Three things stand out about Donald Trump’s hour-long speech at the United Nations. First, he hurled a lot of insults, including insulting the United Nations, all while telling representatives of most of the world’s nations that their countries were on the road to failure. Second, he spent a lot of time (a lot!!) bragging about himself while claiming he wasn’t bragging about himself. Third, when it comes to climate change he went full denial.

He called climate change “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world,” and said “All of these predictions made by the United Nations and many others, often for bad reasons were wrong. They were made by stupid people …” But he declared his love for fossil fuels of all kinds, proudly informing us that he has “a little standing order in the White House. Never use the word coal, only use the words clean, beautiful coal.”

It was obvious to attendees that Trump is both delusional and stupid. His speech came at a time his real popularity (and therefore political clout) is taking a nose-dive, because the Epstein files are still on lockdown but Ghislaine Maxwell isn’t, and the nation’s real problems (it’s the economy, stupid) have gotten worse, not better. Yet Trump’s pretentious little performance did more than just stroke his own ego (so enourmous but oh so fragile). He also managed to embarrass the USA while alienating the world.

The biggest revelation of Trump’s second term is that he really has no idea how to run the country. His tarriffs have been a total loser, with American farmers and businesses paying the very heavy price. Elon Musk’s disastrous tenure at DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency, which should probably be called DOGI for Ineffiency or even DOGS for Stupidity) failed to save us lots of money, but it did cripple much of America’s science capability without even thinking about what was being done. RFK Jr. has betrayed our public health system, and can’t even satisfy the conspiracy-theory base when he blames autism on Tylenol rather than vaccines. Chris Wright’s attempt to make climate denial look “scientific” by having the DoE (Department of Energy) commission a report from the nation’s leading climate deniers, turned out so disastrously bad that it’s not the ammunition they were hoping for, it’s an embarrassment. And now Trump himself, in his U.N. speech, makes not just climate denial, but extreme climate denial, official U.S. government policy. The only thing Trump seems to be doing well, is orchestrating his own destruction.

Alas, he is doing so by burning down the house, and it happens to be the house we live in. We can prevent the worst if the republican party — which has the government by the throat — rebels against him. But I don’t think they will. It’s not because they believe his lies or don’t see how delusional and stupid he is. It’s because they don’t have enough courage.

There’s at least one silver lining. When COP30 (the 30th “Conference of Parties” about climate change) convenes in Brazil later this year, nations will make promises like they have before, voluntary and non-binding promises which will never be kept. But the U.S. won’t be among them; unlike most of the industrialized world, we’re no longer pretending.

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