President Donald Trump joked that he grabbed First Lady Melania Trump's back "or another part of her body" as two of his top health officials giggled behind him.
Donald Trump made the remark Friday during an Oval Office event announcing that all 50 states will join a program to lower some Medicaid drug prices, the Associated Press reported. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Mehmet Oz, who runs the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, flanked the president.
"What is your message?" a reporter asked during questions from the press, pointing to the president's speech at the United Nations General Assembly next week.
"Well, [last] year, they wouldn't let my person in the teleprompter room," Donald Trump replied. "Remember that? My teleprompter operator was banned from the room."
A UN official disputed that after the Sept. 23, 2025, speech, saying the White House had run its own teleprompter.
"But what was your message?" the reporter pressed.
"You remember that? They turned off the escalator," the president said.
The escalator stopped as Donald Trump and the First Lady stepped onto it on their way to that speech. The UN later said the president's own videographer, walking backward up the steps to film the couple, may have set off a safety switch.
"Fortunately, my first lady was very strong, and I was able to grab her back or another part of her body," Donald Trump said.
Men standing behind the president began to giggle, including Kennedy and Oz. Donald Trump turned in his chair toward one of the men, then turned further and looked up at Oz.
"It was actually a little bit lower than the back, and it kept me standing tall," Donald Trump continued, smiling at Oz. "I was standing very tall."
He told a similar version of the escalator story in February at a meeting of his Board of Peace, describing putting his hand on a part of the first lady's body, UNILAD reported.
The remarks echo comments uncovered in 2016, when an audio recording caught the then-reality TV star bragging that he liked to "grab" women.
"Grab them by the p—," Donald Trump said in a 2005 "Access Hollywood" recording, made public in October 2016, in which he boasted about groping women, according to Global News.
The Trump campaign later dismissed those remarks as "locker room talk."
On Friday, the president's escalator story eventually veered back into his complaints about his teleprompter operator.
"But you remember, I was going up in the… and it came to a dead stop," Donald Trump said Friday, returning to the escalator. "And this was… I built a lot of escalators. I put in a lot of escalators."
"And then I got up to make my speech, and I said, 'I don't have a teleprompter,'" the president said. "Can you imagine? And I think I spoke very well. Nice to have a president that doesn't need a teleprompter."