The president of the United States, Donald Trump, tweeted a spoof of a WWE-style video of himself body-slamming another person, with the CNN logo superimposed on their head, in an apparent boast of his "defeat" of CNN. The video had apparently first been uploaded to Reddit, an online social media platform that's popular with the so-called Alt-right, four days ago.

CNN responded strongly to Trump's tweet: "It is a sad day when the President of the United States encourages violence against reporters.

"Clearly, Sarah Huckabee Sanders lied when she said the President had never done so. Instead of preparing for his overseas trip, his first meeting with Vladmir Putin, dealing with North Korea and working on his health care bill, he is instead involved in juvenile behavior far below the dignity of his office. We will keep doing our jobs. He should start doing his."

In the early evening Saturday, the president issued several tweets sniping about news coverage and defending his tweets as befitting a “modern day” president.

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Original video of Trump beating up Vince McMahon

Trump claimed "the fake and fraudulent" news media say he shouldn't use social media. He defends the practice by saying that social media helped him win the election.

Trump also took a swipe at a favorite target, CNN. He tweeted that he's considering calling the cable news network "Fraud News CNN" instead of "Fake News CNN."

These latest tweets come after CNN was forced to retract a story concerning alleged links between Trump transition team member, Anthony Scaramucci, and Russia. Three journalists who worked on the story resigned following the retraction. In response, Trump wrote a Tuesday morning tweet, "Wow, CNN had to retract big story on 'Russia,' with 3 employees forced to resign. What about all the other phony stories they do? FAKE NEWS!"

Open gallery view Trump blasts CNN after journalists resign for debunked Trump-Russia story. Pictured: Screen shot of image Donald Trump re-tweeted, July 27, 2017 Credit: Screen shot

The story was posted on the network's website Thursday and was removed, with all links disabled, Friday night. CNN immediately apologized to Scaramucci.

CNN, in initially taking down the story, said it didn't meet its editorial standards. The episode is a damaging blow for a network that Trump has frequently derided as "fake news," and for a story that never even made it onto any of CNN's television networks.