President Trump on Tuesday argued he defeated Rep. Jerrold Nadler in a decades-old real estate dispute, even though the New York Democrat succeeded in scaling back Trump’s project.
“Congressman Jerry Nadler fought me for years on a very large development I built on the West Side of Manhattan. He wanted a Rail Yard built underneath the development or even better, to stop the job. He didn’t get either & the development became VERY successful,” Trump tweeted.
{mosads}The president added that he “got along very well with Jerry during the zoning and building process” and suggested the bad blood is more the result of partisan politics.
“I changed course (slightly), became President, and now I am dealing with Congressman Nadler again. Some things never end, but hopefully it will all go well for everyone. Only time will tell!” he tweeted.
The comments came in an apparent response to a Washington Post report detailing the origins of the feud between Trump and Nadler, who is now leading investigations into the president as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.
Tensions were rooted in Trump’s desire in the 1980s to build the world’s tallest building as part of a major redevelopment of a railyard on Manhattan’s west side, which was part of Nadler’s then-state assembly district.
Nadler helped block approvals and curtail federal loan guarantees for the project as both an assemblyman and newly elected congressman. But Trump eventually succeeded in building roughly 20 residential buildings on the west side as part of a scaled-down development.
The then-real estate mogul sold the properties before they were completed, and tenants at some of the buildings had his name removed from them following his election as president.