C-SPAN says it has verified that a caller on Friday who identified himself as "John Barron" and who many viewers were convinced was in reality President Donald Trump was definitely not Trump.

C-SPAN posted on its X account Monday, "Because so many of you are talking about Friday's C-SPAN caller who identified himself as 'John Barron,' we want to put this to rest: it was not the president."

Some viewers of the segment thought the voice sounded like Trump, and some remembered Trump using that name at times when he would call media outlets prior to his initial run for the White House.

C-SPAN may have surprised a few by offering that it can track incoming calls with some degree of accuracy. "The call came from a central Virginia phone number and came while the president was in a widely covered, in-person White House meeting with the governors."

Not everyone was convinced. One follower wrote, "At this stage, absent contrary evidence, this is simply an official denial supported by timing documentation."

Another saw things from an opposite viewpoint, saying, "It was really obvious it was someone doing an impression. The voice was pitched up.

"Cadence was 8/10. The pseudonym thing is common knowledge."

Trump's willingness to pose as a fake spokesman was first reported in 1990, when he testified under oath as part of a lawsuit that he had used the pseudonym John Baron, sometimes rendered in news reports spelled as John Barron, when speaking to journalists by telephone.

"Lots of people use pen names," Newsday quoted him as saying after his testimony. "Ernest Hemingway used one."

Who used which name has remained a matter of some confusion.

The Washington Post reported in 2016 that Barron, also spelled Baron in some press accounts, appeared to be Donald Trump's go-to alias when he was under scrutiny, needed a tough front man, or wanted to convey a message without attaching his own name to it.

The C-SPAN caller in question was responding to the Supreme Court ruling that indicated Trump took the wrong approach to imposing trade tariffs. The caller was identified as a Virginia Republican and said the ruling was "the worst decision you'd ever have in your life."

Another C-SPAN follower wrote, "I think maybe part of the joke was that they were doing an impression of Trump doing an impression. Granted, previous instances of 'John Barron' were much more obviously Trump's voice since he didn't really bother to change it."

Trump on Friday took immediate steps to reimpose a tariff structure he said the Supreme Court would be unable to rule against.

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