High stakes drama on display over the years at the UN General Assembly
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What makes the UN General Assembly feel like a high‑stakes drama?
It's Consider This from NPR, where every day we go deep on one big news story. High stakes drama, theatrics, a captive audience. I'm not talking about covering the Oscars or Hollywood, but stay with me. The United Nations General Assembly. Some think of it as a buttoned down affair. But over the years, NPR's diplomacy correspondent Michelle Kellerman has seen sparks fly. Take 2006, for example, the first year she covered the gathering. As is tradition, the U.S. president spoke on the first day.
George Bush was speaking. It was, you know, the war in Iraq was raging. He was raising concerns about Iran's nuclear program. The next day, Hugo Chavez, who was Venezuela's president, came up to the podium. He said the devil was in the room the day before. You know, and the room was just, you know. All these other diplomats, all these other world leaders were kind of laughing along with him. And it was just this really a big drama on the world stage.
And drama was on display last year, too.
Your countries are going to hell. The United Nations is funding an assault on Western countries.
That is, of course, President Trump speaking at the General Assembly last September, blaming the organization for mass migration and a refugee crisis.
The UN is supposed to stop invasions, not create them and not finance them.
Consider this. Despite being instrumental in the founding of the United Nations, in recent years, the U.S. has marginalized the organization. Coming up, we hear how one reporter has seen that happen over the past two decades of covering the U.N. General Assembly.
From NPR, I'm Alyssa Nadworny.
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How did George Bush’s 2006 speech and Hugo Chávez’s reaction set the tone for UN theatrics?
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It's Consider This from NPR. Next week, world leaders will gather in New York City at the United Nations General Assembly. President Trump has often attacked the organization and questioned its legitimacy. For this week's Reporter's Notebook, we hear from NPR's Michelle Kellerman how the U.S.' 's relationship with the U.N. has changed over the years. I began our conversation by asking Michelle what she recalled about last year's assembly when Trump made his lack of respect for the U.N. so clear.
The U.N. is a place where they talk about all these issues to resolve things, right? I mean, refugees is one of the issues. There is a record number of refugees in the world. And the Trump administration was coming in and having a very anti-refugee message, including to all these countries. And some of them are housing many more, obviously many more refugees than the U.S. has. So he kind of came in and lectured them about sovereignty, about refugee issues. The U.N.
Why did President Trump’s 2017 UN appearance spark controversy over sovereignty and refugees?
is also very dedicated to things like climate change and working together to fight poverty, working together to help women and girls. And, you know, the Trump administration looks at those as kind of woke DEI agenda and dismisses all of that. So I think you had a president—and it's interesting because— Donald Trump, when he first came to the UN the first time around, the first term, he used to kind of like this, you know, being at the center of attention, being on the world stage. He's from New York, so he'd like to go back to New York. But last year felt a little bit different. He was annoyed that the... escalator kind of suddenly stopped when he and Melania were on their way into the General Assembly.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What makes the UN General Assembly feel like a high‑stakes drama?
0:01–2:07
2
How did George Bush’s 2006 speech and Hugo Chávez’s reaction set the tone for UN theatrics?
2:07–4:04
3
Why did President Trump’s 2017 UN appearance spark controversy over sovereignty and refugees?
4:04–6:38
4
What happened when Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi gave his record‑long UN speech in 2009?
6:38–8:33
5
What is it really like for reporters covering the UN – chaos, logistics, and secret meetings?
8:33–10:57
6
Where do journalists snag the best impromptu interviews amid the UN hustle?
10:57–11:50
Speakers
5 identifiedMore from Consider This from NPR
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