Bill Clinton calls on leaders to fill gaps left by 'retreating governments'

News

Bill Clinton calls on leaders to fill gaps left by 'retreating governments'

2026-09-23 09:12 Last Updated At：09:20

NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Bill Clinton opened this year’s Clinton Global Initiative conference Tuesday in New York, calling on attendees to promise to “step into the void created by retreating governments” following cuts by the United States and other nations to foreign assistance.

“We know that we can’t completely fill the hole that retreating governments are leaving behind,” said Clinton, adding that philanthropy and other sectors will have to find new ideas and resources to protect progress on issues already made.

He made his appeal after opening the conference challenging President Donald Trump and his administration on multiple fronts.

“I suppose I could take my entire allotted time to discuss the self-evident wisdom of building an Arc de Triomphe in Washington to hold all our drones,” Clinton joked. “Some of this stuff it’s hard to make up.”

After the laughter subsided, though, Clinton seriously laid out how he disagreed with the idea that “cooperation is not important, that winning is important in the short run.”

The Clinton Global Initiative has convened political, business and philanthropic leaders to address the world’s issues for more than two decades.

Donna McKay, the Breast Cancer Research Foundation’s president and CEO, unveiled one of those new ideas Tuesday.

BCRF Ventures is the foundation’s first venture philanthropy fund, a $100 million initiative launched Tuesday with an $11 million donation from philanthropists Karen and Rob Hale to pay for its creation and early investments to encourage others to donate.

“It makes sense that at this point in time when there are extraordinary advances happening that BCRF throw everything that we can at research and science,” McKay told The Associated Press in an interview. “What this venture philanthropy program will do is try to fast-track advances and get them to patients as quickly as possible.”

The new initiative will not replace BCRF’s more traditional grantmaking to breast cancer research scientists, which the foundation expanded last year in the face of federal funding cuts to medical research.

The goal for the venture philanthropy fund is to use the earnings from the successful companies it supports to bolster more companies.

“The success of one breakthrough has the potential to finance the next and the next,” McKay said.

Stacey Abrams, former Georgia state representative, and leader of the vote mobilization and education nonprofit 10 Steps Campaign, announced a coalition of democracy nonprofits banding together to launch the Democracy Index Fund, which will pool resources to support pro-democracy organizations, and the Democracy Hedge Fund, designed to earn revenue while also providing support for pro-democracy organizations.

“Authoritarians have a playbook. They also have a budget,” Abrams said as she announced the new funds. “And now, so should we.”

Carmen Rojas, the Marguerite Casey Foundation’s president and CEO, outlined a more common-sense approach that is still seen by many in philanthropy circles as radical.

“This is an invitation that I give to donors, to foundations in the room, to anybody who has a rich cousin, this is a moment to give out money,” she said. “Lots of it. Right now.”

Rojas explained how there is currently extraordinary need and that should be met with extraordinary action. The Marguerite Casey Foundation announced plans in June to increase its annual donations to at least $500 million over the next decade in order to alleviate some of the pain the communities it serves are feeling following federal funding cuts. In 2025, the foundation dipped into its endowment in order to hand out $135 million.

“There was greater risk in inaction,” she said, explaining the step many nonprofits would refuse to consider because it could put future investment earnings at risk. “The greatest risk we face is sitting on a set of resources that communities across this country desperately need to protect their neighbors, to be able to build relationships with one another, to have their needs met.”

Rojas told The Associated Press in an interview that her foundation’s bold strategy has encouraged others to utilize it as well. She wants foundations to reconsider the requirement that they give 5% of their value annually in order to maintain their tax-exempt status – calling it a floor rather than a ceiling.

Ford Foundation President Heather Gerken encouraged conference attendees to remember to dream of what they want to accomplish.

“As much as we are in the trenches and fighting the fight, we need to look out over the horizon,” she said. “The reason we are here is that we have had a democracy that has not served everyone. And so we need to figure out how to dream a new democracy into existence.”

Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

Trump says US and Iranian officials met Tuesday, shortly after warning he may 'annihilate' Iran

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — President Donald Trump said U.S. and Iranian officials met Tuesday, an unexpected engagement that came even as he threatened in his address to the U.N. General Assembly that he may “annihilate” the Islamic Republic if a deal isn’t reached soon to end the nearly seven-month war.

Trump told reporters that his chief envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, met for about three hours with the Iranian officials on the sidelines of the annual gathering of world leaders but he offered few details about how the discussions transpired or the substance of the exchange.

“It was a very good meeting,” Trump said. The president later added that the Iranian officials were “not the highest level, but it’s something.”

Witkoff said in a posting on X that the talks were conducted through mediators who shuttled between the U.S. and Iranian teams. He added that he was hopeful the effort “will prove constructive and promising.”

