President-elect Donald Trump Donald John TrumpBarr criticizes DOJ in speech declaring all agency power 'is invested in the attorney general' Military leaders asked about using heat ray on protesters outside White House: report Powell warns failure to reach COVID-19 deal could 'scar and damage' economy MORE gave his first news conference since July on Wednesday morning in Manhattan.

The rambunctious event covered subjects as diverse as allegations that Trump had been compromised by Russia and the cost of pharmaceuticals.

Here are five takeaways from the event.

Russia will dominate Trump’s first 100 days

Trump pushed back hard at unsubstantiated clamins that Russia possesses lurid, compromising information about him. Trump called the reports “a disgrace” and implied that the intelligence community might have funneled the information to the media in order to discredit him.

But the specter of Russia will hang over the early days of Trump’s presidency nonetheless.

One reason is that the president-elect has adamantly stuck to his position that a warmer U.S. relationship with the Kremlin would be a good thing.

ADVERTISEMENT

“If Putin likes Donald Trump, guess what, folks? That’s called an asset, not a liability,” he said.

Fairly or otherwise, the uncorroborated allegations against Trump have given new life to the broader story of alleged Russian influence on the presidential election.

At his news conference, Trump for the first time plainly stated that he accepts that Russia was responsible for hacking during the campaign. Asked if he believed President Obama had enacted sanctions that had gone “too far” against the Kremlin, Trump replied, “I don’t think he went too far, no.”

How that squares with his desire for a warmer relationship with Putin is unclear.

Even if the latest allegations against Trump prove fictitious, relations with Moscow will clearly be under the spotlight as he takes office.

Trump will seek to divide and conquer the media

Even Trump’s opponents acknowledge that he has a rare capacity for driving press coverage and the news agenda.

That strategy took a new tack on Wednesday, as the president-elect sought to drive a wedge between organizations that had been to the fore in publishing the new allegations and those that had taken a more circumspect view.

He began the news conference unusually, with praise for some media.

“I want to thank a lot of the news organizations ... some of whom have not treated me very well over the years — a couple in particular — and they came out so strongly against that fake news and the fact that it was written about by primarily one group and one television station,” he said.

His words conflated the behavior of two outlets, Buzzfeed and CNN, that had taken contrasting approaches to their coverage.

Buzzfeed published a full 35-page dossier, apparently put together by a former British intelligence officer at the behest of Trump’s political opponents, which included some of the most salacious details. CNN was much more restrained, stating that it would not publish the allegations because it could not corroborate them.

But Trump lumped them together during the fieriest moment of the news conference, when CNN correspondent Jim Acosta repeatedly tried to ask a question and was rebuffed by an irritated president-elect, who told Acosta, “You are fake news.”

That charge drew protests from some reporters, including those from competing outlets. Shepard Smith of Fox News later Wednesday said that CNN had “followed journalistic standards” and should not “be subjected to belittling and delegitimizing by the president-elect of the United States.”

But a debate about media ethics is just fine with Team Trump. The president-elect wins if the spotlight is on the media’s behavior as much as his own.

Conflict of interest questions aren’t going anywhere

Wednesday’s news conference finally saw the president-elect outline how he would seek to quell questions about conflicts of interest with his business empire.

The answer, in short, is that he will turn management of the Trump Organization over to his two adult sons, Donald Jr. and Eric, as well as a long-time adviser. A lawyer for the president-elect, who spoke at the news conference, said Donald Trump would play no role in the business and that his daughter Ivanka would also “have no further involvement with or management authority whatsoever with the Trump Organization.”

The moves weren’t enough to satisfy Trump’s critics. It is now clear that he will not divest from the organization that bears his name.

The lawyer, Sherri Dillon, outlined various reasons why a full divestiture by the president-elect might not be practical. But those points will be lost amid the bigger issue of continuing Trump family control of the business.

Deepening the difficulty for Trump, the head of the Office of Government Ethics, Walter Shaub, said later on Wednesday that the proposal was “meaningless,” adding that it “doesn’t meet the standard” of past presidents.

Trump’s bully pulpit is potent

The capacity of a newly elected president to set the political agenda is unparalleled, and Trump sought to use that power to its fullest on Wednesday.

In addition to pushing back against the Russian allegations and placing selected media organizations in his crosshairs, he also said the Republican Party would produce a plan to replace the Affordable Care Act “almost simultaneously” with a repeal of Obama’s signature achievement.

Early in his remarks, he suggested that his administration would put in place more effective bidding practices to secure the best prices for drugs, calling out the pharmaceutical industry by name.

A president’s political capital can diminish rapidly — and his popularity is already historically low for the start of a first term — but Trump is trying to make the most of this moment.

Details? Who needs details?

Trump provided virtually no specifics on the ObamaCare replacement plan or the idea of introducing new bidding processes for pharmaceuticals.

They weren’t the only subjects where the lack of specifics was notable.

The president-elect continues to insist that Mexico will pay for a wall across its border with the United States. Why it would do so, or exactly how that will come about, are distinctly vague.

“Mexico in some form — and there are many different forms — will reimburse us and they will reimburse us for the cost of the wall. That will happen, whether it’s a tax or whether it’s a payment — probably less likely that it’s a payment. But it will happen,” Trump insisted.

For the moment, he is betting that his sloganeering approach will prevail. But specifics can’t be avoided forever.