Following Tuesday's "Escalatorgate", in which US President Donald Trump faced an escalator malfunction and alleged sound system and teleprompter issues at the UN General Assembly, Trump announced on Wednesday that the Secret Service would be investigating. UN officials responded by denying any foul play and noted that the White House handled Trump's teleprompter, and that the sound system allows for simultaneous translation for people in the auditorium.
Issued on: 25/09/2025 -
By: FRANCE 24
Trump demanded an investigation on Wednesday into what he called “triple sabotage” after experiencing escalator, teleprompter and sound system issues as he addressed the United Nations.
The UN has said the incidents that happened while Trump was at its headquarters in New York on Tuesday were accidental, partly blaming them on White House staff.
But in a long, angry social media post, Trump described the string of mishaps as “very sinister", called for people to be arrested and said the Secret Service was also probing.
“This wasn’t a coincidence, this was triple sabotage at the UN. They ought to be ashamed of themselves,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform.
“I’m sending a copy of this letter to the Secretary-General, and I demand an immediate investigation. No wonder the United Nations hasn’t been able to do the job that they were put in existence to do.”
Footage showed the 79-year-old president and First Lady Melania Trump stepping on to the escalator at UN headquarters on Tuesday before it stopped with a lurch, forcing them to walk up.
Then, as he began his speech, he noted his teleprompter was not working.
He spent much of the rest of the address attacking the world body, accusing it of funding illegal migration that was turning Western countries into “hell” and failing to support his peace efforts in Gaza and Ukraine.
Watch more'Deranged', 'staggering', 'incoherent': Papers react to Trump's UN speech
While Trump struck a mostly joking tone about the escalator at the time, his mood hardened a day later.
“A REAL DISGRACE took place at the United Nations yesterday. Not one, not two, but three very sinister events!” he wrote.
Trump said the escalator stop could have been a “real disaster".
“It’s amazing that Melania and I didn’t fall forward on to the sharp edges of these steel steps, face first,” he said.
Trump then complained that his teleprompter for the speech was “stone cold dark” for the first 15 minutes, and that the sound in the UN auditorium was “completely off".
The US president called for the security tapes of the escalator to be preserved, adding: “The Secret Service is involved.”
Read moreTrump presents new plan to end war in Gaza to Arab and Muslim leaders
UN points to White House
UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric on Tuesday issued a statement addressing the uproar, saying a videographer from the US delegation “may have inadvertently triggered the safety function” on the escalator.
“Regarding the teleprompter, we have no comment since the teleprompter for the US president is operated by the White House,” he said.
A Secret Service official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the agency was “looking into what the UN said to corroborate it".
Reached for comment after Trump’s post on Wednesday, a UN official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, pointed to Dujarric’s earlier statement.
Regarding the alleged sound issues, the official said: “The sound system was designed to allow people at their seats to hear speeches translated into six different languages through earpieces.”
Mike Waltz, the newly appointed US ambassador, said on X that he had formally demanded the “complete results” of the UN’s investigation of the escalator incident, as well as a “detailed explanation of the teleprompter failure’s root cause, along with immediate plans to implement robust preventive measures".
“The United States will not tolerate threats to our security or dignity at international forums. We expect swift co-operation and decisive action,” Waltz added.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
'EscalatorGate' escalates and goes viral as MAGA call out sabotage of UN escalator
Donald Trump has called it a “REAL DISGRACE”. White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt says the US Secret Service are looking into it. MAGA supporters are up in arms. Why? Because of the minor inconvenience caused by an escalator breaking down at the UN. Here's why #EscalatorGate is trending.
When Nathan Ames patented the first moving staircase in 1859, little did he know that 166 years later the escalator would become the latest fixation of Trump and his MAGA base.
At the United Nations general assembly this week, Donald Trump delivered a sprawling speech that often felt like experimental free form jazz. Except the avant-garde approach to the music genre requires a great deal of improvisational talent.
When he wasn’t describing climate change as the "greatest con job ever", he was singling out how European nations are “going to hell” over their migration policies or waxing lyrical about his red hat merch.
