This liveblog is now closed. You can find more of our politics coverage here
Donald Trump demanded a formal investigation on Wednesday of three technical mishaps that marred his speech to the United Nations general assembly on Tuesday: a malfunctioning escalator, a faulty teleprompter and an apparent sound problem in the hall.
Although Trump, in an enraged social media post, called the technical failures “triple sabotage”, UN officials told reporters that at least two of the problems were likely caused by Trump’s own delegation.
The chief UN spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said in a statement that a read-out of the escalator’s central processing unit indicated that it had stopped because a built-in safety mechanism at the top had been triggered by accident, most likely by a White House videographer who was moving up the escalator backwards to record Trump’s ascent.
A UN official told Colum Lynch, a veteran UN correspondent, that the US delegation was operating the teleprompter from their own laptop, and Trump had simply arrived at the podium before it was ready.
