Donald Trump lashes out at ‘corrupt’ media

Donald Trump has blamed the “disgusting” media for a week of distractions at a time when Republicans have urged him to focus on Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

The Republican presidential candidate will get another chance to reset his campaign today when he is expected to lay out his plan for defeating what running mate Mike Pence yesterday called “radical Islamic terrorism” with “real specifics” on how to make the United States safer.

However, Trump set up that address with extensive new complaints about the latest disastrous week of coverage and reports of campaign chaos.

Not to blame, Trump suggested, were his own remarks that gun rights supporters could “do something” if Clinton becomes president and appoints liberal judges, or his repeated insistence that President Barack “Obama founded Isis”.

“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%,” he tweeted.

That tweet was followed by: “My rallies are not covered properly by the media. They never discuss the real message and never show crowd size or enthusiasm.”

His anti-media tweet storm topped half a dozen posts by mid-afternoon.

It was the latest in a series of implicit acknowledgements by the Republican presidential nominee that he is not winning and in fact could be headed for a big loss to Clinton on election day in less than three months.

Signs were popping up across the political landscape that Trump’s year-plus flirtation with presidential politics was in danger of not advancing much further.

Additional Republicans have come forward to say they are not supporting his bid, with Carlos Gutierrez, secretary of commerce under President George W Bush, announcing his support for Clinton yesterday.

Meanwhile, GOP leaders in Washington and in the most competitive states are contemplating turning their backs on their party’s presidential nominee and putting their money and effort behind the party’s House and Senate candidates.

Frustratingly for Republicans, Trump’s missteps have overshadowed difficult news for Clinton: the new release of 44 previously-unreleased email exchanges she had while at the State Department.

They became public on Tuesday and showed her interacting with lobbyists, political and Clinton Foundation donors and business interests while serving as secretary of state.

The New York Times catalogued a culture of crisis inside the Trump campaign on Sunday. That set Trump off on a Twitter rant yesterday. He called the report “fiction” and reiterated that he is not about to change what he sees as a winning campaign formula. “I am who I am,” he tweeted.

Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort said Trump is continuing to raise millions of dollars while travelling to key battleground states — Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida.