Tuesday at a press conference at Trump Tower in New York City, while explaining his contributions to veterans’ charities, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump got into several heated exchanges with the press even calling one of the reporters a “sleaze”.
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“Trump just called me a ‘sleaze.’ Should be an interesting week”, tweeted Tom Llamas, who is covering the GOP side of the presidential debate for ABC.
Gesturing to Llamas, he ranted: “I could have asked all these [veterans groups] to come here and I didn’t want to do that – I’m not looking for credit”.
Later, Trump pointed to an ABC reporter and called him a “sleaze”.
“You’re a sleaze because you know the facts and you know the facts well”, Trump replied.
CNN’s Jim Acosta asked Trump whether his characterization of the press as “dishonest” and “disgusting” was fair.
Arguing that it took time to vet and send the money to all of the organizations, the GOP White House hopeful took issue with media reports questioning the contributions.
“Writing a million dollar check is incredibly generous…but your critics say you exaggerate, is this a prime example?”, one reporter said. Originally, Trump had said that he’d raised more than $6 million. That evening, Trump said he raised $6 million for veterans groups.
At one point, a reporter for British-newspaper The Daily Mail noted to Trump that he had set a new bar in calling some members of the media “losers”, asking whether such interactions would continue to be contentious if Trump won the presidency. When I raised money, excuse me, excuse me.
“The press should be ashamed”, he said. “I have to tell you that”.
Army veteran Perry O’Brien with protesting veterans, outside the Trump news conference.
Trump attacked Llamas and ABC a year ago in August for his coverage of a spat between Trump and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who was seeking the Republican nomination at the time. But Trump, who was flanked by veterans, countered that it was all done “out of the goodness of my heart”.
He added, somewhat morosely, “I have never received such bad publicity for doing such a good job”. So the veterans groups were dragged in as a fig leaf of respectability for Trump’s puerile behaviour. “But I think the political press – I see the stories and the way they’re couched”.
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With Tuesday’s press conference aired live by all the main cable news networks, he was beamed unedited across the country and, in Trumpland at least, there is no target that deserved a good kicking like the news media does. “I have given a lot of money… and I think when the press portrays it differently, the press is being very dishonest, so I don’t like that”.
