Donald Trump spoke for an hour. We fact-checked every word
The US President-elect spoke about seizing Greenland, windmills driving whales crazy and bringing Canada into the US. We break down nine key claims from his speech.
Donald Trump delivered a lengthy speech. We’ve broken it down.Credit: Tom McKendrick
In an hour-long press conference at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday (US time) US President-elect Donald Trump did not rule out using military force to reclaim the Panama Canal and seize control of Greenland, insisting that both are vital for US national security.
Speaking a day after his election was certified by Congress, Trump also accused the Biden administration of trying to thwart his presidential transition, repeated his threat that there would be “hell to pay” if an Israel-Hamas hostage deal wasn’t done by the time he returns to office, and announced the Gulf of Mexico would be renamed the Gulf of America.
The transcript of Trump’s press conference ran to 20 A4 pages.
The following is an edited and annotated transcript of Trump’s press conference. We have fact-checked his key claims – click on the highlighted passages in bold to read our analysis.
1. “Do you know that I’m the President-elect of the United States of America? I’m a former very successful president.”
2. “We were in no wars. And because of that, I think Russia went and attacked Ukraine.”
3. “[President Joe Biden] wants all gas heaters out of your homes and apartments.”
4. “When you buy a faucet, no water comes out because they want to preserve even in areas that have so much water, you don’t know what to do.”
5. “The Panama Canal is a disgrace. What took place at the Panama Canal?”
6. “The windmills are driving the whales crazy, obviously … And we don’t want that to happen.”
7. “The Panama Canal was built for our military. I’m not going to commit to that now it might, it might be that you’ll have to do something.”
8. “People don’t even know if Denmark has any legal right to [Greenland] but if they do, they should give it up because we need it for national security.”
9. “Because Canada and the United States, that would really be something.”
— with wires