Bulwark Takes - LIVE REACTION: Trump Delivers Speech To UN Amid War In Iran

Episode Date: September 22, 2026

Andrew Egger and Bill Kristol went live to react to Trump’s address to the United Nations, breaking down his claims about Iran, Russia and Ukraine, Venezuela, Greenland, the economy and America’s role in the world.Trump made wild comments about Russia’s war against Ukraine, including a grotesque false equivalence between Ukrainian children abducted into Russia and his claim that Russian children were also abducted into Ukraine. They also examine Trump’s claims about Iran, including his repeated insistence that he had no choice but to launch the war, his promises that a deal is still just around the corner, and the widening gap between his self-image as a president who ends wars and the reality of a conflict he chose to start.Plus, Trump’s vision for artificial intelligence includes renaming it “super intelligence,” and insisting that the United States must stay ahead of China while resisting international efforts to regulate the technology.Weight Loss by Hims offers access to personalized weight loss treatment, including FDA-approved GLP-1 medications. Learn more and get started at https://www.hims.com/bulwarktakes

Hello everybody. Welcome to Morning Shots Live. We've got a bit of a different one this morning. As as usual, I am Andrew Eger here with my Morning Shots co-author and Bullwork Editor at Large Bill Crystal. We come live every Tuesday morning to talk about our newsletter, our free morning newsletter, other stuff that's going on in the news. Today, our normal 10 a.m. time slot is being shared by certain world leaders, including the president of the United States. Donald Trump is slated to address the UN General Assembly in New York for the second time in his second term. Last year, a very different vibe, very different a year ago tomorrow, I believe it was, September 23rd of 2025. A lot of football spiking, a lot of, you know, peace president talk. We're going to do a couple clips from from his speech last year in just a minute.

But just to kind of set the stage, we are about to hear from Brazilian President Lula, who's going to come up and speak. I say we're about to hear, but we're not actually going to hear it. We're just going to wait for the president. When the president comes on, when President Trump comes on, we will be live reacting to that speech. You can all hang out here and watch it with us. It will be a very interesting thing to see. But it's a few minutes yet until that happens.

So Bill, just for starters, what are you watching for? What are you expecting to hear from the president when he takes the stage at the UN today? Hi, Andrew. I can't really stand to watch or listen to the president, so I'm going to hope that the transcript, you know, the AI transcript works well, and I can just read along and blot out his voice,

not to be too, not to suffer too much from Trump Dior-Ranger syndrome. But if not, if not, if you can't suffer, if I can't suffer from Trump-Drange syndrome, who can, you know? That will be interesting to see. I mean, he'll, we know what he's going to say, basically, and he'll ignore everything that's a little bit problematic about all the things he's done in the world and in our own nation and tout all of his wonderful successes, I suppose. I guess, I think he's signing this fake Greenland Denmark deal right after the speech,

so I imagine that will be fairly prominent, an example of his bullying, allegedly working. Of course, it's a little better than I would have liked. I wish Denmark had actually just stood up to him, but I guess they made the calculation that if this takes Greenland off the table, it's making a nothing concession, which is already embodied in the NATO agreement with Denmark, about Greenland, doesn't cost much. It does give a vague impression of Trump's bullying working, which I think is bad for our allies to do. But most of our allies aren't doing that. Obviously, Canada, other Germany, other nations, say nothing of what's happening in the Middle East itself.

It will be amused. I guess for me, we're at war. The war has gone very badly. The Middle East is a much worse shape than it was when he started the war. We're in worse shape. The world economy is worse shape. Gas prices are higher. The strait if our moves is closed.

Its neighboring street is getting closed by the Houthis who are on the offensive. We're at odds with our Saudis, friends, or at least associates. And so how he explains all that will be, how far removed his explanation is from reality will be, I guess, pretty interesting, don't you think? Yeah, absolutely. And we're also coming into this at sort of. of a weird moment, you know, economically. There's been some chatter this morning that maybe Iran is going to be open to some new deal in the Strait of Hormuz. Maybe that's actually a new thing. Maybe that will just resemble the sort of deal on paper only that we got this summer that fell

apart very quickly. There's been conflicting reports about that this morning, but it has cut down on gas prices a little. We'll see if the president wants to spike the football in some way, maybe preemptively or prematurely on that story. There's also been some good energy news in the sense that Saudi Arabia has repaired that pipeline that Iranian proxies struck earlier this month, which was really bad news, especially given the problems in the Strait of Hormuz, the problems in the Red Sea. Every new piece of infrastructure that goes down is so problematic. Let's let us roll back the clock just a little bit before Trump goes on here, because it is hard to find a better illustration of just how bad of a situation he is now than to do the retrospective,

than to see the ways in which he was touting what he considered his administration's successes, again, just one year ago, a couple months after his initial strikes on Iran's nuclear program, and a couple months before he would make that fateful decision to go all in, to get us really, really embroiled in a hot war with Iran that continues to this day. But let's just play a couple of these clips from Trump, again, speaking to this very assembly last year. Here is him spiking the football just a few months into his second term about the economic turnaround that the country had supposedly seen in the first months of his presidency. 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. Yeah.

Do you think he's going to hit those same mission accomplished notes today, Bill? You know, some of that stuff wasn't even true what he said it. I mean, he spikes the football regardless of the truth. But it would be kind of astounding from him to try to say that or not even perhaps excuse or explain away the problems we're facing as temporary. It's a pretty good clip, I should think, for, I guess, I don't know if you can use clips for the president speaking in your own ad if you're the opposition party. I seem to remember when I was in the White House, there's some issues for that. But you certainly can quote him. And quoting that one sentence or two sentences or three sentences, I guess it was that we just played energy prices.

cost are down, gas prices are down, inflation is down, mortgage rates are down. That's a pretty devastating ad, it seems to be. That's his own words. And they're all up. And these are facts, not opinions, right? Yeah, yeah. All of those things dramatically up from this time last year and by his own hand, 100% attributable to the war in Iran, despite the various flailing sorts of excuses that he has tried to make about the Federal Reserve being feckless. Or really, you know, if you think about it, this all this all being due to the energy shock ongoing in Russia and Ukraine. And, you know, maybe maybe a little bit. It can't be helping to have, you know, energy infrastructure under fire there too. But the big difference between last year, one year ago tomorrow and this year is

not anything that's happening in Ukraine and Russia. It is the situation in Iran is the situation in the Red Sea and the Strait of Form moves. Let's hit, let's hit a couple more of these here. Again, just really underscoring how much ground he has lost by his own test. from the picture of his administration that he was trying to paint one year ago. Here is the peace president spiel that we used to get a lot from Donald Trump. Haven't heard it so much lately. Here it is one year ago at the UN. Likewise, in a period of just seven months, I have ended seven unendable wars.

They said they were unendable. No president or a prime minister. And for that matter, no other country has ever done anything close. to that and I did it in just seven months. It's never happened before. There's never been anything like that. I'm very honored to have done it. It's too bad that I had to do these things instead of the United Nations doing them. I don't know. I don't know. What do you make of that? I mean, I guess it's possible, I guess it's possible that he will harangue the United Nations for not doing more in Iran and basically say we would have had this all salted away by now.

if not for, you know, the participation of various other allied countries. But I just don't see how he makes anything resembling this claim after a year that has been dominated by, again, this war of choice that he launched against Iran. Yeah, I don't know, honestly, we'll even bother mentioning the United Nations. I feel like he's so much now at his own world and his own head. So it'll be more of just chest beating about how strong we are and we are going to win. We've stopped their nuclear program. I'm sure he'll say that about five times.

