Saturday on CNN’s “Smerconish,” former Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Jennifer Lin recounted a telephone conversation she claimed to have had with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in 1988, who took issue with one of her stories.
According to Lin, Trump unleashed an angry tirade on her and her boss at the time, Craig Stock.
“Michael, I was working in the Wall Street office of the Philadelphia Inquirer and I got a phone call,” Lin said. “The woman said, ‘Hold for Mr. Trump,’ and then Mr. Trump began to yell at me,” Lin said. “He told me I had shit for brains. He told me I worked for a shitty newspaper and said, ‘What sort of shit was I writing?’ I was stunned. He hung up. He call my boss in Philadelphia and treated my boss to the same sort of rant. But then he added that he referred to me as the c-word, a word I will not use, Michael, because in my opinion it’s the worst word in the English language to refer to a woman. But, he complained to my boss. He called me the c-word and my boss said if there was any problem with the story we would run a correction. So, what was wrong with the story, Mr. Trump? And Mr. Trump said he had not read the story only read the headline. So my boss said to call him back if there were any problems and he never called back.
Lin went on to explain the timing of her going public with the story and claims that her story about that encounter with Trump had been consistent throughout the years.
“Michael, when Donald Trump tells you have shit for brains, that’s not something you forget,” she added. “And I had been telling this story for 28 years. I’ve been telling it to my friends and family. I’ve been telling it to my sisters. I’ve been telling it to my daughter and her friends and my nieces. I’ve been telling it a lot. Yes, I have not forgotten that Donald Trump told me I had shit for brains and that he called me a c-word and I have been repeating this story for 28 years.”
According to Smerconish, the Trump campaign through a statement from senior campaign adviser David Urban strongly denied Lin’s account.
“This accusation is categorically false. I find it incredibly coincidental that this person’s crystal clear recollection of one sentence, one word, spoken nearly thirty years ago just happens to coincide with Mr. Trump’s surge in Pennsylvania. This is nothing more than an avowed liberal reporter who is trying to exploit Mr. Trump’s reputation as click-bait for her tabloid stories.”
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