Donald Trump and First Lady Melania were captured on camera in what appeared to be a tense exchange aboard Marine One Wednesday evening after the president's turbulent appearance at the United Nations General Assembly.
Footage of the couple showed Trump sitting across from Melania, wagging his finger as she shook her head. Moments later, the pair exited the helicopter holding hands and smiling for cameras, masking any sign of the apparent disagreement as they crossed the South Lawn.
The exchange came after what Trump privately described as "three sinister events" that marred his U.N. visit - a stalled escalator, a malfunctioning teleprompter, and audio issues during his speech. Lip reader Jeremy Freeman told the Daily Mail that the conversation aboard Marine One appeared to be Trump venting about the mishaps, not directing anger at his wife. Freeman interpreted Melania as saying, "You just continued," to which Trump allegedly replied, "It was unbelievable. How can you do that."
Trump called for a "full investigation" into the escalator failure at U.N. headquarters, claiming it forced the couple to climb the stairs to the second floor. "If someone at the UN intentionally stopped the escalator as the president and first lady were stepping on, they need to be fired and investigated immediately," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt posted on X, responding to reports that U.N. staff joked about shutting off elevators and escalators.
During his speech, Trump mentioned the incident, saying, "All I got from the United Nations was an escalator on the way up that stopped in the middle... If the first lady wasn't in great shape, she would've fallen." The U.N. later said the stoppage was likely triggered by a safety mechanism when a videographer rode backward while filming.
Technical glitches plagued Trump's address, forcing him to ad-lib portions of the speech as his teleprompter failed. Still, he used the podium to rail against member nations, declaring, "Your countries are going to hell," in a denunciation of open-border policies.
Afterward, Trump posted on Truth Social: "The teleprompter was broken and the escalator came to a sudden halt as we were riding up to the podium, but both of those events probably made the speech more interesting than it would have been otherwise. It is always an honor to speak at the United Nations, even if their equipment is somewhat faulty."
The moment aboard Marine One comes amid renewed speculation about the state of the Trumps' marriage. Author Michael Wolff has claimed the couple "live separate lives," saying, "They clearly do not in any way inhabit a marriage as we define marriage." The White House has dismissed Wolff as "a fraud" and a "lying sack of s--t," but Melania's rare public appearances have fueled chatter. CNN reported last month she had been seen in public only 19 days during Trump's second term, compared with 40 by the same point in his first.
Melania skipped Trump's August summit with Vladimir Putin in Alaska and was absent when he welcomed Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky to the White House days later. She did accompany him to the United Kingdom in September but reportedly stayed in a separate suite at Windsor Castle, according to the Daily Mail's Ephraim Hardcastle column.
