‘Drive Them Into Hell’: Trump Makes Wild Threats in Chaotic UN Speech

The president claimed he was a peacemaker at the United Nations ... while threatening war crimes against Iran

Donald Trump lives in a world of his own. But once a year, at the United Nations General Assembly, he stands in front of representatives from the rest of the planet and tries to justify the violent, chaotic reality he has created. 

“While others have talked, I have acted,” Trump said in an early moment in the speech. “While others have spoken of peace I have made peace.”

It looked for a while as if bridging this gap between reality and fantasy would be too much for the aging president, who struggled through a roughly 40-minute speech on Tuesday. But while his performance was lackluster, his rhetoric was not. Speaking directly to a single delegate from Iran, who sat, isolated from other members, the president threatened to completely destroy Iran if his demands were not met.

“I have a big decision to make,” Trump said. “Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild? Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic? Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival, and no hope of future greatness or generations?”

Iran’s delegate stared back at him. 

“But I believe we’ll make a deal,” Trump finished. “Right after the election.”

The upcoming midterm elections were very much on Trump’s mind, cropping up several times during his speech. “They’re waiting to see how I do in the midterm election,” Trump said of Iran. But his focus drifted to the domestic, too. “What they [Iran] don’t realize is I’m not running,” Trump said. “The Republican Party is running and I’ll be helping them, but I am not running.” 

The subtext to undecided voters was extremely clear: Please don’t let the disastrous, disruptive war stop you from voting red in November. “I gave absolutely no credence and will not give credence to the election when it comes to Iran,” Trump said. “It doesn’t even enter my mind.”

On one hand, he’s probably telling a version of the truth — given his current polling numbers, it’s hard to imagine Trump making the same decisions he did if he got a do-over.

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Like most Trump speeches, his remarks at the UN strayed further from coherence as it went on, devolving into rambling attacks and loose word-association tics referencing various issues of the day. Much of it was loosely aimed at the Democratic Party, claiming that “Christians are being persecuted all over the world,” that the Democrats wanted to let “the worst people” into our country, and repeatedly lamenting the “transgender mutilization of our children.” He claimed to have settled “eight wars,” one up from the tally in last year’s speech, when he claimed he had ended seven. He also tried to rebrand artificial intelligence — AI — as “super intelligence.” “SI — that sounds much better,” Trump said. He made an attempt to justify his brutal actions in Venezuela and around Latin America with several jabs and threats at drug cartels. “The cartels are the ISIS of the western hemisphere,” Trump said. “Not good people!” He spoke about “massive munitions facilities” replacing what the U.S. had shot in Iran. 

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Trump returned, time and time again, to a line of rhetoric that made it clear who his enemies were. “My administration is also seeking a fundamental change in the situation in Cuba,” Trump said. “It’s an absolutely failed state. It’s failing like never before, and it will fall.”

The Cuban delegation immediately walked out of the room. But while delegates at the UN can symbolically withdraw from a speech, no one, it seems, can truly escape the U.S. president. For another two and a half years, it seems, we’re still living in Donald Trump’s world.