U.S. President Donald Trump delivered a 55-minute diatribe at the United Nations that consisted of attacks on migrants—claiming that he was saving immigrant lives by shipping them back to their home countries; attacks on the United Nations itself as incompetent and financing the “migrant invasion of the United States"; defense of Israel, calling those who have recognized the sovereign State of Palestine and who are attacking Israeli genocide, as perpetrators of the war. He lied about the state of the collapsing U.S. economy—the “greatest"; said that “manufacturing is booming” (in January 2025 when Trump took office, there were 12.755 million manufacturing workers; by August, that number had dropped by 33,000), and heaped praise on the speculative bubble, boasting that the U.S. stock market “hit a record high 48 times this year.” He attacked the Biden administration, sometimes quite deservedly, but to cover up his own failures.
The one moderate positive in the speech is his attack on Green renewables.
We report a few of the main themes in his rambling, invective-laced speech:
• With respect to the Middle East: “In May, I traveled to the Middle East to visit my friends and rebuild our partnerships in the Gulf, and those valued relationships with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the U.A.E. and other countries [that] are now, I believe, closer than ever before.” He claims this after the Sept. 9, U.S.-backed Israeli airstrike on Doha, Qatar, shattered the support the United States once had among Arab and Muslim nations.
• “In a period of just seven months, I have ended seven unendable wars. They said they were unendable. You’re never going to get them solved.” Trump listed his so-called mythical feats in these seven wars. As an example, he said that he had ended the Pakistan-India war. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made clear to Trump that the U.S. President had played no role in mediating or ending the conflict. Reality seems to have no effect.
