UN escalator, teleprompter, sound system failure is ‘triple sabotage’, says Trump

United Nations:  A lurching stop by an escalator, a blank teleprompter and a failing sound system have turned into the stuff of an international conspiracy that has US President Donald Trump demanding an investigation and arrests.

“This wasn’t a coincidence, this was triple sabotage at the UN,” he said on Truth Social on Wednesday (local media).

The incidents happened during his Tuesday visit to the UN, where he spoke about weighty matters of global importance, along with the escalator and the malfunctioning teleprompter in his nearly hour-long speech to the gathered presidents, prime ministers and princes.

He said he was sending his complaint and demands to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

Shortly before midnight with all the urgency of an international crisis, Guterres’s Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in a statement the secretary-general had informed the US Mission that a thorough investigation had been ordered, and the UN would cooperate with US officials.

Trump said the Secret Service is looking into it.

As Trump and First Lady Melania Trump were on the delegates’ escalator leading to the General Assembly Hall on Tuesday, it jerked to a stop.

“It’s amazing that Melania and I didn’t fall forward onto the sharp edges of these steel steps, face first. It was only that we were each holding the handrail tightly, or it would have been a disaster,” he wrote.

“This was absolutely sabotage,” he wrote.

They walked up the escalator, trailed by their entourage.

He cited an online report by The Times of London, which said that some US staffers joked that “they may simply turn off the escalators and elevators and tell him they ran out of money, so he has to take the stairs”.

“The people that did it should be arrested,” he said.

“All security tapes at the escalator should be saved, especially the emergency stop button,” he demanded.

Dujarric said on Tuesday that a preliminary investigation showed that a White House videographer who was filming Trump and walking backwards up the escalator tripped a “built-in safety mechanism” to prevent people or objects from getting entangled in the machinery.

“The videographer may have inadvertently triggered the safety function,” he said.

When Trump got to the podium, he said he found the teleprompter “stone cold dark” and it kicked in 15 minutes later.

Starting his speech, Trump said, “Whoever’s operating this teleprompter is in big trouble.”

After his speech, he said his wife told him that she couldn’t hear him because the sound was off in the hall.

The world leaders had to use the earpieces meant for simultaneous interpretation, he said.

The delegates’ escalator is always kept running, but other elevators are often shut down either as part of an economy drive when there is a financial crunch — sometimes because the US, which bears 22 per cent of the UN budget, is late in paying up — or parts are not readily available to fix them.

One of them in the secretariat building was totally out on Tuesday.

(Arul Louis can be contacted at arul.l@ians.in)

–IANS