Donald Trump defended his temper in an interview airing Sunday on “60 Minutes” suggesting, “I don’t mind a bad story. If you did a bad story on me for ’60 Minutes,’ if it were a fair story, I wouldn’t be thin-skinned at all.” (RELATED: Trump Swears Off Fox News, Raves About Stephen Colbert)
Trump, responding to allegations that he us thin skinned, suggested that when reporters “write lies, they write false stories” his reaction is not because he is “thin-skinned, it is because he is “angry.” (RELATED: Trump: Twitter Is ‘Like Owning The New York Times Without The Losses’)
Scott Pelley: Your father also used to tell you, if I have this right, “Attack, attack, attack!”
Donald Trump: I’ll tell you what– my father was a really good man with a tremendous heart, but he was a tough cookie.
Pelley: [Narration] With a tougher hide, perhaps, than his son, who has sometimes gone to war with reporters. [To Trump] Why so thin-skinned?
Trump: I don’t like lies. I… I don’t mind a bad story. If you did a bad story on me for “60 Minutes,” if it were a fair story, I wouldn’t be thin- skinned at all. You know, some of the media is among the worst people I’ve ever met. And I mean a pretty good percentage is really a terrible group of people. They write lies, they write false stories. They know they’re false. It makes no difference and frankly, I don’t call it thin-skinned; I’m angry.
Pelley: An impression is created, though, that you like to dish it out but you can’t take a punch.
Trump: Oh, I think I can take it. I… I could take it if it’s fair. Again, if people say things that are false– which happens a lot with me– if people say things that are false, I will fight, like, harder than anybody. If I do something wrong– and that happens– and they write a fair story that I did something wrong, there’s nothing to fight about. I can handle that. I don’t like lying. You know, I’m a very honorable guy. I don’t like lies.