In the first in-person meeting of the United Nations General Assembly since 2019, Joe Biden addressed the august body of the world’s foremost statesmen… Okay, we can’t keep from laughing at that idea. The UN is a U.S.-sovereignty-threatening collection of tin-pot dictators and socialists from around the world, and we American citizens unfortunately suffer them to meet on our own soil.

Biden’s speech consisted largely of condemning Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, which isn’t going well for him. The Russian strongman initiated his invasion, ostensibly to combat Nazism in Ukraine, back in February. Yet while treating his own under-equipped and inadequately trained soldiers like cannon fodder, the only thing he’s really achieved is total upheaval of global supply chains — especially oil, natural gas, fertilizer, and wheat — to go along with the needless deaths of thousands of Ukrainian civilians.

Biden spoke forcefully and said some right things, but let’s not forget the bottom line: Putin would never have crossed into Ukraine if Donald Trump had been president, which is to say Biden invited Putin across Ukraine’s border much as he has invited immigrants across our southern border.

Now, to his remarks about “a brutal, needless war — a war chosen by one man, to be very blunt.”

“Let us speak plainly. A permanent member of the United Nations Security Council invaded its neighbor, attempted to erase a sovereign state from the map,” Biden said. “Russia has shamelessly violated the core tenets of the United Nations Charter — no more important than the clear prohibition against countries taking the territory of their neighbor by force.”

He continued: “President Putin has made overt nuclear threats against Europe and a reckless disregard for the responsibilities of the non-proliferation regime. Now Russia is calling up more soldiers to join the fight. And the Kremlin is organizing a sham referenda to try to annex parts of Ukraine, an extremely significant violation of the UN Charter. This world should see these outrageous acts for what they are.”

Later, Biden responded to Putin’s hints by calling for more control of nuclear weapons. “No matter what else is happening in the world, the United States is ready to pursue critical arms control measures,” he said. “A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” This is the same guy, by the way, who has on multiple occasions practically threatened American citizens who want or own AR-15s because the U.S. government has F-15s and nukes.

Which really brings us to the underlying problem with Biden’s address to the UN: He’s entirely the wrong messenger. As former Defense Secretary Robert Gates put it nearly a decade ago, Biden’s been “wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.” The ensuing eight years haven’t been any better.

Biden’s weakness, especially in Afghanistan, opened the door for Putin. Biden created a greater global dependence on Russian oil by killing American supplies and emptying our reserves. He’s repeatedly bungled statements about China and Taiwan, and he’s coddling the Iranians again just to secure another nuclear deal. And he has saddled our military with wokeness and vaccine mandates, causing a recruiting crisis and devastating morale in the ranks.

Meanwhile, the UN itself has virtually no credibility. As Biden pointed out, Russia — that would be the former Soviet Union, headed by a former KGB agent who has said “there is no such thing as a former KGB man” — has a permanent seat on the Security Council. So does China, which backs Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, has been building ties with Moscow, is committing genocide against the Uyghurs, and, oh, by the way, unleashed the coronavirus plague upon the world from that little lab in Wuhan before covering it all up and still claiming an unfathomably low 5,226 COVID deaths among its population of 1.4 billion. Biden’s response to that? Crickets.

Naturally, Biden wants to cede more American sovereignty to this very UN with a list of “reforms” to the Security Council. Those reforms essentially boil down to curtailing American veto power, even if voluntarily and unilaterally (because China and Russia certainly won’t go along), as well as watering down the council with more “diverse” membership and potential override by the General Assembly. American taxpayers bankroll roughly 20% of the UN’s budget. Biden wants us to get even less for our money.

There’s been a long, albeit small, effort to get the UN out of the U.S. and the U.S. out of the UN. Biden’s speech is an indication that serious policymakers and future presidential candidates ought to give that idea due consideration.