Congress last year required the Biden administration to dispose of the unused border wall pieces. The measure, included in the massive National Defense Authorization Act, allows for the sale or donation of the items to states on the southern border, providing they are used to refurbish existing barriers, not install new ones. Congress also directed the Pentagon to account for storage costs for the border wall material while it has gone unused.
“I’m asking today, Joe Biden, to please stop selling the wall,” Trump said.
While Trump described the handover between Biden and his incoming team as “a friendly transition,” he also took issue with efforts to allow some members of the federal workforce to continue working from home. While the White House rejected the assertion that the federal government was providing workers waivers to work from home for the next five years, the Social Security Administration recently reached a union deal allowing some to work from home two to five days per week.
Trump said that if government workers don’t come back into the office under him, they will be dismissed.
Trump also weighed in on the mysterious drone settings over parts of New Jersey and the eastern U.S. that have sparked speculation and concern over where they are coming from.
Trump insisted that, “the government knows what is happening."
“Our military knows and our president knows and for some reason they want to keep people in suspense,” he said, refusing to say whether he had been briefed on the sightings.
When it comes to escalating tensions in the Middle East, Trump said he would consider pulling U.S. troops out of Syria after the country's ousted leader, Bashar Assad, was overthrown by rebels.
“I don’t think that I want to have our soldiers killed,” Trump said of the 900 men and women who were placed there to prevent a resurgence of the Islamic State group.
In addition to meetings with foreign leaders, Trump also talked about a recent dinner with Apple CEO Tim Cook as well as the heads of major pharmaceutical companies, which Kennedy joined. The outreach, he said, made this transition feel markedly different from 2016, when his win shocked the Washington establishment.
Trump was joined at the appearance by SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son, who announced that the Japanese company is planning to invest $100 billion in U.S. projects over the next four years.
It was a win for Trump, who has used the weeks since the election to promote his policies, negotiate with foreign leaders and try to strike deals.
In a post on his Truth Social site last week, Trump had said that anyone making a $1 billion investment in the United States “will receive fully expedited approvals and permits, including, but in no way limited to, all Environmental approvals.”
