US President Donald Trump used his UN General Assembly speech on Tuesday to ​make the case for his war on Iran, arguing he has prevented Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and warning that he could “annihilate the Islamic Republic” if no deal is reached to end ‌the conflict, Reuters reported.

While predicting his administration would strike a peace deal with Iran following the November 3 US midterm elections, Trump called on other nations to join America in isolating Iran economically to force it to the negotiating table.

“I have a big decision to make. Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before?” Trump said. “Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again?”

He later told reporters at ​the United Nations that US officials had held a “very good” three-hour meeting with the Iranian delegation on Tuesday. He subsequently appeared to clarify that special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner had met with mediators rather than ​Iranian officials directly.

“Steve and Jared had a very productive meeting today with mediators of Iran, merely mediators,” he told reporters at the start of a meeting with Gulf leaders ⁠at the UN. “Let’s see what happens with that.”

Since returning to office last year for a second term, Trump has sent waves through the global order, joining Israel to attack Iran, ordering a raid on Venezuela that captured the country’s leader, ​and threatening to seize Greenland.

In a 37-minute speech ahead of a whirlwind diplomatic schedule that included meetings with the leaders of Britain, Ukraine and Japan, Trump laid out his foreign policy vision, arguing that the Iran war had spared the world the ​threat of a nuclear-armed menace while asserting US dominance in the Western Hemisphere is essential to preventing crises from taking root.

“Our actions in Venezuela are proof that the United States will no longer permit threats to America to gain a foothold anywhere in the Western Hemisphere,” Trump said. “While others have spoken of peace, I have made peace.”

Outside the UN headquarters, dozens of anti-Iranian-government demonstrators gathered, a few of them holding up signs calling for democracy and decrying dictatorship.

Trump brushed aside suggestions that the midterm elections, in which his Republican Party risks losing ​control of Congress, could constrain his handling of the war. Some analysts have argued that a Democratic takeover of the legislature would weaken his leverage in the conflict.

“What they don’t realize is that I’m not running,” Trump said, referring to ​the leadership in Tehran. “I did that already, and won in a landslide. We won in a giant landslide, and I’ll be here for 2-1/2 years.”

Taking aim at US neighbors, Trump labeled Mexico “the epicenter of cartel violence,” urged its government to “reclaim control of its soil,” ‌and said his ⁠administration was pursuing “a fundamental change in the situation in Cuba.”

Members of the Cuban delegation walked out of the hall as Trump referenced his pressure campaign against the country.

“It’s an absolutely failed state, it’s failing like never before, and it will fall,” said Trump.

Yet Trump’s appearance was less dramatic than in 2025, when he used a combative speech to chastise world leaders, warning that some countries were “going to hell,” and complained about UN facilities after being briefly stranded on a malfunctioning escalator and suffering an initial teleprompter failure, read the report.

Trump renewed his criticism of the UN, highlighting his efforts to cut its bureaucracy, but offered no fresh attacks or indications that the US would leave any additional UN agencies.

Trump spoke less than a week after a UN fact-finding mission ​said it had reasonable grounds to believe US forces ​committed war crimes in two strikes on Iran, including one ⁠that hit a primary school in the southern city of Minab.

He renewed his criticism of international bodies that could serve as a check on US power, singling out the International Criminal Court and declaring that US military personnel would not be subject to its authority.

“We will never allow US service members or anyone else to be investigated or given show trials ​by an anti-American tribunal with no jurisdiction over us,” he said.

Ahead of a UN Security Council meeting on AI and international security on Wednesday, Trump acknowledged the challenges ​of the new technology but said, “I’m ⁠not going to stifle growth of something that will be bigger than the Industrial Revolution.”

The speech kicked off a day of high-level diplomacy at the United Nations, where Trump was due to meet more than a dozen world leaders as wars in the Middle East and Ukraine continued to test his foreign policy agenda.

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said he had “established a good connection” with Trump in their first-ever meeting, where they discussed trade, Ukraine and the status of the Falkland Islands. Trump called Burnham a “natural ⁠business person” after ​the meeting.

At the press-facing start of their talks, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said the meeting would demonstrate the strength of the US-Japan alliance ​amid a “severe security environment, including in Asia,” an apparent nod to China. Trump is due to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in Washington later this week.

Trump lavished praise on Takaichi, calling her a friend and predicting she would “go down as one of the great prime ministers.”

On his meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr ​Zelenskiy, Trump told reporters that the two talked about finding a solution to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.

CNN, MS NOW and Politico sued President Donald Trump and other members of his administration on Monday for banning them from White House grounds, saying the action violated their rights to free speech ​and a free press under the US Constitution’s First Amendment, Reuters reported.

