President Joe Biden delivered his final address as president to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, Sept. 24, and it was a masterpiece of narcissistic myth-making. It was a speech of hollow boasts that couldn’t have been delivered at a worse time, as America is increasingly disregarded and disrespected around the world by enemies and allies alike.

Casting himself as a great defender of democracy worldwide, Biden tried to turn the coup that removed him as the leader of his own party into an act of historic self-sacrifice.