President Donald Trump held an unexpected press conference on Thursday to unveil his new nominee for Labor Secretary to replace Andrew Puzder.
You can watch the video of the press conference above. It began at 12:30 p.m. in the East Room of the White House.
After briefly introducing R. Alexander Acosta as his new Labor Secretary position, Trump addressed recent reports about his, and his campaign’s, connections to Russia, along with the things he claims he has done in his first month in office.
It was Trump’s first solo news conference since he took office last month. He has held joint press conferences with leaders from Britain, Japan, Canada and Israel. CNN reports that Trump made the decision himself to hold the previously unscheduled press conference.
During a combative hour and a half session, Trump took questions from several reporters. He denied wrongdoing in regards to Russia, and also repeatedly bashed the media for being “fake” and unfair.
If you don’t want to watch the whole press conference, you can see some of the key moments here.
In one exchange with journalist April Ryan, who is black, Trump asked if she is friends with the Congressional Black Caucus, and told her to set up a meeting with them for him.
During another interaction with a reporter, Jake Turx, Trump told him to “sit down” after saying his question about a rise in anti-Semitic incidents across the country was unfair.
“Number one: I am the least anti-Semitic person that you’ve ever seen in your entire life,” Trump said. Number two, racism. The least racist person. See, he lied about – he was going to get up and ask a very straight, simple question. Welcome to the world of the media.”
