Donald Trump is on the defensive over his claims of having raised $6 million for veterans’ organizations in January, and a defensive Donald Trump is an angry Donald Trump.
Let’s recap: Back in late January, Trump wanted a good pretext for ducking out of a debate moderated by Megyn Kelly, so he held a fundraiser for vets. He announced that the event had raised $6 million, including $1 million he’d donated himself. But—no big surprise—come May, it turned out that the total was less, by some unknown amount. Was it $1.5 million less? Just $500,000 less?
Trump lashed out at the reporter asking questions, but also gave his own $1 million as promised. And, on Tuesday, he held a press event to announce new gifts to veterans’ charities and clear up some of the questions about how much his event had raised and contributed. It … didn’t go so well.
Throughout the press conference, Trump railed against the press for looking into the details of his fundraiser.
"The press should be ashamed of themselves," he said, telling reporters, "You make me look very bad."
How dare you look into my public promises and report on what you find! The job of the press is to make Donald Trump look good, and when the press fails at that, they should be ashamed of themselves!
Reporters are all over Twitter lambasting Trump’s performance. But don’t expect this to be some sort of tipping point moment where Trump loses his favorable media treatment. Most of these same reporters congratulating themselves on how they're judging Trump and not taking him seriously will probably be reined back in and doing penance within 24 hours. After all, we can’t have the objective media admitting that a major party’s presidential nominee falls somewhere between terrifying and clownish.