Trump’s UN appearance marred by escalator and teleprompter glitches

President Donald Trump’s speech at the United Nations was briefly interrupted by two malfunctions: an escalator that stopped mid-ride and a teleprompter that appeared to fail. The United Nations later said a videographer from the U.S. delegation who ran ahead of him triggered the stop mechanism at the top of the escalator. As he began his remarks, Trump noted that the teleprompter wasn’t working and joked that whoever was running it “is in big trouble.”

Stephane Dujarric, the U.N. spokesman, said 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,” Dujarric added in a statement.

The episode unfolded as Trump launched into his remarks, and the president’s aides did not immediately offer a public explanation beyond the videographer’s role in the escalator stop. An anonymous U.N. official, speaking on the sensitivity of the issue, said the White House was operating the teleprompter for the president.

Escalators at the United Nations have a history of occasional malfunctions, and staff and visitors are familiar with occasional outages. In recent months, U.N. offices in New York and Geneva have intermittently turned off elevators and escalators as part of cost-cutting steps in response to a liquidity crisis at the world body. That liquidity crunch has been attributed in part to delays in funding from the United States, which remains the top donor to the U.N.

Observers noted that the interruptions came as Trump sought to cast the United Nations as dysfunctional, a framing that has echoed his broader stance toward multinational institutions. The juxtaposition of the escalator and teleprompter glitches with his critique underscored the president’s approach of using real-time hiccups to shape the narrative of the international organization he repeatedly criticizes.