AILSA CHANG, HOST:
President-elect Donald Trump gave a wide-ranging press conference today from his home in Palm Beach, Florida. He addressed more than a dozen topics, sending mixed messages on vaccines, tariffs and his embattled Cabinet picks. But what this hour-plus-long event seemed to be about really was showing that Trump is in charge. NPR White House correspondent Franco Ordoñez joins us now from West Palm Beach. Hi, Franco.
FRANCO ORDOÑEZ, BYLINE: Hey, Ailsa.
CHANG: Hey. OK, how notable was it to you that Trump had this big presser and he's not even president yet?
ORDOÑEZ: Yeah. I mean, he did this the last time he was president-elect, before he took office. But it's certainly notable considering how much the actual president, Joe Biden, seems to have kind of faded into the background. I mean, Trump wants to show there's a new sheriff in town, and political and business leaders are racing to meet with him.
CHANG: OK, but why now specifically? Like, what prompted this?
ORDOÑEZ: Well, the motivation of the presser was this announcement of a vague hundred-billion-dollar investment in the U.S. by the CEO of the Japanese bank SoftBank, who was also there. You know, Trump wants to be seen as in control, so much so that he's actually criticizing the Biden administration for making decisions without checking with him first...
CHANG: Wow.
ORDOÑEZ: ...Such as allowing Ukraine to use U.S. missiles to fire deep into Russia.
CHANG: Well, all of this is, of course, coming after the prime minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, went to see him. Does it feel like Trump seems to be enjoying this attention? I mean, what did he say?
ORDOÑEZ: Yeah, he talked also about having dinner with Apple CEO Tim Scott. He said he's meeting with other tech executives as well.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DONALD TRUMP: And this is one of the big differences, I think, between - we were talking about it before - one of the big differences between the first term. The first term, everybody was fighting me. In this term, everybody wants to be my friend.
ORDOÑEZ: You know, Ailsa, it's really a big change from his last administration, when he had really a very rocky relationship with a lot of business leaders, especially Silicon Valley. I mean, it's just clear right now that business leaders don't want to antagonize Trump and instead are looking to quickly get on his good side.
CHANG: OK. Well, let's talk about some of the other topics that came up. What stood out to you?
ORDOÑEZ: Yeah. I mean, I think the big one to me was vaccines. This came up because of his pick for Health and Human Services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He's, of course, known for his activism against vaccines. Here's what Trump said about him.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: No, I think he's going to be much less radical than you would think. I think he's got a very open mind, or I wouldn't have put him there. He's going to be very much less radical. But there are problems. I mean, we don't do as well as a lot of other nations, and those nations use nothing.
ORDOÑEZ: Trump was pressed on his own views. He said he was, quote, "a big believer in the polio vaccine" and that people were not going to lose that. But at the same time, he left the door open about whether vaccines are tied to autism rates, which, of course, is a debunked theory. Overall though, he seemed more interested in speaking about his efforts to help out big drug makers. They've been to see him as well in Mar-a-Lago. He talked about eliminating the middlemen, those pharmacy benefit managers who the big pharmaceutical companies say are the ones responsible for driving up prices.
CHANG: That is NPR's Franco Ordoñez. Thank you, Franco.
ORDOÑEZ: Thank you, Ailsa. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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