Donald Trump invited reporters to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida today for his first news conference since the election. The president-elect spent nearly half an hour jumping from one topic to another, including border security, tax cuts and the war in Ukraine, before taking questions.
The event was in many ways reminiscent of Trump’s first term, when he relished seizing the world’s attention. Trump said Ukraine should be ready to make a deal, cited debunked data linking vaccines and autism, threatened more lawsuits against media companies and accused the Biden administration of hiding the truth about recent drone sightings. We fact-checked the event.
Trump said he would consider pardoning Eric Adams, the mayor of New York City, and claimed that Elon Musk would be able to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget with “no impact on people.” He also announced that SoftBank, the Japanese tech investment giant, plans to inject $100 billion in American projects, likely to be focused on the infrastructure needed to support the A.I. boom.
At one point, Trump suggested that he was being treated better than last time he was elected. “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.”
In other politics news:
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s choice for health secretary, met with senators to make his case for a spot in Trump’s cabinet.
Pete Hegseth, Trump’s defense secretary pick, has been escorted by a security guard who left the Army after he was accused of beating a civilian during training.
A tech supplier’s sudden loss of undocumented workers foreshadowed the potential economic fallout of Trump’s immigration plans.
The Fed appears to be headed for another collision with Trump.
Some Democrats fear that a constitutional convention could be coming.