Daily Times

AMERICA: President-elect Donald Trump blasted a CNN news reporter and called the channel “fake news”, in his first press conference.

CNN had previously reported that intelligence officials had briefed Trump about information gathered by political opponents about Trump’s personal and business dealings in Russia.

During the conference on Wednesday, Trump did not allow the reporter to ask him a question saying “You are fake news.”

CNN Senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta, asked Trump, “Since you’re attacking our news organisation, will you give us a question,” he said.

Trump visibly angry said, “Not you. No, I’m not going to give you a question. You are fake news.”

Acosta responded, “Now, Mr President-elect, that’s not appropriate.”

CNN made a statement in response to Trump. “CNN’s decision to publish carefully-sourced reporting about the operations of our government is vastly different than BuzzFeed’s decision to publish unsubstantiated memos. The Trump team knows this,” it said.

“We are fully confident in our reporting. It represents the core of what the First Amendment protects, informing the people of the inner workings of their government; in this case, briefing materials prepared for President Obama and President-elect Trump last week,” the organisation stated.

“We made it clear that we were not publishing any of the details of the 35-page document because we have not corroborated the report’s allegations. Given that members of the Trump transition team have so vocally criticised our reporting, we encourage them to identify, specifically, what they believe to be inaccurate,” it added.