White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt demanded on Tuesday that if anyone at the United Nations “intentionally” stopped an escalator right before President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump stepped onto it, “they need to be fired and investigated immediately.” Leavitt’s demand came hours after an escalator at the UN abruptly halted just as the Trumps were getting on it, shortly before the President delivered a speech to the General Assembly in New York. The press secretary’s tweet referenced a report from a British newspaper that UN staff members had joked about turning off the escalators to mark Trump’s arrival.
However, a UN official told the Associated Press that a person traveling with Trump had inadvertently hit the stop lever on the escalator, causing it to stop. The UN official also noted that the President’s own team was responsible for operating the teleprompter, which also failed.
Trump Mocks UN Quality in Speech
President Trump used the mishaps to mock the quality of the UN headquarters. During his speech, which he began by reading from paper because the teleprompter was not working, he complained that his prior bid to renovate the buildings had been rejected. “Many years ago, a very successful real estate developer in New York, known as Donald J. Trump, I bid on the renovation and rebuilding of this very United Nations complex,” he said. Trump claimed he would have done it for $500 million and that he would have given them “marble floors” and “mahogany walls” instead of the “plastic” they received. He concluded, “These are the two things I got from the United Nations: a bad escalator and a bad teleprompter.”
Broader Criticisms and Policy
In his nearly hour-long address to world leaders, Trump criticized the global organization as a whole, accusing it of operating with “empty words, and empty words don’t solve wars.” While he said the UN has “tremendous, tremendous potential,” he stated that it is “not even coming close to living up to that potential.” Trump has long been a critic of the UN, and his administration has withdrawn the United States from a number of UN bodies and slashed funding for the organization. In his speech, he also called climate change “a con job,” said that UN member countries “are being ruined” by immigration, and urged the UN to trust his vision for policy, citing a best-selling hat from his campaign that reads, “‘Trump Was Right About Everything.'”
Author’s Opinion
This incident, while minor, was a perfect example of how President Trump uses public events to advance his political narrative. By transforming a simple mechanical error and a technical glitch into a story of a dysfunctional organization, Trump was able to reinforce his long-standing critique of the UN. This approach prioritizes spectacle and personal anecdotes over formal diplomacy, and it is a highly effective way to communicate a political message to his base while on the global stage. It highlights a shift in international relations, where even a state visit can be used as a platform for domestic political theater, blurring the lines between a diplomatic mission and a campaign rally.
Featured image credit: Trump White House Archived via Flickr
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