If you weren’t able to watch
and me live during our special UNGA Edition of Hot Takes Happy Hour, here is the recording. It was a good discussion about Trump’s speech to the UN General Assembly, the recognition of a Palestinian state by many countries at the French/Saudi summit and the whiplash on Ukraine.Dany and I are back THURSDAY at 5:30 ET with our regular programming. We hope you will join us!
Show notes are at the end of this post. I will let Dany share her own thoughts on Trump speech, but here is MY take:
I thought it was ominous when Trump began his speech announcing his teleprompter had broken. After nearly an hour of his stream-of-consciousness, it became a perfect metaphor for Trump’s entire approach to global leadership: improvised, unfocused, and careening wildly off-script. Where previous presidents used the UN podium to articulate grand visions for international cooperation, Trump delivered what can only be described as a word salad—the kind of rambling, incoherent monologue that recalled Fidel Castro’s legendary marathon speeches to the General Assembly decades ago.
A stump speech that won’t die
This was not diplomacy. It was Trump’s standard campaign rally performance, complete with the same grievances, conspiracy theories, and applause lines he’s delivered at a hundred campaign stops. He wasn’t speaking as the leader of the free world addressing fellow heads of state—he was playing to an imaginary audience of MAGA supporters, seemingly oblivious to the diplomatic catastrophe unfolding in real time.
Trump has been giving the same performance for years: the complaints about broken institutions, the attacks on climate science as “the greatest con job ever,” the warnings about immigration destroying Western civilization. The message wasn’t broken by technical difficulties—it was broken by design.
Every year at the UN General Assembly, there’s a faint hope that Trump might rise to the occasion, that the weight of the office and the gravity of the moment might inspire him to deliver something worthy of America’s global leadership role. He never fails to disappoint. This speech was perhaps his most tone-deaf performance yet, a stunning abdication of American leadership at precisely the moment when the world needed to hear a coherent vision for international cooperation.
A missed opportunity
Trump wasn’t entirely wrong about the UN’s problems. The organization desperately needed what
called a “reckoning”—a fundamental examination of its bureaucratic inefficiencies, gridlocked Security Council, and inability to effectively address global crises. This was Trump’s moment to offer serious reform proposals, to challenge the international community with concrete plans for making multilateral institutions work in the 21st century.Instead, he delivered complaints about a broken escalator, a malfunctioning teleprompter and his anger over not being awarded a contract decades ago to renovate the United Nations headquarters - as if these were the real obstacles to world peace. His criticism boiled down to “empty words don’t solve wars”—but he offered no alternative framework, no innovative mechanisms for collective action, no vision for how international cooperation might actually function. It was a spectacular waste of American soft power and moral authority.
Ambassador Mike Waltz, confirmed by the Senate on the eve of Trump’s speech, now has the unenviable job of picking up where Trump left off—trying to translate incoherent rambling into actual diplomatic strategy. Waltz inherits a mission that should have been clearly defined by presidential leadership but instead must be reverse-engineered from a president’s stream-of-consciousness complaints about UN infrastructure.
Trump’s casual contempt for America’s traditional allies - “Your countries are going to hell” - bordered on diplomatic suicide. He accused European allies of being “invaded by a force of illegal aliens like nobody’s ever seen before” and warned that “immigration and their suicidal energy ideas will be the death of Western Europe.”
This wasn’t tough love or constructive criticism—it was the kind of condescending lecture that destroys relationships and undermines decades of alliance-building. At a time when American influence at the UN is already diminished by funding cuts, an eight-month ambassadorial vacancy, and the perception that the U.S. sides with Russia over Ukraine and protects Israel in Gaza regardless of consequences, Trump’s speech is only likely to deepen America’s diplomatic isolation.
The evidence of declining American influence was on full display this week, as moved forward with recognizing Palestinian statehood despite American opposition. These aren’t adversaries thumbing their noses at Washington—these are America’s closest allies concluding they can no longer wait for coherent U.S. leadership on critical international issues.
China, Russia, and Qatar were quietly filling the leadership vacuum America has created. These autocratic regimes are reshaping UN institutions to their advantage, offering funding and hosting arrangements that come with their own political strings attached. Trump’s speech did nothing to counter this trend—if anything, it accelerated it by demonstrating that America under his leadership is more interested in grievance politics than global governance.
Ukraine whiplash
Trump’s handling of Ukraine policy perfectly encapsulated his erratic approach. During his address, he offered no new strategy beyond threatening tariffs on Russia while berating European allies. But hours later, after meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump completely reversed course, posting on social media that Ukraine could “fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form.”
When asked if NATO countries should shoot down Russian aircraft entering their airspace, Trump said “yes” but added that U.S. support would depend on “the circumstance.”
It’s exactly the position NATO allies and President Zelensky were waiting for. But will NATO allies will take Trump seriously or rely on American backing after witnessing such policy volatility? It is hard for members of the alliance to formulate strategies when the American president might change his position based on his next social media post
The message is clear
Trump was indeed more confident on the world stage than during his first term, clearly seeking his Nobel Prize as a global peacemaker while projecting American power and strength. He may be stronger in his convictions. But world leaders who once laughed at his bombast now sit in uncomfortable silence, concerned about where America is heading with a leader who fundamentally doesn’t understand the weight of his office.
The teleprompter may have been broken, but the message came through with painful clarity: The world needed American leadership. Instead, it got a word salad that would have made Castro proud, delivered by a president who never grasped that the UN podium isn’t just another campaign stop. The consequences of this diplomatic malpractice will outlast Trump’s presidency, as allies hedge their bets and adversaries fill the vacuum left by America’s retreat from serious global engagement.
SHOW NOTES
Dany’s pieces: #WTH The Pretend “State of Palestine” (Substack, Sept. 22, 2025) and The U.N. Deserves a Trumpian Reckoning w/ Brett Schaefer (National Review, Sept 23, 2025)
Elise’s piece: “A Gesture of Despair”: The Push for Palestinian Statehood(Preamble, Sept 24, 2025)
Trump tells world leaders their countries are ‘going to hell’ in combative UN speech (Reuters, Sept. 23, 2025)
Trump Unloads on UN but Does Not Clarify Future US Engagement (AEI, Sept. 23, 2025)
A blunt, fearful rant: Trump’s UN speech left presidential norms in the dust (The Guardian, Sept. 23, 2025)
Donald Trump post on Ukraine (Truth Social, Sept. 23, 2025)
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