The engagement comes after months of U.S.-Iran communications languishing following the collapse of a short-lived ceasefire that was brokered in June. U.S. and Iranian negotiators met separately with Qatari and Pakistani mediators in Doha in early July for indirect talks.

Earlier Tuesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Trump is open to meeting with Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, while he’s in New York for the General Assembly.

“This is a president that will meet with anybody for the most part, because he believes that engaging with people is important if you’re going to solve problems,” Rubio said on NBC’s “Today” show. “It doesn’t mean you’re going to end up agreeing with them, but it’s important.”

Trump also met Tuesday with leaders and senior officials from Gulf Cooperation Council nations — Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates — as well as Jordan to discuss the way ahead with the war in Iran.

In his address to the General Assembly, Trump made the case that he's shown fortitude while other leaders have equivocated as he defended his decision to start a war with Iran.

But Trump also suggested that he could be at a crossroads in the conflict even as he called on the Islamic Republic to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz and return to the negotiating table to find a settlement to end the conflict.

“I have a big decision to make,” Trump said. “Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before, maybe one of the greatest in the Middle East or even the world. Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again?”

The president's comments came in his wide-ranging address to the international body in which he also celebrated this year's U.S. military operation to oust Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from power, a new agreement to expand the U.S. military presence in Greenland, and pushed back against calls for greater regulation of the artificial intelligence industry.

But at the heart of the address was a fulsome defense of the war and pushback on the notion that Iran has shown a measure of resilience.

“The terrorist regime is behaving badly, not because they are strong and confident, but because they are weak and desperate," Trump said.

Most of Iran's delegation walked out of the chamber as Trump railed against the Islamic Republic.

After his speech, Trump gathered with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenlandic Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen on the sidelines of the General Assembly to sign a new security agreement.

The deal, announced last week, came together after Trump repeatedly threatened to “take over” Greenland, a territory of NATO-ally Denmark, by military force if necessary. Trump said Tuesday the U.S. will immediately begin the process of developing a larger military presence in Greenland including “building two very major military bases.”

Under the deal, Greenland remains Denmark’s territory.

Trump also held talks with new British Prime Minister Andy Burnham, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He was scheduled to hold a more informal meeting Tuesday evening with Venezuela's acting President Delcy Rodríguez, according to the White House.

Trump also took part in an event on the Shield of Americas, an initiative Trump launched with Latin American countries earlier this year focused on combatting violent cartels.

The visit to the U.N. comes as Trump's foreign policy approach — particularly his decision to start a war with Iran — has become a drag on his fellow Republicans' hopes of retaining control of both chambers of Congress during the coming midterm elections. Nevertheless, Trump made the case in his speech that the world is better off for his leadership.

“I have no interest in leaving dangers to grow for another day," Trump said.

In last year's address at the U.N., Trump claimed the U.S. had “demolished” Iran's nuclear capabilities after he ordered the June 2025 bombardment of three key facilities.

He returned to the General Assembly nearing the seven-month mark of a new war against Iran that he insists is necessary to address a nuclear threat posed by Iran.

The war has grown more complicated even though strikes by the United States and Israel have killed much of Iran's top leadership and destroyed its air force and navy, while a U.S. blockade of Iranian oil has left Tehran in economic shambles.

The energy market continues to be spooked by the war and oil prices remain elevated. Saudi Arabia earlier this month shuttered a key pipeline that acted as a relief valve for oil blocked in the Gulf. The kingdom made the move after the pipeline came under attack by Iran-backed militants in Iraq.

At the same time, territorial grabs by the Yemen-based Houthi rebels, another Iranian-backed group, near the Bab al-Mandab Strait has now made it treacherous for oil carriers to use that Red Sea shipping lane.

In his address, the president also touched on Russia's continuing war against Ukraine — a conflict that during his 2024 campaign he predicted would be resolved on Day One of his second term. He once again expressed hope that the conflict will soon be resolved.

Trump hasn't obscured that his patience is being tested by Ukraine's targeting of Russia's diesel refineries — an issue that's added to the global oil markets' volatility — and Russia's targeting of Ukraine's energy grid.

Trump last week asserted that he got the two sides to agree to not target each other's energy infrastructure.

Zelenskyy had said he was willing to go along with Trump's plan if Russia abided by it. Russia said it could only go along with Trump's energy truce proposal if Western energy sanctions on Moscow were lifted first.

The two sides have continued carrying out strikes on refineries and other energy infrastructure.

Trump noted that last week he signed a new sanctions bill targeting Moscow. It empowers him to impose up to 100% tariffs on the top five importers of Russian oil or natural gas.

The legislation includes an exception for countries that import less than 15% of Russia’s natural gas exports and have taken significant steps to reduce those imports. Trump, however, has yet to enact the stiff penalties.

“If necessary, I will have to use them,” Trump said. “It’s time to stop the killing.”

Associated Press Diplomatic Writer Matthew Lee contributed to this story.