Trump’s UN remarks – in summary

  • Trump opened his speech to the UN by commemorating the nation’s 250th anniversary and focusing not on international issues, but touting his domestic record. Tax cuts, stock market highs, crime rates, and immigration enforcement, to name a few.

  • He once again framed the war he launched on Iran earlier this year with Israel the same way he has to his domestic audience — as a necessary conflict to addressing a long-ignored threat. The United States, Trump said, had acted to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, while other countries ignored the issue.

  • Trump then re-issued his threat to “annihilate” Iran and “drive them into Hell” if the regime didn’t capitulate and make a deal.” He touted his version of the war: one in which the US had defanged Iran militarily and driven the country to the brink of economic collapse. And hedged by saying he was confident Iran would make a deal after the US midterm elections – an argument he’s made to US voters.

  • Trump said he was “working closely with the leaders of Russia and Ukraine” to end the disastrous war. “It’s going to happen, I think, more quickly than people understand,” he said. The US president said he had signed into law “a powerful new law” on sanctions, and “if necessary, I will have to use them.” He added: “It’s time to stop the killing.”

  • Trump defended his administration’s actions in Latin America – including the midnight raid to arrest former Venezuelan president Nicólas Maduro, and the oil deal he struck with his more US-friendly successor, Delcy Rodriguez. “To the victor belong the spoils,” Trump declared, justifying the deal that will funnel a share of the nation’s immense oil wealth into the US treasury.

  • Defending his drone strikes on boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific, Trump equated the cartels he claims to be fighting with Islamist terrorist organizations. “The cartels are the ISIS of the western Hemisphere – not good people,” he said. “Like ISIS, they should be killed, exiled or detained as enemy combatants without the possibility of release, which is what we’re doing.”

  • He accused Mexico of being effectively controlled by the cartels, and said it was “unacceptable” for the US to share a border with a nation under such conditions. “So Mexico must reclaim control of its soil from the enemies of humanity,” Trump said.

  • Trump also pointed to regime change in Cuba. “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,” he said. “It’s an absolutely failed state. It’s failing.”

  • Trump said the US has reached “an unprecedented agreement” on Greenland, with the Kingdom of Denmark. He said the deal – to be formally signed shortly after his speech – “gives the US permanent control over security and all of the needs on that territory” and that the US will build two “very major” military bases in Greenland.

  • Trump said he would reject any calls for a “globalist scheme” to control artificial intelligence, and made an impromptu pitch to world leaders to call the technology “super intelligence” or “SI”. Amid mounting fears over the dangers of AI as some, including leaders in the industry, call for international regulation on the technology, Trump said he would not hinder its growth. He said he believes will be “bigger than the industrial revolution,” and vowed the US would lead on AI. “We’re only going to encourage superintelligence.”

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Key events

Republican National Committee sues New Jersey election officials for refusal to turn over voter records

The Republican National Committee has sued top election officials in New Jersey, alleging they failed to produce public voter roll records, including the addresses of noncitizen voters.

The lawsuit follows New Jersey governor Mikie Sherril’s announcement in July that “a software error” in the state’s motor vehicle registration system added 6,600 noncitizens to the state’s voter registration list beginning in 2023. According to the state, 400 votes were cast by noncitizens – although Donald Trump claimed that “thousands of votes” were cast by noncitizens in the state, in an effort to drum up support for his SAVE America Act.

In 2024, Kamala Harris won New Jersey by more than 252,000 votes – meaning that even if all voters were registered as Democrats, which they were not, their votes would not have swung the presidential election.

In Tuesday’s lawsuit, the RNC states that, New Jersey “objected to or denied” several of its records requests “including the request for records of address confirmation notices”.

In July, assistant attorney general for civil rights Harmeet Dhillon wrote to Sherril requesting the “full names, dates of birth, nationalities, residential addresses, and registration dates and locations” of all 6,600 noncitizen voters.

Sherrill has said she will not provide that information. “We now have certain people that, through no fault of their own, have been registered to vote,” she said at a press conference. “It may imperil their immigration status.”

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