Trump gets testy when asked about leaving campaign trail

Donald Trump said Wednesday that it was “very rude” and “very insulting” for a reporter to ask why he would leave the campaign trail to attend the ribbon-cutting for his Washington, D.C., hotel with just 13 days to go before next month’s presidential election.

The real estate mogul spoke to CNN reporter Dana Bash in the lobby of his Pennsylvania Avenue hotel after delivering remarks on the occasion of the hotel’s official grand opening. Voicing the curiosity surrounding the business stop so close to Election Day, Bash asked Trump, “To people who say you're taking time out of swing states to go do this, you say ...”


“I say the following: You have been covering me for the last — long time. I did yesterday eight stops and three major speeches, and I've been doing this for weeks straight. I left there for an hour-and-a-half. I'm going to North Carolina right now, then I’m going to Florida. I’m going up to New Hampshire,” Trump told Bash. “For you to ask me that question is actually very insulting because Hillary Clinton does one stop and then goes home and sleeps, and yet, you'll ask me that question. I think it's a very rude question, to be honest with you.”

In separate interview with ABC published later in the day, Trump offered a similar point about his upcoming travel schedule and punctuated it by asking anchor George Stephanopoulos, “I can't take one hour off to cut a ribbon at a one of the great hotels of the world? I mean, I think I'm entitled to it.”

As his campaign manager Kellyanne Conway had done earlier in the day in an appearance on NBC's "Today" show, Trump blasted Clinton for attending an Adele concert in Miami on Tuesday night. He said the attention the former secretary of state received for attending a concert relative to the scrutiny heaped on him for the ribbon cutting was hypocritical.

“I think it's so unfair because, you know, Hillary Clinton goes to see an Adele concert last night, and everybody says, ‘Oh, wasn't that nice. Isn't that wonderful?’” Trump said. “She has no energy. She's got nothing going. She does one stop. And nobody complains about that. Nobody complains when she goes to an Adele concert all night long, while I’m making two speeches at rallies with, you know, massive crowds.”

Trump did indeed leave his Washington property for the airport to head to North Carolina, where he’s scheduled to attend a rally later Wednesday. He said cutting the ribbon at the hotel, which has already been open for roughly a month, was important to him as a father.

“What I do is, I want to back my children,” he said, offering special praise for the work of his daughter, Ivanka Trump, on the project. “My children work very hard, Ivanka in particular, and at the opening of the hotel, I want to back my children. So we had a ribbon-cutting that was very quick.”