Manafort told the Times through his lawyer that he hadn’t received any cash payments, calling the accusations “unfounded, silly and nonsensical”.
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Hillary Clinton’s campaign was quick to pounce on the New York Times report late Sunday, slamming Trump for “troubling connections” to Russia and demanding the release of “all other campaign employees’ and advisers’ ties to Russian or pro-Kremlin entities”.
“His point about the Second Amendment was that people who cared about the Second Amendment should be concerned about Hillary Clinton’s candidacy”, Manafort said, “and that those who are concerned probably would take up the cause”. You had information coming out about pay for play out of e-mails of Hillary Clinton’s that weren’t turned over, by the way, to the Justice Department for her investigation.
“Instead, you took an aside that the Clinton narrative told you was something, Mr. Trump told you he didn’t mean, and you played it out for two days”, Manafort said.
He then expressed that he believed Trump should be advised to be careful not to say things like that because that kind of statement can be misunderstood. Trump’s running mate Mike Pence has also said he will release his.
In a later segment, Tapper asked Brewer if she was disturbed when Trump’s undisciplined comments undermined his own campaign.
Manafort said that the real issue here was the way the media covered the comments. “Mr. Trump’s position has been clear from the beginning, he’s under audit, when the audit is finished he’ll release his returns”.
More specifically, Tapper brought up Trump campaign NY co-chair Carl Paladino’s remarks against Khizr Khan, Capt. Khan’s father. “I mean, if he’s a member of the Muslim Brotherhood or supporting, you know, the ISIS-type of attitude against America, there’s no reason for Donald Trump to have to honor this man”.
It’s been a rollicking, damaging couple of weeks for the Donald Trump presidential campaign, highlighted by his apparent joke about Hillary Clinton being assassinated, his attacks on the Khan family in the aftermath of the Democratic National Convention, his seeming lack of knowledge of Russian incursion into Ukraine, and on and on. Manafort replied, of course, by referencing Clinton’s 2008 comments about Bobby Kennedy.
“If the disgusting and corrupt media covered me honestly and didn’t put false meaning into the words I say, I would be beating Hillary by 20 percent”, he tweeted. Tapper once again brought up Trump’s weeks-long controversy involving the Khan family, the Gold Star parents of Captain Humayun Khan, who was killed in Iraq in 2004.
Trump’s campaign chairman also defended the GOP nominee’s new economic proposal announced earlier this week. “What he’s talking about is increasing, taking away a number of deductions that are used by the very wealthy”.
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Manafort said that would lead to more spending income for “working families”.
