> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://antonellanews.ghost.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Why Trump left UN podium without applause ?
- URL: https://antonellanews.ghost.io/why-trump-left-un-podium-without-applause/
- Published: 2026-09-24T16:06:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-28T16:09:02.000Z
- Description: Trump's silent UN reception reflects waning global trust. Despite boasting US strength, his threats against Iran and attacks on the ICC face growing scrutiny over AI-driven targeting errors like the Minab school strike.
- Author: Antonella Silipigni
- Tags: TRUMP, UN, NEW YORK, UNGA26

### Trump, America stronger than ever and the cracks behind the stagecraft

**he Silence**

Donald Trump’s speech at the United Nations on September 22, 2026, lasts only a few seconds, yet it is worth pausing the frame. Trump steps up to the General Assembly podium and describes America—meaning the USA as he wants to see it—stronger than ever, technologically unbeatable, decisive, and indispensable. The White House summarizes that philosophy with a phrase perfect for a movie poster: *«While others have talked, I have acted»* \[1,2\].

Then come the pauses. Those rally-style pauses where the politician already knows what is supposed to happen next: the applause. But this time the UN hall is not a MAGA arena, and the reaction is cold, often silent. Of course, the silence of 123 governments is interesting: sitting in there are governments that know the price of U.S. power, and perhaps precisely because of personal experience, they feel no need to validate its magnificence on command \[3\].

Power can impose a cost. Authority earns consensus without having to impose it every single time.

Washington maintains military bases across the globe, the dollar, nuclear capabilities, global intelligence, technology, alliances, and above all, the veto in the Security Council. But today, how much does it cost to transform all this power into obedience, consensus, and legitimacy? And why does a presidency that continually proclaims its own strength simultaneously seem so busy delegitimizing courts, restricting journalists, disciplining Congress, and reminding allies that the U.S. shield comes with a price tag?

**A Rally Phrase Spoken in the Wrong Place**

At a certain point from the podium, Trump pronounces a word that in a political rally might seem like mere rhetorical brutality, but in front of the United Nations, it changes nature. Speaking of Iran, he says that if an agreement is not reached, he could «annihilate» the Islamic Republic. On the same day, he also states that talks are continuing and that an agreement will eventually be reached. Threat and negotiation thus become two arms of the same method: diplomacy with the fist already resting on the table \[2,4\].

The Charter of the United Nations is not a manual of etiquette; it is the founding treaty of an organization in which the United States is a permanent member of the Security Council. Article 2, paragraph 4, states that Member States shall refrain in their international relations from the «threat or use of force» against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.

The International Court of Justice has long clarified a simple principle: if the prospective use of force is illegal, the threat to use it is also illegal. Therefore, «annihilating Iran» is not legally neutral just because it is pronounced behind a lectern bearing the UN logo. Legality would depend on concrete conditions—such as valid self-defense under the Charter—but the language of threat is precisely the language that Article 2(4) regulates \[5,6\].

**TO UNDERSTAND WITHOUT A DEGREE IN INTERNATIONAL LAW**

- **UN Charter, Art. 2(3):** International disputes must be settled by peaceful means.
- **UN Charter, Art. 2(4):** Prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of States.
- **Art. 51:** Recognizes the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense in the event of an armed attack.

Therefore, a military threat does not become legal just because the president who pronounces it calls it “peace through strength.” One must verify whether the threatened force would be legitimate under the Charter.

And this also explains why the silence of the room matters more than it seems. Trump was not speaking to an audience that ignores those rules. He was proclaiming U.S. superiority inside an institution created precisely to prevent the power of a single State from becoming, on its own, the measure of right.

**The Frontman and the Israeli Script**

In his speech on Iran, Trump largely adopts the Israeli strategic framework: Iran as an existential threat, Western technological superiority as a guarantee of precision, and preemptive action as proof of leadership—acting like a true «frontman for Israel». What surprised me most was seeing the U.S. president defend, on the UN stage, a military campaign conducted alongside Israel, precisely while that very campaign is becoming the subject of increasingly uncomfortable questions in the United States and at the United Nations.

And this is where the stagecraft begins to creak. Because the official narrative goes: we have the best intelligence, the best satellites, AI, precision weapons, the most advanced partners—and then Minab appears.