And, you know, after a couple months at least, prices will be coming back down and he's made the world safer. I don't know. Yeah, originally as I said before, how removed from reality his claims now are, or how much there about the future, not about what he has allegedly done, right? Does he talk about what?

I don't know. What do you think about Iran a lot? Or does he go quickly over it in a paragraph or two? You think in today's speech, whether he'll do that? I think I think you'll have to. I think you'll have to make the case, basically lay out the case one more time about the absolute necessity from his point of view of going into this war that Ron could never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. I think he will say, you know, that they're being squeezed and that they can't hold up under these conditions for long and that, you know, relief is just around the corner. I would be surprised if he doesn't bring up the idea.

that it's been, you know, again, reported today that Iran might be looking for some kind of a deal. I don't know exactly the up-to-the-minute reporting on that because we've been preparing for this show. But that has been, you know, talked about just this morning, although some people in the Iranian government are denying that that offers on the table. So I just think he's so underwater on this, and it is so unavoidably at the forefront of everybody's mind, this ongoing metastasizing energy crisis. He has to talk about it. It just seems like any time he gets up there, he has to talk about it. So I bet we'll have a little bit. I'll bet he will talk about it and mention it.

I mean, stupid really to mention these rumors from this morning. I mean, every five days, they're rumors that Iran's going to be nicer to us. And then Iran just turns to screw more. You know, I kind of think they're pretty far down the road of deciding they're winning and they're going to emphasize, you know, cement or bring home the victory even more. But maybe not. But I, look, he'll have to mention it. I agree.

But I'm kind of on the side of it will be two minutes or last rather than 10 minutes of the speech. I don't know. Yeah. We should keep an eye on that. It'd be interesting. Yeah. What do you think is likely to be the stuff he, the through line here? I mean, last year it was, you know, America's back baby, hottest country in the world. You're not going to, you know, get away with it anymore. Europe is dying. Like, do you think it's just the same themes again? Or what do you expect him to focus on? I think Greenland and Denmark comes up early, Venezuela. And this is, we're back and we're focusing on our hemisphere.

Maybe we'll do the hemispheric stuff, which is sort of their last resort. But incidentally, the degree to which was I say Greenland is kind of a nothing burger when you really step back and think about it. In Venezuela, I think he's meeting with the acting, whatever she's called, interim president there of Venezuela later today, whatever happens to like bringing democracy to there or even helping the people there. We seem to have just taken the oil money. And there's very good reporting, speaking of reporting this morning, a long piece that I haven't

even had time to read as carefully as I should about where. has that money gone. It doesn't seem to have gone to us. It seems to have gone to various offshore accounts which made me controlled by cronies of Trump and real, real, I mean, with the worst kind of imperialism, the kind that lefties used to accuse the U.S. of and was slightly true in the 30s. If we could be honest about, you know, United Fruit and all that, but much worse in the sense, it's not even for the sake of the country as a whole or for some giant corporations for the the sake of his cronies. So I guess he'll boast about Venezuela, boast about Greenland. I don't know attack Europe some, attack the UN some, I guess. I don't know. I actually don't know,

honestly. It's kind of a, it'd be interesting. Maybe he'll give a shorter speech than usual. That'll be good. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see. He has not been airing on the side of brevity recently. I mean, his speeches that the ones he gave to the GOP midterm convention a couple of weeks ago, or was that just last week? I've already lost. You know, time has lost all meaning. What, with that first speech pushed two hours, I think. I mean, it was like really one of his, his big, big stem winders. He went about an hour last year at the UN, so, you know, hopefully he will air even a little on the short side of that. To your point about just the crazy cronyism that has been on display around the world, I assume you read that, that Anna Applebaum piece in the

Atlantic a few weeks ago, that Empire of Grift piece. It's just front of mind for me because it showed up in my mailbox yesterday. I was glancing through it again. But just the degree to which, honestly, I think there's so much to cover in Trump 2.0 that some of the self-enrichment stuff, it's insane, it's obscene. But there's a sense in which domestically, you could argue that it's less damaging than some of the policy stuff, right? He's just sort of making himself rich off of the backs of his credulous supporters. And like, that stinks. And it stinks that he's allowed to get away with it. but like maybe we have bigger fish to fry than just Donald Trump making a lot of money.

The international stuff is different, I feel. I mean, the degree to which every other country now is waking up to the reality that the United States role on the global scene is to bully them for Donald Trump's like personal psychological enjoyment and also just to extract resources to go to this motley crew of Trump associates, not even like to the United States government, but just. just to this rogues gallery of, of, you know, oligarchs who have some kind of in with the family or with, you know, prominent Trump world influencers and these sorts of things. I mean, that has been so damaging in terms of America's reputation on the world stage. And honestly, I think it's even gone undercover compared to a lot of this other stuff that's going on. I agree. That's true in the world and among our allies and our opponents have noticed to and see how weak we are.

We'll see that with Gisviz. I think later this week, how much she even pretends to treat Trump as an equal or just as a kind of supplicant. But I hear at home, I guess I have a slightly, I don't know. I think you're right that generally the kleptocracy has been a little, it's so much of it and it's so diverse in a way that it's hard to get a handle on it.

And there's so many other things to focus on, too, that he's doing. And people are mostly focused on just their practical, the practical effects of his policies on them, both the war, as you've been emphasizing, the fact, but also terrorists, which continues to play a real role. I was out in Iowa, just last week, I think,

as you say, lose track of time these days. And it's really on people's minds there. I mean, and I think in Kansas, next door and elsewhere. So I think all that's who, I wonder if the collectocracy, both at home and abroad, and both with oil and gas and AI, and just the normal contracts for the government and everything else that he's doing,

I feel a little bit maybe there that various straws are beginning to break the Campbell's back, you know, that I feel like it's sort of added up to, and you put it together with your, you can tolerate kleptocracy if your own, well, economic well-being is okay. Yeah. If they're both going badly, though, I mean, you can tolerate maybe some economic setbacks if you think you have an honest president who's doing his best to steer us through difficult times.

If you have a dishonest kleptocrat as president and your gas prices are up 30 percent and the economy's not doing terribly well, and the prospects might be, you know, work. that's a very bad combination. And that's really where we are, I think. Yeah, yeah. That has been one of the interesting storylines to see developed just this week is, is it does appear at last to be dawning on the Republicans who are up for re-election or election this November, that they really are kind of out of time, that none of these

conditions are changing, certainly not changing fast enough to, you know, blunt the wave of voter anger that is coming their way. We have seen some Republican Senate candidates really start to distance themselves from the Iran war just yesterday in a way that I have not seen from anybody up and down the slate, you know, up until now. And again, it is probably too little too late in a lot of ways. Essentially, they're doing damage control. Let me just say, again, for people who were not tuned in at the beginning, we are expecting to cover the president live. He's going to be speaking to the UN General Assembly. In theory, any minute now. He was supposed to be on 20 minutes ago, but you know how these things go.

