President Donald Trump held a press conference at the White House Thursday to announce his new pick for labor secretary, Alexander Acosta, but once he began taking questions from reporters, the focus shifted away from Acosta to a slew of other topics including allegations of his campaign’s contact with Russians and a popular go-to topic for the president, his disdain for the mainstream media.
Trump said reports that members of his campaign team had multiple contacts with Russian officials during his presidential campaign are “fake news” and called the storyline “fabricated” by those bitter over Hillary Clinton’s election loss. “It’s all fake news,” Trump told reporters at a press conference in the East Room of the White House, calling the matter a “fabricated deal to make up for the loss of the Democrats.”
Though the president refuted the reporting as fake news, Trump told ABC News Jonathan Karl that suspected leaks coming from inside the government are real.
“Well, the leaks are real. You are the one that wrote about them and reported them. The leaks are real. You know what they said. You saw it. And the leaks are absolutely real. The news is fake because so much of the news is fake,” the president said.
“I’ve actually called the Justice Department to look into the leaks. Those are criminal leaks,” Trump said.
Trump also told reporters Thursday his administration is working “like a fined-tuned machine,” in the wake of this week’s resignation of his national security adviser and the withdrawal of his nominee for secretary of labor.
“This administration is running like a fine-tuned machine,” Trump said. “Despite the fact that I can’t get my Cabinet approved, and they are outstanding people.”
Trump also raised eyebrows when he asked a black reporter at the free-wheeling press conference to arrange a meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus.
“Do you want to set up the meeting?” Trump asked April Ryan, the White House correspondent for American Urban Radio Networks. “Are they friends of yours? Set up a meeting. Set up the meeting. I would love to meet with the Congressional Black Caucus, I think it’s great.”
