Did Trump's UN speech convince voters on Iran?

0:00Anthony:This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.

0:30Anthony:episodes twice a week. Find the Haunted Library wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, it's Justin here. And hello to all the new listeners to AmeriCast. There are quite a few of you at the moment. So if you do enjoy what you hear, please do consider subscribing to the podcast. That way you will never miss an episode. Now, on with this one. Donald Trump used the podium here at the United Nations to renew his threats against Iran. So He's either going to make a deal or he's going to annihilate them. But he said also talks are going well. The big story here at the U.N. is always what is happening behind the scenes.

1:10There are backroom deals, sideline discussions, bilateral meetings taking place, all of which have involved President Trump as well. But is he in a weaker position than he was the previous year? Welcome to AmeriCast. AmeriCast. AmeriCast from BBC News. Whatever you want to talk about, Abdul, keep my wife's name the hell out of your mouth because she's way out of your league.

1:35Anthony:The tide is coming. And this time, we intend to win it all. See, he doesn't want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar. When I'm not around, you're going to be broke. There's not going to be anybody to report on. Nobody gives a damn about anybody else.

2:05Hello, it's Anthony here at my home in Arlington, Virginia. And it is Sumi sitting just outside the United Nations in New York. It is cold and windy. We have been literally chained to this spot for the past few days. But we've got a great window to the world walking by, quite literally. There are world leaders going up and down the steps all the time. We are shouting questions at them. Sometimes they answer, and most often, Anthony, they do not. But the UN General Assembly happens every year. It is an opportunity for leaders from around the world to come to deliver and address to other world leaders, to the delegates in the chamber, and then most importantly, to have bilateral meetings.

2:43And we've seen a ton of that. But, you know, from the U.S. perspective, this year has been overshadowed by the war in Iran, by the very high oil prices, inflation that is impacting countries around the world. Yeah, of course, one of those world leaders, perhaps the most prominent one, was Donald Trump, who flew up to New York on Tuesday and had his big address. He's been doing that regularly while he's president. It's been a closely watched moment. Sometimes it's been more acrimonious this time. Well, let's listen to a little bit about what he talked about, both domestically and in the big stories internationally, including the Iran war.

3:19Anthony:I have a big decision to make. Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before? Maybe one of the greatest in the Middle East or even the world. or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again? But I believe we'll make a deal right after the election because it doesn't make sense for them not to. They're waiting to see how I do in the midterm election. What they don't realize is that I'm not running. I gave absolutely no credence and will not give credence to the election when it comes to Iran.

4:11Anthony:It doesn't even enter my mind. The only thing that does is that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. Last month, we signed the largest oil deal in history, covering 65 billion barrels of oil. So it's perhaps the biggest deal. It was a war, but it's perhaps the biggest deal ever made. To thee, Victor belonged the spoils. You've all heard that. Yeah, what an interesting speech. And I wasn't actually in the room, as I said previously. I've been chained in this spot, but was listening closely. And our colleagues, Tom Bateman, was in the room and I spoke to a number of people who came out afterwards.

4:56You know, it wasn't, let's say, as critical of the UN and the international community as President Trump was last year. So a few people found it a bit more muted than his previous speeches to the UN were in 2025 when he basically said, you're all going to hell over immigration and this is a body that delivers empty words and cannot resolve a conflict. Well, there was a bit of praise for the United Nations Security Council from President Trump over passing a resolution to condemn Iran's attacks on commercial shipping. And so there was some applause around that, some polite applause when he shouted out Melania Trump for the work that she's been doing.

5:34And all in all, you know, the deputy prime minister of Luxembourg came out afterwards and was talking to us and he said this felt a lot like a domestic speech. He was speaking to a U.S. audience and trying to make his case for why his war in Iran is needed. And, you know, It wasn't necessarily for our audiences, but you did see mostly impassive faces when he was speaking to the Iranian delegation. When he spoke about Cuba and Cuba being a subversive threat in the Western Hemisphere, you did see the Cuban delegation get up and walk out quietly. It was a small delegation, but still, that was the one kind of ruffle that you saw among the crowd.

