Leavitt Demands UN Investigates Trump Escalator Incident

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt demanded United Nations officials investigate whether an escalator was "deliberately" stopped as President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump were stepping onto it Tuesday (September 23) morning.

Leavitt shared a screengrab on her X account of a Times of London article claiming that UN staff members had "joked that they may turn off the escalators and elevators and simply tell him they ran out of money, so he has to walk up the 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," she wrote.

Videos shared online showed an escalator at the UN stop working just as the first lady and president began riding up, at which point they had to continue walking themselves. Trump acknowledged the incident in a post shared on his Truth Social account, while also claiming "the teleprompter was broken" during his speech addressing the UN general assembly.

"It was a great honor to speak before the United Nations. I believe the speech was very well received," he wrote. "It focused very much on energy and migration/immigration. I have been talking about this for a long period of time and this Forum, was the absolute best from the standpoint of making these two important statements. I hope everybody gets to watch it! The teleprompter was broken and the escalator came to a sudden hault as we were ridding up to the podium, but both of those events probably made the speech more interesting than it would have been otherwise. It is always an honor to speak at the United Nations, even if, their equipment is somewhat faulty. Make America Great Again!"