A minor incident involving former U.S. President Donald Trump’s entrance to the UN General Assembly on Wednesday has sparked unexpected headlines, after the United Nations suggested that Trump’s videographer may have unintentionally triggered a safety mechanism that caused an escalator to stop.
Stéphane Dujarric, spokesperson for UN Secretary-General António Guterres, said in a press briefing that the escalator stopped at exactly 9:50 a.m. (New York time), just as Trump and former First Lady Melania Trump were ascending into the UN headquarters.
According to Dujarric, a reading from the escalator’s central processing unit (CPU) showed that the stop was caused by the activation of a built-in safety feature located at the top comb plate of the escalator.
He explained that Trump’s videographer was walking backward down the escalator, attempting to film the former president and first lady as they entered, and may have inadvertently triggered the safety sensor.
“The safety mechanism is designed to prevent objects or people from falling, slipping, or being pulled into the moving parts,” Dujarric noted.
The White House did not immediately respond to media requests for comment.
However, Karoline Leavitt, White House Press Secretary, took a more confrontational tone. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), she wrote: “If someone at the UN deliberately stopped the escalator while President Trump and the First Lady were stepping on it, that individual should be fired and investigated immediately.”
Trump himself made light of the situation during his speech to world leaders later that day, joking about both the escalator and a second technical glitch that left his teleprompter malfunctioning.
“These are the two things I got from the United Nations – a bad escalator and a bad teleprompter,” Trump quipped, drawing laughter from some in the chamber.
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