11/01/2017 Outside Source

Hello, I'm Ros Atkins, this is Outside Source.

Donald Trump has given his first press conference

He took the stage, gave a statement, and then took questions

on Obamacare, conflicts of interest, his proposed wall on

the Mexican border - and whether he is vulnerable

I saw the information, I read the information,

it's all fake news, it's all phoney, it didn't happen.

If Putin likes Donald Trump, I consider that an asset, not a

liability, because we have a horrible relationship with Russia.

He finished by using a phrase we all know.

They do a bad job, I'll say, you're fired.

We'll take you through all the key moments of that press conference.

And then we'll turn to the confirmation hearing

of Rex Tillerson, who Donald Trump wants to become Secretary of State.

We will play you clips and schedule analysis.

We've correspondents in New York and Washington,

plus the BBC's North America editor Jon Sopel will be live with me

And across the hour, if you have questions on what Mr Trump said, you

can use our hashtag, my contact details and the e-mail address are

on screen. Send as your questions, we have live reporters through the

hour to give you some answers. Every part of Donald Trump's

successful journey to the White House has been passionate,

abrasive, different and divisive. The same can be said

of his first press conference. This was from Mr Trump's

opening statement. Thank you very much, it is very

familiar territory, News conferences, because we used to give

them on an almost daily basis, I think we have probably maybe won the

nomination because of news conferences, it is good to be with

you. We stopped giving them because we were getting quite a bit of an

accurate news, but I do have to say, and I must say, that I want to thank

a lot of the news organisations here today. Because they looked at that

nonsense that was released by, maybe, the intelligence agencies,

who knows? Maybe the intelligence agencies, which would be age Mendis

blot on their record if they, in fact, did that. A tremendous

blotter. What Mr Trump is talking

about there are reports that Russia's intelligence agencies hold

compromising personal They come in a dossier believed

to have been written by a former CNN reported that US intelligence

had shown a summary of the dossier And Donald Trump

is furious with both. As you'll see in this next clip

from the press conference. I think it was disgraceful,

disgraceful, that the intelligence agencies allowed any information

that turned out to be so false and fake out. I think it is a disgrace.

And I say that, and I say that, and that is something that Nazi Germany

would have done, and they do. I think it is a disgrace. But

information that was false and fake that never happened got released to

the public as far as BuzzFeed, which is a failing pile of garbage writing

it, I think they will suffer the consequences, they already are. And

as far as CNN going out of their way to build it up, and, by the way, we

just found out, I was coming down, Michael Cohen is a very talented

lawyer, a good friend, he has just reported that it was not this one

they were talking about. All night long it is him, I said, I want to

see your passport, he brings it to my office, I say, wait a minute, he

was not out of the country. They said that he was in Prague. It

turned out to be a different person with the same name. It is a disgrace

what took place, it is a disgrace. I think they ought to apologise to

Michael, to start with. REPORTER: President-elect, since you are

attacking us, can you give us a chance? Not you, your

organisation... Go ahead. Quiet. Go ahead. She is asking a question,

don't be rude. Don't be rude. Don't be rude. No, I am not going to give

you a question. You are fake news. The reporter not being allowed

to ask a question by Donald Trump "Fortunately ABC's Cecilia Vega

asked my question about whether any Lots of people were upset by the

nature of that exchange. Trump also says the incoming

White House press secretary Sean Spicer threatened to kick him

out of the press conference I apologise, Jim Acosta from CNN

said that. What about BuzzFeed? It editor Ben Smith said the decision

to publish the dossier is, and this is from the statement he tweeted,

our presumption is to be transparent in our journalism and to share what

we have with reasons, we publish the dossier so that Americans can make

up their own minds about allegations that Donald Trump... About the

president that have circulated at the highest levels of the US

government. He also mentioned the media and went

on to say, publishing this document was not an easy or simple call and

people of goodwill may disagree with our choice.

It is fair to say that Donald Trump disagrees. It is worth emphasising

that the story is not so much about the allegations, the BBC and other

organisations have been aware of them and we simply can't verify

them, the story is that US intelligence, having got this

dossier, decided it was sufficiently important that they gave a summary

bid to Donald Trump and Barack Obama, that is the story that the

BBC is focusing on. -- gave a summary of it too.

