Leavitt seeks probe into UN escalator incident as Trump delivers UNGA remarks

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt demanded an immediate investigation into whether United Nations employees intentionally stopped the escalator on which President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump were riding at the U.N. headquarters in New York on Tuesday morning, just ahead of Trump's remarks to the General Assembly.

The incident occurred as the couple arrived for the U.N. General Assembly session. Moments after they stepped onto the moving staircase, the escalator halted, forcing both the president and the first lady to proceed on foot to the upper level. The pause drew attention as Trump used the moment, and the surrounding distraction from a malfunctioning teleprompter, in the course of his UNGA address.

Leavitt took to social media to echo a claim in the Sunday Times that United Nations employees had joked about turning off escalators and telling him they had run out of money, thereby forcing him to walk up the stairs. “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 wrote on X. The post underscored a broader political moment in which the White House has sought to frame multilateral institutions as failing to support U.S. interests.

The Associated Press cited a U.N. source who said the stop was likely triggered when someone from Trump’s party moved ahead of him, engaging the escalator's stop mechanism. Leavitt’s comments followed that reporting, and she pressed for accountability if the stoppage was intentional. The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment from outlets covering the incident.

Separately, a U.N. source told the AP that the White House was operating the teleprompter when Trump began his address, and reporters noted that the teleprompter issue compounded what the White House described as a challenging moment at the podium. The White House has not publicly attributed the escalator incident to a technical fault, and it did not respond to initial inquiries from Daily Mail about the event.

Trump’s UN remarks, delivered after the escalator episode and teleprompter glitch, leaned into his broader critique of the United Nations. He asserted that he had “ended seven wars” and criticized the organization for not helping with ongoing crises, including Russia’s war in Ukraine and the conflict in Gaza. “All I got from the United Nations was an escalator on the way up that stopped in the middle,” he said, before arguing that the UN had fallen short of its potential and questioned its relevance to U.S. interests. He added, “The United Nations wasn't there for us. They weren't there. I thought of it after the fact, not during these negotiations…what is the purpose of the UN? It's not even coming close to living up to that potential.” In closing, Trump quipped that the two things he took away from the UN were “a bad escalator and a bad teleprompter.”

The episode arrived as a broader political narrative surrounding the U.N. and multilateral diplomacy continues to unfold. While official U.S. policy remains focused on national security and international coordination, Trump’s comments at the U.N. have repeatedly drawn attention to perceived shortcomings of international institutions on issues ranging from security to humanitarian aid. The incident and the ensuing reactions illustrate how a single moment at the United Nations can become a focal point in U.S. domestic political discourse, particularly as candidates and officials weigh how to frame American engagement with global governance bodies during a President’s UN appearances.