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U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz on Thursday blasted a series of technical failures that disrupted President Donald Trump’s address to the U.N. General Assembly, calling them “unacceptable.”
Appearing on Fox Business’ “Kudlow,” Waltz was asked about a series of mishaps that occurred during Trump’s arrival and remarks. The escalator malfunctioned as the president and First Lady Melania Trump entered, the teleprompter failed mid-speech, and the auditorium sound cut out. Waltz added that the broadcast audio briefly switched to Portuguese before returning to English.
“The whole thing is unacceptable. The whole thing stinks,” Waltz said. “There’s 150 world leaders there and this only happens to him, not once, not twice, but three times.”
He stated that the incidents are under investigation by the Secret Service and that U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has pledged his cooperation.
“As the ambassador, I said, you’ve got to open your doors, and some people were kind of shoulder shrugging at this,” Waltz said. “This could have been incredibly serious. It’s insulting, and it’s right here on American soil.”
Waltz also used the interview to criticize the U.N.’s bureaucracy, pointing out that seven agencies focus solely on climate issues. He said reforms must come before U.S. dollars return.
“We’ve withheld this year,” Waltz said of U.S. contributions. “We haven’t paid any and my first meeting with the Secretary General was, here are the reforms that we need to see before you start talking about taxpayer dollars.”
The president previously reacted to the events at the U.N. in a post to his Truth Social account.
“A REAL DISGRACE took place at the United Nations yesterday — Not one, not two, but three very sinister events!” President Trump said. “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!” President Trump added.
