Trump Celebrates Himself at U.N. General Assembly: What Happened
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<span>Photo: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg/Getty Images</span>
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<p>President <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/how-donald-trump-has-made-himse… Trump</a> spoke before world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday morning, delivering remarks both prepared and improvised. It’s the first time he addressed the body since taking office for his second term. Trump’s speech came amid strained relationships between the United States and its allies thanks largely to Trump’s trade wars and hostility to multilateralism. Below is our account of how the speech went down.</p>
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<p><a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/trump-to-united-nations-the-wor… my response</a> to Trump’s big long speech:</p>
<blockquote><p>It’s certainly ironic that the president of the country that helped create the United Nations as an organization dedicated to the defeat of militant nationalism and to the defense of world peace against its recurrence is now asking U.N. delegates to look exclusively to their own traditions and passions, making themselves great again as America has. All these nations can’t have their own Donald Trump, but that’s why America is First.</p></blockquote>
<p>Read the rest <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/trump-to-united-nations-the-wor…;
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<blockquote><p>CLIP: "Bad escalator" President Trump referred to during his address to the U.N. General Assembly. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/UNGA80?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#U…; <a href="https://t.co/S1w9kUOq1l">https://t.co/S1w9kUOq1l</a> <a href="https://t.co/Ja1JRyfF7m">pic.twitter.com/Ja1JRyfF7m</a></p>— CSPAN (@cspan) <a href="https://twitter.com/cspan/status/1970544863130399037?ref_src=twsrc%5Etf… 23, 2025</a></blockquote>
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<p>Some Democrats in Congress have begun to weigh in on Trump’s remarks to the United Nations.</p>
<blockquote><p>Trump just embarrassed our country in front of the entire world at the UN. We heard America in Retreat.<br><br>For all our partners who still believe in the rule of law, freedom, human rights, and democracy, we need you to step up and lead. It will demand all our collective action.</p>— Senator Chris Van Hollen (@ChrisVanHollen) <a href="https://twitter.com/ChrisVanHollen/status/1970516023192547452?ref_src=t… 23, 2025</a></blockquote>
<blockquote><p>Trump’s gives his classic Fantasyland speech to the UN. This fools no one.<br><br>Meanwhile, back in reality his economy is crashing. So is his support. <a href="https://t.co/5FWHhwDD0g">https://t.co/5FWHhwDD0g</a></p>— Rep. Darren Soto (@RepDarrenSoto) <a href="https://twitter.com/RepDarrenSoto/status/1970507471597817977?ref_src=tw… 23, 2025</a></blockquote>
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<p>Trump continued his complaints about the United Nations in his first Truth Social post following his remarks at the General Assembly:</p>
<blockquote><p>"It is always an honor to speak at the United Nations, even if, their equipment is somewhat faulty. Make America Great Again!" - President Donald J. Trump <a href="https://t.co/0MSIvlOiyC">pic.twitter.com/0MSIvlOiyC</a></p>— The White House (@WhiteHouse) <a href="https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/1970514261941109165?ref_src=twsrc… 23, 2025</a></blockquote>
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<p>As New York <em>Times</em>’ Robert Jimison <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/09/23/world/un-general-assembly-trump…;
<blockquote><p>Ending after roughly 57 minutes, President Trump’s address was the longest speech he has delivered before the U.N. General Assembly, easily eclipsing the length of previous speeches delivered in his first term.</p></blockquote>
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<p>One Washington <em>Post</em> reporter received a text from a current foreign diplomat at the U.N.:</p>
<blockquote><p>A senior foreign diplomat posted at the UN texts me: "This man is stark, raving mad. Do Americans not see how embarrassing this is?"</p>— Ishaan Tharoor (@ishaantharoor) <a href="https://twitter.com/ishaantharoor/status/1970500411267391540?ref_src=tw… 23, 2025</a></blockquote>
<p>Michael McFaul, the former U.S. ambassador to Russia during the Obama administration, also criticized Trump’s remarks:</p>
<blockquote><p>Trumps UN speech will appeal to his MAGA base, but no one else. Missed opportunity.</p>— Michael McFaul (@McFaul) <a href="https://twitter.com/McFaul/status/1970506497596760222?ref_src=twsrc%5Et… 23, 2025</a></blockquote>
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<p>In a pretty striking departure from the spirit of the United Nations, Trump told the General Assembly that every country needed to respect its own founders and blood-and-soil identity and defend its own homeland. His final valediction, “God bless the nations of the world,” is a bit ironic since the U.N. was founded in the wake of an insanely destructive war caused by runaway nationalism.</p>
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<p>Trump ended his largely divisive speech by calling on all nations to work together for the betterment of the world.</p>
<p>“Let us uphold our sacred duty to our people and to our citizens. Let us protect their borders; ensure their safety; preserve their cultures, treasure, and traditions and fight, fight, fight for their precious dreams and their cherished freedoms,” he said. “And in friendship and really a beautiful vision, let us all work together to build a bright, beautiful planet, a planet that we all share, a planet of peace in a world that is richer, better, and more beautiful than ever before.”</p>
