Tuesday at a press conference the Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump got into a heated exchange with the press.
Partial transcript as follows:
MAJOR GARRETT, CBS NEWS: Why do you resent just the verification process that is natural?
TRUMP: Because I wanted to make this out of the goodness of my heart. I didn’t want to do this with the press is all involved. Then we said who it went to. how much was it. we gave — look, when this started, I think you were there. I said if we could raise a million dollars, that would be good and we ended up raising almost $6 million. I’m going to have more coming in over a period of time.
GARRETT : Don’t you believe you should be accountable to the people?
TRUMP: I’m totally accountable, but I didn’t want to have credit for it. Actually what I got was worse questioning me than credit because they were and this is money — by the way, most of that money went out very early. Just so you understand. but a lot of these groups, getting vetted by, you know, when you pay the money out, they need government documentation, they need a lot of different things. Plus we want to find out is it a good group. I had people, 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. We have given to groups that are unbelievable groups and honestly I wish you could hear the phone calls and see the letters, they are so happy. And I’m happy to do it. I didn’t want the credit for it, but it was very unfair that the press treated us so badly. Go ahead.
JIM ACOSTA, CNN: To follow up on that, you keep calling us the dishonest press.
TRUMP: Generally speaking that’s 100 percent true, go ahead.
ACOSTA: I disagree with that, sir. If I can ask you this question, it seems as though you’re resistant to scrutiny, the kind of scrutiny that comes with running for president of the United States.
TRUMP: I like scrutiny. But you know what, when I raise money — excuse me, excuse me. I’ve watched you on television. You’re a real beauty. When I raise money for the veterans and it’s a massive amount of money, find out how much Hillary Clinton has given to the veterans, nothing. Then I see a few guys standing out there. They don’t even know what they’re there for. They’re there because Hillary Clinton’s campaign sent them. I think it was you or one of you that found out they were with Hillary Clinton’s campaign, which was interesting, but I wasn’t surprised. I don’t want the credit for it. But I shouldn’t be lambasted. and remember this, so out of the almost $6 million that was raised, not one penny did I take for administration costs. That’s unheard of, okay.
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.