Pool Reports of September 23, 2025

Travel pool #1 - departure from Trump Tower

Good morning from New York.

The motorcade departed Trump Tower at 9:42 am. Pool did not see POTUS.

We are rolling to UN headquarters.

Note: cell service in UN headquarters can be spotty and pool thanks you in advance for your patience with any technical delays today.

Travel pool #2 - UN arrival

Motorcade arrived at UN headquarters at 9:48 am.

Sidewalks were packed with onlookers during drive. Once again bike rack barriers lined the route, separating sidewalks from streets.

Pool didn't see POTUS enter UN headquarters.

Travel pool #3 - details on POTUS UN arrival

POTUS walked into UN headquarters with FLOTUS and mouthed "thank you" to the press there - thanks to Daily Mail's Nikki Schwab, who was at the entrance.

POTUS speech to UN airing on the regular channels. Pooler will send color and details.

Travel pool #4 - speech color/teleprompter fail

Melania Trump entered the assembly hall at 10:06 am and took her seat on the sidelines. FLOTUS is wearing a white pants suit with a beige top.

Seated at the U.S. table in the assembly hall is Susie Wiles, Steve Witkoff, Mike Waltz, Chris Wright, Scott Bessent, and Marco Rubio.

Assembly hall is full with people lining the sidelines.

POTUS entered at 10:08 to applause. He started off by stating the teleprompter isn't working and joked the person working it is in "big trouble."

There was laughter in the room at his remark.

POTUS: "I don't mind making the speech without a teleprompter because the teleprompter is not working. … I can only say whoever is operating this teleprompter is in big trouble."

More tk…

Travel pool #5 - more speech color/Zelensky here

POTUS appears to have a hard copy of his speech on the podium in front of him. A binder was a visible. Pool observed him turning the pages as he spoke.

About 10 minutes into his remarks POTUS announced the teleprompter is now working.

Ukrainian President Zelensky is in the hall for POTUS speech. Ukraine's assigned spot is across the aisle from U.S. spot.

Italian PM Meloni also seen in the hall listening to POTUS remarks.

More tk…

Travel note #6 - final speech color

POTUS spoke for 56 minutes. His speech was met with applause at its conclusion.

POTUS' call to release the hostages in Gaza was met with applause from the room. When he talked about immigration there was a murmur that went through the room. There were also rumblings when POTUS spoke about climate change.

There was laughter when POTUS talked about seeing President of Brazil backstage.

Note about this from quote from POTUS: "These are the two things I got from the United Nations, a bad escalator and a bad teleprompter."

The Trumps did walk up the escalator at the arrival, per Daily Mail's Nikki Schwab, who was there. FLOTUS walked up first with POTUS following her.

Also seen at Trump speech: Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa and Brazil's President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva.

Thanks to the photographers and their superior world leader spotting skills.

Travel pool #7 - Guterres bilat

POTUS first bilat is with UN Secretary General António Guterres.

Their meeting started at 11:40 am, per a White House official.

The leaders were in the room and seated when pool entered at 11:41 am. Seated on American side: Mike Waltz, Marco Rubio, Susie Wiles and Steve Witkoff.

Guterres talked about how the United States is "essential" to UN and praised Trump for working toward "peace." "We are entirely at your disposal to work together toward a just peace."

Trump said "it's always an honor to be here but this was more exciting with the escalator and teleprompter. These things happen. … Our country is behind the United Nations 100 percent. I think the potential of the United Nations is incredible. Really incredible. It can do so much. I'm behind it . I may disagree with it some times but I am so behind it. … the potential for peace with this institution is so great. So I just want to thank you for treating us so lovely."

Leaders did not take questions. Pool was pulled at 11:44 am. Please check quotes against playback as it was hard to hear. Thanks to co pooler Katie Pavlitch for the assist.

Note: Tiffany Trump and her husband Michael Boulos walked by the pool as we were holding outside the bilat. The couple was also in the assembly hall for POTUS speech.

Travel pool #8 - Milei pull side and Trump endorsement

President Trump is meeting with Argentina President Milei for a pull aside and endorsed him.

Pool was brought in at 12:32 pm.

