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Trump: Hillary Funded by 'Wall Street Fat Cats'

Donald Trump says he doesn't need to match the big-dollar donations flowing into the campaign coffers of likely general election rival Hillary Clinton, slamming the Democrat as funded by "Wall Street fat cats."

In an interview aired Sunday on NBC News' "Meet the Press," the GOP presumptive nominee said he hasn't really revved up his general election fundraising yet. "We really haven't started," he said. "We start pretty much after the convention, during and after," adding that Clinton "has a head start, but I've raised a lot of money for the party."

"I don't think we need frankly as much," Trump declared. "And she's selling herself to Wall Street and the Wall Street fat cats are all putting up a lot of money for her. "And I don't even want that kind of money," he said. "What I'm doing is, and I don't think we need that money. … I mean, look what we're doing right now. This is like a commercial, right, except it's tougher than a normal commercial."

"Look, we're going to raise a lot of money, I've raised a lot of money this weekend, I'm raising it for the Republican Party," he added. "I mean, I'm doing a good job. If you look at [Republican National Committee head] Reince [Priebus], he'll say that we have done an amazing job in a very short period of time." Trump's campaign sent an urgent fundraising email to supporters Saturday asking for at least $100,000 in donations by the end of the day to "help get our ads on the air."

Trump hits 'hostile' media, 'rogue' Scarborough, 'disappointed' in McConnell

EXCLUSIVE: Donald Trump views himself as battling an intensifying wave of “media hostility” and is “disappointed” in the growing chorus of criticism from Republican leaders.
In an interview, Trump shrugged off his slippage in the polls, boasted of his big crowds and predicted he would win “big league,” even though he says the critical media attention is hurting him.
Trump wouldn’t admit to any mistakes, even in tone, after the Orlando massacre. And he is particularly puzzled by the way Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is chiding him.
In short, even as pundits and many in his own party are clamoring for a course correction and a softer rhetorical style, the presumptive nominee made clear he doesn’t plan any major changes.
Trump sees a drastic shift in the media since he clinched the nomination: “When I was running against 16 Republicans, it was somewhat unfair, but at least you could see it. Now it’s beyond belief. They are protecting Hillary Clinton like you wouldn’t believe. I don’t think it helps, but I think I’m going to end up winning.”
He added that the media are “very negative toward a Republican, toward a conservative Republican, and certainly very negative toward me,” saying they report only a quarter of each statement he issues. That is true for most candidate releases.

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Ignoring several polls that show him trailing Clinton by six to 12 points, Trump cited a One America survey that has him at only a 2-point deficit.
The only hint that things have hit a rough pitch came when Trump told me that “maybe certain things we’re not 100 percent happy with” in his “very young campaign,” but he declined to elaborate. He conceded the challenge he faces on the electoral map, saying, “The Democratic road is very much easier than the Republican road to the White House.”
The billionaire has given his detractors ample ammunition in the last three weeks, a period that stretches from his remarks about the Mexican heritage of the judge in the Trump University case to his tweets about having predicted a terrorist attack such as the one in Orlando but not wanting any congratulations.
Trump has been hammered for saying on “Fox & Friends” that when it comes to fighting terrorism, President Obama is either “not tough, not smart, or he's got something else in mind. And the something else in mind, you know, people can't believe it.”
Speaking by phone from Texas on Friday, Trump dismissed the resulting firestorm.
“I don’t think Orlando was a mistake at all,” he said of his comments. “I’m saying what everyone else is saying and thinking. The problem is everyone wants to be politically correct, and you can’t be politically correct because these people are after our country, they’re after our lives.”
With rising unease among Hill Republicans, McConnell told Bloomberg News that Trump should pick an experienced running mate “because it's pretty obvious he doesn't know a lot about the issues…I object to a whole series of things that he's said -- vehemently object to them,” including “these attacks on various ethnic groups in the country."
“I’m so surprised at Mitch,” Trump told me. “You’d think he’d be very positive. I always thought I had a good relationship with Mitch, but perhaps I don’t.”
The candidate said the press overlooks the fact that some members of the GOP are backing him, and proclaimed a “great relationship” with party chairman Reince Priebus.
“I’m disappointed that some of the Republicans aren’t more positive, but I think in the end they will be…You wonder why they’re doing that.”
He also brought up his former rivals: “Some of them wouldn’t endorse me because I beat them very badly. And I even understand it. It was a rough, rough primary.”
Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and John Kasich are among those who remain sharply critical of Trump, despite having pledged to support the nominee.
During the primaries, “they wanted me to sign the pledge,” Trump recalled. “The pressure was unbelievable.”
We talked about his decision to yank the Washington Post’s credentials, based on its headline about the “Fox & Friends” comments: “Donald Trump Suggests President Obama Was Involved with Orlando Shooting.” The paper, on its own, later softened this to “Donald Trump Seems to Connect President Obama to Orlando Shooting.”
How does Trump benefit by adding the Post to a group of media outlets whose credentials have been revoked?
“At some point I would love to give it back if I’m covered fairly, but that was only an indication of the kind of press they give me,” he replied. “They actually said that I essentially said Obama was in cahoots with this guy that did the killing. It was a horrible headline, an unfair headline.”
What about the New York Times, which Trump has repeatedly criticized? He deflected a question about its credentials, but said “the New York Times has certainly been marginal, hasn’t been much better than the Washington Post.” Trump added that its chief Washington correspondent, David Sanger, has been fair.
Without prompting, Trump brought up Politico, whose credentials were revoked months ago. He took issue with the website’s reporting on rivalries within his campaign and tensions between the candidate and the RNC.
Trump said he has read such accounts “in very dishonest places like Politico. I don’t even talk to them. They make things up, they’re fiction. Politico is fiction.” A spokesman for Politico declined to comment.
Perhaps his strongest words were reserved for MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough. The former Republican congressman, who regularly interviewed Trump and talked up his chances during the primaries, has turned harshly critical in recent weeks. The candidate says he’s stopped watching “Morning Joe.”
 “As soon as I won the nomination,” Trump said, “he went essentially to the Democrats’ side. He went totally rogue. He was embarrassed to be so high on a Republican…It’s very dishonest what he’s saying.”
Scarborough told me that he and co-host Mika Brzezinski have been friendly with Trump for years. “It’s sad for Mika and me to see him fall off a cliff, chasing conspiracy theories, suggesting the president is connected with ISIS…Suggesting a judge from Indiana is incapable of fairly ruling on certain cases because his parents, like Donald Trump’s, weren’t born in America. And his continued vilification of 1.5 billion Muslims is un-American.”
Scarborough said Trump had no complaint when his analysis was upbeat: “You can’t love John Madden when he says your team is going to win the Super Bowl, then hate John Madden when you start throwing the ball backwards 20 times a game.”
Trump, for his part, sees a different motivation in Scarborough’s shift. “I’m sure MSNBC puts tremendous pressure on him and he wants to keep his job,” Trump told me.
But Scarborough said he was forecasting Trump’s nomination last year: “If the liberal network MSNBC had any influence on us, they certainly would have asserted it and suggested we not be so far out in our predictions on Donald Trump.”
For weeks now, Trump’s tight-knit campaign has been battered by critics on the right as well as the left, amid growing pessimism about his general election chances. Before wrapping up the conversation, Trump offered this observation:
“I was written off five times in the primaries. I ended up coming back stronger than I ever was.”
Howard Kurtz is a Fox News analyst and the host of "MediaBuzz" (Sundays 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET). He is the author of five books and is based in Washington. Follow him at @HowardKurtz. Click here for more information on Howard Kurtz.

