Fox News host Jesse Watters called for the bombing the United Nations after an escalator carrying President Donald Trump and the first lady at its New York headquarters suddenly stopped working. On Tuesday’s episode of The Five , the Watters blamed UN staffers for the incident at the Manhattan building, which was worsened by a teleprompter malfunctioning as Trump spoke to the body.

‘This is an insurrection,’ Watters, 47, said. ‘And what we need to do is either leave the UN or we need to bomb it.’ One of Watters’ cohosts reacted with an audible ‘hmm’ as if to indicate disapproval. ‘It is in New York, though, right? There can be some fallout there. Alright. Maybe gas it?’ Watters continued.

‘Let’s not do that,’ his co-host Dana Perino, 53, said. ‘But we need to destroy it,’ Watters added. ‘Maybe we can demolish the building?’ Perino then suggested repurposing the facility into ‘affordable housing.’ Watters, grimacing, rejected the idea.

‘I don’t like that. I like nice sky-rises, Dana – expensive condominiums,’ he said, noting the UN headquarters’ proximity to the East River. ‘No, this is absolutely unacceptable. And I hope they get to the bottom of it, and I hope they really injure, emotionally, the people that did it.’ Trump demanded an investigation into the stopped escalator on Wednesday.

The day before, a UN spokesperson sought to explain what happened in a statement. ‘The safety mechanism is designed to prevent people or objects accidentally being caught and stuck in or pulled into the gearing,’ it read. An anonymous source told ABC News the teleprompter that cut off during Trump’s speech was being operated by someone from the White House and not a member of UN staff.

Social media users were quick to point out Watters’ extreme comments, with several calling for his , while others expressed outrage over what they saw as a threat from the Fox News host. Earlier Tuesday night, during an appearance on Jesse Watters Primetime, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed that ‘UN globalist staffers were basically plotting to set up the president of the United States.’

She also took to X to share a snippet from a Times article that appeared to suggest staffers could have been in on the incident. ‘To mark Trump’s arrival, UN staff members have joked that they may turn off the escalators and elevators and simply tell him they ran out of money, so he has to walk up the stairs,’ it read.

During his speech, Trump asked, ‘what is the purpose of the UN?’ ‘These are the two things I got from the United Nations: a bad escalator and a bad teleprompter,’ he added.