When President-elect Donald Trump last held a news conference, it was July 27 and he was still an underdog presidential candidate. Trump is promising to take the podium again Wednesday, after five months that saw him win the presidency, chart a new course for the country and create a lifetime’s worth of controversy. Here are 13 questions we’ve been dying to ask.
1. Did U.S. intelligence officials present you with information suggesting Russian operatives had compromising financial and personal information about you, as reported by CNN on Tuesday? Some of that intelligence reportedly included a report claiming your campaign continuously exchanged information with Russian intermediaries during the presidential election. Was there any contact between your campaign and any operative of the Russian government?
Multiple outlets reported Tuesday that a classified intelligence report given to Trump on Friday, which focused on Russian interference in the U.S. political system, included a description of a document written last year by a former British intelligence officer alleging that Russia has spent years cultivating Trump, coordinated with his campaign allies, and may even have incriminating salacious video of him. — Michael Crowley, senior foreign affairs correspondent
2. Russian President Vladimir Putin is widely considered an authoritarian ruler who has suppressed dissent and media, who is accused of at best condoning the killings of rivals and journalists, and is viewed by our European allies as a dangerous aggressor. Top U.S. intelligence officials believe Putin tried to interfere in the 2016 campaign. Your own incoming vice president has called him “small” and “bullying.” You rarely mince words about other people, yet your comments about Putin have been overwhelmingly positive. Are you willing to say anything critical about Vladimir Putin, and if not, why not?
There are many open questions about Trump’s plans for Russia, but the greatest mystery is his strikingly friendly view of Putin. Dating back several years, Trump has praised Putin as a shrewd and strong leader and has sought his friendship. Before a 2013 visit to Moscow, Trump asked in a tweet whether Putin would “be my best friend.” Some analysts believe that Trump’s policies toward Russia may be unwisely colored by his view of the Russian president, and are scratching their heads over his refusal to acknowledge the many allegations of Putin’s wrongdoing. — Crowley
3. Ethics watchdogs have said that in order to avoid conflicts of interest between your administration and your business holdings you need to divest from your business entirely. You have said that there is a simple solution to avoiding those ethical entanglements. Do you plan to divest from your company entirely? And if you plan to keep any stake in the company, how can you guarantee it won’t create any conflicts of interest with your presidency?
Trump promised a December news conference to lay out an ethics plan, but he delayed the news conference once in favor of tweeting out a pledge that his adult sons would run the company and that his business would do “no new deals” during the administration. Since then, Democrats have accused Trump of attempting to profit off his presidency, and sources near Trump say he has resisted cutting all ties. Still, the candidate himself has said this is an issue only in the eyes of the media, promising there’s a simple solution. He’ll have to prove it Wednesday. — Darren Samuelsohn, senior White House reporter
4. Vaccines don’t cause autism. But they have, thanks to America's near-universal vaccination rate for diseases like measles and mumps, saved millions of lives, cut health spending and left rivals such as China and India rushing to catch up. The science is settled here, so why are you considering naming Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine skeptic, to a new commission investigating the link between vaccines and autism?
The evidence is clear: Vaccines work. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that for American children born between 1994 and 2013, vaccines prevented 322 million illnesses, helped avoid 732,000 deaths and saved nearly $1.4 trillion in societal costs. The World Health Organization, UNICEF and the Gates Foundation are among the groups trying to help other nations boost their vaccination rates, a major goal of global public health that U.S. residents take for granted.
But Trump has long questioned vaccines' safety, suggesting they're linked to autism, and any government effort to unwind trust in vaccines could have devastating effects. The fewer people who get vaccinated, the lower the "herd immunity," and the higher the risk of diseases spreading and mutating in the population. Meanwhile, the existing community of vaccine skeptics continually seizes on any shred of evidence that vaccines aren't safe — and a government report that reopens long-answered questions would inject rocket fuel into their conspiracy theories. — Dan Diamond, health care reporter
5. How will you define economic success? A bigger drop in unemployment, or a larger labor force or growth rates above 4 percent? In other words, how will we know when America is great again?
As Trump takes office, the unemployment rate is just 4.7 percent. The economy grew 3.5 percent in the third quarter. Wages are rising at the fastest pace since 2009, and the Fed is expected to hike interest rates at least twice this year to cool things off. So how will the president-elect deliver on the signature promise that emblazoned his famous campaign hats?
Can he really create a boom in American manufacturing employment, increase the size of the labor force and boost sustained growth over 4 percent, something even many conservative economists think is impossible? If he can’t, Trump may simply decide that an American economy he derided during the campaign is actually in fairly decent shape — and then claim credit for it. — Ben White, chief economic correspondent
6. Democrats are threatening to block any of your Supreme Court nominees if they aren’t “mainstream,” which they can do under the Senate’s 60-vote threshold. They changed the rules so that most nominees can be approved with a simple majority. Do you think Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell should change them again to make sure your Supreme Court nominee isn’t blocked by a minority of senators?
Senate Democrats, led by their now-retired leader Harry Reid, scrapped the filibuster four years ago for all nominations except those for the Supreme Court. Now Congress watchers are wondering whether McConnell will return the favor by nuking the filibuster for high court nominees, too. That threat will hang over the coming battle over Trump’s pick to replace Antonin Scalia: Push too hard, and Republicans could change the rules, too. Reid predicted after the election it’s just a matter of time before the filibuster is done away with entirely. — Burgess Everett, Senate leadership reporter
7. Last week, media outlets reported that your aides and Republicans on Capitol Hill are crafting a plan to build a physical barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border using U.S. taxpayer money. You responded by calling those reports dishonest and insisting Mexico would later reimburse the cost of the wall. How would you force the government of Mexico to do that when officials there have said repeatedly it will never happen.
