On Tuesday, Trump delivered one of the most offensive, counterproductive, dishonest, ignorant, and embarrassing speeches ever to sully the General Assembly Hall of the United Nations. In sinking to that nadir, Trump surpassed the shameful performances of Muammar Gaddafi, Nikita Khruschev, Fidel Castro, and Yasser Arafat.
Before addressing the substance of Trump’s stain on America’s relations with the world community, let’s answer the most important question first: Why does it matter, and how does Trump’s shameful performance fit into the ongoing efforts to defeat Trump, MAGA extremist ideology, and Republican officeholders at every level?
At root, Trump squandered the hard-earned legacy of goodwill and respect earned by millions of Americans who represented their country abroad by showing the best America has to offer. The emissaries of America who created that goodwill include soldiers and sailors defending global freedom, foreign service staff, foreign aid and healthcare workers, emergency relief responders, and volunteer educators, social workers, and scientists.
The goodwill that Trump squandered on Tuesday did not belong to him. It was a collective asset of the American people that made each of us safer in a dangerous world. Everything Trump touches dies. On Tuesday, he stood before the assembled leaders of the world and put his stubby hands all over America’s post-war international standing and killed it.
But Trump did more than squander a collective legacy born of sacrifice and selflessness. He created a new obstacle for all Americans who travel abroad or conduct business in other nations. Rather than enjoying the presumption of goodwill, we must overcome the fear that we are Trump supporters—and all that implies about the derision with which he and his supporters view the world.
The men and women who fought, died, and served America’s interests abroad for the last century should be outraged that their legacy is being squandered to massage the fragile yet monstrous ego of Donald Trump.
We can and will rebuild what Trump destroyed on Tuesday. But it will take decades.
The process of rebuilding that legacy begins with taking back Congress in 2026 and the presidency in 2028. The damage that Trump inflicted on Tuesday is at the core of who we are as Americans and who we aspire to become as a nation in the next century.
Trump’s speech to the UN General Assembly
Trump was given 15 minutes to address the UN General Assembly on Tuesday. He spoke for 57 excruciating minutes that felt like days. I will not explicate his speech. Others have done so. See Fred Kaplan in Slate, Trump U.N.: This might just be the most bonkers speech of his career | And that’s saying a lot.
If there is a passage that encapsulates the haughty arrogance and Dunning-Kruger cluelessness of Trump’s ignorance, it was this:
I’m really good at this stuff. Your countries are going to hell. … I’m really good at predicting things. I’ve been right about everything. . . . [America is]the hottest country anywhere in the world, and there is no other country even close.
As Nahal Toosi said of that passage,
It didn’t land well.
See Politico, Trump to the World: Do as I Say.
As explained by Toosi in Politico,
I’ve listened to every speech Trump has given to the U.N. General Assembly. This was the wildest one yet. . . .
Trump rambled to an extraordinary degree, even after the broken teleprompter was fixed. He spouted an astonishing number of falsehoods — yes, even for him — such as suggesting that London was moving toward adopting Islamic law. He contradicted himself, claiming, for instance, that carbon footprints don’t matter while also bemoaning air pollution in some regions. [¶]
Some foreign officials described Trump’s speech on Tuesday as uninformed at best and counterproductive at worst.
“He tells things which are not true,” one European official complained to [the Politico author] by text.
Trump repeated his lunatic claim that he has “settled” seven wars in his second term. Every member of the UN General Assembly who heard that statement knew it was a lie before the words had reached the back rows of the Assembly Hall.
The lie is so grotesque that Trump cannot keep track of the alleged “wars” that he settled. For example, Trump claims that he settled a war between Cambodia and Armenia, countries that are separated by more than 4,000 miles and are not at war.
Trump also claims that he has settled the war between Albania and the non-existent country of Aberbaijan (a mispronunciation of Azerbaijan)—countries that are not at war. Trump was presumably referring to the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, one of the few conflicts he helped to settle (a process that the Biden administration contributed to significantly).
Trump’s accelerating confusion and ignorance of geography have led to the widespread dissemination of the following fictional map, which illustrates Trump’s muddled view of geography and the fictional wars he has settled:
[I copied the above chart from Mark Chadbourn @chadbourn.bsky.social, who attributed the map to Rasmus Jarlov, Chair of Denmark’s Defence Committee. I do not know who actually created the graphic, but it was not me.]
