The United States President-elect Donald Trump came out swinging on Wednesday, condemning news outlets that published unverified reports from a dossier that supposedly reveals sordid details about his personal life and praising the organizations that did not run with the salacious story.

‘The report is not an intelligence report, plain and simple,’ Trump said at Trump Tower during his first press conference since he became president and the first in six months, reports Associated Press.

‘I must say that 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 in fact did that — a tremendous blot — because a thing like that should have never been written, it should never have been had and it should certainly never have been released,’ the president-elect said.

And for the first time Trump admitted that Russia was behind the hacking into the Democratic National Committee and the attempted intrusion into the Republican National Committee.

‘As far as hacking, I think it was Russia,’ Trump said at the presser where he was accompanied by top advisers Jared Kushner, Kellyanne Conway and Steve Bannon. ‘But I think we also get hacked by other counties and other people.’

Trump also shrugged off questions that Russian President Vladimir Putin was trying to help him defeat Hillary Clinton during the presidential election.

‘If Putin likes Donald Trump, I consider that an asset not a liability. … Guess what, folks, that’s an asset not a liability.’

‘Do you honestly believe that Hillary would be tougher on Putin than me? Give me a break,’ he added.

He blamed the hacking of the DNC on Democrats’ inability to prepare a defence.

‘The DNC did a poor job. They should have had a defence,’ Trump said.

He said he is making plans to put together a team that will thwart future cyber attacks.

‘We have some of the greatest computer minds assembled .. and we’re going to put those minds together,’ he said.

Sean Spicer, Trump transition spokesman, opened the press conference by blasting BuzzFeed and CNN for publishing the ‘unsubstantiated’ report, calling it a ‘sad and pathetic attempt to get clicks.’

‘It’s frankly outrageous and highly irresponsible for a left-wing blog that was openly hostile to the president-elect’s campaign to drop highly salacious and flat-out false information on the internet just days before he takes office,’ Spicer said.

Trump denounced BuzzFedd as a ‘a failing pile of garbage’ and added, ‘I think they are going to suffer consequences.’