The Daily Signal - Victor Davis Hanson: Silenced at the UN? Trump Faced Broken Escalator, Teleprompter Outage, and More

Episode Date: October 1, 2025

President Donald Trump was only supposed to address the United Nations for 15 minutes, but he extended that to 55 minutes after it appeared U.N. employees tried sabotaging him four times.  Victor Davis Hanson breaks down the U.N.’s response to Trump’s speech and also calls out the hypocrisy as many U.N. members walked out on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech but stayed for China's Xi Jinping’s speech—a leader who has “over a million people in a Uyghur labor camp.” “All four of those circumstances were almost impossible to occur in one session ... This is very serious. It means that the United Nations has employees, or perhaps administrators, who deliberately tried to sabotage an American president while on American soil.”  👉Don’t miss out on Victor’s latest videos by subscribing to The Daily Signal today. You’ll be notified every time a new piece of content drops: https://www.youtube.com/dailysignal?sub_confirmation=1  👉If you can’t get enough of Victor Davis Hanson from The Daily Signal, subscribe to his official YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@victordavishanson7273  👉He’s also the host of “The Victor Davis Hanson Show,” available wherever you prefer to watch or listen. Links to the show and exclusive content are available on his website: https://victorhanson.com  The Daily Signal cannot continue to tell stories, like this one, without the support of our viewers: https://secured.dailysignal.com/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We'd love to talk. Business. On September 23rd, Donald Trump gave an address to the United Nations. It was a rare address, believe me. No one has ever been that blunt, explicit, and that critical of the UN. Before he even gave the speech, he and First Lady Melania Trump and their entourage were just the minute they got on the escalator, it mysteriously shut down. That was an odd thing to happen. Number two was the teleprompter suddenly went out.

The escalator by this time was mysteriously back in service, and the teleprompter would be two. And then three, unbeknownst to Donald Trump, people, reporters, and even First Lady Melania Trump said, you couldn't hear Trump. Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for the Daily Signal. On September 23rd, Donald Trump gave an address to the United Nations. It was a rare address, believe me. No one has ever been that blunt, that explicit, and that critical of the UN. It was scheduled to be 15 minutes, but on the other hand, if the UN membership was shocked at the candor of Donald Trump, Donald Trump had ample reasons to be candid, because before he

even gave the speech, he and First Lady Melania Trump and their entourage were just the minute they got on the escalator. It mysteriously shut down. And by the way, the London Times had run a story saying that some members wanted to shut it down in protest of Trump's cutting back on UN support. That was an odd thing to happen. Number two was the teleprompter suddenly went out. The escalator by this time was mysteriously back in service and the teleprompter would be two. And then three, on being known to Donald Trump, people, reporters and even First Lady, Malenia Trump said you couldn't hear Trump. All of a sudden, mysteriously his sound was, what do you want to call it, de-amplified?

And then fourth, for a minute, the translation did not come into English to the membership, but to Portuguese. All four of those circumstances were almost impossible to occur in one session. So what am I getting at? This is very serious. It means that the United Nations has employees, or perhaps administrators, who deliberately tried to sabotage. an American president while on American soil. So Donald Trump, as he was experiencing the breakdown in the teleprompter and had just gone through the escalator shock, decided to lengthen his speech from 15 minutes to about 55, and he had

some block bluster things to say. First of all, the UN did not like it. They sat in stony silence. Why? First of all, he said the UN had been of no real importance when he was trying to negotiate peace, or at least a ceasefire with the Congo and Rwanda, with Serbia and Bosnia, with Russia, of course, and Ukraine, Pakistan and India. I could go on, but he had seven separate conflicts that he had at least got a temporary ceasefire. There was no UN praise. There was no UN input. The subtext, what he was saying is that most of their declarations of condemnation are against tiny Israel. In fact, Benjamin Netanyahu would follow his appearance at the UN and have at least a lot of the contingents just simply walked out. Now, they didn't do that for the Palestinians, of course. And notice another thing. Israel is a democratic country, and they walk in. out when the prime minister speaks, but they don't walk out when China, Chi speaks. He's got over a million people in a Uyghur labor camp. They don't walk out when Mr. Erdogan speaks. He's occupied, Turkey has occupied for a half century illegally northern Cyprus. And they don't, of course, walk out when a Russian diplomat or speaks when they've killed over 150,000 Ukrainians in this war. It's only selective because Israel is tiny, it's Western, and let's speak frank, it's Jewish.

But Donald Trump, so he knows all that in advance, and he has no respect for the UN. The other subtext that got the UN people very angry was that he talked about Europe, not Africa, not Asia, not Latin America, and they felt excluded. But it was a very passive-aggressive. He said to Europe, I love Europe. I want you to fulfill essentially your shared Western heritage with us, but you're not doing it. And you're not doing it for three or four things. Number one, you've embarked on a suicidal energy policy that subsidized inefficient and unsustainable green energy, solar and wind specifically.

And you've given up oil and gas, natural gas, and clean coal and nuclear. and you've lost your competitive edge and your consumers are hurting. Number two, you let in millions of illegal immigrants and not just any illegal immigrants, mostly from the war-torn Middle East who were Islamic and had no desire to adapt to integrate with or assimilate with Western civilization's customs, cultural norms. And therefore, you've got a terrible problem with immigration, you've got inefficient energy, and you're disarmed. And I'm lecturing you, Trump said, because I love Europe and I want you to be a full partner.

And that offended the rest of the world that didn't get that privilege of having a U.S. president talked directly to them, but it also got the Europeans angry because he was telling them the truth. Thank you very much. This is Victor Davis-Hanson for The Daily Signal. Thank you for tuning in to The Daily Signal. Please like, share, and subscribe to be notified for more content like this. You can also check out my own website at victorhansen.com and subscribe for exclusive features in addition.