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Trump Hosts Signing Ceremony; Extreme Winter Storm; Trump's Comments on Greenland and Tariffs. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired January 22, 2026 - 06:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:32:19]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: Moments ago, President Trump wrapped up his speech at the signing ceremony for the Board of Peace. Both him and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, spoke about the ceasefire in Gaza.

We're bringing in now CNN's Jerusalem bureau chief, Oren Liebermann, here to discuss.

Oren, first, I heard the president talk about the need for demilitarization. That is, of course, the original conversation around this peace plan. We also noticed that Israel was not represented. Netanyahu wasn't there. Can you give us some context for why not?

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN JERUSALEM BUREAU CHIEF: So, it's not only that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wasn't at Davos. The Israeli head of state, President Isaac Herzog, is at Davos. In fact, he spoke just earlier this morning and even he didn't attend the signing ceremony for the Board of Peace, although it's unclear why.

Israel, and that is Netanyahu specifically, have what I would describe as a kind of mixed relationship with the Board of Peace. Netanyahu said he is honored to accept the invitation, and yet he has fumed at members of the executive board designed to handle Gaza. The inclusion of Turkish and Qatari officials. Israel has long accused Turkey and Qatar of funding, backing and supporting Hamas. So, you see the tension there on the Gaza issue, which is really the first concrete example of the Board of Peace trying to put a plan into effect.

And it was Trump's son-in-law, U.S. Envoy Jared Kushner, who laid out how he sees this moving forward. But the plan that he laid out, the reconstruction of Gaza, building a coastal resort, an airport, a port, manufacturing hubs, frankly, that's disconnected from the reality on the ground right now, where Israel occupies more than half of Gaza's territory. There is a commander for the International Stabilization Force that's supposed to move into Gaza, but there is no actual force.

Meanwhile, how to demilitarize Hamas and Gaza, even that is unclear. President Donald Trump has said he believes they'll do it, but the mechanism is not in place to make that happen. And Israeli officials have privately been very skeptical that the board of peace is able to do that. So, big plans here that Kushner laid out, but actually making those happen on the ground here and moving this forward, what is a multi multi-billion-dollar plan, as Kushner laid it out, that is very, very far from where we are right now.

CORNISH: I also want to ask about how the ceasefire has been held or maintained and play for you in our audience what the president had to say about Hamas, who he claimed were born with rifles in their hands.

Let's take a moment and listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Of course the war in Gaza, which is really coming to an end, we have little fires that we'll put out, but they're little.

[06:35:07]

They were giant, giant, massive fires. And now they're down to little fires. We can put them out very easily. We have 59 countries that are involved in peace in the Middle East. Many of them not in the Middle East. They're near the Middle East, but they're not in the Middle East. And many have said that if Hamas doesn't do what they promised they would do, and I think they probably will, but they were born with rifles in their hands. Literally born, the first day they had a rifle put into their hands. But they have to give up their weapons. And if they don't do that, it's going to be the end of them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Oren, can I get some help from this one, from the phrase little fires to the end, talking about that Hamas probably will disarm. What's the actual state of play?

LIEBERMANN: A lot in there to try to -- to try to pick apart and get to what's happening on the ground.

First, in terms of the ceasefire itself, it is certainly not the same level of war, level of bombings and level of fighting that we saw over the course of the past two years. So, the ceasefire has, overall, I would say, largely held and shown to some extent its durability.

At the same time, Israel has not approved or taken a government decision to end the war. Israel approved only the first part of the ceasefire plan that allowed them to get the hostages back, but Israel has not approved at the government level a full and complete end of the war as Trump has saying has happened. So, that's one very big difficulty there as far right members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition called to resume the war at full force here.

Meanwhile, Hamas has not disarmed. In fact, they have used the three months since the ceasefire to entrench their power once again. So, there are big questions about how you get Hamas to disarm and how you get to demilitarizing Gaza, which is all part of the second phase of the ceasefire. That's what's supposed to be playing out here. But without an effective management structure to make all of this happen and make it happen in real time on the ground, it's unclear how all of this moves forward.

