The White House hates to see Bart Simpson coming, because after the escalator glitch at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on Sept. 23, 2025, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said she believes it was an elaborate plot to trip Donald Trump. As in, literally trip him. Like a practical joke that the Bartman himself might pull on someone like, oh I don’t know, Sideshow Bob?
To be fair, though, Leavitt’s comments go deeper than that, since she claimed on the Fox News show Jesse Watters Primetime that the incident was a “plot” to set up Trump.
The situation she referred to, clips of which have gone viral on social media, is an escalator that stopped working as Trump and wife Melania Trump were using it for the UNGA event. Now, Leavitt apparently believes the accident was no accident at all, and instead something planned by members of the UN ahead of Trump’s arrival.
@cbsnews A malfunctioning escalator and teleprompter at the United Nations' New York City headquarters drew President Trump's frustration on Tuesday — though the U.N. says a videographer from Mr. Trump's delegation may have triggered the escalator's safety shutoff. Shortly after Trump and first lady Melania Trump entered U.N. headquarters to address world leaders at this year's General Assembly session, they stepped onto an escalator. But the machine ground to a halt almost immediately, forcing both Trumps to start climbing the stairs on their own, videos of his arrival show. "All I got from the United Nations was an escalator that, on the way up, stopped right in the middle. If the first lady wasn't in great shape, she would've fallen," the president said. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News that the Secret Service is looking into the matter. "When you put all of this together, it doesn't look like a coincidence to me," Leavitt said on Fox News' "Jesse Watters Primetime." "And if we find that these were U.N. staffers who were purposefully trying to trip up, literally trip up, the president and the first lady of the United States, well, there better be accountability for those people." Read more at the link. #trump #unga ♬ original sound – cbsnews
Karoline Leavitt threatened UN staffers after Trump’s escalator incident.
Ahead of the incident, The Times wrote that staff members at the UN allegedly joked about turning off the elevators and escalators to force Trump to walk up the stairs. After the escalator repeatedly malfunctioned upon Trump’s arrival, Leavitt took to X (formerly Twitter) to reference the article and condemn anyone who purposely had something to do with what happened.
“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,” Leavitt wrote in her X post.
It’s giving “whoever wrote this is going to get beat up” written on a bathroom stall as an empty threat. This is a bit more serious, though, at least where Leavitt is concerned. According to her on social media and on Jesse Watters Primetime, the escalator incident with Trump was a plot from leaders at the UN to either sabotage or hurt him by making him literally trip.
Another issue at the event that tripped up Trump (no pun intended with this one) was when his teleprompter stopped working. Per a clip that was posted on X, Trump said to the UN leaders and attendees, “I ended seven wars and never even received a phone all from the UN. These are the two things I got from the UN — a bad escalator and a bad teleprompter.”
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.
— Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) September 23, 2025
The Times reported this on Sunday.👇 pic.twitter.com/NitsWbGYG0
After Leavitt shared her post on X as an apparent threat to whoever was behind the allegedly diabolical plot to force Trump to walk more steps than he usually gets in per day, critics and Trump supports replied to her post. They either agreed that it was all a setup or to poked fun at Trump and his staffers for making such a big deal out of it.
One user commented, “It absolutely was intentional.”
Another, however, added, “Oh, Karoline, peddling conspiracy theories about broken escalators while your boss’s ‘big brain’ energy can’t even fix a teleprompter, classic MAGA deflection.”
Someone else pointed out, “I saw that woman smirking beside the escalator at the bottom and knew immediately it was on purpose.”
Others, who don’t quite understand why the escalator malfunction has to be as big of an issue as it is, wrote that Trump, and Leavitt, by extension, are simply “snowflakes.”
