http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/p...rowds-and-him/

Donald Trump says the media underestimates his crowds — and him

By Jenna Johnson September 26 at 2:33 PM

OKLAHOMA CITY — As Donald Trump stood before a crowd of thousands at the Great State Fair of Oklahoma on Friday night, he complained that reporters always underreport the magnitude of his rallies and underestimate his chances of becoming president.

"You know, it's hard, this running stuff," Trump said. "You're dealing with the press, and the distortion that they write is so unbelievable… I mean, they really do distort, and they are terrible people. Not all of them but many of them."

Trump pointed to the small island of national and local reporters packed onto a riser in the sea of Oklahomans.

"Hey, cameras: Can you do us a favor?" Trump said. "Take the cameras off me and pan the crowd. Pan it. Be honest. Go ahead, pan it... They don't want to pan it! Pan those cameras!"

As the crowd turned to look at the bank of cameras, it alternated between cheering and booing. One woman in a Trump T-shirt hissed at reporters: "Be nice! Be nice!"

In the past few days, Trump has been become increasingly exasperated with coverage of his presidential bid, especially at any suggestion that his success was just an odd summer phenomenon that's now fading. He has fired off tweets accusing reporters at a variety of media outlets -- from the conservative magazine National Review to the New York Times -- of being unfair and inaccurate. He is boycotting Fox News, having threatened to file a complaint with federal regulators against one of the channel's commentators.

Trump has said he doesn't understand why reporters have focused on dips in his poll numbers rather than highlighting that he continues to dominate "every poll nationwide … and every state." He doesn't understand why photographers snapped images of rows of empty chairs at his speech at a business convention in South Carolina on Wednesday afternoon, especially when a town hall that evening was packed. He doesn't understand why some of his opponents are criticizing him for not providing specific answers to foreign policy questions, since he doesn't think a potential president should share such information.