This morning news channels streamed President-Elect Trump’s press conference in New York. After dodging questions about his tax returns and tweets involving “Nazi Germany,” and even telling one of the CNN reporters in the audience to “be quiet,” after he slandered the news organization, the nation is still left concerned and confused about their fate in these coming days as we inch closer to Inauguration Day on Jan. 20th.
Trump did not speak alone this morning, as he suspiciously brought Morgan Lewis attorney, Sheri Dillon, onto the podium to further explain what Trump plans to do during his presidency in terms of his business arrangements. Trump later claims that there is a No-Conflict clause and that would allow him to keep his businesses if desired, but he has instead chosen to hand them down to his two sons, Eric and Don. Ivanka Trump will no longer be involved in handling her father’s businesses.
Sean Spicer, Chief Strategist for the Republican Party, wasted no time shutting down rumors about Russian operatives having “compromising financial and personal information” about President-Elect Trump. Spicer exposed CNN and Buzzfeed as the origin of the rumors and false information. Later in the press conference, Trump slanders both news organizations calling their reporting “disgraceful,” “false and fake.” He went on to call Buzzfeed a “failing pile of garbage” and smeared CNN for supporting Buzzfeed’s claims. When asked to defend himself and his news organization by attempting to ask a question, President-Elect Trump repeatedly tells the man that he can not ask any questions and the he should “be quiet.”
Trump continued to divert the questions away from issues such as his unreleased tax returns claiming that the only citizens that care about his tax returns are the reporters because he won the presidency, so the American people must not be concerned with his lack of urgency to release these returns. Many angry Americans took to Twitter using the hashtag #TrumpPressConference demanding that he release his tax returns right away.
In terms of Russia’s involvement in the hacked election, Trump reveals for the first time that he thinks “it was Russia.” Although he believes that Russia had a hefty involvement in the election, he admits that Russia is not the only country that hacks US targets and the DNC. Although he said he wants to mend our nation’s issues with Russia, today Trump notes that he doesn’t know if he will even get along with Vladimir Putin. Donald Trump believes that “Russia will have much greater respect for our country when I am leading it.”
Trump was relieved when a reporter brought up the issue and fate of Obamacare in which the President-Elect responded that the process “will be repeal and replace.” Trump has popularly shown his dislike of Obamacare, or also known as the Affordable Care Act.
He spoke highly of the Inauguration Day festivities and the future plans for our country. If you missed this morning’s press conference, you can watch it in it’s entirety here.
