The UN speech was fascinating. The Machiavel in the heart of the Republic. And both require the other -- the unseemly, freely speaking individual, and the Republic, the harmonious relation in which the interests of the individual are thought to be identical with the shared interests.
And all else aside, and as close to the edge as the current politics might be coming, someone coming to the center of the world's leadership and musing for a bit on the construction materials of the building is quintessentially American. Old Scottish empiricism and plain speaking. Perhaps, despite everything, some small hope.