Making Sense –
By Michael Reagan –
Donald Trump is still no conservative and never will be.
He still hasn’t figured out that the mix of insults, bluster and off-the-cuff political statements that won him the Republican Party primary won’t work in the general election.
But a lot of us conservatives enjoyed watching him attack the news media for the way they’ve questioned his handling of the $6 million donation he raised for veterans organizations.
For decades we’ve watched the unfair and unbalanced mainstream news media spew its liberal bias and wanted to throw a brick through the TV screen.
Trump symbolically did just that when he called that press conference on Tuesday.
He went overboard in his attack, of course, because he’s Donald Trump. But his media rage was justified.
The news media questioned him like a war criminal about the details of the $6 million he raised for the vets, acting as if he had never really raised the money or never intended to disburse it.
Trump is hopelessly naive if he really thought he was going to be given a standing ovation by the news media for raising money for the vets or anyone else.
But the liberal media wolf pack nitpicked at every part of Trump’s charitable effort.
Some of the checks had not been sent out yet!
It was only $5.6 million that was raised, not $6 million!
And look! Trump hadn’t yet paid the million bucks he promised to chip in!
Everyone knows it was a PR stunt for Trump to skip Republican Debate No. 37 and go on TV and pander to military veterans.
And it’s true that it was way back in January when he was bragging he raised the $6 million.
But come on. Did anyone — other than the biased reporters in the news media — really think the checks were going to be mailed out the next day or next week?
To any vets group that sent in an email asking for money?
The organizations clamoring for a share of the money had to be carefully vetted by someone on Trump’s staff.
Imagine what the news media would have done to Trump if some wacko paramilitary group ended up spending $100,000 on hate billboards or worse.
And really, did anyone — other than the media dumbos — think Trump was planning to never pay his million or pocket all the money himself?
Trump’s message was valid. He just didn’t deliver it well.
He shouldn’t have singled out individual reporters, and he should have taken a more lighthearted, sarcastic, mocking approach, not an angry one.
He should have said he was sorry the liberal news media thought the process was taking too long, but that raising and responsibly handing out $6 million takes time.
He should have explained that he had his small staff working on it, but that they were also busy trying to help him become president of the U.S.
At his press conference Trump also should have asked something like, “I was wondering. When will the Washington Post’s crack investigative team and the rest of you so-called journalists show the same level of interest in exposing the shady fund-raising techniques of the Clinton Foundation?”
It’d be a major accomplishment if the Washington press corps merely asked Hillary a few tough questions about the lucrative international influence-peddling racket she and Bill are running.
But of course Hillary doesn’t do press conferences. She hides from the press — and the press is so biased it barely complains.
I’m not a big fan of Trump, but he was right to attack the Washington media. The trouble is, the way he did it was not even close to being presidential. And in November that could prove to be his Achilles Heel.
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Copyright ©2016 Michael Reagan. Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan, a political consultant, and the author of “The New Reagan Revolution” (St. Martin’s Press). He is the founder of the email service reagan.com and president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Visit his websites at www.reagan.com and www.michaelereagan.com. Send comments to Reagan@caglecartoons.com. Follow @reaganworld on Twitter. Mike’s column is distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.