Bill and I will be here to react to that speech. And so we are, we've been kind of doing a trip down memory lane for his last year, the address he gave a year ago today. I have one more clip that I want to play from that speech. But just, again, just underscoring how far we've come. Before I do that, though, because we don't know exactly when the president's going to go on, I should get in a real quick ad read here so that I don't. need to interrupt him, you know, once he starts, you know, we really won't want him to stop.

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To get started and learn more, including important safety information, Wagovi clinical study information and restrictions, visit Hems.com. I've gotten a little complacent. Usually they just drop in a video clip for these ads. I knew I was going to have to read that, But all of a sudden, I was like, whoa, wait, hold up.

Get me on the, get me my copy. Okay, let's do one more clip. Let's do one more clip from last year. Because, again, this is just to underscore supposedly, supposedly all of this stuff, everything that we have endured and that the world has endured over the last seven months since we launched this war in Iran has been in the single-minded pursuit of this goal that Iran will never get a nuclear weapon, which is why it is so interesting that just a few months. before this war was launched, Donald Trump was already spiking the football on this very matter.

He had just gone in. He had just authorized these strikes on Iran's nuclear program. He was already claiming that this was a permanently devastated program and that, you know, we'd gotten what we needed to there. So let's just watch him do that real quick, again, a year ago tomorrow at the UN. No other country on Earth could have done what we did. No other country has the equipment to do what we did. We have the greatest weapons on Earth. We hate to use them. But we We did something that for 22 years people wanted to do. With Iran's nuclear enrichment capacity demolished, I immediately brokered an end to the 12-day war, as it's called, between Israel and Iran, with both sides agreeing to fight, fight no longer.

Yeah, I mean, that was the pitch then, right? It was we could get in, we could get out, and we could permanently decimate their nuclear capacity in the meantime with no downsides, really. And that was what we supposedly accomplished, what Trump claims to have accomplished last year. Little did we know at that time. Just a few months later, we would be back at it in another conflict that Trump at the time thought would be a quick in and out excursion, as he liked to call it at that time. And here we are seven months later with, you know, eager to see what he has to say about the current state of things in just a couple of minutes here. It is striking that he, you know, nuclear enrichment capability destroyed. Is that what he said, eliminated?

But so... What do you say specifically? Let me re-remind myself. Demolished, maybe? With nuclear's nuclear enrichment capacity demolished, I immediately brokered an end to the 12th. So why did we go back to war then, you know? And it was regime changed for about one day? That actually would be a good thing if that would have happened, but it didn't.

And then why we put, what if we've been doing since, you know? He doesn't even talk about that anymore or any hopes for freedom for the Iranian people. Yeah, so I think it's a it's good to remind people, honestly, and Democrats can do some of this in the next five, six weeks. It means they can be critics of this war. They can be sort of open to the notion that maybe it was worth a very quick set of bombing strikes to reduce the Iranian nuclear threat. Pretty. And set it back quite quite definitively, perhaps. But yeah, what's the point of what we're doing now?

And the price we paid now is so great, obviously. I come back, I was struck by that when I was in Iowa, just talking about. people. Gas prices, people mock it sometimes, even I have in the past, friends, you know, I mean, gas prices, people have to look beyond that. They're important geostrategic things at stake, blah, blah, blah. But it does bring home an actual reality, which is, you know, it's one thing, again, if you're doing this, energy prices are going up, it's a price you have to pay temporarily for world peace or for world stability, since we're evidently further from world peace and world stability and your prices have gone up. And not just gas, but fertilizer and other things,

And it doesn't look like it's stopping. Maybe it'll come down $5 today, you know, because there's some rumors of some peace. But basically, we're in the range of what, 90 to 105, basically for the last few weeks, really, right? From 65 before that. And that's a very big hike in gas and energy prices generally. And if it's not coming down, it's going to take a real toll on the economy, more than it has even. It's one thing to kind of suck it up and go through a few months. It's not thing to have this extending out at least, well, who knows how long.

So yeah, very, yeah, we'll see if Trump, as you say, acknowledges, and also other nations, incidentally, including nations that will be sitting in the hall there today, who's, you know, presidents or prime ministers or foreign ministers will be sitting in the hall, are paying a huge price, including poor nations. Trump doesn't care about that. He doesn't care about humanitarian considerations.

Or even strategic ones with India, let's say, kind of an important friend of ours, increasingly friendly, increasingly important as a nation, just paying a devastating price for the, increase in energy costs for them. That's true throughout Asia. They get a large percentage of energy from the Gulf. It's a very, very bad situation. Yeah, yeah. One thing I am interested to see, just on that note, if Trump talks about, as we're now seeing that President Lula, Brazil is wrapping up, and Donald Trump will be up next, I am very interested to see whether he says anything

about this new idea that a lot of Republicans have been floating just in the last few days, again, as sort of like a desperate patch on the economy, there have been a lot of calls from some of these senators who are up for re-election to put a moratorium on diesel exports from the United States. They're basically saying, you know, diesel is every day setting new, you know, historical highs. The price of diesel is even more out of control than the price of, you know, unleaded gas in this country. And we have had Republicans who have been calling for us to, say, you know, we're a net exporter of diesel. let's stop, you know, selling to the world market in order to control prices here, which is, first of all, would be incredibly bad news for many of these same countries that you mentioned. I mean, it would genuinely be a dramatic economic blow to a lot of countries that do

buy our diesel. It would also be a total 180 from the way that Donald Trump was, again, messaging this war just six months ago or not six months ago, just three or four months ago, when, you know, a line that he continued to return to was that it was that it was. actually good for the United States that the Strait of Hormuz was closed because we were an energy exporter and we stood to make a whole bunch of money from selling all around the world while this supply shock was underway, right? And he basically said, you know, this is great. Everybody come by from the United States from now on. Well, we'll see. We'll see whether that remains reliable. I do not actually think it's likely that we will see anything, you know, any law that's passed

to actually cap diesel exports right now. I think this is just sort of a, you know, a good thing. again, desperate election messaging from some of these people. But I will be interested to see whether Trump alludes to that possibility in this speech today. Yeah, it's hard for it to believe he's going to do it. A lot of American companies and workers are doing well from exporting diesel. So you're going to cut that off, I suppose, pay the price. And do you really want to get, this really is a little 1930-ish now. You know, if you're going to start getting, have an economic downturn and react by having,

cutting off exports and becoming protectionist. Others will cut off exports. Others will look for other sources. And once they find other sources, they will lock those in. And people will say, if you want our diesel, you can sign a long-term contract. Thank you very much. And suddenly, you know, you are in a kind of competitive protectionist environment, which has not been good historically for the world.

Trump's tariffs is one thing, but actually a ban on the export or diesel. And I guess I don't know much about this, but there are practical reasons why we do. export, you know, it's more advantageous to export some of the diesel than to use it here. We import stuff too, right? So the notion that we're not, just because we're a net export, it doesn't mean that we don't import and export quite a lot in this as in other commodities. So, yeah, the whole thing is a kind of desperate patch and something.

