Donald Trumps the UN

The Senate International Security Subcommittee was holding a hearing Thursday into the proposed $1.5 billion refurbish project of the United Nations building. One of the star witnesses was The Donald. Just on pure theater, it was fun to watch. In case you missed it, here's Trump's testimony downloaded from RadioBlogger.

07-22thedonald.mp3

Here are a few excerpts.

I have to start by saying I'm a big fan, a very big fan of the United Nations, and all it stands for. I can't speak as to what's been happening over the last number of years, because it certainly hasn't been good.

The Ambassador to the United Nations from Sweden read about the success of Trump World Tower, which is very substantially bigger than the United Nations. And he read they were talking about $1.5 billion dollars to renovate the United Nations. I said well, there are only two reasons, either gross incompetence or something far worse, corruption.

When I went to see Kofi Annan, I was actually quite excited. Because I thought that I could save this country, this world, a lot of money. Unfortunately, there was just no response.

Mr. Conners didn't know the first thing about what he was doing. I said, "What are you going to be doing with the curtain wall?" He said, "What is a curtain wall?" Now, he was in charge of the project. The curtain wall is the skin of the building. He had no clue.

You have to deal in New York City construction, to see what tough people are all about and they're just going to take you lunch, and you're just not going to even know what happened. So this project will cost, in my opinion, $3 billion dollars. However, in my opinion, it should cost approximately $700 million dollars.

Now, I've seen one thing that sticks out more than all of the rest. The number of $44 million dollars for an architect is one of the great numbers in history. I think this man is a genius, whoever he may be, wherever he may be in Italy. I would like to meet him. Now, I have great respect for architects, but I'm going to give you an example. For the tallest residential building in the world, my architect got paid approximately $1.5 million dollars.

Senator, congratulations. You've got yourself a mess on your hands.