Speaking to CNN, former Forbes reporter Jonathan Greenberg said that Trump "figured out what he had to do in order to deceive me and get onto that [Forbes 400 Richest] list."
In 1984, Trump's net worth was recorded at 400 million dollars on the Forbes 400 list even though his actual net worth as a real estate developer at the time was less than five million dollars, according to Greenberg.
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"And he did it very well. He maintained that persona of just sort of talking about his assets without any sense of debt and lying about it," Greenberg added referring to Trump posing as "John Barron," a purported Trump Organization executive, during their phone talk.
In an op-ed for The Washington Post, Greenberg wrote that Trump was "telling a lie so cosmic that people believed that some kernel of it had to be real."
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"The tactic landed him a place on the Forbes list he hadn't earned and led to future accolades, press coverage and deals. It eventually paved a path toward the presidency," Greenberg pointed out.
Twitter users were quick to respond to the news with a wave of sarcastic remarks, blaming "crazy" Trump for repeatedly telling lies.