First the escalator, then the autocue: during Trump's participation in the UN General Assembly, there were problems with the technology. The US is talking about sabotage. However, the UN is citing completely different reasons.
"Triple sabotage"; "The first lady could have been injured"; "Those responsible must be arrested": a seemingly insignificant incident during US President Donald Trump's participation in the UN General Assembly turned into a real storm in a teacup. The White House is demanding an investigation, and Trump himself has attacked the largest international organization and declared that it should be "ashamed".
What is this about?
Videos that were shared on social media and in the media show how when Melania Trump is riding an escalator at the UN building in New York, and her husband is lining up behind her, it stops working. The two then calmly climb the stairs on the stopped escalator. A little later, the American president told world leaders: "I got two things from the United Nations - a bad escalator and a bad teleprompter". His words, from which it became clear that his speech was not on autocue most of the time, were met with laughter from the hall.
However, the White House and a number of commentators close to Trump did not react with laughter. "If someone at the UN intentionally stopped the escalator while the president and first lady were boarding, they should be fired and investigated immediately", said White House spokeswoman Caroline Levitt, announcing that the case was under investigation. She added that there was also a problem with the sound in the hall during Trump's speech, and that "doesn't seem like a coincidence". Levitt was referring to a report in Britain's Sunday Times that UN headquarters officials joked that they could stop the escalators and elevators and say they didn't have the money to run them. On "Fox News" There were opinions that it was a deliberate sabotage that could have seriously injured the first lady.
UN: Trump's team is responsible
The UN responded that the mystery had been solved - a videographer from the American delegation blocked the escalator because he was riding in reverse so that he could film President Trump and his wife. After a built-in safety mechanism was activated at the top of the escalator, it stopped, explained the organization's spokesman Stephane Dujarric. The operator probably activated it inadvertently.
Regarding the autocue, a UN official commented to the BBC that a team from the White House actually operated the teleprompter during Trump's speech, even bringing their own laptops and connecting them to the UN system. After Trump finished his speech, UN General Assembly President Annalena Baerbock said, "The UN teleprompters are working perfectly."
Trump also complained about audio problems in the hall. "The sound in the auditorium was completely muted," he wrote. "The world leaders, unless they were using the interpreters' headphones, could not hear anything," Trump added.
In response to Trump's comments, a UN official clarified: "The sound system is designed so that people in their seats can hear the speeches, translated into six different languages, through headphones."
The US president clearly has a grudge against the UN.
Donald Trump's attitude towards the UN became more than clear during his speech to the General Assembly. He devoted a significant portion of it to complaining about how he was not hired to do a massive $500 million renovation of the organization's New York headquarters at the turn of the century. He then went on to criticize the organization further, accusing it of running a "globalist migration agenda" and warning Western leaders that the organization was "funding an attack on your countries."
"What is the purpose of the United Nations?" Trump asked. "It's not even close to fulfilling its potential."
Trump also attacked the climate initiatives led by the United Nations, after withdrawing the United States from the Paris Agreement again in January. "The entire globalist concept that requires successful industrialized nations to inflict pain on themselves and radically destroy their entire society must be rejected completely and completely, and immediately."
In his conversation with the organization's secretary-general, Trump nevertheless confirmed that, despite his criticism, he supports the UN. But at the same time, it is clear that global initiatives regarding the environment and migration, for example, do not fit into the American president's concept. This is more than clear from the words of right-wing commentators in the United States, who have been sharply criticizing the organization and the "globalists" in recent days. And let's not talk about the escalator…