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Trump Speaks on One-Year Anniversary of His Second Inauguration; Trump Takes Questions From Reporters; Trump On How Far He'll Go to Get Greenland: You'll Find Out; Border and ICE Officials Comment on Operations in Minnesota. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired January 20, 2026 - 15:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[15:30:00]

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: ... I think that we will work something out where NATO is going to be very happy and where we're going to be very happy. But we need it for security purposes. We need it for national security and even world security.

It's very important. How about it?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you very much. First of all, last year, you told me that you believe that the reason you won the election is because God put you in this place so that you could save the world. Looking back one year, do you feel like God is proud of the effort that you've put in?

TRUMP: I do. Actually, I think God is very proud of the job I've done. And that includes for religion.

You know, we're protecting a lot of people that are being killed, Christians, Jewish people and lots of people are being protected by me that wouldn't be protected by another type of president. No, I think I think a lot of people are very proud of the job we've done.

We've had an amazing year. This has been one of the greatest years. Even some people that wouldn't necessarily love me instinctively, they're saying this was an incredible year.

We've had an incredible year economically. Look at our border. Our border was a disaster.

People poured. It was an invasion into our country of a lot of very bad people. Good people, too, but a lot of very bad -- people from prisons and drug dealers and gangs and horrible people, murderers, thousands and thousands of murderers allowed into our country.

And we now have the strongest border of any country. There's probably not a country. I guess North Korea is a pretty strong border, by the way, but there's not a country in the world that has a border like we do.

And we took it from the worst part. We had the worst border in the world. Now we have one of the strongest borders. One more -- one more question.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You said you're going to get worked out in Greenland, but Greenlanders have made it clear they don't want to be part of the U.S. What gives you the right to take away that self- determination?

TRUMP: Well, I haven't. I haven't. When I speak to them, I'm sure they'll be thrilled.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, are you committed to keeping the U.S. in NATO?

TRUMP: I've had such a good relationship. I've made it so much better, so much stronger. It's so good now.

NATO is so much stronger now. I don't agree with a lot of the things they've done, but that was done before I got there. I think NATO has been good.

Sometimes it's overrated. Sometimes it's not. But we have a strong NATO.

When I came here, we had a weak NATO. We had a NATO at 2 percent, and they weren't paying. We had a nothing NATO.

NATO is, whether you like it or not, it's only as good as we are. If NATO doesn't have us, NATO is not very strong.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, can I ask you a question?

TRUMP: Yes. No, behind you, please.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, President Trump.

TRUMP: Yes, go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I really appreciate it, sir. We've heard a long list of accomplishments from the last year. Could you cherry-pick the top three?

And then looking forward, what are your three most important priorities of 2026?

TRUMP: So I think the building of a really powerful military has been a great achievement, and that would include the Venezuela thing. That would include the attack on Iran and the wiping out of the nuclear threat. I think that's been really amazing, what we've done militarily.

I think what we've done in business has been incredible. We have $18 trillion coming in. Plants are being built all over the -- thousands of plants are being built all over the country.

$18 trillion is a record. No country has ever come anywhere, even close to that. I think that's a record.

And I think that most favored nations for drugs is something that nobody thought they'd be able to get. Tariffs helped me there because the nations would have never gone along with it if I wasn't able to say, if you don't go along with it, we're going to put a 10 or a 15 or a 20 percent tariff on your nation. And they went along.

And our drug prices are going to come down at numbers never even seen before, never even thought possible before. So those would be three things. Thank you.

Thank you all very much. Thank you.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: All right. That was a very long press conference that President Trump just held, one year into his second term in the White House.

Almost two hours.

ERICA HILL, CNN HOST: I think it was.

KEILAR: Almost two hours. And he kept coming back to the topic of immigration, but he was covering a lot of different things in his characteristic weave, although this was sort of a moment that I think stood out.

He ended a little bit more energetically, but certainly the beginning where he was not taking questions, not so much.

HILL: No, it was. It was. And we noticed it right away.

It was very low energy in the beginning, sort of reading, sort of doing a weave. But it almost seemed at some points he was going back to things that he had already addressed, reading them off of the booklet, the book that he brought out with him. Not clear if he didn't remember that he had talked about them already or if he wanted to go back to them.

[15:35:00]

There is also, over the last nearly two hours, as you point out, there's a lot that we need to fact check here, because there was a lot of what the president said that was not true. Daniel Dale is joining us for some of that.

You know, Daniel, as you've noted for us over the last couple of hours, some of these are things that we have heard from the president a number of times, certainly over the last year. What are the points that he continued to hammer home that are inaccurate? I mean, we picked up on gas prices a little fudgy there, the price of goods, inflation.