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<p>As Trump signaled his address was coming to a close, he attempted to end on a more positive note, saying that every leader in the room today “represents a rich culture, a noble history, and a proud heritage that makes each nation majestic and unique, unlike anything else in human history or any other place on the face of the earth.”</p>
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<blockquote><p>Trump: Let us protect religious liberty, including for the most persecuted religion on the planet. Today. It's called christianity <a href="https://t.co/gKdneXsgA7">pic.twitter.com/gKdneXsgA7</a></p>— Acyn (@Acyn) <a href="https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1970504464944779440?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw… 23, 2025</a></blockquote>
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<p>Since Trump has (so far) twice told the U.N. that he has slain inflation in the United States, it’s worth noting that Americans don’t buy it. According to the latest polling averages from <a href="https://www.natesilver.net/p/trump-approval-ratings-nate-silver-bulleti… Bulletin</a>, Trump’s net approval rating on handling inflation is minus-30.4 percent.</p>
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<p><em>I am awesome. You suck. Try sucking less.</em></p>
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<p>As Trump once again denounced the Biden administration as the “most corrupt, incompetent administration in history,” the president revived a favorite nickname of his. “The ‘Sleepy’ Joe Biden administration,” he said.</p>
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<p>There was also this humble-aggro-brag about conducting air strikes on fishing boats:</p>
<blockquote><p>Trump: There aren't too many boats traveling on the seas by Venezuela. They tend not to want to travel very quickly anymore <a href="https://t.co/4zgfW5lk33">pic.twitter.com/4zgfW5lk33</a></p>— Acyn (@Acyn) <a href="https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1970499402163962009?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw… 23, 2025</a></blockquote>
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<p>From CNN’s Daniel Dale:</p>
<blockquote><p>The president is making many false claims to the United Nations.</p>— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) <a href="https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1970502348825833743?ref_src=twsrc%5Et… 23, 2025</a></blockquote>
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<p>It’s probably just a coincidence, but as Trump repeatedly denounced the idea of global climate change as a “hoax” and a “scam” that is destroying prosperity everywhere, the high temperature in New York today is expected to be ten degrees above normal.</p>
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<p>As Trump railed against efforts to produce renewables, the president said he will ultimately be right about green initiatives. “During the campaign, they had a hat, the best-selling hat, ‘Trump was right about everything,’” Trump said. “And I don’t say that in a braggadocious way, but it’s true. I’ve been right about everything.”</p>
<p>He continued, “And I’m telling you that if you don’t get away from the green-energy scam, your country is going to fail.”</p>
<blockquote><p>Trump: "I'm really good at predicting things. During the campaign they had a hat -- a best-selling hat -- 'Trump was right about everything.' And I don't say that in a braggadocios way, but it's true. I've been right about everything." <a href="https://t.co/yfpPaLcOpU">pic.twitter.com/yfpPaLcOpU</a></p>— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) <a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1970501720544309721?ref_src=twsrc%5E… 23, 2025</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote><p>Trump: It's the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world in my opinion. Climate change no matter what happens, you are involved in that. No more global warming, no more global cooling. All of these predictions made by the united nations and many others often for bad reasons… <a href="https://t.co/zoGUkEXnXD">pic.twitter.com/zoGUkEXnXD</a></p>— Acyn (@Acyn) <a href="https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1970501252896432559?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw… 23, 2025</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote><p>Trump: "We're getting rid of the falsely named 'renewables.' By the way, they're a joke, they don't work. They're too expensive, they're not strong enough to fire up the plants that you need to make your country great. The wind doesn't blow, those big windmills are so pathetic… <a href="https://t.co/aiQQoJM5OC">pic.twitter.com/aiQQoJM5OC</a></p>— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) <a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1970500361124237730?ref_src=twsrc%5E… 23, 2025</a></blockquote>
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<p>Trump is spending as much time attacking the world as he is boasting about the greatness of his many successes.</p>
<p>Now he is telling world leaders how great the D.C. takeover has gone, and he’s inviting them to go out to dinner with him there, insisting they can walk to a local restaurant, now, safely. (It’s entirely possible that the majority of people in the audience have more experience walking around D.C. than Trump does.)</p>
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<p>The president claimed that Washington, D.C., was the “crime capital of America,” but now it’s a “totally safe city” after he sent in the National Guard to the nation’s capital.</p>
