The Guardian·United Kingdom·Tuesday, September 22, 2026 at 03:45 PM

Trump defends actions in Iran and Venezuela in UN General Assembly address amid rising tensions with allies – live

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Tom Ambrose, Chris Hippensteel, Jakub Krupa, José Olivares, Ariana Baio

Donald Trump has taken the stage to address the world leaders gathered at the United Nations in New York, who together comprise the international order he has deeply rattled in his second term in office.

Their meeting today takes place in the shadow of a war in Iran he launched alongside Israel, which has since spiraled into a crisis that has engulfed the entire region and strangled energy markets worldwide. He has yet to put to rest a Russian invasion of Ukraine that he vowed to end upon taking office. And his relationships with the US’s historic allies, including Europe and Canada, have frayed under a series of diplomatic provocations and his liberal use of tariffs against friends and foes alike.

He’s also demonstrated US aggression in the western hemisphere more than any president in recent memory. He’s threatened Denmark, a NATO ally, to hand over Greenland. He’s launched a campaign of drone strikes on boats in the Caribbean and Pacific, which his administration labels an anti-drug smuggling campaign, and that critics have branded as a war crime. He’s raided Venezuela and arrested its autocratic leader, replacing him with another autocrat more pliant to US interests, including in the nation’s abundant oil reserves. And he’s enacted withering sanctions on Cuba aimed at forcing regime change there.

Key events

After sharing his version of the Iran war, Trump issued a threat to “annihilate” Iran and “drive them into Hell” if the regime didn’t capitulate and make a deal.”

“Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before?” Trump said, describing the choice he said was before him. “Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic, and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again? Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations?”

Trump then hedged by saying he was confident Iran would make a deal after the US midterm elections – an argument he’s made to US voters.

Trump turns now to his war in Iran, framing the war he launched earlier this year the same way he has to his domestic audience — as a necessary conflict to addressing a long-ignored threat.

“I do not believe in letting problems fester,” Trump said. “They only become harder to solve. So while others have talked, I have acted while others have spoken of peace, I have made peace. While others have ignored threats, I have confronted them. While others have talked of courage, America has shown it.”

The US, Trump said, had acted to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, while other countries ignored the issue.

“For 51 years, the fanatical Iranian regime has ruled by bloodshed and mass murder, spreading death and carnage and chaos across the entire Middle East and beyond,” Trump said, adding: “From the first day I entered the political arena, I’ve been unwavering. I will never allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”

Trump has opened his speech to the UN by commemorating the nation’s 250th anniversary and focusing not on international issues, but touting his domestic record. Tax cuts, stock market highs, crime rates, and immigration enforcement, to name a few subjects.

“Before I took office, we had the worst and most dangerous border on earth, and now we have the most secure border in American history,” Trump said on immigration. “Nobody comes in unless they’re invited, unless they have permission. In the past 16 months, zero illegal aliens have been admitted to the United States. And that’s done by some very sophisticated people. It’s not done by the Trump administration. Zero.”

Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is speaking before Trump takes the stage at the UN. And so far, he’s not making it easy for Trump to follow.

In his address, he’s taken aim , and at world powers (the US presumably among them) carving up the world into spheres of influence.

And he took aim specifically at Trump’s new interventionism in Latin America, including the administration’s toppling Venezuela’s former president in favor of a US-friendly successor, and its withering sanctions on Cuba aimed at taking down the anti-US government there.

“The Venezuelan people deserve to define their own destiny,” Lula said.

He continued: “In Cuba, the world watches in horror as collective punishment is imposed on 10 million people by an illegal economic and energy embargo.”

Trump is arriving at the UN HQ right now.

After very brief doorstep comments – almost exclusively mocking CNN - he answers a reporter’s very loud question by saying his message to Putin is: “settle the war.”

President Donald Trump speaks briefly to the press as he arrives during the 81st United Nations General Assembly. Photograph: Charly Triballeau/AFP/Getty Images

In his address to the world leaders gathered at the UN general assembly in New York, the UN secretary-general, António Guterres, said the world must work together in “interdependence” to solve problems.

