A man helps display a U.S. flag outside an Arizona stadium for the Sept. 21 memorial service for slain conservative commentator Charlie Kirk. Photo by Cheney Orr/Reuters
It’s Tuesday, the traditional day for elections and for our pause-and-consider newsletter on politics and policy. We think of it as a mini-magazine in your inbox.
6 STORIES THAT SHOW THE TEMPERATURE OF THE COUNTRY
By Lisa Desjardins, @LisaDNews
Correspondent
White water rapids make a distinctive sound. (Stay with me.)
A single roar is composed of uncountable collisions between water and rock. In that one loud hum, no particular impact stands out.
This has been the rush of news of the past two weeks, following the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
Here’s just a sample of some of the news around the Trump administration (as discussed in Politics Monday last night):
His Federal Communications Commission chair pressured ABC stations to take actions against late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, later saying he did not mean to threaten them.
Trump applied the official term “terrorist organization” to antifa, a decentralized collection of far-left militant activists, though there is no statutory process for designating domestic groups as terrorist organizations.
That has been the roar. But there’s also the pull of other currents as the country oscillates between rising anger and attempts to de-escalate.
Here are six stories we noticed outside Washington:
Officers versus protesters in Chicago. A progressive Democratic congressional candidate was thrown to the ground Friday by officers as they pushed back demonstrators outside an ICE facility.
Threatening words in Ashland County, Ohio. The local Democratic Party may face charges after displaying buttons about Trump — among them those that said “Is he dead yet?” and “86-47” next to images of red baseball caps — at a county fair booth last week.
A peaceful vigil in Springfield, Missouri. Smaller vigils to remember Charlie Kirk — like one Monday in Missouri that included counterprotesters — have largely remained peaceful.
Two sides break bread in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Let’s end our shortlist with this one: Protesters and counterprotesters in Wyoming turned a heated situation into some understanding — and “broke bread” by ordering pizza.
There is far more happening beneath the surface than the big headlines show.
The temperature in American civil life is heating up yet again.
And communities are choosing, in real time, how they’ll respond.
More on politics from our coverage:
Watch: Trump “authentically himself” for saying he hates opponents at Kirk funeral, White House says.
One Big Question: What is the future of the MAGA movement? NPR’s Tamara Keith and Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter discuss.
A Closer Look: Ex-DOJ official weighs in on Trump pressuring Attorney General Pam Bondi to prosecute political opponents.
When President Donald Trump returned to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, his speech underscored a familiar opposition to the mission of the United Nations.
During his first term, he dismissed the United Nations as “just a club” for countries’ representatives to have a good time. Years on, he doesn’t seem to be any bigger of a fan of the global body.
Since returning to the Oval Office, Trump has scaled back U.S. support of the U.N. This includes withdrawing the U.S. from the U.N. Human Rights Council again and pulling funding for some of the body’s key programs, such as the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), an agency that provides aid to Palestinian refugees.
Most recently, the Trump administration announced the U.S. wouldn’t participate in a U.N. review of the country’s human rights record.
Early into his nearly hourlong remarks on Tuesday, Trump said the global body is “not even coming close to living up” to its potential.
“All they seem to do is write a really strongly worded letter and then never follow that letter up,” the president said. “It's empty words, and empty words don't solve war. The only thing that solves war, and wars, is action.”
Trump’s wandering speech had no shortage of false claims and contradictions. He touted peace while telling drug cartels he would blow them “out of existence.” He questioned the purpose of the U.N.’s existence, but later in the morning told the U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres that the U.S. “is behind the United Nations 100%.”
“I may disagree with it sometimes, but I am so behind it because the potential for peace at this institution is great,” he said.
Here’s are some highlights from Trump’s U.N. speech:
A teleprompter malfunction from the start. While opening his speech, Trump told the room that the teleprompter wasn’t working, saying that whoever was operating it was “in big trouble.” He later mocked the U.N. for having a “bad escalator.”
