Trump's U.N. Speech Was An Embarrassment For The United States

Many U.S. presidents have spoken before the United Nations. Some of those speeches were great and others not so much. But Trump's speech was the worst by far. It was humiliating and embarrassing for the citizens of the United States.

Trump was allowed 15 minutes for the speech, but it droned on for nearly an hour. He bragged continuously about his own accomplishments (mostly untrue), attacked and denigrated other nations (including our allies), called global climate change a huge con (perpetrated by stupid people), attacked renewable energy (and bragged about increasing fossil fuel energy), and demonized immigrants all over the world.

And throughout the speech was lie after lie after lie! If he still had any respect among the leaders of other nations, this speech probably took care of that. He exposed himself to the world as ignorant, dishonest, untrustworthy, and a braggart. 

PolitiFact fact-checked his speech. Here is some of what they found:

"In a period of just seven months, I have ended seven unendable wars."

This is Mostly False.

Trump had a hand in deals that eased conflicts between Cambodia and Thailand; Israel and Iran; and India and Pakistan — although some of those countries’ leaders dispute his role.

The U.S. was involved in a temporary peace deal between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda that experts said is significant but remains shaky. In a conflict between Egypt and Ethiopia, there is no solution on the table. And with Kosovo and Serbia, there is little evidence a potential war was brewing.

Russia and Ukraine are "killing anywhere from 5,000 to 7,000 young soldiers mostly, mostly soldiers on both sides, every single week."

Trump overstated how many people are dying each week in the Russia-Ukraine war.

Since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated there have been nearly 250,000 Russian military deaths, said Mark Cancian, a CSIS senior defense and security adviser. One thousand Russian civilians also have been killed, he said. (CSIS estimates largely align with British and U.S. intelligence estimates, CNN reported.) 

On the Ukrainian side, there have been 80,000 military deaths. The U.N. Human Right Monitoring Mission in Ukraine reported about 14,100 civilian deaths.

In total, that’s about 345,100 deaths since the start of the conflict. The war began Feb. 24, 2022. That amounts to roughly 264 deaths per day or 1,848 deaths per week, thousands short of Trump’s figures. 

The U.S. bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities "totally obliterat(ed) everything."

About three months after the U.S. attack on Fordo, a major underground Iranian nuclear site, it’s not clear how much damage U.S. bombs created.

Trump said the facilities were "completely and totally obliterated" hours after the June 22 attack. At the time, experts told PolitiFactthat a few hours was far too soon for Trump to know the extent of the damage with any certainty. 

Officials still haven’t publicly released a definitive damage assessment. 

"We've recently begun using the supreme power of the United States military to destroy Venezuela terrorists and trafficking networks led by (Venezuela President) Nicolas Maduro."

The U.S. military has struck at least three boats off Venezuela’s coast since Sept. 2, killing at least 17 people.

The Venezuelan government allows military officers to be involved in drug trafficking. But there isn’t evidence the government is engaged in organized drug trafficking to the U.S., experts on drugs and Venezuela told PolitiFact. 

Venezuela plays a minor role in trafficking drugs that reach the U.S., experts said. 

Under the Biden administration there were "millions and millions of people pouring in from all over the world, from prisons, from mental institutions, drug dealers all over the world."

Pants on Fire! There is no evidence that countries are emptying their prisons, or that mental institutions are sending people to illegally migrate to the U.S. 

The Biden administration "lost more than 300,000 children, little children, who were trafficked into the United States. … They’re lost or they’re dead."

This distorts federal data. An August 2024 report from the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general found that 32,000 unaccompanied migrant children failed to appear for immigration court dates. That happened from October 2018 through September 2023, including some of Trump’s first term.

The report said children who do not appear for court are considered at higher risk for trafficking, exploitation or forced labor. But it did not cite data on children trafficked, missing or dead.

The report did not say the children were missing. Immigration experts previously told PolitiFact that describing them that way is misleading.

"We are rapidly reversing the economic calamity we inherited from the previous administration."

The unemployment rate has ticked upward during Trump’s tenure, from 4% in January, when he was inaugurated, to 4.3% in August. Nonfarm job creation has slowed, with employment rising by about 0.3% from January to August. That’s about half the rate of increase in the equivalent period in 2024 under President Joe Biden.

"In just eight months since I took office, we have secured commitments and money already paid for $17 trillion" in investments. 

Trump has cited a long list of promised foreign investments, but there is no guarantee that the full amounts promised will come to fruition, and some of this investment would have occurred regardless of who was president, experts said.

The projected cumulative U.S. gross domestic product over the next five years is $169 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office, so the $17 trillion amount Trump cited, if it materializes, would account for 10% of the entire U.S. economic output.

"Under my leadership … grocery prices are down, mortgage rates are down, and inflation has been defeated."

The trends are mixed.

Overall grocery prices are up 2.7% compared with August 2024. 

Mortgage rates are down, from 6.96% when Trump was sworn in to 6.26% today.

Inflation is 2.9%, with rates rising for the last four consecutive months.

"We’ve implemented the largest tax cuts in American history."

We have rated a similar claim Mostly False.

Trump’s domestic spending bill extends 2017 tax cuts that otherwise would have expired. When those extensions are factored in, the tax savings from Trump’s 2025 law rank third on the list of biggest tax cut laws since 1980.

"I give China a lot of credit, they build (windmills), but they (have) very few wind farms."

We previously rated this Pants on Fire.

China has about 44% of the world’s wind farm capacity, ranking No. 1 globally and almost tripling what the U.S. has. China is also planning or building more wind farm capacity than any other country.

"Our (electricity) bills are coming way down. You probably see that our gasoline prices are way down."

This is inaccurate.

Energy prices — a category that includes fuel oil, propane, kerosene, firewood, electricity and energy services — are down overall on Trump’s watch. But the two categories he specified, electricity and gasoline, are not.

Electricity costs have spiked on Trump’s watch. They are up 4.9% since Trump took office in January, and were up by 6.2% in August compared with a year earlier.

Gasoline prices are slightly higher than when Trump was inaugurated in January, and about a penny per gallon lower than a year ago.

"I unleashed massive energy production." 

U.S. energy production has not increased dramatically on Trump’s watch. 

U.S. oil production was 407.4 million barrels in January. By June, the latest month available, the amount was nearly identical.

As for natural gas production, it fell by about 0.5% over the same period. However, the number of natural gas rigs — a common real-time metric for production — increased during that period, from 99 to 118.

The number of oil rigs in use fell between mid-January and mid-September, from 472 to 418.

London wants "to go to Shariah law." 

This claim is inaccurate and fueled by right-wing groups. 

There are ongoing debates about the role of Islamic Shariah councils in the United Kingdom, including in London, but those operate on a limited basis in specific community contexts. They do not represent a desire to replace UK law with Shariah.

Shariah councils in the UK predominantly deal with Islamic divorces, arbitration and mediation. Their rulings have no legal standing.