POTUS announced he was endorsing Milei for reelection.

POTUS: "I'm doing something I don't often do I'm giving my fill endorsement to him. … The people of Argentina - we're backing him 100 percent. He, like us, inherited a mess and what he's done to fix it is good. … we need to make Argentina great again so it's an honor for me to endorse."

Milei thanked him and they shook hands.

POTUS answers a few questions about his endorsement and the bailout.

More POTUS: "We're gonna help them but I don't think they need a bailout. He's doing a fantastic job."

Seated on US side: Macro Rubio, Scott Bessent and Susie Wiles.

Pool was pulled at 12:37 pm. A White House spokesperson told the pool there will be more announcements about Argentina's financial situation made after this pull aside.

As always, please check the playback for quotes.

Travel pool #9 - EU pull aside

POTUS has a pull aside with EU President Ursula von der Leyen.

Pool was brought in at 12:51 pm.

POTUS: "It's a great honor to be with a very powerful, very smart woman and a friend of mine. …. She does a fantastic job running lots of different nations."

He took a few questions.

POTUS on the UN: "Well, they've never really reached their potential. The UN could be unbelievable with certain people running it. ... Look, I put out seven wars, if you think about it. … I wasn't helped by the UN. … I was never even given a phone call."

More: "I was never like - I didn't even think about it, frankly, until after we did it, I never gave it a lot of thought. And then recently, I started thinking, you know, we were never helped by the UN. The UN has tremendous potential, tremendous potential. It's going to hopefully put out the wars themselves. I mean, someday it's going to do what I've been doing, and they should be able to do it."

Asked how the UN should change: "It's a fantastic role in peace keeping. It should be great. I mean, we shouldn't have any wars if the UN is really doing its job. I know they were involved originally with Russia, Ukraine, and that didn't get done because that was the time to stop it."

He ended the spray with: "Thank you. We have a lot of meetings."

Pool was pulled at 12:56 pm. It took place in the same room with Rubio, Bessent and Wiles on US side.

Travel pool #10 - Zelensky bilat

POTUS is meeting with President of Ukraine Zelensky.

Pool was brought in at 1:28 pm.

Some news from the Q&A:

POTUS was asked if he thinks NATO countries should shoot down Russian aircraft if they enter their airspace: "Yes I do."

And asked if he would back up NATO allies, he said it would "depend" on the circumstances. He said he heard about Danish situation but didn't have details.

Asked for an update on talks with Putin and if he still trusts him, POTUS: "I'll let you know in about a month from now."

From the top, here are leader remarks.

POTUS started with: "We appreciate it, and we've had an interesting day, and we've had a very productive day, and we're now meeting with we're going to start a meeting with the President, who we all know very well. He's a brave man, and he's putting up one hell of a fight. And we'll see how that all turns out. But we're going to have a meeting, and we have about 30 meetings scheduled today. We have a lot of meetings scheduled today, going pretty late into the night, but this is an important one, and we have great respect for the fight that Ukraine is putting up. It's pretty amazing, actually."

Zelensky: "thank you for this meeting and thank you for your efforts to stop this war. … Just now we'll have meeting about Ukrainian children. Thank you for Melania's personal involvement in this topic. This is very important. I will brief Mr. President and his team what's going on on the battlefield. We have good good news. Of course, we want to solve the war."

Then was the Q&A referenced above.

Pool was pulled at 1:35 pm. Seated on US side: Rubio, Bessent, Wiles and Witkoff.

Travel pool #11 - Zelensky meeting ended

Per the White House, POTUS meeting with Zelensky ended at 2:23 pm so it lasted about an hour.

Also a White House official confirms POTUS will have separate meetings with President Macron of France and President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev later this afternoon.

Travel pool #12 - pull aside with Uzbekistan and POTUS comments on Routh verdict

POTUS is meeting with President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev.

Pool entered the room at 3:03 pm.

POTUS took a few questions.

Asked about the guilty verdict with Ryan Routh: "Well, I'm very appreciative of the justice that was given and the way it was handled by Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche and everybody. … It was really well handled, and it's very important. You can't let things like that happen - nothing to do with me but a president or even a person - you can't allow that to happen. And so justice was served, and we'll see what happens. But I very much appreciate the judge and jury, and everybody on that - it was so professionally handled."