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<p>Even though Trump has clearly gone off script and is playing some of his greatest hits, there’s not much chance he will break Fidel Castro’s record for longest timed speech at the U.N. General Assembly: a 269-minute address in 1960.</p>
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<p>“The wind doesn’t blow, those windmills are so pathetic,” is just one of his many rambling asides.</p>
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<p>In a sign that President Trump is fully into an unscripted “weave” in his U.N. remarks, he informed the General Assembly that his poll numbers are higher than ever!</p>
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<blockquote><p>"I'm really good at this stuff. Your countries are going to hell." - Trump says in his speech before the U.N. General Assembly <a href="https://t.co/3hhwV6nYdg">pic.twitter.com/3hhwV6nYdg</a></p>— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) <a href="https://twitter.com/Phil_Lewis_/status/1970498581640429689?ref_src=twsr… 23, 2025</a></blockquote>
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<p>Trump saved some of his strongest rhetoric for Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London. He called Khan a “terrible mayor” and made the inflammatory claim that the city is heading toward “Sharia law,” an apparent reference to Khan, who is Muslim.</p>
<blockquote><p>Trump on London Mayor Sadiq Khan: “I look at London, where you have a terrible mayor, terrible, terrible mayor, and it has been so changed. So changed. Now they want to go to Sharia law.” <a href="https://t.co/YncSfQ1lf8">pic.twitter.com/YncSfQ1lf8</a></p>— The Bulwark (@BulwarkOnline) <a href="https://twitter.com/BulwarkOnline/status/1970499204624552137?ref_src=tw… 23, 2025</a></blockquote>
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<p>In an extended rap on migration, Trump simultaneously urges European countries to protect their sovereignty and lectures them to abandon their tolerance of migrants and their “suicidal energy policies.” A few minutes later, he announced: “Your countries are going to hell.”</p>
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<p>Trump called “uncontrolled migration” the “No. 1 political issue of our time.” He then accused the U.N. of “funding an assault on Western countries.” Then a long screed attacking migrants, globally.</p>
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<p>Trump shot down any hopes that the United States would recognize a Palestinian state as many of its allies have. The president said that doing so would be rewarding Hamas.</p>
<p>“Unfortunately, Hamas has repeatedly rejected reasonable offers to make peace. We can’t forget October 7,” he said. “Some of this body is seeking to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state.”</p>
<p>Trump continued, “This would be a reward for these horrible atrocities, including October 7, even while they refuse to release the hostages or accept a cease-fire.”</p>
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<p>In one extended portion of his remarks, Trump called for the end of the development of biological weapons. Then, the president appeared to reference the COVID-19 pandemic. “Just a few years ago, reckless experiments overseas gave us a devastating global pandemic. Yet despite that worldwide catastrophe, many countries are continuing extremely risky research into bioweapons and man-made pathogens,” he said.</p>
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<p>It’s as close as he gets to admitting he was wrong. He said he thought it would be the easiest war to end but then offered the excuse that “in war, you never know what’s going to happen, there are always lots of surprises, both good and bad.”</p>
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<blockquote><p>Minutes into his speech, President Trump says all he got from the United Nations was a broken escalator and faulty teleprompter. <br><br>On the UN overall, he says, "That being the case, what is the purpose of the United Nations? The UN has such tremendous potential....but it's not… <a href="https://t.co/B70DP8VN0A">pic.twitter.com/B70DP8VN0A</a></p>— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) <a href="https://twitter.com/kaitlancollins/status/1970494978532028788?ref_src=t… 23, 2025</a></blockquote>
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<p>And the <em>Times’</em> Farnaz Fassihi <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/09/23/world/un-general-assembly-trump…;
<blockquote><p>After the teleprompter stopped working when Trump took the podium, a U.N. official says that the White House operates the telepromptor for the American president, and that some other delegations also bring their own operators.</p></blockquote>
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<p>In an alarming sign that Trump has departed from his prepared text and is going into “the weave,” the president has undertaken a long digression about the U.N. building’s terrazzo floor after he offered to build it a marble floor as a New York real-estate developer.</p>
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<p>He’s dragging the do-nothing United Nations, while boasting about the ever-growing list of wars he claims to have ended. He did not receive a standing ovation.</p>
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<p>Trump brought his claim that he’s ended seven wars to the U.N. General Assembly, saying, “They said they were unendable. You’re never going to get them solved.”</p>
<p>The president name-checked reported conflicts between Israel and Iran, Cambodia and Thailand, as well as Egypt and Ethiopia, the latter of which caught the eye of one reporter:</p>
<blockquote><p>Trump at UNGA says he ended the war between Egypt and Ethiopia, which may come as news to Egyptians and Ethiopians, who were never actually at war</p>— Gregg Carlstrom (@glcarlstrom) <a href="https://twitter.com/glcarlstrom/status/1970493349519085608?ref_src=twsr… 23, 2025</a></blockquote>
