UN blames Trump team for escalator and teleprompter malfunctions

Dave Goldiner, New York Daily News on Sep 24, 2025

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NEW YORK — United Nations officials are blaming President Donald Trump’s team for high-profile snafus affecting an escalator and teleprompter during the president’s Tuesday appearance at the world body’s headquarters.

Trump used the embarrassing incidents to portray the global body as dysfunctional but the U.N. says neither one was its fault.

Stephane Dujarric, a U.N. spokesman, said a videographer from Trump’s delegation ran ahead of the president and First Lady Melania Trump as they rode up towards the chamber.

The improper action triggered a safety mechanism at the top of the escalator that stopped it from going up. After a jolt, the Trumps were forced to walk up the rest of the way under their own power.

“The safety mechanism is designed to prevent people or objects accidentally being caught and stuck in or pulled into the gearing,” Dujarric said. “The videographer may have inadvertently triggered the safety function.”

Moments later, the teleprompter also failed as Trump started his rambling 57-minute speech denouncing the U.N. for bungling global issues like mass migration and climate change.

As he began his speech, Trump joked that whoever was running the device “is in big trouble.”

“These are the two things I got from the United Nations: a bad escalator and a bad teleprompter,” Trump said derisively.

But U.N. officials said the White House was operating the teleprompter for the president, meaning Trump’s staff was to blame, just like it was for the escalator.

The teleprompter soon resumed operation, but Trump frequently departed from his prepared remarks to accuse the U.N. of bankrolling illegal immigration and to dismiss its warnings about global warming, which he slammed as the “green scam.”

Even though it blamed Trump’s team for the specific mechanical difficulties at Tuesday’s event, there’s no denying the U.N. has been plagued by operational woes.

In recent months, U.N. offices in New York and Geneva have intermittently turned off elevators and escalators as part of steps to save money because of a “liquidity crisis” at the world body.

Bean counters blame that cash crunch in part to delays in funding from the United States, which is the top donor to the U.N.