Donald Trump also spoke about those allegations that Russian hacking

attempted to influence the presidential election.

Here he is on matter. I think it was Russian, but I think

we will also hacked by other countries and other people -- we

were also hacked. I can say that when we lost 22 million names and

everything else that was hacked recently, they didn't make a big

deal out of that, that is something that was extraordinary, probably

China. We had much hacking going on. That's the first time Mr Trump has

explicitly said that Russia carried out hacking

during the presidential election. Which led him on to talking

about his potential relationship If Putin likes Donald Trump, I

consider that an asset, not a liability. We have a horrible

relationship with Russia, Russia can help us fight ices which, by the

way, is, number one, tricky. This administration created Isis by

leaving at the wrong time. The void has created, Isis was formed. If

Putin likes Donald Trump, guess what, that is an asset, not a

liability. I don't know that I will get along with Vladimir Putin. I

hope I do, but there is a good chance I won't. And if I don't, do

you honestly believe that Hillary would be tougher on Putin than me?

Does anybody in this room really believe that? Give me a break.

Let's bring in the BBC's Anthony Zurcher from Washington, DC. When

Donald Trump won, the media in the US did a lot of hand-wringing about

not seeing it coming, it has had quite a few weeks to get ready for

this press conference but did not land many punches? It reminded me a

lot of the ones he had during his primary campaign, all over the

place, occasionally acrimonious, he would tend to pick out an enemy and

beat that, in this case the enemy was CNN, BuzzFeed and other members

of the press, as well as calling into question the intelligence

community, but part of the nature of these kind of conferences is it is

very difficult to follow up questions, very easy for Donald

Trump to turn those questions back on the questioner, to dodge or evade

whatever he does not want to answer, particularly if the question is one

of these four or five multipart questions that reporters like to do

when presidential press conferences, Donald Trump would just pick the

question that he wanted to say, answer that and let the rest slide.

I think we learned some interesting things about what Donald Trump

intends to do with his business empire, some of the things about

health care policy, a timeline on Supreme Court nominations, a little

bit more on how he will try to get Mexico to pay for the border wall

through taxes, not some sort of check up front, but other than that,

lots of it was sound and fury. When he was going for the nomination we

sometimes discussed how things would change if he became the nominee.

When he was the nominee there were suggestions about whether he would

change as President-elect, it seems he is not changing at all, this is

the man as he has always been a dozen Americans voted for him? You

are right, I think the talk of a Trump pivot, whatever it was, we

never saw that. Donald Trump is who he is, he has been the same Donald

Trump on Twitter over last few weeks as he was when running for president

and even before he entered the political arena, that is Donald

Trump and he will not change for better or worse, we will have to

adjust and react to it. For the next four years, I think. You mentioned

policy details, let's work through some of the more significant ones,

what did you pick out as being, we did not know that before and we know

now? The top line was what he said about the business empire, that he

would hand over control of his sprawling financial domain to his

sons, but he would not divest himself of ownership nor would he

set up some sort of blind trust, he brought on a lawyer to talk about

the details of this and she said that Donald Trump can't really

forget that he owns Trump Tower, which is a ballad point. He knows

where his golf courses and real estate holdings are so it'll be hard

for him to operate without that knowledge, but lots of critic said

he needed to take more steps to make sure he had no appearance of

conflict-of-interest when he was taking actions for his presidency,

and the things he announced, I am pretty sure they will not satisfy

those critics. I mentioned the Mexican wall, he said that instead

of having some sort of upfront payment from Mexico that there might

be some sort of tax or border levy installed, maybe within a year, that

there would be negotiations. The other key thing that he talked about

was health care reform, talk about delaying and repealing ObamaCare, he

wants to see some sort of action unappealing ObamaCare, which he says

is ruinous, in the next several weeks after his human health and

services nominee is confirmed, and as soon as it is repealed a

replacement has to be brought up almost instantaneously. That is the

heavy-lift, legislatively, and people in Congress are probably

getting nervous that Donald Trump is setting that deadline, it looks like

that is what he will push for. Thank you, Anthony Zurcher will be

back with us later in the programme. Now let's talk about the dossier is

a more. -- some more. The BBC's Paul Wood has spent

several months looking into this now-infamous dossier that has

so angered Mr Trump The BBC has known about it for some

weeks but we have not been able to publish it or verify its contents.