That's what public and Senate candidates say something. Yeah, yeah. It has been, this is maybe a silly last thing to say, as we now see the president coming out, but it has been just sort of amazing to. watch the the Republican Party collapse into total, you know, economic know-nothingism about trade. I mean, like, I'm sure you saw Trump's tweet yesterday that we're going to buy a bunch of from Belarus from now on. And now we'll turn to the president.

First lady of the United States, distinguished delegates, ambassadors, and fellow leaders, it's my great honor to welcome the world to America as we celebrate 250 years of glory. freedom and independence. Two and a half centuries after the cause of liberty found its home on this continent, I can report to you with pride that America is back and our country is stronger today than ever before. Our economy is the envy of the world. Our military is the most powerful on earth. Our technology is second to none and we are leading in place. virtually everything. Our energy is fueling the planet. America is rising. Our nation is growing. Our power is expanding. Our country is doing better than ever before. And our future is very,

very bright. Since I took office, we have created more than one million new private sector jobs and more Americans are working today by far than ever before. Last week, it was announced that the poverty rate has reached this lowest level in American history. We lifted 1.5 million Americans out of poverty last year alone. Another record. The African American and Hispanic American poverty rates are at all time lows. Real household incomes for Americans have soared to the highest level in history, 87,000 on average, surpassing the prior. record that I set in my first term. From day one, my administration has worked to remove every single unnecessary regulation and obstacle to doing business in America. We passed the largest tax cuts

in American history, and as a result, more money is being invested in the United States right now than has ever been invested in any nation anywhere in the world. U.S. stock markets have set 80 all-time records, and that's just in the last 12 months. We've secured commitments for $21 trillion in new investments from all over the planet compared to less than $1 trillion in four years in the previous administration. Two years ago, our country was dead. And now we have the hottest country anywhere in the world. Before I took office, we had the worst and most days. So I, I, Just real quick here, it is really interesting that he is leading with this economic argument. It's an economic argument that he wants to make.

He wants this to be at the forefront of voters' minds when they're going into the midterms in just a month or so here. It is really, it's just a great illustration of how much trouble they're in, that they are trying to do a, it's like a turbocharged version of what Biden was trying to do. Where, you know, four years ago it was, well, who are you going to believe, you know, the fees. these economic statistics that I have for you or your lying eyes. I mean, people just hate seeing prices go up. They hate inflation. And in fact, under Biden four years ago, the underlying numbers, or two years ago, three years ago, the underlying numbers had become pretty good by the time campaign season

rolled around. And it just didn't matter at all because on these various inflationary metrics, people didn't believe the statistics. And it's exactly the same story today, except worse, because the actual economic numbers are worse. It's so much more directly connected with this one act that Trump himself has taken in Iran and him just getting up there and rattling off statistics. It just doesn't move the needle when people, you know, have that kind of economic anger that they feel. I don't think we could listen to what we talk.

I guess. I'm not so sure it doesn't. For people who want to believe in him, it reinforces the notion that he's running a good economy. And if you're well off enough or don't drive to work, maybe you don't care that much about some of the. I don't know. I don't think it's full. As a stump speech matter, it's probably the best he can do. But it's kind of bizarre for UN speech or a lot of Americans watching this speech. I mean, it's, you know, I doubt it. And a very powerful United States of America. The whole world is being. And just as we moved quickly to address problems we inherited at home, we have acted with decisiveness and speed to reshape the world stage and

solve problems that have plagued us for far too long. Every leader in this room and your great leaders, many great leaders, I know all of you very well, but they know that given only a short time to make this world better, safer and more prosperous for our children, for the people on earth, we have to take advantage of it. As president of the most extraordinary nation in history, I have no interest in leaving dangers to grow for another day. I do not believe in letting problems fester. They only become harder to solve.

So while others have talked, I have acted. While others have spoken of peace, I have made peace. While others have ignored threats, I have confronted them. While others have talked of courage, America has shown it. While others have promised strength, I have used it to make America the most powerful country in the world. working with many nations in this room, we are solving decades of intractable challenges, and we are settling years of unfinished business, and we're doing it well. There is no better example of a danger that was allowed to gather strength at the world's peril

than the number one sponsor of terror, the Islamic Republic of Iran. For 51 years, the fanatical Iranian regime. has ruled by bloodshed and mass murder, spreading death and carnage and chaos across the entire Middle East and beyond. They were the bully of the Middle East, but they are the bully no more. From the first day I entered the political arena, I've been unwavering. I will never allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon. Upon taking office last year, I immediately opened negotiations with Iran and offered them full economic cooperation in exchange for ending their nuclear program and support for terror, but they refused. They absolutely refused. That was a big mistake.

Then in Operation Midnight Hammer, the U.S. military obliterated their nuclear program beneath mountains of rubble. And again, I urged Iran to make a deal, and again, they refused. The regime continued building a vast missile and drone stockpile that threatened the security of every American service member in the region and everyone else in the region. They also made a missile that was capable of hitting Europe and they were very proud of it. I hope the Europeans realized that Iran's goal was to complete their mad dash to a nuclear bomb from behind this conventional ballistic missile shield. If they had succeeded, that wicked regime would have been free to spread terror and death,

forever, knowing that any attempt to stop them would face an arsenal of nuclear annihilation. In America, we just marked the 25th anniversary of the worst terror attack in history, September 11th, which killed 3,000 people, just a few miles from here. It's an unbelievably terrible time. In two weeks, we will mark the third anniversary of the October 7th attack in Israel, where terrorists funded by Iran, tortured, mutilated, and killed 1,200 very innocent civilians, including dozens of Americans and many babies, babies, little, tiny, beautiful babies. Iran's supreme leader celebrated that massacre and called it a service to humanity.

The same regime slaughtered over 72,000 of its citizens this year. recently 10,000 were killed for protesting. Just imagine such a vile regime were ever empowered to carry out large-scale terror attacks from behind a nuclear shield. This was the reality we had to confront a reality that far too many preferred to ignore. They all ignored it. Many presidents and many others just wanted to ignore it. They were unwilling to do anything about it, but they knew the problem. After giving Iran every chance for a deal, I took action to ensure that neither the United States nor any nation would ever have to face such a nightmare, such a catastrophic problem.

As a result of Operation Epic Fury, all 159 ships of their Navy are now lying at the bottom of the sea. Likewise, their Air Force is gone. Their radar is gone. Their anti-aircraft equipment is gone. gone. Their missiles and drone manufacturing capacity is almost gone. Their economy is gone. The only thing that isn't gone is inflation, which is destroying their country, and is now well over 300%. Yet even after we agreed to a ceasefire for nuclear discussions, Iran promptly violated it with brazen acts of terrorism against civilian ships from other countries. I want to thank the UN Security Council for voting overwhelmingly to pass a resolution condemning Iran's despicable terrorist attacks on commercial shipping. Thank you very much. That resolution, I'm pleased to say,

received more co-sponsors from UN member nations than any Security Council resolution in history. That's something. Now we must be equally united in maintaining pressure. The United States Navy has recently escorted more than one billion barrels of oil out of the Strait of Hormos, and more oil is flowing than at any point since the start of the war. We're taking 22, 25, 30, 32, and 37 ships out, respectively every single day, every single night. But I have a big decision to make. Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuttal? build and create a far greater country than it ever was before, maybe one of the greatest in the Middle East or even the world. Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance

to kill and destroy people and countries again? Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations? But I believe we'll be able to be. We'll make a deal right after the election because it doesn't make sense for them not to. They're waiting to see how I do in the midterm election. What they don't realize is that I'm not running. I did that already and won in a landslide. We won in a giant landslide and I'll be here for two and a half years. The Republican Party is running and I'll be helping them. But I am not running. I gave absolutely no credence and will not give credence to the election when it comes to Iran. It doesn't even enter my mind.

