{"id":447847,"date":"2025-09-24T11:57:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T11:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/447847\/"},"modified":"2025-09-24T11:57:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T11:57:09","slug":"trump-angered-by-bad-escalator-at-un-as-white-house-vows-to-investigate-malfunction-donald-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/447847\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump angered by \u2018bad escalator\u2019 at UN as White House vows to investigate malfunction | Donald Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump appeared to laugh it off Tuesday when an escalator and a teleprompter both malfunctioned during his United Nations<\/a> visit \u2013 but for US officials it was no laughing matter.<\/p>\n

The White House said an investigation had been launched into whether the moving stairway was stopped on purpose to humiliate the US president, who later bashed the global body in his speech to the UN general assembly in New York.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we find that these were UN and staffers who were purposefully trying to trip up, literally trip up the president and the first lady of the United States, well, there better be accountability for those people. And I will personally see to it,\u201d White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Fox News on Tuesday evening.<\/p>\n

Leavitt also posted to X after the incident: \u201cIf someone at the U.N. intentionally stopped the escalator \u2026 they need to be fired and investigated immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n

A UN spokesman said the mishap happened because someone in front of Trump accidentally set off a safety mechanism on the escalator, causing it to shut down.<\/p>\n

Donald Trump and Melania Trump walk up the escalator after it stalled on Tuesday. Photograph: Stefan Jeremiah\/AP<\/p>\n

In a statement earlier in the day, Leavitt pointed to a report in the Times of London newspaper on Sunday saying that UN staff members had joked that they would turn off the escalators and \u201ctell him they ran out of money\u201d amid sweeping US funding cuts.<\/p>\n

Several other White House figures and conservative commentators also speculated about a plot against Trump.<\/p>\n

Footage showed the 79-year-old president and First Lady Melania Trump getting on the escalator at UN headquarters, before it stopped with a lurch after a short distance.<\/p>\n

\u2018A bad escalator\u2019<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s bad luck continued when his teleprompter was not working for the start of the speech.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhoever is operating this teleprompter is in big trouble,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

He then went on to \u2013 apparently jokingly \u2013 link the two incidents to what he said were the UN\u2019s multiple failings, including a lack of support for his peace efforts in a series of conflicts.<\/p>\n

\u201cI ended seven wars, dealt with the leaders of each and every one of these countries, and never even received a phone call from the United Nations,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll I got from the United Nations was an escalator that, on the way up, stopped right in the middle. If the first lady wasn\u2019t in great shape, she would have fallen, but she\u2019s in great shape. We\u2019re both in good shape.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cThese are the two things I got from the United Nations, a bad escalator and a bad teleprompter. Thank you very much.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the UN insisted there were simple explanations.<\/p>\n

\u201cA subsequent investigation, including a readout of the machine\u2019s central processing unit, indicated that the escalator had stopped after a built-in safety mechanism on the comb step was triggered at the top of the escalator,\u201d Stephane Dujarric, a spokesperson for UN secretary general Antonio Guterres, said in a statement.<\/p>\n

A videographer filming the US delegation\u2019s arrival \u201cmay have inadvertently triggered the safety function described above\u201d, the statement continued.<\/p>\n

The escalator was \u201creset\u201d and was soon back in operation, Dujarric earlier told AFP.<\/p>\n

\u201cRegarding the teleprompter, we have no comment since the teleprompter for the US president is operated by the White House,\u201d Dujarric said.<\/p>\n

With Agence France-Presse and Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump appeared to laugh it off Tuesday when an escalator and a teleprompter both malfunctioned during his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":447848,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-447847","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115259155628351808","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=447847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/447848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=447847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=447847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=447847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}