“The fault lines in our world are widening,” Guterres, who leaves office at the end of the year, said, citing geopolitical conflicts, the climate crisis and the rapid development of artificial intelligence.

But instead of letting the future continue to veer toward fragmentation, transactionalism and mistrust, he called for “a world built on interdependence – and sustained by a dense web of economic, political, social and technological connections.”

Senator John Curtis, a Republican from Utah, on Tuesday published a letter calling for a key Senate committee to investigate Donald Trump’s son over his personal and business dealings with foreign governments, as well as his shady ventures in cryptocurrency and predictions markets.

Curtis’ letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee follows a bombshell report from ProPublica earlier this month that found Umar Kremlev, a Russian oligarch with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, had helped bankroll Trump Jr.’s lavish Bahamas wedding earlier this year.

In a post to social media that unveiled the letter, Curtis appeared to criticize his party for ignoring Trump Jr.’s conduct after having relentlessly investigated similar allegations against Joe Biden’s son, Hunter.

“A toaster is a wedding gift,” Curtis wrote in a post to social media revealing the letter. “A private-island party paid for by a Putin-connected oligarch is something else. Republicans nearly wore out the subpoena machine investigating Hunter Biden’s foreign relationships. We should not unplug it now. ‘Trust us’ was not enough then, and it is not enough now.”

Curtis’ letter represents a rare Republican break from Trump, close to a midterm election over which alleged corruption by the president and his family is one of several issues weighing on the party.

But Curtis’ concerns over Trump Jr.’s dealings stated in his letter go beyond the wedding, citing his pursuit of real estate deals abroad that have included meetings with foreign heads of state, his stake in defense contractors, and his promotion of Trump family-backed cryptocurrency ventures that have generated immense wealth for the president and his family.

He also took aim at Trump Jr.’s deep investment in the nascent and dubiously legal prediction market industry, most notably through his ties to Polymarket, that depend on a lenient hand from federal regulators his father has power over.

“These reports raise legitimate questions about foreign access to members of a sitting president’s family and whether such relationships can create actual or perceived expectations of favorable treatment,” Curtis wrote. “They also may create expectations of a returned favor that would not be in the best interests of the American people or our allies, and could even create national security vulnerabilities.”

Curtis called on the leadership of the Senate Judiciary Committee, currently headed by Republican Chuck Grassley, to subpoena both Trump Jr. and Hunter Biden as part of a sweeping inquiry into how presidents’ family members have leveraged their ties to the office for personal enrichment.

After months of mounting concerns that the campaign against Iran has critically depleted the US supply of munitions, Trump took to social media – not long before he was set to address world leaders at the United Nations – to dismiss the fears.

“The cowards and traitors would love to say the United States is low on munitions,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “It’s not true. We have more munitions than we could ever possibly think of using, and are building them up now at levels we have never seen before.”

(Several outlets, citing officials within the Trump administration, have reported that a critical shortage of key munitions, including missile interceptors, is shaping decision-making around the war. In a report published earlier this month, the Defense Department’s inspector general acknowledged the supply constraints, writing that the missile expenditure in Iran has “resulted in strategic inventory shortfalls and revealed industrial base bottlenecks for munitions resupply.”)

The US and Iran have been at war since February, when Trump, alongside Israel, launched a series of missile strikes that killed the country’s supreme leader. Since then, the remains of Iran’s hardline leadership have dug in, blockading the vital Strait of Hormuz, a key artery of oil shipping, and launching waves of drones and missiles at US bases and ships in the region.

The US has retaliated by striking Iranian targets and oil tankers, and by imposing withering economic sanctions aimed at forcing the regime back to the bargaining table.

Those efforts, so far, have not yielded the kind of capitulation that Trump has demanded to end the war.

A series of top Republicans heading to Iowa and New Hampshire – key states in the presidential primary – have raised the possibility of a contentious 2028 field for the GOP nomination, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday.

