‘Cold blooded killer’: Donald Trump blasts alleged healthcare assassin Luigi Mangione

In his first press conference since the election, Donald Trump accuses the White House of hiding details about mysterious drones in US skies and suggests links between vaccines and autism.

Donald Trump, accompanied by his choice for Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, speaks at a news conference at Mar-a-Lago. Picture: Getty Images via AFP.

Donald Trump has attacked the shooting of UnitedHeathcare chief executive Brian Thompson in New York as a “cold blooded horrible killing,” and accused the Biden administration of refusing to explain the appearance of mysterious drones in American skies.

In a sweeping press conference held at Mar-a-Lago in Florida where he outlined his key priorities, Mr Trump took questions from journalists where he addressed the appearance of strange drones and declared that “the government knows what is happening.”

It was the first time Mr Trump has held a broad press conference since the November 5 election result – something that Joe Biden has not done – with the President-elect appearing with Japanese SoftBank Group chief executive Masayoshi Son and his incoming commerce secretary Howard Lutnick.

The three men unveiled SoftBank’s plan to invest $100bn in key US projects in a bid to generate 100,000 jobs focused around artificial intelligence and infrastructure, with Mr Trump saying he was “thrilled” about the announcement.

“This historic investment is a monumental demonstration of confidence in America’s future,” Mr Trump said. “And it will help ensure that artificial intelligence, emerging technologies and other industries of tomorrow are built, created and grown right here in the USA.”

Mr Trump later used his press conference to say that a key difference between his first and second terms was that, in his first stint in power, “everybody was fighting me, and this term, everybody wants to be my friend.”

Pressed on drone sightings in America, Mr Trump said: “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.”

“And I think they’d be better off saying what it is. Our military knows and our president knows. And for some reason they want to keep people in suspense.”

Mr Trump said he could not imagine the drone activity was being conducted by enemies of America because “if it was the enemy they’d blast it.”

“Something strange is going on,” he said.

The President-elect also described the shooting of Mr Thompson in New York as a “terrible thing,” describing it as a “cold blooded horrible killing.”

He expressed disbelief and shock at support for the alleged killer, Luigi Mangione, saying this was a “sickness,” He said it was a terrible thing to shoot someone “right in the back.”

“It’s hard to believe … but it seems there’s a certain appetite for him (Mangione). I don’t get it.”

Mr Trump provided an assurance that his administration would act rationally on vaccines after he nominated Robert Kennedy Jr – a vaccine sceptic – to be his health department secretary.

However he reaffirmed that there would be an investigation into why autism rates were increasing, suggesting they were linked to vaccines.

“You’re not going to lose the polio vaccine,” he said. “I’m a big believer in it … But we’re going to look into finding why is the autism rate so much higher than it was 20, 25, 30 years ago … There’s something wrong.”

Mr Trump also spoke about the need to have a fairer print media in America. He said his administration would ensure that federal bureaucrats returned to work instead of working from home, while also going on to accuse the Biden Administration of undermining the border wall project.

Speaking after ABC News agreed to pay $15m to settle a defamation action brought by the President-elect, Mr Trump declared he would shortly be filing a lawsuit against Ann Selzer and The Des Moines Register over her poll prior to the November 5 election showing Kamala Harris leading him by 3 points in Iowa.

Mr Trump went on to win by 13 points.

“We’ll probably be filing a major lawsuit against them today or tomorrow,” he said. “We’re filing one on 60 minutes … where they took Kamala’s answer, which was a crazy answer out, and they replaced (it) with something else.”

Mr Trump warned this amounted to “election interference” and took aim at journalist Bob Woodward, The Washington Post and The New York Times. “We have to straighten out the press,” he said. “Our press is very corrupt, almost as corrupt as our elections.”

Addressing the crisis in Eastern Europe, Mr Trump said a deal needed to be struck to end the Ukraine war. He argued that entire cities had been reduced to rubble and lamented the large death toll from the conflict.

“It’s the worst carnage that this world has seen since World War Two,” he said. “It’s got to stop.”

On the Israeli conflict with Hamas, Mr Trump again reaffirmed his expectation for the hostages to be released before he took office on January 20. He confirmed that he had spoken with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about “what is going to happen” in the Middle East.

“I’ll be very available on January 20th, and we’ll see,” he said. “As you know, I gave warning that if these hostages aren’t back home by that date then all hell is going to break out.”

“We had a very good conversation … And I think we’re going to be in a good place in the Middle East,” he said. “More difficult will be the Russia/Ukraine situation. I see that as more difficult. I don’t think they should have allowed missiles to be shot 200 miles into Russia. I think that was a bad thing.”