Trump press conference

President-elect Donald Trump takes questions from members of the media during a news conference, Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2017, in New York.

(Seth Wenig | AP)

President-elect Donald Trump denied having any conflicts of interest in his first press conference since the election.

"As you know, I have a no conflict situation because I am president," he told media from Trump Tower in New York on Wednesday.

A lawyer told CNN that conflict-of-interest laws do not apply to the president of the United States, but Trump said he would resign his role at the Trump Organization and hand over control of his businesses to his sons, Eric and Donald Trump, Jr. A lawyer at the press conference said Trump will put his business assets in a trust and take other steps to isolate himself from his company.

Trump "cannot have a total blind trust without altering businesses" and "should not be expected to destroy the company he built," attorney Sheri Dillon said Wednesday. The Trump Organization will continue to pursue deals in the United States, though not in other countries, while he is president, Dillon added.

The president-elect also repeated his claims that unsubstantiated reports suggesting Russia has compromising information on him is "fake news" and criticized people who "leaked" information from "classified" meetings to the media. He also denied having dealings with Russia, though he did praise a Miss Universe contest he held in Moscow and repeated positive words for President Vladimir Putin.

"If Putin likes Donald Trump, guess what, folks, that's called an asset not a liability. I don't know if I'm going to get along with Vladimir Putin -- I hope I do -- but there's a good chance I won't," Trump said Wednesday.

Trump added that he did not have any debts in Russia and said he had recently turned a $2 billion business deal from a real estate developer in Dubai. He also repeated his refusals to release his financial information.

"The only ones that care about tax returns are reporters," Trump said.

Trump's news conference, his first in nearly six months, also included discussions about Obamacare, plans for a wall in Mexico, and praise for businesses keeping jobs in the U.S.