Senator Ted Cruz, a onetime 2016 primary opponent of Trump’s, and John Kennedy, a senator from Louisiana, have both visited Iowa in recent weeks. Senator Rick Scott of Florida headlined a party event in New Hampshire.

Add to them senator Rand Paul, the longtime libertarian from Kentucky who has often clashed with Trump, and representative Thomas Massie, a congressman from the state who Trump helped oust via a primary challenge. Neither has ruled out a presidential run.

Federal immigration officials in Texas prevented US representative Veronica Escobar from fully conducting her congressional oversight duties at a controversial Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center, the lawmaker said in an interview with the Guardian.

Escobar, a Democrat who represents El Paso and surrounding areas on the US-Mexico border in west Texas, conducted an oversight visit last month at the Camp East Montana ICE tent facility housed in the Fort Bliss military base, after two separate “disturbances” had been reported there in recent weeks.

But when she arrived to scrutinize conditions at the camp, the largest ICE detention center in the country, she said she was not allowed to speak with any of the detained immigrants. She also requested surveillance footage of the reported incidents but said she has not received it.

“The administration obviously has attempted to block congressional oversight,” Escobar said in a telephone interview with the Guardian. “It’s been very challenging at times. And that has depended on, to a large extent, what the directive has been from the administration.”

The constraints placed on Escobar is one of the latest instances in which the Trump administration has limited members of Congress’s ability to conduct oversight visits into federal immigration detention centers.

Escobar and other federal lawmakers sued the Trump administration last year for blocking such access. Despite a federal judge ruling in favor of the lawmakers last December, there have been subsequent reports of ICE officials placing limits on or turning away members of congress when attempting to conduct oversight visits.

“Oversight, during the second Trump administration, has certainly been significantly more challenging than during the first Trump administration,” Escobar added.

President Donald Trump has said he is working on a “massive” deal to buy fertiliser from Belarus, pivoting away from main supplier Canada amid an escalating trade dispute, and moving instead toward an ally of Russia.

“The United States is working on a massive deal with respect to the purchase of Potash from Belarus,” Trump said on his Truth Social network. “The pricing would be for substantially less than we are currently paying to Canada, very good news for our farmers and ranchers.”

In recent weeks Trump has stepped up his trade war with Canada, a long-term US ally and the country’s biggest supplier of potash.

The announcement on Monday shows Washington’s willingness to pursue dialogue with Minsk despite its repression of dissidents and support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The US imports most of its potash – a chemical salt used to manufacture fertiliser – and prices soared after the Ukraine war began in 2022.

In 2024, 79% came from Canada, 11% from Russia and 4% from Belarus, according to the US Geological Survey.

Donald Trump said on Monday that he hoped Zohran Mamdani would be a “great mayor” for New York, an unusually warm assessment of the democratic socialist leader whom the president and his Republican allies have spent months holding up as a symbol of the Democratic party’s alleged embrace of “communism” ahead of the November midterms.

At a news conference following their closed-door meeting at Gracie Mansion, Trump and Mamdani appeared friendly as they have in previous meetings. Mamdani said he and Trump held a “wide-ranging” discussion, which touched on affordable housing and immigration, but did not offer extensive details regarding any disagreements between them.

Asked whether he challenged Trump over his decision to ban CNN, MS Now, and Politico from White House grounds, Mamdani said: “I told the president that we’re going to have all of the members of the press here on the lawn, and that is something that I believe in.”

“It’s interesting because they said they were going to boycott me, but they never boycott me, so I wasn’t very worried about that,” Trump chimed in, pointing to the large assembly of press on the lawn.

The visit to Gracie Mansion, ahead of the president’s speech to the United Nations general assembly on Tuesday, was a measure of Trump’s apparent respect for the 34-year-old mayor of his native New York. It was the first presidential visit to the historic riverside residence in 45 years, following Ronald Reagan, who met there with Ed Koch in 1981.

The major US television news outlets agreed to suspend their video coverage of Donald Trump after the administration banned journalists from several outlets from entering the White House grounds.

The collective decision came after the barred outlets – CNN, MS Now and Politico – sued the administration on Monday, saying the president’s actions were a violation of their first amendment rights.

