Former President Donald Trump just a few weeks ago suggested he and First Lady Melania Trump experienced “triple sabotage” on their trip to the United Nations. This came right on the heels of a line of very unfortunate technical disasters. His assertions came after an escalator at UN headquarters suddenly stopped, forcing them to face an ugly, dangerous turn of events.
Trump expressed his shock in a long-form social media post. As he remarked, amazingly, both him and the First Lady were able to not fall onto the “really sharp edges of these steel steps.” He cited a recently released report by the Times of London. In it, UN staff attempting to cut costs irresponsibly proposed as a joke getting rid of all escalators. Trump was so alarmed that he tweeted, “A REAL DISGRACE occurred at the United Nations yesterday.”
Video recording offered an inside look as Trump and Melania began their dangerous, gilded ride down, which midway through would fire to a halt. Trump’s dubious claim that the incident was not a fluke occurrence. He said, “This wasn’t an accident; this was triple sabotage at the UN. American history and American identity.” During his speech before the General Assembly, he went off script. In particular, he released a thinly veiled threat to European partners over their burgeoning migration policies.
The UN quickly rebutted Trump’s charges in a rare “note to correspondents.” They explained that upon investigation, it appeared that a US delegation videographer may have inadvertently triggered the escalator’s emergency stop switch, engineered to avoid dangerous situations. UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric did indeed corroborate this disturbing result.
Former White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt didn’t back down from her conviction. She contended that the elevator stoppage was a purposely planned move meant to embarrass Trump. Three truly nefarious developments! Make America great again! — Donald J. Trump to convey his suspicion that more than coincidence was at work.
In his post, Trump noted that all security tapes from the escalator incident should be preserved, particularly footage showing the emergency stop button being activated. In a series of posts, he detailed his astonishment over the mix-up. “All I received from the United Nations was an escalator that broke halfway up,” he said.
The former president wasn’t shy in his scorn of the UN’s leadership—or lack thereof—to prevent this conflict. He expressed gratitude that both he and Melania were not hurt. “If the first lady was not in excellent condition, she would have hit the ground,” he said.
Melania Trump controversially joked about her husband’s insecurities too, when he asked her how he’d done on stage. To which she responded honestly, “I didn’t hear anything you said,” providing a funny exchange in the midst of all the controversy.
…after 9 months shunning multilateralism, Trump dropped a populist bomb on the Establishment at UN. In no uncertain terms, he bashed European countries for allowing migrants to flood their borders. He threatened that without definitive action from these countries, they were “going to hell.” The contradictory nature of his sober political warnings alongside baseless charges of sabotage caught the ear of supporters and critics alike.
Following the Philadelphia incident, Trump’s claims about the incidents at the UN have caused an alarming and interesting debate. Many are left wondering if his conspiracy assertions just represent a larger dispute between him and global institutions. Yet his insistence that “the people who did it should be arrested” provides a compelling turn of events. This unfortunate statement turns what should have been an ordinary diplomatic visit into a fraught moment.