HOWARD KURTZ (HOST): Gayle, does Trump have a point that from his point of view he tried to do something good, raise money for veterans groups, and instead got bad publicity?
GAYLE TROTTER: Yes, no good deed goes unpunished. And I think the reporting here by the press is swallowing the camel and straining at gnats. There is a Rasmussen poll that showed that 47 percent of likely voters think that the media is biased against Trump, and only 23 percent of likely voters think that the media is biased against Hillary Clinton. And, we haven't seen the same type of zeal of the media going after Hillary Clinton, or covering the fact that she had this email server, this home brew email server that she said was protected --
KURTZ: It has gotten a lot of coverage, has it not?
HEIDI PRZYBYLA: We were all over the IG report.
TROTTER: Not to the same zeal. Donald Trump has confirmedly raised $5.6 million of donations for veterans groups, and he's being punished for it.
[...]
PRZYBYLA: I know the media organizations that were following this were following this for several weeks, and trying to get an answer, and it was only when they couldn't get an answer that they decided to investigate.
[...]
TROTTER: It's “gotcha” reporting, and I think that the press loves it because it's this back and forth that creates a lot of excitement. And as I've said repeatedly, through Donald Trump's year-long campaign, he loves a media firestorm. He is the opposite of a typical politician. He thrives on that. So, these types of back and forths resonate with millions of American voters who feel like the media bullies a lot of people and they finally have someone who is an effective response to the bullying of the media.
KURTZ: Just, briefly you said gotcha reporting. You don't see any legitimacy to the question of what happened to this money?
TROTTER: No, absolutely not. And the hypocrisy of the press not going after Hillary Clinton for real national security life and death issues just really underscores --
PRZYBYLA: Which was the on the front page of every major newspaper. We were all over that IG report, and I spent my whole summer reading every single one of her e-mails and writing about them as well.
