White House demands probe into 'plot' to humiliate Donald Trump and Melania in escalator 'sabotage'
The White House has ordered an investigation into an escalator that stopped moving and a teleprompter that malfunctioned prior to Donald Trump’s speech to the UN general assembly.
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White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt angrily threatened ‘accountability’ as she claimed the malfunctions were a plot by UN staffers to ‘trip up’ the president.
The White House said an investigation had been launched into whether the moving stairway was stopped on purpose to humiliate the US president, who later bashed the global body in his speech to the UN general assembly in New York.
Ms Leavitt said: “If we find that these were UN and staffers who were purposefully trying to trip up, literally trip up the president and the first lady of the United States, well, there better be accountability for those people. And I will personally see to it.”
She cited a news report that UN staff had ‘joked’ they could turn off the escalators and lifts in the building to make Trump walk up 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,” Ms Leavitt fumed in an online post.
A UN spokesman said the mishap happened because someone in front of Trump accidentally set off a safety mechanism on the escalator, causing it to shut down.
Several other White House figures and conservative commentators also speculated about a plot against Trump.
Video footage of the incident shows the president and First Lady stepping on the escalator before it stops with a lurch.
Mr Trump said ‘bad escalator’. There was a further mishap when a teleprompter failed at the start of his speech.
“Whoever is operating this teleprompter is in big trouble,” Trump said.
“I ended seven wars, dealt with the leaders of each and every one of these countries, and never even received a phone call from the United Nations,” Trump said.
“All I got from the United Nations was an escalator that, on the way up, stopped right in the middle. If the first lady wasn’t in great shape, she would have fallen, but she’s in great shape. We’re both in good shape.”
He added: “These are the two things I got from the United Nations, a bad escalator and a bad teleprompter. Thank you very much.”
A spokesperson for UN secretary general Antonio Guterres, said in a statement: “A subsequent investigation, including a readout of the machine’s central processing unit, indicated that the escalator had stopped after a built-in safety mechanism on the comb step was triggered at the top of the escalator.”
A videographer filming the US delegation’s arrival “may have inadvertently triggered the safety function described above”, the statement continued.