Well chalk it up to the media-savvy brilliance of Donald Trump. With that statement, he put himself in a win-win situation.
Had the media simply challenged him on the numbers, Trump would have won because then the media would have had to admit that yes, it did happen. Trump could then say "We can argue about the numbers, and perhaps I'm off on that, but the fact is, it happened and even the media admits it."
But by trying to deny it happened at all, the media handed Trump an even bigger win. Now nobody is really caring about the number at all, just that the media got caught with their pants down trying to rewrite history and tried to get away with a blatant lie.
Well said...
Good point.