Walk us through.

DANIEL DALE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: There are just so many. I'm struggling to keep track of it. You know, $18 trillion investment in the U.S., that's a fictional figure, 600 percent reduction in prescription drug prices. That's a fictional figure. I ended eight unendable wars. Eight is a fictional figure. We inherited inflation at a historic high. No, he inherited a 3 percent inflation just a little bit above where it is now, although it did hit about a 40-year high in June 2022, more than two years before he returned to office. He said many of the groceries have come way down.

Yes, there are some particular grocery products that have gotten cheaper during his presidency, but on the whole, grocery prices have increased. And in fact, December's inflation report showed that the biggest one-month jump in grocery prices in three years occurred between November and December. He just veered into so many inaccurate tangents.

He repeated this claim that the Los Angeles wildfires of early 2025 were supposedly caused by the state trying to use some of its water to protect a small fish species. Experts in California water policy have repeatedly explained those two things simply have nothing to do with each other. That's imaginary.

He said things like, I think NPR and PBS have closed down. They haven't. You can check for yourself not to tell you to go to another station, but they're still on the air.

So just claim after claim, I think we've addressed like 15 plus over my three fact check hits so far this afternoon. I could go on and on, but just a litany of lies, many of them debunked months or years ago by myself and others.

KEILAR: Yes. And thank you for taking us through that. Let's go back to the White House where Kristen Holmes is.

You were there for the entirety of this appearance by the president. I wonder if you could give us your takeaways, Kristen, but also if you could address one of the last questions he kind of didn't answer, actually. He was asked if he was committed to keeping the U.S. in NATO. He talked about having a good relationship. He doesn't agree with a lot of the things they've done, but that it predates him. And he said, NATO, whether you like it or not, is only as good as we, the U.S. are. He meant if they don't have us, they're not very strong.

What did you think of his answer? What is your reporting on where he stands on NATO, considering he's threatening tariffs over Greenland?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Look, this is something that we have been talking to officials around President Trump about for the last several weeks, particularly in the last 24 hours, since he has really ramped up his rhetoric on our European allies and on NATO. And when you talk to these allies and these administration officials, they say that the president is not going to do anything to breach NATO, that he is still committed to NATO. And he said so in a very roundabout way earlier in this briefing.

He said that his problem with NATO was that they, the United States, would always come to the rescue of NATO. But he wasn't sure if NATO would come to the rescue of the United States if they needed it. So they're kind of affirming that he would still support or did still support NATO, but obviously still airing grievances.

You ask what the takeaways were from the last over an hour of President Trump up here, and it was that he had a lot of grievances that he wanted to air over the last year. He clearly is frustrated at several times. He said that he didn't think his people were getting the message across.

He complained about his public relations. He said the reason that he was out here talking about this is because people didn't seem to be really getting a read on what he was doing for his agenda and that he had to come out here and talk about it. It was frustration in the sense that he knows and has seen all the polling, one of the things that we've obviously reported on this week.

President Trump and his team have looked at all of the polling that we have been showing for the last several days, showing just how dissatisfied Americans are, particularly when it comes to the economy. And they are aware of that. President Trump himself is aware of that.

So there's frustration as he was trying to get a point across points on what he believes his administration is doing for the economy. There was a lot of blame going around, a lot of blaming of former President Joe Biden, a lot of attacks on the president, on the former president, which was, I mean, just think of where we are right now. We are now in the second year of the second term of President Trump, and he is still blaming Joe Biden and saying that he didn't win in the election back in 2020.

So clearly, I mean, this was a real airing of grievances for the last over an hour as he seems frustrated internally as well, that his own people are not getting the message across that he believes should be sent out there.

[15:40:00]

KEILAR: Yes. And just to note, as he says that NATO wouldn't come to the rescue of the U.S., the only time the collective defense clause of NATO has been invoked was after 9-11, when NATO allies did come to the defense of the U.S. And just to point out, Denmark actually per capita, per capita, not in total, but per capita suffered greater losses in Afghanistan than any other NATO ally. Of course, Greenland, a territory of Denmark.

Just something to point out that's gotten a lot of notice there, certainly from Danes here in the last few days.

HILL: It absolutely has. And Nic Robertson is standing by in Greenland. Nic, you know, as we were just talking about with Kristen, the president was asked directly about NATO. He dodged on that question, didn't answer it, talked about everything the U.S. has done for NATO. He was also asked directly whether the price he's willing to pay to get Greenland was the breakup of NATO. And he didn't answer that either.

