This was a full-throttle assault on the global institution he was addressing.
After beginning by complaining that the autocue and escalator were both broken, the American president railed against challenges which the United Nations as a body has tried to manage.
Immigration and climate change were his two central targets. “I am here to tell the truth – I don’t care.”
He chose not to recognise that the UN is only the sum of its parts, relies on consensus, is hampered by vetoes, and is unable to dictate policy.
Instead, he complained that “the UN” had never thanked him for having solved so many wars. “I didn’t even receive a phone call,” he said.
On the war-solving claim and many others, his speech was a journey of his greatest hits in the first nine months of this second term.
He had solved immigration, he said, while the countries he was speaking to were allowing it to destroy their countries.
“You have to do something about it,” he said. “Europe is in serious trouble, invaded by illegal aliens.” He knows this message will resonate far beyond America.
He sought to hit lots of buttons, but the speech had no singular thread.
There had been an expectation that he would focus on the central geopolitical challenges – Ukraine and Gaza – but he did not.
On Ukraine, he acknowledged he had underestimated how hard it would be to find peace.
He then pointed the finger at Europe. “They are funding the war against themselves,” he said, saying that Europe continues to buy energy from Russia. There was a direct call for them to stop.
On Gaza, he was deeply critical of the decision by some Western nations to recognise a state of Palestine. But he did not offer any real backing for Israel in its threat to annex the West Bank.
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Then he weaved back to immigration.
“Look at London,” he said. “Terrible mayor – they want to go to sharia law.” (Not true, of course).
He added: “I am really good at this stuff. Your countries are going to hell.”
Then he weaved to climate change: “The greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world… the carbon footprint is a hoax… predictions made by stupid people.”
“If you don’t get away from the green scam, your country is going to fail.”
Beyond all that, there was no singular new headline to his speech.
It was familiar language – familiar rhetoric from a president who appears much more comfortable in this second term to speak his mind, to be as controversial as he wants to be.
“I have been right about everything,” he said.
