Trump Demands Arrests, Claims UN Escalator Outage Was ‘Absolutely Sabotage’
US President Donald Trump has demanded arrests after an escalator at the United Nations headquarters abruptly stalled on Tuesday just as he and First Lady Melania Trump stepped onto it.
The sudden malfunction, which nearly caused the First Lady to stumble, was the first of at least three disruptions the 79-year-old president claimed to have observed during his visit to address world leaders at the UN General Assembly in New York.
“A REAL DISGRACE took place at the United Nations yesterday — Not one, not two, but three very sinister events!” Trump wrote on Truth Social .
“First, the escalator going up to the Main Speaking Floor came to a screeching halt. It stopped on a dime. 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 president continued. Video footage showed Melania Trump visibly jerking forward when the machine stopped.
Trump alleged the escalator incident was “absolutely sabotage,” citing a Times of London report that UN staffers had been overheard joking about switching off the escalator to force him to walk.
“The people that did it should be arrested!” the president fumed, demanding an “immediate investigation” and the preservation of “all security tapes at the escalator, especially the emergency stop button.” He added that the Secret Service is involved.
A UN spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric, suggested that a member of the US delegation may have inadvertently triggered the stop.
Dujarric stated that a videographer from the US delegation stepped onto the escalator ahead of the President and First Lady “in an effort to document their arrival.” As the videographer, who was traveling backward, reached the top, the escalator stopped.
“A subsequent investigation… indicated that the escalator had stopped after a built-in safety mechanism on the comb step was triggered at the top of the escalator,” Dujarric explained. “The videographer may have inadvertently triggered the safety function described above.”
Trump claimed the mechanical failure was compounded by two other “sinister events.” His teleprompter stopped working as he delivered his address, and he alleged that no one in the auditorium without an earpiece could hear his remarks.
“It was stone cold dark,” Trump said of the teleprompter. “I immediately thought to myself, ‘Wow, first the escalator event, and now a bad teleprompter. What kind of a place is this?’” He noted the teleprompter “kicked in about 15 minutes later.”
The president said he learned of the audio issue at the end of his speech when he asked Melania, “How did I do?”
“And she said, ‘I couldn’t hear a word you said,’” the president recounted.
Concluding his statement, Trump declared, “This wasn’t a coincidence, this was triple sabotage at the UN. They ought to be ashamed of themselves.”
