From Stuff.co.nz
OPINION: Strange man that Mr Trump. Miffed that Fox News would not agree to his primary season debate demands, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee instead staged an event to raise millions for veterans groups – and now he's seriously miffed [again!] that reporters have kept tabs on how much money was raised, whether it had been distributed and to which groups.
So on Tuesday, Trump scheduled a press conference and as is his wont, he proceeded to use the assembled hacks as a punching bag, mewling and puking at the news media's temerity to ask questions about the fate of millions that a candidate for high office said he'd distribute – but seemingly had not done so.
In training to be the petulant president, Trump spent most of the 40-minute press event complaining about how hurt he had been by the news treatment of his little fundraiser and taking specific aim at the hapless man from ABC News – Tom Llamas.
BAD PUBLICITY?
Trump fervently believes that he always does a good job, whether he's scamming the students in his university or refusing to release his tax returns – and media questions on the fundraiser for veterans have been a molehill compared with the mountains of critical reporting on other aspects of his colourful career.
Remember, this whole enterprise was a bid to steal Fox News' ratings thunder by having the fundraiser compete with a GOP candidates debate. Trump had refused to participate because Fox refused to accede to his demand that journalist Megyn Kelly be excluded from the panel because she asked tough questions in an earlier debate. So the veterans groups were dragged in as a fig leaf of respectability for Trump's puerile behaviour.
THE MEDIA SHOULD BE ASHAMED?
For what – asking questions? The man claimed he had raised $US6 million for veterans and he has a problem with reporters asking which groups were paid from the fund. No shame in that.
PROBABLY LIBELLOUS?
So he said of the coverage, warning that his war on the media was not about to end any time soon. The coverage generally sought information on the distribution of the funds; and posed questions in the absence of information from the Trump campaign.
MEDIA'S EXTREME DISHONESTY?
He said: "Look, I find the press to be extremely dishonest. I find the political press to be unbelievably dishonest." Trump is being subjected to the same treatment as other presidential wannabes - and if there is dishonesty in the coverage, it's the obscene, wall-to- wall coverage of Trump, usually live, usually unfiltered or unedited and with little context or questioning of the candidate.
Trump explained the near six-month delay in distribution the money on the grounds that the recipient groups had to be vetted – but he named all the groups that had been paid. He claimed that a lot of the money had been dispersed 'very early' to 'phenomenal groups.'
But as they say, facts schmacts. Another fact that is for all his whining, this was another good day on the campaign trail, with Trump managing to kill two birds with the one stone. With Tuesday's press conference aired live by all the main cable news networks, he was beamed unedited across the country and, in Trumpland at least, there is no target that deserved a good kicking like the news media does.
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