This Might Just Be the Most Bonkers Speech of Trump’s Career

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Addressing the U.N. General Assembly for the first time since his return to the White House, President Donald Trump gave what might be the most bonkers speech of his political career—and I say that knowing the bar is high.

It was, among other things, unrelentingly, embarrassingly—and, most of all, delusionally—egomaniacal. The whole first section claimed, in language that seemed borrowed from textbooks of Communist Party congresses, the many ways that, in just eight months, he has transformed the U.S. from the “ruinous” “calamity” of “Sleepy Joe Biden” to “the hottest country anywhere in the world … indeed the Golden Age of America … the greatest economy in the history of the world.”

He also repeated the, let us say, extreme exaggeration, recited in many domestic forums, that he personally ended seven wars—“no president or prime minister, no country, has ever done anything close to that … everyone says that I should get the Nobel Peace Prize for each one of these achievements,” adding that, while he was “working to save millions of lives,” the United Nations—the institution that was hosting him—did nothing.

He even went on, for several minutes, about how, many years ago, when he was a real-estate tycoon, the U.N. turned down his bid to renovate its headquarters and ended up with a far inferior contractor who was lousy at construction and incurred massive cost overruns. “Many things in the U.N. are happening just like that, on a bigger scale,” he summed up his complaint.

Yet, on the world stage outside the grand chamber, “America is respected again, like it has never been respected before.” He insisted to the assembly of world leaders, who responded to his words with only two rounds of applause, neither particularly ardent: one when he called on Hamas to free all its hostages in Gaza, the other when he said “thank you” at the end of his 55-minute tirade of self-promotion.

For all his exaggerated claims as a peacemaker, Trump was terse in discussing the two biggest wars that he’d pledged, but failed, to end quickly—Israel’s war in Gaza and Russia’s in Ukraine. “We have to stop the war in Gaza immediately, have to get it done, have to immediately negotiate peace,” he said, while offering not even the vaguest of ideas on how to do this. He briefly denounced the growing campaign to recognize a Palestinian state—a cause endorsed by several U.S. allies at the United Nations this week—and said that doing so would “reward” Hamas for its atrocities. He didn’t mention, or acknowledge, that the resolution of recognition demands the disarmament and disempowerment of Hamas, which is one reason why Hamas doesn’t like it either. He said nothing about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s repeated statements that there will never be a Palestinian state.

Trump congratulated himself for the Abraham Accords, the deal that formalized already-growing ties between Israel and a handful of Sunni nations, which his son-in-law Jared Kushner helped negotiate in his first term. But he didn’t mention that the UAE, one of the deal’s largest partners, said it would pull out of the accords if Israel annexes the West Bank, which Netanyahu has come close to declaring as an objective (and which some of his coalition partners have explicitly endorsed).

As for the war in Ukraine, Trump said, as he has admitted before, that he thought it would the easiest war to end “because of our relationship with President Putin.” But he added, “You know, in war, you never know what’s going to happen”—ignoring the fact that, in this war, it’s been clear for a long time that Vladimir Putin has no interest in peace, unless it involves Ukraine’s total surrender, and that Putin’s friendly gestures toward Trump (smiling at him, joking, etc.) are a complete sham. “This war would never have started if I’d been president,” he added. Does he think that, too, is because Putin respects him so much?

Finally came the section of the speech that must have made even his friends (or pretend friends) roll their eyes—his attack on migration and the green-energy “hoax” as the main reasons why the countries of Europe “are going to hell.” In America, the “millions” of mentally ill criminals who were let loose through open borders caused “unmitigated crime sprees.” (He has repeated this falsehood so many times, many believe it must be true. In fact, the crime rate among immigrants is lower than it is among native-born Americans.) The Europeans allow this because they’re “politically correct” and because the Islamic mayor of London—“a terrible, terrible mayor”—wants to establish Sharia law.

Meanwhile, “global warming” is “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world,” invented by radicals who want to bring down industrialized countries while letting rules-breakers like China thrive. Windmills “rust and rot,” they depend on subsidies, and don’t work when the wind isn’t blowing. America is thriving, he said, because we’re going back (so he claimed, with no supporting evidence) to “clean beautiful coal.” (His “standing order” in the White House is “never to use the word ‘coal,’ only ‘clean, beautiful coal’—it sounds much better, doesn’t it?”)

“I’m really good at this stuff,” Trump bragged. “Your countries are going to hell. … I’m really good at predicting things. I’ve been right about everything.”

If anyone in the hall wondered for a moment if he might be right, Trump shattered the moment by also claiming, “I have the highest poll numbers I’ve ever had,” probably because of his immigration and energy policies—when, in fact, his numbers are very low (just 39 percent approve his performance, 56 percent oppose) and sinking by the week.

He ended by inviting everyone to come visit America, maybe for the FIFA World Cup in 2026 or the Olympics in 2028, so they can “find inspiration in our example” and “rejoice in the miracles of history that began on July Fourth, 1776.”

But then he said, “Let us defend free speech and free expression.” To anyone following the state censorship of Jimmy Kimmel (and it’s a fair bet everyone in the hall had been following it closely), this should have been a fitting coda to a blather storm of bunk.

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