President Donald Trump said CNN's response to the GIF he tweeted of him wrestling a person with the network's logo superimposed on his face was "unfortunate" and that CNN had taken the matter too seriously.
"I think what CNN did was unfortunate for them," Trump said in Poland on Thursday. "As you know now, they have some pretty serious problems. They have been fake news for a long time. They've been covering me in a very dishonest way."
Trump tweeted out a meme video Sunday of footage from when he stage-wrestled WWE CEO Vince McMahon at WrestleMania in 2007, except McMahon's face was replaced with the CNN logo. CNN tracked down who it said was the original creator of the GIF, which was altered and had audio added to it for Trump's tweet.
CNN found the Reddit user behind the GIF, called HanAssholeSolo, had also posted anti-Semitic and racist things, prompting him to apologize and then delete his other posts.
CNN wrote it would not reveal his identity publicly because he had atoned for his earlier behavior. However, CNN drew criticism for writing it reserved the right to reveal his identity if that changed, leading critics and Trump supporters to call it a version of blackmail.
"CNN has really taken it too seriously, and I think they've hurt themselves very badly. Very, very badly," Trump said. "What we want to see in the United States is honest, beautiful, free, but honest press. We want to see fair press. I think it's a very important thing. We don't want fake news. By the way, not everybody is fake news, but we don't want fake news. Bad thing. Very bad for our country."