How is this sitting with the people in Greenland in this moment? NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, and I think also how it's sitting with the people in Greenland is how it's sitting with all those European leaders who've been meeting and speaking in Davos today. The president, there airing a lot of grievances. But I think the tone that he'll find when he gets to Davos is rather than European leaders sort of going along with his complaints and his issues.

We've heard a lot of strong talk from European leaders today about this, you know, Mark Carney, not European, Canadian, but speaking about a rupture in the sort of place of international geopolitics and international stability. I think what we've been hearing from Davos is a beginning of a more serious pushback at the United States. So it is quite possible that in those many meetings that President Trump said that he's expecting to have on and around Greenland when he gets to Davos, he may also hear frustrations and pushback, not least from Emmanuel Macron, who President Trump seems ready to write off politically.

President Trump has not been making -- not endearing himself to the European leaders. And I think they understand that that's not something that's high on his agenda. When it comes to the people of Greenland, they will, of course, have been listening incredibly closely to any nuance in what the president has said.

And there was no sign there from the president that he's taken off the table his maximalist position. He was sort of toned down. He wasn't talking about a hard option or a soft option.

He was saying that he thought that there would be a good outcome, that NATO would be happy, that the people of Greenland would be happy about it. But we don't know what it is. We don't know what's in his mind.

And as you said, he was very elusive on the question of are you willing to sort of -- or how far are you willing to go on Greenland? Well, you'll see was the answer. So that kind of speaks to the message from the prime minister here in Greenland today to the people to be prepared, because as the prime minister here said, although he didn't say President Trump by name, but he said the other leader has not taken off the table the possibility of military action.

Therefore, I ask you and tell you, the people of Greenland, you need to be prepared in case that happens. He says, I can't rule it out either. And to that point, the Greenland government has invited Danish sort of emergency responders as well as the military to come here who are preparing and securing communications facilities and other important strategic facilities here.

So that, I think, shows you where the thinking is here until President Trump explains what he thinks is going to make the leaders -- NATO leaders happy, what he thinks is going to make the people of Greenland happy. They are really just going to have to -- they are being very cautious until they hear that kind of specificity.

KEILAR: Yes, certainly. And while the White House sources telling our correspondents he's not considering military action when he stands there and says on how far he'll go to get Greenland, you will find out that's not giving comfort to folks there, no doubt. Nic Robertson, thank you so much.

We do now on this busy day want to go to Minneapolis, where Greg Bovino, who is a border patrol commander at large, is speaking about this huge immigration operation there.

GREG BOVINO, BORDER PATROL COMMANDER AT LARGE: ... Mayor Frey have relied on heated rhetoric and accusations that distract from the facts. The facts are that federal agents are arresting murderers, rapists, child predators, cartel-connected criminals and other individuals who pose a real danger to the people of Minneapolis. As these operations began and since, there have been constant attempts to interfere with lawful enforcement of our nation's Title VIII immigration laws here in Minneapolis.

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Officers have been violently and aggressively assaulted, objects have been thrown, and vehicles damaged. Despite that violence, enforcement has continued unabated. Our officers remain professional, focused, courteous, and committed to the mission, that mission again being Title VIII immigration enforcement.

This effort reflects a coordinated federal approach. Agencies are working together under Title VIII authorities, agencies like the United States Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and many other allied law enforcement agencies, FBI, DEA, ATF, and many others have came together under this operation under this umbrella. We share intelligence and execute operations in a unified manner. That coordination is essential to effective enforcement and public safety.

Since the start of this operation, we've arrested some of the most dangerous criminal offenders operating in Minnesota. In the entire state of Minnesota, we have arrested some of the most violent criminal offenders right here in this city. These are not minor violators or minor garden variety criminals.

These are repeat offenders with serious criminal histories. Now folks, before I came here today, I printed out a couple of a few individuals that I'd like to share with you.

(INAUDIBLE)

Individuals that were walking the streets of Minneapolis with impunity as of yesterday.

We've got Kongmeng Vang, a criminal illegal alien from Laos, a registered sex offender convicted of sex offense just since yesterday. Keep in mind now, these individuals were walking the streets of Minneapolis with impunity as of yesterday. We've got Vannaleut Keomany, a criminal illegal alien from Laos, a registered sex offender convicted of sex offense against a child, including fondling, and failure to register as a sex offender.

This individual was walking the streets of Minneapolis just yesterday. This individual right here. It's very interesting that I haven't seen this individual or many others like him reported on very much by the local news media or the state news media.

That's interesting. Let's don't quit there. No, you can't.

