Donald Trump said he was the victim of “sabotage” after an escalator at the United Nations stopped working the moment that he and his wife Melania stepped on, forcing the President to walk up one flight of steps.
“Not one, not two, but three very sinister events” occurred at the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York on Tuesday, Trump posted on Truth Social on Wednesday, also referencing an apparent issue with his teleprompter and the sound system when he spoke before the body. Footage of the escalator incident, which quickly circulated online, showed Trump looking around in confusion after the moving stairway jolted to a stop, before Melania in front of him walked up the escalator.
Stéphane Dujarric, a spokesperson for the U.N. Secretary-General, said that a White House videographer running backwards up the escalator ahead of Trump appeared to have “inadvertently triggered” the built-in stop safety mechanism at the top of the escalator. “The safety mechanism is designed to prevent people or objects accidentally being caught and stuck in or pulled into the gearing,” Dujarric said in a note to correspondents.
But the global body’s assurances have not been enough to quell conspiracy theories that sprung up on social media—and that have been perpetuated by the White House—that the malfunction was a deliberate attack by U.N. staffers on Trump.
“The escalator going up to the Main Speaking Floor came to a screeching halt. It stopped on a dime,” Trump continued in his post. “It’s amazing that Melania and I didn’t fall forward onto the sharp edges of these steel steps, face first. It was only that we were each holding the handrail tightly or, it would have been a disaster.”
“The people that did it should be arrested,” Trump added. He said the Secret Service will be looking into the incident and that he sent a letter to U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres demanding an “immediate investigation.”
In addition to the escalator malfunction, Trump said the teleprompter went “stone cold dark” and that the sound was off during his speech, such that attendees could only hear his remarks through interpreters’ earpieces. “The first person I saw at the conclusion of the Speech was Melania, who was sitting right up front. I said, ‘How did I do?’ And she said, ‘I couldn’t hear a word you said,’” Trump wrote. “This wasn’t a coincidence, this was triple sabotage at the UN.”
A U.N. official told Reuters that the White House was responsible for operating the teleprompter for Trump, and that the sound system was designed for people at their seats to hear the addresses translated into six different languages.
Conspiracy theories swirl
The escalator mishap spurred conspiracies on social media that U.N. staff had deliberately halted the escalator in an attempt to humiliate Trump or even endanger his life.
“No way those were accidents,” a right-wing influencer that goes by the username @wallstreetmav on X, posted. “I’d bet UN staff (which wouldn’t have jobs without our taxes) conspired to embarrass President Trump.”
“Trump isn’t taking the UN escalator situation seriously,” Mike Cernovich, a right-wing commentator and conspiracy theorist, posted on X. “I feel like I’m watching the Bolshevik revolution repeat. Where everyone on my side is in la la land and doesn’t understand what they are going to do to us if they can.”
Conservative influencers and Republican officials have called for consequences for the incident. Tennessee Republican Rep. Tim Burchett and right-wing activist Liz Wheeler publicly called for the U.N. to be defunded.
Mike Waltz, the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., posted on X, “The United States will not tolerate threats to our security or dignity at international forums. We expect swift cooperation and decisive action.” Waltz said the embassy has issued formal demands to the U.N., including requiring “the complete results of the UN’s internal investigation into the escalator malfunction, including who or what caused it to halt and whether it was intentional sabotage.”
“They sabotaged them, and they could’ve hurt the first lady,” Fox News host Jesse Watters said.
“I mean, this is an insurrection, and what we need to do is either leave the U.N. or we need to bomb it,” Watters added in an apparent joke. “It is in New York, though, right? Could be some fallout there—alright. Maybe gas it? No? OK. But we need to destroy it. Maybe can we demolish the building? Have everybody leave and then we will demolish the building?”
A columnist for the Sunday Times reported before the incident that U.N. staffers had “joked that they may turn off the escalators,” without citing specific sources.
The White House has leaned on that reporting to drum up claims that the incident was no accident.
“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,” Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, posted on X. Leavitt affirmed her position in an interview with Fox News, adding that “if we find that these were U.N. staffers who were purposely 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.”
Others suggested that the stalled escalator put Trump in danger of more than a bad fall.
Will Chamberlain, senior counsel at the Article III Project, a nonprofit aimed at promoting the confirmation of right-wing judges to the Supreme Court, called the incident “remarkably dangerous.”
“If someone in the building wanted Trump assassinated this would have been a great way to freeze him,” Chamberlain posted on X. Mark Lucas, founder of “America First” advocacy organization Veteran Action and founding board member of the Article III Project, said Trump “was trapped in a ‘fatal funnel’ when the escalator paused.”
“The stalled escalator with President Trump and first lady Melania stuck on it was a classic set up for an assasination hit,” Susan Crabtree, political correspondent for RealClearPolitics, posted, adding that the Secret Service failed to react quickly and decisively. “Today could have been a horrible split screen.”
North Carolina Labor Commissioner Luke Farley posted, “Most of you know me as the “Elevator Guy” — but I’m also responsible for inspecting every escalator in the state. And I can tell you, stopping one with riders on it is incredibly dangerous — President Trump and the First Lady could have been seriously hurt.”
U.N. offices in New York and Geneva have periodically switched off elevators and escalators as cost-saving measures due to a “liquidity crisis” partly driven by delays in funding from the U.S., according to the AP. The U.N. faced a similar cash-flow crisis in 2019 after delayed funding from member states including the U.S. during Trump’s first administration, which prompted the body to shutter lightly used escalators.
Critics pushed back on the MAGA-led theories, with some suggesting that the hullabaloo over the escalator distracted from the firestorm roiling the Trump Administration surrounding documents related to convicted sex offender and alleged sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Writer and podcast host Tara Dublin called the uproar a “weak & dumb manufactured distraction,” while Joanne Carducci, liberal political commentator and podcast host, said, “The craziest thing about the UN escalator not working is that Donald Trump’s name is all over the Epstein files and he still refuses to release them.” Prominent financial journalist James Surowiecki asked sardonically, “So walking up the escalator after a short pause placed Trump in a ‘fatal funnel,’ but riding up the escalator at an incredibly slow pace didn’t?”
Whether glitch or plot, to Trump, the escalator fault was another example of the U.S. being dealt an unfair hand by the world.
“All I got from the United Nations was an escalator on the way up that stopped right in the middle,” Trump said during his speech. “If the first lady wasn’t in great shape, she would have fallen, but she’s in great shape. We’re both in good shape.”
“These are the two things I got from the United Nations: a bad escalator and a bad teleprompter.”
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