For many years, Glenn Kessler was a fact-checker for The Washington Post. He retired and now has his own Substack blog, where he continues doing what he does best.

In this post, he fact-checks a few of Trump’s most egregious claims when he spoke to the United Nations.

Kessler writes:

To me, what’s most striking about the speech is the fantasy world in which Trump has cocooned himself — with no modesty, he depicts himself as a brilliant peacemaker worthy of a Nobel Prize (or maybe seven), an economic genius and someone who is right about everything.

In my years as diplomatic correspondent for The Washington Post, I watched many speeches delivered during the U.N. General Assembly. When the stage was occupied by a tyrant, such as then-Venezuela president Hugo Chavez in 2006, the insults came fast and furious.

“The devil came here yesterday, and it smells of sulfur still today, this table that I am now standing in front of,” Chavez declared, referring to President George W. Bush.

Well, Chavez doesn’t hold a candle to Donald Trump, who in today’s bombastic speech managed to denounce leaders — once among America’s closest allies — concerned about refugees and climate change and even question the U.N.’s existence. Predictions about climate change “were made by stupid people that have cost their countries fortunes,” Trump fumed.

Of course, much of what he says is false. Here’s just an inkling of the false claims he made to other world leaders.

“We are rapidly reversing the economic calamity we inherited from the previous administration, including ruinous price increases and record-setting inflation, inflation like we’ve never had before.”

Nope. Inflation peaked in 2022, largely because of supply chain issues after the pandemic, and it was far from the worst inflation in U.S. history (or Trump’s lifetime). Two months before the 2024 election, the Economist magazine published a cover story declaring that the U.S. economy was “the envy of the world.”

“Energy costs are down, gasoline prices are down, grocery prices are down, mortgage rates are down, and inflation has been defeated. The only thing that’s up is the stock market, which just hit a record high. Fact, it hit a record high 48 times in the last short period of time.”

Not quite. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has hit seven highs this year. Grocery prices are increasing and mortgage rates have been generally higher in 2025 than 2024. Gas prices have declined slightly but electricity has gone up.

“Workers’ wages are rising at the fastest pace in more than 60 years, and that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?”

Too soon to say. This is based on a misleading Treasury Dept chart that looks only at the December-May period. In fact, growth stalled in June and July.

“In four years of President Biden, we had less than $1 trillion of new investment into the United States. In just eight months since I took office, we have secured commitments and money already paid for $17 trillion.”

This is made-up math that undercounts Biden’s numbers and inflates Trump’s numbers.

“In my first term, I built the greatest economy in the history of the world. We had the best economy ever, history of the world.”

False. Even before the pandemic sent the economy spiraling, Trump’s economy was not better than under Harry Truman, Lyndon B. Johnson and Bill Clinton. As for best in the history of the world, how can a serious person even say that?

“Hard to believe, because if you look back just a year ago, it was millions and millions of people pouring in from all over the world, from prisons, from mental institutions; drug dealers.”

This is again fantasy. Some bad apples crossed the borders but millions from mental institutions and prisons?

“On the world stage, America is respected again like it has never been respected before. You think about two years ago, three years ago, four years ago, or one year ago, we were a laughingstock all over the world.”

False. By any objective measure, the United States has never been more isolated than under Trump’s current presidency. In a diplomatic defeat, the White House even could not head off a move by close allies, led by France, to recognize Palestine.

“Likewise, in a period of just seven months, I have ended seven unendable wars….No president or prime minister, and for that matter, no other country has ever done anything close to that, and I did it in just seven months. It’s never happened before.”

This number is dubious, as many fact checks have pointed out.

“I was too busy working to save millions of lives, that is, the saving and stopping of these wars.”

Not the whole story. By one estimate,165,000 adults and 344,000 children likely have died because of funding cuts from Trump’s closure of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

“This [Russia-Ukraine] war would never have started if I were President. This was a war that should have never happened. It shows you what leadership is, what bad leadership can do to a country.”

Another fantasy. When Russia invaded Ukraine, Trump applauded Putin’s savvy, saying “this is genius.”

“Just a few years ago, reckless experiments overseas gave us a devastating global pandemic.”

This is still not proven, but Trump states it as an undisputed fact.

“The previous administration also lost nearly 300,000 children. Think of that. They lost more than 300,000 children, little children who were trafficked into the United States on the Biden watch, many of whom have been raped, exploited and abused and sold. Sold. Nobody talks about that. The fake news doesn’t write about it.”

False. The Biden administration did not lose 300,000 children. Trump is citing a figure that refers to children who were never given a date to appear in immigration court or missed an appearance — including during almost 2½ years of Trump’s first term. He then hypes it up with unverified claims of sex-trafficking.

“Energy is another area where the United States is now thriving like never before. We’re getting rid of the falsely named renewables. By the way, they’re a joke, they don’t work. They’re too expensive, they’re not strong enough to fire up the plants that you need to make your country great. The wind doesn’t blow. Those big windmills are so pathetic and so bad, so expensive to operate, and they have to be rebuilt all of the time and they start to rust and rot.”

Trump hates wind power. He often imagines that if there is no wind, then homes lose electricity. That’s ridiculous. Wind turbines do not generate power when there’s no wind, but the power grid can handle this variability.

“Washington, D.C. was the crime capital of America. Now it’s a totally – after 12 days, it’s a totally safe city.”

Trump invents a problem, and then solves it. Crime was already falling when he sent in the National Guard. Trump likes to cite a 12-day homicide-free period, but in March there were 16 straight days without a homicide.

“In 1982, the executive director of the United Nations’ Environmental Program predicted that by the year 2000, climate change would cause a global catastrophe. He said that it will be irreversible as any nuclear holocaust would be. This is what they said at the United Nations. What happened? Here we are. Another UN official stated in 1989 that within a decade, entire nations could be wiped off the map by global warming. Not happening.”

Trump misquotes Noel Brown, then the director of the New York office of the U.N. Environment Program. In 1989, Noel Brown was quoted by the Associated Press as saying nations had to take action by 2000 or else the damage could be irreversible. He didn’t say nations would be underwater. At the time, UNEP was studying the effect of rising sea levels and the projections made at the time have held up well. Check out this 2019 Pulitzer Prize-winning series in The Washington Post about the impact of extreme climate change.

“And I’m really good at predicting things, you know? They actually said during the campaign – they had a hat, the best-selling hat, ‘Trump was right about everything.’ And I don’t say that in a braggadocious way, but it’s true. I’ve been right about everything.”

Noted without comment.

“Europe loses more than 175,000 people to heat deaths each year cause the costs are so expensive, you can’t turn on an air conditioner.”

This figure — which is correct — demonstrates the risks of climate change. Many European buildings are not fitted with air conditioning because it was not necessary until recently. Trump is apparently ignorant of that.