It was the kind of spectacle only reality TV’s most chaotic crossover could deliver: “The Apprentice” meets the United Nations General Assembly, hosted by bigot Donald J. Trump himself. The president, clearly confused and dazed as always, stumbled (literally) into the UN, fought with an escalator, lost a teleprompter, and then unleashed a speech so unhinged it made Muammar Gaddafi’s infamous marathon address look like a TED Talk.
Let’s start with the entrance. Cameras caught Trump confronting a stopped escalator on his way to the podium. His first international obstacle wasn’t diplomacy — it was gravity. The escalator lurched to a halt like it, too, had finally had enough. Melania reportedly “was in great shape” and avoided a tumble. Congratulations to the First Lady’s Pilates instructor; democracy may not be stable, but her core strength is.
Then came the speech. Without a teleprompter, Trump announced he was “speaking from the heart” — which, judging by the content, is somewhere between Truth Social and a Reddit conspiracy thread. He bragged about once bidding to redevelop the UN complex like it was a Trump Tower franchise, promising marble floors instead of terrazzo as if the world’s diplomats were in the market for kitchen countertops.
In a performance dripping with grievance, he accused European nations of being “invaded by illegal aliens” (a phrase he repeated like a glitching chatbot) and told world leaders they were “destroying their countries.” Representatives reportedly whispered to one another, “Is this… for real?”.
Trump then pivoted to rewriting history. He claimed to have “rapidly reversed the economic calamity” of the Biden administration, announcing a new “golden age” of America where grocery prices are down, gas prices are down, mortgage rates are down, and presumably unicorns graze on tax cuts in Mar-a-Lago’s back yard. Foreign dignitaries were rolling their eyes so hard.
If the economic fantasyland wasn’t enough, Trump launched a verbal cruise missile at London’s mayor, called Brazil “awfully awful,” and bragged about stopping seven wars — including a “war in Congo” that is still, inconveniently, ongoing. “All I got from the UN,” he whined, “was a broken teleprompter and a broken escalator.” History’s peacemaker, ladies and gentlemen.
And then it got darker. Trump joked about U.S. forces firing on fishing boats off Venezuela — yes, fishing boats — while posting ISIS-style death videos to his social media. Even for a man whose rally playlists jump from “YMCA” to QAnon anthems, this was grotesque.
He closed with a fever-dream rant about the “green energy scam,” claiming climate change is “the greatest con job ever” and predicting mass national failure unless the world stops wind power. He tossed in bizarre numbers about “175,000 heat deaths in Europe” and ended on a call for “proud nations” to protect themselves from people with “different customs” — a not-so-subtle dog whistle that sounded more like a foghorn.
Within minutes, Fox News tried to spin the meltdown as “raw truth.” Anchor Harris Faulkner chirped about Trump “putting the spotlight on the different world order,” as if this was a brave act instead of a diplomatic dumpster fire. Viewers who’d just witnessed the speech in real time could only laugh. Or cry.
Bottom line? Trump’s UN address was less a statesman’s speech and more a one-man grievance cabaret: part improv comedy, part authoritarian fanfiction. The escalator and teleprompter weren’t the only things broken on that stage — so was the façade of any lingering presidential gravitas. Yet the right-wing infotainment machine dutifully airbrushed it, like a bad reality-show edit, hoping Americans won’t notice the difference between “heroic” and “humiliating.”
Welcome to the United Nations of Trump: marble floors, plastic facts, and an endless escalator going nowhere.
