Where did Davos rank in Trump’s 11 maddest speeches?

Having been asked to confine his remarks to 15 minutes – the standard length for all world leaders to the UN Assembly, even the US – Trump gave the room a lengthy address that lasted 57 minutes. In it he ranted about the shortcomings of all his White House predecessors, explained why UN migration policies were destroying the world, described man-made climate change as a “con job” and to top it all off warned his fellow leaders that “your countries are going to hell”.

In between he praised himself for the US being “the hottest country anywhere in the world” – economically, not literally, as that can’t be affected by humanity, obviously – gave himself a cheer for ending, at that point, seven wars around the globe and moaned about not getting a Nobel peace prize.

He also repeated his favourite lies about London, whose mayor, Sadiq Khan, he has a bee in his bonnet about, saying: “Now they want to go to sharia law”. Somehow, he still got 20 seconds of applause from those who managed to last the entire near-hour.

10) Rally, Minden, Nevada, October 8, 2022

This was yet another rally in which Trump hit out at presidential predecessors of both parties, this time over the storage and safekeeping of classified documents. 

Trump claimed that “George HW Bush took millions of documents to a former bowling alley and a former Chinese restaurant; where they combined them. So they’re in a bowling alley slash Chinese restaurant. A Chinese restaurant and a bowling alley. With no security and a broken front door.” 

The claim had no basis in fact; Bush senior was not known for regularly frequenting Chinese-restaurant-cum-bowling alleys with no front doors, even in the unlikely event such establishments exist.

Trump used the same speech to claim that “Bill Clinton took millions of documents from the White House to a former car dealership in Arkansas… and kept classified recordings in his sock drawer. In fact, he supposedly put the information from the White House into his socks”. That is not true, either (although the Clintons did have a cat called Socks).

9) Rally, Mount Pocono casino, Pennsylvania, December 10, 2025

In an attempt to reboot his second presidency amid a cost-of-living crisis and tanking approval numbers. Trump returned to his beloved rallies in Pennsylvania, telling voters that economic struggles were just a conspiracy theory made up by Democrats and the media.

“They said, ‘Oh, he doesn’t realise prices are higher.’ Prices are coming down very substantially,” he said. “But they have a new word. You know, they always have a hoax. The new word is affordability.” He also suggested Americans could solve their financial woes by cutting back to “one or two pencils” and “two or three dolls” per child.

He also said that his spokeswoman, Karoline Leavitt, has a “beautiful face” and “those lips that don’t stop”, and appeared to get confused about the name of his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, referring to her as ‘Susie Trump’. “So, Susie Trump, do you know Susie Trump? Sometimes referred to as Susie Wiles. Susie Trump. She is the great chief of staff – they don’t use the word chief of staff anymore because the Indians got extremely upset,” he rambled.

8) Rally, Winterset, Iowa, July 25, 2015

Relatively early in his political career, this was the rally in which Trump first started really turning his fire on icons of what was ostensibly his own party, in this case John McCain, the former Republican presidential candidate who was captured in Vietnam, was tortured and yet bravely refused an out-of-sequence early release.

“He’s not a war hero – he was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured,” said Trump, who avoided the draft five times for reasons entirely unrelated to his father being wealthy and influential. 

Rival Rick Perry said the remarks were a “new low in American politics” as he called for Trump to “immediately withdraw” from the race for president, while Jeb Bush urged the “slanderous attacks” on McCain and veterans to stop. Asked whether he would apologise, Trump said: “No, not at all – when I left the room it was a total standing ovation, it was wonderful to see, nobody was insulted.”

7) Speech to the World Economic Forum, Davos, January 21, 2026  

Among many highlights of Trump’s rambling, overrunning speech – one highly anticipated among tensions over his repeated desire to take over Greenland (which he confused with Iceland) – the president repeated a baseless claim that the US “gave back” the territory to Denmark; seemed baffled by the poor relations between Moscow and Kyiv, saying there was “abnormal hatred” between one nation and the other which brutally invaded it; and riffed that Nato allies would not come to the US’s defence (as they did following 9/11).

He also said that Europeans would be “speaking German” without the US – in Switzerland, where around 63% of citizens use it as their main language – and claimed “never seen a wind farm in China” as they only build them as demonstrations to persuade “stupid people” to buy them.

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6) Speech to Congress, March 5, 2025

In his first speech to Congress since being reelected as president, Trump managed to upset the small southern African nation of Lesotho by saying that “nobody has ever heard of” it.

The president made the reference as he listed cuts made to what he said was wasteful expenditure. “Eight million dollars to promote LGBTQI+ in the African nation of Lesotho, which nobody has ever heard of,” Trump said. The US had a permanent mission in the country.