Sadly, the fictional map is grounded in Trump’s confusion about world events and his role in shaping them.
If you want more details about Trump’s truly awful speech, PBS has compiled and organized video snippets by topic. See PBS, 7 key moments from Trump’s U.N. speech.
The Guardian also provided good coverage of the speech: Trump calls for nations to close borders and expel foreigners in UN speech: ‘Your countries are being ruined’.
I know from corresponding with readers that among the community of subscribers to this newsletter are retired foreign service officers, ambassadors, and senior military leaders who served in Europe. If you feel comfortable commenting on the speech, I invite you to post your comments. If you prefer to keep your comments anonymous, please email me at rbhubbell@gmail.com, and I will post them anonymously.
Trump changes policy on support for Ukraine
Amidst the carnage of Trump’s rambling comments to the UN General Assembly, Trump announced two significant policy shifts. First, he said that Ukraine was entitled to recover its sovereign territory seized by Russia. Trump had previously said that Ukraine should cede territory to Russia to end the war. See The Guardian, Trump says he believes Ukraine can regain all land lost to Russia since 2022 invasion
In addition, Trump said that NATO countries should “shoot down” Russian aircraft that invade NATO airspace. See ABC, Trump says NATO countries should shoot down Russian aircraft that violate their airspace.
Both changes in policy are significant. The question is whether they are permanent. Stay tuned.
Trump’s cruel claim that Tylenol causes autism
When Robert Kennedy was appointed as Secretary of Health & Human Services, he announced that he would identify “the cause” of autism by September. Of course, legitimate researchers had been seeking the “cause(s)” of autism for nearly 75 years. The notion that Kennedy could do so in four months was ludicrous.
On Monday, Trump and Kennedy held a news conference in which they made the sham claim that Tylenol (acetaminophen) was associated with autism and should be avoided by pregnant women. I will not link to the announcement because I do not want to spread disinformation.
I am not a doctor or a researcher, but I can read. The most recent and highest-quality study on the role of acetaminophen in autism found no connection between Tylenol and autism. See JAMA (2024), Acetaminophen Use During Pregnancy and Children’s Risk of Autism, ADHD, and Intellectual Disability.
The key conclusions of the JAMA study are as follows:
Acetaminophen use during pregnancy was not associated with children’s risk of autism, ADHD, or intellectual disability in sibling control analyses. This suggests that associations observed in other models [i.e., earlier studies] may have been attributable to confounding [factors].
The JAMA study used a “sibling” study, which controls for shared genetic and environmental factors that could be “confounding factors” in studies that did not “control” for sibling status.
Controlling for sibling status is important because “about 85% of the risk for autism” comes from genes. See Your Local Epidemiologist, Katelyn Jetelina, Andrea Tamayo, and Thomas Farley, Vaccines don’t cause autism. So what does?
If two siblings are in a study but not identified as such, the increased risk for autism based on shared genetics could be incorrectly attributed to other factors, such as drugs taken by the mother in pregnancy.
Per the Local Epidemiologist article (on Substack) cited above,
About 85% of the risk comes from your genes. Then, environmental exposures can act as triggers, including:
Advanced parental age. . . .
Premature births are more likely to be diagnosed with autism. . . .
Medications during pregnancy, such as valproic acid and thalidomide, during the first trimester of pregnancy. . . .
Maternal inflammation. . . .
[Other factors.]
As I understand the state of the science, no “cause” of autism has been identified. But the factors above are correlated with the prevalence of autism. Acetaminophen is not on the list of factors that have been identified as having a correlation with the prevalence of autism.
But no need to believe or trust me. Again, I am not a doctor and I have no expertise in the cause(s) of autism. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) issued this statement, ACOG Affirms Safety and Benefits of Acetaminophen during Pregnancy, which reads in part:
“Suggestions that acetaminophen use in pregnancy causes autism are not only highly concerning to clinicians but also irresponsible when considering the harmful and confusing message they send to pregnant patients, including those who may need to rely on this beneficial medicine during pregnancy.
“In more than two decades of research on the use of acetaminophen in pregnancy, not a single reputable study has successfully concluded that the use of acetaminophen in any trimester of pregnancy causes neurodevelopmental disorders in children. In fact, the two highest-quality studies on this subject—one of which was published in JAMA last year—found no significant associations between use of acetaminophen during pregnancy and children’s risk of autism, ADHD, or intellectual disability.
