Congratulate me, Donald Trump demands of CNN

CNN’s Chris Cuomo decided to skip the small talk during a live interview with Donald Trump on Monday and go straight into a tough question.

And the presumptive Republican presidential nominee didn’t appreciate the lack of pleasantries.

CUOMO: We need to talk policy. We need to talk the state of play within your own party, but you have commanded a different headline that needs to be addressed. You are attacking Hillary Clinton for the sexual past and indiscretions of her husband, calling her an enabler. We have a panel of independent voters. They are smart as heck, and most of them don't like it. They see it as a distraction. They see it as hypocritical coming from you, and they mostly see it as potential proof that you may have no real ideas to offer as president. What is your thinking on this line of attack?

TRUMP: Well, this is a nice way to start off the interview. First of all, you should congratulate me for having won the race. I thought, you know, at least there would be a small congratulations, but I'm not surprised with CNN because that's the way they treat Trump. It's the, you know, they call it the Clinton Network, and I believe that. So, you know ...

CUOMO: Wait. Hold on. Mr. Trump, I did congratulate you the last time we spoke. I said, "Congratulations on winning the big race."

TRUMP: Thank you very much. So warm and so well-felt.

CUOMO: No, no, no. Hold on. Let's get this off on the right foot. I'm trying ...

TRUMP: You're starting off with a question. We haven't spoken. Last week, towards the end, I was the — essentially the nominee of the party, and you start off with this question, which is not surprising because — I understand CNN perhaps a lot better than you do.

CUOMO: Okay, okay. Let's — you know what? You're right. Sometimes it's good to restart. Here's the restart. You are going to be your party's nominee, by all accounts. You are going to carry the standard for this party. You have said that once you get into the general, people will see what you have to offer. The first thing you've come out with, hot and heavy out of the box, are these attacks on Hillary Clinton.

Cuomo’s question referred to an anti-Clinton tirade Trump launched during a rally in Eugene, Ore., on Friday; he called the former secretary of state an “unbelievably nasty, mean enabler” of marital infidelity by her husband, former president Bill Clinton. The CNN voter panel presumably found Trump’s attack hypocritical because he has admitted to — and even bragged about — infidelity of his own.

Trump previously had said, in an NBC News interview just a couple days earlier, that he wouldn’t bring up Bill Clinton’s sexual history again — as he did earlier in the primary season — unless he felt Hillary Clinton was treating him unfairly.

So there are two reasons why Trump should have to explain his “thinking on this line of attack,” as Cuomo put it. But the real estate mogul fired back with two reasons why he shouldn’t: Cuomo didn’t congratulate him on dispatching Ted Cruz and effectively clinching the GOP nomination six days earlier, and besides “they call [CNN] the Clinton Network.”

By “they,” Trump apparently means some people (many of whom appear to be Bernie Sanders supporters) on Twitter:

How is this just?! Just when @BernieSanders mentions @HillaryClinton transcripts, @CNN goes to break. #clintonnetwork

— Ricardo Lamadrid (@rikilamadrid) February 28, 2016

During Bill Clinton's presidency, conservatives like Tom Delay used to joke that CNN stood for Clinton News Network.

None of this has anything to do with the issue at hand — or any real campaign issue at all, for that matter. But it's yet another example of Trump's ability to deflect questions he doesn't want to answer and put the media on the defensive. He can find a slight or a sign of unfair treatment in almost anything.

There's another lesson here, too: If you run into Trump on Jan. 7, be sure to wish him Happy New Year. Six days after the fact, he still expects the courtesy.

Donald Trump told supporters in Spokane, Washington on Saturday, May 7 that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was an "enabler" for what he said was her husband, President Bill Clinton's, mistreatment of women. (Video: Reuters)