What did Donald Trump do today?
He threw a tantrum for the ages over the Great Escalator Conspiracy.
The reality of yesterday's debacle at the United Nations may be setting in for Trump, because today he offered a triple-barrelled excuse in the form of an elaborate conspiracy theory. He posted this to his private microblogging website this afternoon:
A REAL DISGRACE took place at the United Nations yesterday — Not one, not two, but three very sinister events! First, the escalator going up to the Main Speaking Floor came to a screeching halt. It stopped on a dime. It’s amazing that Melania and I didn’t fall forward onto the sharp edges of these steel steps, face first. It was only that we were each holding the handrail tightly or, it would have been a disaster. This was absolutely sabotage, as noted by a day’s earlier “post” in The London Times that said UN workers “joked about turning off an escalator.” The people that did it should be arrested! Then, as I stood before a Television crowd of millions of people all over the World, and important Leaders in the Hall, my teleprompter didn’t work. It was stone cold dark. I immediately thought to myself, “Wow, first the escalator event, and now a bad teleprompter. What kind of a place is this?” I then proceeded to make a Speech without a teleprompter, which kicked in about 15 minutes later. The good news is the Speech has gotten fantastic reviews. Maybe they appreciated the fact that very few people could have done what I did. And third, after making the Speech, I was told that the sound was completely off in the Auditorium where the Speech was made, that World Leaders, unless they used the interpreters’ earpieces, couldn’t hear a thing. The first person I saw at the conclusion of the Speech was Melania, who was sitting right up front. I said, “How did I do?” And she said, “I couldn’t hear a word you said.” This wasn’t a coincidence, this was triple sabotage at the UN. They ought to be ashamed of themselves. I’m sending a copy of this letter to the Secretary General, and I demand an immediate investigation. No wonder the United Nations hasn’t been able to do the job that they were put in existence to do. All security tapes at the escalator should be saved, especially the emergency stop button. The Secret Service is involved. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
To summarize: Trump is saying that a stopped escalator posed a physical threat to him, and that nefarious forces also conspired to sabotage his prompter and the audio in the UN chamber—and that the Secret Service should get involved and arrest those responsible.
Fortunately for Trump, the culprits have already been found. A Trump administration videographer at the top of the escalator accidentally triggered a safety mechanism, something verified by the escalators internal diagnostics.
Likewise, the Trump team was operating the teleprompter, or failing to operate it. Presumably he knew this, although staff have hidden things from him before. Trump, who usually rambles off his script anyway, didn't explain why the broken prompter forced him to speak for an hour, rather than the 15 minutes scheduled for him.
Finally, audio in the chamber was working fine, although there was a brief glitch near the end when the Portuguese translation was broadcast on the main audio channel, for about a minute of the hour he spoke. The proof of that is in the reactions from the people who heard it.
Trump was not injured by the escalator not being on, and may even have beaten expectations by being physically able to walk up the single flight without assistance.
Why does this matter?
- Even by Trump standards, this is an astonishingly pouty tantrum.
- Presidents who cannot stare down a broken escalator without fearing for their lives should probably find a less dangerous line of work.
- This is what Donald Trump thinks is important right now.