U.S. President Donald Trump fired back at the mainstream media and accused many outlets of being biased and "hateful," during his first press conference on Thursday.

"I'm making this presentation directly to the American people with the media present, which is an honor to have you, this morning because many of our nation's reporters and folks will not tell you the truth and will not treat the wonderful people of our country with the respect they deserve," he said.

Defending his policies, Trump reiterated that the "stock market has hit record numbers" and that there's been a tremendous "surge in optimism in the business world."

Trump said, "A new Rasmussen poll in fact, because the people get it, much of the media doesn't get it […] has our approval rating at 55 percent and going up." "Much of the media […] speaks not for the people, but for special interests and for those profiting off the obviously very, very obviously broken system. The press has become so dishonest that if we don't talk about it, we are doing a tremendous disservice to the American people." "I turn on the TV and open the newspaper and see stories of chaos. Chaos," he said. "Yet it is the exact opposite. This administration is running like a fine-tuned machine.

"The failing New York Times wrote a big long article yesterday which was very much discredited; it's a joke," he added. "I never get phone calls from the media, how do they write a story like that in the Wall Street Journal without asking me?" Trump asked. He said that mistakes will be made and that he did not mind fair criticism as long as it was not going to be biased and "hateful." "I don't mind bad stories; I can handle a bad story better than anybody, as long as it's true," the U.S. president said.