Joel Rubin, a former senior State Department official under former President Barack Obama, criticized an “unconstrained” President Donald Trump on Tuesday for his address to the United Nations General Assembly that was filled with lies and grievances.
Rubin told MSNBC that he’s never seen a speech on the U.N. stage like the nearly hourlong remarks from Trump — who used the occasion to mock the U.N., attack renewable energy, push false claims about his supposed accomplishments and complain about a teleprompter and a building escalator.
“This was bonkers, this was out of control,” Rubin told host Ana Cabrera.
“It made no strategic sense, it did not lay out a vision for how we’re going to actually achieve our goals in a multilateral forum.”
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Rubin noted that Trump didn’t address “threats” the U.S. faces or ways to counter them, adding that America’s “biggest threat” is apparently renewable energy.
In his address, Trump claimed that renewable energy sources were “too expensive,” a “joke” and “don’t work” despite evidence showing that such sources are set to meet an overwhelming majority of global electricity demand by 2027 and are now cheaper than fossil fuel alternatives, ABC News noted.
“That’s our number one concern, not nuclear weapons or terrorism or China’s encroachment in Asia or Russia’s war against Ukraine,” Rubin said.
“And so I just — I found it incredibly damaging to America’s standing in the world, damaging to our national security strategy and damaging to how other countries are now going to deal with us which means they’re just going to move further and further away as this kind of communication and leadership continues.”
Moments later, Rubin cited Trump’s mention of how he likes to work with leaders who approve of him before adding that the president “hasn’t gotten anywhere” with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and he has “no plan” to stop wars in Gaza or Ukraine.
“There’s no meeting with the protagonists, with NATO, that comes out with core principles. There’s no American backbone right now on either of these conflicts, and so we see … just an overwhelming diminishment of our influence,” he said.
Rubin stressed that the “key point to remember” is that the U.N. is a voting body, so the U.S. is losing votes “time and again,” noting that America needs to be a leader in resolving such conflicts.