Donald Trump humbled by reporter at ‘wild, unhinged’ press conference

The New Daily
Feb 17, 2017, updated Feb 17, 2017

"But it was a very substantial victory, do you agree with that?" Photo: Getty

US President Donald Trump has gone head to head with reporters at a White House news conference which one commentator has described as “wild and unhinged”.

During his hour-and-17-minute-briefing, Mr Trump said “the whole Russian thing” was “a ruse” and “fake news put out by the media”, claimed the “level of dishonesty” of the press “is out of control” and that his administration was running like a “fine-tuned machine”, despite a series of embarrassing setbacks.

He also claimed that Democrat rival Hillary Clinton gave “Russia 20 per cent of the uranium in our country”, but later declined to provide evidence for the claim.

But the arguable highlight of the press conference came when Mr Trump was corrected by a reporter after claiming he had the largest electoral vote margin since Ronald Reagan.

NBC News reporter Peter Alexander pulled the president up, pointing out that three presidents who followed Mr Reagan: George HW Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, had more electoral college votes than Mr Trump.

But Mr Trump shrugged it off, saying he was simply “given that information”.

But Alexander wasn’t satisfied with the president’s answer.

“Why should Americans trust you when you accuse the information they receive of being fake when you’re providing information that is fake,” Alexander asked.

“Actually, I’ve seen that information around. But it was a very substantial victory, do you agree with that?” Mr Trump fired back.

“You’re the president,” Alexander responded.

“Good answer,” Mr Trump said finally.

Watch the exchange here

https://twitter.com/ava/status/832324150504992768

‘Wild and unhinged’: CNN’s Jake Tapper

CNN anchors Jake Tapper and Wolf Blitzer dissected the press conference saying it felt like the “airing of grievances” from Seinfeld’s Festivus.

“At one point he said the leaks are real, but the news is fake, which doesn’t make any sense whatsoever,” Tapper said.

“It was unhinged, it was wild,” Tapper said. “I can’t believe there are Republicans on Capitol Hill and in the White House that don’t understand that might play well with the 44 per cent of the population that voted for the president, but a lot of Americans are going to watch that press conference and say: ‘That guy isn’t focused on me, I don’t even know what he’s focused on’.”

“If you are a soldier in harm’s way right now, if you are a hungry child in Appalachia or the inner city, if you are an unemployed worker in the hollow shell of a steel town, that’s not a president who seemed rather focused on your particular needs and wants,” Tapper said.

“That’s a president focused on his bad press.”