Are You Embarrassed? #356
By Hank Silverberg
Commentary
I am embarrassed for the United States. I have tried over recent weeks to find other things to comment on besides Donald J. Trump, but this week that is impossible. His appearance at the United Nations was appalling.
 |
| (UN.org) |
But I will let that go for now because the speech, without the teleprompter, was an embarrassing display of fiction, arrogance and authoritarianism worthy of Benito Mussolini or Nikita Khrushchev.
Those of you who have read this blog on a regular basis know that I teach public speaking to college students.
So, to be fair to the President, I am going to break down his comments as if I am grading a freshman's first speech in my class.
He started off by attacking some poor technician for not being able to get the teleprompter working. Not a good opening. -5
I tell my students to have a plan B if the technology fails. Trump had a notebook with his speech, but he strayed far and wide from the text. Minus 5 points for not being able to adapt to a technology failure.
And right away he forgot who his audience was--international diplomats, including some heads of state who deserve his respect, not his arrogance.
He started the main part of his speech by criticizing his predecessor, Joe Biden.
"We are rapidly reversing the economic calamity we inherited from the previous administration, including ruinous price increases and record-setting inflation, inflation like we’ve never had before."
This was a sidetrack away from his main theme and irrelevant to his audience. Another -10.
Then he began bragging:
"I have ended seven unendable (sic) wars. They said they were unendable (sic). You’re never gonna get them solved. Some were going for 31 years, two of them, 31, think of it, 31 years. One was 36 years, one was 28 years. 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."
The United States had some impact on all those conflicts, but Trump did not "end the wars". Factually incorrect, another -10
He went on to say he should get the Nobel Peace Prize for that work. Of course you don't campaign for that, but he's too bombastic to know that.
Again, a sidetrack away from the general theme: -5
He went on to brag about his best selling hat during the campaign, called the carbon footprint and climate change a "hoax, made up by people with evil intentions."
The hat thing was again off topic: -5. While climate change is of interest to this audience, he had no science or citations to back up his claim: -10.
And since he was working without a teleprompter, he told the assembled diplomats that immigration would make their countries a "disaster," using harsh words that were offensive to much of the audience. The words don't account for his negative body language and incoherence in delivery.
If this were my student, I would take off an additional 15 points for being totally unprepared for the speech since his delivery was often nonsensical and hard to understand. His body language reminds me much of Mussolini. To give Trump some credit, he didn't bang his shoe on the podium like Khrushchev did in 1960.
Trump's score for this speech: 45, an F, and that's being generous.
Americans should be embarrassed. But I am pretty sure much of the country didn't pay attention to this speech. You can see the text below, but it was not delivered the way it was written.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/09/23/trump-united-nations-speech-immigration-energy/
Poll On National Guard Deployment
President Trump announced this past week that he has authorized the use of federal troops in Portland, Oregon to "defend" the Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau there from attacks and a siege.
The American public though, is not sold on such deployments in U.S. cities.
A new NPR-IPSOS poll shows Americans are indeed concerned about crime, but they do not favor the use of federal troops or the National Guard as a remedy.
Despite statistics that say otherwise, 48% of those
.jpg)
But only 38% favor the continued use of National Guard troops in cities to deal with crime, and that figure drops to 34% when asked about their own community.
As we have seen in many recent polls, party affiliation affects the respondent's answers. For example, 93% of Republicans think crime and violence in American cities is unacceptably high, but only 54% of Democrats feel the same way.
The most recent report on crime from the FBI was done in 2024. It was collected from 16,000 state, county, city, university and tribal agencies covering more than 95% of the country.
The report says murder was down 14.9%
Rapes decreased 5.2%
Aggravated assault was down 3.0%
Robberies were down 8.9%
Even Hate Crimes were down 1.5%
These statistics are for 2024, before the Trump administration took office. They continued a trend of a decline in crime over the last decade.
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/26158921-npr-law-enforcement-topline-9232025/
https://www.fbi.gov/news/press-releases/fbi-releases-2024-reported-crimes-in-the-nation-statistics
FBI Falling Apart?
The once reliable FBI has suffered another setback. At least 15 agents were fired this past week in connection to the protests following the death of Georg Floyd back in 2020.
The agents had been assigned to secure federal buildings during some tense protests over Floyd's death. Some agents were photographed at the time kneeling as the crowds passed, which was described as a tactic to de-escalate the conflict. The firings sent shockwaves through the Bureau already rocked by leadership changes and the indictment of former Director, James Comey.
The FBI Agents Association criticized the firing of the 15 agents by the current Director, Kash Patel. Here's part of the statement: "Patel’s dangerous new pattern of actions are weakening the Bureau because they eliminate valuable expertise and damage trust between leadership and the workforce, and make it harder to recruit and retain skilled agents — ultimately putting our nation at greater risk.”
The FBI is already facing a lawsuit from three former top officials who claim they were fired by Patel in order for him to stay in President Trump's good graces.
Dumbest Quote of The Week!
This week's dumbest quote comes from a familiar place--Fox News Host Jesse Watters. While "reporting" on the above-mentioned escalator incident at the U.N., Watters claimed the President and First Lady might have been physically hurt by the faulty escalator, and then said this:
"This is an insurrection, and what we need to do is either leave the U.N., or we need to bomb it. It is in New York though, right? So there'd be some fallout there."
One would think he was only joking, which may or may not have been the case, but either way it's a totally irresponsible thing to say for someone who claims to be a journalist.
(You suggestions and comments are welcome)
My recent book "The Campaign" can be purchased at the links below. Or you can buy a copy by emailing me at: HankSilverberg@gmail.com for instructions on how to get a copy at a reduced price and with my signature)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B084Q7K6M5/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0
My NEWEST book is now available. It is designed for use in Public Speaking and entry level communications classes.
Comments
Post a Comment
Reactive comments are welcome. Please keep it civil. Any direct attack on the blogger or those who post is not welcome and will be deleted.