Last Updated Jan 11, 2017 4:50 PM EST
President-elect Donald Trump held a free-wheeling, hour-long press conference at Trump Tower Wednesday morning — the first formal news conference he’s held since winning the presidency in November.
The motivation for the news conference, which was initially scheduled for December but delayed by almost a month, was to outline how he will deal with his complex web of business interests once he’s in the White House, Since his election, Mr. Trump has faced serious questions about who will handle his businesses while he’s in the White House — and how to avoid the myriad conflicts of interest that could arise when a sitting president owns a business empire.
In an opening statement before his first press conference as president-elect, Donald Trump spoke about his ties to Russia, the upcoming inaugurat…
However, much of the press conference ended up focusing on Russian election interference and on reports Tuesday that the intelligence community’s classified report on Russian hacking had an addendum with unverified details of potentially compromising information that Russia has gathered on the president-elect, and that Mr. Trump was briefed on last week.
President-elect Donald Trump slams reports that Russia has potentially compromising information about him.
“These papers are all just a piece of the many, many companies that are being put into a trust to be run by my two sons,” he said. Mr. Trump continued that he hopes he will come back “at the end of eight years” to a company that has been well run, but that if not he will tell his sons “You’re fired.”
“He shouldn’t be doing it, he won’t be doing it,” he said. “Russia will have much greater respect for our country when I’m leading it than when other people have led it. You will see that.”
Mr. Trump repeated that “it’s not just Russia” that has been hacking U. S. entities.
“That’s something that Nazi Germany would have done and did do,” he said, referencing his tweet Wednesday morning.
Mr. Trump called BuzzFeed, which posted the intelligence memo about Russian information, “a failing pile of garbage,” and also criticized CNN for publicizing the reports on Tuesday.
After attacking CNN and BuzzFeed over Russian intel reports, President-elect Donald Trump gets into a heated exhange with a CNN reporter at his n…
A CNN reporter in the audience attempted to ask a follow-up question, but Mr. Trump repeatedly shut him down.
“No, not you, your organization is terrible. Quiet. Quiet,” he said. As the reporter continued trying to ask a question, talking over another reporter, Mr. Trump continued: “Don’t be rude. Don’t be rude. Don’t. Be. Rude. I’m not going to give you a question. You are fake news.”
“I want to get the wall started,” he said. “I don’t want to wait a year and a half until I make my deal with Mexico.”
As for the form that reimbursement will take, Mr. Trump said it’s more likely it will be through a “tax” than a “payment.”
“They will reimburse us for the cost of the wall, whether it’s a tax or whether it’s a payment,” he said. “Probably less likely that it’s a payment.”
During his first news conference as president-elect, Donald Trump talks about his plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.
“Obamacare is a complete and total disaster,” he said, citing increased premiums and high deductibles. “… Frankly, we could sit back — and it was a thought from a political standpoint — but it wouldn’t be fair to the people.”
To people who suggest Mr. Trump should sell his business, Dillon said that would only “exacerbate” the possibility for conflicts.
Dillon said Mr. Trump’s business holdings and investments will be put in a trust before Inauguration Day, and that his two adult sons will run the company. Ivanka Trump, whose husband Jared Kushner is set to become a senior adviser to the Trump White House, will have “no further management” role in the company.
She also said there will be “no new foreign deals” made during the duration of Mr. Trump’s presidency, and that domestic deals will be subject to “severe restrictions.”
Still, Mr. Trump asserted that he would have been able to continue running his business from the White House if he wanted to.
“I could actually run my business … and run government at the same time,” he said. “I don’t like the way that looks but I’d be able to if I wanted to.”
President-elect Donald Trump slammed allegations of Russia having potentially compromising information on him during his first news conference si…
He also reaffirmed what he posted on Twitter Wednesday morning, stating that he has no conflicts of interest with Russia.
“I tweeted out that I have no dealings with Russia, I have no deals in Russia, I have no deals that could happen with Russia because we’ve stayed away, and I have no loans,” he said.
“If Putin likes Donald Trump I consider that an asset not a liability because we have a horrible relationship with Russia,” he said.
“Now I don’t know that I’m going to get along with Vladimir Putin,” he said. “I hope I do, but … do you honestly believe that Hillary [Clinton] will be tougher on Putin than me?”
“As far as hacking, I think it was Russian,” he said. “But I think we also get hacked by other countries and other people and I can say that when we lost 22 million names and everything else that was hacked recently, they didn’t make a big deal out of that, that was something that was extraordinary.”
He also blamed Democratic National Committee for getting hacked, saying the committee “was totally open to be hacked, they did a very poor job.”
Mr. Trump said he’s not allowed to discuss information that was presented during his intelligence briefing — but confirmed he did in fact see the memo in question on compromising information, calling it a “disgrace.”
“I saw the information, I read the information outside of that meeting it’s all fake news, it’s phony stuff, it didn’t happen and it was gotten by opponents of ours,” he said. “It was a group of opponents who got together, sick people, and they put that crap together.”
He thanked news organizations that did not run stories on Russia’s alleged compromising information about him.
“I want to thank a lot of the news organizations, some of whom have not treated me well over the years, a couple in particular, and they came out so strongly against that fake news,” he said.