This document has circulated for some time in Washington, it was

known about in the congressional leadership, senior intelligence

figures, in September and October. Some of the big American papers got

hold of it, as did we in the BBC, in the last week of the election. Many

people felt they could not publish it because they did not know if it

was true. I managed to pass on questions to the CIA officers, or

some of them, dealing with the case file. It would be illegal for them

to talk to me directly but I got a message back from them saying it was

more than one table, audio as well as video, in more than one location,

not just the Ritz-Carlton in Moscow but St Petersburg as well, more than

one data, material of the sexual nature which they regarded as

credible. I spoke to a retired spy in August to tilt me quite

independently of the MI6 officer, the only source in the American

media, that he had been informed by the head of an Eastern European

intelligence agency of blackmail Tate possessed by the Russians with

material of the sexual nature about Mr Trump. None of this is to say

that anybody is endorsing these claims, but there are certainly --

there is certainly sufficient credibility for the intelligence

community to pass them onto Mr Obama, the congressional leadership

and Mr Trump, who is angry. Some viewers would say wouldn't Russia

have an interest in Mr Trump thinking they had this kind of thing

on him? They're all sorts of explanations, one of which, I spoke

to an expert on Russia who said that FSB officers like to boast that they

have compromising material, they make a lot of use about as part of

the tradecraft and they are always boasting about this or that public

figure possibly being the subject of blackmail, we do not know unless we

see the tape at the Russians will not release it, so it comes down to

whether these FSB officers are credible, we are getting it second

through an MI6 officer who everybody says is credible, has long

experience in Moscow, but these are allegations and hearsay evidence,

nobody has seen the tape. That said, the allegations about the

tape are not coming out in isolation, there has been an

interagency task force comprising the FBI on one hand and the CIA on

the other, looking at allegations that money was passed to Mr Trump

was my campaign through some of his associates, a secret court warrant

was granted a couple of weeks before voting, again, these are

allegations, nobody is saying they are proven, but I would not be

surprised to see congressional hearings on this. Want you in the UK

sees it -- says that if these tapes were known about months ago, why was

that not released? -- one viewer in the UK says. I can only speak about

the BBC, we were aware of the dossier but could not verify any of

the allegations in it, which is why the story was taking a little while.

CNN has reported the fact that US intelligence showed a summary of the

dossier to Donald Trump and Barack Obama. As to why BuzzFeed published

the editor of BuzzFeed who took a decision and has dealt with that on

Twitter throughout the day. Later we will talk about Donald

Trump Usman business interests with the help of the mirror Hussein. We

will look in more detail about the measures he has taken to put

distance between him and his businesses once he is in the White

House. The former British ambassador

to the United States, Sir Christopher Meyer,

says Trump's rocky relationship with the intelligence agencies -

even before he's taken office - is concerning for both US

and world security. In this press conference, although

he did not exactly underlined this coming hugely suggested that the

intelligence agencies might be behind the publicly King of these

allegations, such that they have appeared in certain news agencies --

the public the king. You might say this is a renewed war between

himself and the intelligence agencies, you are quite right to say

that for a president to start his term of office on bad relations,

very bad relations, with the intelligence agencies, it is not

brilliant for American security and not brilliant for world security or

the security of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.

This is Outside Source live from the BBC newsroom.

Donald Trump gave his first press conference as President-elect -

facing questions on Obamacare, conflicts of interest

and whether he is vulnerable to blackmail by Russia.

It was his first press conference in almost six months. Some of the main

stories from the BBC World Service...

BBC China report that Taiwan used military jets to monitor a Chinese

aircraft carrier as it sailed close to the island.

China has said it was carrying out a standard naval drill

Tensions between China and Taiwan have been running high

since Donald Trump chose to take a call from the Taiwanese

A cold snap across Southern and Eastern Europe is now thought

to have caused 30 people to lose their lives.

Many of those who've died were migrants living

We have a report from Greece on this story later in the programme.

Donald Trump knew he'd be asked about possible

He took it head on - even had a huge pile of paperwork

relating to his businesses up on the stage with him.

