How Seriously Should We Take Escalator-Gate?

It's a bigger deal than you'd expect

screencap from AP

One of my favorite UNGA pastimes is watching the UN TV livestream as world leaders enter the building and ride the escalators up to the General Assembly. Nerdy, I know — but I like to see how many presidents and prime ministers I can recognize on sight.

On Tuesday morning, I was busy watching Antonio Guterres’s speech and missed the now-infamous escalator mishap. So I was perplexed when, during Trump’s speech, he started complaining about the escalator breaking down on him — and also about the teleprompter not working.

Here’s the full excerpt from his UNGA speech on these two apparent mishaps.

Thank you very much, very much appreciated. And I don’t mind making this speech without a teleprompter because the teleprompter is not working. I feel very happy to be up here with you nevertheless, and that way you speak more from the heart. I can only say that whoever’s operating this teleprompter is in big trouble

…

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, we’re both still. And then a teleprompter that didn’t work. These are the two things I got from the United Nations, a bad escalator and a bad teleprompter. Thank you very much. And by the way, it’s working now, just went on. Thank you. I think I should just do it the other way; it’s easier. Thank you very much.

My first instinct wasn’t that this was some conspiracy to force Donald Trump to walk a flight of stairs, but rather an ill-timed outage. For the last several months, the UN has been intermittently shutting off escalators to save money amid a major liquidity crisis — largely caused by the United States not paying its member dues. I initially chalked it up to cosmic coincidence that the escalator would shut down for the one world leader most responsible for the UN’s funding woes.

But that turned out not to be the case. Apparently, a member of the American delegation inadvertently tripped a safety mechanism, causing the escalator to stop. Here’s the full explanation of what happened from UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric:

In answer to the many questions received about the escalator incident this morning involving the President of the United States and the First Lady, I have the following information to share: President Trump, accompanied by the First Lady and delegation, arrived at the UNHQ building this morning, and entered through the Delegate's entrance. After passing through the security gates, President Trump and the First Lady approached the escalator. In an effort to document their arrival, a videographer from the US delegation stepped on to the escalator ahead of the President and First Lady. As the videographer, who was traveling backwards up the escalator reached the top , the First Lady, followed by President Trump, each mounted the steps at the bottom. At that moment (9:50am), the escalator came to a stop. Our technician, who was at the location, reset the escalator as soon as the delegation had climbed up to the second floor. 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. The safety mechanism is designed to prevent people or objects accidentally being caught and stuck in or pulled into the gearing. The videographer may have inadvertently triggered the safety function described above.”

So that’s what happened with the escalators. What about the teleprompter?

The AP’s Edith Lederer is a legendary reporter who has been covering the UN for decades. This is far from one of the most important stories she’s broken in her storied career, but she does cite a UN source saying that — like the escalator — the teleprompter mishap was not the UN’s doing. Instead, the White House was responsible for the teleprompter during Trump’s speech.

I initially thought this would be a one-day story. Trump seemed to take the mishaps in stride. His line about the teleprompter operator being in “big trouble” was clearly a joke. And he’s apparently very pleased with how his speech went. Here’s his social media post shortly following the speech.

All in all—pretty positive!

Then, later in the day, when Trump met with Antonio Guterres, he didn’t even mention the mishaps in his remarks to reporters. Instead, he offered some encouraging words about the UN as an institution, saying Americans are “100% behind the UN.”

So I thought we could move on and discuss weightier matters. But no.

Something happened in the next 24 hours that caused Trump to suddenly change his tune. I can’t speculate on what shifted, but in a Truth Social post yesterday afternoon, Trump raged over the escalator outage and teleprompter mishap. He demanded an investigation, said the Secret Service was involved, and even called for the arrest of UN staff he alleges stopped the escalator. He also leveled a third accusation: that his microphone had been turned down so low people in the General Assembly Hall couldn’t hear him.

Here’s that post.

On the audio levels — I think this one is easily explained. Unlike a conventional auditorium, where a speaker system projects audio loud enough for everyone to hear, the General Assembly keeps the sound relatively low. It’s not silent — just lower than you’d expect. That’s to benefit the translators and the people listening to the simultaneous interpretation in six different languages. They need to hear the translation clearly over the ambient noise in the room, so the main speaker system isn’t cranked up.

Granted, I’ve only ever sat in the back of the General Assembly Hall, where the press is usually placed, but it can sometimes be difficult — though not impossible — to hear. Even when the speaker is using English, I almost always use the earpiece provided on the back of the chairs to catch everything they’re saying.

Still, Donald Trump thinks this is a big deal. So, along with the escalator outage stopping and teleprompter mishap, it suddenly is a big deal!

How much of a problem is this going to be for the UN? Alas, I fear more than you’d might expect.

We are running an UNGA special. Get 40% off a subscription using this button.

You can support our work at full price using this button.