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Donald Trump to issue new travel ban due next week, Turnbull leak ‘terrible’

US President Donald Trump is set to issue a new executive order for his controversial travel ban rather than defend his existing proposal through the American court system.

In a fiery media conference, in which he again attacked the US media and defended the first weeks of his presidency, Mr Trump confirmed the new order would be “tailored” to what he called a “very bad decision” by the courts.

The US Federal Courts ruled the travel ban, which barred people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the US for 90 days, could not be implemented while it was the subject of legal challenges.

The Justice Department told a federal appeals court the president would replace the order with a new one to avoid “potentially time-consuming litigation”.

A new order was due next week, Mr Trump said of the ban, which also placed a 120 day bar on refugees.

“We can tailor the order to that decision and get just about everything, in some ways more,” he said.

Media attacks continue

The President fronted media for the second day in a row on Friday (AEST), admonishing them for what he repeatedly called their “fake news”.

“The press has become so dishonest that if we don’t talk about it, we are doing a tremendous disservice to the American people,” Mr Trump said.

He also hit back against claims his administration was in chaos following a string of explosive claims about links to Russia, the resignation of his national security adviser Michael Flynn and the handling of the travel ban.

The President pointed to a rising stock market and uptick in business confidence to declare the “this administration is running like a fine-tuned machine”.

He also slammed the media and leakers who exposed details of his calls with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto.

At one point Mr Trump, while discussing media stories involving the leaks, raised eyebrows when he said: “The leaks are absolutely real. The news is fake”.

Mr Trump labelled the furore over Mr Flynn’s phone calls with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak as fake news.

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Trump faced a flurry of questions from US media. Photo: AP

Despite asking for Mr Flynn’s resignation, he described his former adviser as a “good man” who had done nothing wrong in talking to Russian officials.

Leaked Turnbull call

The president said he had not directed Mr Flynn to contact the Russian ambassador about sanctions and that the General’s mistake had been to mislead Vice-President Mike Pence about the calls.

Discussing the heated phone call with Mr Turnbull, he said it was “terrible it was leaked”.

“The same thing with Australia,”  he said.

“All of a sudden people are finding out exactly what took place.”

Mr Trump said he was concerned future calls on sensitive issues such as North Korea could also be leaked.

“The first thing I thought of when I heard about it was, ‘how does the press get this information that’s classified. How do they do it?’ You know why? Because it is an illegal process and the press should be ashamed of themselves,” he said.

“But more importantly, the people that gave out the information to the press should be ashamed of themselves. Really ashamed.”

Alternate fact

The President also falsely announced he scored more electoral college votes in last year’s election win than any other president since Ronald Reagan.

A reporter pointed out three presidents who followed Mr Reagan, George HW Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, had more electoral college votes than Mr Trump.

“I was given that information,” Mr Trump replied.

The President also announced he would nominate R. Alexander Acosta, a Hispanic law school dean, for labor secretary after the withdrawal of fast food executive Andrew Puzder.

-with AAP

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