Iran's President Defies Trump at UN; Melania Gives Rare Interview | 9/24/26 FIRST LOOK

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0:31Hey everybody, I'm Dave AI and this is First Look. It's Thursday, September 24th, 2026. We've got a packed show for you today. Iran's president uses the UN floor to accuse America of terrorism, hold up a photo of the dead former Supreme Leader, and vow Tehran will never bend at the knee, while saying nothing about the talks Trump just confirmed. Melania Trump sits for a rare interview, says the second term is different. The president works nonstop, and she always tells him the truth, even when he does not want to hear it. Claudine Gay, shortest Harvard presidency in history, due to an anti-Semitism hearing disaster and plagiarism scandal, is back in a Harvard classroom teaching students what a university is for.

1:26Let's dive in. Iran at the UN, no deal talk, all defiance. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian used his UN speech to call out President Trump and promise Iran will never bend at the knee. He accused the United States of terrorism for assassinating former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at the start of the war. He held up a photograph of the dead leader. Then he insisted Tehran had never started a war. On Tuesday, Trump told the same body he was weighing whether to annihilate Iran, and then hailed renewed talks between Tehran and Washington's negotiators. Pazeshkian made no reference to those talks.

2:12His line to Trump, Trump must know that the resistance of the Iranian people will only increase in the face of sanctions, increased pressure, increased bullying. We will never bow our head or bend at the knee. On the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has intermittently blockaded since the war began, sending global energy prices higher, Pazeshkian said Tehran will not let that waterway be used for aggression against his country. We cannot let some have free access and bolster their interests from the waterway, while at the same time using that waterway to impose their aggression upon us. His appearance in Manhattan was not a given.

2:56It was unclear whether the United States would issue a visa. Washington granted his permit and denied visas to several people in his entourage. That is the picture. Trump's envoys sit for three hours and talk greatness or obliteration. The next day, the Iranian president stands at the UN, waves a martyr photo, skips the negotiations, and tells America it will not kneel. MAGA does not need a translator. Pressure is the point. If they wanted a deal, they would have mentioned the room where the deal is being discussed. Melania on the second term. First Lady Melania Trump sat down on Fox and Friends Wednesday in a rare interview and talked about how she thinks her husband's second term is going.

3:47She said she always gives him honest feedback. She also said he does not always want to hear it. Asked how this term compares with the first, she pointed to the world as it is and to a White House locked on foreign policy. He's very focused. He has a lot on his plate. It's very different what's going on around the world now, she said. but I think he's doing the best that he can. He works nonstop. He has the most energy than anybody. He's from morning till evening, nonstop working. Brian Kilmeade asked about Tuesday's UN speech. She praised the delivery. I told him he had a great delivery. He did very well and gave a great speech.

4:32Then the line that will travel. Sometimes he doesn't want to hear it, but that's okay. I always say the truth. The booking was not only politics. She is promoting a new docu-series on her life, set to debut in the coming months, and Imperia, a professional network for women CEOs and business executives that she is launching. On the series, it's more conversation one-on-one with me. There's some private questions that I will answer that people never heard before, so it's kind of exciting. She said it is different from the theatrical documentary titled Melania that came out earlier this year. That film, directed by Brett Ratner, took in$7 million on its opening weekend, the best documentary debut in 10 years, according to the New York Post, and more than$16 million in its theatrical run, even after left-wing critics tried to bury it.

5:29She also talked about her relationships with other countries' first ladies and her work with fostering the future. She does not keep a high public profile, she said, but she is working on projects behind the scenes. That work will be in the series. After Fox, she rang the ceremonial opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange for the Imperial launch and delivered a keynote there. The contrast writes itself. While the UN stage filled with grievance, The first lady was on morning television telling the country her husband works from dawn to night, that she tells him the truth, and then she went downtown and opened the market.

6:12That is a second-term first lady who does not need the press to invent a role for her. Claudine Gay back in the Harvard classroom. Former Harvard president Claudine Gay is teaching again at Harvard. The course is about how the university works. Gay was president for six months, the shortest stretch in Harvard's history, and resigned in disgrace at the start of 2024. Two scandals define the tenure, her response to campus anti-Semitism and multiple plagiarism allegations. She took a post-presidential sabbatical for a year. This month, she started her first course since leaving the president's office.

6:51She is using the college as a case study. The class looks at the purpose of American universities and the power struggles over their direction. A central goal, according to a syllabus obtained by the Wall Street Journal, encourage Harvard students to engage in critical thinking about their own institution and to understand the background political, social, and market pressures that influence their college experience. The seminar has 16 students. The syllabus says it will examine the complexity and the inevitable conflict and contestation that result from colleges' multi-pronged missions and stakeholders with competing needs.

7:31Junior Stephen Behan, who had to apply to get in, this is what I've been looking for this whole time, this discussion about what is actually the purpose of a university. Readings include a former president's lecture about gender at Harvard, Harvard's own reports on its legacy of slavery, and the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein's connections to the university. Also on the list, an address Gay gave last year arguing that donors' push for power threatened university independence. The final, students propose a vision for institutional reform or reinvention. Last week, Harvard College's former dean criticized university presidents' remarks at the 2023 Congressional hearing on anti-Semitism and said Gay and others could not articulate the mission and purpose of a university.

8:23The course title is What is a University? Purpose and Politics in Higher Education. Gay declined to comment through a Harvard spokesperson. This is happening while higher education is taking hits. Federal funding disruptions, accusations of liberal bias, a shrinking pool of 18 year olds. Harvard has been in a fight with the Trump administration since last year, when Washington yanked billions in research funding. The class is listed mainly for undergraduates in the government department, where Gay remains a tenured faculty member, despite the public collapse of her presidency. This spring, she is also scheduled to teach African American politics and the politics of race, ethnicity, and immigration.

9:06She is not the first Harvard president to return to teaching. Larry Summers, president until 2006, stayed on as an economics professor. He resigned in February amid fallout from his association with Epstein. Summers said he was deeply ashamed and took full responsibility for my misguided decision to continue communicating with Epstein. So Harvard's answer to a failed presidency, a disastrous anti-Semitism hearing, and a plagiarism record is a seminar in which the same administrator asks 18-year-olds what a university is for, while she still holds tenure and the donors she blamed are the ones who write the checks.

9:48Conservatives have been saying the purpose of the modern elite campus is self-protection. Gay's syllabus just put it on the reading list. And that's your first look this Thursday. Quick recap, Iran's president skips the talks, waves a photo at the UN, and tells Trump Tehran will not kneel, while energy markets still live with a Hormuz threat. Melania says the second term is a different world. The president never stops. She tells him the truth anyway, then rings the bell at the NYSE. And Claudine Gay, after six months, anti-Semitism and plagiarism, is back at Harvard teaching, what is a university?

10:28We'll keep following all of it. I'm Dave AI. Thanks for starting your day with First Look. See you tomorrow.

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