Let's continue here. We've got Samuel Arevalo-Hernandez, a criminal illegal alien from Guatemala, charged with rape and lewd or lascivious acts with a minor. Now think about that for just a second.

Rape and then on top of that, lewd and lascivious acts with a minor. This individual was walking the streets of Minneapolis with impunity just yesterday. Let's don't quit there.

Let's keep on there. We've got Annabelle Gomez, a criminal illegal alien from Honduras, previously arrested for criminal sexual conduct and domestic assault. Other convictions include disorderly conduct and driving under the influence of liquor.

Walking the streets as of yesterday. These are just three. Three that I decided to print out.

There's a whole stack of them. There's a whole stack of these. As a matter of fact, when we look over the past year at the 10,000 that have been arrested here in Minneapolis and Minnesota, that stack is enormous.

These are the kinds of individuals this operation focuses on. Individuals who escalate situations and endanger others. Again, our neighbors, our friends, our colleagues, and ma and pa America.

This is exactly, exactly why interior enforcement exists to remove dangerous criminals from our communities, remove dangerous illegal alien criminals from our communities. It's also important, folks, to address a point that's often overlooked. Interior enforcement does not exist in isolation.

It's not just about interior enforcement. It's a dichotomy here. It's interior enforcement and border enforcement.

What happens in Minneapolis is directly connected at what happens at our borders. Interior enforcement and border enforcement, border security, are intricately connected. For years, federal law enforcement was placed in a defensive posture, especially over those past four years.

[15:50:00]

Agents were overwhelmed, processing massive numbers of illegal aliens coming into the often with limited vetting, minimal accountability, and few consequences. I think that's proven right here just by those three that I held up there.

Time and resources that should have been dedicated to public safety were diverted to administrative processing, and criminal organizations exploited that environment. Over the past year, under the leadership of our president, Donald J. Trump, and Homeland Security Secretary Kristie Noem, that dynamic has changed.

It's changed radically. It's changed more than I've ever seen in my over three decades in law enforcement. Border enforcement has reached historic levels.

I actually called back to my home sector in El Centro today. They had one apprehension over the past 24 hours, one along that 75-mile stretch of border in El Centro alone. Last week, there were several days where they had zero border crossers in that sector.

That's the same thing across all 20 border patrol sectors, very few crossings. Illegal crossings have dropped to record lows. Catch and release has ended.

Consequences have been restored. Again, consequences restored. Because the border is now secure, law enforcement can do its job more effectively.

Agents are no longer tied up processing and releasing, releasing individuals into the interior, individuals that we just talked about. They can focus on who is coming into this country, and just as importantly, identifying and removing those who should not be here. And that shift matters.

It allows for meaningful vetting, targeted enforcement, and a renewed focus on public safety over paperwork. Public safety over paperwork. Border security provides operational control, disrupts cartel pipelines, and prevents criminal flow from reaching American cities.

It also allows law enforcement to focus again on removing individuals who slip through during years of failed policies and later committed serious crimes. What happens on the border doesn't stay on the border. Border enforcement and interior enforcement are two parts of the same mission.

A secure border without interior enforcement leaves communities vulnerable. And interior enforcement without border control is unsustainable. Again, it's that dichotomous relationship.

When both are aligned, the results are clear. Over the course of this administration, more than 10,000 criminal illegal aliens, as I said, have been apprehended here in Minneapolis over the past year. And in just the last six weeks, the last six weeks alone, during this most current surge, 3,000 arrests of some of the most dangerous offenders operating in Minneapolis have occurred -- 3,000.

These are not technical violations, as I mentioned. These are individuals responsible for serious harm. Think about it for just a second, what the rape of a child actually entails.

It seems as if that's glossed over by the media oftentimes. What does that entail and what's that like? Think about that.

Murderers, rapists, gang members, they're not the people we want in our community. This is what public safety looks like. When the law is enforced consistently and professionally, we will continue enforcing the law. We will continue making arrests and we will continue working to keep Minneapolis safe. The mission continues at the border and in the interior because that effective enforcement depends on both occurring at the same time.

Let's make America safe again, honor first. Thank you.

MARCOS CHARLES, EXEC, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF ENFORCEMENT AND REMOVAL OPS, ICE: Thank you, Greg. Good afternoon. My name is Marcos Charles.

As Greg introduced, I am the Executive Associate Director for ICE Enforcement Removal Operations. Thank you for joining us. We announced the current status of Operation Metro Surge.