The only thing that does is that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. The cowards and traitors, thank you. We got some claps after all. Can we mute him just for one second here? I don't know who's clapping besides the American delegation. The cowards and traders would love. to say the United States is... Yeah, I...

It kind of seems to me like he's saying, it doesn't matter to me that we're about to lose these midterms, don't think that's going to soften my resolve from a negotiating perspective, which is interesting. I guess that's a strong posture to hold toward Iran to make them think that he's not going to crack before the midterms. It's also a pretty damning indictment of his own self-assessment of how these midterms are about to go

in some ways here. Also, he's speaking to the United Nations, he's talking about annihilating our country and setting them to hell. I mean, we've taken, I guess we're not just in near to that. I just want to make the point, that's a war crime. I mean, we are not entitled to annihilate the people of Iran. They didn't, I mean, their governments behaved very badly in the past, and I'm very in fact, in favor of a hawkish stance towards Iran.

But to say that to the United Nations is pretty astonishing, honestly. And I think people are here just taking for granted that he has the right to say that. Military officers should, officers should not obey in order to annihilate Iran. I mean, it is wrong. It is illegal by our own laws and by the customary international law. Anyway, just a little bit. But he doesn't get constrained by those kinds of things, I suppose. But it's fluster and he's looking for a deal, clearly, right?

The terrorist regime is behaving badly, not because they are strong and confident, but because they are weak and desperate. If we stand united, we will soon see a world free of the last 51. year menace of Iranian terror and oil prices will come plummeting down even lower than they were. Can we just say real quick, a 51-year thing? This is amazing. Donald Trump is incapable of saying a number over and over again without increasing that number. The Iran regime has been around for 47 years. We used to say that at the beginning of this conflict, 47 years.

But as with as with the trillions in investment, as with any of these things, you know, the more Donald Trump says a number, the more. He's like, that number could go up. It would be a little better if that number were a little higher. It was never going to be resolved. But here on the sidelines of the General Assembly, we took the first steps that changed everything. A few weeks later, we ended the war in Gaza, saving untold thousands of lives. We also brought home all remaining hostages, both living and dead, every single one of them. Thank you. Thank you. Everyone thought it was a miracle that we were able to do so, and people celebrated in the streets. I want to express my gratitude to the United Nations Security Council for their unanimous endorsement of our 20-point Gaza Peace Plan and for officially approving the Board of Peace.

It's going to be a very significant group of people. Nearly 30 countries have joined the board, which I am honored to chair, and we're thankful. to many of those member nations for contributing billions and billions of dollars. I can. Yes, that's good. He said he doesn't let problems fester. The biggest war that's going on in the world and has what was going on when he took over as president and that he said he would end was the war between Russia and Ukraine. I'm curious to see if he even mentions that. Are we acknowledging that there's been an utter and total failure, except for leading in Russia's direction, Putin's direction in that respect? They have been very generous. And others also are stepping up at

numbers that nobody would even believe because they want to see people live. They want to see the humanitarian thing happen properly. They've been fantastic. I also want to thank those who have committed troops, police, and training to help stabilize Gaza, including Indonesia, Morocco, Albania, Kosovo, Kazakhstan, Egypt, Jordan, and more. Since I took office, it has been My great honor to settle eight wars, and in so doing, become friendly with the leaders of many of those countries. It was a great honor to do it. Numerous of these wars have gone on for many years and even decades. The reason I was able to make these settlements was the use of my relationships, very special relationships to this day, very, very special.

Trade, the use of tariffs and the threat of tariffs, and various. other reasons depending on the country. Among them, in terms of settlement, Cambodia and Thailand, Kosovo and Serbia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda, Pakistan and India, Armenia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and of course the war in Gaza, which, as I stated previously, includes the return of all hostages, both living and dead. Almost every one of these countries wrote me a letter of thank you. The Prime Minister of Pakistan, terrific man, said that Donald Trump was responsible for saving 30 million lives and probably many more than that.

The President of Azerbaijan said President Trump in six months did a miracle. It was an absolute miracle that nobody thought could be done. The Prime Minister of Armenia said, this breakthrough would simply not have been possible without President Trump's personal engagement and his resolute commitment to peace. A president of Cambodia, stated President Trump's extraordinary statesmanship. Just for one second here. It is astonishing.

Every one of these world leaders in this room right now knows what these letters mean, right? They all know how to deal with Donald Trump. They all do it exactly the same way. They know that his personal capacity for flattery is unlike anything that has previously been experienced when they're dealing with America or even really with like other autocrats. Right. I mean, like, we've all laughed. We've all spent our whole lives laughing at like the way that, you know, the government institutions of like North Korea butter up the Kim's, right? But some of that is like an enforcement mechanism.

Some of that is like ideology for them. For Donald Trump, it is a personal need. to hear these sorts of things from everybody. And he sorts the world into people who do this to his satisfaction and people who do not. And it is just amazing not to hear him, you know, regurgitating this stuff to like his base at home, but to sit here in this room with these people who know that's what these letters are and who maybe some of them have sent them themselves as though like they should all be happy for him and like proud of him, when they themselves know that all that is on display in any of this

is his own willingness to run U.S. policy by the own whims of like his own massive, massive ego. It's just so gross. It's just so gross to see. It seems to believe it now in a way that I'm not sure in his first term he liked flattery, God knows he had a massive ego, but at some level he also knew. And he liked being flattered, but that's different from the United States. should we listen in, sorry, this is, I think, Russia. We will get it done. We will get it done.

One way or the other, it's going to be done. It's going to be done fast. A lot has happened since we last gathered here one year ago. I regret. I regret hopping. Sorry, Bill. We should have heard what he said about Russia. The United States military conducted a massive military operation, penetrating deep into the Venezuelan capital, Caracas.

You send it on a heavily defended and fortified military base, one that was, supposed to be flawless against attack and arrested the outlaw dictator, real criminal, Nicholas Maduro. Since that day, hundreds of Venezuelan political prisoners have been freed. They've let them out of jails, and we're working closely with the leaders of Venezuela to forge a much better future for the Venezuelan people. Last month, we signed the largest oil deal in history, covering 16. 65 billion barrels of oil, which will benefit both Venezuela and the United States enormously and help drive down the cost of energy all over the world.

And that is starting to perk right now. It's coming out. The biggest oil companies in the world are going in, and the numbers are absolutely incredible. When you add the United States and Venezuela together, we have more than 60% of the oil in the world. So it's perhaps the biggest deal. It was a war, but it's perhaps the biggest deal ever made. To the victor along the spoils, you've all heard that. Our actions in Venezuela are proof that the United States will no longer permit threats to America

to gain a foothold anywhere in the Western Hemisphere. And if necessary, we will use our unmatched military might to secure the vital. national interests of the United States. As you know, Venezuela had the finest equipment in the world from other countries, and guess what? It didn't work. Didn't even come close to working. Guess what? Venezuela was not threatening vital national interests in the United States. It allowed much of this region to be dominated by vicious gangs and blood thirsts. I'm trying to shut up and let him talk, but to the victor belongs to boils, that's America's foreign policy now. It is.

