JOHN BOLTON: This was the best speech of the Trump presidency, in my view. I think he was as clear and direct as it's possible to be. You listed a number of the key points that he made. I think the centerpiece of the speech was the criticism of the behavior of North Korea and Iran. And I think it's safe to say, in the entire history of the United Nations, there has never been a more straightforward criticism of the behavior, the unacceptable behavior of other member states. On North Korea, the president said that if we are forced to, “we will have no choice” but the total destruction of North Korea. I think people will remember that.
And he made what I think is a key point when you look at what our next steps might be. He said “denuclearization is the only acceptable future.” And that means, in his view, we don't end this present crisis with North Korea still in possession of a nuclear weapons and ballistic missile program. On Iran, he was just as direct. As you mentioned, his criticism of the behavior of the regime toward its own people. And then he came of course to President Obama's nuclear deal with Iran and said, as he has said many times before, it's one of the “worst,” “most one-sided” deals in American history, “an embarrassment” to the country, and we haven't “heard the last of it.” I think these are about as clear an indication as a president can make that he's not going to live with the kinds of half measures and compromises that, frankly, for 25 years have marked American policy and led us to the present desperate situation where both these countries are on the verge of getting deliverable nuclear weapons.
There's a long list of other things in here. I have to say, my favorite came at the end, and it may have been the most shocking thing he said in the context of the United Nations. Talking about Venezuela, he said this is not a case of socialism being “poorly implemented,” it's a case of socialism being implemented exactly the way the theory tells us. And, I tell you, there are a lot of people in the UN who have never heard anything like that from an American president. So. as I said at the beginning, I think this was an outstanding speech, and I think it will serve the president very well.
