An escalator at the UN stopped suddenly as US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump stepped on it. Later, they chose to walk up the frozen escalator. The video of the incident has gone viral.
An escalator at the United Nations abruptly stopped the moment US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump stepped onto it on Tuesday. The video of the incident from the UN headquarters in New York has gone viral on social media.ย
The incident occurred at the UN headquarters when President Trump and First Lady Melania stepped onto an escalator that unexpectedly halted after moving just a short distance.
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Watch the video here
Videos widely shared on social media captured the incident, showing Trump and Melania being briefly jolted before regaining their balance. Later, the couple chose to walk up the escalator instead of switching to the adjacent moving one.
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White House demands probe
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt demanded an investigation and said that if this was done intentionally, those behind it should be fired. In an X post, Leavitt said, “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 also cited a report in the Times of London, which, on Sunday, suggested that the staff members at the United Nations had joked that they would turn off the escalators and “tell him they ran out of money” amid sweeping US funding cuts.
Later speaking to Fox News, Leavitt said, “If 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.”
What did the UN say?
Stephane Dujarric, the UN spokesman, said a videographer from the US delegation who ran ahead of him triggered the stop 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 statement.ย
“The videographer may have inadvertently triggered the safety function,” he added.
Bad teleprompter, escalator: Trump
President Trump, while addressing the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, said that “a bad teleprompter and a bad escalator are all he got from the United Nations.” “All I got from the United Nations was an escalator that on the way up stopped right in the middle,” he mused, chopping the air with his hand.
He added that if Melania “wasn’t in great shape, she would have fallen, but sheโs in great shape. We’re both in good shape.”
As he began his speech, Trump also noted that the teleprompter wasn’t working. He joked that whoever was running the teleprompter “is in big trouble.”
A UN official speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue contributed that one to his side as well, saying the White House was operating the teleprompter for the President.
Vice President JD Vance quipped about the incident, taking a dig at past leadership. “It’s nice to have a president with a brain!” he remarked. “All kidding aside, did everyone notice how, despite the lack of a teleprompter, he delivered a clear, reasonable address on US foreign policy?” Vance wrote in a post on X.ย
Regardless of the cause, it’s not unusual for escalators at the UN to stop working, as staff and visitors know quite well.
In recent months, UN offices in New York and Geneva have intermittently turned off elevators and escalators as part of steps to save money because of a “liquidity crisis” at the world body.
That’s due in part to delays in funding from the United States, which is the top donor of the world body.
(With AP inputs)
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