TOUCHÉ

World Leader Mocks Trump as Teleprompter Glitches

The president’s archrival went off-script—at Trump’s expense.

Donald Trump’s least favorite world leader turned a technical glitch into a brutal joke at Trump’s expense in a new war of words between longtime allies.

“I would like to inform you that the teleprompter has ceased to function,” Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced during a housing policy news conference in Toronto on Wednesday.

“Unlike a certain world leader, I do not view this as a conspiracy,” he ad-libbed, to laughter. The prime minister’s gibe throws back to when Trump put in an appearance at the United Nations General Assembly in New York last September.

Trump’s address at that summit had been billed as his most significant foreign policy speech. But he used it instead to complain about a “bad teleprompter” and a “bad escalator” that had halted while carrying him and first lady Melania Trump up to the hall a few moments earlier, leaving them to walk the rest of the way.

Trump, who also threw in his usual grievances about “uncontrolled migration” and getting no kudos for his claims of “ending seven un-endable wars,” later claimed he’d been the victim of grievous sabotage.

He wrote in a Truth Social post the next day that he’d suffered “not one, not two, but three very sinister events,” adding a claim that the hall’s sound system had been switched off while he spoke.

The president demanded that U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres open an immediate investigation. He insisted the escalator’s security footage be preserved, “especially the emergency stop button,” and said those responsible “should be arrested.”

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The U.N. was unmoved. A spokesman said a built-in safety mechanism had halted the escalator, and that it appeared to have been triggered by a videographer traveling with the U.S. delegation. Officials added that operating the teleprompter had been the Trump team’s job.

Carney, 61, has resurfaced the whole saga as ties between Canada and the U.S. remain fraught. Trump has repeatedly slapped America’s northern neighbor with tariffs and at times threatened to turn it into the “51st State.” Carney ran his campaign last year on the slogan: “Never 51.”

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In a speech in Las Vegas on Wednesday night, the 80-year-old president—debuting a suspiciously full head of hair—again attacked Canada’s leaders, although it was not clear whether he’d heard about Carney’s gibe earlier that day.

“Canada’s nasty,” Trump told the crowd at the Red Rock Resort. “They are. They’re nasty. I love the people, but they’re nasty. Nasty leadership.”

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment on this story.

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