6:13But I think perhaps that was to be expected with President Trump directly saying that the Cuban delegation, the Cuban government is actually sponsoring left wing radicalism in the U.S. For a speech where he says he's not focusing on the midterms, he sure talked a lot about the midterms in that little clip we heard. And I heard the start. He said, I can report to you with pride that America's back and our country is stronger today than ever before. I mean, that line alone sounds like it could have been ripped directly from his State of the Union address earlier in this year. The rest of it, yes, he was blustery with Iran, talking about annihilation, lobbying threats once again.

6:55We're very familiar now. It's been several months now where he's been saying he has this big choice to make about whether or not to obliterate Iran. But then right after that, we found out that some senior diplomatic officials in Trump's circle, Jared Kushner among them, were sitting down with the Iranian mediators and holding war negotiations. So a lot of bluster on one hand, but it seems like the Americans and the Iranians are talking. You're right that it's a message that we've heard from President Trump in the past. I just found really interesting. You're sitting or standing, as President Trump was, in front of this body of the international community and the UN, which is there to shape and uphold international law and asking the delegates there, should I annihilate a country?

7:40You know, it's just such a contrast, especially with the Secretary General Antonio Guterres, just right behind him, having just talked about the misuse of wielding power by the great powers, two speeches before. But at the same time, I actually saw and I'm sorry, I'm just watching the Ukrainian foreign minister walk by me here. Of course, the Ukrainians also featured heavily in some of the speeches that we saw yesterday. But I saw the U.N. U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Mike Waltz, come down the stairs yesterday and I called him over and I asked him about those talks with Iran. And he said, look, the Houthis, all of this is part of Iran's influence across the region and we need to crack down on it.

8:22But he wasn't read into the actual negotiations. They're supposed to continue. So that is some sort of sign that there is diplomacy happening. Yeah. The other line that really struck me, besides all the annihilation talk, was that one that we heard in the clip that we just played talking about Venezuela and the victor belongs to spoils. That is not something you normally hear from American presidents. I'm curious how that landed among all the diplomats there. You normally don't hear American presidents talk about the spoils of war. I mean, that's kind of an imperialist language. When I heard that, my jaw kind of hit the ground.

8:55Mine too, Anthony. Most people here seem to just shrug. They kind of saw it as par for the course for President Trump. I also thought you're sitting here in a body where every country gets a vote. It is supposed to represent the equality of the world and of the international community. And he's essentially saying, no, we are the strong and mighty. And as he said, to us belong the spoils. But at some point, people here have gotten used to President Trump and the way that he speaks. And I think at this point, they're also not that surprised by some of the language that he uses. I did find it interesting that he said that Iran is waiting for till after the midterm elections, but I'm not on the ballot because wasn't it just in Dallas two weeks ago?

9:34He said, I am on the ballot. It's me. Vote for me. So that was really interesting. But, you know, he also had this meeting in the afternoon on Tuesday with the Gulf Cooperation Council, where you saw the president sitting down with Gulf leaders, also with Turkey and Syria. And you get the sense that there is a lot of frustration among the Gulf states in particular that the Houthis are advancing. The Houthis have been able to strike targets in Saudi Arabia and that they want the U.S. to do more to be able to push back on the Houthis and stabilize Saudi Arabia's oil exports as well. Yeah. According to The New York Times, Donald Trump changed his position on whether the United States should engage in airstrikes on the Houthis twice.

10:16Remember back last year, one of the first military incursions the Trump administration did was airstrikes on the Houthis because they were threatening international shipping. And Donald Trump pointed to that as one of his successes. Well, here we are now after the Iran war. We're in our seventh month. It is boiling up again. There was a line from the Jordanian leader in his address to the General Assembly saying that we shouldn't be surprised that this has spread, that the Iran war has spread throughout the entire region. And I think that is the big concern among all of the Gulf states that Trump met with, is that they have been pulled into this war, whether they like it or not.

10:53And now they're dealing with the consequences and they don't see an easy resolution to this. That's why you're hearing reports about some of the Gulf states being willing to strike deals independently with Iran. Some of the Gulf states getting more involved with what's going on in Yemen and wanting that to be addressed. It's this is fun in a way that I don't think the Trump administration anticipated, even if maybe they should have. Probably they should have. But the reality is, I mean, if the Trump administration decides not to engage with the Houthis, which, as we've said so far, seems to be the case.