And infiltrated by hostile, foreign adversaries, foreign, sick. demented adversaries. But not anymore. We are reasserting American power, including American military power, where necessary in our region and around the world to create a safer future for all of us. It's happening and it's happening quickly upon taking office. I designated the drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and unleashed the United States armed forces to eliminate them. The cartels are the ISIS of the Western Hemisphere, not good people. They're enemies at war with civilization using murder, rape, torture, and extortion as instruments of terror. Like ISIS, they should be killed, exiled, or detained as enemy

combatants without the possibility of release, which is what we're doing. To that end, the United States has carried out dozens of strikes and cartel drug boats destroying 97% of the drugs coming into the ocean and sea. You've seen it? They disappear very quickly, and we're down 90%. They're down 97%. Nobody thought that was possible. It was a big source of delivery.

And three months ago, we terminated the leader of the Venezuelan gang, Trend de Aragua. Mexico is the epicenter of the cartel. violence, unfortunately. It's unacceptable for the United States to share a 2,000-mile border with the territory controlled by enemy cartels. So Mexico must reclaim control of its soil from the enemies of humanity. My administration is also seeking a fundamental change in the situation in Cuba where the communist regime is under great pressure, the biggest pressure they've ever been under. It's an absolutely failed state. It's failing like never before, and it will fall.

Marco Rubio is handling a negotiation. He's deep into negotiations with Cuba. Let's see what happens. We'll not allow a haven for foreign adversaries to threaten America on our own doorstep. It's right at our doorstep. The Cuban regime has also spent decades coordinating with the left-wing radicals and communist networks here in the United States. As our State Department has detailed,

they've cultivated ties to subversive and radical groups, such as the Communist Party USA, Antifa, and the Democrat Socialists of America. Communism will never be coming to America, but freedom will be coming to Cuba, and safety and security will be coming to Mexico. I'm very proud to tell you, we have a very good relationship with the Mexican.

government we've made great strides very great strides with mexico i think that was cuba's u.n delegation walking out there as he was calling for regime change will be a better safer and more beautiful place in which to live if mexico's border is so problematic as i announced just why we focus so much on on canada's border which is entirely safe and unproblem had agreement regarding the northern frontier of north america the large and strategically vital piece of land known as greenland This agreement made with the Kingdom of Denmark, an incredible, beautiful country, and the Greenland people itself gives the United States permanent control over security and all other needs on that territory. We will have the complete ability to do what is necessary to defend the American continent and also Europe and other places. No U.S. adversary will ever be permitted to establish a military presence in Greenland.

Greenland anymore or make sensitive investments there without our express written approval. We will immediately begin the process of developing a large military presence in the appropriate locations. We'll be building two very major military bases. This agreement will be signed later today, and I look forward to working with the wonderful people of Denmark and Greenland. It's been a great experience, amazing experience that we've been. really formed a bond in doing it by expanding America's footprint.

So never really been able to figure out why Trump has no interest in confronting either Russia or China is so interested in these bases in Greenland. Why is it pretty important if you're not going to do either of those things? It also very much enhances NATO. I think he still wants to take it over, right, incorporated in the U.S. We'll see if this is three months or now, he doesn't find an excuse. Well, we'll be like previous dictators as well, that temporary has a work out. stronger than ever before NATO is doing things that nobody thought they would be able to do,

including raising their number to 5% from 2%. Number that's a protection. That's going to be much greater protection for them. We continue to seek and end the disastrous war between Russia and Ukraine, which is killing, as I said, thousands and thousands of people every month. Last week, in honor of Senator Lindsey Graham, I signed a powerful new law passed by Congress providing me with enormous new tariff authorities, and if necessary, I will have to use them. It's time to stop the killing. I also want to recognize the extraordinary

work of our great First Lady, who has secured the safe return of many displaced Ukrainian and Russian children back home to their families. So many. Are Ukrainian and Russian children? Have there been a lot of Russian children abducted into Ukraine? What are we doing? And Trump's mind. Well, he's neutral. He has to pretend that's a both sides problem. Thank you very much, First Lady.

Embarrassing. It's all humiliating. This year, she also became the only first lady in bullying and to preside over a meeting of the UN Security Council, and she did it very well. Like I always said, thank you very much, first lady. And today she's hosting a gathering of fostering the future together, which has nearly 60 members to help improve the lives of young

people all over the world. So, Melania, thank you very much. Great job. Great job you're doing. Led by Ambassador Michael Walsh here at the United Nations, we have also worked with many countries in this room to implement the most sweeping UN reforms in history. We cut the UN budget for the first time ever, slashing it by 15% in 2026 that eliminated more than 4,000 positions from the UN bureaucracy. nations has great, great potential. I've said that for many years, but it must stop imposing the far-left agenda of globalist bureaucrats who nobody ever elected. Last year, my administration was forced to intervene to stop an obscure U.N. body, the international maritime organization, from secretly establishing a first-ever global carbon tax, very expensive tax, to raise international

shipping costs by 10 to 20 percent and maybe more than that. You wouldn't want to raise international shipping costs. There's no global government. That'd be a real problem. There will be no global taxes. The United States is equally opposed to the out of control. Thank you. I mean, he's really getting it, literally getting,

thank you very much. The United States is equally opposed to the out of control institution, known as the International Criminal Court. We will never allow U.S. service members. or anyone else to be investigated or given show trials by an anti-American tribunal with no jurisdiction over us, you're an evil group of people. I call on all nations that are members of the ICC to officially resign from this rogue institution immediately. Can we meet this for a moment here? Just one more thing on this. I mean, it is one thing.

There used to be this conservative critique of organizations like the UN and the ICC. They're too deferential to, you know, authoritarian regimes around the country, unequal standards of justice. And that's why America wasn't going to participate in these things because America held itself to a higher standard for, you know, holding rogue regimes accountable for, for, you know, punishing bad behavior around the world is completely the opposite today. It's completely the opposite today. We just heard Donald Trump stand up here and describe his foreign policy towards smaller countries like Venezuela as we're going to go in and take out their president and then we're going to keep the oil because he said, to the victor go the spoils, that is what America stands for.

And to critique, you know, multilateral liberal proceduralism, to critique things like the UN and the international criminal court and NATO and all of these institutions from that point of view is so different. It's such a different thing. I think there are a lot of people who are like, we didn't like the UN before and we don't like it today. We didn't like the ICC before and we don't like it today. It could not be more different of a thing than it used to be in that way.

People and countries devoted to protecting cultural heritage yet with their ceaseless promotion of mass migration, these globalists are actively destroying the greatest cultures and most extraordinary heritage in all of history. There is no human right to illegal immigration, but there is a right to remain a sovereign nation. and we want to remain a sovereign nation. And so should you. The United States also totally in the attempt to construct a global scheme to control for the artificial intelligence,

being spoken of so much now, here and after officially called superintelligence, changing the name, and that the use of the word artificial makes intelligence fake. It makes it sound fake, and it is not fake. it's actually amazing but we have to be careful. In fact, it is exactly the opposite of what it purports.

