SAUNDERS: In Biden’s final days, Trump talks like he’s already president

WASHINGTON

President-elect Donald Trump said so many things on the campaign trail that critics warned would hurt him in November. Yet he won the popular vote.

Now, a little more than a month before Trump takes the oath of office, President Joe Biden is limiting his public appearances to such an extent that it feels like Trump already is president.

And it has felt that way since Trump attended the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris on Dec. 7, sitting near first lady Jill Biden. The sitting president had a “scheduling conflict,” according to Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.

Change? At Monday’s news conference in Mar-a-Lago, Trump even offered, “One of the big differences between the first term, in the first term, everybody was fighting me. In this term, everybody wants to be my friend.”

The event was the opposite of Joe Biden, who was supposed to be the press corps’ best friend. In 2021, the newly elected Democrat and his wife greeted reporters with Valentine posters placed on the North Lawn. Now the president’s relations with the White House press corps are a passing thing, with reporters shouting questions as the leader of the free world heads to Delaware.

Here are a few Trump exchanges that drew my attention.

Asked about a Sunday call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump delivered a sharp salvo at Hamas.

“As you know, I gave a warning that if these hostages aren’t back home by that date, all hell’s going to break out,” Trump responded.

The Biden administration’s attempts to free all hostages taken to Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023, have flailed for more than a year. Trump’s approach was a breath of fresh air. Weakness hasn’t worked.

Trump also revisited his order to bomb Syria in April 2017, which he revealed to Chinese President Xi Jinping over chocolate cake. That was a sprinkling of First-Term Trump.

When a reporter asked Trump if he would consider pre-emptive strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, Trump countered, “Am I going to do pre-emptive strikes on Iran? Is that a serious question? How could I answer a question like that?” He didn’t come across as angry, just unwilling to take the bait.

Trump’s pick to head the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., frequently is portrayed by the media as a dangerous kook. So a reporter asked Trump, “Do you really believe there’s a connection between vaccines and autism?”

Trump responded that “Bobby” likely will be “much less radical than you think.” And: “You’re not going to lose the polio vaccine. That’s not going to happen.”

To punctuate that point, Trump praised polio vaccine inventor Jonas Salk, while noting that he is “not a big mandate person.” Thus, Trump threaded the needle by promising neither radical reversals in policy nor heavy-handed government mandates.

He stuck with the issues that won him a second term.

Of course, Trump talked about his pledge to build a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico and the outgoing president’s efforts to undermine the clear will of American voters.

Indeed, the most bitter act of Biden’s last days in the White House has been the administration’s sale of pieces of the wall on the Mexican border — an act of sabotage decried by the incoming president.

“They’re trying to sell it at five cents on the dollar. That has nothing to do with the smooth transition of power,” Trump said as he referred to the practice as “almost a criminal act.”

As Trump sees it, the wall demolition will cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars “on building the same wall that we already have.” And: “I’m asking Joe Biden to stop his people from giving it away.”

But it would seem there is no denying the sitting president a petty parting shot.

Contact Review-Journal Washington columnist Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com. Follow @debrajsaunders on X.