The following article by Philip Bump was posted on the Washington Post website September 18, 2017:
President Trump paid his first visit to the United Nations as the country’s chief executive Monday, making the 20-block trip from Trump Tower to meet with other world leaders and offer his thoughts on the future of the international organization.
He began his remarks in a way we no longer even find terribly surprising.
U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley introduced Trump, saying the president was “no stranger to change.”
“Donald Trump has a businessman’s eye for seeing potential, and he sees great potential, not just in this reform movement, but in the United Nations itself,” Haley said.
“Thank you very much. Thank you,” Trump said. “I actually saw great potential right across the street, to be honest with you. And it was only for the reason that the United Nations was here that that turned out to be such a successful project. So I want to thank you, Ambassador Haley, for your introduction and for your steadfast advocacy for American interests on the world stage.”
Trump World Tower is directly across from U.N. headquarters. How good is the United Nations? So good it made his real estate deal successful.
Later, Trump paid tribute to the new secretary general of the organization, António Guterres, in a tweet.
The tweet featured Trump speaking for about four minutes.
Earlier, he’d tweeted his appreciation for two institutions celebrating anniversaries (or, as he had it, birthdays).
He honored the CIA with a tweet showing him speaking at the CIA.
He honored the Air Force with a tweet showing him speaking to the Air Force.
This was his second tweet honoring the Air Force. The first was Friday, in which 44 of the 48 seconds of the video featured Trump visually or audibly.
Last week, he tweeted twice about his visit to Florida in the wake of Hurricane Irma. Trump is visible or audible in about 9 out of every 10 seconds of the videos.
Since late August, when he visited Border Patrol agents in Arizona, he’s paid tribute to his administration or organizations about 20 times, with himself visible or audible 95 percent of the time.
That doesn’t include his Labor Day post, which was just an image of himself.
It does include a tweet about preparing for Hurricane Harvey that was mostly him at Federal Emergency Management Agency headquarters. (He’s audible or visible 79 percent of the time.)
It includes his appreciation for the Red Cross, in which he’s always visible or audible.
Two tweets about his trip to Texas post-Harvey in which he’s audible or visible 95 percent of the time.
A tweet about storm preparations (100 percent of the time). Visits from Kuwaiti and Malaysian leaders (99 and 100 percent). A visit to an air station (89 percent).
It includes this tweet, from the Sept. 11, 2001, anniversary.
He’s visible or audible 66 percent of the time in that one.
“These are just shots of you,” comedian Patton Oswalt noted on Twitter about the tweet. “No first responders, no memorial. Just … you.”
That tweet, as it turns out, was the second-least Trump-focused one of the month. This, from his visit to Louisiana, has the least Trump of any of the videos.
He’s in it more than half the time.
View the post here.