Meanwhile, we have seen Israel repeatedly carry out strikes. In fact, yesterday, we saw an Israeli strike kill three journalists in a marked humanitarian vehicle. Israel says they were operating a drone affiliated with Hamas but have not answered our questions about what sort of affiliations or how they knew that. That was operating with the Egyptian Relief Committee, which is a humanitarian organization operating in Gaza.

So, this gets at the difficulties of getting the ceasefire to hold in a permanent way so that you can get an advance, the second phase, and so you can start moving anywhere close to what Kushner laid out, which is a complete reconstruction of Gaza to carry out, in phases with, again, an airport, a port, tourism. That is a very, very far away from what we're seeing taking place every day right now in Gaza.

CORNISH: You know, Oren, what you're giving us is important context here when you talk about where the Israeli government itself is when it comes to approval of the peace process. Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, was saying in a speech, look, I need everyone to calm down, at least for the next 30 days. He directed that to social media, Israeli as well -- Israelis as well. And he also talked about how in the next hundred days they want to start talking to investors and welcoming investors. And it is greater context for why they're at Davos.

Can I just play for you something the president said, because a lot of people believe this attitude he has towards the world underscores not just this effort at this conflict, but more broadly at other conflicts. Here he is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: See, I'm a real estate person at heart, and it's all about location. And I said, look at this location on the sea. Look at this beautiful piece of property. What it could be for so many people. It will be so, so great. People that are living so poorly are going to be living so well.

But it all began with the location. That's the vision. They look out on the waters and very few people are -- very few places are like it. So, we put together a team that's outstanding. A team that's done it before. A team that I think has done tougher jobs, if you want to know the truth. We've done some tough jobs (ph).

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Oren, can I just have you talk about this, because when it comes to the Middle East, Israel, like covering these issues for so long, nothing is just location.

LIEBERMANN: Of course. If you're looking at it purely from a commercial transactional perspective, then, sure, Gaza has tremendous real estate potential. Its beachfront property. It has access to Israel and Gaza.

Of course, that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of the larger issues here. Hamas governing and ruling Gaza with an iron fist for the past 20 years or so. The relationship between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority and the occupied West Bank. The relationship with Israel. The relationship with Egypt.

[06:40:00]

How you solve all of that. Trump views it purely in a transactional, commercial way. And that appears to be what Kushner is getting at, talking about investors coming in, in the next 100 days. And yet there are so many large issues that have to be solved between now and then that -- that the U.S. is trying to push them forward but there doesn't appear to be, at least from where we sit right now, a way to get from where we are right now to what Kushner is talking about with international multibillion dollar investment to make this reconstruction project happen.

And the reason this matters for the broader Board of Peace is that this is the only concrete example, or at least the first concrete example, of the U.S. trying to make the Board of Peace solve a conflict. That's what Trump is trying to do here and what the White House is trying to do. So, this -- what they're -- what they're attempting to put into action here has tremendous consequences for whether and how the Board of Peace will operate in other conflicts if and when it tries to address them.

CORNISH: OK, that's Oren Liebermann in Jerusalem. Excellent context. Thank you so much for being with us this morning. We'll be checking back with him later today.

Also next, we're going to hear from the former NATO allied supreme commander about this and some of the other issues that came up over the last two days.

Stay with us.

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[06:45:54]

CORNISH: OK, we are currently tracking breaking weather news this morning as well. Much of the U.S. bracing for one of the most extreme winter storms we've seen in years.

CNN's Allison Chinchar is tracking the system.

And, Allison, give me -- give me a prediction that I can feel good about. What are we expecting?

ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Right. Well, I think the key thing here, Audie, is just how many people are going to be impacted by this storm. You take a look at all of these alerts you have out here. They stretch from New Mexico, all the way up to New York state, and pretty much everywhere in between. Even some places that don't normally get big impacts from winter weather like Houston, Dallas, Shreveport, Louisiana, even places like Charlotte and Raleigh, North Carolina.

Now, part of the reason we're getting a lot of the impacts, or expected to get the impacts from this winter storm, is because of all the cold air in place. Look at all of these areas that have either extreme cold watches, advisories or warnings.

