Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gives the thumb up while speaking to supporters at a fund raising event at the New Jersey National Guard Armory on May 19, 2016 in Lawrenceville, NJ. (Photo by Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)
Update: Right on cue, Trump did indeed show us the money -- or some of it, at least -- on Thursday, converting the approximately $50 million in loans he has made to his campaign into contributions, which unlike loans can't be repaid to the candidate. This move reassures donors that he won't use their money to repay himself any of that $50 million, and it also demonstrates a certain liquidity which, as we discuss in the piece below, some journalists doubted actually existed.
To hear Donald Trump tell it, the media is totally overreacting to the sorry state of his campaign finances. Sure, he entered June with just $1.3 million in cash on hand, compared to the $42 million held by Hillary Clinton, but he can always just pull more money out of his own pockets. Because, as the former reality TV star informed everyone when he declared his presidential candidacy last year, he is "really rich."
"As far as I'm concerned, I'd be very happy to continue to self-fund," Trump told ABC News on Tuesday. "I'll be honest, I think I could spend $50, $60, $70 million of my own money and run a wonderful campaign."
Journalists seem unconvinced. In fact, the media's attitude boils down to this: Okay, Mr. Trump, show us the money.
Behind all the scrutiny of the presumptive Republican nominee's low fundraising total are longstanding doubts about the true magnitude of Trump's wealth — specifically how much of his net worth (supposedly in the $10 billion range) is readily available to him in cash, as opposed to buildings, golf courses and other assets that are undoubtedly valuable but cannot be spent on political ads or used to make payroll.

Trump's fundraising lags far behind Clinton's

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Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's campaign raised just $3.1 million in May, while Democratic rival Hillary Clinton brought in $27 million. Here's a breakdown of the two campaigns' finances. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)
A Daily Beast headline in March declared, rather cheekily, that "Donald Trump is too poor to be president." The subhead explained: "Trump may be 'worth' X billion, but what matters are liquid assets — and he doesn't have enough of those to mount a general election campaign."
About the same time, when the GOP nomination was still in doubt, Bloomberg View blared that "Trump is too poor for a third-party run." Just a few weeks ago, Vanity Fair wondered, "Is Donald Trump not really a billionaire?" And when Clinton said in a speech Tuesday that "maybe he isn't as rich as he claims," her skepticism made headlines from Fortune to Yahoo to the Blaze.
Update: 49 minutes after this story was posted, Reuters published an article that concluded Trump "does not have enough cash to see his campaign through to Election Day." The hits just keep coming.
Such coverage is strikingly different from what other recent, rich-guy candidates received. Mitt Romney and John Kerry, for example, were cagey about their net worth, seemingly worried that huge numbers would reinforce perceptions that they were out of touch with most voters. A Mother Jones headline from fall 2012 captures the difference pretty perfectly: "Mitt Romney: Richer than you think."
Although journalists covering previous elections have suspected that candidates might be wealthier than they let on, reporters now question whether Trump is really as loaded as he claims.
This isn't just a matter of curiosity. If Trump is actually as flush as he would have reporters and voters believe, then he is right about his mostly empty war chest — it's nothing to worry about, and the story is being blown out of proportion. As Republican National Committee communications director Sean Spicer said on CNN Tuesday, "If he wanted to get that number up in two seconds, he just strokes a check, and it's up."
But there are reasons for the media to doubt whether Trump can, in fact, simply "stroke a check" and largely self-finance a credible campaign against Clinton, who is expected by many political observers to raise $1 billion.
[The myth and the reality of Donald Trump’s business empire]
The big one is that he refuses to release his tax returns, which would reveal his actual income, not just estimate his overall worth. Trump says he won't publicize his tax returns because he is being audited by the Internal Revenue Service, but Romney, the 2012 GOP nominee — another wealthy candidate who was reluctant to share tax documents — has speculated that the real reason for Trump's unwillingness could be that he earns less than he wants people to think.
The Wall Street Journal, using the financial disclosure form Trump submitted to the Federal Election Commission last year, recently estimated his 2016 pretax income at $160 million. The Journal said it also relied on "interviews with dozens of former and current Trump Organization executives and people who are familiar with his businesses."
In the same FEC filing, which required Trump to assign ranges of values to his assets, he listed cash, stock and bond holdings — stuff that could be quickly liquidated, if necessary — worth between $78 million and $232 million.
That's a lot of money, but recent history suggests that it would not be enough to win the White House. President Obama raised $722.4 million in 2012 and spent almost all of it. He spent slightly more to win in 2008.