The ban was an extraordinary escalation of Trump’s battle against news outlets. After a coalition of networks including ABC, CBS, Fox News and NBC – which along with CNN form a press “pool” that share the responsibilities of capturing and distributing footage of the president carried by news outlets worldwide – announced they would cease coverage in solidarity with the barred outlets, the White House promoted its own feed online, branding it “Trump TV”. The channel purported to show “top past moments, announcements, and the latest and greatest from the administration all in one place”.

“Get real-time updates and live events streamed DIRECTLY to your phone,” the White House posted on social media. “No noise. Just the news that matters most – straight from the Trump Administration.”

It is extremely rare for a president to travel or make public appearances without the accompaniment of a representative from the White House television pool. Network cameras have provided coverage of the president since 1950.

On Monday, the ban against CNN meant that no broadcaster was covering Trump’s midday ribbon-cutting to unveil a new White House helipad. Although the White House provided a livestream, without professional boom mics and audio setup, the president’s remarks were inaudible over the sounds of a helicopter’s engine running in the background.

The president abruptly announced his ban against outlets this weekend in a Truth Social post, saying he had enough of “purposely negative stories” about him. Journalists had their press badges confiscated by Secret Service on Saturday.

Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.

Donald Trump is expected to ⁠start the day with a speech to assembled delegates at the UN General Assembly, before meeting with no fewer than 11 world leaders, bilaterally or in group settings.

While the contents of his speech are unknown, Trump last year caused a ⁠stir with a combative address, telling the audience that their countries were “going to hell” for, among other things, climate policy and mass migration.

The president is then set for a whirlwind schedule of meetings with ⁠leaders from four continents on Tuesday. It comes against the backdrop of an unstable Middle East and a four-and-a-half-year war in Ukraine that shows no signs of abating.

Trump will meet with British prime minister Andy Burnham, Ukrainian ‌president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Venezuela’s interim leader Delcy ‌Rodriguez, Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen, Greenland prime minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen and the representatives of the Gulf states of the United Arab Emirates, ‌Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar.

In the evening, he may meet dozens more leaders, albeit briefly, during a leaders’ reception. Trump met with French president Emmanuel Macron on Monday and additions to his Tuesday schedule are possible.

Here, my colleague Robert Tait provides some analysis on what may be expected from Trump’s address:

In other developments:

The major US television news outlets agreed to suspend their video coverage of Donald Trump after the administration banned journalists from several outlets from entering the White House grounds. Newsrooms including the New York Times and the Washington Post also decided to hold off on publishing or distributing still photographs taken as part of the White House pool coverage on Monday until midnight as part of the collective effort. More here.
The barred outlets – CNN, MS Now and Politico – sued the administration on Monday, saying the president’s actions were a violation of their first amendment rights. The parties are seeking a temporary restraining order that would immediately lift the ban – and return access for the journalists – while the case plays out. More here.
Trump is bracing for a loss in the lawsuit brought by the three media organizations, as he considers that the judge presiding over the case – his own appointee – previously ordered the White House to restore credentials for journalist Jim Acosta. “In other words, almost without question and, as usual, we’ll go for appeal,” he wrote on Truth Social.
Trump said that he hoped Zohran Mamdani would be a “great mayor” for New York, an unusually warm assessment of the democratic socialist leader whom the president and his Republican allies have spent months holding up as a symbol of the Democratic party’s alleged embrace of “communism” ahead of the November midterms. More here.
The Venezuelan man who was shot by a federal immigration officer in Texas on Sunday spoke out from detention on Monday afternoon when he was able to call his lawyer, in the middle of a press conference, and plead for better medical care. Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez, 28, was taken from a hospital in Austin into Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention, even though he apparently still has a bullet lodged near his spine and is in much discomfort. More here.
Lauren Boebert, the firebrand Republican subject of a House ethics complaint that she had sex with three staff members, and paid one to keep quiet, has said the allegations are untrue – and part of a “politically motivated” campaign against her. More here.

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