In a rambling tirade that stretched around 57 minutes—more than triple his allotted time—Trump railed against everything from clean energy to immigration, dubbing them the two forces “destroying a large part of the free world.” At the same time as he claimed to have ended seven wars around the world, Trump accused the United Nations of sitting idly by. “And sadly, in all cases, the United Nations did not even try to help in any of them,” he said.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s fraught relationship with the United Nations was on full display on Tuesday, when the U.S. leader took the stage at the U.N. General Assembly to lambaste the organization and many of the world leaders in the audience.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s fraught relationship with the United Nations was on full display on Tuesday, when the U.S. leader took the stage at the U.N. General Assembly to lambaste the organization and many of the world leaders in the audience.
In a rambling tirade that stretched around 57 minutes—more than triple his allotted time—Trump railed against everything from clean energy to immigration, dubbing them the two forces “destroying a large part of the free world.” At the same time as he claimed to have ended seven wars around the world, Trump accused the United Nations of sitting idly by. “And sadly, in all cases, the United Nations did not even try to help in any of them,” he said.
“What is the purpose of the United Nations?” Trump asked at one point. “It’s not even coming close to living up to [its] potential.”
Trump also targeted specific countries in his remarks, at one point singling out Brazil as a country that “is doing poorly and will continue to do poorly,” although he added that he and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had agreed to meet next week. Trump and Lula have clashed over Brazil’s conviction of former President Jair Bolsonaro, a longtime Trump ally, for plotting a coup; prior to the conviction, Trump had attempted to pressure the country’s top court into dropping its charges.
Still, few countries escaped Trump’s criticism, with the U.S. leader at one point declaring: “I’m really good at this stuff. Your countries are going to hell.”
Yet after blasting the U.N. in his address, Trump struck a more supportive tone afterward in a meeting with U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres. “Our country is behind the United Nations 100 percent,” he said. “I may disagree with it sometimes, but I am so behind it because I think the potential for peace for this institution is so great.”
Below is a full, rush transcript of Trump’s remarks as delivered. They have not been fact-checked.
DONALD TRUMP: Thank you very much, very much appreciated. And I don’t mind making this speech without a teleprompter because the teleprompter is not working. I feel very happy to be up here with you nevertheless, and that way you speak more from the heart. I can only say that whoever’s operating this teleprompter is in big trouble.
Hello, Madam First Lady. Thank you very much for being here, and Madam President, Mr. Secretary-General, First Lady of the United States, distinguished delegates, ambassadors, and world leaders.
Six years have passed since I last stood in this grand hall and addressed a world that was prosperous and at peace in my first term. Since that day, the guns of war have shattered the peace I forged on two continents. An era of calm and stability gave way to one of the great crises of our time. And here in the United States, four years of weakness, lawlessness, and radicalism under the last administration delivered our nation into a repeated set of disasters. 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.
America is blessed with the strongest economy, the strongest borders, the strongest military, the strongest friendships, and the strongest spirit of any nation on the face of the Earth. This is indeed the golden age of America. We are rapidly reversing the economic calamity we inherited from the previous administration, including ruinous price increases and record-setting inflation, inflation like we’ve never had before. Under my leadership, energy costs are down, gasoline prices are down, grocery prices are down. Mortgage rates are down and inflation has been defeated.
The only thing that’s up is the stock market, which just hit a record high. In fact, it hit a record high 48 times in the last short period of time. Growth is surging. Manufacturing is booming. The stock market, as I said, is doing better than it’s ever done. And all of you in this room benefit by that. Almost everybody. And importantly, workers’ wages are rising at the fastest pace in more than 60 years. And that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?
In four years of [former U.S.] President [Joe] Biden, we had less than $1 trillion of new investment into the United States. In just eight months since I took office, we have secured commitments and money already paid for $17 trillion. Think of it, four years less than a trillion, eight months, much more than $17 trillion is being invested in the United States and is now pouring in from all parts of the world.
We’ve implemented the largest tax cuts in American history and the largest regulation cuts in American history, making this once and again the best country on earth to do business and many of the people in this room are investing in America, and it’s turned out to be an awfully good investment during this eight month period.
In my first term, I built the greatest economy in the history of the world. We had the best economy ever, history of the world, and I’m doing the same thing again, but this time it’s actually much bigger and even better. The numbers far surpassed my record setting first term. On our southern border, we have successfully repelled a colossal invasion, and for the last four months, and that’s four months in a row, the number of illegal aliens admitted and entering our country has been zero. Hard to believe, because if you look back just a year ago, it was millions and millions of people pouring in from all over the world, from prisons, from mental institutions, drug dealers, all over the world they came. They just poured into our country with the ridiculous open border policy of the Biden administration.
Our message is very simple. If you come illegally into the United States, you’re going to jail or you’re going back to where you came from, or perhaps even further than that. You know what that means.
I want to thank the country of El Salvador for the successful and professional job they’ve done in receiving and jailing so many criminals that entered our country. And it was under the previous administration that the number became record-setting, and they’re all being taken out. We have no choice. And other countries have no choice because other countries are in the exact same situation with immigration. It’s destroying your country and you have to do something about it.
On the world stage, America is respected again like it has never been respected before. Do you think about two years ago, three years ago, four years ago, or one year ago, we were a laughing stock all over the world. At the NATO summit in June, virtually all NATO members formally committed to increased defense spending
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