The U.N. Pullout

Trump rethinking American support for United Nations: President Donald Trump has already pulled back $1 billion in funding from the United Nations (U.N.) and has told Congress he has plans to revoke another $1 billion. Since bureaucrats always and everywhere are fans of malicious compliance, U.N. officials signaled that human rights programs would be some of the first to go. But now The New York Times headlines are trying to guilt the U.S. into…I dunno…spending infinite sums of money? Never pulling out or reevaluating the use of the diplomacy organization?

Of course, countries run by authoritarians seek to step into the breach. “Qatar, with its history of labor abuses, is offering to host some of the offices of the U.N. workers’ rights agency,” reports the Times. “Russia has proposed cutting speaking time for advocacy groups to save money on hearings. Eritrea has called for an end to a U.N. investigation into human rights abuses there. The countries are ‘using every opportunity, including the opportunity presented by the liquidity crisis and at high-level meetings, to try and advance their agenda,’ said Phil Lynch, the executive director of International Service for Human Rights, a nongovernmental group focused on U.N. advocacy in Geneva. ‘Cuts are on the table, and it opens a window of opportunity for them.’” That’s always a risk, but overreliance on the U.S. as the bulwark stopping such a takeover places an unreasonable, costly burden at our feet.

“The U.S. continues to be assessed by the UN at an unfair rate, currently paying 26.1 percent of all global peacekeeping activities,” reads a State Department report from earlier this year. “The U.S. is one of five members (P5) on the UN Security Council (UNSC) with permanent veto authority, yet the other P5 members’ assessments average under nine percent. Congress has sought to reduce the United States’ assessment by capping assessments at 25 percent, and yet success of that is questionable: as a result, over $1.5 billion of arrears have accrued. Due to these recent abuses and failures, and amidst the disproportionately high level of fiscal burden, it is clear that significant change is needed at the UN.”

“Trump withdrew from the rights council and the World Health Organization [WHO] earlier this year and from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the first U.N. agency to undergo a review, on July 22,” reports the Times. (It’s not like the WHO had been covering itself in glory or doing its job.) Naturally, the administration gets blamed: “The Trump administration’s wariness of international bodies has only made the United Nations’ cash crunch worse: Some U.N. agencies in Geneva stand to lose as much as 40 percent of their funding.” But those who fear this new paradigm could stand to ask: What is truly in America’s interest to fund? What do we have budget for?

Scenes from New York: “Mayor Eric Adams said on Thursday that he would push the New York City Department of Education to change its policy of allowing young people in schools to use the bathroom most closely associated with their gender,” reports The New York Times. “‘We are going to always respect how one identifies themselves,’ Mr. Adams said on Thursday. But ‘I do not believe a safe environment is allowing boys and girls to use the same facility at the same time,’ the mayor added, speaking at an unrelated news conference in front of the United Nations’s headquarters.” This will likely result in protracted legal battles: “Denying the use of facilities because of a person’s gender identity is considered unlawful discrimination under the state’s Human Rights Law. New York City’s guidelines on supporting transgender children also state that students cannot be forced to use a bathroom that conflicts with their gender identity.” But I would hazard a guess that Adams has his finger on the pulse of what most New York parents want—especially the parents of young girls.

• Goodbye to my show, Just Asking Questions, cohosted with the illustrious Zach Weissmueller. To all who watched, thank you so much for giving us some of your time and attention; we hope it enriched the way you view the world around you. Onwards!

• A possibly interesting evolution for Sen. Chris Murphy (D–Conn.):

NEW: Chris Murphy, whose Senate career has been defined by his pursuit of gun control legislation, begins rethinking the litmus test he has applied to the issue

via @Lauren_V_Egan https://t.co/sgiXZkipo4 pic.twitter.com/jtazz0yeKy

— Sam Stein (@samstein) September 18, 2025

• “President Donald Trump has asked the Supreme Court to allow him to fire Federal Reserve board member Lisa Cook, setting up a test of the president’s ability to take control of the powerful interest-rate setting body,” reports Politico. “The Justice Department on Thursday asked the high court to reverse the decisions of two lower courts that allowed Cook to remain in her position while the broader legal fight is underway. Their decisions enabled Cook to participate in a meeting this week that resulted in a quarter-point reduction in the interest rate.”
• Inside Airpods’ translation features.
• Erika Kirk, Charlie Kirk’s widow, just became the new CEO of Turning Point USA.
• “North Carolina jobless claims data were mistakenly understated in a weekly US Labor Department report on Thursday, as a technical error slashed the state’s tally by more than 19,000,” reports Bloomberg. “The report showed just 205 continuing claims for the week ended Sept. 6, the lowest on record for the state. Typical readings hover closer to 20,000. The North Carolina Department of Commerce, which gathers and transmits the data to Washington, said the figure was the result of a “technical error” and that the correct number is 19,355. A Labor Department spokesperson said they were still looking into it.”
• Deeply humane and fair:

.@adamcarolla reacts to the news that ABC has indefinitely suspended Jimmy Kimmel Live. pic.twitter.com/ZB6bjcRwIP

— The Adam Carolla Show (@AdamCarollaShow) September 18, 2025

• I think this is roughly correct. But I also can’t get over the weaponization of a government agency—the Federal Communications Commission—as the mechanism by which it happened. (That is not to say this is the first time the government has pressured a private company to make a censorship decision. Reason has covered Biden-era jawboning extensively.)

A lot of people with the same beliefs Charlie held woke up last week and realized some of their neighbors & friends & family members would celebrate if they got killed—and today the Left is asking them to care about a late night host who also hates them and got fired. Tone deaf.

— Bridget Phetasy (@BridgetPhetasy) September 18, 2025

And this, too. I share the rage:

A man was just shot for his beliefs and Democrats are really out here with “first they came for Jimmy” signs. Are you people fucking nuts? Where have you all been for the last decade while people were debanked, deplatformed, and canceled??? You were cheering for it. That’s where.

— Bridget Phetasy (@BridgetPhetasy) September 18, 2025

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