Hillary Clinton said Tuesday that Donald Trump does not deserve “much credit” for his donations to veterans groups, saying that the presumptive GOP nominee only did so because a reporter had to “shame” him into doing it.
“Look, I’m glad he finally did it, but I don’t know that he should get much credit,” she told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “The Lead.” “I think the problem here is the difference between what Donald Trump says and what Donald Trump does.”
She added, “It took a reporter to shame him into actually making his contribution,” though she didn’t specify a particular reporter by name.
Trump earlier on Tuesday unveiled $5.6 million in donations that he gave to veterans groups after months of pressure from news organizations. Pushing back harshly on that media criticism, Trump argued that the Democratic front-runner had given “nothing” to veterans charities.
In her interview with Tapper, Clinton pointed to money she raised for the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund alongside Arizona Sen. John McCain, said she had worked to re-acclimate veterans returning from combat and to extend their benefits, and said “of course” she had contributed personally as well. But she didn’t provide further details, such as how much she donated and to whom.
Clinton’s campaign on Tuesday tried to bracket Trump’s press conference by pointing to a series of comments he has made about veterans and his proposals to fix the Veterans Administration. Her campaign and its surrogates organized calls to bash Trump, but Clinton — who hasn’t held a press conference since December 4 — has been far less accessible to media than Trump.
Asked about Trump’s willingness to hold press conferences like Tuesday’s, Clinton said that she had done “nearly 300 interviews” just in this calendar year, and pledged to answer reporters’ queries “in many different kinds of settings.”
Yet she still must contend with Bernie Sanders, her Democratic rival who has pledged to carry his campaign all the way to the convention. Clinton is working to overcome a late surge from Sanders on June 7 in the California primary, where a loss could serve as an embarrassing coda to her primary campaign even as she could clinch the Democratic nomination that night.
Clinton said her aides and Sanders’ have been in talks about how to unify the party as the primary season closes and that those conversations will intensify.
“Once the primaries are over, as of next Tuesday, we will begin talking in more detail about what we can do to unify the party,” she told Tapper. “Because as I’ve said many times, and Senator Sanders has said, we both are going to do everything we can to prevent Donald Trump from getting anywhere near the White House.”
