Trump berated the UN for the state of the organisation’s headquarters during his speech, pointing out his 2000s bid to renovate the building had been rebuffed.
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“All I got from the United Nations was an escalator on the way up that stopped in the middle,” Trump said. “If the first lady wasn’t in great shape, she would’ve fallen.”
Following his speech, the president joked about the incidents on Truth Social.
He posted: “The teleprompter was broken and the escalator came to a sudden hault [sic] as we were ridding [sic] up to the podium, but both of those events probably made the speech more interesting than it would have been otherwise.”
Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s press secretary, shared The Times story on X, writing: “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.”
A UN official, quoted by The Associated Press, said the United Nations understood that someone from the president’s party who ran ahead of him inadvertently triggered the stop mechanism on the escalator. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said the White House was operating the teleprompter for the president.
In his nearly hour-long speech, Trump launched fresh attacks against his Democrat opponents and talked up the US economy. He also focused heavily on what he perceived as failures in Western Europe.
Trump addresses the United Nations General Assembly after his teleprompter failed.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer
In one of his strongest criticisms, he warned European leaders in the audience that their countries were “going to hell” because of uncontrolled mass migration.
“You’re destroying your countries. They’re being destroyed. Europe is in serious trouble,” he said.
“They’ve been invaded by a force of illegal aliens like nobody’s ever seen before. Illegal aliens are pouring into Europe,” he said.
The Telegraph, London
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