WASHINGTON — An escalator malfunction and frozen teleprompter disrupted President Trump’s marquee address to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, prompting him to improvise.
The escalator carrying Trump en route to deliver his remarks had abruptly stalled shortly after the president set foot on it, forcing him to walk up it. Then, after making his way to the podium, Trump revealed his teleprompter wasn’t working.
“I don’t mind making this speech without a teleprompter, because the teleprompter is not working,” Trump began, looking a little irked, drawing laughter.
“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 is operating this teleprompter is in big trouble,” he added to more laughs.
After about a minute had passed, it appeared that Trump’s speech finally appeared on the teleprompter, and he got going — but the technical glitches had seemingly hit a nerve.
Roughly 10 minutes into his speech, which focused on him crowing about a wide range of domestic and foreign policy accomplishments, Trump revisited the tech disruptions he faced.
“Many years ago, a very successful real estate developer in New York known as Donald J. Trump — I bid on the renovation and rebuilding of this very United Nations complex,” the president recalled. “I remember it so well.”
In the early 2000s, Trump had pushed to renovate the 39-story UN headquarters in Manhattan. Ultimately, he got passed over, and the $2.3 billion project was completed three years behind schedule with over $400 million in cost overruns, according to the Associated Press.
“I said at the time that I would do it for $500 million — rebuilding, everything,” he recounted. “It would be beautiful. I used to talk about [how] I’m going to give you marble floors.”
“But they decided to go in another direction, which was much more expensive at the time,” he went on. “I realized that they did not know what they were doing when it came to construction, and that their building concepts were so wrong.”
Feeling a sense of vindication, Trump chided that the construction was never fully done properly.
“As far as I’m concerned, frankly, looking at the building and getting stuck on the escalator, they still haven’t finished the job,” he said. “That was years ago.”
Trump had spoken to the House Oversight Committee back in 2005 about what went awry with renovations at the UN headquarters.
Video captured the moment when the escalator abruptly stalled when Trump stepped on it.
“If the first lady wasn’t in great shape, she would’ve fallen,” he mused.
His speech at the UN was scathing. He scolded the UN for failing to address some of the wars raging around the world, including several of the conflicts he claims to have helped mediate.
At one point, he rhetorically questioned, “What is the purpose of the United Nations?” Later, he accused the international body of “funding an assault on Western countries.”
“These are the two things I got from the United Nations: a bad escalator and a bad teleprompter,” he quipped at another point.
Later, on Truth Social, the president reflected that “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,” he added.
