Donald Trump - Interview with Donahue 1987

As you know you're the fat cat developer and You know the book on you is that you throw little old ladies? Who can't afford the rent part of the apartment I? Don't think that's the book on me if you want to know well, I think I don't think it is at all I think probably it's just the opposite We have very wealthy people in this particular building We have a building on 100 Central Park South the best probably the best piece of real estate in New York in the world And we have very wealthy people extremely wealthy people living in this building. Well the second home It's quite accurate to say that every occupant is it extremely well but the ones that were complaining were the wealthy ones the ones that were complaining Phil were the wealthy ones these are people with a Lot of money one of them owns of brownstone a number of brownstones on East 66th Street yet She's living in this building for a rent-controlled rent the rent control people the people that need rent control They're not the ones that are protected It's people that are usually wealthy with a lot of influence that have the connections to get her in control apartment People that might need it they don't have rent control apartments Well, I guess a little facile. I mean it's it's a little bit like saying you know those people are out of work Cuz they're lazy now it's I think it may be all right well first of all let's let's the the Building on Central Park South has been settled you own it and you you've made your deal with all the residents For one for you Back to this this lawsuit so you hire row Cohn and he goes to work, and you win it yeah Cohn doesn't like lawyers either because they always want to settle and you don't like that about lawyers The idea of settling drove me crazy the fact was that we did rent to blacks in our buildings what we didn't do was rent To welfare cases white or black I've watched what happened when the government came after Samuel of frac another builder And he caved in and starting taking welfare cases. They virtually ruined his buildings Welfare cases ruined his buildings isn't that? Actually pretty close here too to looking like an insensitive guy From atop your Trump Tower looking down on the Wollman Rink over the vast holdings of your own empire Shouldn't we have just a little more understanding from a man of your influence and wealth on the issue of making, New York Liveable for all of us safety on the subway these can be if that if the answer is absolutely Then we can't continue to give you guys these big tax breaks And that would go for General Electric and NBC to you tell us in your own book that you would make money In on the Trump Tower in in New York or when everybody lost a tax breaks so when everybody else in the city gets it But Donald Trump when Koch and the administration tries to stop Donald Trump, and I don't say give me the tax breaks I say don't give everyone else the tax breaks if every other building being built in New York City is entitled to a residential tax Abatement and Trump Tower goes and I'm not entitled. I'm the only building in the city of, New York That's not entitled. I don't think that's a problem look at that look at the location of your building What difference does it make well one of the iterations Phil there are other wonderful locations? Also, that are also getting tax abatements, I won The case they didn't give it to me it took me two and a half years in court I wanted seven to nothing in three different courts, and I'm very happy about it I didn't win it because I so much needed it as much as because on a moral principle. I was entitled to it If nobody's gonna get it. I'm satisfied if everybody's gonna get it I shouldn't be the only one that's not getting it Phil and I know you well enough to know that you wouldn't take it either If you were in my position you wouldn't take that so that's what happened But you tell us also in your book you left Queens you left Brooklyn for Manhattan To to get away from rent control you you're honest to tell us who knows I'm honest hey. I'm not running for anything well I'm not running for office. I don't have to lie in a book. I want to tell the facts okay But I mean you want it you want me to say little fibs and little this and all of that and how much we all Love rent control. What a great thing? It's been for New York. It's been a disaster for New York It's badly hurt New York its crippled, New York. It's made It impossible for a lot of people to live in New York and and You see what's happening. You look at the Bronx You look at certain parts of Queens in Brooklyn you see what rent controls done And I think you know it as well as anybody else rent control And I'm one of the few developers in the world that would ever say it Some forms of rent control is sometimes necessary to protect the elderly to protect people that truly don't have the money But when you have multi millionaires and not all instances of this filth There's not all instances, but you go to Manhattan the prime sections of a natin Will you have rent control and rent stabilization all over those are wealthy people in many instances And I don't mean in every instance Vil But I mean in many and I would say in a majority you have multi Millionaires in some cases living in apartments for two hundred three hundred and five hundred dollars a month that she'd be paying Many times is gonna sound a little unusual, but New York rents can be ten and twenty thousand dollars a month What does that mean what does that mean film that means that the city can't tax because of a wealthy person's paying? $300 a month you can't really tax that beyond a certain point twenty percent of that or whatever it might be so the city's always short of funds It's a joke what's happened and the people that need rent control, and there are some indeed those aren't the people that have it It's the people with the connections somebody knows Trump. Somebody knows somebody else they call up. They