Now, yes, the bulk of it is located in the northern plains, in the Midwest, but you're going to see a lot of that cold air really starting to creep very far south over the next 24 to 48 hours. And with that cold air in place, that means as this low pressure slides through, it's going to be in the form of snow or, in some cases, even ice.

So, here's a look at Friday night. You start to see the changeover there across states like Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma and into Texas. By Saturday morning, now you're starting to see a lot more purple and a lot more pink on the map as that system slides east, taking the winter precipitation with it. Then by Sunday morning, again, now you're starting to see more of the winter weather begin to impact places like the Carolinas, into Virginia and the rest of the mid-Atlantic. But you still have some of that snow and ice on the backside of the storm as it continues to wrap up late into the day on Sunday.

So again, in terms of snow specifically, you've got this very, very narrow path here, a very intense snow. You're talking at least a foot, possibly as much as 18 inches of snow. But even some of the surrounding areas could end up getting six, eight, even ten inches of snow.

On the far south side, this is the concern where we have ice in the forecast. Again, and some of these areas could see three quarters of an inch, maybe even as much as an inch of ice. Now, the concern with stuff like this is, it's the fact that that accumulates on things like trees and power lines. So, for a lot of these areas, you could end up having some pretty widespread power outages, especially if it's a prolonged event where they're consistently getting more and more ice, Audie, to pile up.

CORNISH: OK, Allison Chinchar, thanks so much. We'll be checking back with you as we track this storm. Thanks so much.

Now, moments ago, President Trump wrapped up his speech at the signing ceremony for the Board of Peace. Before he heads back to the U.S., the president is actually set to meet with Ukraine's president. Trump has been at Davos talking about Greenland as well, and actually backing down from his threat of a military takeover. During his hour-long speech Wednesday, Trump called European allies ungrateful for the U.S. as he pushed his tariff threat over the island. He did drop the tariff threat in the end, after a meeting with NATO's secretary general yesterday. The NATO chief says that the talks with Trump were good and gave us more details on the talk just a short time ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MARK RUTTE, NATO SECRETARY GENERAL: How can we make sure that these countries collectively make sure that the Arctic stays safe, that the Russians and the Chinese stay out? And then when it comes to -- so that's one work stream coming out of yesterday. And the other is to make sure when it comes to Greenland, particularly, that we ensure that the Chinese and the Russians will not gain access to the Greenland economy, to -- militarily to Greenland. And that will be a discussion taken forward.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Joining me now to discuss, retired Admiral James Stavridis, CNN's senior military analyst and former NATO allied supreme commander.

Thank you so much for being with us this morning.

It's very clear that going into Davos, the conversation and the concern about Greenland had escalated to the point where allies were concerned. I was reading "The Globe and Mail," the military in Canada was modeling a Canadian response to a hypothetical American invasion. So, needless to say, allies are unnerved.

[06:50:01]

In the end, how do you feel the NATO secretary general handled this and handled Trump?

ADM. JAMES STAVRIDIS (RET.), CNN SENIOR MILITARY ANALYST: I think NATO lives to fight another day. And a week ago I was quite worried for all the reasons you just articulated. But this mental picture I had as a former supreme allied commander of NATO, of European troops stationed in Greenland, because nine European nations were moving troops there, coming into actual conflict with, say, the 82nd Airborne, it was not impossible to conceive that.

So, yes, I was very worried. And I know former Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, the current secretary general, very well. He was the prime minister when I was supreme allied commander. He is rock solid. And a great pair of hands in a situation like this I think really calmed the waters. I think we've landed in as good a place as we can given the escalation of the previous week, Audie.

CORNISH: I want to play for you Germany's chancellor, what they said just a short time ago about this rift overall.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FRIEDRICH MERZ, GERMAN CHANCELLOR: We should not give up. We feel deeply that it can be the United States strongest competitive advantage in an age of great powers. Democracies do not have subordinates, they have allies, partners and trusted friends.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: What's your response to I think the Trump administration position that these countries that do not pay in or put in the same effort and resources as the U.S. are subordinate? What do you make of all the criticisms?

