U.S. President-elect Donald Trump contended Monday that the country's military "for some reason" was keeping details secret about unexplained drones flying across the nighttime skies above the eastern United States, but the White House later minimized the drone sightings.
"Our military knows … something strange is going on," Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida in his first wide-ranging news conference since his election to a new four-year term in the White House starting next month.
For weeks now, residents in the state of New Jersey, which borders New York City, and other states to the north and south along the Atlantic Ocean coastline have reported seeing more than 5,000 supposed drones, a figure U.S. officials have concluded is wildly inflated.
They say that most of the alleged unmanned drones are manned aircraft, and that fewer than 100 of the sightings need to be investigated further.
All manner of conspiracy theories has been offered for the unexplained sightings, including the dispatching of drones by foreign countries and the deployment of Iran-launched drones from a mothership positioned off U.S. eastern coastal waters.
At the White House, National Security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters, “Our assessment at this stage is that the activity represents commercial, hobbyist, law enforcement drones, all operating legally and lawfully, and/or civilian aviation aircraft.”
At a Pentagon briefing before Trump's news conference began, Air Force Major General Pat Ryder, the Pentagon spokesman, told reporters there was "no evidence at this time that the reported drone sightings pose a national security or public safety threat, or have a foreign nexus."
Ryder added, "We are sensitive to the fact that there are public concerns and many questions. ... We are also committed to providing as much information as possible as quickly as possible on this."
The military has a rationale for not shooting them down, Ryder said, offering a "loose analogy" to unexplained cars traveling near military bases.
"On any given day, an unauthorized car or truck may approach one of the base gates, usually on accident," Ryder said, and "99% of the time those cars are turned away without incident."
"The point being is that flying drones is not illegal," Ryder said. "There are thousands of drones flown around the U.S. on a daily basis. It's not that unusual to see drones in the sky, nor is it an indication of malicious activity or any public safety threat."
In recent days, Republican and Democratic officials alike have called on officials in the administration of President Joe Biden to be more forthcoming in saying what they know about the drones.
Republican Representative Michael Waltz of Florida, who is set to become Trump's national security adviser when he takes office January 20, told CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday, "We need to get to the bottom of it."
In his hourlong news conference, Trump touched on a wide range of topics five weeks before assuming power again and becoming the second president after Grover Cleveland in the 1890s to take over the White House for a second nonconsecutive term.
He said his reception from world leaders this time is sharply more favorable than it was in 2017 after his first presidential victory.
"It's really the opposite of hostile. They're calling me," he said. "I've spoken to over 100 countries."
Trump said he would not end the use of the long-accepted polio vaccine in the U.S. but questioned the mandates in many U.S. states for a range of childhood vaccines.
"I'm not really a big mandate guy," he said, and asked rhetorically, "Why is the autism rate so high" in the United States, although any link between autism and vaccines has long been scientifically debunked.
He also questioned why Americans "are paying so much more than people in other countries" for medicines.
Trump said that he was doing his best to stop Russia's nearly three-year war on Ukraine, and that he would have ongoing conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy about a halt to the fighting.
He called much of Ukraine "a demolition site" because of Russian attacks. "People can't go back there."
Trump called the U.S. media "very corrupt" after winning a $15 million defamation settlement against ABC News over the weekend. He said he is planning lawsuits against other news outlets and individual journalists for what he considers to be false reporting, even as he lost other media-related suits.
The president-elect reiterated his plan to impose tariffs against imports from some of the U.S.' biggest trading partners.
"Tariffs will make our country rich," he contended, although individual importers pay the fees and often pass on their costs to customers buying the goods.
