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President Donald Trump has lashed out at the United Nations over an escalator stopping right as he and First Lady Melania Trump stepped on, labelling it a prank.
Trump has remained furious over the strange incident at the UN headquarters in New York City, where he went on to deliver a lengthy, rambling speech.
He claims that it was ‘amazing that Melania and I didn’t fall forward onto the sharp edges of these steel steps, face first’.
‘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,’ he wrote on his Truth Social platform.
‘The people that did it should be arrested!’
However, there’s still no proof that pranksters were behind the stoppage.
UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric has said that a US delegation videographer who ran ahead of Trump to the top of the escalator may have ‘inadvertently’ triggered it to halt.
Any ‘pranksters’ behind the incident on Tuesday are innocent until proven guilty – but unfortunately for Trump, a handful of other individuals have already seemingly succeeded in pulling tricks on him. Here are five instances in which Trump has been humiliated in public.
‘Piers Morgan’ prank call
During his first term, Trump took a call while aboard Air Force One from a prankster he believed was English broadcaster Piers Morgan.
The dupe happened in October 2020 as Trump was on his way to vote in Florida.
It wasn’t until several months later that the truth came to light that it was an imposter on the line.
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Morgan recounted ‘an absolutely hilarious story, where somebody had called (Trump) pretending to be me the day before and got through to him on Air Force One’.
‘They had a conversation with Trump thinking he was talking to me,’ said the presenter.
Comedian’s prank call
The Morgan impersonator isn’t the only prankster who has gotten through to Trump on Air Force One.
In June 2018, comedian and radio John Melendez posed as an aide to Democratic Senator Robert Menendez, and got right through the White House switchboard.
The comedian Melendez, whose nickname is ‘Stuttering John’, chatted with Trump about immigration and the Supreme Court for about six minutes.
Trump started off by congratulating Menendez on the senator’s acquittal on corruption charges.
‘You went through a tough, tough situation, and I don’t think a very fair situation,’ said the president.
The comedian revealed the truth in a Twitter post the next day.
‘Tune into my new Podcast where I prank call the President & he calls me from Air Force One!’ he wrote.
‘I find it astounding that the news media’s not picking up the fact that I totally duped the President & got in touch.’
Golf dupe
Trump was duped by British comedian Simon Brodkin in one of his favorite settings – one of his own golf courses.
The then presumptive 2016 Republican presidential nominee was holding a press conference for the reopening of his Turnberry golf club in Ayrshire, Scotland, when golfballs printed with swastikas rolled toward him in the ninth tee.
‘Sorry Mr Trump, I meant to put them out earlier,’ shouted Brodkin, who had posed as a resort employee.
An irked Trump demanded: ‘Get him out of here.’
‘Ten seconds later I was dragged off,’ Brodkin said, adding that he was handcuffed.
‘After a while, I started to hear Scottish voices. I’ve never been so happy… I thought: at least I’m not going to get tortured – or shot.’
Trump rally tricked
It’s no secret that Trump cares deeply about his crowd size. So a prank on his supporters who show up for him is one on him.
On the campaign trail in June 2020, Trump held a rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and boasted that more than one million people were seeking tickets to attend.
What Trump and his campaign did not know was that people who were not thrilled about him spread the idea on TikTok to register for free tickets and be no-shows. Their objective was to block actual MAGA fans from getting tickets.
Two days before the rally, Trump bragged: ‘It’s a crowd like, I guess, nobody’s seen before. We have tremendous, tremendous requests for tickets – like, I think, probably has never happened politically before.’
The tactic seemed to work, as less than 6,200 people showed up and two-thirds of the stadium had empty rows of blue chairs.
Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale downplayed the upset crowd size by stating: ‘Leftists and online trolls doing a victory lap, thinking they somehow impacted rally attendance, don’t know what they’re talking about or how our rallies work.’
‘Unpresidented’ Trump resignation newspaper
Trump was the subject of a fake Washington Post newspaper with the headline ‘Unpresidented’ in January 2019 and stating that he left a resignation note on a napkin in the Oval Office sharing that he left Washington, DC, for the Crimean resort Yalta.
The paper, which was handed out across Washington, DC, falsely stated that his resignation was caused by ‘massive women-led protests’, which coincided with a planned women’s march.
Later that morning, the Yes Men, which described themselves as a ‘trickster activist collective’, claimed responsibility for the fake newspaper.
Post spokeswoman Kris Coratti stated: ‘We will not tolerate others misrepresenting themselves as The Washington Post, and we are deeply concerned about the confusion it causes among readers.
‘We are seeking to halt further improper use of our trademarks.’
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