Vaccines, Drones, and Suing the Media: Trump’s First Post-Election Presser Was Wild
Donald Trump gave his first major press conference since winning the November election at Mar-a-Lago on Monday morning. The president-elect answered questions from reporters for more than an hour, reiterating and expanding on some of his most notorious campaign promises, including his plans to implement widespread tariffs and carry out mass deportations.
While the event was intended to bolster a planned $100 billion investment by SoftBank in AI technology, Trump covered a lot of ground while speaking with reporters, addressing everything from foreign policy, to the drones above New Jersey, to how he plans to handle the media in his second term. Here are five of Trump’s most eyebrow-raising answers.
He said “there are problems” related to vaccines
Trump’s decision to nominate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for Secretary of Health and Human Services has caused alarm over the famed vaccine conspiracy theorists plans for disease-prevention vaccines. Over the last few weeks, Trump has been waffling on vaccines and deferring to Kennedy — who has long pushed conspiracy theories about vaccines, including that they cause autism — on the issue.
When asked on Monday if he believes there is a link between vaccinations and autism, Trump responded that there are “some very brilliant people looking at it.”
“If you look at autism,” he added. “Thirty years ago we had — I’ve heard numbers of like 1 in 200,000, 1 in 100,000. Now I’m hearing numbers of 1 in 100. So something is wrong. There is something wrong. And we are going to find out about it.”
Trump added that Kennedy is “going to be much less radical than you would think” in response to a question about Americans who might be worried that putting him in charge of vaccines might make their children less safe.
“But there are problems,” Trump continued. “We don’t do as well as a lot of other nations and those nations use nothing. We are going to find [out] what those problems are.”
He said he’d consider pardoning NYC Mayor Eric Adams
Trump was asked directly if he would consider pardoning embattled New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
“Yeah I would,” Trump told reporters. “I think that he was treated pretty unfairly […] so I would certainly look at it.”
In September, Adams was indicted on federal charges related to campaign corruption, including bribery; solicitation of a contribution by a foreign national; wire fraud; and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
Since his indictment, Adams, a Democrat, has been playing nice Trump and his allies. He refused to call Trump a “fascist” ahead of the election, breaking with other Democrats, prompting Trump to praise him during a rally at Madison Square Garden. “I have to tell you he’s been really great,” Trump said. “He said, ‘They shouldn’t be calling Trump a dictator because it’s not true.’ That was nice. Very nice. So, we want to thank Mayor Adams, he’s going through a hard time with these people.”
Rolling Stone reported earlier this month that the president-elect has openly joked about how that mayor seems to “really like” him all of a sudden.
He said he wants to take more legal action against the media, including suing a pollster
After ABC News agreed to pay $15 million to Trump’s presidential library as part of a defamation settlement last week, the president-elect repeatedly indicated his desire to bring litigation against outlets who criticize him.
When asked if he would be open to expanding his planned defamation lawsuits to “people with individual platforms, social media influencers,” Trump interrupted the reporter and interjected with “or newspapers.”
“I think you have to do it, because they’re very dishonest,” he said.
One newspaper Trump has it out for in particular is the Des Moines Register and its longtime pollster Ann Selzer — who published a poll shortly before the election giving Vice President Kamala Harris a three point lead in Iowa. Trump wound up winning the state by 19 points.
“In my opinion, it was fraud and it was election interference,” Trump said on Monday. “We’ll probably be filing a major lawsuit against them today or tomorrow.”
He implied Ukraine might as well let Russia have the Ukrainian cities it bombed
“Do you believe Ukraine should cede territory to Russia?” one reporter asked Trump.
The president-elect avoided the question, responding that he’s “going to let you know that after I have my first meeting.”
“But a lot of that territory when you look at what’s happened to those — there are cities that there is not a building standing. It’s a demolition site. There’s not a building standing,” Trump continued. “People can’t go back to those cities. There’s nothing there. It’s rubble.”.
“It’s nice to say they want their land back, but the cities are largely destroyed,” he added.
NBC News reported on Friday that Trump’s incoming national security team is engaged in talks with the Biden administration and Ukrainian leaders over pathways to end the war with Russia. It’s unlikely his comments on Monday will fuel confidence amongst Ukranians.
He said the government knows what is behind the New Jersey drones and won’t tell the public
Reports of an unusual amount of drones flying over New Jersey have unleashed a wave of speculation about their origin — and why the government hasn’t been able to provide an explanation.
Trump said on Monday that the government knows what’s up, and is keeping it secret from the American public. “The government knows what is happening. 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,” Trump said.
“Our military knows, and our president knows, and for some reason they want to keep people in suspense,” he added. “Because if it was the enemy, they’d blast it out. Even if they were late, they’d blast it. Something strange is going on. For some reason they don’t want to tell the people.”
When asked whether he’d received an intelligence briefing on the drones himself, Trump said he didn’t want to comment.
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