Trump suggests 'profiling' in US to stop domestic terrorism

Donald Trump suggested Sunday that the U.S. start “profiling” people inside the country to thwart terrorism, calling it a hateful but “common sense” tactic, in the aftermath of recent terror attacks.
"I think profiling is something we're going to have to start thinking about as a country," Trump said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "I hate the concept of profiling, but we have to start using common sense.”
The presumptive GOP presidential nominee also argued that other countries, including Israel, profile “and they do it successfully.”
Trump, as he has frequently argued, said radical Islamic groups are creating “big problems.”
However, he didn’t directly say those groups should be the sole focus of profiling -- a strategy in which individuals or groups are targeted for additional law-enforcement scrutiny because of race or other characteristics.
Omar Mateen, the shooter in the June 12 massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., was a radicalized Muslim and the subject of two FBI investigations into possible connections to terrorism.

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Mateen pledged his allegiance to the Islamic State terror group, even during the attack in which he fatally shot 49 people and wounded dozens of others inside the gay nightclub before being killed by police.
This is not the first time Trump has made controversial comments related to terrorism and radical Islam, particularly after the Orlando attack and the 2015 Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., strikes, all connected to ISIS and radicalized Muslims.

Trump-backing Ryan trying to help GOP in elections but tells members use 'their conscience’

House Speaker Rep. Paul Ryan is trying to keep fellow Republicans in control of Congress but said Sunday he wouldn’t ask them to endorse Donald Trump for the sake of party unity, to save their Capitol Hill majority or keep Democrat Hillary Clinton out of the White House.
“Imagine the speaker of the House not supporting the duly elected nominee of our party, therefore creating a chasm in our party,” the Wisconsin Republican said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “I don't want to see Hillary Clinton as president. I want to see a strong majority in the House and the Senate.”
Ryan has endorsed Trump but waited about a month after he won enough primaries, caucuses and accompanying delegates in early May to become the GOP’s presumptive presidential nominee. After some direct conversations with Trump and assurances that he would support a conservative agenda, Ryan officially backed Trump earlier this month.
However, Ryan has since criticized some of Trump’s subsequent comments, including the suggestion that an American-born judge presiding over a civil suit against Trump University real estate school could be bias because of his Mexican heritage.
“I disavow these comments,” Ryan told reporters earlier this month. “Claiming a person can't do their job because of race is sort of like a textbook definition of a racist comment.”
After the June 12 massacre at an Orlando, Fla., nightclub committed by Omar Mateen, a Muslim who was apparently self-radicalized, Trump renewed his call to temporarily keep Muslims out of the country.

Ryan later repeated his disapproval for such a ban, saying it was not “in our country's interests.”

Still, Ryan suggested Sunday that he wouldn’t tell a Capitol Hill Republican seeking reelection on any party member to back Trump for the benefit the party in 2016.
“The last thing I would do is tell anybody to do something that's contrary to their conscience,” Ryan said.
Ryan, chairman of the GOP nomination convention in July, also said he disagrees with a purported effort by convention delegates to switch their assigned allegiance from Trump to another candidate to deny him the nomination. However, Ryan said he has no authority over such rules and related decisions
“The voters picked (Trump.) He beat Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush and everybody else,” Ryan said. “He won the delegates. My place … is to call balls and strikes and just play it by the rules. So it is not my job to tell delegates what to do or what not to do or to weigh in on things like that.”