**Minab: The School the System Kept Seeing as a Target**

On February 28, 2026, the Shajareh Tayyebeh Primary School in Minab, southern Iran, is struck. Tehran quickly brings the episode to the United Nations, denouncing it as a war crime. Methodologically, at that moment, it is an accusation from a belligerent party: it must be verified, not venerated, and not dismissed based on a passport.

Months later, something much heavier arrives, perhaps unexpected by Trump and his Israeli ally: an Independent International Fact-Finding Mission of the United Nations on Iran concludes that there are «reasonable grounds to believe» that the United States committed war crimes in the attacks against the Minab school and a sports facility in Lamerd. It is not a criminal conviction, because a Fact-Finding Mission is not a court. But it means that the initial Iranian complaint, at least regarding these episodes, has cleared the filter of an independent investigation \[7\].

And here is the part that makes the story almost absurd if it weren’t tragic. According to reconstructions presented to Congress, as early as 2019 an American analyst had flagged that a site associated with a military structure appeared to have been converted into a school. The information was logged, but according to the documents, it did not properly update the authoritative database used for targeting. So, in the real world, it was a school, but according to reports, in the digital memory of the war, it was still a target. Hard to believe, but let us remember: the bomb may be “intelligent,” but if the database is stupid, the bomb obeys anyway.

Yet this is precisely what the propaganda of «surgical precision» hides best.

**Israeli Superiority Becoming a Question**

Here, Israel cannot be left out of the picture as a mere spectator. The U.S. Congress formally describes intelligence cooperation with Israel as a strategic advantage. The Intelligence Authorization Act FY2027 discusses intelligence sharing, analytical cooperation, geospatial capabilities, overhead imagery, and interoperability. Israel, for its part, promotes its satellites, Unit 9900, Unit 8200, cyber capabilities, target generation, and increasingly rapid operational cycles \[8\].

We do not currently have public proof that the erroneous targeting data for Minab originated from Israel, but it would be incorrect to turn the targeting issue into an exclusively American story, as if the US and Israel had fought two parallel wars without exchanging data. The real question is the genealogy of the target: who originated the classification, what imagery was available, which databases were shared and which were not, what Israeli data entered the target libraries, who validated the objective, and with what degree of independence.

The paradox is almost tragicomic if we momentarily remove the victims from the scene. The more Washington and Israel magnify their capacity to «know everything» about Iran, the harder it becomes to explain a macroscopic error as mere bureaucratic bad luck. If the system did not see that it was a school, informational superiority is less miraculous than advertised. If it saw it and the data failed to correct the target, the problem is governance. If the information was present but buried in the wrong software, we have built a war machine capable of finding a missile launcher on the other side of the continent but incapable of passing along an internal memo. From any angle, it is truly difficult to believe in the military-technological superiority of this axis that professes superiority and surgical military actions.

**The Senate Opens the Black Box**

On September 21, twenty-four hours before Trump’s speech, U.S. Senators Mark Warner, Jack Reed, and Chris Coons surprisingly demanded new independent investigations. The reason touches on the dark side that tech marketing will never put on its brochures: could an AI-based targeting platform have used completely obsolete maps and geospatial data in the bombing of Minab? The senators’ fear is that, in the rush for experimentation and speed, safety rules and governance were completely bypassed.

The temporal head-to-head is striking:

- **September 21:** The Senate brakes and sounds the alarm: «Perhaps we are moving too fast» \[9\].
- **September 22:** Trump takes the stage and proudly claims his philosophy: while others talk, he acts.

This is not about proving that a single sentence blew up a bomb. There is something much more interesting: politics and military technology share precisely the same “culture of speed.” And the crucial question, ultimately, is only one: who still has the power to slam on the brakes and say “stop, let’s double-check” inside a system that now travels at full speed?

**The Report Congress Keeps Asking For**

Meanwhile, the Pentagon launches an internal investigation into Minab. According to the senators, the report reaches the desks of Department of Defense leadership as early as spring. Then time stops. Month after month, Congress keeps pressing: it demands the full text, an unclassified version, an official briefing, and corrective measures. By September, the door remains bolted, and the request has received no response.

At that point, the meaning of the question changes radically. It is no longer just about demanding accountability for a struck school. The real crux becomes: what did the Pentagon discover about itself, and why must Parliament continue to beg for information just to read it?

**When the Regulated Questions the Regulator’s Authority**

As doubts and questions mount regarding American conduct, Trump intensifies his attacks against any institution that attempts to judge or limit it. From the UN podium, he describes the International Criminal Court as an out-of-control body, inviting Member States to abandon it. The invective quickly turns into concrete threats: the willingness to impose sanctions against Court officials and even broader punitive measures against the entire institution \[10\].

