WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump wanted to recap his first year back in office. And it felt like he wanted to spend the next year doing it.
For more than 100 minutes, the president held forth Tuesday at the White House, where he went on a winding journey through his last year, interspersed with plenty of asides, a few impressions of other politicians and critics and, eventually, questions from the media.
Trump riffed on things his administration has done, starting with an awkwardly quiet stretch of show-and-tell in which he held up photographs of people he said immigration officers had arrested in Minnesota.
“I’m going through this because I think we have plenty of time,” Trump said.
The drawn-out performance came at a moment of international alarm and domestic tension. Trump over the weekend shook the NATO alliance by threatening tariffs on Europe to strong-arm his aim of taking over Greenland. At home, tensions were high after his administration ordered 1,500 active-duty soldiers to be ready to possibly deploy to the streets of Minneapolis as he threatens to impose the Insurrection Act.
Tuesday’s news conference came just hours before Trump was set to head to Europe for a meeting with global leaders anxious to discuss his designs on Greenland, the new international peacemaking body he wants to form and a myriad of other global issues.
His fellow Republicans have been urging him to speak more to voters’ concerns about affordability as they stare down crucial midterm elections this year.
“One of the reasons I’m doing this news conference, I think it’s important — we have taken a mess and made it really good,” Trump said. “It’s going to get even better.”
Trump tosses stack of accomplishments
For more than 10 minutes, he showed off mugshots of people he said had been arrested, remarking on their alleged crimes. At one point, he asked the reporters in the room, “You’re not getting bored with this, right?”
Seeming to realize he was losing his audience, Trump told them they were lucky that he only went through “like 100” mugshots, then tossed the stack on the Briefing Room floor next to his lectern.
After futzing with a large binder clip, remarking on how it could have taken his finger off, he assured everyone, “I would not have shown the pain.” He threw the binder clip on the floor, too.
Not long after, he hoisted into the air a thick stack of paper with the word “Accomplishments” written in bold letters on top, a list he said would take him more than a week to read.
“It’s big stuff too. We have the hottest country in the world,” Trump said.
And then the president threw the accomplishments onto the floor, where they landed with a loud thud.
Trump has long said he is his best spokesman, dating back to his real estate days, when he was known for calling reporters to promote projects or pitch ideas. On Tuesday, he seemed to acknowledge that some of his economic arguments weren’t landing with voters.
“Maybe I have bad public relations people, but we’re not getting it across,” Trump said.
Hell’s Angels and other tangents
But as he touted accomplishments, he also went on some tangents.
In talking about immigration enforcement actions, Trump claimed that the immigrants his administration has removed from the U.S. make the Hell’s Angels “look like the sweetest people on Earth,” only to then pause and compliment the infamous motorcycle gang.
“I like the Hell’s Angels,” Trump said. “They voted for me. They protected me, actually.”
On his signing of an executive order “to bring back mental institutions and insane asylums,” Trump waxed nostalgic, telling a story of walking to Little League baseball with his mother, who told him a nearby psychiatric facility was home to “very sick people.”
The president also had a moment of reflection on the divine. Trump has suggested in the past that intervention from above brought him back into office and saved him from an assassination attempt. A reporter asked Tuesday if he believed God was proud of him.
“I do,” Trump said, giving a soft laugh. “I think God is very proud of the job I’ve done, and that includes for religion.”