The statement by ACOG went on to criticize the review relied on by HHS, saying that it suffered from “methodological limitations—for example, lack of a control for confounding factors or use of unreliable self-reported data.”
While conclusions in science are always provisional and subject to revision, the evidence strongly suggests the safety of acetaminophen during pregnancy and does not indicate any correlation with autism prevalence.
Consult your doctor regarding your situation. But regardless of the advice provided by your physician, the manner in which Trump and Kennedy announced their “advice” is irresponsible and cruel.
Opportunities for Reader Engagement
Postcarding for Virginia
Join Postcards4VA, Markers For Democracy, and a veritable who’s who of grassroots groups on Tuesday, Sept. 30, from 7-8:30 pm ET, for the final National Postcard Party for Virginia.
This last Zoom party is all about local races, featuring school board and supervisor candidates. You’ll get to meet them in a fun, relaxed way—real talk on real issues. Grab your pens and markers—let’s write, laugh, and make change together!
For the list of candidates and to get addresses, go here.
RSVP here: Zoom Registration Link
Swing Left San Fernando Valley on Sunday — Drop by to say “hello” to Jill and me!
Join Swing Left / San Fernando Valley, CA, on Sunday, September 28, from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. (In the Lake Balboa area of the Valley.)
Swing Left West Valley proudly supports Prop 50! Join us on Sunday, Sept. 28, for a special postcard party to encourage fellow Californians to vote YES on Prop 50.
Jill and I will be at the event at 5:00 p.m. to say hello and make brief remarks. Hope to see you there!
Concluding Thoughts
I delayed writing concluding thoughts so that I could watch Jimmy Kimmel’s return to late-night comedy. He was brilliant, courageous, and genuine. If you haven’t watched the monologue and the first part with Robert De Niro, I highly recommend doing so. See Jimmy Kimmel is Back!
You made this happen! Congratulations!
Talk to you tomorrow!
Daily Dose of Perspective
I was going to write something completely different about Dilbert, the the statement "85% *of the risk* or autism..." is more than I can stand.
I am a high functioning autistic person. My version is commonly called Aspergers - it has other more "PC" names now that I pay no attention to. Properly understood, it's a superpower; as misunderstood as it is in the dumbest fucking collection of morons on the planet cosplaying as a "country" it's a curse. It took me into middle age to discover I wasn't crazy. Nowadays, they spot people like my grandnephews early on and are able to help them develop coping strategies that if I had had them wouldn't have seen me waste 20 years of my life in a desperate quest to be the normie I will never be, and I could have gotten on with my writing career a lot earlier.
Here's a few damn pointers for the bloody moron N/T's:
Autism is NOT A DISEASE. You do not "catch it" from anything in the environment.
You become an Autistic person due to your genetic heritage; unfortunately, too much of the time, the DNA comes from fucking moron N/T's who think it's a curse that their kid is (oh the shock, the shame!) different.
Autism is highly congruent with creativity. I don't know any creative person I've ever met in the creative community who wasn't "on the spectrum" somewhere.
My version gives me an 8 hour attention span, which is really helpful as a writer. I also have close to "total recall" (as tested by people who didn't know what it was they were looking at) if the topic interests me - otherwise, 80% of life's bullshit goes in one ear and out the other. Also helpful for a writer.
Being autistic means we aren't the ones in the middle of the crowd professionally bullshitting people, but we have a better radar for spotting the professional bullshitters.
Stop trying to think you can "cure" us. We're a different kind of Homo Sapiens who can use our minds better. We don't want to change.
Early in my 30-year diplomatic career, I had the privilege of serving as a “reporting officer” at the U.S. Mission to the UN in Fall 1996. For several weeks of “General Debate” in the UN’s Assembly Hall, two other Foreign Service Officers and I spent hours each day and into the night behind the U.S. flag taking notes on speeches delivered by world leaders. We distilled the essence of every speech into two or three sentence summaries compiled into a “reporting cable” USUN sent to Washington agencies and U.S. embassies around the world. If I was a foreign diplomat with similar duty at the UN yesterday, here’s what I would have drafted:
“Clearly delusional, an incoherent U.S. President Donald Trump boasted falsely about his supposed successes as a peacemaker. He railed against immigration and lied about clean energy and climate change. Insulting allies and adversaries alike throughout an hourlong diatribe, Trump told them, ‘Your countries are going to hell.’”