11:27You are seeing diesel prices going up and up. And that is having an impact here in the U.S. as well. And didn't we see Senator Chuck Grassley and the Republican senator calling for an embargo that President Trump doesn't allow any exports of the U.S.'s own supply to be able to stabilize prices and supply here? And, of course, President Trump has blamed that primarily on the war in Ukraine and Ukraine hitting Russia's oil facilities. And that does play a role as well, of course. But that domestic pressure doesn't seem to be swaying President Trump right now. No, it doesn't. And although Trump did endorse the idea of some sort of an export ban on diesel as well, we'll see whether they can actually do that and whether it has an effect.

12:08The thing you have to remember, of course, is that oil has traded on the global market. So just because you aren't shipping diesel abroad doesn't mean that prices are necessarily going to go down. But it does indicate that Donald Trump is looking for some sort of a way to address this. And he's feeling it domestically. He's feeling it in places like Iowa and Ohio and Nebraska, where farmers are really struggling to make ends meet because of prices, not just on consumer goods, not just on gasoline, but on diesel and fertilizer as well. Everything related to the Iran war, all of that is hitting them really hard.

12:43The other piece of the Tuesday kind of activities that I was watching here at the UN was President Trump sitting down directly after his speech, sitting down with the leaders of Greenland and Denmark. And I mean, remember just how consumed we were by this discussion earlier this year. Is President Trump going to take Greenland by force? Is he going to annex the country as he was threatening to do? And there they were, President Trump sitting down with the Danish prime minister and the Greenlandic prime minister. And they were saying that this is an agreement that is good for all three. And what it does is give the U.S., President Trump says, the ability to do what it wants on national security.

13:23And the U.S. is going to build two more military bases there. There are some analysts have been speaking to have said, look, this is more or less the same agreement that was already in place. It just gives President Trump a bit of a symbolic victory or a win. But in the announcement and the signing, I found it so interesting. The Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, she stood up and delivered a few short remarks. And she said, Denmark is always a good ally. We're always there for you. And it felt like a little bit of a barb to say, you know, that trust really was broken in President Trump's threats.

13:52Right. Right. I think despite the smiles and friendly attitudes in this agreement, I think that that there is a distrust now because you've got to remember, Germany was sending troops to Greenland because they were legitimately worried that Trump was going to try something militarily. I mean, that is astounding, given that we're all supposed to be one big NATO family. This was, I think, a reflection of a change in European strategy. Give Trump something that he wants, give him some way of being able to claim victory, even if it's not what he really wanted, which was annexation. He can set out his press release saying that the United States has guaranteed the security of the Arctic as keeping out China and Russia from Greenland and that he accomplished his goals.

14:39but the reality is that it's not that clear cut. And of course, the other big story up there with you, Sumia, in New York was the Ukraine war. A lot of leaders on the stage talked about it and Donald Trump himself had a meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky, which as we know, doesn't always go great, but by all accounts, it was a friendly meeting and Trump just signed a Russia sanctions bill that was passed by Congress, which is a big win for Zelensky, something that he wants. Now he wants to have more arms, more missiles, more air defense systems sent that way. Trump was noncommittal on that, has been noncommittal on that, but it could have the potential of being something that Ukraine really wants.

15:25He is going to push Ukraine continually for them to stop attacking Russian oil refineries, because that is one of the reasons why diesel prices have been going up. And there was no clear sign that, one, Zelensky agreed to that, and two, that any kind of a pause has been happening. But Donald Trump, even before he came back to office, talked about how this was going to be a very easy war to resolve. And of course, it didn't work out that way. But Trump is hopeful. I think he says he's hopeful that there can find some sort of way of ending this war now. I think that Marco Rubio is meeting with his Russian counterpart at the UN.

16:09Maybe we'll see some sort of progress there. But this is obviously something that is also going to continue to not just affect world affairs, but also affect domestic affairs here in the United States because of his contribution to high energy prices here. Yeah, definitely. And look, you know, the European leaders I've been speaking with here, they are clear that this still needs to be one of the central focuses for talks with President Trump. And I, you know, the body language between President Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky, as you referenced, Anthony, is a lot better now than it was obviously a year and a half ago.