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<p>Low-key or not, Trump is opening his address to the U.N. General Assembly with what is basically the speech he regularly delivers to his MAGA supporters at his patented rallies. It’s a long, fun-house-mirror depiction of how brilliantly he governed during his first term, what a disaster the Biden administration was, and how he’s somehow topping his first-term record now. All that’s missing is Lee Greenwood singing “God Bless the USA.”</p>
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<p>As he often does when he is reading a prepared speech, it’s a little monotone and low energy.</p>
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<blockquote><p>President Trump: "One year ago our country was in deep trouble, but today just eight months into my administration, we are the hottest country anywhere in the world and there is no other country even close." <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/UNGA80?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#U…; <a href="https://t.co/wB4APUysd0">pic.twitter.com/wB4APUysd0</a></p>— CSPAN (@cspan) <a href="https://twitter.com/cspan/status/1970494729147318289?ref_src=twsrc%5Etf… 23, 2025</a></blockquote>
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<p>Trump began by lamenting the state of the country under the Biden administration, blaming “four years of weakness, lawlessness, and radicalism.” But the president said conditions have vastly improved under his leadership.</p>
<p>“One year ago, our country was in deep trouble. But today, just eight months into my administration, we’re the hottest country anywhere in the world,” he said.</p>
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<p>Trump said he would be giving his speech from his notes because the teleprompter is down. “I can only say that whoever’s operating this teleprompter is in big trouble,” he said to laughs.</p>
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<p>Trump is beginning his remarks just slightly after 10 a.m. when he was greeted with applause.</p>
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<p>In his address opening the gathering, U.N. secretary general António Guterres urged world leaders to choose peace in these tumultuous times.</p>
<p>“We have entered in an age of reckless disruption and relentless human suffering,” he said, per the<a href="https://apnews.com/article/un-general-assembly-opens-fb91931e273432bc87…; Associated Press</a>. “The pillars of peace and progress are buckling under the weight of impunity, inequality, and indifference.”</p>
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<p>President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is kicking off the General Assembly. Trump and Brazil have had a strained relationship, thanks to Trump’s apparent affinity for, and attempts to defend, former president (and Trumpish strongman) Jair Bolsonaro.</p>
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<p>In 2018, Trump’s comments at the U.N. General Assembly at times prompted laughs from the crowd of world leaders.</p>
<blockquote><p>WATCH: Laughter in UN General Assembly as President Trump touts his administration's progress in past 2 years: "Didn't expect that reaction, but that's OK." <a href="https://t.co/V7GViB5g4B">pic.twitter.com/V7GViB5g4B</a></p>— NBC News (@NBCNews) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/1044598296709406723?ref_src=twsrc%5E… 25, 2018</a></blockquote>
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<p>On Tuesday, the U.S Secret Service <a href="https://www.secretservice.gov/newsroom/releases/2025/09/us-secret-servi…; that it had demantled a telecommunications network that was capable of “crippling telecom systems and carrying out anonymous telephonic attacks, disrupting the threat before world leaders arrived for the UN General Assembly.”</p>
<p>Per the agency, it discovered “300 co-located SIM servers and 100,000 SIM cards” within 35 miles of the General Assembly.</p>
<blockquote><p>The Secret Service dismantled a network of more than 300 SIM servers and 100,000 SIM cards in the New York-area that were capable of crippling telecom systems and carrying out anonymous telephonic attacks, disrupting the threat before world leaders arrived for the UN General… <a href="https://t.co/sZKUeGqvGY">pic.twitter.com/sZKUeGqvGY</a></p>— U.S. Secret Service (@SecretService) <a href="https://twitter.com/SecretService/status/1970445933667082482?ref_src=tw… 23, 2025</a></blockquote>
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<p>The U.N. General Assembly has once again sparked protests in the city. Video from PIX11 shows demonstrators blocking 42nd Street in an attempt to disrupt Trump’s motorcade:</p>
<blockquote><p>NEW: Protestors blocking 42nd street trying to stop <a href="https://twitter.com/POTUS?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@POTUS</a> from getting to the United Nations. <br><br>Looks like Arrests have begun for those sitting in the crosswalk. <a href="https://t.co/CBZ5r5cXpV">pic.twitter.com/CBZ5r5cXpV</a></p>— Dan Mannarino (@DanMannarino) <a href="https://twitter.com/DanMannarino/status/1970473636558422078?ref_src=tws… 23, 2025</a></blockquote>
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<p><a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-address-united-nations-general-as… News</a> reports on the president’s agenda for the rest of the day following his highly anticipated remarks:</p>
<blockquote><p>Later Tuesday, Trump will participate in bilateral meetings with U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres and the leaders of Ukraine, Argentina and the European Union. He will also hold a multilateral meeting with leaders from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Turkey, Pakistan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan.</p></blockquote>
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