Donald Trump’s attack on the United Nations was the culmination of a 25-year vendetta that began when he first concocted a real estate dispute with the global institution.
He has consistently attacked the U.N. for snubbing his offer to redevelop the headquarters, which overlooks the East River in New York, since 2001, despite never actually making the bid he claims was rebuffed.
“They decided to go in another direction, which was much more expensive at the time, and which actually produced a far inferior product,” Trump said on Tuesday of the renovation, which was its first since the complex opened in 1950.
Trump was complaining after the escalator stopped as soon as he stepped onto it and his teleprompter failed. MAGA melted down over the alleged sabotage, but a U.N. official said it was most likely that Trump’s videographer had inadvertently halted the escalator.
“Frankly, looking at the building and getting stuck in the escalator, they still haven’t finished the job,” he whined.
Trump has repeatedly claimed over the years that he was snubbed in his offer to do the job for as little as $500 million—even at one point offering to do it for free for the sake of “humanity”—but Manhattan’s most famous property developer never even put in an official bid.
Instead, he appears to have used the episode to generate column inches and TV hits.
The bad blood dates back to January 2001. Fresh off a pre-2000 flirtation with a presidential run, and having demanded a meeting with the U.N.’s then Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Trump turned up in the Turtle Bay neighbourhood, which plays host to the U.N.’s offices, to pitch himself for its long-delayed overhaul, with its costs spiraling.
After a half-hour with Annan, he boasted he might “take a look” at bidding, and later recalled of the meeting: “I sat down, I felt like a head of state. I thought the meeting went amazingly well. I was expecting a call the following day.”
However, according to the U.N., the onus had been on Trump to make the first move, and no bid was forthcoming.
No matter, with the redevelopment still under discussion by the mid-2000s, Trump kept using the project to generate headlines.
In April 2005, he said he called Senator Jeff Sessions to explain that the U.N. was about to blow a $1.2 billion loan and that he could do the job for “only $500 million.” He told the Associated Press that he’d warned Sessions in the private call that “someone’s going to make a fortune.”
Trump was then invited to give evidence in the Senate, where his testimony began, “I am a big fan, a very big fan, of the United Nations and all it stands for.”
But he quickly descended into a rant against the body for not knowing “what they’re doing” and for overpaying on the renovation by hundreds of millions of dollars.
Trump even boasted he’d oversee the job “for free.”
“I don’t want any fees. I’d like to do it for humanity,” he said. He claimed he would do it cheaper, faster, and better than their plan, throwing shade at his fellow New York contractors who were “major slime.”
In response, Annan said, “If that’s the case, I’m sure he will get the contract, and so I would encourage him to bid,” yet Trump never came up with a proposal. And so, in 2007, the U.N. selected Skanska USA as construction manager, targeting completion by 2014.
Briefings from the time show that the scope, which included sprinklers, asbestos removal, and full heating system replacement, was far beyond Trump’s TV-friendly math.
When asked about the contractor being appointed, Trump responded, “I’ve said it all.” But he hadn’t.
The building works were expected to take about seven years and cost between $1.2 billion and $1.6 billion. Just as the revamp began in May 2008, Trump resurfaced to insist that he could finish it in “18 months” for “no more than $750 million.”
“It’s a total disgrace,” he added. “What’s happening to all that money?”
His outburst prompted Vivian Van de Perre, the U.N. official behind the renovation, to dryly note, “We wish he had put in a bid for $750 million.”
Amid the building work, Trump kept sniping. In 2012, he tweeted that the General Assembly’s marble “look[s] cheap” and offered to replace it.
The cheap 12 inch sq. marble tiles behind speaker at UN always bothered me. I will replace with beautiful large marble slabs if they ask me.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 3, 2012
The project, of course, moved on without him. The HQ was gutted to its steel and rebuilt, and the General Assembly Hall was renovated.
Work was finally completed in September 2015, at an estimated $2.15 billion.
Despite having had no real involvement and never actually getting snubbed, Trump still clearly holds a grudge against the United Nations.
After he reprised his Turtle Bay tale on Tuesday, he went on the attack against almost everything the peacekeeping organization does, claiming the U.N. had “tremendous potential” but relied on “strongly worded letters” and “empty words.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House and the United Nations for comment.
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