From this point forward, all of United States documents, and hopefully the worlds will be changed to use the much more accurate term, super as opposed to artificial. So it's super intelligence. This guy can't stop. In other words, welcome to the new world of super intelligence. You know, just on this point, he did say something important, I guess, which is we're not going to have any, quote, globalist arrangements or agreements

to limit, regulate or control artificial intelligence. That really would be like the U.S. saying in the 50s, we're not going to have any national agreements to control this for the blue weapons, right? As if you can control this on our own. I guess he doesn't want to control it at all. Except yet the very same people who said will all be dead in 12 years because of global warming, a name since reborn to climate change because the planet was cooling, not warming,

and nobody was dead. These are the same people that are now saying that AI is going to kill us all, that robots are going to attack us, and that everything is going to be a total disaster. The same group of people. This is the group that came up with the Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia hoax,

the Ukraine, Ukraine. There's just one group of people. There's one group of people. There's one group of people. They say every wrong thing. All those AI scientists. Whoever wins AI, you have to remember this. I thought it was okay, but now I'm alarmed.

We need to have some checks because they're all lying. They're all global. Yeah, they launched the Russia game. They launched Russia again. They launched Russia again. The CIA. Yes. The CIA researchers.

That's the group that wins. And we're leading now over China by a lot and everyone else. And we're going to keep it that way. We're going to keep it very, very straight and very strong. I'm not going to stifle growth of, something that will be bigger than the Industrial Revolution. Many say bigger than the industrial revolution or the Internet itself. And we will be very careful, and that's why we have a Department of Justice, that we've already used it having to do with this very subject and used it very

powerfully. Everything worked out very well and very quickly. And other law enforcement bodies that will rein things in if we have to do that. But we will only encourage super-intelligence. We're going to encourage it, not rein it in. We're going to watch it closely through the Department of Justice. The United States leads the world in superintelligence, and will continue to do so safely and responsibly. Americans have never been a nation that retreats from a frontier or shrinks from a challenge,

no matter how great or how daunting that challenge. It's sort of like saying, we're going to continue building biological weapons and stay well ahead of everyone. not one that we will ever, ever, ever, or was right here in New York City, and Washington ordered. The Declaration of Independence read to his troops in 1776,

as they listened to those immortal words for the first time the Patriots could see across the waters of New York Harbor to a British invasion fleet more than 100 ships strong, which had just arrived to crush the cars of liberty. Thousands of soldiers getting off those ships. Nobody stood a chance, but we won and we won decisively. Those first Americans knew that it is not enough merely to believe in great principles.

We must also have the will and the courage and the strength to defend them. As we gather in this same city two and a half centuries later to discuss the great events of our time, that is the challenge for every nation. in this room. If we go forward, strong and united against the enemies of all humanity, if we reject the voices who would have us give in to fear and doubt, if we refuse to shrink from our duties to our people, then together through bold action, we will make this world far safer and a far better place. We will leave our nations far stronger. We will grow our economies far bigger, and we will not just speak of peace, prosperity, and justice here at the United Nations.

We will stand for them all over the world. Together we will build a future for a people that is brighter, more hopeful, and more magnificent than ever before. Thank you. God bless the nations of the world, and God bless America. Thank you very much, everybody. Okay. Shorter speech than last year. You were right, Bill, to predict that he might keep it a little tighter. What was that? 40, 45 minutes, something like that. I forget exactly when he went on. But not a lot new. Most of that basically recycled from his speech of a year ago, except for certain new, grotesque football spikings on how we're going to go take Venezuela's oil because to the victor belong to spoils. certain threadbare arguments about why we had to go into Iran are the same arguments he's been making since March,

promising ad deals just around the corner, same way he has been doing since this summer. And at least one really grotesque false equivalence about Russia and Ukraine with him seeming to suggest that both Russian children were being abducted into Ukraine and that Ukrainian children were being abducted into Russia and that Melania Trump, the First Lady, had been doing great work, reuniting both Russian and Ukrainian children with their families.

Those were my, that stood out to me, Bill. What do you think? Where are you in the nice afterglow of such speech? Well, yeah, you were right. I think that he did defend, dwell down the Middle East more than I might have expected. It wasn't particularly no new arguments and nothing particularly convincing, just a lot of assertions, but maybe you were right that he would feel he had to do that. I was struck by the artificial intelligence stuff at the end, obviously very vague in general and bluster-like, but pretty astonishing that that's how he actually, and I guess, enough senior people in his administration also, think about it. They really think this is a race with China.

There's nothing problematic about any of it. It's all been fine. The Justice Department can, I guess, use antitrust, not that the Trump administration ever users as I trust or use legal liability things as a way of checking it. And it really would be as if with any great technological breakthrough, we just thought there's no need for any regulation, automobiles, airplanes, they're all great. Who needs FAA or Department of Transportation or safety requirements on those instruments, let alone this, which is more powerful?

Who needs international agreements on biological weapons or nuclear weapons? obviously they have to be enforceable. And obviously we have been taking precautions to try to stay ahead of adversaries there. But also, these agreements have done a lot of good, you know, in the world. I mean, the idea that I just, it's so mind-boggingly irresponsible. Even the most hawkish, if you want, what the least dumerish and the most accelerationist, to use the terms that are now used in the AI world, don't really take that position. and don't really think that we just got to be confident we can beat China.

So what's the problem of why negotiate anything with them or anyone else? Incidentally, these are pretty, these are more than nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, AI is accessible to a lot of very smart people and with computers all around the world. Right. So, I mean, and these are international corporations. Trump's been happy to sell the chips to the UAE, which will accelerate China's developments. In fact, he's not going to be, we'll see, he's not going to be tough. He's laying the grammar for not being, he's not going to be tough on China on that issue

when he sees Xi in a couple of days. Anyway, a long way of saying that I think that's really striking. And I just two points about it. One sort of slightly comical point, which is, does you think super, is superintelligence a better term from his point of view than artificial intelligence? People hear super intelligence and think, hey, great, nothing to worry about. Super has a vague feeling to me of something that's a little out of our control, maybe more than artificial, which sounds like an artificial sweetener.

It's just something we've made that's useful, right? I mean, I think he's misunderstood his stupid gimmick of renaming things at this point, maybe. I'm not sure. But it is... Yeah, just the... It's such a, like a kindergarten level of understanding of anything that's underway here. If you have a problem with the term artificial intelligence for this product, the one you can't argue with is that it's artificial.

Sorry, it's artificial. It's artificial. It's a computer program. There are people out there, and I'm not one of them, but there are people out there who do construct arguments that in theory, these computer programs could get powerful enough that we would need to expand our definition of the term intelligent to include them. These are, you know, materialists who say maybe that's all that's really happening inside our own brains, right, is really powerful processes that add up to this thing that we call intelligence. But it's still artificial. These do not naturally arise. And by the way, the thing that he's swapping artificial out there for, the super part, that's the thing everybody's worried about, right?

