CNN reporter: Top Trump aide threatened to throw me out

CNN’s @Acosta: Trump spokesman @seanspicer warned he’d be expelled from presser if he pushed for another question https://t.co/i1GjmeOREe

— The Situation Room (@CNNSitRoom) January 11, 2017

A CNN reporter who was denied a chance to ask a question at Donald Trump’s first press conference as president-elect said the incoming White House press secretary threatened to throw him out.

Jim Acosta attempted to ask Trump a question on Wednesday, but the president-elect refused and called the network “fake news.”

“At one point during this news conference, in the interest of full disclosure…after I asked and I guess demanded that we had a question, Sean Spicer, the incoming press secretary did say to me if I were to do that again, I was going to be thrown out of this press conference,” Acosta said during a live broadcast following the press conference.

The tensions between CNN and Trump’s camp come a day after the network reported that intelligence officials told Trump in a briefing that the Russian government had compromising information about him.

{mosads}During the heated press conference exchange, Trump chastised CNN and Acosta, calling the network “terrible.”

“You’re attacking us, can you give us a question?” Acosta said during the news conference.

“Don’t be rude. No, I’m not going to give you a question. You are fake news,” Trump responded, before calling on another reporter from Trump-friendly outlet Breitbart.

Spicer began the conference by blasting CNN and BuzzFeed, which published the details of an uncorroborated intelligence report on Trump, as “frankly shameful and disgraceful.”

After the press conference, Acosta said on-air that he knew at the beginning CNN likely wouldn’t get to ask a question. He said Trump had initially pointed to him but then gestured with a wave that signaled he wouldn’t call on him for a question.

“I felt it was only fair that if our news organization is going to be attacked, that we get a chance to ask a follow-up question about what Donald Trump was talking about,” Acosta said.

Intelligence officials briefed Trump on an unverified report that the Russian government has compromising financial and personal information about him, according to CNN. The 35-page report was compiled by a former British intelligence official employed by Trump’s political opponents, according to the network.

Trump has denied this report and called it a “political witch hunt.” In a tweet early Wednesday, the president-elect called it “very unfair.” Russian officials have called the CNN report an “absolute fabrication,” according to The New York Times.