The news outlets are seeking a temporary restraining order to block Trump’s action in federal court in Washington, D.C., with a hearing scheduled for Wednesday.

“This ban could not be a more direct ‌assault on the First Amendment nor a more blatant violation of our most fundamental constitutional principles,” the lawsuit stated.

“Left unchallenged, this threatens press freedom and the public’s right to independent journalism free from government interference,” the outlets wrote in a joint statement. “The government does not decide what the press reports or publishes.”

Trump announced the ban on Friday on social media, saying those news outlets “shouldn’t be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES when they’re covering the President of the United States,” and defended it in another post on Monday.

“The White House is not instituting an assault on the Free Press, something which I cherish. It is instituting an assault on the FAKE NEWS. It is ​a threat to our National Security, and must be stopped, NOW!” Trump wrote on Monday, without providing evidence of a national security threat.

Past presidents have battled with the press, but Trump’s campaign against the media has been unprecedented. He has upended decades of tradition by ​denying basic access to many major news organizations, launching personal attacks on journalists for their reporting and elevating media outlets seen as more sympathetic to the administration. He also has filed lawsuits against multiple news outlets, read the report.

The ⁠White House launched a “Trump TV” stream on Monday evening, days after Trump banned the media outlets from the White House.

The White House said the stream will run videos and highlights of what it calls the Trump administration’s achievements but a press freedom advocate said it amounted to “a steady diet ​of government propaganda.”

A 60-second trailer displayed the Republican leader’s 2024 presidential win and the first video streamed after the platform went live was Trump’s remarks on July 3 at Mount Rushmore. The stream had only about 8,000 live views 15 minutes after it was launched on YouTube.

“This just makes it even ​clearer that the real goal here is to ensure that the American public is fed a steady diet of government propaganda,” Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, said.

CNN is one of the five news organizations – along with ABC, CBS, Fox News and NBC – that make up the primary White House television pool. They share the costs of covering the president, take turns organizing coverage and share the footage with outlets around the country.

CNN had been scheduled to cover Trump’s trip to New York for the United Nations General Assembly on Monday, but was not able to provide a pool feed.

In response, the other major TV ​networks suspended presidential pool coverage. This effectively eliminated the most widespread video source for White House events just as Trump is set to meet with numerous world leaders on the sidelines of the General Assembly and host Chinese President Xi Jinping in Washington later in the week.

“This is to ​advise that, effective today (Monday), the TV pool will not be covering events designated as pool coverage of the President,” Bryan Boughton, who runs the Fox News Washington bureau and is the current TV pool chair, said in an email Monday. “There will be no replacement pool put in place.”

Otherwise, it was business as usual in the ‌White House press ⁠room on Monday as reporters planned for the day’s events, including an afternoon ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Republican president’s new Marine One helipad on the South Lawn.

The audio on the White House’s own live stream of the ceremony, which it promoted as an alternative to the pool feed, was inaudible.

Trump’s party is seeking to retain its narrow majorities in both chambers of Congress in the November midterm elections. Polls show the public souring on Republicans and Trump’s own approval ratings stand near historic lows.

A person familiar with the matter, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Natalie Harp, a close presidential aide, showed Trump clips and graphics of recent news coverage, which contributed to his decision to ban the three outlets.

Trump has been “very unhappy” with coverage of the midterm elections, the person added, and his frustration intensified after last week’s Supreme Court ruling that blocked his attempt to limit mail-in voting, Reuters reported.

“The Fake News has no place demanding ​a spot in the President’s Oval Office,” the White House said in ​response to Reuters questions about the lawsuit, Harp’s role and ⁠Trump’s views on election coverage. “They’re completely capable of reporting from directly outside.”

The affected news organizations moved quickly to present a united front. Within 10 minutes of Trump’s announcement on Friday, CNN reached out to MS NOW and Politico to discuss joint legal action, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“Banning news organizations from the White House prevents them from confronting government officials face-to-face and perhaps eliciting ​off-the-cuff unguarded comments that might shed new light onto political matters, which is especially important during an election year,” said Victor Pickard, a professor of media policy and political economy at the University of Pennsylvania’s ​Annenberg School for Communication.

Last year, Trump banned ⁠the Associated Press from the pool of reporters that cover his movements because the news agency did not adopt his preferred name for the Gulf of Mexico. The AP has sued over the ban. His administration also has limited the access of many journalists to the Pentagon.

In his first term, Trump’s White House sought to take away the credentials of then-CNN correspondent Jim Acosta and Playboy correspondent Brian Karem. Federal judges ordered their White House press passes be restored.

The lawsuit was assigned to US District Judge Timothy Kelly, who was appointed by Trump in 2017. It was Kelly who ruled against Trump in 2018 in the Acosta case.

