US President-elect Trump discussed banning mainstream media from White House briefing room

US President-elect Donald Trump has discussed banning some mainstream media outlets from the White House press briefing room, Trump's eldest son Trump Jr said. 

While speaking on his podcast this week, Trump Jr said they discussed opening the briefing room to more independent journalists and social media influencers.

“We had the conversation about opening up the press room to a lot of these independent journalists,” he said.

“If The New York Times has lied, they’ve been averse to everything, they’re functioning as the marketing arm to the Democrat party,” Trump Jr said, asking, “Why not open it up to people who have larger viewerships, stronger followings?”

Also read: 'Fake news' first in line: Trump suggests he'd rather let press take the bullet; 'I don’t mind that so much'

In the past also, Trump has been continuously ridiculing mainstream media outlets and broadcast networks over coverage that has been criticising him. 

Recently, Trump sued CBS News over their "60 minutes" interview with Vice President Kamala Harris and has been regularly mocking CNN, calling it and other "fake news". 

Earlier on Tuesday, Trump slammed The New York Times, asking them to apologize for its coverage of him, which he called “so wrong.”

Watch | Trump Targets Press With Lawsuits, Sues Media For Over Bias

“Will the failing New York Times apologize to its readers for getting years of “Trump” coverage so wrong,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Tuesday morning. “They write such phony ‘junk,’ knowing full well how incorrect it is, only meaning to demean.”

He then specifically called out national political correspondent Maggie Haberman as a "third-rate writer and fourth-rate intellect, writes story after story, always terrible, and yet I almost never speak to her.”

This comes just after the New York Times published a story highlighting an internal investigation his transition team had conducted around top Trump aide Boris Epshteyn, alleging he solicited payment from candidates for top Cabinet posts to take favour with Trump. Later, Epshteyn denied those allegations. 

(With inputs from agencies)