When international accountability becomes inconvenient, Washington’s strategy follows a well-tested script: delegitimize the institution, question its jurisdiction, cut funding, or target those who cooperate. This fierce attack on the ICC certainly did not originate with the Minab case. The collision with international justice has roots stretching far back, from Afghanistan to proceedings involving Israeli leaders.

Yet it is precisely this continuity that reveals the real political crux: the problem is not a single inconvenient dossier, but the underlying idea that American power must remain, at all costs, out of reach of an external judge.

**Afghanistan and Iraq: The Ghost That Returns**

Short memory is propaganda’s favorite fuel. Controversies over Western responsibility were not born in 2026: they are rooted in an encumbering past. In Afghanistan, the International Criminal Court combed through allegations of crimes committed by the Taliban, Afghan forces, and U.S.-linked personnel. In Iraq, the Court’s most advanced proceedings put a spotlight primarily on alleged crimes by British forces.

Careful not to distort the facts: this does not mean that «the Court condemned the United States for Iraq and Afghanistan»—that never happened. It does mean, however, that the post-9/11 wars left behind a long trail of torture, arbitrary detentions, civilian casualties, and fierce clashes over justice. This open wound explains why Washington views any independent international tribunal with such deep suspicion.

**The UN Paradox: Threatening It Is More Useful Than Leaving It**

Here is another detail that is poorly reported in Italy. Trump attacks the UN, its agencies, its officials, its «globalism». The administration has reduced participation and funding in numerous bodies. But truly leaving the United Nations would be quite another matter. Above all, it would be a much more costly gesture for Washington than the rhetoric lets on.

Why? Because the United States is not just any member. It is one of the five permanent members of the Security Council. It holds the veto. It can block binding decisions, sanctions, and authorizations. It can use the UN venue as a stage, a negotiating table, and an instrument of legitimacy. In other words, the UN is simultaneously the place Trump criticizes and one of the places where American power is worth the most.

This is why threats, delegitimization, and selective disengagement pay off far more than a total exit. Staying inside means retaining the veto and the pulpit. Leaving would mean opening up massive legal problems and voluntarily relinquishing one of the key instruments of hegemony. It is not true that, without the US, all sanctions would magically be enforced; the Council’s structure makes the scenario far more complex. The truth is that Washington has a crystal-clear interest: stay inside enough to control the table, and outside enough to reject the constraints it dislikes.

The trick is not to destroy the table. It is to sit at the head of the board and contest the rulebook when the game goes south.

**Colombia: When Hegemony Doesn’t Need a Recorded Phone Call**

This same method shifts from the UN halls to regional chessboards. The Colombian case, for instance, shows us another form of power: much quieter than an aircraft carrier. In 2024, Colombia had filed a declaration of intervention in the South Africa v. Israel proceedings before the International Court of Justice. In September 2026, it withdraws it. That is a fact.

We cannot prove, documents in hand, that a phone call arrived from Washington ordering the withdrawal. But the step back occurs amid an evident political realignment of the new Colombian government toward the United States and Israel. And this is where hegemony reveals its true nature: when it truly works, it doesn’t need to issue orders in front of cameras. Elites know on their own which alliances open doors and which positions increase diplomatic costs.

Colombia is not proof of direct coercion, but a perfect environmental indicator: it shows how changing geopolitical camps produces immediate consequences on the international justice front. And it explains why Trump and Netanyahu want to reduce at all costs the number of States willing to support the courts.

**The Midterms: Not Just Elections, but Keys to the Archives**

Moving from international diplomacy, the circle tightens on the American domestic front, where the logic of control remains unchanged. Mike Johnson warns that if Democrats win the House, they will turn congressional committees into investigative machines targeting Trump, his family, the Cabinet, and donors. And he pronounces a phrase that needs no embellishment: «I run the protection program. I’ll take care of you» \[11\].

For the Italian public, the stakes must be translated: congressional committees are not TV talk shows. They can issue subpoenas (formal orders to appear), question officials under oath, and put pressure on the Pentagon and intelligence agencies. Controlling the House means controlling the State’s capacity to investigate itself.

This is why the 2026 midterms are not just about seats, but about sealing open dossiers—from Minab to financial flows and crypto. Presenting the majority as a «protection program» means openly admitting that blocking parliamentary oversight is the real goal of the campaign.

