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.
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.