Assessing Trump’s Florida News Conference

President-elect Donald J. Trump, in a news conference on Tuesday from his private club and residence in Florida, repeatedly denounced President Biden and made a series of inaccurate claims about energy policy.

Mr. Trump also reprised familiar falsehoods. Among them were specious claims about the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and the various criminal investigations into him, including whether he had improperly handled classified documents after he left office, as well as inaccurate assertions about topics ranging from international affairs and trade to whale deaths.

Here’s a fact-check.

What Was Said

“The 625 million acres people can’t realize — it’s like the whole ocean.”

False. Mr. Trump was referring to an executive order President Biden issued on Monday banning new oil and gas drilling on more than 625 million acres of U.S. coastal water. That is about 20 percent of the 3.2 billion acres of seabed managed by the Interior Department and less than 1 percent of the 360 million square kilometers, or 89 billion acres, of ocean.

What Was Said

“It’s just massive and remember, that’s worth, probably, I mean, I’ve had estimates $40 to $50 trillion. That’s more than our national debt. Essentially, he’s thrown it away.”

This lacks evidence. It is unclear what Mr. Trump was referring to when he claimed that Mr. Biden had eliminated $50 trillion in value with his drilling ban. But if it was a reference to government revenue generated from potential offshore drilling on the 625 million acres, he is far off-base.

In a news release opposing Mr. Biden’s executive order, the American Petroleum Institute, which represents U.S. oil and gas companies, estimated that “robust” offshore drilling could generate over $8 billion in additional government revenue by 2040. (The federal government collected $74 billion in revenue from oil and gas leases on federal lands over a 10-year period from 2012 to 2022.)

The entire global oil and gas sector had a market size of $4.2 trillion in 2024, with a market capitalization of $5 trillion.

What Was Said

“Sixty percent of homes and apartments have gas heaters. He wants them all removed quickly.”

This is misleading. Mr. Trump was likely referring to a new regulation by the Biden administration that would tighten energy efficiency standards for certain gas water heaters by 2029. It would not ban gas heaters altogether.

The new regulation would require tankless gas water heaters to use 13 percent less energy than the least efficient model today. The Appliance Standards Awareness Project, a nonprofit that supports stricter energy efficiency guidelines, estimated that 60 percent of new heaters sold already meet those guidelines. The group noted that the Biden administration had already released a similar regulation on electric gas heaters and that standard, completed in April 2024, required a greater energy efficiency improvement.

What Was Said

“According to Gallup, the American people’s confidence in the economy has just surged to the highest level in history.”

False. Gallup’s economic confidence index was at negative 14 in December. That was a slight improvement from a years-low of negative 58 in June 2022, but nowhere the “highest level in history.” The poll, which began in the 1990s, reached the highest point in January 2000, when the index hit 56.

Other Claims

Mr. Trump also repeated a number of claims that The New York Times has previously fact-checked:

He claimed to have won “in a landslide.” (His popular vote margin was one of the smallest in the past century.)
He claimed to have presided over the “greatest economy in the history of our country” during his last term. (Even before the coronavirus pandemic decimated the economy, other presidents had presided over better economic performance.)
He wrongly claimed that the Panama Canal is “run by China.” (It is not.)
He overstated the trade deficit with Canada as $200 billion and wrongly described it as a subsidy. (The trade deficit with Canada was $41 billion in 2023.)
He suggested that a large number of whale deaths were caused by windmills. (There is no evidence for this.)
He claimed that in the Russia-Ukraine war, soldiers are “killing each other at levels that haven’t been seen since the Second World War.” (Death tolls were higher in several other wars.)
He misleadingly claimed Ashli Babbitt was “only one that was killed” during the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. (At least seven lost their lives in connection with the attack.)
He falsely claimed that the rioters carried “not one gun.” (At least three rioters face gun charges, including one who took a gun into the Capitol.)
He falsely claimed that Mr. Biden, as a senator, “illegally” took “many more” documents than he did. (The documents that Mr. Biden donated to a university from his Senate career are not subject to presidential records laws, unlike those he took after his stint as vice president.)
He claimed that other countries had released “thousands of murderers” and prisoners into the United States. (There is no evidence for this.)