President Donald Trump addressed the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, Sept. 23, drawing attention with sharp remarks on immigration and global policy.
He opened his speech by criticizing the U.N. itself, pointing to what he called organizational failures. “What is the point of the United Nations? You do nothing to support the end of war, other than write a pathetic letter or two, which does nothing,” Trump said, referencing a faulty teleprompter and broken escalator during his visit. “Empty words don’t solve wars… A bad escalator and a bad teleprompter is all I got from the United Nations.”
Shifting to immigration, the president insisted it was “time to end the failed experiment of open borders.”
“I’m really good at this stuff,” he told world leaders. “Your countries are going to hell.”
Trump singled out European nations, claiming they were allowing immigration “just to be nice.” He warned, “You want to be politically correct, and you’re destroying your heritage. If you don’t stop people that you’ve never seen before, that you have nothing in common with, your country is going to fail.”
While stressing his role as president of the United States, he also said he worried about Europe: “I love Europe, I love the people of Europe. And I hate to see it being devastated by energy and immigration, that double-tailed monster that destroys everything in its wake.”
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Discussing his administration’s record, Trump argued that the U.S. immigration crackdown had been effective. “Once we started detaining and deporting everyone who crossed the border — and removing illegal aliens from the United States — they simply stopped coming,” he said.
Trump also turned his attention to climate change policies, dismissing them as a “green scam.” He described global warming as “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world,” claiming dire predictions were made by “stupid people.” He warned, “If you don’t get away from this green scam, your country is going to fail.”
The U.N. speech capped a week of headline-making statements. On Monday, Sept. 22, Trump appeared alongside Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., where they suggested that prenatal exposure to acetaminophen — the generic name for Tylenol — “can be associated with a very increased risk of autism.”
Research on acetaminophen’s potential connection to autism has been ongoing, though most findings remain inconclusive. Acetaminophen has long been considered one of the safer treatments for pain and fever during pregnancy.
“People have been taking Tylenol since 1960, and there’s a very long history of safety here,” Dr. Karam Radwan, director of the UChicago Medicine Neurodevelopmental Clinic, told PEOPLE.
A spokesperson for Tylenol’s parent company, Kenvue, also issued a statement to PEOPLE: “We believe independent, sound science clearly shows that taking acetaminophen does not cause autism. We strongly disagree with any suggestion otherwise and are deeply concerned with the health risk this poses for expectant mothers.”