Here he is explaining what he will do.

What I'm going to be doing is that my two sons, who are right here, Don

and Eric, will be running the company. They are going to be

running it in a very professional manner, they will not discuss it

with me. Again, I don't have to do this. They will not discuss it with

me. And, with that, I will bring up Cheri Dillon, these papers are among

many documents I have signed showing complete and total turnover of

control to my sons. Samira Hussain has been looking

into those conflicts in New York Can you explain blind trust? Mr

Trump has said he will turn over the management of the Trump organisation

to his two sons and another trusted advisor and he will completely step

away from any sort of business decisions. In addition, he has said

that the Trump organisation will not have any international deals as long

as he is in office, and with regards to domestic deals, that will be

subject to the approval of their own appointed ethics advisers, so the

ethics adviser will say to the Trump boys whether or not the deal could

go through and whether it is upholding the standards of ethics

here in the United States. Is that satisfying people concerned about

this? That is the question. Likely it will

probably not satisfy everyone. There are a few problems with what he has

already established. First, he has divested anything. Because he has

not divest did anything, he still has a vested interest in how the

company is run and its success. In that way he is not really providing

enough distance between himself and the Trump organisation. It is not a

blind trust, because he has given management over to his two sons, the

truest sense of the blind trust would mean it would have to be an

outside adviser, someone that the Trump organisation does not know

what all, but that does not really exist with his two sons. Finally, it

is really hard to say that you don't care how well your sons do, it is in

his interest that they do well, and the sharing of information, it is

such a slippery slope. Thank you for taking us through

that, we appreciated. Mr Trump has interests in 144

companies operating in 25 countries. We were talking about the FTSE 100

yesterday. Yesterday the FTSE 100 index -

the UK's leading measure of share prices - closed at a record high

for the ninth day in a row. As you can see, it continues to

increase, in part related to the value of sterling, companies that

operate abroad can make more money when they turn their foreign

currency into sterling. Let's get the analysis of the BBC's

North American editor Jon Sopel on what we saw earlier from Donald

Trump. He was on the front but, he was

going to come up fighting, you would not have expected anything

different. Even from the extraordinary standards that one

accepts as the new normal from Donald Trump, it was that on

something beyond. -- and something beyond. What came out of it was the

really fraught relationship he will have much as with the media, we

expected that, but the intelligence services. It almost seems in the

news conferences that he thought the word of the CIA and the FBI were

somehow worth less than the word of Vladimir Putin, he quoted

favourably. That will be a fraught relationship going forward. My other

takeout was that Donald Trump was the genius jury the campaign of

using social media to bite, to hit at opponents, and whether this news

is fake or not, you felt today that he has been bitten and you had his

supporters and him saying that this fake news is a disgrace and

disgusting, you heard less of it when it was Hillary Clinton on the

receiving end during the campaign. I know you expect a tough relationship

between the media and the president when he takes office, nonetheless I

can't recall a press conference where a figure of the seniority in

US politics was quite as abrasive with a couple of journalists. Maybe

you have been an press conferences where you have seen something like

that? Good god I have been an endless rallies where at some point

during Donald Trump 's Mike 's speech he says, the media, have you

ever seen such a bunch of liars? A mole dishonest group you will never

meet. I guess I thought it would be different. Why, this is how he

operates. An awful lot of the American public distrust and dislike

the media. Among his core supporters it will not make a lot of

difference, but remember what Donald Trump said when he won, I will unite

the United States of America, bring people together and be a healer. I

think the people who love Donald Trump will still love him at the end

of this, I think the people who hate Donald Trump will still hate him at

the end of this. I think America remains as polarised on America's

45th president has ever before. He set out a very ambitious timetable,

I will do this on day one, this update two, does he have the support

on the hill to get those measures through? I think he probably will. I

think Congress, the House of Representatives and the Senate,

which is what we mean by the Hill, are scared of him, I think he is

using that to great effect. I think he is very powerful in a legislative

position. He is not omnipotent, he has to watch his step. If the

perception comes about that foreign policy towards Russia is in any way

being dictated by something the criminal Matt -- Kremlin might have

over him, dangerous. Jon will be back in Washington soon

continuing his coverage of Donald Trump. I will speak to you in a

couple of minutes.