Escalatorgate: How a Gremlin Named Stephen Miller Left a Trail of Mechanical Carnage Behind Trump

It began, as many great political scandals do, with something seemingly mundane. A staircase. Not just any staircase, but the most modern of staircases: a gleaming United Nations escalator that had faithfully carried diplomats, translators, and caffeinated interns for years without complaint. Then one September afternoon, Donald J. Trump arrived for his latest speech before the General Assembly, accompanied—as always—by his pale, perpetually smirking shadow, Stephen Miller. Within seconds of Trump’s shoe touching the rubber step, the escalator coughed, groaned, and gave up on life altogether. The lights flickered. Metal groaned. World leaders watched as the forty-seventh President of the United States clutched the handrail like a man betrayed by gravity itself, shouting “This escalator is rigged!”

By nightfall, the incident had a name: Escalatorgate.

Cable news went wall-to-wall. CNN replayed the footage of Miller stepping aboard in grainy slow motion, while MSNBC wheeled out engineers to explain how escalators generally only break when something “actively gnaws through the wiring.” The Washington Post ran a 4,000-word reconstruction of the event, quoting anonymous diplomats who swore the air in the lobby “tasted faintly of ozone and malevolence.” And Fox News, never one to miss an opportunity, insisted that United Nations “globalist janitors” had deliberately sabotaged the escalator to embarrass Trump. “First they came for his light bulbs, now they come for his escalators,” Tucker Carlson intoned before disappearing into a commercial break for reverse mortgages.

For most observers, the malfunction was a mechanical hiccup. For Trump, it was proof of an international conspiracy. And for those who have watched his career closely, Escalatorgate was merely the most visible casualty in a years-long pattern of electronic and mechanical collapses that occur whenever Stephen Miller is near.

A Pattern of Mechanical Betrayal

Trump himself has catalogued the betrayals over time, usually in the form of complaints shouted into faltering microphones. There was the rally in Michigan where his voice cut in and out as though censored by gremlins. “They don’t want me to speak, folks,” he told the crowd, tapping the mic, “but I’ll tell you this—it’s the best voice, the strongest voice, everybody says so!” Moments later, the speaker let out a shriek so piercing that several Secret Service agents reached for their weapons. Sound technicians later discovered that every XLR cable backstage had been frayed, as though chewed. Miller had, coincidentally, been spotted pacing in the wings.

Then came the infamous Arizona rally, where temperatures soared above 100 degrees and the air conditioning system surrendered early in the evening. Trump sweat through his suit jacket, accusing the venue of colluding with the Biden administration to make him look weak. “The air conditioning doesn’t work, everybody knows it, they turned it off because they’re very dishonest people,” he huffed. Later, maintenance crews discovered the fuses had melted in irregular patterns resembling claw marks. A witness swore he heard Miller muttering in “a language that sounded like RadioShack instructions read backward” moments before the system failed.

By the time Escalatorgate unfolded at the United Nations, the pattern was undeniable. Things broke. Trump complained. And Stephen Miller was always nearby, his presence as consistent as it was inexplicable.

The Gremlin Theory

Scholars have since debated what, exactly, Stephen Miller is. Some argue he is a man, albeit one with a passing resemblance to a boiled egg that was given a haircut. Others, less charitable, suggest he is an unholy hybrid of Ayn Rand manifestos and a malfunctioning smoke detector. But an increasing number of engineers and folklorists converge on a simpler theory: Stephen Miller is a gremlin.

Not metaphorically—a literal gremlin, in the folkloric sense. A creature whose sole purpose is to sow chaos in machinery, to thrive in the sparks of broken circuits, to feast on the despair of overheated A/C units and jammed microphones. The evidence, they argue, is overwhelming. The escalator collapse wasn’t sabotage. It was instinct.

Of course, gremlins are notoriously difficult to prove in court. No subpoena can compel one to sit still under fluorescent lights, and no congressional investigation can hold their attention long enough to get through opening statements. But that hasn’t stopped Trump’s allies from spinning the incidents as deliberate attacks.

Fox News: From Escalatorgate to AirConGate

The Fox News narrative took shape quickly. Escalatorgate was not, according to their primetime lineup, the result of one man’s proximity to machinery. It was the fault of shadowy “globalist staffers” who had infiltrated the United Nations, bent on humiliating Trump through targeted infrastructure failures. “They want him to stumble, to sweat, to struggle,” one anchor thundered. “But he keeps going, because he’s the strongest man, the most resilient escalator rider in history.”