This goes to the heart of the campaign promise that elevated Trump from afterthought to GOP front-runner last year. Throughout his campaign he delighted his fans with vows to make Mexico pay for his big, “beautiful” wall. His skeptics dismissed it as hyperbole, and Trump hasn’t offered any concrete plan to ensure U.S. taxpayers won’t be on the hook for the billions of dollars the wall (or whatever physical barrier is chosen) is expected to cost. — Seung Min Kim, Senate leadership reporter
8. You’ve promised large-scale tax cuts. Do you plan to keep those cuts from adding to the deficit? And are you planning to cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans?
Trump bragged during the campaign that he’d cut taxes more than anyone since Ronald Reagan, and his most recent proposal certainly backed up that intent — the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center estimated it would cost more than $6 trillion over a decade. But there are serious questions about whether the historically anti-tax Republican Party can pass big tax cuts this year, even with full control in Washington. Top congressional Republicans have said they want to overhaul the tax code without adding to the deficit. Meanwhile, Steven Mnuchin, Trump’s nominee for Treasury secretary, has said there would be “no absolute tax cut for the upper class.” That might fit in with Trump’s campaign rhetoric, but not a tax plan that independent projections also said would give the most relief to the wealthy. — Bernie Becker, tax reporter
9. By one measure, Barack Obama presided over one of our most secretive presidential administrations: His took longer to release documents under the Freedom of Information Act, refused a record number of FOIA requests, and claimed it couldn't find FOIA'ed files more often than any previous administration, according to an Associated Press study. What will your administration do to expedite new FOIA requests and reduce the backlog?
Given Donald Trump's refusal to reveal his income taxes, his penchant for non-disclosure agreements, his desire to "open up" the libel laws, and his history of banning certain reporters from his campaign events — which he has imposed on his transition team — it's probably too much to expect his administration to comply with FOIA. This is, after all, a man who, when asked for his medical records, gave us the equivalent of a dust-jacket synopsis of his health. But he can't possibly be worse than Obama, can he? — Jack Shafer, senior media writer
10. Millions of your voters appear to have benefited from Obamacare; many of them are worried that they'll now lose their coverage. Can you guarantee that if they like their plan, they get to keep it?
More than 20 million Americans have gained coverage through the Affordable Care Act, and there's a growing pool of evidence that lots of them were Trump supporters. Many of the rural and working-class counties that went heavily for Trump saw the largest gains in health insurance coverage in recent years. They don't all want the ACA to go away, either. Some individual voters who supported Trump — but count on the law for health insurance — have expressed shock that Obamacare could be repealed.
At times during the campaign, Trump promised that he would "take care of everybody" when Republicans repeal Obamacare. Kellyanne Conway, a top Trump adviser, went further last week, saying: "We don't want anyone who currently has insurance to not have insurance.” But as the Obama administration discovered, that well-meaning pledge is nearly impossible to keep, especially when Republicans don't yet have a plan to accomplish it. — Diamond
11. You promised voters that you wouldn't touch Medicare, but you've picked a health secretary who wants to privatize it. Can you promise America's seniors — and the fifty-somethings who are counting on getting Medicare in a few years — that you'll protect the program?
Trump has spent years chastising Republicans who wanted to cut Medicare spending. In 2011, he even said the GOP had a "death wish" for supporting then-House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's plan to dramatically change the entitlement program. But Tom Price — Trump's pick to run the Department of Health and Human Services — supports privatizing Medicare so that seniors would receive fixed dollar amounts to buy coverage. Democrats call it a voucher system that would gut a decades-old social contract and force seniors to pay more for health care; Republicans like Price and Ryan say they need to reform the program to save it for future generations.
Other members of the incoming Trump administration, like OMB Director-designate Mick Mulvaney, want to make similar changes to Medicare, although top Trump adviser Reince Priebus told CBS' "Face the Nation" this week that Trump would not "meddle" with the program. There are more than 55 million Medicare beneficiaries, and an additional 10,000 Americans become Medicare-eligible every day. — Diamond
12. You have proposed a $1 trillion investment in infrastructure. How much of this figure do you intend to be direct federal spending as opposed to incentives for the private sector to invest? If the answer is zero, how do you propose to fix the revenue shortfall in the Highway Trust Fund?
Trump rode into office promising a $1 trillion "investment" in infrastructure. However, most experienced transportation watchers read his campaign’s specific language as indications that Trump’s plan would mainly rely on offering incentives for private-sector investments — rather than increasing direct federal transportation spending, as congressional Democrats and many transportation boosters want. Trump also hasn’t spelled out what he would do about the trust fund, which provides most federal spending on highways, bridges and transit. The fund’s revenues have failed to keep pace with demand, in large part because Congress and the executive branch haven’t mustered the political will to raise the federal tax on gasoline. — Kathryn Wolfe, deputy transportation editor
13. You’ve threatened to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement unless Canada and Mexico agree to renegotiate the pact, but what specific changes would you like to see in the agreement?
Throughout his campaign, Trump promised he could rework trade deals to spur a resurgence in domestic manufacturing. That’s a tall order, as it would require him to reverse a decades-old macroeconomic trend, and Trump has been sparse with the details. He also hasn’t laid out how he’ll convince Canada and Mexico to sign off on the new conditions, another tall order, given his promise to make NAFTA more favorable for the United States and less so for its northern and southern neighbors. — Doug Palmer, trade reporter