N.O. Pundit

Trump On UN Renovations

The Donald speaks at the Senate International Security Subcommittee on (having a snowball's chance in hell of) reining in Turtle Bay's proposed renovation costs. Really, this is an amusing testament to the UN's utter hopelessness as a global problem-solving body.

Excerpt (there is much more, including an mp3 file; I'll tell you, Trump is a good public speaker):

"Now, I listened to one thing, and I've seen one thing, and one number that sticks out more than all of the rest. Because whether or not somebody doesn't know what New York Steam is, or what boilers are, and whether or not they have boiler rooms, which the people at the United Nations didn't do. But the number of $44 million dollars for an architect, is one of the great numbers in the histroy...In fact, I think this man is a genius, whoever he may be, wherever he may be in Italy. I think he's a great genius. I would like to meet him. He is, without question, the richest architect in the world. And I listened, as one person said, I think they only got $500,000. Another person said, I think they got a million, and then changed their mind, and it was $7.8 million. And then I listened to Senator Sessions, who actually did his homework, said they got paid $27 million dollars, because you were able to check the books. So they got paid $27 million dollars. They haven't done anything. They don't even have plans. Nobody even knows what they're building, and they got paid $27 million dollars.

"Now, I have respect for a lot of people. And I have great respect for architects. But I'm going to give you an example. The tallest residential building in the world, my architect got paid approximately $1.5 million dollars. This architect got $44 million dollars. A building at 40 Wall Street, my architect got paid, believe me, peanuts. I think less than $1.5 million. In Chicago, where I'm building a building of 92 stories at the old Sun Times site, 2.7 million square feet, which is more than the United Nations, if you add up all of the projects that they're talking about, it's larger. Substantially larger. I'm spending $600 million dollars, and they're saying they're going to spend $1.2 billion. So they're spending much more...and this is a 92 story building with brand new structure, brand new foundations. I'm building all the roads...Mayor Daley made me build roads around the building. I had no choice, otherwise, if you know Mayor Daley, you're not going to build the building. He's a great mayor, but he made me do that. So all of this is $600 million dollars, and they're spending $1.2.

"Now, there is no way they're spending $1.2 billion dollars, in my opinion, and based on what I've heard. When they'd spent $27 million dollars, and terminated the architect, there's big trouble. Because I don't think they have a new architect. So if they don't have a new architect, who's going to do the plans? And who's going to do the bidding? Because in order to do a job, you have to have a complete set of plans and specs. If you don't have a complete, complete, finished, over, set of plans and specs, you have nothing to bid on. There's no way you can bid. The worst thing you can do, and you said you were in the home building business for a while...the worst thing you can do, as you know, is start a job without complete plans and specs. Because the sub-contractors will eat your lunch, right? So, it's one of those things. So they don't even have an architect. They spent $27 million dollars, and they don't have an architect. Now, I have asked, on numerous occasions, to go in, and I would help them. I would love to help them. I don't want any money. I want nothing. I've made a lot of money. I don't care. I want nothing."

Posted by nopundit at July 22, 2005 07:57 PM