The president of Uzbekistan invited him to visit. POTUS: "I'm going to think about doing it."

Asked if there will be more deals with Uzbekistan: "We're talking about a couple of very big ones. He's already done some big ones."

POTUS opened the meeting with: "It's a great honor to be with the president of Uzbekistan. He's highly respected. Been there for a long time, many years, right? Like 15 or 16. That's a long time, and the only reason you can be in a country that long is when you're very smart and very confident. So I just want to thank you very much for being with us. You know, you made a big purchase of a lot of different American products, different. They've got plenty of money. They've got plenty of oil and plenty of money. Oil usually goes along with the money. But they've been they've done very well as a country, and he has been a really great leader, and it's an honor to be with you again."

Mirziyoyev - through his translator - complimented POTUS on his speech and congratulated him on ending seven wars.

Pool was pulled at 3:10 pm. On the U.S. side - Marco Rubio, Susie Wiles, Sergio Gor, and Steve Witkoff

Travel pool #13 - pull aside with Macron/more on Ukraine land

POTUS is meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron. The leaders made opening remarks and then took a few questions.

POTUS reiterated he thinks Ukraine should get all its land back. He called Russia a "paper tiger." More: " So it's a very sad situation, but most of you have seen the recent statement I put out a little while ago, and I'm glad you got it, but I feel that way. I really do feel that way. Let them get their land back."

Fuller quoted below.

POTUS on Macron: "He's doing a really good job. He's fighting hard. He's fighting on a lot of fronts. He's helping with regard to the Russia, Ukraine catastrophe. And his words of wisdom mean a lot. And we've been friends for a long time now, really from the first term on."

On Russia-Ukraine war: "It's been a terrible war should have ended, and Russia should have stopped it, but they've been three and a half years, and they've gotten that so far, so we'll see what happens. But the other side can fight too, and they've proven that maybe it could be that Russia is a paper tiger. I don't know what they are, but three and a half years of fighting and killing everybody and killing 7000 people a week for nothing, for nothing, nothing. So it's a very sad situation, but most of you have seen the recent statement I put out a little while ago, and I'm glad you got it, but I feel that way. I really do feel that way. Let them get their land back."

On Gaza: "I think Gaza is going to come along. We're going to have a very important meeting. And my next meeting actually is going to be very important with leaders in the region. And we're going to talk about Gaza. We're going to see if we can do something about it. We want to stop that. We want to get our hostages back, or their hostages back."

POTUS said we can't forget October 7th. Macron said "nobody forgets the seventh of October."

On the U.S. side: Marco Rubio, Scott Bessent, Susie Wiles, and Steve Witkoff.

Travel pool #14 - POTUS enters multilateral meeting

The multilateral meeting is visuals only and the full pool is not going inside.

The outsider poolers saw President Trump walk by and go into the room. He said "very important meeting" before going inside.

Travel pool #15 - multilateral meeting

The entire pool ended up being let into the multilateral meeting, which President Trump called his most important meeting of the day.

POTUS was seated at the top of a conference table with the other leaders down the sides. Marco Rubio, Scott Bessent and Steve Witkoff sat to the side.

Trump started off by complementing the leader of Indonesia on his speech to the UN general assembly.

POTUS: "This is my most important meeting. I've had important meetings. I don't want to insult anybody that we've met with."

More: "This is the one that's very important to me, because we're going to end something that you have probably never started. Thank you very much everybody. We appreciate it."

Press was then pulled. President Zelensky was coming out of the UN security council meeting as pool was pulled. He was on his cell phone.

Travel note #16 - motorcade rolling

Motorcade is rolling from UN headquarters at 5:05 pm.

Pool did not see POTUS get into Beast.

More tk …

Travel note #17 - Trump Tower arrival

Motorcade arrived at Trump Tower at 5:10 pm.

Pool did not lay eyes on POTUS.

Once again lots of onlookers on the sidewalks watched the motorcade go by.