say do me a favor That's what it's all about if if With this the Saudis wants to get in here mr.. Trump, sir if your position is Let's let's let's grant a given no doubt about it under a rent control circumstances There's there are going to be certain people who don't need it who get it not unlike social security There are going to be some people who get it who don't need it but to suggest that that rent control is somehow being Pervasively abused throughout the island of Manhattan. You don't need it. I do have plenty of dala You ought to check the numbers Phil I mean I can tell you something now one one little thing all I'm asking for is a simple thing Give a means test if a person makes a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year working in a big advertising Agency if a person makes two hundred three hundred a hundred Thousand seventy five thousand dollars you let there be a means test so that that person will give the apartment to somebody that can afford It if you have to do that Phil look Why can't there be a means test? I should multi millionaires live for three or four hundred dollars a month when poor people are paying more than that didn't have to pay Me and how many people would have to work in the office to determine whether or not people are up means or not of means? And would you build the building it would be a very large one occupied by? Thousands of bureaucrats trying to figure out who doesn't because it? Isn't that simple just and what another kind of money? You're talking about if you Emptied and made available to people that could have that need really this protection the apartments occupied by very wealthy people In New York you're talking about tremendous amounts of money And I mean if you're talking about a number of accountants in order to administrate a program You're not talking about a lot relative to what we're talking you should not have called Mayor Koch a moron that was not good public relations Hey, what can I do well doesn't it? Isn't this aren't you a little don't you want? I don't think a bad public relations. You know I don't take it back when it comes to running the city he's about as bad as anybody I've seen Ed Koch has been a Disaster for New York people that live in New York understand it taxes have gone through the roof Everything's gone through you have whether it's a Wollman Rink or a subway system Whether it's a school that comes in and takes a tour use me But here you you're out with your folks at City Hall getting your picture taken All day well, I guess you liked me in those days no I just think that and and this is and I don't think you have to be Passionately committed the City Hall or anybody just to conclude that This kind of language from someone of your power and influence is not good style Built from my standpoint, it doesn't really matter again I'm not running for office if the point is made better by saying that let the point be made he's done a lousy job as the mayor anybody from New York probably understands that a notice that it's it's gone down now and it's going down as the Most corrupt they fill. This is the most corrupt administration in the history of their problem I happen to agree with your assessment of Mayor Koch in New York City What do you think will finally have to happen to bring his downfall? Well, I I have a feeling and maybe it's more of a prediction I think that the incompetence and corruption of the Koch administration will eventually lead to his resignation or his just having to be forced out because I think he's that bad and As Phil says I don't like mincing words because what difference does it make again? I'm not running for office So it doesn't matter I can stand up here and unlike a lot of people that I watch I can say what I think But that's much of a prediction I believe that the incompetence and corruption will ultimately lead to his Having to get out when I see a total ripoff of this country by Japan where they literally have no defense budget well We have to borrow money from them in order to get them oil and defend the Persian Gulf where most of the oil goes to Japan and other countries not us we get 4 percent of all when I see Kuwait a Total ripoff we'll bring in the Bridgeton you remember the Bridgeton their oil minister sat back And he laughed at how much money. He's gonna make why aren't we getting some of that money? Why are we getting it? They're taking in billions and billions of dollars And we can't even land a helicopter and Kuwaiti soil you tell me that's right, Saudi Arabia They wouldn't even be there except for us and in Saudi Arabia. We couldn't even use their minesweepers fell. You know it We said could we use your mind sweep bazaars, or old outdated not worth a damn They said no you can't use our minesweepers to protect the Persian Gulf I mean it's a disgrace what's going on on his enemies if I if people screw me I screw it I screw back in spades I Mean is there something wrong with that. I tell me yeah, is there something wrong with it. Well a Confrontational kind of Val gets you used you keep saying you're not running for office, but why don't you? No, I wouldn't want to run for mayor of New York I'd like to see somebody Talent to do that and there's a tremendous potential in New York New York is the great city it's one of the great places of the world But I really have no intention of running for me Thank you, but you definitely are a political person whether you run for office bite. What everything that you say and do points points in that direction

Channel: LibertyPen

Views: 2,108,294

Keywords: rich, money, wealth, economics, real estate, politics, rent control, government, connections, cronyism, lawsuit, class warfare, lawyers, blacks, welfare, tax breaks, Trump Tower, Ed Koch, principle, moral, poor, fairness, tax, means testing, bureaucrats, power, influence, incompetence, ripoff, oil, Saudi Arabia

Id: jxNkMkAe7F0

Length: 10min 18sec (618 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 09 2018