STAVRIDIS: The chancellor of Germany has it exactly right, which is that it's an enormous comparative advantage the United States enjoys over, for example, China or Russia, who really don't have allies in the sense of anybody who will come and defend them. And to those who say, oh, the Europeans, they won't show up for us or they won't come and defend us. I say, go back and look right after 9/11. There were German warships. There were British airplanes flying over the United States in response to 9/11. Then we went to Afghanistan, where I commanded that mission for four years as the NATO commander, and I watched 60,000 NATO troops stand, fight and often die.

I'll close with this, Audie. The Danes. You know, we're pushing the Danes to take Greenland. The Danes, in Afghanistan, had the highest per capita number of combat deaths of anybody under my command. They were fearless warriors. These are descendants of Vikings. We put them in the hardest place in Afghanistan, Kandahar province, alongside U.S. Marines. They can fight. They fought alongside us. They deserve our respect and our thanks.

CORNISH: I appreciate you saying that because we also heard some sort of revision history from the president about post-World War II development, right, of Greenland and our connection there. But this is relevant because we don't really know what the off ramp is. We know there's a deal. And I don't know if you've heard anything about what the U.S. will do now in Greenland. Is it reopening some bases, which we already had the capacity and contractual agreement to do, or is there something else?

STAVRIDIS: We did. We did have that capacity previously. And I think that as we look at what the deal might look like, there's a model out there. And deal could look like Guantanamo Bay, or it could look like the British bases in Cyprus, meaning, actual sovereign control over a very small part of this larger landmass. I think that's a reasonable outcome.

And I'll also point out that we do need Greenland. It is vital to U.S. security.

CORNISH: Yes.

STAVRIDIS: But, Audie, you're exactly right, we already had the access to build the bases. So, yes, look for some base building. Look for sovereign rights over part of it. I think we have the shape of (INAUDIBLE) the president called it a framework of a deal that we can use going forward.

CORNISH: And I don't -- I've got to ask you this before I let you go. The Board of Peace. We've been talking about it in the context that we've heard from the president, from his son-in-law, about investment.

STAVRIDIS: CNN, I've lost Audie. I'm hearing --

CORNISH: Oh, there we go. [06:55:00]

All right. Sorry. We're going to bring back the admiral later. That's -- we're going to talk to the panel now a little bit about what we've heard from the retired admiral, John Stavridis, but as well as from Trump and this week and these days at Davos. There are some investors, maybe, who walked away saying, oh, are these a TACO trade again, right? Is -- did the president back down after escalating and escalating threats and the market talked and walked. The market was upset and he kind of backed down from what he was saying about Greenland. Did that surprise you?

MIKE DUBKE, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Well, I'm not even going to agree with the premise of how you set this up, because I don't -- I don't think that it is --

CORNISH: No, please do. Please do. Because I'm on stock market Twitter and I don't believe them all the time.

DUBKE: No, no, no, I'm fine with the -- with the -- with the view of the stock market, but I don't think it's TACO Tuesday or TACO Wednesday or TACO Thursday. I think this is a very typical way that Donald Trump negotiates, by pushing all the way to one side to bring folks over so that where you end up at the end of the day is closer to his position to begin with. Now --

CORNISH: So, you're doing the negotiating tactic?

DUBKE: I think so. And if we talk about what the -- what the -- what the general just said there in terms of having sovereignty over a corner, like Gibraltar, like Guantanamo, like whatever else --

CORNISH: Oh, what cooperation would look like? Yes.

DUBKE: That cooperation would look like. I mean, one thing that we're not talking about here is the Golden Dome. And part of the Golden Dome is, it needs to stretch from Alaska to Greenland in order to protect everything south of there and do --

CORNISH: Yes. And for people who don't know about this, this is a missile defense system that the president is very much wanting.

DUBKE: Yes.

CORNISH: Again, it doesn't answer the question of why he couldn't do that before when we had contractual access to Greenland and military bases.

DUBKE: But it does. It does. It does if you look at what happened in Venezuela with the oil companies over the last 20 years, where they invested billions of dollars in all of that was nationalized.

