The national spokeswoman for Donald Trump’s campaign Wednesday morning took up the presumptive nominee’s gripes with the media for scrutinizing his charitable donations to veterans groups.
Spokeswoman Katrina Pierson said the media focuses only on Trump’s failures, telling CNN’s Chris Cuomo, “shouldn’t the headline have been, ‘look at all this money Trump raised for veterans, skipping a Fox News debate to help people out that he wants to support?’”
“But no, there were media headlines saying Mr. Trump was pocketing the money, for crying out loud. So, of course, he was upset about that,” Pierson continued.
“Katrina, he created this media play. He brought the vetting to us. He asked me to follow up on it,” Cuomo responded. “It was never done in the negative.”
“Well look, Mr. Trump also said it wasn’t 100 percent of the media that was doing this,” she replied.
Cuomo pivoted to Trump’s bitter rhetoric about reporters during his Tuesday press conference, saying, “When you don’t like what I say do you call me an idiot? No. Why is it okay for Mr. Trump to do it but not okay for you to do it with me? This is your chance.”
Pierson said she might call Cuomo an idiot if he attacked her “personally” and went on to say the media has attacked Trump that way.
Trump called a press conference Tuesday to announce raising $5.6 million for veterans groups but ended up railing against news organizations for their coverage of the story, calling one reporter a “sleaze” and telling journalists they “should be ashamed.”
Watch the exchange, captured by TPM:
