Trump cancels news conference with black pastors

The meeting was described by the campaign in a press release as, “a coalition of 100 African American Evangelical pastors and religious leaders who will endorse the GOP frontrunner after a private meeting at Trump Tower”.

“He knows what he’s saying”.

“I have a very good memory, Chuck”.

Many of Trump’s falsehoods and exaggerations have one of two key characteristics in common: they are either lies about something that happened in the past or wildly unlikely predictions about something that will happen in the relatively distant (and therefore unknowable) future.

Noting the large Muslim population in New Jersey, Trump asked: “Why wouldn’t it have taken place? He’s smart. He’s playing you guys like a fiddle, the press, by saying outrageous things and garnering attention”. He said that he saw people cheering and dancing in the streets after watching the towers went down.

“The problem is, he’s using what he’s got to such a bad degree, I think it’s disgraceful”, Trump said, saying The New York Times should apologize to him.

Political scientist John Sides has written several times about how the media have covered Trump far more extensively than other candidates, and demonstrated the close correlation between his poll numbers and his ratio of mentions in media stories. “You need to generate interest”, Trump wrote in his 1987 book, “The Art of The Deal”. They also expressed concern that the meeting on Monday would “give Trump the appearance of legitimacy among those who follow your leadership and respect your position as clergy”.

Since then, Trump has been pressured to take back the statement, with some fact checkers refuting the claim that it happened. “They destroy half the stuff”, Trump asserted. Nobody can find evidence of this, but the article you tweeted out that said you backed it up, that in itself there were three or four different reports that month in New Jersey that said that it was a myth, a false rumor, FBI, you name it!

Bishop Corletta Vaughn, senior pastor of The Holy Ghost Cathedral in Detroit, said in a Facebook posting that she declined an invitation to meet with Trump and will not support him. Although his support has increased among other Republicans as well, those who prioritize immigration continue to be his strongest supporters.

Bishop Clarence McClendon, a Los Angeles-based pastor who like Trump has appeared on reality television, was invited to the meeting but will not attend.

“And probably some of the Black Lives Matter folks called them up, say, ‘Oh, you shouldn’t be meeting with Trump because he believes that all lives matter, ‘” he continued.

“ZERO experience”, she said.

But the Republican front-runner stuck to his guns: “I saw it on television”.