PALM BEACH, Fla. >> In a freewheeling press conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate, President-elect Donald Trump said Monday he would consider pardoning embattled Democratic New York Mayor Eric Adams, declared the country was “not going to lose” the polio vaccine and weighed in on the flurry of drone sightings over New Jersey.

Holding court with reporters for the first time since he won the election and secured a second term, Trump also called on the Biden administration to stop selling off unused portions of southern border wall, threatening legal action.

“We’re going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars more on building the same wall we already have,” he said. “It’s almost a criminal act.”

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.

Looking relaxed

Trump’s appearance Monday underscored how he has already forced his return to the center of the national political conversation, weeks before he is set to return to the Oval Office. The session was notably less combative than some of the more heated exchanges he held with reporters during the campaign. Trump, looking relaxed at the lectern, joked with those he recognized and talked about how much easier the transition has been than after his first election.

“The first time everybody was fighting me,” he said. “This time everyone wants to be my friend.”

After spending most of the last few weeks mostly behind closed doors at Mar-a-Lago, Trump used the session to test-drive policy ideas, attack his enemies and issue warnings of what is to come.

Adams pardon?

Trump also weighed in on Adams, who is facing federal fraud and corruption charges. Asked whether he would consider pardoning Adams, Trump said, “Yeah I would.”

“I think that he was treated pretty unfairly,” Trump said, while at the same time acknowledging he doesn’t “know the facts.”

Adams has been accused of accepting flight upgrades and other luxury travel perks valued at $100,000 along with illegal campaign contributions from a Turkish official and other foreign nationals looking to buy his influence. He has pleaded not guilty. Multiple members of his administration have also come under investigation.

Adams, who insists he did nothing wrong, told reporters Monday that his attorney was “going to look at every avenue to ensure I get justice.”

On vaccines

Trump was pressed repeatedly on the future of vaccines, amid concerns over his decision to choose the anti-vaccine advocate, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

Trump again declined to dismiss the long-debunked theory that vaccines cause autism and said Kennedy would be examining that already well-studied question.

But he also assured the public that one of the most successful vaccines would not be barred by his administration.

“You’re not going to lose the polio vaccine,” he said, calling himself “a big believer in it.”

“That’s not going to happen,” he said.

Outgoing Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who had polio as a child, had said Friday that Trump’s nominees seeking Senate confirmation should “steer clear” of efforts to discredit the polio vaccine, calling them not just uninformed, but “dangerous.”

On drones

Trump also weighed in on the mysterious drone sightings over parts of New Jersey and the eastern U.S. that have sparked speculation and concern over where they are coming from.

Taking a conspiratorial tone, Trump insisted, without offering evidence, 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.

Foreign policy

Trump has spent the weeks since his victory building out his incoming administration and speaking with what he said were well over 100 word leaders.

But he again played coy on whether that list included Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“I’m not going to comment on the Putin question,” he said.

When it comes to 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. The outreach, he said, made this transition feel markedly different from 2016, when his win shocked the Washington establishment.

Trump has repeatedly boasted that he has done more in his short transition period than his predecessor did in all four years.

“There’s a whole light over the entire world,” he said Monday. “There’s a light shining over the world.”