In his first wide-ranging news conference since the election, President-elect Donald J. Trump cited debunked data linking vaccines and autism, vowed to slash taxes and resume construction of his border wall, and accused the Biden administration of hiding the truth about recent drone sightings.
Speaking from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, Mr. Trump announced a $100 billion investment from SoftBank, a Japanese technology company. But he used the appearance before reporters to jump from one topic to another in an hourlong performance that recalled the lengthy exchanges he often had during his first term.
“The government knows what is happening,” the president-elect said of the drone sightings over many states, 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.”
He added: “I mean, they happen to be over Bedminster,” he said, 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.”
The news conference was in many ways a return to the past, when Mr. Trump relished seizing the world’s attention with long question-and-answer sessions that rambled from topic to topic. But in a rare moment of self-reflection, the president-elect suggested that he is being treated better as he enters his second term, this time with more of the Republican Party firmly under his dominance. He said many C.E.O.s have rushed to court him this time.
“The first term, everybody was fighting me,” he said, “in this term, everybody wants to be my friend. I don’t know — my personality changed or something.”
As he returns to power, Mr. Trump remains one of the most divisive figures in American political life, having been elected for a second time by a narrow margin. He once again vows to shatter norms, impose tariffs, bring legal charges against journalists and slash government spending.
Mr. Trump praised Pete Hegseth, his nominee to be secretary of defense, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., his nominee to be secretary of Health and Human Services. He then skipped through a series of topics before taking questions from reporters.
He said that Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida would “make the right decision” about whether to appoint Lara Trump, his daughter-in-law, to replace Marco Rubio in the Senate if Mr. Rubio is confirmed as Secretary of State.
He declined to say whether he has 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 Trump did nothing to stop the war, which then expanded with the full-scale invasion in 2022.
He said that 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 in a deal but emphasized that a deal must be made because too many people were dying.
The president-elect said it would be unwise to say whether he supports a pre-emptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. He said he had spoken to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel about the conflicts in the region.
He also said that he would consider issuing a pardon for Eric Adams, the mayor of New York City, who has been indicted in a federal corruption investigation.
“I think that he was treated pretty unfairly,” he said.
Speaking directly to the reporters, he called the press “very corrupt” and promised to continue pursuing legal action against news organizations that he believes have not quoted him correctly. He said he planned to sue the Des Moines Register for having a poll before the election that turned out to be wrong. And he said he was pursuing legal action against “60 Minutes” for what he said was a misquote.
“We have to straighten out the press,” he said. “The press is very corrupt. Almost as corrupt as our elections.”
Mr. Trump also said that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will cut $2 trillion out of the $6.8 trillion annual federal budget and “it’ll have no impact on people.” In fact, if you rule out cuts to Social Security, Medicare and defense, as Mr. Trump has, cutting $2 trillion would require shutting down almost the entire federal government. Eliminating all nondefense discretionary spending would get about halfway to the $2 trillion goal.
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