Five of the wildest moments from Trump's rambling press conference

U.S. President Donald Trump takes questions from reporters during a press briefing at the White House, on the one-year mark into his second term in office, in Washington, D.C., U.S., January 20, 2026. REUTERS/Jessica Koscielniak

Editor's note: This headline has been updated.

President Donald Trump’s one-year anniversary speech on Tuesday served up a lazy rambling of easily disputed untruths and low-energy grump.

1. U.S. declares war on a binder clip

Trump launched into his list of accomplishments by pulling up an enormous file and picking a fight with the binder clip that held it together.

“Here's a — the book on accomplishments. And this is something,” said Trump. “I'm glad my finger wasn't in that socket. That could have done some damage. But you know what? I wouldn't have shown the pain. I would have gone back.”

“What, did you hear that?” Trump continued, speaking of the binder’s snap “That was nasty. But I would not have shown the pain. I would have acted like nothing happened as my finger fell off. That was a nasty. I think somebody did that. I think it was him. It was my man. You didn't do it. I know you did. I know you didn't. So. But here is the, here's the book. These are all things we have [done]. I'm going to read a few of the samples, but look at this. These are all. Each line is something that we did. Nobody did that before. And it’s big stuff to look at. We have the hottest country in the world.”

2. Trump calls jobs created by Democratic presidents “fake”

Knowing that he is facing a slumping job market that surveys are reflecting, Trump made a point to run down the competitor’s product, claiming the legion of jobs Democrat presidents created before him were “real.”

“We cut millions of people off the federal payroll. I don't like doing that. But the good news — I I don't feel badly because they're getting private sector jobs and they're getting sometimes twice as much money, three times as much money. They're getting factory jobs,” Trump said despite data showing factory jobs are in steep decline in the U.S. — including under his administration.

“They're getting much better jobs and much higher pay. But ... you know what the Democrats do all the time, they hire a million people and then they hire another million, another million. They load it up and it says, ‘oh, they only have a 3 percent unemployment rate.’ It's a fake rate. So, with us, we're proud of the fact that we cut so many because again, I don't want to cut people, but when you cut them and they go out and get a better job, I like them.”

3. "Best stock market in history."

The president does not appear to feel American voters are giving him the gratitude he deserves, claiming the likely AI bubble currently keeping the U.S. stock market afloat is a sign of a healthy economy that more Americans should appreciate.

“In the old days, if you had good numbers, they'd lower interest rates so they wouldn't do anything. Here, they try and kill it,” he said, possibly referring to the Federal Reserve’s refusal to lower interest rates “… But — by the way, we've had the best stock market in history. The best 401(k)s in history. And we inherited a mess. The numbers that we inherited are way were way up. And now we brought them, almost all of them way down. We brought them way down. I mean, I'm not getting — maybe I have the bad public relations people, but we're not getting it across.”

4. "Somalia isn't even a country."

Trump lit into the embattled nation of Somalia, and also into one of its former residents who now serves as a legislator for the state of Minnesota.

“It's not a country. They don't have government. They don't have anything. I always hate to see this (Rep.) Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), she comes from Somalia, a backward country, probably the worst country. They say it's the worst country in the world. If it's a country, I don't even think it's a country. There's no organization, no anything. They don't have police. They don't have military; they don't have anything. They just have people running around killing each other and trying to pirate ships. But she'll come here. And then she wants to tell us how to run our country. The Constitution says that I am entitled to this. I can't stand her,” Trump said, adding that he “terminated all taxpayer funding” to her state.

5. “We have no inflation.”

Trump made a point to deny the existence of national inflation, despite countless polls labeling inflation as one of the chief issues still facing voters in elections. He also denied his tariffs affecting inflation and warned the Supreme Court not to curb his power to unilaterally raise taxes on U.S. consumers and businesses through tariffs.

“If we lose that case, it's possible we're going to have to do the best we can in paying it back. I don't know how that's going to be done very easily without hurting a lot of people, but we're waiting for that case anxiously,” Trump said, adding that “we have tremendous national security because of tariffs and tremendous income.”

“You know, we have — and by the way — no inflation. So everyone said, ‘oh, tariffs will cause inflation.’ We have no inflation. We have very little inflation. Biden had inflation and he didn't do tariffs. We had a huge problem.”

Despite Trump’s claims he and his Republican Party are likely to get hammered again on inflation fears in upcoming elections, as they did in 2025’s off-year elections.

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