CNN’s Daniel Dale corrects Trump’s false claims about Jan. 6

• Wide-ranging remarks: In an over hourlong news conference from Mar-a-Lago, President-elect Donald Trump said “all hell will break out” in the Middle East if hostages still held in Gaza are not returned by Inauguration Day, and he did not rule out using the military to wrest control of the Panama Canal and Greenland as he discussed his second term agenda. He also floated renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America.”

• Trump lambasted his legal cases: Trump railed against the legal cases against him, including the New York hush money sentencing set for Friday and special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into him, calling a judge’s decision to block Smith’s final report “great news.” Trump also said he was “looking at” the possibility of pardoning January 6 rioters charged with violent offenses.

• New era of GOP control: The 119th Congress is ushering a new era of Republican control of both chambers. But Trump’s plan to put his entire agenda into a single, massive bill could face challenges given the narrowly divided Congress. Trump said during the Tuesday news conference that he is open to two bills if it speeds up the process.

A Greenlandic member of Denmark’s parliament has dismissed US President-elect Donald Trump’s claim that “the people of Greenland are MAGA.”

“Greenland is not MAGA. Greenland is not going to be MAGA,” Aaja Chemnitz told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Tuesday night in response to a social media post in which Trump made the claim – a reference to his slogan “Make America Great Again.”

The president-elect, who has repeatedly expressed his desire to obtain control over the autonomous Danish territory, made the remark a day before his son Donald Trump Jr. arrived in Greenland in what has been described as a “private visit.”

When asked about footage showing Trump Jr. being greeted by crowds cheering him on, some wearing MAGA hats, Chemnitz said such people were in the minority.

“I think it’s a very small minority,” said Chemnitz, who represents Greenland in the Danish parliament.

The lawmaker said that while people in Greenland might have an interest in Trump, that did not mean they want to be American citizens.

“I think the majority in Greenland, they find it quite scary, actually, and quite uncomfortable that there’s so much focus on Greenland and that the US is, actually, in a disrespectful way, showing that they would like to be buying Greenland or controlling Greenland. That is not what the population in Greenland wants,” Chemnitz said.

On Tuesday, the president-elect did not rule out the use of military force in obtaining control of the arctic island. Chemnitz said she does not take that threat seriously.

Some background: Trump previously floated the idea of purchasing Greenland from Denmark in his first term as president, but the idea was shot down by the island’s government, which said at the time that it was “not for sale.”

Panama’s sovereignty over the Panama Canal is “not negotiable,” the country’s foreign minister has insisted, following remarks by Donald Trump in which the US president-elect said he would not rule out using military force to take it over.

He added that no member of the Panamanian government has had formal or informal contact with Trump or his representatives.

“We make our decisions when the president-elect becomes president,” he said.

Some context: During remarks on Tuesday, Trump did not rule out using the military to wrest control of the Panama Canal and Greenland. His apparent openness to using the military to achieve those goals comes despite his promises to avoid wars once he is sworn in.

“I’m not going to start a war,” Trump said during his victory speech after winning the 2024 election. “I’m going to stop wars.”

Since his election, Trump has repeatedly raised his interest in acquiring both the Panama Canal and Greenland. His remarks on Tuesday were the first time he has suggested using the military to do so.

The Senate Homeland Security Committee’s confirmation hearing for South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for Department of Homeland Security secretary, is scheduled for January 15, according to the committee.

Noem has been tapped to take over the agency as two key immigration hardliners — Stephen Miller and Tom Homan — are slated to serve in senior roles, signaling Trump is serious about his promise to crack down on his immigration pledges. With his selection of Noem, Trump is ensuring a loyalist will head an agency he prioritizes and that is key to his domestic agenda.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he had a “fulsome discussion” with Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday about their strategy to pass key pieces of President-elect Donald Trump’s agenda, though he joked “it’s as clear as mud.”

“We had a good, fulsome discussion about all the calendar and schedule things we need to get done. And obviously our objective is to work together and make sure we keep everybody going in the same direction,” Thune said.

“I think that — I feel really good about that. We’ll see, now that obviously we’re looking forward to hearing from the president tomorrow. He has a lot to say about all of this,” he continued.

Asked if he was resigned to the single-bill strategy, Thune replied, “whatever it takes to get the job done.”

The meeting between the two top Republicans comes ahead of Trump’s scheduled meeting with GOP senators on Wednesday.

Other bills: Before the Senate adjourned Tuesday, Thune took steps to advance two politically charged pieces of legislation.

One is a bill that would effectively ban transgender athletes from women’s sports, and the other is a bill that sanctions the International Criminal Court over the arrest warrants they issued against Israeli officials.

