Fox News host Jesse Watters was criticized after he joked that the Trump administration should "bomb" United Nations headquarters after the escalator President Trump was using at the UN building in New York City stopped working.
The escalator Trump took stopped when he and First Lady Melania Trump stepped on and they had to just walk up the stationary stairs after coming to a halt in front of a pool of reporters.
Stephane Dujarric, a UN spokesperson, said a readout of the escalator's central processing unit indicated the escalator "had stopped after a built-in safety mechanism on the comb step was triggered at the top of the escalator" and that Trump's videographer "inadvertently triggered it."
The UN wasn't to blame—but Watters suddenly suggested to his co-hosts on The Five that the U.S. should “leave” the organization or “bomb” its headquarters in response. He also said a separate incident—when Trump's teleprompter stopped working as he addressed the General Assembly (UNGA)—amounted to "sabotage."
He said:
“They sabotaged him, and they could have hurt the first lady. Trump would have fallen and then would’ve gotten back up. And then they sabotaged the teleprompter.”
"I mean, this is an insurrection. And what we need to do is either leave the UN or we need to bomb it.”
"It is in New York, though. There'd be some fallout there. Maybe gas it?"
You can hear what he said in the video below.
When one host shut down Watters' line of thought, he said:
“No, this is absolutely unacceptable, and I hope they get to the bottom of it. And I hope they really injure – emotionally – the people that did it."
Many were disgusted by Watters' remarks.
At no point did Watters bring up the UN's finding that Trump's videographer had tripped the safety mechanism on the escalator.
An anonymous source told ABC News that the teleprompter was being run by a White House staffer, not UN personnel. Still, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News on Tuesday that officials will investigate whether the glitches were deliberate.
In a separate post on X, she said that whoever was responsible for the escalator issue at the UN needs "to be fired and investigated immediately."
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