Before President Donald Trump addressed the General Assembly at the United Nations today, his Secretary of State Marco Rubio gave a preview of Trump’s speech to Fox News. Rubio said that the President would talk about “his own history with the U.N., going back to his time as a developer.”
According to Rubio, prior to becoming President, Trump once “offered to fix the U.N. building and instead they decided to go in a different direction, wasted a bunch of money,” which Rubio says is “emblematic of how feckless the U.N. has become.”
Rubio belittled the United Nations by describing it as “a place where once a year a bunch of people come to give speeches and write out a bunch of letters and statements but not a lot of good, important action is happening.”
“The UN is 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 and important action is happening. It has a lot of potential, but it’s not living up to it right now.”
— Department of State (@StateDept) September 23, 2025
— @SecRubio pic.twitter.com/S1WdAUO2FL
Note: In Trump’s U.N. speech, he confirmed Rubio’s story and said he offered to fix the building for $500 million. (His administration just revoked approximately $1 billion in funding this year to the U.N., which Trump has accused previously of “not being well run.”)
This isn’t the first time President Trump has targeted an institution with which he had personal experience involving rejection. Decades ago, Columbia University — a 2025 target of the President — turned down an opportunity to purchase a $400 million midtown property from Trump to expand its New York City campus.
(Twenty-five years later, the Trump administration canceled $400 million in federal funding, claiming that the school did not adequately protect its students and faculty from antisemitism during protests last year on campus. The parties recently agreed on a $221 million settlement.)
A New York Times story on the scuttled Columbia real estate deal also notably mentions that CBS, another current Trump target, also “balked” on developing part of the property.