It’s unclear whether either would get 60 votes.

House Republicans re-issued subpoenas related to special counsel Robert Hur’s investigation into President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents and two Justice Department tax investigators who worked on the Hunter Biden case on Monday, two sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

Those subpoenas would renew pursuits by the previous Congress that have been fought over in court — and not resolved — for months.

The renewed subpoenas will be received by Trump’s Justice Department, which is expected to be much friendlier to congressional Republicans seeking documents and information.

One subpoena relates to Hur’s audio recordings of interviews between President Joe Biden and his ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer, when they talked about classified information for the Biden memoir after Biden’s VP term. There are a few pursuits of this in court, including from the right-wing Heritage Foundation and from media outlets including CNN pursuing the release of these and other recordings obtained by Hur. The DOJ has repeatedly argued to judges these types of audio recordings shouldn’t be made public.

The subpoenas to the DOJ tax investigators, Mark Daly and Jack Morgan, would be renewals from prior House Judiciary Committee subpoenas. The testimony wasn’t given, and the House sued DOJ for not letting the men show up for depositions about the Biden investigation. The court case here is on hold and before Judge Ana Reyes in the DC District Court.

An attorney for Daly declined to comment on Tuesday, and Morgan’s attorney didn’t respond to a request for comment.

And even before the start of their new majority, House Republicans signaled they may pursue investigations targeting special counsel Jack Smith over his two criminal cases against Trump and special counsel David Weiss over his handling of the tax and gun prosecutions of Hunter Biden.

President-elect Donald Trump made numerous false claims during a wide-ranging news conference Tuesday in Florida, many of them related to foreign affairs and international trade. Here is a fact check of some of these claims.

Guns on January 6

Trump repeated his long-debunked claim that none of the rioters at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, were armed with a gun, saying that even if rioters had been charged with insurrection, “this would be the only insurrection in history where people went in as insurrectionists with not one gun…And let me tell you, the people that you’re talking about have a lot of guns in their home for hunting and for shooting and for entertainment. A lot, of lot of good reasons. But there wasn’t one gun that they found.”

Facts First: Trump’s claim is false. Multiple people who illegally entered Capitol grounds during the January 6 riot were armed with guns, plus a wide variety of other weapons.

We may never get a complete inventory of the concealed guns the rioters possessed on January 6, since nearly all of the rioters were able to leave the Capitol without being detained and searched. But it has been proven in court that at least some of the people who illegally entered Capitol grounds had guns.

Trade with the European Union

Trump repeated a false claim he has repeatedly made about European countries and trade: “They don’t take our cars, they don’t take our farm products, they don’t take anything.” He also said, “European Union: We have a trade deficit of $350 billion.”

Facts First: None of this is true.

It’s not true that the European Union doesn’t “take anything” from the US. The US exported about $368 billion in goods to the European Union in 2023 (while importing about $576 billion from the EU that year), US federal figures show.

Trump exaggerated the US trade deficit with the European Union when he said it was “$350 billion.” Even counting only trade in goods, and ignoring the services trade at which the US excels, the nominal (non-inflation-adjusted) deficit was about $209 billion in 2023. While it was on track to be tens of billions higher in 2024, for which complete data is not yet available, it is expected to be well under $300 billion.

Read more of our fact check on Trump’s remarks.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Tuesday ruled out any chance that Canada would become part of the US, pushing back against the suggestion that President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly made in recent weeks.

Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly echoed Trudeau’s sentiments, saying, “President-elect Trump’s comments show a complete lack of understanding of what makes Canada a strong country. Our economy is strong. … We will never back down in the face of threats.”

Some context: The post came after a news conference in which Trump ruled out using the US military against Canada to get his way, but suggested he was willing to use “economic force.”

During the news conference, Trump criticized Canada for allegedly allowing migrants and drugs to cross US borders and repeated his threat to impose tariffs on Canadian goods.

“We’re going to put very serious tariffs on Mexico and Canada, because Canada, they come through Canada too, and the drugs that are coming through are at record numbers, record numbers,” he said.

Trudeau’s social media post came a day after he announced his resignation.

Vice President Kamala Harris will conclude her term with a swing of global travel across military installations in her final week in office, her office said Tuesday.

Harris will travel to Singapore, followed by Bahrain, and then conclude her travels in Germany as part of a multi-day trip from January 13 to January 17.

In Singapore, the vice president will meet with the country’s leaders and visit Changi Naval Base. While in Bahrain, she will meet with leaders in Manama, Bahrain and visit the headquarters of US Naval Forces Central Command and the US 5th fleet. She will end her trip by traveling to Spangdahlem, Germany to visit the U.S. Air Force 52nd Fighter Wing.

