In presser, Trump praises media for not reporting on 'nonsense' Russian intelligence report

NEW YORK — It's been 167 days since President-elect Donald Trump's last press conference, but on Wednesday he gathered members of the media and thanked the majority of them for not sharing a controversial report claiming Russia has damning information on him.

Trump's unusual praise of the media comes on the heels of a report from CNN that contends Russian operatives claim to have personal and financial information on the president-elect.

While CNN didn't publish any details of the information, Buzzfeed Tuesday released the unsubstantiated dossier which detailed specifics of the highly personal and sexual information Russia supposedly has gathered.

Speaking from Trump Tower in Manhattan Wednesday, Trump praised the news organizations that did not report on the "nonsense" of the claims.

"I've just gone up a notch as to what I think of you," Trump said.

"It should never have been written, it should never been had, it certainly never should have been released," the president-elect said.

Trump said:

I want to thank a lot of the news organizations here today because they looked at that nonsense that was released by maybe the intelligence agencies, who knows, but maybe the intelligence agencies which would be a tremendous blot on their record if they did in fact do that.

"As far as Buzzfeed, which is a failing pile of garbage writing it, I think they are going to suffer the consequences as they already are," Trump said.

Trump declined to allow CNN Senior White House Correspondent Jim Acosta to ask a question during Wednesday's press conference.

Incoming White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer kicked off Trump's Wednesday press conference by eviscerating the "left-wing blog" Buzzfeed for publishing the "highly salacious" dossier. He scolded the publication for its "sad and pathetic attempt to get clicks."

The Kremlin also denied early Wednesday morning that it had any sort of compromising dossier on the president-elect.