Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump unloaded Sunday on a tide of press reports insisting his campaign is imploding, accusing the “disgusting and corrupt media” of stretching the truth in order to boost Democrat Hillary Clinton.
“If the disgusting and corrupt media covered me honestly and didn’t put false meaning into the words I say, I would be beating Hillary by 20%,” Mr. Trump tweeted Sunday.
He specifically attacked a Sunday article in The New York Times, which reported that “Mr. Trump’s advisers believe he is nearly out of time to right his campaign,” citing unnamed “associates” and “more than 20 Republicans who are close to Mr. Trump.”
“The failing @nytimes talks about anonymous sources and meetings that never happened,” Mr. Trump said on Twitter. “Their reporting is fiction. The media protects Hillary!”
The latest cover story of Time magazine had an illustration of Mr. Trump with the headline “Meltdown,” while Martha Raddatz on ABC’s “This Week” said the Republican presidential campaign is in a “full summer slide.”
Sen. Jeff Sessions, Alabama Republican and a Trump adviser, took umbrage with the coverage, saying, “I think he [Mr. Trump] can still win and will have a very good chance of winning.”
“You’ve had this whole morning talking about nothing but negative on the Trump campaign, so this is the kind of thing that does build on itself, and has I think made mountains out of molehills,” Mr. Sessions said on “This Week.” “His issues and his strength are the fundamental challenges that America faces. 68 percent of the people in this country say we are on the wrong track.”
“This campaign is not over,” Mr. Sessions said. “The American people want change.”
Polls since the Democratic National Convention in late July show Mrs. Clinton leading Mr. Trump, which Mr. Sessions attributed to the post-convention bump and “this kind of negative press coverage of things that are not that significant.”
Mr. Trump accused the New York Times of inaccurate reporting, saying, “The failing @nytimes, which never spoke to me, keeps saying that I am saying to advisers that I will change. False, I am who I am-never said.”
He also accused reporters of downplaying his impact on the campaign trail, saying, “My rallies are not properly covered by the media. They never discuss the real message and never show crowd size of enthusiasm.”
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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