U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, previewing President Donald Trump’s upcoming address to the United Nations on Tuesday, said the President’s remarks would be shaped by his lingering, long-standing resentment over the 80-year-old institution’s decision decades ago to reject him for the redevelopment of its Manhattan headquarters.
According to a 2017 CNN report, in 2001, Trump was "passed over for the job, which infuriated the billionaire developer, who’d by then made his name as New York’s most famous (and infamous) real estate magnate."
“Who is in charge at the United Nations?” Trump wrote in his book, "Think Like a Millionaire."
“Could they be as incompetent in world affairs as they are at simple numbers? Does anyone else find this situation as alarming as I do?” he asked.
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Secretary Rubio on Tuesday told Fox News that President Trump "will point to his own history with the UN going back to his time here as a developer. Where he actually offered to fix the UN building, and instead, they chose to go in another direction, wasted a bunch of money, and really didn't achieve, on the building's perspective, what needed to happen."
"I think it's emblematic of how feckless the UN has become as an organization," Rubio said of the decades-old incident.
"It's just a place where once a year, a bunch of people meet and give speeches and write out a bunch of letters and statements, but not a lot of good, important action is happening," the secretary lamented. "So, again, the UN has a lot of potential, but it's not living up to it right now."
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As he delivers his remarks, Trump may also remember his first address before the august body, in 2018 during his first term as president when the diplomats broke out in laughter over his self-congratulatory claim that his administration had "accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country.”
CNN reported that Trump' remarks were met with "mocking laughter."
On Tuesday, Trump is expected to share his "vision for the world", according to CNN.
Marco Rubio previews Trump's speech to the UN: "You can anticipate that the president will point to his own history with the UN going back to his time as a developer. He actually offered to fix the UN building and instead they decided to go in a different direction, wasted a… pic.twitter.com/fbILn2ABcI
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 23, 2025
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