**Silencing the Journalist, Building Your Own Megaphone**

Parallel to political protection comes the control of information. A few days before the UN speech, the White House bars CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from its spaces. The networks file a lawsuit, and the press corps suspends the television pool in solidarity, while the administration replies that access is a privilege, not a right \[12,13\].

It is in this void that «Trump TV» is born: a direct stream designed to distribute unfiltered news. In itself, an institutional channel is not authoritarian, but the detail changes when the official voice grows precisely while independent journalists are shown the door. The satire writes itself here: the president who accuses the UN of wanting to control the world is the same one who claims the right to decide who enters the room to tell his story.

**Project 2025: No Need for a Stamp on the Cover**

It is within this exact trajectory that the ghost of Project 2025 fits. There is no need to use it as a magic formula or label every exercise of imperial power with it. The serious method is to measure the overlap between proposals and concrete actions: the strengthening of the executive branch, the political control of agencies, the clash with independent media, the rejection of multilateral constraints. Authoritarian drift is not proven by slogans, but by the progressive concentration of power and the dismantling of institutional guardrails.

**NATO and Greenland: Protection with a Price List**

This transactional model applies even to historic allies. NATO is not dismissed through naive isolationism: it becomes a pay-to-play alliance. The American shield remains, but Washington wants to rewrite the price tag of the policy in terms of bases, skies, and open infrastructure.

The handling of Greenland offers the perfect counter-proof of this scheme. Maximalist proclamations of strategic acquisition are followed by a concrete agreement with Denmark and Greenland \[15\]: the USA gains more access and military bases, but Danish sovereignty and local self-determination remain intact in the text. Trump asked for the house; he got the keys to the garage. It is not the title deed, but it shows that an ally with solid negotiating capacity can scale back demands.

**Democracy Defending the Law (Except When It Judges You)**

We thus arrive at the heart of the grand contradiction. Trump and Netanyahu present the United States and Israel as bulwarks of international law against global chaos. It is a tremendously powerful moral narrative... until the bodies of that law knock on the door with uncomfortable questions. The Fact-Finding Mission speaks of war crimes \[7\], the ICC is sanctioned \[10\], the ICJ faces diplomatic pressure, Congress demands documents from the Pentagon, and journalists are expelled.

The rule of law test, after all, is very simple: it is not measured when justice prosecutes your enemy, but when it has the power to judge you.

**The Real Weakness: Losing Credibility**

And this is where all the dots connect. Speaking of “American decline” as if the Pentagon had to fire-sale its aircraft carriers is absurd: the material strength of the United States remains immense. But a hegemony does not live by weapons alone; it lives on the conviction that the order led by that power is predictable and plays by the rules.

When that trust wanes, the superpower does not become weak: it is forced to spend much more force to achieve the same result. More threats, more sanctions, more narrative control, more ultimatums to allies. The more Trump repeats that America is untouchable, the more he surrounds himself with institutions, senators, registrants, and courts asking to inspect the paperwork. Strength has remained intact; what is starting to run short is credibility.

**The Red Thread**

Let us lay all the exhibits on the table, viewing them not as disconnected episodes, but as parts of a single system:

1. An AI-driven war produces the Minab disaster \[7\].
2. Congress and senators try to dig into databases and code \[9\].
3. The Pentagon stalls on transparency.
4. Trump threatens Iran at the UN \[2\] and, at the same time, aims to delegitimize the ICC \[10\].
5. Colombia realigns with Washington \[14\].
6. The White House blacks out inconvenient journalists to launch its own TV network \[12,13\].
7. Johnson shields the midterms with a “protection program” \[11\].

This is not a movie conspiracy: it is the ironclad logic of a system in which power constantly seeks to eliminate the frictions that should prevent it from turning into pure arbitrariness.

And in the end, inside the grand hall of the General Assembly, that silence remains.

Trump pauses. He waits. The room does not erupt into commanded applause. Perhaps it is just diplomacy, but read in the light of our dossier, that silence completely changes its face: it tells us that part of the world no longer has any intention of applauding on cue while Washington tells its fairy tale.

And that is where propaganda stops and the investigation begins.

And perhaps this is what makes September 22 so fascinating: the president of the foremost Western military power uses the stage created by international law to celebrate his own strength, threaten another State, attack international courts, and explain that no one must limit American technology. But outside that room, the courts, senators, judges, and journalists continue doing the only thing that truly frightens power: they ask for the receipts.

