The defense came after Trump and incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer slammed CNN and BuzzFeed in Trump's first press conference as president-elect.

Tapper defended his network's reporting in the moments after the press conference finished, contrasting CNN's coverage with BuzzFeed's decision Tuesday night to publish an unverified dossier involving Trump and Russia.

ADVERTISEMENT

"At the beginning of the press conference, Sean Spicer, who's going to be the White House [press] secretary, suggested that both BuzzFeed and CNN published this dossier full of uncorroborated rumors. That's not true. That's false. CNN never did that," he said.



"That conflation — whether because Sean Spicer misunderstood or some other reason — that's not true."



Tapper then defended his colleague, Jim Acosta, who got into a heated exchange with Trump at the press conference after the president-elect refused Acosta's demands to be able to ask a question after "his network was attacked."

Trump called CNN and Acosta "fake news," refusing to allow the CNN reporter to ask a question.