Follow the latest updates on President-elect Donald Trump and the presidential transition.
President-elect Donald J. Trump said on Monday that he was skeptical of mandatory vaccines for schools, threatened more lawsuits against media companies and accused the Biden administration of hiding the truth about recent drone sightings during his first wide-ranging news conference since the election.
Speaking from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, Mr. Trump announced a $100 billion investment from SoftBank, a Japanese technology company, then held forth for more than an hour, jumping from one topic to another in an hourlong back-and-forth with reporters.
At one point, Mr. Trump suggested that he was being treated better as he enters his second term, this time with more of the Republican Party firmly under his dominance.
“The first term, everybody was fighting me,” Mr. Trump said. “In this term, everybody wants to be my friend. I don’t know — my personality changed or something.”
The news conference touched on a range of topics and provided a glimpse into Mr. Trump’s priorities as he prepares to take office again next month.
Drones
Mr. Trump, without citing evidence, accused the Biden administration of withholding information about an increasing number of mysterious drone sightings in the Northeast.
“The government knows what is happening,” Mr. Trump said, though he declined to say if he had been briefed by government officials. “Look, our military knows where they took off from. If it’s a garage. They can go right into that garage. They know where it came from and where it went. And for some reason, they don’t want to comment.”
“I mean, they happen to be over Bedminster,” he added, referring to the home he owns in New Jersey. “They’re very close to Bedminster. I think maybe I won’t spend the weekend in Bedminster. I decided to cancel my trip.”
John F. Kirby, President Biden’s National Security Council spokesman, said on Monday that the administration had determined the devices to be various commercial, recreational and law enforcement drones, as well as manned aircraft, like helicopters or planes, that were mistakenly reported as drones. The administration has not identified any national security threats from the drones.
Vaccines
Mr. Trump defended Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine skeptic he picked to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Still, Mr. Trump said he would preserve access to the polio vaccine.
“You’re not going to lose the polio vaccine,” Mr. Trump said. He described Mr. Kennedy as “very rational.”
A lawyer helping Mr. Kennedy vet appointees for the incoming Trump administration has also petitioned the government to revoke its approval of the polio vaccine.
Mr. Trump said his administration would look into whether vaccines cause autism, a debunked theory.
“Something’s wrong, and we’re going to find out,” Mr. Trump said. He also criticized vaccine mandates for schools, long considered the foundation of the nation’s defense against infectious disease.
“I don’t like mandates,” Mr. Trump said. “I’m not a big mandate person.”
The Incoming Administration
Asked whether Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida would appoint Mr. Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara, to the Senate seat being vacated by Marco Rubio, Mr. Trump said, “Ron’s going to have to make that decision, and he’ll make the right decision.”
Mr. Trump chose Mr. Rubio to be secretary of state.
Mr. Trump also praised Pete Hegseth, his embattled defense secretary pick, for making “tremendous strides over the last week.” Mr. Hegseth, a former Fox News host and military veteran, has faced numerous questions about his qualifications to head the Defense Department, including allegations of personal misconduct toward women and reports that he has abused alcohol while on the job. He has called the accusations baseless.
Mr. Trump also threatened to dismiss federal workers who do not return to the office and said he was “looking at” privatizing the U.S. Postal Service, extending a yearslong assault against the agency.
The Media
Mr. Trump threatened more defamation lawsuits against the press, part of an effort to crack down on unfavorable media coverage. The legal threats came on the heels of ABC News saying on Saturday that it had agreed to give $15 million to Mr. Trump’s future presidential foundation and museum to settle a defamation suit that Mr. Trump filed against the network and one of its anchors, George Stephanopoulos.
He told the reporters in attendance he believed the press was “very corrupt.” He suggested he would sue The Des Moines Register for having a poll before the election that turned out to be wrong. And he contended that CBS News engaged in deceptive trade practices in a “60 Minutes” interview of Vice President Kamala Harris during the presidential campaign. (He sued the network in October.)
Mr. Trump also attacked the Pulitzer Prize Board, which he has a pending libel suit against, for its decision to award the national reporting prize in 2018 to The New York Times and The Washington Post for their coverage of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and Russian ties to the Trump campaign.
Mr. Trump described the investigation into his 2016 campaign’s ties with Russia as a “hoax.” In fact, while the special counsel investigation found no criminal conspiracy that prosecutors felt they could prove in court, it verified intelligence that Russia interfered in the election with the goal of helping Mr. Trump win.
The Border Wall
Mr. Trump did not talk much about the border wall during the campaign, but on Monday he said the Biden administration was selling off the unused wall materials that remained when he left office, an indication that wall construction will once again be a priority during his second term in the White House.
He called the sales “almost a criminal act” even though Congress required the Pentagon to dispose of the materials in the National Defense Authorization Act.
Mr. Trump also said he had spoken about migration with Claudia Sheinbaum, the president of Mexico, which he said was “very much on notice.” He repeated misleading claims about Latin American nations sending their prisoners to the United States. Most migrants crossing the border are those fleeing poverty, persecution and violence.
Foreign Policy
Mr. Trump declined to say whether he had spoken to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia since the election but repeated his claim that Russia would not have invaded Ukraine on his watch. In fact, Russia had already invaded Ukraine’s eastern sections in 2014 and Mr. Trump did nothing to stop the war, which then expanded with the full-scale invasion in 2022.
He said President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine should be ready to make a deal with Russia in order to stop the war in his country. He did not say what Mr. Zelensky should give up but emphasized that a deal must be made because too many people were dying. Mr. Trump, without elaborating, said his team had made “a little progress” on working to end the conflict.
The president-elect also said it would be unwise to say whether he supported a pre-emptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. He said he “hadn’t thought of it” when asked if he would request that Mr. Putin extradite the ousted Syrian leader, Bashar al-Assad.
He also said Hamas, which has yet to agree to a cease-fire deal with Israel, must release all hostages by his inauguration on Jan. 20 or “all hell’s going to break out.”
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