The US Secret Service is set to look into whether UN officials deliberately hindered President Donald Trump’s entry, following his remarks about stopping the escalator prior to a general assembly meeting in New York City this week.
President Trump mentioned the evident escalator mishap when he and First Lady Melania Trump used it on Tuesday morning. However, the announcement from White House Press Secretary Carolyn Leavitt about the Secret Service’s investigation might not be as light-hearted as it sounds.
Ahead of the 80th General Assembly, there were reports from the Sunday Times indicating that some UN staff were jokingly suggesting they might claim the escalators were turned off due to budget cuts affecting global institutions upon Trump’s arrival.
If it turns out the escalator closure was intentional, it could have posed significant security risks by temporarily blocking Trump’s vehicle, especially considering past threats against his life and the recent assassination of an ally, Charlie Kirk.
Leavitt’s executive director commented on Fox News Tuesday evening:
“Initially, it was about an escalator, not some scripted message, as Katie Publich pointed out. I noticed the audio was much lower and different compared to previous speakers.”
“Putting everything together, it doesn’t seem like a coincidence, and we have the Secret Service involved,” she continued. “If it turns out that it was UN staff trying to orchestrate this, they would be accountable for putting the President and First Lady of America at risk.”
The UN has refuted claims that the escalator incident was intentional. Spokesman Stephen Dujaric mentioned that the stoppage was likely due to US delegation videographers causing a “safety function” to trigger. He added that UN engineers promptly restored the escalator service.
“Investigations, including checks on the machine’s central processing unit, revealed that the escalator’s halt was triggered by a built-in safety mechanism, possibly due to something getting caught,” he stated.
In any case, the malfunctioning escalator and teleprompter certainly drew President Trump’s comments during his assembly speech, where he humorously warned that the teleprompter operator was in “big trouble.”
“What I experienced from the UN was an escalator that stopped halfway. If the First Lady hadn’t been in good shape, she could have fallen. But, luckily, we’re both in shape,” he reflected. “So, I had issues with two things from the UN: malfunctioning escalators and faulty teleprompters. Thank you, but at least it worked out eventually.”
