The scene at the United Nations was not a benign technical glitch — it was a series of failures that left the president and first lady vulnerable and embarrassed in front of the world. Video shows the escalator abruptly stopping as President Trump and Melania stepped on, and his teleprompter and sound system also malfunctioned during his address, prompting immediate suspicions from his team and allies. These overlapping mishaps demand answers, not excuses from an institution that has grown comfortable with shrugging off accountability.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt didn’t mince words, calling for an investigation and warning that this looks like deliberate targeting of the president by “globalist” U.N. staffers who reportedly joked about shutting off escalators to make him walk. Leavitt raised the alarm on Fox News and social media after a Times of London piece reported U.N. employees had made those unpatriotic quips, and she rightly insisted anyone involved be fired and investigated. Conservatives should cheer a press secretary who defends American dignity abroad instead of kowtowing to international bureaucrats.
The United States Secret Service has said it is looking into the matter, which is exactly how a sovereign nation responds when its leader is potentially sabotaged on foreign soil. The U.N. offered a softer explanation — that a videographer may have triggered a safety stop — but that answer rings hollow given the timing and the coincident teleprompter and audio troubles. We cannot accept a pat denial from an organization that benefits from American generosity while its employees allegedly mock our leaders.
Make no mistake: this is about more than a stuck escalator; it is about the contempt for American leadership that pervades the globalist swamp at the U.N. After President Trump cut roughly a billion dollars in funding, some U.N. staff reportedly joked about “forcing” him to take the stairs — behavior that is unbecoming and dangerous. If true, these are not pranks, they are acts of political sabotage that require firings, investigations, and perhaps a fundamental rethink of U.S. involvement with an organization that tolerates such disrespect.
President Trump rightly called for preservation of security footage and demanded accountability in a blunt Truth Social post accusing “triple sabotage.” Americans who value strength and sovereignty should stand with any administration that insists on transparency and consequences when our president is put at risk. The U.N. must be forced to answer: was this incompetence, or was it a conscious effort to humiliate the United States — and if the latter, why are we still footing the bill?