As you know, the Department of Homeland Security has arrested over 10,000 illegal aliens in Minnesota since President Trump took office. Over the weekend and through yesterday's holiday, ICE arrested 113 illegal aliens in Minnesota. Some of the criminal aliens that were arrested, whose photos you see beside me on the monitor, include an illegal alien gang member from Laos with convictions for homicide and robbery. An illegal alien from Laos who's been convicted for sodomizing a 12-year-old girl and sexual assault.

[15:55:00]

An illegal alien from the Marshall Islands who has 24 criminal convictions, including assault, domestic abuse, and theft. There's an illegal alien from Honduras convicted of three DUIs who has also been arrested for kidnapping, robbery with a dangerous weapon, and possession of a stolen firearm. An illegal alien from South Africa convicted of violating a restraining order and arrested for domestic violence, assault, Meth possession and DUI.

We are currently also looking for two sexual predators who are at large in or around St. Paul right now. Lue Moua, a criminal illegal alien from Laos who is wanted for sexually assaulting a child, rape, kidnapping and domestic violence. And Kongmeng Vang. a criminal illegal alien from Laos who is wanted for sexual assault, gang activity, and simple assault. If you have any information about these two criminal illegal aliens or any other criminal illegal aliens, please call the ICE tip line at 866-DHS-2ICE or visit a website at ice.gov to submit a tip.

Since President Trump took office one year ago today, the state of Minnesota has released nearly 500 criminal aliens who were in police or state custody rather than turning them over to ICE for removal proceedings. Many of these criminals already have a final order of removal, which means an immigration judge ...

KEILAR: All right, we are watching this press conference, immigration and Border Patrol officials out of Minneapolis as they've been conducting their major operation there. And we just heard from Greg Bovino, who is there. Just important to point out as they're highlighting, and those are horrific crimes that Greg Bovino is pointing out. But let's bring in Josh Campbell to talk a little bit about it. He

said, these are just three. I have a whole stack. He doesn't have the whole stack of those crimes. We have to be sure, because what we've seen is a trend of people being arrested, Josh, who don't actually have a criminal conviction.

In November, what we saw, and the pattern has been clear in these operations. Cato, the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, pointing out three quarters of those arrested approximately don't have convictions. Only 5 percent with violent convictions. This was the overall operation of immigration officials at that point. Talk to us a little bit about what you heard there.

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is why this has become so controversial, not just what we heard there from Greg Bovino, but earlier from the president as well, placing the spotlight on these heinous crimes that they say that they have disrupted people who had committed them. Which if you read through some of the list of charges, they sound horrific, some of the things that these people are alleged to have done. That can be true that they are trying to mop up the streets of these very serious criminals.

But we also know from, you know, numerous viral videos, we know from talking to our own law enforcement sources that there have been many instances where they're targeting people that don't have a past criminal history that, you know, may be in this country unlawfully, but it's not the violent crime. The reason why this has become so controversial is also because of the politics. Because we've seen now so many of these videos where you see these immigration agents going up to people, essentially demanding their papers.

There was one video -- which people can go on our CNN social media channels on YouTube, and you can watch it yourself. Agents approach a man because of his accent. They even say, because of your accent, show us your papers. They place him in handcuffs. He then, you know, clears himself saying that he's allowed in this country unlawfully. Those kind of videos over and over and over, we've even heard people on the right throwing a flag on that.

HILL: They have. And Harry, I mean, just remind us, if we could, in that moment, which Josh was just talking about, because this has happened so often, what does the law say if you were approached and asked for your papers by one of these agents?

HARRY LITMAN, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY: Yes, unless they have reasonable suspicion to see you convicted of a crime, they are not permitted to. They can't even stop you. Everything Josh says is right, but I'd even add to it. It's not that they've targeted those people.

We're seeing a dragnet without targeting. That's how you have these sorts of videos. And they're fighting a sort of war of anecdotes where they proffer two or three, but they really do seem to be unrepresentative of the vast scope of people who are being stopped and who are, you know, have made it the fact in Minnesota that there's a kind of, as the state officials have said, an invasion of the whole state by the federal government. KEILAR: Yes, and Josh, thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Harry, thank you so much to you. It has been an incredibly busy day here.

HILL: Yes.

KEILAR: We heard from the president at length, we did today.

[16:00:00]

HILL: For nearly two hours, speaking in the White House Briefing Room, taking a few questions from reporters, talking a lot at the beginning about what we just heard from Greg Brovino, but also a number of important questions about NATO.

We're going to continue to follow all of these developments throughout the day. Kasie Hunt, of course, picks up our coverage at the top of the hour. "THE ARENA" with Kasie Hunt starts right now.

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