With the smoke still billowing across Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001, Donald Trump conducted a live television interview in which he was already focused on what the horrific attack meant for his real estate empire.
Trump, in a WWOR interview he held just hours after the planes hit the Twin Towers, was discussing his thoughts and feelings on the tragedy when his mind turned quickly to 40 Wall St., the Trump-owned building in the Financial District.
“40 Wall Street … actually was the second-tallest building in downtown Manhattan, and it was actually, before the World Trade Center, was the tallest-and then, when they built the World Trade Center, it became known as the second-tallest,” he said about his 71-story skyscraper.
“And now it’s the tallest,” he added.
The long-ranging interview was unearthed and first reported on by Politico.
In the interview, Trump also struck an uncharacteristically measured tone, telling commentator Alan Marcus that, if he’d been president at the time of the attack, he would be “taking a very, very tough line.”
“I mean, you know, most people feel they know at least approximately the group of people that did this and where they are. But boy would you have to take a hard line on this. This just can’t be tolerated,” he said.
And he was thoughtful, too.
“This country is different today,” Trump said on WWOR. “And it’s going to be different than it ever was for many years to come.”
“I guess the big thing you really will have to do is never forget,” Trump, who was at Trump Tower, on Fifth Avenue, at the time of the attack, said during the interview.
The comment about real estate however, which Politico said was made at about the 10-minute mark of the interview, nevertheless fits a pattern, seen often during the current presidential race, of Trump offering himself congratulations after a tragedy.
For example, in June, just hours after a gunman stormed the Pulse nightclub in Orlando and killed 49 people, Trump actually thanked supporters for their praise on his stance against President Obama’s refusal to use the term “radical Islamic terrorism.”
“Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don’t want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart!” Trump tweeted hours after the horrific mass shooting.