And that is where propaganda ends and the investigation begins.

*AntonellaNEWS will continue to follow the Iran dossier, congressional investigations, the role of AI in targeting, the US-Israel intelligence chain, Pentagon reports, pressure on the ICC and ICJ, diplomatic realignments and the political and financial flows that help us understand how a decision becomes policy, then a target, then a bomb, then a narrative. Not to replace one form of propaganda with another. To do something far more irritating: open the documents and see what remains when power stops telling its own story.*

### Documents and Sources

\[1\] White House, summary of Trump’s speech at the 81st UN General Assembly, September 22, 2026 [White House Releases](https://www.whitehouse.gov/releases/2026/09/president-trump-at-the-united-nations-while-others-have-talked-i-have-acted/?utm%5Fsource=gemini)

\[2\] Reuters, Trump threatens to “annihilate” Iran and forecasts a possible agreement after the midterms, September 22, 2026 [Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/trump-set-whirlwind-un-meetings-with-wars-iran-ukraine-agenda-2026-09-22/?utm%5Fsource=gemini)

\[3\] AP / reports from the General Assembly, September 22, 2026 [AP News](https://www.google.com/search?q=https://apnews.com/article/692e1e171a791be0c9b9c1f56718a0d0&utm%5Fsource=gemini)

\[4\] Reuters, US-Iran talks continue during the General Assembly, September 22, 2026 [Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/trump-says-talks-with-iran-continue-he-thinks-settlement-will-be-reached-2026-09-22/?utm%5Fsource=gemini)

\[5\] Charter of the United Nations, Article 2 [United Nations](https://www.google.com/search?q=https://www.un.org/en/node/125814&utm%5Fsource=gemini)

\[6\] International Court of Justice, Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons, Advisory Opinion, 1996 [International Court of Justice](https://www.icj-cij.org/case/95?utm%5Fsource=gemini)

\[7\] Reuters, UN Mission: reasonable grounds for US war crimes in Minab and Lamerd, September 17, 2026 [Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/un-mission-finds-grounds-believe-us-committed-war-crimes-iran-tehran-crimes-2026-09-17/?utm%5Fsource=gemini)

\[8\] Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Intelligence Authorization Act FY2027, US-Israel cooperation [United States Senate](https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/2026/05/20/intelligence-authorization-act-for-fiscal-year-2027-as-reported-on-may-20-2026/?utm%5Fsource=gemini)

\[9\] Senators Reed, Warner, and Coons, request for investigation into AI, geospatial data, and Minab, September 21, 2026 [Jack Reed Official Website](https://www.reed.senate.gov/news/releases/reed-warner-and-coons-seek-investigation-into-faulty-ai-assisted-intelligence%5Foperations?utm%5Fsource=gemini)

\[10\] Reuters, Trump calls on member states to leave the ICC, September 22, 2026 [Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/world/china/trump-calls-all-icc-members-resign-immediately-2026-09-22/?utm%5Fsource=gemini)

\[11\] Axios, Mike Johnson and the “protection program” regarding future Congressional investigations [Axios](https://www.axios.com/2026/07/03/trump-financial-disclosure-democrats-subpoena?utm%5Fsource=gemini)

\[12\] Reuters, exclusion of CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House, September 2026 [Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/world/white-house-turns-away-cnn-ms-now-politico-reporters-after-trump-announces-ban-2026-09-19/?utm%5Fsource=gemini)

\[13\] Reuters, lawsuit by CNN, MS NOW, and Politico and suspension of the television pool [Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/world/cnn-ms-now-politico-file-lawsuit-against-trump-administration-over-white-house-2026-09-21/?utm%5Fsource=gemini)

\[14\] Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, withdrawal of declaration of intervention in the South Africa v. Israel case, September 2026 [Cancillería de Colombia](https://www.google.com/search?q=https://cancilleria.gov.co/sala-de-prensa/noticias/colombia-retira-declaracion-de-intervencion-en-el-caso-aplicacion-de-la-convencion-para-la-prevencion-y-la-sancion-del-delito-de-genocidio-en-la-franja-de-gaza-sudafrica-v-israel&utm%5Fsource=gemini)

\[15\] Danish Government / Greenland-Denmark-US agreement, September 2026 [The Prime Minister’s Office of Denmark](https://www.google.com/search?q=https://english.stm.dk/press/press-releases/agreement-between-greenland-denmark-and-the-united-states/&utm%5Fsource=gemini)