Donald Trump attacked CNN and BuzzFeed during a press conference on Wednesday amid allegations that Russia holds compromising personal and financial information about him.
The president-elect of the United States branded BuzzFeed a “failing pile of garbage” and said the website would “suffer the consequences”.
And he angrily refused to take a question from CNN’s Senior White House Correspondent, Jim Acosta, pointing at him and shouting: “Not you. Your organisation is terrible”
“Don’t be rude,” Trump told Acosta. “You are fake news.”
Attempting to get a question in, Acosta asked Trump: “Since you are attacking us, can you give us a question?”
“Mr president-elect, that is not appropriate,” the CNN reporter told Trump when his request was dismissed.
On Tuesday afternoon, CNN published a story that a dossier has been presented to Trump and outgoing President Barack Obama.
The 35-page document alleged some on Trump campaign team colluded with Russia and claimed there are videos of his private life. It is being investigated by the FBI for credibility and accuracy.
CNN published no details of the information contained in dossier. Later, however, BuzzFeed published the documents in full.
And Trump lumped CNN and BuzzFeed together in his attack.
Following the press conference, CNN released a statement criticising the president-elect for conflating the two reports in order to avoid answering questions.
BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith on Tuesday defended publishing the 35-page dossier, saying the website wanted to be transparent and “share what we have with our readers”.
Meanwhile BuzzFeed’s UK-based staff appeared to brush aside the criticism:
The press conference, at Trump Tower in New York, was his first news conference in six months – 168 days, to be exact – and his first after November’s sensational election win.
During the conference, Trump also dismissed the unverified story thathe has a predilection for the sexual act known as a golden shower, telling reporters: “I’m very much of a germaphobe”.