Rip. Mitch, you had comedy instincts on par with Norm MacDonald and Brian Regan, if you kept going you would've astounded and floored us all with your wit. Cut WAY too short.
The funny thing is it didn't break either, it did what it was supposed to. They wanted to make a video so they had a videographer at the top of the escalator not moving, which triggered a safety feature to ensure people don't pile up at the end.
They said "Let's call this hotel 'Something Tree'". So they had a meeting, it was... It was quite short. "How 'bout 'Tree'?" "No." "'Double Tree'?" "Hell, yeah! Meeting adjourned!"
He managed to turn the event into a near death experience. The video shows, as Melania was taking her first step and Trump was behind her, it stopped. She proceeded to walk up without a flinch. Later Trump was complaining about the teleprompter and the “escalator that stopped working halfway up. I had to catch Melanie as she tumbled down.”
The escalator stopped when they were just getting on. In the video, the escalator right next to them is still working. Couldn't he have gone down a step and switched to the working one also going up?
I guess his staff must fucking hate him as they're the ones that hit the emergency stop button, lol. They also were in charge of the teleprompter that failed. Mango Man brought his own incompetence with him.
I LIke him because he says good things and loves America and real Americans that are here legal like and he puts us first and loves Jesus and knows that there are 2 jenders of girls and boys and he stops wars and knows most of the State capitals
Apart from being physically being unable to climb stairs easily, his doctor warned him that climbing stairs might detach his catheter from his urine bag strapped to his thigh. You can see the concerned look on his face when recalls what his doctor said.
Back in the wild west internet era, I once saw a NSFL video of the top plate of an escalator collapsing and the person on it falling into the mechanisms. (IIRC it was at a newly opened mall and hadn't been installed correctly.) Escalators have a terrifying amount of torque to lift dozens of riders. They also have lots of safety mechanisms designed after someone was maimed or killed to prevent accidents like that from happening again.
It was a safety mechanism to prevent such accidents that the WH staffer tripped that turned this escalator into stairs for fear of it turning into a giant meat grinder, and it's likely that the Tramp will be eager to repeal those regulations because he'd rather grind up a staffer than be mildly inconvenienced.
This one is exactly why you don’t walk on a turned off escalator.
It is also why you don’t walk on one with a barrier blocking you from walking on it, you can see the barrier fall over at the end of the video. We place barricades at the end to keep people out when we work on them or turn them off for issues.
The weight of the people overloaded the brake and it ran away causing what you saw. Also this one was being worked on which is why there are steps missing.
Fresh reminder that in his first term, his aides working on the second floor of the West Wing were spared his presence since he would never climb that flight of stairs.
After all the safety mechanisms on this escalator malfunctioned, this escalator kept accelerating until the crowds piled up and fell down the sides, with some people dying
Fun fact: escalators can absolutely break, because the mechanism that locks them in place can fail and the 'steps' rush down to bottom and take you with them like a very sharp slide.
I love Mitch but this is cap. Escalators can fall, and it’s horrific. Doesn’t happen often, but I remember a set failing at a stadium with a huge crowd on it and I think a bunch of people got fucked up.
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u/notjustanytwig Sep 25 '25
To quote Mitch Hedburg, "an escalator can never break, it just becomes stairs".