Donald Trump threatened to pull out of CNN’s town hall event Tuesday for what he called “one-sided and unfair reporting.”
Trump and his Republican rivals, Ted Cruz and John Kasich, are set to appear at the town hall in Milwaukee on Tuesday evening moderated by CNN’s Anderson Cooper.
But the Republican front-runner appeared to be upset early Tuesday by the exposure his opponents were getting on the network.
And once again, it’s a tweet which starts the hubbub…
Wow, @CNN has nothing but my opponents on their shows. Really one-sided and unfair reporting. Maybe I shouldn't do their town-hall tonight!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 29, 2016
Actually, the tweet threatening to pull out of CNN’s town hall was only one of a whole bunch of them this morning griping about media coverage and other things…
I have millions more votes/hundreds more dels than Cruz or Kasich, and yet am not being treated properly by the Republican Party or the RNC.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 29, 2016
How come the @TODAYshow & @chucktodd show the new @NBCNews Poll for Hillary vs Bernie but do not show the SAME poll where I am killing Cruz?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 29, 2016
Wow, Corey Lewandowski, my campaign manager and a very decent man, was just charged with assaulting a reporter. Look at tapes-nothing there!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 29, 2016
Why aren't people looking at this reporters earliest statement as to what happened, that is before she found out the episode was on tape?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 29, 2016
The last bit was about the Corey Lewandowski-Michelle Fields controversy, which has now resulted in a misdemeanor charge for battery against Lewandowski. It’s a decent bet the threat to pull out of the CNN town hall was an effort to capture the news cycle away from that charge and the further news that Scott Walker, Wisconsin’s governor, has endorsed Cruz.
POLITICO wasn’t all that impressed with Trump’s accusations about CNN’s coverage, by the way, though it was clear Trump didn’t fare all that well…
Trump and his campaign were a frequent topic on CNN on Tuesday morning. From 6 a.m. to 10 a.m., the network broadcast clips of Trump’s interview Monday with Wisconsin radio host Charlie Sykes, a self-proclaimed “#NeverTrump guy,” at least once every hour. Trump national spokeswoman Katrina Pierson and Trump supporter Terra Grant also made appearances on CNN in the morning hours.
In that same time span, former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson, who supports Kasich, was on the air, and supporters for Cruz and Marco Rubio, who suspended his campaign earlier this month, appeared on a panel discussion with Grant.
Pierson’s appearance led to a heated exchange on air, with CNN host Don Lemon challenging Pierson as she defended the real-estate mogul’s controversial retweet of a side-by-side image of an unflattering shot of Heidi Cruz and a glamorous shot of Melania Trump.
“No one has maligned Heidi Cruz. No one has attacked Heidi Cruz,” Pierson told Lemon. “Melania Trump has been attacked. Where has that headline been on CNN? I bet CNN viewers didn’t even know Melania Trump has been attacked for months by pro-Ted Cruz people.”
Lemon responded, insisting Pierson’s comments were “disingenuous.”
So essentially what we have is something fairly similar to his threats against the Louisiana GOP – either Trump is to be treated with obsequious deference, or he makes childish threats. What he doesn’t do is shake off adversity and move on, or better yet to learn from it and not make the mistakes that cause that adversity.
It’s getting old.
By the way, last night Newt Gingrich, whose glowing descriptions of Trump have looked like precursors to an endorsement, rounded on Trump and gave him some horrific treatment last night on Sean Hannity’s show…
Trump didn’t tweet anything about Gingrich, though his Twitter is bitching about virtually everybody else. Maybe he just hasn’t gotten around to him and thinking about what he can threaten him with.
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