But on Tuesday, he laid into the press at Trump Tower in NY for questioning his claim to have raised $6 million for veteran charities on one night in Iowa last January after skipping a Fox News Republican debate.
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On the same day as Moulton’s offensive, Trump released a report that said he contributed $5.6 million to veterans charities.
And he vowed the White House briefing room would be just as combative as the Trump Tower lobby, where the developer addressed reporters Tuesday, should he ascend to the Oval Office.
“Yeah, it is going to be like this”, Trump said when asked if this is how he would behave with the press as president.
“I know how hard this job is, and I know that we need steadiness, as well as strength and smarts in it, and I have concluded that he is not qualified to be president of the United States”, Clinton said.
In a speech yesterday, Trump went on a personal verbal attack on some members of the media for what he perceives as biassed media coverage.
CNN has also reached out to all of the charities listed Tuesday on the Trump website as having received donations.
“I pretty much yelled my head off in disbelief that I got a donation that size”, Biggio said. They were unsealed on Friday by U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, whom Trump called “hostile” and “a hater”, adding he believed the judge was Mexican.
Trump’s campaign manager Corey Lewandowski had originally told the Washington Post that the event had raised about $4.5 million – less than the $6 million originally announced by Trump – and that the money had already been distributed.
While Trump has long had an adversarial relationship with the media, questions about the donations to veterans touched a raw nerve with him as he tries to build a conservative base ahead of the November 8 general election. It also enables Trump to have access to the RNC’s opposition research against Clinton.
At one point, he turned over the microphone to a supporter, New Hampshire state Representative Al Baldasaro, a Marine Corps veteran who defended Trump and said he’d taken the time to see that the money did not end up with scam artists.
A Trump foundation that gathered the donations gave the group $100,000 in January, and another $100,000 “about a week ago”, said Mr. Evock.
Trump University faced a handful of legal challenges, as well as scrutiny from the New York Department of Education, before it shut down in 2011. “We are concerned that any administration or presidential candidate would seek to curb the First Amendment right to free speech and a free press”, WHCA President Carol Lee said.
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The former reality TV star, prolific on Twitter with two million more followers than Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton, has dominated coverage of the 2016 presidential cycle like no other by calling personally into television shows and frequently holding court at press conferences broadcast live nationwide. Representatives from the foundation, accompanied by several service dogs, accepted the check at the Adler Theater in Davenport, Iowa, where Trump was being interviewed on stage. The campaign also said it had taken months to carefully vet each of the groups receiving money.
