Donald Trump implied the United Nations was falling apart after his General Assembly address kicked off with a set of technical challenges.
But the reasons for the embarrassing hitches were closer to home.
First, the escalator stopped immediately after Trump and his wife, Melania, stepped onto it ahead of his major speech.
Video showed the president looking around before he and the first lady started to walk up the unmoving escalator.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt posted a tweet later, demanding an investigation into whether someone had intentionally halted the escalator.
But according to someone familiar with the situation, someone in the president’s own entourage accidentally tripped the emergency stop.
They were able to quickly reset it and move on, but the president’s UN challenges didn’t stop there, a source told The Daily Beast.
As Trump took the podium to speak, he complained that the teleprompter was not working. Instead, he had to read the printed copy of his speech.
However, a person with knowledge of the situation revealed that delegations are allowed to bring their own laptops and teleprompter operators, and the UN was not running it for Trump’s speech.
The source said that the White House had its own laptop, and UN technicians were not in the booth for the president’s address.
Ultimately, the entire situation may have happened because the president’s team needed more time to set up. It was suggested that they did not arrive with enough time to make sure their equipment was plugged in and ready to go.
While the president had his own operator to run the teleprompter and laptop to run his speech, what was less clear was whether the White House had also swapped out the actual teleprompters, as some delegations do.
The entire episode could have been quickly played off had the president not made such a big deal about it, but Trump did not take kindly to the technical challenges and made it known worldwide.
After Trump walked out and thanked the audience, he started flipping through his printed speech.
“And I don’t mind making this speech without a teleprompter because the teleprompter is not working,” Trump said, gesturing in front of him.
“I feel very happy to be up here with you, nevertheless,” the president continued with a smile. “And that way you speak more from the heart.”
“I can only say that whoever is operating this teleprompter is in big trouble,” he joked, shaking his head as the crowd laughed.
Trump began his speech by reading it from the printed version in front of him. He went on to deliver a UN speech filled with grievances, in which he also complained about the escalator not working.
Nearly ten minutes into his address, the president mentioned that it had stopped, while also noting that the teleprompter was finally working.
The president complained he never got a phone call from the UN offering to help finalize the wars he claimed he had stopped.
“All I got from the United Nations was an escalator that on the way up stopped right in the middle,” Trump declared. “If the first lady wasn’t in great shape, she would have fallen.”
He continued that they are both in great shape before bringing up the teleprompter again.
“These are the two things I got from the United Nations: a bad escalator and a bad teleprompter,” Trump said. “Thank you very much.”
The president brought up the escalator stopping again moments later while complaining to world leaders about not being chosen years ago for UN building renovations.
When The Daily Beast asked the White House for comment, it sent over an X post from Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday afternoon.
If someone at the UN intentionally stopped the escalator as the President and First Lady were stepping on, they need to be fired and investigated immediately.The Times reported this on Sunday.👇 pic.twitter.com/NitsWbGYG0
— Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) September 23, 2025
“If someone at the UN intentionally stopped the escalator as the President and First Lady were stepping on, they need to be fired and investigated immediately,” she wrote with a screen grab from a report from The Times on Sunday that U.N. staff joked about turning off the escalators.
The response did not address the president having his own teleprompter team.
After his speech, the president brought the technical challenges up again himself on social media.
“The teleprompter was broken and the escalator came to a sudden hault [sic] as we were ridding up to the podium, but both of those events probably made the speech more interesting than it would have been otherwise,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“It is always an honor to speak at the United Nations, even if, their equipment is somewhat faulty,” he added, but he wrote that he believed his speech was well received.
The post White House Calls for Probe Into Its Own UN Escalator Gaffe appeared first on The Daily Beast.
