President Donald Trump appeared at Tuesday’s White House press briefing to mark the first anniversary of the start of his second term.
Watch the briefing live in the video player above.
The rare appearance comes as the president faces extraordinary pushback from America’s European allies over his planned tariffs over Greenland, tensions he’ll confront in person this week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen described Trump’s planned new tariffs over Greenland as “a mistake especially between long-standing allies” and called into question Trump’s trustworthiness, saying that he had agreed last year not to impose more tariffs on members of the bloc.
WATCH: Europe stands firm against Trump’s push for Greenland as he threatens new tariffs
Trump announced that starting February, a 10% import tax will be imposed on goods from eight European nations that have rallied around Denmark in the wake of his stepped up calls for the United States to take over the semi-autonomous Danish territory of Greenland.
Trump says it would take more than ‘a week’ to list off his accomplishments
Entering the briefing room with a thick stack of papers, Trump said that he had in his first year back in the White House had “done more than any other administration has done by far.”
“It’s been an amazing period of time,” Trump said, thumbing through the pages.
Trump addressed reporters alone at the podium, with White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt standing off to his right. He quickly launched into holding up photographs of people arrested in Minnesota, with each saying “Minnesota worst of the worst.”
Trump calls Minnesota protesters ‘paid agitators’
As he continued to show mugshots of those he described as “rough” people arrested during federal agents immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota, Trump also linked the fraud allegations in the state to its Somali community, which he has also done in the past.
“I’m going through this because I think we have plenty of time,” Trump said, alternating between discussing Minnesota and other issues, including his impending trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Trump’s administration has urged a judge to reject efforts by Minnesota and its largest cities to stop the surge, calling the lawsuit — filed soon after the fatal shooting of Renee Good by an immigration officer — “legally frivolous.”
Trump says he doesn’t ‘know what the Supreme Court’ will do on tariffs
The president gave a somewhat meandering defense of his declaration of an economic emergency to impose tariffs, saying the law is clear to him but he doesn’t know how the Supreme Court will rule in a pending case challenging the legality.
Trump said that the government can restrict trade by requiring licenses and that tariffs could be less severe. But Trump stressed, “I don’t know what the Supreme Court’s going to do.”
“If we lose that case, it’s possible we’re going to have to do the best we can in paying it back,” Trump said. “I don’t know how that’s going to be done very easily without hurting a lot of people.”
The president used emergency tariffs to negotiate trade frameworks and on Saturday threatened tariffs on eight European nations in hopes of forcing those countries to back U.S. ownership of Greenland.
Trump grumbles anew about Norway and not winning Nobel Prize
“It’s a joke,” Trump fumed about the prize to reporters. “They’ve lost such prestige.”
Trump in a message to European officials made public this week linked his aggressive stance on Greenland to last year’s decision not to award him the Nobel Peace Prize, telling Norway’s prime minister that he no longer felt “an obligation to think purely of Peace.”
Trump also waved aside comments from Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, who issued a statement on Monday noting that the Norwegian government holds no sway over who is receives the Peace Prize.
“And don’t let anyone tell you that Norway doesn’t control the shots. OK?” Trump said. “It’s in Norway.”
Trump relates childhood story of conversation with his mother
Trump often tells the same stories many times over, but on Tuesday he added a new one, as he talked about signing an executive order to bring back mental institutions and insane asylums.
Amid listing off what he sees are his top accomplishments over the past year, Trump waxed nostalgic as he told a story of walking to Little League practice with his mother, reminding reporters he was “quite the baseball player.”
Querying his mother on bars over windows on a psychiatric hospital in Queens, which he said “loomed over the block,” Trump says she told him that “very sick” people lived there.
Creedmor Psychiatric Center is still operational but the property has fulfilled various roles through the decades.
A migrant shelter was operational there until last year, and in November, New York officials approved a development plan to include residences.
Trump blasts UN as he touts his Board of Peace
“I wish we didn’t need a Board of Peace,” Trump said. “You know, with all the wars I settled, the United Nations never helped me on one war.”
Trump’s Board of Peace was originally envisioned as a small group of world leaders overseeing the Gaza ceasefire plan. But the Trump administration’s ambitions have ballooned into a more sprawling concept, with Trump extending invitations to dozens of nations and hinting it will soon broker global conflicts, like a pseudo-U.N. Security Council.