By the following week, every malfunction Trump had ever complained about had been bundled into a grand narrative. Microphones were failing because globalists had infiltrated the audio-visual unions. Air conditioners were sputtering because the Biden administration had quietly declared war on freon. Escalatorgate, they warned, was just the beginning. “If they can break an escalator,” asked one commentator gravely, “what’s next? Airplanes? Automobiles? Your children’s scooters?”

The genius of this strategy was that it shifted blame away from Trump’s entourage—and away from the suspiciously rodent-like figure always lurking nearby—onto a vast conspiracy of janitors, sound technicians, and HVAC specialists.

Carolynne Leavitt: Special Counsel of the Stairs

Enter Carolynne Leavitt, who quickly positioned herself as the Republic’s chief investigator into mechanical treachery. At a press conference, she announced: “This begins with Escalatorgate, but it doesn’t end there. We will investigate microphones. We will investigate thermostats. We will hold accountable those who have declared war on Donald Trump’s right to fully functioning machinery.”

Behind her, aides handed out glossy pamphlets titled Stop the Sabotage: A Citizen’s Guide to Escalatorgate. The imagery was stark: Trump heroically ascending a staircase while faceless bureaucrats tried to cut the steps from beneath him.

Leavitt promised subpoenas. “We will drag these escalator manufacturers into court. We will find the microphone lobbyists. We will uncover who told the air conditioners to betray America.” Fox News hosts nodded solemnly, as though listening to a new declaration of independence.

International Diplomacy, Mechanical Edition

For diplomats at the United Nations, Escalatorgate was less about politics and more about property damage. “Every time he visits, something breaks,” one European delegate sighed. “We budget for snacks, for security, for translation services. But now? Now we budget for gremlin damage.”

An internal UN report catalogued incidents: jammed elevators, flickering lights, exploding coffee machines. One section, written in the bureaucratic neutrality of international organizations, noted: “Correlation between the presence of U.S. political advisor Stephen Miller and mechanical malfunctions remains high.”

Still, no one dared to accuse Miller directly. Not because of politics, but because of superstition. “You don’t point at a gremlin,” whispered a German diplomat. “That’s how you wake it.”

Trump’s Mechanical Martyrdom

Trump himself leaned into the narrative, retelling his grievances at rallies with the self-pitying grandeur of a man betrayed by household appliances. “They broke my escalator at the United Nations, folks,” he told one crowd, his voice rising with indignation. “A beautiful escalator, the best escalator. Everyone said it was the best escalator. And they broke it because they didn’t want me to shine. Very unfair.”

The crowd roared. T-shirts emblazoned with ESCALATORGATE 2025 appeared within days, featuring a cartoon Trump heroically ascending while a shadowy gremlin gnawed at the gears.

Soon, every technical hiccup was woven into the legend. Broken microphone? Escalatorgate. Sweltering rally? Escalatorgate. Even when Trump once spilled water on his own tie, his supporters insisted the bottle had been tampered with by “anti-Trump plumbers.”

The Escalator as Shrine

Back at the United Nations, the broken escalator was eventually cordoned off with yellow tape, awaiting repairs that never seemed to come. Trump supporters began visiting the site, leaving red hats and handwritten notes at its base. One woman tearfully told reporters: “This escalator carried our President, and they destroyed it. But he still rose higher. That’s what Escalatorgate means.”

UN staffers, baffled, now refer to the lobby as “the shrine.” Diplomats must step around the offerings of MAGA flags and empty Diet Coke cans just to reach their offices.

The Gremlin’s Smile

And through it all, Stephen Miller smiles faintly, his eyes glinting like LEDs about to burn out. He denies nothing, explains nothing, merely lingers near the podium cables and ventilation ducts like a man listening for the heartbeat of machines.

Whether he is man or gremlin hardly matters anymore. The legend is written, the merch is printed, and the political narrative is set: every broken escalator, every fried microphone, every sweltering rally will forever be known as Escalatorgate.

Because in Trump’s world, chaos isn’t a bug. It’s a feature. And Escalatorgate is the crown jewel of that chaos—an endless reminder that wherever Trump goes, the gremlin is never far behind.