Donald Trump refused to answer a question from a CNN reporter during his press conference at Trump Tower in New York on Wednesday, as retribution for the CNN story that said he and Barack Obama had been presented with claims that Russia had compromising financial and personal information about the president-elect.
“Not you. Your organization is terrible,” said Trump, when CNN’s senior White House correspondent, Jim Acosta, tried to ask a question.
“Since you’re attacking us, can you give us a question? Mr President-elect, since you’re attacking our news organization, can you give us a chance?” asked Acosta.
“I’m not going to give you a question. You are fake news,” said the president-elect.
Trump was furious after BuzzFeed published an unverified and salacious 35-page report yesterday claiming to show connections between Trump and Russia, using CNN’s earlier story (which mentions the report without revealing its full contents or publishing it) as justification for publishing. BuzzFeed’s decision triggered a storm over media ethics.
Trump repeatedly criticized CNN and BuzzFeed throughout his press conference at Trump Tower in New York on Wednesday, calling BuzzFeed a “leftwing blog” and a “failing pile of garbage” for publishing the unverified report. CNN later said that its decision to publish “carefully sourced reporting” on unverified intelligence documents concerning Donald Trump was “vastly different than BuzzFeed’s decision to publish unsubstantiated memos”.
His attack on CNN can be viewed as somewhat ironic.
Jeff Zucker, president of CNN Worldwide, was the head of NBC Entertainment when it launched The Apprentice, and the success of that and the subsequent spin-off The Celebrity Apprentice helped Zucker become head of NBC. Then, with Zucker as president, CNN gave Trump millions in free publicity thanks to its round-the-clock coverage of his presidential campaign.
Shortly after dodging the CNN question on Wednesday, a BBC reporter asked if Trump would reconsider his position as president if intelligence agencies found any truth in the report’s allegations.
“BBC, that’s another beauty,” said Trump, before adding: “There’s nothing they could come back with” and quickly moving along.
Trump’s treatment of reporters during the press conference drew criticism from free-speech activists.
“President-elect Trump’s attempt to punish a major US media outlet for what he considers unfavorable coverage and his denigration of members of the press is the kind of thuggish behavior exhibited by authoritarian regimes,” said Suzanne Nossel, executive director of PEN America, a group that pushes for the freedom to write.
In Wednesday’s press conference, Trump also slammed intelligence agencies for supposedly leaking the report to news agencies.
“I think it was disgraceful that the intelligence agencies allowed any information that turned out to be so false and fake” to get out, said Trump.
“As far as BuzzFeed, which is a failing pile of garbage writing it, I think they’re going to suffer the consequences, and they already are,” Trump said.
Many news outlets, including the Guardian, published articles based on the report without publishing it in full or giving its full details because they are unverified.
The Guardian reported that the FBI applied for a warrant from the foreign intelligence surveillance (Fisa) court last summer so that it could monitor four members of Trump’s team suspected of contact with Russian officials, but the Fisa court rejected the application.
BuzzFeed co-founder Jonah Peretti said in a statement: “We stand with Ben on his decision to publish this newsworthy document, which was reported on by multiple news outlets and seen by high level government officials including the president and president-elect.
“As a result of this decision, we were criticized by the incoming administration. We are not going to respond to these divisive comments.”
In response to CNN’s statement criticizing BuzzFeed’s report, BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith told the Huffington Post: “We’re not going to participate in an attempt to divide the media against each other. We stand by the decision to publish a newsworthy document.”
- This article was amended on 12 January 2017 to show the tweet on BuzzFeed’s decision to publish was from Ben Smith, not Jonah Peretti.
