The US President kicked off his speech during the 80th session General Debate in the UN General Assembly Hall – and joked someone was ‘in trouble’ after the teleprompter stopped working
Watch live: Trump to address UN General Assembly
Donald Trump’s UN address got off to a shaky start after a teleprompter failure – with the US President joking that whoever was in charge of the device is “in big trouble.”
The US President made his return to the UN stage for the first time in six years, and was welcomed to the podium with applause. But just minutes into his speech, Trump said all he got from the United Nations was a broken escalator and faulty teleprompter. He said: “I feel very happy to be up here with you […] I can only say that whoever’s operating this teleprompter is in big trouble”.
“All I got from the United Nations was an escalator that on the way up, stopped right in the middle,” he added. “If the First Lady wasn’t in great shape, she would have fallen. But we’re in great shape, we’re both in good shape, and then the teleprompter didn’t work, these are the two things I got from the United Nations.”
Trump quickly went on to tout a misleading claim about putting an end to seven wars in just seven months, saying he saved thousands of lives in the process. Among the conflicts he claims to have prevented are those between Isreal and Iran, India and Pakistan and Congo and Rwanda.
“I have ended seven unendable wars, they said they were unendable,” he said. “I ended seven wars and in all cases they were raging with countless thousands of people being killed.” He said no president or prime minister 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 honoured to have done it.”
The US President also slammed the UN for not helping him with any of his foreign policy work. Continuing his claim that he ‘ended seven wars’ since returning to office, he said: “The UN has such tremendous potential. I’ve always said it. All they seem to do is write a really strongly worded letter and then never follow that letter up. It’s empty words, and empty words don’t solve war. The only thing that solves war and wars is action.”
But he failed to make any mention of the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Trump instead pushed for Hamas to release hostages, accusing them of “repeatedly reject[ing] reasonable offers to make peace” since the October 7 attack. He briefly acknowledged that “we have to stop the war in Gaza immediately”, before repeating “We’ve got to get the hostages back. We want all 20 back. We don’t want two and four.”
He then turned his attention to immigration in Europe , launching a tirade and urging allies to follow his hardline US approach. “We’ve taken bold action to swiftly shut down uncontrolled migration. Once we started detaining and deporting everyone who crossed the border and removing illegal aliens from the United States. They simply stopped coming.”
Branding immigration throughout Europe as part of the “globalist migration agenda,” he warned: “It’s time to end the failed experiment of open borders. You have to end it now. Your countries are going to hell.”
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Trump dedicated some of his speech to reigniting his feud with London mayor Sadiq Khan, repeating his claim that Khan is “a terrible mayor” while linking him to immigration and what he called Europe’s “suicidal energy ideas.” He also raised Sharia law – without explaining why – despite no evidence it is being enforced as policy in London. “Now they want to go to Sharia Law, but you’re in a different country. You can’t do that.
“Both the immigration and their suicidal energy ideas will be the death of Western Europe, if something is not done immediately,” he said.