Second gentleman Douglas Emhoff will join Harris on the trip.

Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley said the confirmation hearing for President-elect Donald Trump’s attorney general pick Pam Bondi “may be delayed a week” from his desired start date of January 14.

Grassley said the committee considered moving up a hearing for Trump’s pick for FBI director, Kash Patel, but it appears they were unable to make that happen.

Asked by CNN’s Manu Raju about the Patel hearing, Grassley said the plan was to have Patel last.

“I never thought about that until last week if we could move that up, but we were planning on Bondi, the deputy, and then Patel. But whenever we get the papers, we will move just as fast as we can, because I want to move these nominations along as fast as we can.”

“We can’t diddle around like we did in 2017,” he added.

Grassley’s explanation for the delay was “people not understanding how the Senate works and what we have to have.”

Asked why it was taking so long for the FBI to get the report, Grassley said, “I think they were late signing the things with the outgoing administration on transition. I mean, there were certain agreements that need be signed. I don’t even know what those agreements are, but certain agreements had to be signed.”

Steve Witkoff, President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming special envoy to the Middle East, told reporters on Tuesday he is working alongside Biden administration officials during peace talks between Israel and Hamas, and he hopes to get a temporary 42-day ceasefire deal enacted before Trump’s inauguration later this month.

Witkoff, who spoke briefly at a news conference held by Trump at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida on Tuesday, told reporters off-camera that the Biden administration’s negotiating team, led by White House Middle East coordinator Brett McGurk, is the “tip of the spear” of the US role in the hostage and ceasefire negotiations taking place in Qatar, “but they want us included.”

Asked whether Trump taking office will catalyze a different outcome in the talks between Israel and Hamas, Witkoff praised Trump’s rhetoric around the talks while also complimenting efforts from President Joe Biden team’s thus far.

“I just think that President Trump’s persona is such that he’s driving the narrative on this negotiation,” he said. “And this is no disrespect to President Biden, he’s got a solid team, and I appreciate it that they’re allowing us to be collaborative.”

Witkoff also said he’s hoping a 42-day temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hamas can go into effect before Trump’s inauguration on January 20.

Witkoff reiterated that he plans to travel to Qatar in the coming days alongside McGurk as the US continues facilitating negotiations.

During Tuesday’s news conference, Trump warned “all hell will break out” if hostages being held in Gaza by Hamas are not released by the time he’s inaugurated.

The Hostage Families Forum also welcomed Trump’s “unwavering commitment” to secure the release of their loved ones. The families urged all parties to secure a deal before the inauguration.

Lauren Izso contributed to this report.

House Speaker Mike Johnson said the debate over one or two policy bills to enact President-elect Donald Trump’s agenda is “not a big issue,” telling reporters that Republicans would “figure it out.”

“We’re going to get everybody together. … It’s not a big issue really. We’re going to figure it out,” he said.

As Trump is expected to meet with various groups of Republicans this weekend in Mar-a-Lago, Johnson said it’s “just to talk about our priorities and get everybody together and celebrate the win.”

“He wanted to invite all Republicans and spouses to Mar-a-Lago sometime in the next few weeks, but we’re all limited by the calendar and our obligations here, so he’s trying to accommodate as many members as he can, and his intention is to involve everybody,” Johnson said.

Asked if he’ll have a formal meeting with Trump tomorrow, Johnson said, “No, but the open invitation is here all the time. I communicate with his team, as recently as this morning, about that. He’s got a jam-packed schedule.”

A New York appeals court judge has rejected President-elect Donald Trump’s request to postpone his Friday sentencing in the hush money case.

Associate Justice Ellen Gesmer swiftly denied Trump’s request following a brief hearing on the matter Tuesday afternoon.

Trump on Tuesday asked to stay the proceedings in the hush money case — including his sentencing scheduled for Friday — while he appeals his conviction, after Judge Juan Merchan, the trial judge, rejected his demand to stop the sentencing.

Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche — the president-elect’s pick to be deputy attorney general in his new administration — argued Tuesday to the New York Appellate Division, First Department, that it should stop Trump’s sentencing, acknowledging the situation was unprecedented.

Blanche said the Supreme Court’s July decision on presidential immunity offers Trump constitutional protection. Though Merchan had denied two arguments to vacate Trump’s conviction, Blanche argued that either of those arguments should allow them a stay of proceedings while the appeal gets litigated.

Gesmer, who presided over the hearing, asked Blanche whether there’s any precedent for his request that presidential immunity could extend to a president-elect.