Trump claimed he has “ended seven wars,” while the U.N. offered empty words. Trump, who is campaigning for a Nobel Peace Prize, boasted how he — and not the U.N. — has been a key player in settling global conflicts. But Trump’s repeated claims of being a peacemaker are complicated. Some of the conflicts he has cited in the past have not been wars or have yet to end.
Watch the clip in the player above.
Trump pushes back on countries who recognized a Palestinian state. This week alone, Britain, Canada, Australia, Portugal and France all formally recognized a Palestinian state, despite opposition from the U.S. and Israel. Trump said this upswell of support for Palestine would “encourage continued conflict” and would be a “reward” for Hamas, which carried out the Oct. 7 attack almost two years ago that set off the war in Gaza.
Trump urges Europe to “step it up” against Russia. Trump said if Russia does not end its invasion of Ukraine, he is prepared to impose “a strong round of powerful tariffs.” He then told European nations to “step it up” and stop importing Russian oil.
Watch the clip in the player above.
Trump tells countries they’re “going to hell” over migration. Trump scolded representatives for their countries’ immigration policies, while upholding his mass deportation agenda in the U.S. as the best way to address the “crisis of uncontrolled migration.” This led the president to say, “I’m really good at this stuff. Your countries are going to hell.”
He described climate change as “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world,” claimed that scientific predictions made by U.N. bodies were wrong and blasted wind farms and other renewable energy projects. He instead encouraged countries to buy fossil fuels from the U.S.
As tensions between Brazil and U.S. mount, their leaders give contrasting speeches
As is tradition, Brazil led off the first day of speeches.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, or Lula as he’s better known, warned that multilateralism, or international cooperation, “is at a new crossroads.”
“Throughout the world, anti-democratic forces are trying to subjugate institutions and stifle freedoms. They worship violence, praise ignorance, act as physical and digital militias, and restrict the press,” Lula said, through an interpreter, in his nearly 19-minute speech.
Trump, who delivered his speech right after Lula, levied a 50% tariff on many Brazilian goods largely as a penalty for the prosecution of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, a Trump ally who was earlier this month found guilty of a coup plot.
Though Trump criticized Brazil in his remarks, he did at one point strike a softer tone.
Watch the clip in the player above.
The U.S. president mentioned that the two leaders briefly spoke as they passed each other on the path to the main speaker podium.
“I saw him, he saw me, and we embraced,” Trump said. “But he seemed like a very nice man, actually. He liked me, I liked him,” Trump said, prompting chatter and a smattering of applause from global leaders in the room.
“We actually agreed that we would meet next week,” Trump said, though he didn’t provide details on this possible meet-up.
The U.S. president quickly returned to his criticism of Lula’s country, saying, “Brazil is doing poorly.”
“It's not an issue of whether I like him or not,” he said.
“What matters is that he's the head of state of the United States, and I'm the head of state in Brazil. And as two heads of state, we have to respect each other, because we were elected democratically by the people of our countries, and we need to give support to these people and to govern them the best way possible,” he added.
THIS WEEK’S TRIVIA QUESTION
The first United Nations General Assembly in session. Image courtesy of Bettmann Archive via Getty Images
By Joshua Barajas
Senior Editor, Digital
Brazil is always the first country to speak at the U.N. General Assembly, a tradition that dates back to 1955, when the country was willing to speak in that first slot.
Next in the speaking order is the host country, which is typically the U.S. Since 1952, nearly all the meetings have been held at the United Nations headquarters in New York.
The event has taken place in other countries, however.
Our question: Which city hosted the first U.N. General Assembly?
Send your answers to [email protected] or tweet using #PoliticsTrivia. The first correct answers will earn a shout-out next week.
Last week, we asked: Which president is credited for ordering the creation of an investigative unit that later became the FBI?
The answer: Theodore Roosevelt. According to the FBI’s own accounting of its history, the 26th U.S. president directed his attorney general to create an investigative unit for the Justice Department. That “regular force of special agents,” as described in a memo from the AG, gave birth to the FBI.
Congratulations to our winners: Brenda Radford and Louis Rivera!
Thank you all for reading and watching. We’ll drop into your inbox next week.
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