Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: Donald Trump hits back

Donald Trump is dominating the headlines once again after he hit back furiously at reports that Russia had compromising videos of him in a Moscow hotel room. The president-elect denied the claims, branding BuzzFeed, who revealed the dossier detailing the allegations, a ‘failing piece of garbage’. So should the claims have come to light?

No, says the Sun, which attacks the website for publishing the unverified allegations and in so doing making a ‘mockery of journalism’. The paper questions why the website – whose editor-in-chief admitted they could not stand up the claims – gave the go-ahead to release the information anyway. Contrasting it with attempts to ‘strangle British newspapers with State regulation’, it says that ‘anarchy reigns on the web’. Elsewhere, the newspaper also finds room to have its say on Mark Carney’s appearance at a select committee yesterday, in which the Bank of England governor said that Brexit was no longer the biggest danger facing the UK economy. Given that Carney’s prophecies from before the referendum haven’t come to light yet, says the Sun, perhaps this change of tune means that ‘we ARE doomed’ after all.

What should we make of Donald Trump’s fiery outing in front of the press yesterday? The Times says there is clearly a good reason why the president-elect has waited six months to make an appearance in front of the world’s media; after all, his critics have ‘plenty of topics on which to ask him potentially embarrassing questions’. One of these topics – and the one on everyone’s lips – is Russia’s alleged links to Donald Trump. However far these ties do actually go, Trump hasn’t been embarrassed to talk up Putin. So it’s obvious than that we’re going to see something of a departure in terms of US relations with the Kremlin.

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