Watched by the world, President Donald Trump returned to the United Nations on Tuesday, boldly asking "What is the purpose of the United Nations?"
"The U.N. has such tremendous potential," Trump told the U.N. General Assembly in New York City. "I've always said it. It has such tremendous, tremendous potential. But it's not even coming close to living up to that potential for the most part, at least for now.
"All they seem to do is write a really strongly worded letter and then never follow that letter up. It's empty words and empty words don't solve war. The only thing that solves war and wars is action."
Trump opened with a blistering rebuke of his predecessor, former President Joe Biden, and the "globalists" of the U.N., not only failing to make peace, but ultimately allowing wars to rage.
"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," Trump said at the outset, despite a broken teleprompter. "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."
Trump hailed the settling of seven wars without any help from the U.N.
"It's never happened before," Trump said. "It's never been anything like that. Very honored to have done it. It's too bad that I had to do these things instead of the United Nations doing them.
"And sadly, in all cases, the United Nations did not even try to help in any of them. I ended seven wars, dealt with the leaders of each and every one of these countries, and never even received a phone call from the United Nations offering to help in finalizing the deal."
Trump quipped that a broken escalator and faulty teleprompter symbolized the U.N.'s dysfunction.
"All I got from the United Nations was an escalator that, on the way up, stopped right in the middle," Trump said. "If the first lady wasn't in great shape, she would have fallen.
"But she's in great shape. We're both in good shape. We both stood.
"And then a teleprompter that didn't work. These are the two things I got from the United Nations: a bad escalator and a bad teleprompter."
Trump hailed his role in brokering trade deals and in compelling NATO allies to increase defense spending. He also touted the U.S. destruction of Iran's nuclear facilities in "Operation Midnight Hammer" and his efforts to negotiate peace in conflicts from Gaza to Ukraine.
The president rebuked the U.N. for failing to play a role in such efforts, instead accusing it of funding migration that undermines Western nations.
Trump called "uncontrolled migration" the "No. 1 political issue of our time," pinning the blame on the weakness of the U.N.
"Your countries are being ruined," Trump warned. "The United Nations is funding an assault on western countries and their borders."
Trump called on member states to join him in forging "a safer, more prosperous world," warning against nuclear and biological threats while insisting that sovereign nations must retain control of their borders and destinies.
"I'm really good at this stuff," Trump said. "Your countries are going to hell."
On Russia's war in Ukraine, Trump has repeatedly said Vladimir Putin has "let him down," but now he says Putin is letting down his country and people, too.
Putin's war in Ukraine "is not making Russia look good" to the world, Trump said.
In this hemisphere, Trump hailed his interdiction and military destruction of drug-runners from Latin America.
"Let's put it this way, people don't like taking big loads of drugs in boats anymore," Trump said. "There aren't too many boats that are traveling on the seas by Venezuela."
Trump called "global warming" and "climate change" a "con job" perpetrated by bad actors and "stupid people" with good intentions but bad policy.
"Another U.N. official stated in 1989 that within a decade, entire nations could be wiped off the map by global warming," Trump said. "Not happening. You know, it used to be global cooling."
"If you look back years ago in the 1920s and the 1930s, they said, 'Global cooling will kill the world: We have to do something.
"Then they said global warming will kill the world.
"But then it started getting cooler. So now they just call it climate change, because that way they can't miss: Climate change.
"Because if it goes higher or lower, whatever the hell happens, there's climate change. It's the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world, in my opinion. Climate change, no matter."
History has continued to prove the U.N. globalists wrong, according to Trump, who hearkened to the "Trump was right about everything" campaign motto.
"All of these predictions made by the United Nations and many others, often for bad reasons, were wrong," he continued. "They were made by stupid people that have cost their countries fortunes. And given those same countries no chance for success.
"If you don't get away from this green scam, your country is going to fail. And I'm really good at predicting things."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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