Trump has stepped ​up his actions targeting the media since winning a second term, suing multiple outlets and repeatedly urging broadcasters to drop programs he deems unfair.

He has called on the Federal Communications ​Commission to strip disfavored broadcast stations of their licenses.

David Ellison, son of Trump ally and Oracle (ORCL.N), Executive Chairman Larry Ellison, took control of Paramount and its CBS news unit, leading to a shakeup at “60 Minutes,” the most popular US TV news magazine.

Ellison is now seeking to acquire CNN parent Warner Bros, in a move approved by Trump’s administration.

World leaders gather in New York this week for the UN General Assembly, bracing for President Donald Trump’s return to the rostrum for a second year running, with talks centering on the widening conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine ​and the risks of artificial intelligence.

Nearly 130 heads of state meet with the post-World War Two order under strain and with the UN itself struggling to remain relevant and weathering ‌attacks from Trump, who has slashed America’s contributions and withdrawn from dozens of UN bodies, Reuters reported.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who last addressed the diplomatic jamboree via video in 2021, will skip New York in favor of one-on-one talks with Trump in Washington on Thursday, fueling debate about the UN’s relevance in addressing global crises.

Compounding the crisis of morale and finance are questions about the next leader of the 80-year-old organization: Secretary-General Antonio Guterres completes his term at the end of 2026, with no clear frontrunner in the race ​to replace him.

The 15-member UN Security Council may hold high-level meetings on Ukraine, AI and the Middle East, including talks with Arab leaders, diplomats said.

More than a year into Trump’s second term, “we would ​no longer say that the UN is in freefall, but we would say that it’s stuck in an open-ended crisis,” said Richard Gowan of the International Crisis ⁠Group.

“The UN may not be in emergency care like it was last year, but it seems to be trapped in a trauma center for the foreseeable future,” Gowan said.

The US avoided losing its vote at the assembly ​by paying $725 million in contributions to the regular budget this week, but it still owes the organization more than a billion dollars and makes ongoing demands for cuts and reforms.

GROWING AI RISKS

The assembly meets shortly after several ​artificial intelligence industry leaders called for a coordinated slowdown of the development of the technology, warning that it could soon improve on its own and escape human control.

Guterres has said that AI will be a major topic, adding that countries pushing its frontiers should set up “common guardrails in order to avoid this race to the bottom that could lead one day to a gigantic disaster at the global level.”

The secretary-general has long proposed global governance of AI. In 2023, the UN created an advisory body on the ​technology, with members including tech executives, government officials and academics.

The warning has put Guterres at odds with Trump, who dismissed AI risks as a “hoax,” saying there is a “sick conspiracy” against it and that China would benefit ​from the doubt being cast on its development.

MIDDLE EAST ESCALATION

The Middle East will again be a focus of discussions, as the US-Israeli war on Iran continues to drive global inflation and destabilize the region. Recent gains by Houthi militants threaten shipping in ‌the vital ⁠Bab el-Mandeb Strait and could further spike energy prices.

“It’s very difficult to have a military solution for that problem, and the experience of fighting in Yemen demonstrated how complicated it is to have successful interventions,” said Guterres, adding that the UN’s envoy on Yemen was making a “huge effort” to advance talks.

Peace talks remain stalled, however, as Iran and the US continue to exchange strikes and Trump threatens a major escalation of the war.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is scheduled to address the assembly on Wednesday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – wanted by the International Criminal Court over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza that Israel denies – is to speak on Thursday.

Palestinian President ​Mahmoud Abbas will for the second year running not ​be at the gathering in person. The US, ⁠a close Israeli ally, again denied him a visa. On Thursday, the General Assembly voted to allow Abbas to appear via video.

There is likely to be a high-level meeting on the conflict in Sudan on the sidelines, diplomats said, although a diplomatic breakthrough is unlikely.

UKRAINE, FOOD SECURITY

Also on the agenda is Russia’s more than four-year-old war in Ukraine.

Ukrainian ​President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will address the General Assembly. Zelenskiy will likely seek to shore up Ukraine’s position ahead of what ​is expected to be another ⁠tough winter, diplomats said.

The Security Council has been unable to take action to end the conflict because permanent member Russia holds a veto.

Trump has at times appeared frustrated that he has been unable to broker an end to the war, a goal he declared a priority when he began his second term in January last year. The US president spoke with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin earlier this month, but it was unclear whether he plans to meet Zelenskiy ⁠in New York.

Guterres ​highlighted the impact the war was having on civilians but also on food security and energy prices.

“The effective blockade existing in the ​Black Sea is creating enormous problems that add to the problems generated by the Middle East crisis, and I think it would be very important to find a way to allow Ukrainian exports and Russian exports of food, fertilizers and energy to take place in ​a safe way through the Black Sea,” he said.