Big Questions About Those Escalator and Teleprompter Failures During Trump's UN Speech

RedState 

As we reported, President Donald Trump gave an address at the UN on Tuesday.

But there were some issues before he even began the speech. The escalator stopped running abruptly the minute he stepped on it, forcing him and First Lady Melania Trump to walk up it. 

He said if the First Lady wasn't in great shape, she might have fallen. He joked he was in great shape as well — they both stood. 

Then, as he began his speech, he let people know the teleprompter didn't work. 

“I don’t mind making this speech without a teleprompter, because the teleprompter is not working,” Trump began, looking a little irked, drawing laughter.

“I feel very happy to be up here with you, nevertheless — and that way you speak more from the heart — I can only say that whoever is operating this teleprompter is in big trouble,” he added to more laughs.

The teleprompter did start working after about a minute of ad-libbing. 

Townhall's Katie Pavlich, who was there, also explained how the microphones, "which were audible for the previous speaker, were not amplifying sound at the same level when Trump started speaking. It was hard to hear in the room."

According to the London Times:

[W]hile the main UN audio feed to TV news channels switched over to a foreign language translation towards the end of his speech, obscuring some of his words.

Trump handled it all well and tried to make a joke out of it. 

Now, some are raising questions about what went down. 

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt referenced a Sunday Times story.

The story was that UN staffers had "joked" about stopping the escalators and elevators, and saying they were out of money, so Trump would have to walk. It's rather remarkable you have that report, and then it happened right on cue. 

Real Clear Politics' Susan Crabtree pointed out another problem with the escalator question. Crabtree has Secret Service sources, and she said there was concern about the incident putting Trump in a dangerous position. She said people were asking why the Secret Service didn't close ranks around Trump and immediately get him off the escalator. 

Given the current climate and the attempts made against Trump, such questions are important. Ryan Routh, the would-be assassin in the golf course incident, was convicted on Tuesday as well. 

The UN is pleading innocence, claiming it was just coincidental accidents. 

“Regarding the escalator: The safety mechanism was inadvertently triggered by someone who was ahead of the president on the escalator. The escalator was immediately reset and is in operation,” said Farhan Aziz Haq for the UN.

“Regarding the teleprompter, we have no comment since we don’t operate that teleprompter. The interpretation audio was heard when a non-official interpreter pressed the wrong button, which briefly allowed a non-UN interpreter to be heard,” he said.

"Inadvertent" and "pressed the wrong button." 

Somehow, they're not convincing me.