Washington Examiner White House reporter Christian Datoc said President Donald Trump’s speech at the U.N. General Assembly in New York was “rather subdued.”
“Iran was the bulk of his speech,” Datoc said on C-Span’s Washington Journal. “He talked about the big decision he has coming up: should he annihilate the country or broker some type of diplomatic end to this conflict?”
Datoc said the president spoke for about 40 minutes, and despite saying the war in Iran wasn’t affecting his decisions leading up to the midterm elections, it seemed the president had voters in mind.
“He talked about the war in Ukraine, he talked about the need to drive down global diesel prices, and, again, he touted the fact that the United States economy is the envy of the world,” Datoc said.
The president seemed to pay attention to polls in which voters were concerned about inflation and prices, Datoc said, but Trump did more than make speeches while in New York.
“The most important events coming from Tuesday weren’t the remarks themselves, but what happened behind closed doors,” Datoc said.
The president’s negotiation team, led by U.S. special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and U.S. special envoy for peace Jared Kushner, met with their Iranian counterparts for three hours, Datoc said. Meanwhile, Trump had bilateral meetings with global leaders throughout the day.
The United Nations broadcast and streamed all the speeches, which allowed Trump’s message to be heard despite recent conflicts with several media outlets, Datoc said.
The president banned CNN, MS Now, and Politico from the White House and revoked their credentials. All three media organizations announced a lawsuit against the president, and several major television networks have since boycotted White House pool coverage, including ABC, Fox News, NBC, and CBS.
“The fact that the television pool is showing solidarity with CNN and declining to cover the president’s public events, that came up when he left on Monday,” Datoc said. “He had this big ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new White House helipad, and his remarks were completely drowned out.”
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Despite being barred from the White House, CNN was present when Trump arrived at the General Assembly, leading to a confrontation.
“He got into a verbal altercation with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on his way into the forum, he suggested, ‘You shouldn’t even be here covering me,’” Datoc said.