WASHINGTON: Donald Trump’s campaign is on a tear against the media just as his GOP backers are urging him — again — to focus his attacks on his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.
Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, on Sunday blamed news organizations for the GOP nominee’s difficult week, saying the press focused on a pair of Trump comments for days rather than doing more stories about the economic plan Trump announced.
Dominating news last week were Trump’s remark that Second Amendment backers could “do something” if Hillary Clinton is elected president and appoints liberal judges. He also insisted on a plain falsehood, that President Barack Obama “founded” the Islamic State group, multiple times.
Trump went on a Twitter rant against the press, complaining that the “disgusting” media is not showing the crowd size of his rallies and is putting “false meaning into the words I say.” He also called a New York Times story Sunday about his struggling campaign “fiction.”
Trump will get another chance to reset his campaign on Monday when he is expected to lay out his plan for defeating what running mate Mike Pence on Sunday called, “radical Islamic terrorism” with “real specifics” on how to make the United States safer.
Manafort said Trump is continuing to raise millions of dollars while traveling to the key battleground states of Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida.
Additional Republicans have come forward to say they’re not supporting Trump’s bid, with Carlos Gutierrez, secretary of commerce under President George W. Bush, announcing his support for Clinton on Sunday