On September 23, 2025, President Donald Trump took the stage at the United Nations General Assembly in New York City for a speech that was, in many ways, classic Trump: brash, self-congratulatory, and fiercely critical of both his political rivals and the international community. The address, delivered before a packed hall of world leaders and diplomats, veered through topics ranging from migration and climate change to Russia, Gaza, and the performance of the United Nations itself. But as news organizations including CNN and The Independent quickly pointed out, the speech was also riddled with inaccuracies and exaggerations that have become a hallmark of Trump’s public appearances.
From the outset, Trump painted a rosy picture of his own leadership, declaring, “I ended seven wars, and in all cases, they were raging, with countless thousands of people being killed. This includes Cambodia and Thailand, Kosovo and Serbia, the Congo and Rwanda — a vicious, violent war that was — Pakistan and India, Israel and Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia, and Armenia and Azerbaijan.” However, as CNN’s fact-check revealed, several of these conflicts were not wars during Trump’s time in office. For example, Egypt and Ethiopia have long disputed a dam project but were not at war, and the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda continue to face deadly fighting despite a peace agreement brokered by the Trump administration that excluded key rebel groups.
Trump’s penchant for self-praise did not stop at foreign policy. He boasted of having the “highest poll numbers I’ve ever had,” attributing his supposed popularity to his border and economic policies. Yet public polling tells a different story. According to a New York Times polling average, Trump’s approval rating hovered around 43% on the day of his speech, down from 52% at the start of his second term. Other polling averages from data journalists G. Elliott Morris and Nate Silver painted a similar picture, with approval ratings in the low-to-mid 40s and disapproval rates above 50%. CNN’s own average placed Trump at 41% approval, the lowest of his term to date.
The president also took aim at economic issues, claiming that “inflation has been defeated” and that “grocery prices are down.” But the numbers simply don’t back him up. Inflation, measured by the Consumer Price Index, actually increased from 2.7% in July to 2.9% in August 2025. Average grocery prices rose by about 1% between January and August, and the month-to-month jump from July to August was the highest since late 2022. Electricity prices, which Trump said were “coming way down,” actually spiked by 6.2% year-over-year as of August, far outpacing overall price increases.
On the international stage, Trump urged the UN to impose harsher sanctions on Russia and called for peace in Gaza, but he also used the platform to criticize the institution itself. “It’s too bad that I had to do these things instead of the United Nations doing them, and sadly, in all cases, the United Nations did not even try to help in any of them,” he said, according to The Independent. His tone was combative, occasionally veering into the personal as he recounted frustrations with the UN’s facilities and accused the organization of failing to address the world’s most pressing crises.
Perhaps the most contentious part of Trump’s speech was his stance on climate change. He called climate change “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world” and referred to “the global warming hoax,” dismissing decades of scientific consensus and UN reports that confirm human-caused global warming. The UN’s own “Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report” states unequivocally, “Human activities, principally through emissions of greenhouse gases, have unequivocally caused global warming, with global surface temperature reaching 1.1°C above 1850-1900 in 2011-2020.” Trump’s assertion that climate scientists have shifted terminology to avoid being proven wrong is also unfounded; NASA explains that “climate change” and “global warming” are used to describe different aspects of the problem, with “climate change” encompassing a broader range of impacts.
Trump’s skepticism extended to renewable energy. He repeated the claim that China, despite being the world’s top wind turbine manufacturer, has “very few wind farms” of its own—a statement that is simply false. China leads the world in wind power generation and continues to rapidly expand its capacity. He also called coal “clean, beautiful coal” and dismissed renewables as unreliable, saying, “they’re not strong enough to fire up the plants that you need to make your country great” and “the wind doesn’t blow.” Energy experts, however, point out that wind and solar power can be stored and deployed as part of a balanced energy mix, and coal remains a significant source of pollution despite technological improvements.
On the subject of international agreements, Trump repeated misleading claims about the Paris climate accord, stating the US was “supposed to pay like $1 trillion” and that China “didn’t have to pay until 2030.” In reality, the US never committed to such an amount, and China’s 2030 target was a voluntary commitment under a framework that allowed each country to set its own goals. The US chose a 2025 target, and the accord took effect for all nations in November 2016.
Immigration was another flashpoint in Trump’s remarks. He claimed that “25 million” migrants entered the US during the Biden administration, a figure that far exceeds official data. Federal records show under 11 million “encounters” with migrants during Biden’s term, including many who were quickly expelled. Even adding in estimates of undetected migrants, the total falls well short of Trump’s claim. Trump also repeated a misleading assertion about nearly 300,000 migrant children lost by the previous administration, referencing a 2024 Homeland Security report. That report noted 32,000 unaccompanied children missed court hearings and 291,000 were not given court notices, but did not confirm exploitation or deaths as Trump implied.
Throughout his speech, Trump’s rhetoric was aimed as much at his domestic audience as at the international community. He accused the UN of “funding an assault on Western countries and their borders” by supporting refugees and lambasted European nations for what he called “politically correct” migration policies. “Your countries are going to hell,” he warned, urging leaders to adopt his hardline approach.
Reactions in the General Assembly hall were mixed, with some delegates visibly shifting in their seats or whispering to one another as Trump’s address unfolded. While Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Brazil’s President Lula da Silva had earlier praised the importance of multilateralism and warned against attacks on democracy, Trump’s remarks focused largely on his own achievements and grievances. He even found time to complain about a broken teleprompter and escalator at the UN headquarters, adding a personal touch to his grievances with the institution.
In the end, Trump’s speech was a vivid display of his political style: unapologetically combative, relentlessly self-promoting, and often at odds with established facts. For all the controversy, one thing was clear—he knows how to command the world’s attention, even if the substance of his claims doesn’t always hold up to scrutiny.