Donald Trump sought to refute a report that he “doesn’t have a campaign,” by claiming its co-author, who’s been following his White House bid from the start, has “zero access” to legitimate information about his operation.
“People like Katy Tur report on my campaign, but have zero access,” the presumptive Republican nominee tweeted Monday, referring to NBC News’ female Trump correspondent, whom he’s previously described as a “third-rate journalist.”
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“They say what they want without any knowledge. True of so much of media!” he added.
In a story released Monday morning, Tur and her colleagues, Benjy Sarlin and Ali Vitali, cited nearly a half-dozen Trump aides and sources close to the billionaire who claimed his campaign is suffering from “a lack of staff to carry out basic functions” and frequent “infighting.”
“These are things that will defeat us,” one campaign source was quoted as saying.
The report led a handful of commentators to question how successful Trump will be as the primary comes to a close and he and likely Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton enter the general election. When Clinton delivered a stinging indictment of Trump’s foreign policy last week, the billionaire responded only by firing off a few tweets critical of the former secretary of state.
“I am getting bad marks from certain pundits because I have a small campaign staff. But small is good, flexible, save money and number one!” Trump tweeted in reaction.
Earlier Monday, Trump told Fox News that Tur thinks “she’s an expert,” but is “not a very good reporter.”
“She knows nothing about my campaign, she said things about my campaign like she’s an expert,” Trump said. “We don’t even let her in. We don’t talk to her. We don’t let people talk to her.”
Tur responded on Twitter by asking her followers, “Why is Trump calling me out on TV/Twitter?”
“[Because] this,” she added, sharing a link to her report.
