wondering how he was able to penetrate the defenses of the most tightly-protected man in the world.

Melendez, who cut his teeth as a former cast member of the Howard Stern Show, spoke with Trump after calling the White House and claiming to be New Jersey Democratic Senator Bob Menendez. Audio of Melendez’s conversation with Trump has since gone viral, which features Trump congratulating the faux-Menendez on the Justice Department’s dismissal of corruption charges against him. The two then discussed immigration and Trump’s next Supreme Court pick, among other things.

Speaking to CNN, Melendez says he initially called the White House and was honest about his identity. But after the White House blew him off, he called back claiming to be an assistant to Menendez named “Shawn Moore.”

“I changed my voice to an English accent,” Melendez said. “I do the worst English accent in the history of English accents. So I said, ‘Yeah, this is Shawn Moore, Sen. Menendez’s assistant, and we’d like to talk to the President.’ They said they’d call me back, and then they called back on cellphone.”

According to Melendez, it was none other than Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner who called him back and put him through. The conversation took place as Trump flew back on Air Force One from a rally in Fargo, North Dakota.

“Donald picks up the phone and I started talking to the President,” Melendez continued. “I never said to Donald that I was Sen. Menendez. I was just talking in my Long Island accent. The thing is, you hear my bad Long Island accent and a voice that Donald has talked to so many times.”

In a tweet from this Thursday, Melendez said that he found it astounding that “the news media’s not picking up the fact that I totally duped the President & got in touch within in less than 2 hours while he was on Air Force One.”

“Shame on, NBC/, CNN & Huffington Post,” he added. “I gave them a news story on their laps.”

During his time on the Stern show, Melendez used similar tactics to gain access to events and make public figures look like fools. The fact that he was able to use these same tactics to gain access to the President isn’t only funny as hell, it’s a serious national security concern.

Listen to audio of the call below:

Featured image via screen grab/YouTube

Sky Palma

Before launching DeadState back in 2012, Sky Palma has been blogging about politics, social issues and religion for over a decade. He lives in Los Angeles and also enjoys Brazilian jiu jitsu, chess, music and art.