Citizen Trump testified to the Senate Homeland Security Committee at a hearing held on July 21, 2005. The subject of the hearing was the United Nations’ capital master plan to renovate the UN headquarters in New York. The committee’s interest in Trump’s testimony appears to have been triggered by Meghan Clyne’s New York Sun story “Trump Scoffs at U.N.’s Plan For New H.Q.” (February 4, 2005). See Senator Inhofe’s testimony at the linked hearing site.
C-SPAN has posted video of the two-hour hearing here. Someone clipped Trump’s testimony and separately posted it on C-SPAN’s site here. The YouTube video below gives Trump’s testimony clipped from C-SPAN.
The committee posted a transcript of Trump’s testimony here with an attribution to Radioblogger, the former site maintained by Hugh Hewitt producer Duane Patterson. I first heard Hugh playing Trump’s testimony that summer on his syndicated Salem Radio show. The C-SPAN page with the clip of Trump’s testimony quotes Hugh’s comment that it is “an amazing performance that will capture your rapt attention. Trump was in his element, talking real estate development, New York City commercial space and contractors, labor unions and naivete among lessees. He was funny, precise and in command of an amazing array of facts.”
In the event, the renovation vindicated Hugh’s praise of Trump’s testimony: “UN should have said ‘you’re fired’ and hired Trump in 2005.” Presented for your viewing pleasure, this is Trump’s master class on the UN’s capital master plan to renovate UN headquarters.
JOHN adds: Everyone should watch this, if only for entertainment value. I can hardly express how much I would have enjoyed having Trump as an expert witness back in my trial lawyer days. It is sheer pleasure to watch a guy who really knows what he is talking about, and you can also see the roots of Trump’s attitude toward government spending in general. DOGE is perhaps a direct descendant of Trump’s experience with government waste in the construction arena. It is also interesting to see Minnesota’s left-wing Senator Mark Dayton sucking up to Trump. No doubt Dayton’s attitude changed when Trump came out as a Republican and entered the political arena.
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