Concurrent to the continuing explosive domestic political developments, U.S. President Donald Trump carries on with his familiar antics while on the world stage. The sight of Trump standing before global leaders with his ongoing obsession with lies, antagonism, and cyberbullying intact remains striking. Monday, as the annual United Nations General Assembly got underway, Trump spoke before those gathered for the “Global Call to Action on the World Drug Problem” event.
“Remarks by President Trump at ‘Global Call to Action on the World Drug Problem’ Event” #UNGA
➡️https://t.co/kvUZegWdlH pic.twitter.com/BGdrQeZuId— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 24, 2018
Much of his remarks focused on practical aspects of the event, like thanking those who were attending and so on. Even in that, though, he let his familiar behavior shine through.
Speaking of the U.N. Secretary General’s handling of the global drug abuse epidemic, Trump commented:
‘He’s doing a wonderful job at a very, very complex situation, but a beautiful situation. And I’ve always said the United Nations has tremendous potential, and that potential is being met. Slowly but surely, it’s being met.’
How on earth is the handling of the global drug crisis a “beautiful situation”? In 2017, in the United States alone, tens of thousands of Americans died from drug overdoses. The total number of around 72,000 is multiple times greater than the number of casualties from gun violence in the United States throughout that same time period, which sits at 15,638 according to the Gun Violence Archive.
According to a fact sheet issued by the World Health Organization last month, in 2015, around 450,000 died from “drug use,” a number including 118,000 deaths directly associated with “opioid use disorders.”
For comparison, in the United States in 2015, some 33,091 people lost their lives to opioids, according to information released by the Obama White House. If the global rate increased at the same rate the U.S. one did, that would mean that across the globe, some 256,000 people died from “opioid use disorders” in 2017.
And Trump thinks that’s a “beautiful situation.”
The gaffe sits among plenty of others from his administration. It’s reminiscent of his insistence that his administration did a great job responding to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, despite the fact that nearly 3,000 people died thanks to the storm’s effect.
In the end, no number of half baked formal statements before the U.N. will erase the fact that Trump’s glaringly out of place in the White House. It’s not even as though he’s constantly maintained his about-face presented before the U.N. on the issue of drug addiction. He’s proposed the death penalty for drug dealers — because in his world, mass execution is the direction we should be going as a country.
Check out Twitter’s response below.
Featured Image via YouTube screenshot
