President-elect Trump on Thursday lashed out at the White House and critics of his decision to cancel a press conference where he was to detail how he would separate his business from the presidency.
Trump initially played media critic Thursday morning, ripping magazine Vanity Fair as having “really poor numbers” and being “way down, big trouble, dead!” The magazine published a negative review of a restaurant in Trump Tower on Wednesday and Trump sparred regularly with editor Graydon Carter when he covered Trump in New York.
After thanking Time and Financial Times for naming him their “Person Of The Year,” Trump moved on to ripping the media for asking questions about his potential conflicts of interest.
The media tries so hard to make my move to the White House, as it pertains to my business, so complex – when actually it isn’t!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 15, 2016
“The media tries so hard to make my move to the White House, as it pertains to my business, so complex — when actually it isn’t!” Trump tweeted.
The statement comes on the same morning Trump was scheduled to discuss how he would separate himself from the Trump Organization. That press conference was delayed last week and Sean Spicer, a spokesman for the Republican Party and the transition, said Trump and his advisers needed more time to figure out the details of the separation.
A few minutes after that tweet, Trump criticized the White House for waiting too long to act on potential Russian hacking.
“If Russia, or some other entity, was hacking, why did the White House waite (sic) so long to act? Why did they only complain after Hillary lost?” Trump tweeted.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters before the election that the U.S. would retaliate against Russia for hacking the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign manager John Podesta’s emails on Oct. 11, almost a month before the election.
James Clapper, director of national intelligence, wrote a letter on Oct. 8 stating it was the consensus of the intelligence community that Russia was responsible for the hacking.
