WATCH: Senators weigh in on Trump’s treatment of media

Senators offered differing opinions Thursday about President-elect Donald Trump’s treatment of the media following his boisterous press conference this week.

{mosads}Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) described the 70-minute news conference as “the circus comes to town,” arguing Trump does not treat journalists fairly.

“No, because he conflates Facebook fake news with legitimate journalism,” McCaskill said in a hallway interview with The Hill’s Molly K. Hooper.

Former Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Tim Kaine (Va.) called Wednesday’s press conference “surreal,” and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) called Trump’s first press conference in six months “inadequate.”

Asked if Trump treats the media fairly, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) paused before smiling to say, “yes … yes.”

Trump opened his press conference Wednesday by thanking most news organizations for not publishing unverified details from memos reportedly included in materials prepared for his intelligence briefing last week.

BuzzFeed had published the memos in full late Tuesday after CNN broke news that a summary of the memos had been included in Trump’s briefing materials.

Trump slammed BuzzFeed as a “failing pile of garbage” Wednesday and clashed with a CNN reporter during his press conference, refusing to allow him to ask a question. Trump claimed Thursday that CNN was having a “total meltdown.”

GOP Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas) and Lindsey Graham (S.C.) called Wednesday’s press conference “lively” and “interesting,” respectively.

Cruz would not say if Trump treats the media fairly, turning the question around.

“I don’t think the media does its job fairly,” Cruz said, explaining that “many of the media” only present “one side” of the facts.

“I don’t think anybody cares if we treat ya’ll fairly,” Graham said.