But the moment that caught people's attention was when he broke from his prepared remarks to bemoan a defective teleprompter and the now-viral moment when he and first lady Melania Trump were on a malfunctioning escalator.
“All I got from the United Nations was an escalator that on the way up stopped right in the middle,” said Trump.
Indeed, the escalator did suddenly stop as Donald and Melania Trump stepped onto it, leading to them having to walk up the stairs.
Trump posted about the harrowing experience on Truth Social, writing that it was “amazing that Melania and I didn’t fall forward on to the sharp edges of these steel steps, face first.”
In his legnthy chronicle of the “REAL DISGRACE”, Trump made reference 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 “tell him they ran out of money.” This would have been a jab at the sweeping US funding cuts.
Trump has demanded an “immediate investigation” into whether UN staff sabotaged his attendance, with the Leader of the Free World calling the teleprompter failure and the escalator SNAFU “very sinister events”. He added that the “people that did it should be arrested!”.
As overblown as the presidential reaction was to a malfunctioning piece of equipment, the Trump administration and the MAGA base doubled down.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House spokeswoman, told Fox News that the Secret Service was investigating allegations that Trump had been deliberately sabotaged by UN staff.
“It doesn’t look like a coincidence to me,” she told Fox News. “And I know that we have people, including the United States Secret Service, who are looking into this to try to get to the bottom of it.”
Good luck, as that particular escalator was supposed to go up, and not to the bottom.
Leavitt then suggested on X that this was an intentional act of protest and that someone could have intentionally halted the escalator.
Where’s Hercule Poirot when you need him?
Then again, even the famous fictional detective would probably come to the conclusion that the UN have better things to do with their time than investigate a malfunctioning escalator under the guise of sabotage suspicions.
Still, UN officials took it seriously and have said the escalator's built-in safety mechanism had been “inadvertently triggered” by a videographer working for the Trump administration and that the teleprompter was operated by the White House rather than the UN.
So, the call was coming from inside the (American) house after all.
UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric confirmed that a videographer from the US delegation who ran ahead of him may have triggered the stop mechanism at the top of the escalator.
He said: “In an effort to document their arrival, a videographer from the US delegation stepped on to the escalator ahead of the president and first lady. As the videographer, who was travelling backwards up the escalator reached the top, the first lady, followed by President Trump, each mounted the steps at the bottom. At that moment, the escalator came to a stop.”
His statement continued: “Our technician, who was at the location, reset the escalator as soon as the delegation had climbed up to the second floor. A subsequent investigation, including a readout of the machine’s 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.”
“The safety mechanism is designed to prevent people or objects accidentally being caught and stuck in or pulled into the gearing. The videographer may have inadvertently triggered the safety function described above.”
Still, MAGA are convinced there’s a wider conspiracy here – leading to the trending hashtag #EscalatorGate.
Still, some found a silver lining...
Late-night talk show hosts had a field day with the moment, pointing out the lunacy of overblown conspiracy theories.
“My favourite part of that clip (of Trump stuck on the escalator) is trump looking around like he doesn’t know what to do next,” said Seth Meyers. “We all know that when an escalator breaks, we just use it as stairs. But when Trump see a broken escalator, he turns to Melania and says, ‘We live here now’.”
Referring to Leavitt’s comments on Fox News, in which she blamed “UN globalist staffers” plotting to set up Trump, Meyers quipped: “I’ve heard a lot about these globalists over the years, but I didn’t realise their M.O. was to just burn you with soft pranks.”
Jimmy Kimmel, who is now back on the air despite Trump’s wishes, showed clips of Fox News host Jesse Watters saying: “They could have hurt the most beautiful first lady in American history.”
Kimmel said: “Just to recap: Trump will not release the Epstein files, but we will be doing a thorough and complete investigation into who stopped his escalator...”
As for The Daily Show’s Jordan Klepper, he referred to the extensive Fox News coverage of escalatorgate and their repeated accusations of sabotage by asking: “Can you people please decide if Trump is the strongest man who has ever walked the Earth or a sickly child with hollow bird bones who will crumble if he walks up three stairs?”
No news on which one they’re picking, but suspicions of a shadowy UN cabal continue.
We really do live in the most unserious timeline, don’t we?
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