“It has been stated by many that the first month of our presidency – it’s our presidency – is the most successful in the history of our nation by many,” Trump went on. “And what makes it even more impressive is that – do you know who number two is? George Washington. How about that? How about that? I don’t know about that list, but we’ll take it.” Almost a year on, still nobody knows where that list came from.

5) Town hall event, Oaks, Pennsylvania, October 15, 2024

Aka The One Where Trump Gave Up. After a rambling speech and brief Q&A in a Pennsylvania town hall, the then Republican nominee suddenly said: “Let’s not do any more questions. Let’s just listen to music. Let’s make it into our music. Who the hell wants to hear questions? Right?”.

He then insisted on listening to music for the next 40 minutes while standing on stage swaying, including hits by Elvis Presley, James Brown and Guns N’ Roses, as well as the notorious banger Ave Maria, as performed by Luciano Pavarotti, no fewer than three times. 

“Keep going? Keep going? Should we keep going? All right turn that music up, great song,” said Trump.

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung claimed that Trump’s ability to sway from side to side on stage for 40 minutes showed he “has more energy and more stamina than anyone in politics, and is the smartest leader this country has ever seen”.

4) Rally, Sunset Park, Nevada, June 9, 2024

In a speech in Nevada in 2024, held just hours before a meeting with his probation officer about his recent convictions, Trump devoted much of his time to the problem of sharks.

He told his crowd how sharks were attacking more frequently than usual – which wasn’t true, especially not in landlocked Nevada –  and were more dangerous than ever because boats were now required to use batteries, causing them to sink because they were too heavy, none of which is true either. This, he claimed, he knew because of his “relationship to MIT” – not an institution he attended, but one where his uncle studied radiation therapy, making Trump an expert in sharks and battery weight.

“I say, ‘What would happen if the boat sank from its weight and you’re in the boat and you have this tremendously powerful battery and the battery’s underwater, and there’s a shark that’s approximately 10 yards over there?’” mused Trump. 

He added: “By the way, a lot of shark attacks lately. Do you notice that? A lot of shark… I watched some guys justifying it today: ‘Well, they weren’t really that angry. They bit off the young lady’s leg because of the fact that they were not hungry, but they misunderstood who she was.’ These people are crazy.” Yes, those people were crazy.

3) Rally, Wildwood, New Jersey, May 11, 2024

This election rally – held in the shadow of the Great White roller coaster in a kitsch seaside resort 90 miles south of Philadelphia – has gone down in history for one reason: it appears to be the first time Trump expressed his admiration for Hannibal Lecter, a cannibalistic serial killer from a 1981 novel the president apparently believes not just to be real but also a somehow beneficent figure.

Amid comments disparaging people who had immigrated into the US without permission, Trump suddenly segued into musings on “the late, great Hannibal Lecter”, apparently “a wonderful man”. He also used the same speech to repeat exaggerations about having “been indicted more than the great Alphonse Capone”, the violent Prohibition-era Chicago mob boss not only widely considered ‘not great’, but also indicted at least six times before his famous 1931 tax evasion conviction.

2) Rally, Latrobe, Pennsylvania, October 22, 2024

In one of the final lap rallies ahead of the 2024 presidential election, Trump decided it was time to talk about a subject few of his predecessors had addressed: the size of golf legend Arnold Palmer’s penis.

Speaking at the local airport named in Palmer’s honor. Trump said that the 62-time PGA Tour title winner was “an incredible man, he was an incredible champion, and he came from Latrobe.

“This is a guy that was all man,” Trump went on. “This man was strong and tough, and I refuse to say it, but when he took showers with the other pros, they came out of there, they said, ‘Oh my God, that’s unbelievable.’” 

After saying something he really, really didn’t have to say, Trump added: “I had to say it.”

Palmer’s daughter Peg Palmer Wears told Inside Edition at the time: “I think Trump seems to be fairly obsessed with these things, just like crowd size.”

1) First inauguration, January 20, 2017

While most new US presidents choose to make an inauguration speech painting America as the shining hope of humanity, a beacon to the rest of the world, Trump chose to trash the nation entirely, in an address most remembered for the words “American carnage”.

Conjuring up an image of crime-infested inner cities, a political elite high on the hog and a landscape of long-abandoned factories, he accused his predecessors of presiding over cities festering in “crime and gangs and drugs”, saying: “The American carnage stops right here, right now. From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land. From this day forward, it’s going to be only America first. America first.”

The other phrase it is remembered for came from the 43rd president of the US, and the one previously presumed to be the worst ever to hold the role, George W Bush. He was overheard at the end saying, “that was some weird shit”.