NEW YORK ― President-elect Donald Trump called out the publication of unverified allegations about ties to Russia as "fake news" during Wednesday's press conference, his first in nearly six months.
CNN reported Tuesday that top intelligence officials briefed Trump last week about a dossier containing unsubstantiated claims that Russia has "compromising personal and financial information" about him. An hour later, BuzzFeed published the 35-page document, which had been circulating among news organizations for months but had not previously been published because the claims remain unverified.
Sean Spicer, the incoming White House press secretary, kicked off the news conference Wednesday by blasting BuzzFeed's decision, which its editor-in-chief, Ben Smith, has defended as an attempt to provide readers with details of the allegations reportedly brought before Trump and President Barack Obama.
"It's frankly outrageous and highly irresponsible for a left-wing blog 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," Spicer said.
Vice President-elect Mike Pence followed Spicer by criticizing the "irresponsible decision" of those who published a "false and unsubstantiated report" while "most news organizations resisted the temptation to propagate this fake news."
Pence attributed the decision to publish the document to "media bias and attempt to demean the president-elect and our incoming administration." He said, "The American people are sick and tired of it."
Trump called out the "fake news" story as well when he next took the stage and thanked news organizations that did not publish details of the allegations.