UN Says Trump Escalator Problem Likely Caused by Safety Trigger

White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said the escalator and teleprompter malfunctions seemed to be acts of sabotage.

President Donald Trump (C) and First Lady Melania Trump (R) walk up an escalator as they arrive to the 80th session of the UN’s General Assembly (UNGA) at the United Nations headquarters in New York City on Sept. 23, 2025. Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images

The United Nations issued a statement on Sept. 23 saying that the escalator malfunction that occurred as President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump were arriving at the U.N. General Assembly was likely caused by a safety trigger.

The incident occurred at U.N. headquarters in New York City before Trump addressed the General Assembly on Sept. 23. The escalator malfunctioned the moment Trump and the first lady stepped on it, forcing them and their delegation to walk up the escalator on their own.

Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for the U.N. Secretary General, said in a statement that the U.S. delegation’s videographer may have unintentionally triggered the safety function after traveling backward up the escalator to capture Trump’s arrival.

“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,” Dujarric said.

“The safety mechanism is designed to prevent people or objects [from] accidentally being caught and stuck in or pulled into the gearing.”

The escalator was restored by a technician right after the U.S. delegation had climbed up to the second floor, according to the statement.

It appears that the escalator was not the only issue that day. Trump told the General Assembly that the teleprompter was also not functioning but that it wouldn’t stop him from delivering his speech.

“I don’t mind making this speech without a teleprompter, because the teleprompter is not working,” Trump said jokingly after he took the podium. “I feel very happy to be up here with you, nevertheless, and that way you speak more from the heart.”

Later that day, Trump posted on Truth Social that he was honored to address the U.N., even with the teleprompter and escalator issues.

“Both of those events probably made the speech more interesting than it would have been otherwise,” he said.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has urged the U.N. to investigate the incident.

In a social media post, Leavitt said that any U.N. staffers who intentionally stopped the escalator as Trump and the first lady were stepping on should be “fired and investigated immediately.”

Leavitt told Fox News on Sept. 23 that the escalator and teleprompter malfunctions seemed to be acts of sabotage and that the U.S. Secret Service was looking into it.

“When you put all of this together, it doesn’t look like a coincidence to me,” Leavitt said. “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, there better be accountability for those people.”

The Epoch Times reached out to the U.N. for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.