SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Today marks the one-year anniversary of President Trump's return to office. He marked the occasion by making a surprise appearance at the White House press briefing. Trump spoke for 80 minutes before taking a question. And for a president who knows how to make news, he made surprisingly little even with a room full of reporters.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Wow, that's a big crowd.
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TRUMP: It's a lot of people. I think it's, like, a record.
DETROW: This all occurred just before Trump heads to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where Europeans are frantically trying to head off conflict over Trump's insistence that the U.S. takes over Greenland from Denmark. NPR senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith is here to break it down. Hey, Tam.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Hi, Scott.
DETROW: A lot of words from President Trump today. What should we take from it?
KEITH: President Trump came into the room carrying a large document titled 365 Wins In 365 Days. But what he delivered was not a concise recitation of wins. Instead, it was a low-energy and very long monologue where he complained that his message just isn't getting through to people.
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TRUMP: Maybe I have the bad public relations people, but we're not getting it across.
KEITH: In fact, he said that's why he was doing this press conference. Like so many presidents before him, he thinks that he is his own best messenger.
DETROW: And like so many presidents before, I mean, seems frustrated with how the message is getting out. So I'm curious, do you think this message got through today?
KEITH: Yeah, he certainly held the cable airwaves for a long time, nearly two hours. But he said so much about so many things, repeating the same jokes and falsehoods that he comes back to again and again, that it would be hard to pick out what his precise point was. For quite a while, he was up there just holding pieces of paper with pictures of criminals he says have been arrested in the immigration raids in Minnesota. At one point, he even had an extended back and forth with himself about the ferocity of a binder clip.
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TRUMP: And this is something - oh, I'm glad my finger wasn't in that sucker. That could have done some damage, but you know what? I wouldn't have shown the pain.
KEITH: It was just Trump unfiltered.
DETROW: I mean, this comes at a time where there's a lot of major issues that Trump is facing. He took questions for 25 minutes. Did he get pressed on any of these issues, like Greenland or tariffs?
KEITH: He did. And as he often does, he left his options open. His answers on questions about NATO, Iran, Panama and Greenland were all a little, like, trying to pin down Jell-O. Here's what he said when he was asked about how far he would go to get Greenland.
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TRUMP: 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.
KEITH: You know, in the middle of the night last night, Trump was on a social media tear where, among other things, he boosted the idea that NATO is the real problem, not Russia and China. He didn't bring any of that same inflammatory language or energy to the briefing room. And when asked about his relationship with European leaders Emmanuel Macron of France and Keir Starmer of the U.K., both of whom were quite pointed in their criticism of him, Trump said they are friends.
DETROW: Tam, Trump talks to the press a lot. What was different about today?
KEITH: You know, in the second Trump era, the briefing room is now packed not just with mainstream journalists from the nation's largest news organizations, but also with influencers who make no secret of how much they love the president. At one point, he was asked if God would be happy with his first year in office. He said, yes, he thinks, quote, "God is very proud of the job I've done." So this press conference definitely covered it all.
DETROW: NPR's Tamara Keith, thanks so much.
KEITH: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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