Tuesday morning, President Trump delivered his third address before the United Nations General Assembly. Once again, he did not engage in platitudes. He projected strength and determination. Here’s a brief summary of the president’s remarks.

• As one would expect, Trump delivered a strong defense of America and of national sovereignty. He vowed to oppose the UN Arms Treaty as an assault on our Second Amendment rights. And he flatly rejected globalism, saying, “The future does not belong to globalists. The future belongs to patriots.”

• He offered a firm and honest evaluation of China’s predatory trade practices. He said the theory that trade would liberalize China has been “proven completely wrong.” Trump noted that 60,000 American factories have closed in the years after China joined the World Trade Organization. He also accused China of “gaming the system” by continuing to insist that it remains a “developing country,” when in fact it is the second-largest economy in the world.

• With the Chinese delegation sitting in the room, Trump called out the communist regime in Beijing. He said that China made pledges with respect to Hong Kong, and if China wants to be taken seriously it must keep its word and honor the rights of Hong Kong’s residents.

• On Iran, Trump condemned the regime’s “monstrous anti-Semitism” and its pursuit of nuclear weapons. He declared Iran “one of the greatest security threats to peace-loving nations” and vowed to tighten sanctions as long as the regime continues its belligerent activities.

• The president had strong words for those promoting open borders. He accused them of exploiting “social justice” while enabling human trafficking. He said, “Your [open borders] policies are not just; your policies are cruel and evil,” adding, “As long as I am president of the United States, we will enforce our laws and protect our borders.”

Defending Life

The president also used his General Assembly address to defend the sanctity of life. Trump said:

Americans will never tire of defending innocent life… We are aware that many United Nations projects have attempted to assert a global right to taxpayer-funded abortion on demand, right up until the moment of delivery. Global bureaucrats have absolutely no business attacking the sovereignty of nations that wish to protect innocent life.

While in New York Monday, I spoke with Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar. He was there to tell the UN that abortion is not healthcare.

Azar presented UN bureaucrats with a statement from 19 nations representing 1.3 billion people that declared “there is no international right to an abortion.” In addition to defending the life of unborn babies, the statement also defended the family as “the foundational institution of society” that should be “supported and strengthened” in public policy.

In related news, 11 judges on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments Monday in a case challenging the Trump administration’s commonsense restrictions on federal family-planning programs.

Planned Parenthood dropped out of the Title X program after the Trump administration issued rules preventing clinics that accept federal funding from promoting abortion. The Supreme Court has previously upheld similar rules issued by the Reagan administration, but they were rescinded by Bill Clinton.

Who knows how the Ninth Circuit will rule. Thanks to President Trump’s judicial appointments, the court is no longer reliably left wing. Earlier this year, it rejected Planned Parenthood’s requests for temporary injunctions against the new rules, suggesting that the administration’s pro-life case is strong.

“Shut It Down”

While I was stuck in traffic in New York City Monday, tens of thousands of Washingtonians were stuck in traffic because of the antics of privileged environmental extremists.

Evidently, they thought it would be really dandy to back up their demands of immediate, radical climate action by blocking multiple intersections throughout Washington, DC, which already has some of the worst traffic in the nation.

Left-wing groups participating in Monday’s protest known as “#ShutdownDC” included Extinction Rebellion, Black Lives Matter, and the Democratic Socialists of America. Ironically, the result of their climate-change protest was that thousands of cars were stuck idling and emitting emissions for at least an hour longer than usual.

Many of the demonstrators appeared to be college students or young adults probably with advanced degrees. Yet in the name of climate change, they prevented children from getting to school on time.

They prevented people from getting to their doctor’s appointments. They prevented many hourly workers from getting to the jobs that pay their rent.

Kudos to Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN), who is drafting legislation to make demonstrators liable for the costs, such as police overtime, of illegal protests.

And while many young radicals were playing in the DC streets, one of their leaders was crying at the UN. Here we go again.

We were supposed to listen to high-school students about whether we can keep our Second Amendment rights. Now we’re supposed to listen to Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old Swedish girl, who suggests we are evil unless we completely reorder life on earth, abandon free markets, and let government run our lives.

Greta needs to check her privilege. Imagine how the people of developing countries feel about her demand that they give up the very energy sources that make modern life possible.

Again, my friends, this is not a climate/environmental movement. This is a socialist movement, using emotionalism about the environment to destroy free markets.

Greta is worried about her future, yet she is living in an era of incredible modern miracles. Monday, she addressed the world thanks to the miracle of democratic capitalism and her message essentially was, “Shut it down.”