16:41But you do still get the sense that Europeans are frustrated that President Trump seems to still draw some sort of equivalence between Russia and Ukraine, where Russia is clearly the aggressor. And, you know, I was speaking to the Polish foreign minister and he said, it's very easy. Just tell Russia to stop bombing Ukraine. That's as easy as it is. And when he calls on Ukraine, President Trump, to stop hitting Russian oil facilities, you know, Russia is simply protecting itself ahead of a long winter where its own energy infrastructure is going to be hit. But at the same time, there is the sense that there is a little bit of momentum.

17:12And I just wonder whether President Trump is actually going to use sanctioning or putting very, very heavy tariffs, 100 percent, on the countries that buy Russian oil and gas. And that includes China. And with Xi Jinping coming to the White House, it's hard to imagine that President Trump would want to make that kind of move maybe afterwards. But even then, he has been very careful not to poke the bear, if you will. Yeah. You know, Trump loves tariffs. And this new bill does give him a lot of new power to impose tariffs on countries or some limits as far as imposing on allies that are trying to wean themselves off Russian oil.

17:46But still, that might be something he's willing to use because he sees benefits outside of the Ukraine war of being able to impose tariffs on other countries and bring new tariff revenue in. You know, there was a line in Trump's speech and he was talking about artificial intelligence and how he wanted to change the name to super intelligence in his speech.

18:08Anthony:From this point forward, all of United States documents and hopefully the world's will be changed to use the much more accurate term super as opposed to artificial. So it's super intelligence. In other words, welcome to the new world of super intelligence dash SI. SI. Let's see if that goes. It sounds much better. It is much better. And it's much more accurate. Let's see if I have any power. Maybe I do and maybe I don't. We're going to find out pretty soon. That line could apply to everything Donald Trump is doing. Does he have any power? Maybe he does. Maybe he doesn't. But I think we're going to find out soon.

18:50I don't know what your verdict is on Trump's trip up to New York and his interactions with the diplomats, but does it seem like he has power? Does it seem like that power is slipping a little bit? It's a great point. I think, of course, the U.S. is always incredibly powerful and everyone jams into the room for the U.S. president's address. But it feels like President Trump is coming to this assembly this year at a bit of a weaker position. We mentioned the rift with NATO allies over Greenland, the trade war with Canada, and perhaps most importantly, the war with Iran that hasn't gone the way that the U.S.

19:26and President Trump wanted. And the frustrations, I think, are being voiced here a bit more openly than they might have been last year. So, of course, President Trump is still incredibly powerful. Everyone is trying to set up bilateral meetings with him and discuss their issues with him. But at the same time, there's an understanding that there are limits to his power as well. Right. And now Trump is heading back here to the United States, actually got back last night. He's getting ready to meet with President Xi of China for some high stakes negotiations with all of these issues that we mentioned, the Iran war, artificial intelligence, the Middle East, all of that is going to be on the table and is going to test his power dealing with America's most prominent rival.

20:12And he comes back to a domestic situation where a lot of Republican candidates, as we've discussed, and I'm sure we'll discuss in the month ahead, are starting to try to distance themselves from Donald Trump and try to get some daylight between them because they realize that right now his power, at least domestically, his political power may be waning. So it was an interesting speech, an interesting day, I'm sure, for you up there in New York. And we'll see what the fallout is, or if this is just going to be a blip and everyone's going to start paying attention to the economy and domestic affairs once again.

20:46The midterms are right around the corner, so we'll be watching that very closely. But for now, Anthony, we will talk again soon, and I'm going to go and shout at more world leaders on the steps here. So I'll talk soon. All right. Have fun. Sue me. Bye, y 'all. Bye.

21:07Anthony:Thank you for answering our call and continuing to send your messages to us. We do read every single one. We love to hear your thoughts, your feedback and questions as well. So please do keep them coming. You can send us an email. It's americast at bbc.co.uk. The WhatsApp is 443301239480. and you can get involved in the AmeriCast Discord server. The link to that is in the description. And don't forget to subscribe. That way you will never miss an episode. Until next time, bye.

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22:39Anthony:Welcome to the Haunted Library. Have you come in search of a tale? This podcast invites you to browse the shelves and find stories that will linger long after you've left this place. From gothic masterpieces to pulpy penny dreadfuls, join me, Colin Morgan, with new episodes twice a week. Find The Haunted Library wherever you get your podcasts.