CORNISH: But we didn't have an agreement with Venezuela to have military bases there.

DUBKE: But if you look -- if you look -- if you look at it -- well, I'm just -- I'm just --

CORNISH: Yes.

DUBKE: Kind of pointing out that if you want to have American investment in Greenland of putting millions, if not billions of dollars of equipment there for the Golden Dome, to have sovereignty over that small area in which to base your, your military, it's better to have sovereignty over that area than to just work with an ally.

I'm not saying it's the right move. I'm just saying it --

CORNISH: No, that's OK. Listen, I also don't want it debated too much because we don't have detail about the deal.

DUBKE: Right.

CORNISH: I heard one of the world leaders tweeting that there was, quote/unquote, total confusion. So, today is the day we hope to get clarity on what happens.

Meghan, what are you thinking out of this couple days?

MEGHAN HAYS, FORMER BIDEN WHITE HOUSE DIRECTOR OF MESSAGE PLANNING: I mean, we're still waiting for concepts of a health care plan from weeks ago. So, I mean, we'll just wait forever.

This is something that we had in place since like 1951. So, I'm not sure why we couldn't have just gone that way. Why we had to create all this -- he likes to create a problem and then try to solve it.

But on your point on Venezuela, the oil companies are also saying, it's too expensive to go in there and to get the oil.

DUBKE: I know.

CORNISH: Right.

HAYS: People feel the same way about Greenland. The land is too frozen. They don't think they can extract the minerals.

DUBKE: Right.

HAYS: So, I just -- there's a lot of questions here. And also --

CORNISH: And interestingly, the Board of Peace, you can say that about Gaza, which is, isn't it inhabitable (ph) --

DUBKE: Absolutely. We're tying it all together, Audie.

CORNISH: I know.

DUBKE: We're tying it all together.

CORNISH: But the reason why we're tying it all together is because, if you have a foreign policy that is based on investment first, on the thesis, that the realism and the realpolitik comes from the fact that investors want to -- that there's money at stake. Then these things all have the same problem, which is how do you secure those places?

ALEX THOMPSON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: And -- well, and investors usually like stability and not just like this up and down. The thing is that Trump likes tariffs. And he went on a long riff about this yesterday. Trump likes tariffs because, in his mind, he sees it as a point of leverage over every country in the world --

CORNISH: Yes.

THOMPSON: In order to extract concessions that have nothing to do with the economy or anything else. He went on a long tangent about what he told Macron earlier last year and basically said, unless you raise the price of your pharmaceutical drugs so we can bring down the price here, I'm going to put a huge tariff on all French champagne and wine. And those two things have nothing to do with each other. But in Trump's mind, he sees it in the same way he saw real estate deals.

CORNISH: Right. Well, economic warfare. These are the tools of economic warfare.

HAYS: Those tariffs, though, that he has leverage over other countries. He's losing leverage in the United States. And he's losing leverage over the GOP in general. So, I just think, if he spent one- tenth the time focusing on affordability, he would have much more success if he just focused on that than focus on these random Greenland and tariffs that don't make any sense and don't actually do anything. And all it's doing is isolating us from our allies.

CORNISH: Well, thank you guys for being here and for talking about a lot. We heard a tremendous amount.

I just want to bring people up to speed. We heard from the secretary of state, Marco Rubio. He had criticism for the U.N. and its past peace programs in this charter signing for the Board of Peace.

We also had Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, speak. He outlined the idea that over the next hundred days they would be focusing on trying to stabilize Gaza and also get investors interested in Gaza. And he asked people to, quote/unquote, calm down on social media for the next 30 days while the U.S. tries to do this work.

So, as we stand this morning, the U.S. has now established the Board of Peace with an initial charter and signing with a number of countries that would oversee the reconstruction of Gaza and potentially bring that model to other conflicts going forward.

[07:00:13]

The questions going into today is why European allies aren't there, why Israel isn't there. There are many more questions to come and need to be answered about the president's foreign policy.

We hope you will stay with us. Thank you for waking up with me. I'm Audie Cornish, and the headlines are next.