President Trump took the UN General Assembly podium at 10:29 a.m. Tuesday, five weeks before the midterms and seven months into his war with Iran, and gave Tehran an ultimatum with a date attached.
"Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before," he said, "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?" He answered his own question: "I believe we'll make a deal right after the election, because it doesn't make sense for them not to."
He said Iran is waiting on the midterms to see how he does. "What they don't realize is that I'm not running," he said. "I did that already, and won in a landslide."
Trump opened by marking 250 years of American independence and reciting a run of numbers — a poverty rate at a record low, real household incomes at an $87,000 average, crime down 87% in Washington, D.C., $21 trillion in pledged foreign investment. Then he turned to Iran. He said the U.S. destroyed the regime's nuclear program in Operation Midnight Hammer and sank its entire navy, 159 ships, in Operation Epic Fury. Iran's economy, he said, "is gone. The only thing that isn't gone is inflation, which is destroying their country and is now well over 300%." He thanked the UN Security Council for a resolution against Iranian attacks on shipping that drew, he said, more co-sponsors than any resolution in its history, and said the U.S. Navy has escorted more than a billion barrels of oil out of the Strait of Hormuz since the war began. He called on every nation to join "the complete economic isolation of Iran" until it stops attacking commercial shipping, drops its nuclear program and ends its support for terror.
On Gaza, he said the ceasefire he brokered after his speech to this same hall a year ago "changed everything," and that "we brought home all remaining hostages, both living and dead, every single one of them" — a line that drew applause. He said he has settled eight wars since taking office, listing Cambodia-Thailand, Kosovo-Serbia, Congo-Rwanda, Pakistan-India and Armenia-Azerbaijan alongside Gaza, and read out praise for himself from the leaders of Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Cambodia and Rwanda.
He confirmed the U.S. and Venezuela signed "the largest oil deal in history," covering 65 billion barrels, a month after U.S. forces seized Caracas and arrested Nicolás Maduro. "It was a war," he said, "but it's perhaps the biggest deal ever made. To the victor go the spoils." He said the U.S. and Venezuela together now hold more than 60% of the world's oil, and that the U.S. would use military force again "if necessary" to protect its interests in the hemisphere. He said cartel strikes have cut 97% of drug shipments by sea, and that Cuba — where Secretary of State Marco Rubio is "deep into negotiations" — "is an absolutely failed state" that "will fall."
On Ukraine, he said his administration is working with both Moscow and Kyiv and "will get that one done," calling the toll of 25,000 dead a month on both sides "so horrible to see." He confirmed he will sign a Greenland security agreement later Tuesday with Denmark and Greenland, building two new U.S. military bases there, which he said would also extend protection to NATO and Europe. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte was in the hall.
He said the U.S. cut the UN's budget for the first time in its history, by 15%, eliminating more than 4,000 positions, and blocked the International Maritime Organization from imposing what he called a secret global carbon tax on shipping: "There is no global government, and while I'm president, there will be no global taxes." He called the International Criminal Court "an out-of-control, criminal institution" and urged every member state to quit it. And he renamed artificial intelligence: "From this point forward, all of United States documents will be changed to use the much more accurate term 'super,' as opposed to 'artificial.' So it's super intelligence."
He closed just past 11 a.m., after roughly 45 minutes at the podium — three times longer than his office had scheduled: "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."
Iran's delegation walked out as he spoke about the strikes on their country. Cuba's delegation walked out when he said their government would fall. Neither President Masoud Pezeshkian nor Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi entered the hall.
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