Donald Trump on Tuesday went on a sustained frontal assault against the media Tuesday during a contentious news conference.
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The takeaway is that Trump had raised $5.6 million for veterans’ groups, and obviously enjoyed reading off the names of the organizations and who had gotten the checks.
Clinton’s campaign, for instance, sent out a memo to reporters questioning Trump’s policy proposals for veterans ahead of his Tuesday news conference.
He repeatedly criticized the press for making the money an issue, saying reporters “should be ashamed of themselves” for asking where the money had gone. Weeks ago in a publicly televised speech, he promised to personally donate $1 million to veterans groups and fundraise for them as well.
The New York businessman held an event for veterans in January after announcing he would skip a Republican debate that same night in Des Moines, just ahead of the Iowa caucuses.
But his campaign has refused to disclose which charities had received the money months, leading some to speculate that the money raised was less than he had claimed. The billionaire mogul interrupted his recitation of the list of groups receiving portions of the money to complain about the way reporters had called up charities to try to verify his contributions. “Who got it? Who got it?’ and you make me look very bad”, Trump said.
Trump detailed new gifts to more than a dozen veterans groups, majority $75,000 each.
“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 don’t want the credit for it, but I shouldn’t be lambasted”, he insisted.
May 24 also happens to be when the Post contacted Trump about the money.
Trump batted aside questions on whether he needed a thicker skin to run for the presidency.
As recently as last week, the Washington Post reported that Trump had not yet made good on his own donation.
“It is obviously a wonderful donation”, said Sue Boulhosa, the group’s executive director and sole employee. “There were some individuals who he’d spoken to, who were going to write large checks, [who] for whatever reason…didn’t do it”, said Lewandowski in a telephone interview with the Washington Post.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t express gratitude for your undying support of veterans, except for the ones like Sen.
Trump’s campaign had itself issued contradictory statements and issued what on Tuesday was shown to be false statements about the money. But the timing of everything seems to indicate that numerous promised dollars ended up at veterans’ organizations only in response to the Post’s dogged refusal to let the issue go. The Associated Press on Tuesday found that of the almost two dozen charities that responded to its survey, almost half received checks dated 24 May, the same day the Post published its story.
California, the most populous US state, is among six states that hold Democratic nominating contests on Tuesday. CNN has also reached out to all of the charities listed Tuesday on the Trump website as having received donations.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gestures during a rally in Charleston, W.Va., Thursday, May 5, 2016.
“I had teams of people reviewing statistics, reviewing numbers and also talking to people in the military to find out whether or not the group was deserving of the money”, the presumptive Republican nominee told reporters.
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For 40 minutes, he had assailed those reporting on his candidacy with a level of venom rarely seen at all, let alone in public, from the standard-bearer of a major political party.
