EDITORIAL: Trump pulls no punches in fiery, fantastic UN speech

Telling uncomfortable truths happens so rarely on the world stage that it can sound shocking or even scandalous.

Late last month, President Donald Trump addressed the United Nations. Republicans have long been skeptical of the organization — and rightfully so. It provides a sheen of diplomatic prestige to many of the worst countries in the world. Mr. Trump didn’t bother with the typical diplomatic fawning and flattery. He bluntly warned countries to reverse course or face disaster.

“We have no choice,” Mr. Trump said about deporting illegal immigrants. “And other countries have no choice because other countries are in the exact same situation with immigration. It’s destroying your country, and you have to do something about it.”

Consider the United Kingdom. For years, the government covered up the systematic sexual assaults of girls. Why? Because the perpetrators were largely Pakistani Muslims. Avoiding the appearance of “Islamophobia” was more important to many British officials than preventing such attacks. In contrast, the British government aggressively arrests people for social media posts.

Mr. Trump noted that the “U.N. has such tremendous potential,” but that potential is untapped.

“At least for now, all they seem to do is write a really strongly worded letter and then never follow that letter up,” he said. “It’s empty words, and empty words don’t solve war.”

That jab stings because it’s true. In contrast, Mr. Trump has helped stop fighting around the world.

Mr. Trump then went after European countries for not fully cutting themselves off from Russian energy.

“Europe has to step it up. They can’t be doing what they’re doing,” Mr. Trump said. “They’re buying oil and gas from Russia while they’re fighting Russia. It’s embarrassing to them.” All true.

Mr. Trump even skewered the biggest sacred cow of all. He said that climate change is “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world.”

“In the 1920s and the 1930s, they said, ‘Global cooling will kill the world.’ We have to do something,” he said. “Then they said, ‘Global warming will kill the world,’ but then it started getting cooler. So now they just call it climate change because that way they can’t miss. Climate change because if it goes higher or lower, whatever the hell happens, there’s climate change.”

Further, “if you don’t get away from this green scam, your country is going to fail, and I’m really good at predicting things,” he said.

While the science shows that the Earth is warming, he’s correct that socializing economies and shutting off cheap and reliable energy sources in the name of attacking global warming is a recipe for misery and stagnation.

World leaders would be wise to get off their fainting couches and take Mr. Trump’s advice seriously.