UN is failing to live up to its potential, Trump says

Audio By Carbonatix

(The Center Square) – President Donald Trump preached American exceptionalism and the successes of his administration, while reprimanding the United Nations for not living up to its potential at the U.N. General Assembly in New York on Tuesday morning. 

“These are the two things I got from the United Nations: a bad escalator and a bad teleprompter,” Trump said in his opening remarks.

When Trump was in construction, he once made a bid to renovate the U.N. building, but another company was chosen. He used the building’s shortcomings as a metaphor for the organization itself. 

“You walk on terrazzo, do you notice that?” Trump quipped. “I used to talk about it. I'm going to give you marble floors; they're going to give you terrazzo. I'm going to give you the best of everything. You're going to have mahogany walls. They're going to give you plastic.”

Ultimately, Congress opened an investigation into the building renovations, as they finished three years behind schedule and nearly $1 billion over budget, according to reports. Despite the cost and schedule overruns, Trump insisted the building became a “far inferior product” to what his company could have done and likened the construction process to “many things” in the U.N.

“Unfortunately, many things in the United Nations are happening just like that, but on an even much bigger scale, much, much bigger. Very sad to see whether the U.N. can manage to play a productive role,” Trump said.

The president spoke of the multiple peace deals he has brokered since re-entering office, including between Armenia and Azerbaijan, India and Pakistan, Iran and Israel and the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda. He also said he negotiated peace between Cambodia and Thailand, Kosovo and Serbia and Ethiopia and Egypt – all without the help of the U.N.

“I didn't think of it at the time, because I was too busy working to save millions of lives,” Trump continued, “But later, I realized that the United Nations wasn't there for us.”

“That being the case, what is the purpose of the United Nations? The U.N. has such tremendous potential…  but it's not even coming close to living up to that potential for the most part,” he said.

Before delivering his challenge to the international body, Trump kicked off his address with his oft-repeated claim that the U.S. is “the hottest country in the world.”

“Today, just eight months into my administration, we are the hottest country anywhere in the world, and there is no other country even close. America is blessed with the strongest economy, the strongest borders, the strongest military, the strongest friendships and the strongest spirit of any nation on the face of the earth.”