CNN Fact Checker Eviscerates Trump’s Davos Speech: ‘Just Pure Fiction’

One CNN fact checker was kept busy calling out President Trump’s “barrage of false claims” during his speech in Davos, Switzerland.

During the president’s speech at the World Economic Forum, Daniel Dale went into overdrive call out Trump’s rambling. Topics ranged from attacks on windmills to attacks on California Governor Gavin Newsom, to his renewed fascination with acquiring Greenland – despite mixing it up with Iceland a handful of times.

“President Trump did not ‘come up with’ the idea of AI-related companies producing their own electricity, as he claimed again today at Davos. (He said in November that it “was my idea, which nobody, frankly, had thought of.”),” Dale tweeted at one point. “Just pure fiction.”

Another callout: “Trump claims ‘after (World War II) we gave Greenland back to Denmark – how stupid were we to do that?’ The 1941 agreement giving the US military the right to operate in Greenland repeatedly said Denmark retained full sovereignty over Greenland.”

Trump’s other topics he touched on were some of his greatest hits: the “rigged” 2020 presidential election, the war in Ukraine, and more insults flung at Canada and Europe. He also turned his ire on NATO as questions about the alliance were raised during his push for Greenland’s acquisition.

“A barrage of false claims from Trump about NATO:

• ‘We’ve never gotten anything.’ Among many other things, the US got a NATO coalition to fight in Afghanistan after the US was attacked on 9/11, 2001.
• They ‘were not paying their bills.’ NATO’s spending target is for countries’ own defense budgets; it doesn’t create ‘bills.’
• – ‘Most of the countries weren’t paying anything.’ Every member was spending something on defense; in 2024, 18 countries of the 31 subject to the 2%-of-GDP target were at or above that target.
• – ‘We paid for, in my opinion, 100% of NATO.’ Factually incorrect ‘opinion.’ As of 2024, US defense spending was 63% of total NATO defense spending – a big chunk, clearly, but nowhere near 100%.”

Despite all the callouts, both from Davis and people in general on social media, that did not stop White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt from spinning the speech as a major success.

“It has rave review,” she told Fox News. “It’s because the president just tells it like it is, and he came here with her America First vision on full display talking about how the American economy is booming once again. … The president really struck an inspirational tone.”

Leavitt’s spin earned its own ire on social media. The Lincoln Project’s Rick Wilson made specific note of the press secretary’s use of the word “rave.”

“No, Karoline … the reviews said he was raving,” he wrote on X. “There’s a difference.”

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