In his first press conference since the election, president-elect Donald Trump mounted a war against the media and attempted to incite infighting among its circles. His targets were BuzzFeed and CNN.
In the wake of an uncorroborated and highly compromising report released by a former MI6 officer concerning Trump’s alleged involvements with Russia, and which was published in full on the BuzzFeed website, the incoming president called the online media company “a failing pile of garbage.” He also threatened that it would “suffer the consequences” of printing the dossier.
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“It’s frankly outrageous and highly irresponsible for a left-wing blog that was openly hostile to the president-elect’s campaign to drop highly salacious and flat out false information on the internet just days before he takes the oath of office,” press secretary Sean Spicer said at the outset of the conference.
Trump also repeatedly shut down CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta’s attempts to ask a question during the conference, calling his organization “fake news.” He took issue with CNN’s coverage of parts of the same dossier.
As a result, CNN has publicly distanced itself from BuzzFeed, calling the latter’s report “unverified” and “irresponsible,” creating exactly the kind of discrediting name-calling many (like The New Yorker and The Atlantic) think Trump has been trying to incite within media circles.
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Since the conference, BuzzFeed has responded in its signature tongue-in-cheek manner by creating “Failing Pile of Garbage” T-shirts and a BuzzFeed branded trash can, which were on sale until midnight Thursday for $30 and $49, respectively. Proceeds of the sales were donated to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
The BuzzFeed community also had this to say:
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