That's the thing people are freaked out over is the idea that this is not only going to become intelligent, but that it is going to become an intelligence that outstrips our own. And that that would have catastrophic consequences across a whole bunch of different possible areas leading up, in fact, not necessarily, maybe not even likely to be this way, but possibly to the extinction of humanity. That's the thing people are bandying about right now as one universe that could arise if super intelligence arrives. And it turns out that we don't have the ability to keep it pointed in the direction of pro-human behavior. But to Donald Trump, all that stuff is like, it doesn't even like hit his brain cells. He's just like, oh, those are just dumb people who like thought up the Russia hoax. They're always crying about everything. They're always worrying their hands about climate change, you know?

And so he's just like completely smooth brain. about the entire thing. No, absolutely. I'm sorry to note. I think it's really a good, important point. Yeah, it's as if, I mean, what most worries me now, actually, is he has no understanding of it, and he has decided in his own brain that we just have to be first, and we have to pretend it's like the Russia hoax and his, I guess, his tech pro friends have convinced

them to not just be against, you know, not just to be on the kind of hawkish side of the spectrum of letting it go more than regulating it for now or more than having strict regulations or pause as the actual heads of the AI companies have called for, incidentally, and many scientists have as well. But he has really convinced himself there's nothing to, there's no problem. I mean, that's pretty clear from his rat and right. There's just no, nothing to see here. And it's one thing for him to think that, because as you say, he is smooth-grained and addled and so forth, that's going to be the policy, I guess, of the U.S. government for the next two years, except maybe there's some fake Justice Department, you know, exploring of liability,

which is talking about locking the barn door after the horse has gotten out, right? So that's bad. That's really dangerous. I mean, here is where his, I sort of touched on this. I say in warning shots, this one of you've touched on it. Actually, yesterday's warning shots that we both, I think, have become a little obsessed with. His own idiocy, it's one thing to have his idiocy, and it's kind of constrained and checked by somewhat sane or people below him, even if they're not people you and I would like very much,

even if the policies aren't even ones that weren't like, they're sort of grounded in some reality. Here, you really could have his own idiocy making decisions or not making decisions over the next two years that could be extremely dangerous. I mean, damaging. And I don't know that anyone in the U.S. government's going to tell him no. I don't know that Congress can get itself organized enough

to override him. It's even very hard to. It would be as if we had a president in the early years of nuclear weapons or biological weapons. We didn't just say, I'm on the hawkish side. We need to build more of them, I'd be a little kit wary of deals with the Soviet Union, but you can't trust them. That's very reasonable.

There's a whole spectrum of positions of what could have on that. But just there's no issue here. We're just going to build more nuclear weapons and we're going to outrun everyone else. And we're not worried about it. Nuclear arms deal, nuclear arms control, stopping other nations from getting it. Who cares? We're just ahead of everyone else, right? And I don't know.

I really, I am now more worried about the artificial intelligence matter than I was two hours ago. Yeah, let me just zoom out a little bit on this because I think that a lot of this stuff that you're talking about with AI applied to a bunch of the different fields that he was talking about at the UN today. It applies to basically all of the ways in which Trump engages with the world. And he laid this out in his speech. You all just listened to it. And we've talked about it a little bit. A complete distrust and, in fact, contempt for really anything that's arrived at multilaterally, any sort of consensus-based. rules across any field, anywhere in the world, any policy area.

He wants to construct a country where none of that is dispositive, none of that ever shackles the United States as he sees it because he thinks that the United States, under his personal leadership, is only held down, is only held back by that kind of thing, and that he is leading us into this golden age, he's leading us into this promised land, where we can shake all of that off, we can reshape the world, as we see fit. Again, as he said, to the victor go the spoils across all of these different fields and domains. And all of that is horrible. All of that would be bad enough. But the place where it is really worse, in fact, than the sum of its parts, this outlook toward the world and then his

own personal self, his own personal shortcomings, his own personal mind, is that he sees himself as this visionary leader who can, you know, sluff off all of that stuff and due to his own you know, super heroic abilities can therefore just sort of like lead the United States by Fiat into this golden age. He tweeted the other day, you know, the only guardrails you need on AI are a really smart president. And fortunately, we have one of those. But in fact, what we have at the very moment that this president is sort of shuttling off all consensus and all restraints and all, you know, legal binders and all policy stuff and just putting him his own self in the position. of being like yes to that, no to this, yes to that, no to this.

He is also an idiot. He's a dipshit. He is a vicious, vile, self-centered, foolish man who is not, who is far less equipped even than like, you wouldn't want anybody doing this stuff, but you certainly don't want him doing it. You certainly don't want him doing it. And it is, it is just astonishing to see it all out there for everybody to see on the national stage, on the international stage, the global stage in front of the UN.

today. I don't know. I found that very dispiriting. I found that extremely embarrassing and I am equally deflated as an American and I guess it's like equal parts stimulant and depressant. So we're just, we're just maintaining because it's a, it's a, it's a depressant insofar as it's just so deflating and embarrassing as an American to watch that. And it's, it's a stimulant insofar as it's like, wow, this guy has to be rained in immediately. We are in really bad shape. So that's my, I don't know, any other, any last takeaways from the. That's really well said. You took my point and really expanded it in a very helpful way, honestly, in a very important way.

It's really alarming. I mean, we really think about what he's saying here as opposed to all the bullshit and all the boasting and all the idiotsies, kind of just pedestrian idiocy. We're in for a very alarming two years. Yeah, yeah, man. And hopefully, hopefully, and I guess it's looking. more than hopefully, like it's looking pretty likely, we will have a Congress that can check him in some way. Which is hard, though, as he said, he's going to be presidents, you know, foreign

and also when you get weaker at home, what do are presidents do? They look to exercise power abroad. So I think the degree of both personal craziness, you've written about this too, and of irresponsibility, and of irresponsibility, especially in foreign policy and in things like AI, where it's going to be just hard for Congress to come up with much without the administration's cooperation. I mean, it's very, it's, it's frightening. It's frightening. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we're going to be here.

We're going to keep following it. We're going to keep bringing it to all you people. Hopefully, you know, we'll all get through it together one way or another. But we've been at this for, you know, 75 minutes now. Trump's been off for a little while. We can probably put a pen in it for now. Thanks, Bill, for sticking around and watching the speech. I know your personal antipathy to hear in that particular guy's lips flap.

You like to get by on transcripts and things, but sometimes there's no subsubstance. Sometimes you really have to stare into the abyss. So thanks for doing that with me. Thanks to all of you guys out there as well for staring into the abyss right alongside us. It really is, I mean, you know, there aren't that many silver linings, but imagine if we were doing this and like, you know, nobody was paying attention. You know, at least that's something. That's not nothing. So thanks to you all out there for watching.

We hope if you are not subscribed already, you will subscribe to the channel, not just so it's easier for you to encounter our stuff, but so other people can too. I mean, this is really how we grow. You know, the YouTube algorithms have been pretty good to us for a couple of years, but we want them to continue. We want to stay on the sunny side of the computer programs that control all of our lives. And people continuing to subscribe to the feed is a really, really helpful way for that to happen. So thanks to you all out there who are watching, who are subscribing. We'll be back here, man.

We'll be back here next week. So, you know, just today, just today I'm going to take a page out of JVL's book. Good luck, America, man. Oh, come on. Good luck America. All right. We'll see you all next time.