From the TV transmission pool at UN headquarters:

POTUS left at 5:02 pm saying he had a "very good meeting" and teasing his intention to follow up with a meeting with Israel. He ignored all shouted questions.

Travel pool #18 - dinner lid

We have a dinner lid until 6:15 pm.

Travel pool #19 - motorcade rolling

The motorcade is rolling from Trump Tower at 7:18 pm. 

Pool caught a brief glimpse of POTUS in the Beast. He is headed to a leader reception. 

More tk… 

Travel pool #20 - Reception arrival

Motorcade arrived at the Lotte New York Palace Hotel at 7:21 pm. 

Pool didn’t see POTUS exit the Beast. Reception is listed as closed press. Pool is headed to a hold room.

Travel pool #21 - reception details

Passing on from a White House official about the reception: 145 world leaders and spouses are lined up - some for hours - to get a picture with POTUS and FLOTUS.

Travel note #22 - motorcade rolling

Motorcade is rolling from the Lotte New York Palace Hotel at 8:49 pm. 

Pool did not see POTUS. Next stop is Wall Street Landing Zone.

Travel pool #23 - Wall Street Landing Zone

Motorcade arrived at the Wall Street Landing Zone at 9:05 pm. 

Pool didn’t see POTUS exit the Beast and board Marine One. But pool did see POTUS and FLOTUS sitting in Marine One as we ran by on our way to our osprey. 

Lifting off shortly. 

Next stop: JFK airport

Travel pool #24 - JFK airport/no gaggle

Marine One was wheels down JKF airport at 9:28 pm. 

POTUS and FLOTUS disembarked at 9:35 pm. 

POTUS waved to the pool and raised his fist, but did not come over to gaggle. He and FLOTUS boarded at 9:36 pm.  

Following them off Marine One was Natalie Harp, Walt Nauta, Susie Wiles, and a few others hard to make out in the dark. 

AF1 is wheels up shortly for JBA.

Travel pool report #25 - JBA arrival and list of participants in multilateral meeting

Air Force One was wheels up JFK at 9:45 pm and wheels down JBA at 10:25 pm. 

No visitors to the press cabin during the short flight. 

AF1 is still taxing to a stop but pool wanted to share the list of participants in POTUS’ multilateral meeting (courtesy of the White House):

Qatar:
His Highness Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani
H.E. Sheik Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs
H.E. Abdullah bin Muhammad Al-Khulaifi, Chief of the Amiri Diwan
H.E. Sheikh Meshal bin Hamad Al Thani, Ambassador of the State of Qatar to the United States

KSA:
His Highness Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia 
Her Royal Highness Princess Reema bint Bandar Al Saud, Ambassador of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the United States of America

Indonesia:
President Subianto 
H.E. Sugiono – Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia

Türkiye:
President Erdoğan
H.E. Hakan Fidan, Minister of Foreign Affairs

Pakistan:
Prime Minister Sharif
H.E. Mohammad Ishaw Dar, Deputy Prime Minister of Foreign Minister of Pakistan

Egypt:
Prime Minister Madbouly 
H.E. Badr Abdelatty, Foreign Minister of Affairs, Emigration and Egyptian Expatriates

UAE:
H.H. Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs
H.E. Yousef Al Otaib, Ambassador of the UAE to the US, Minister of State

Jordan:
His Majesty King Abdullah II Ibn Al Hussein
H.E. Ayman Safadi, Deputy Prime Minister – Minister of Foreign Affairs & Expatriates

Travel pool #26 - Marine One wheels up and no gaggle

POTUS and FLOTUS disembarked AF1 at 10:35 pm. 

POTUS waved but did not come over to gaggle. 

Marine One was wheels up at 10:42 pm. 

Thank you to the entire travel pool for their help and good cheer on this long pool day. Handing off to the in town pool…. 

In-town Pool Note #1 -

Good evening. 

Marine One was wheels down at 10:50 pm on the South Lawn.

POTUS departed the plane with FLOTUS and waved but did not stop to gaggle. The two have returned to the White House.

In-town Pool Note #2 - lid

WH called a lid at 11:02 pm. Have a great night!