Donald Trump remains on a renaming tear. During his Tuesday morning address to the United Nations, he declared that his administration will now “officially” call artificial intelligence “super intelligence” and government documents – “and hopefully the worlds” – will substitute “SI” for “AI.” SI has long stood for Sports Illustrated, but Trump went on to muse “let’s see if I have any power. Maybe I do and maybe I don’t. We’re gonna find out pretty soon.”
Indeed we are. The truth is that Trump was appearing at a somewhat ticklish moment for him. The latest polls have his popularity somewhere between 29 to 32 percent. Gas and diesel prices are soaring. Hamburger hovers at around $8 a pound. Republican Senator John Curtis is requesting that the Judiciary Committee investigate Donald Trump Jr. Meanwhile, Fox News has now shifted 15 House races towards the Democrats. Republican legislators, some six weeks before the November midterm elections, are running for cover.
He looked somewhat groggy initially and appeared to have some trouble keeping his peepers open
At the UN, Trump overtly distanced himself from the mess, observing that he himself wasn’t running for reelection but would try to lend a hand to “them” – them being the Republican party that he ostensibly heads. Trump’s blasé attitude carried over to much of his speech.
He looked somewhat groggy initially and appeared to have some trouble keeping his peepers open. His opening remarks resembled a campaign speech more than a statesmanlike address as he enumerated the great things that had been accomplished in the past two years, both at home and abroad. America’s booming economy, he once again proclaimed, had made the country “the hottest” in the world.
As he turned to Iran and declared that “inflation is destroying their country” and that their military had been denuded, it was hard to wonder if he wasn’t talking about America as well. Trump dismissed as “cowards and traitors” those who pointed to a lack of American munitions, neglecting to acknowledge that his own Department of War’s Inspector General had recently issued a report to that effect. As Tom Switzer notes in The Spectator, Trump is mired in an unwinnable conflict – the crowning irony being that the very man who campaigned against forever wars has now embarked upon one.
“Will a deal be made?,” he asked. “Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic.” A difficult decision. Drop the big one and go down in history as a war criminal or treat with the Iranian leadership. Obviously, Trump would prefer to cut a deal. He even claimed that an agreement would lead to a new era of unprecedented greatness for Iran, a claim to that seemed at odds with his condemnation of the regime for perpetrating terror for 51 years. Why on earth would he want such a repellent regime to flourish?
When it came to the war between Russia and Ukraine, Trump breathed optimism. He ticked through the eight wars that he has supposedly ended, reading flowery tributes to himself from various world potentates attesting to his diplomatic prowess. Ukraine, too, would be solved in a jiffy. “It’s gonna happen more quickly,” he said, “than people understand.” Alas, Trump offered no real reason to believe that a peace settlement will be reached any time soon.
President Vladimir Putin, who is intent on crushing Ukraine, has different ideas. “To the victor go the spoils,” Trump stated at the UN. It’s a credo that Putin and others share. The late senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously observed that the UN was “a dangerous place.” The dangers have only increased since he made that observation. Trump’s UN appearance did little to allay them.
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