Trump kicked off his litany of media attacks Tuesday by accusing reporters of cynically turning what should have been a positive story about his charitable work into a negative one. Of the 30 groups that responded by Tuesday, about half said they had received checks from Trump just last week.
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Trump had been interviewed that same day by The Washington Post, which for weeks had been raising questions about where the promised money was, urging him to disclose recipients of the millions raised during a splashy telethon-style fundraiser he held in Iowa in January in place of a Fox debate he was boycotting.
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee had previously declined to disclose which charities had received the $6 million he’d claimed to have raised, and his campaign had gone back and forth about how much pledged money had come through. “Thank you all very much”, the former reality TV star said. He called the political press “disgusting” and dismissed one ABC News reporter as “a sleaze”. The largest, a $1 million check dated May 24 and drawn from Trump’s personal account, was addressed to the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation, a small Tuckahoe, New York, group that provides scholarships to the children of fallen Marines.
At one point, Trump fumed: “I’m the only one in the world who can raise nearly $6 million for the veterans, have uniform applause by the veterans groups, and end up being criticized by press”. Without naming Trump, the White House Correspondent’s Association (WHCA) condemned any attack on the freedom of press.
According to an NBC News/SurveyMonkey tracking poll released last week, 37 percent of the participants said they “dislike” Clinton while 39 percent had the same feeling about Trump. The foundation had presented Trump with an award at its 2015 gala held at a NY hotel.
Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton, 68, meanwhile alleged that Trump had been attacking everybody.
Jeanne Zaino, professor of political science at Iona College in NY, said Trump’s attacks on the media had served him well in the Republican primary but warned they could backfire in a general election.
McConnell said he has no problem supporting Trump because he has won the most votes in the primary and caucus process. “It took a reporter to shame him into actually making his contribution”. However, Trump hadn’t appeared shy about giving away poster-sized checks at campaign events in the weeks after the fundraiser. 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.
An Associated Press reporter present for the event didn’t observe any members of the public allowed in.
In March, The New York Times reported that Trump had earned close to $2 billion worth of media attention in the form of news and commentary about his campaign, almost 3 times that of Clinton.
On Sunday, Trump participated in the traditional gathering of bikers in Washington to pay tribute to veterans and United States war dead over Memorial Day weekend. The campaign has insisted it was working on disbursing the funds, but said it was waiting on some donors to make good on their pledges and also needed time to properly vet the charities in the running to receive the funds.
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But outside Trump Tower, former military personnel from the group “VetsVsHate”, which campaigns against anti-Muslim bigotry, said the Republican candidate must never become president.
