Once Received the Same 'Piggy' Insult He Hurled at Reporter
During a nasty public feud in the '80s, the mayor of New York ridiculed Trump as a greedy "piggy." Decades later, at the peak of his power, Trump repurposed the stunning insult to hush a journalist asking about Epstein
His irritated demand for her to "quiet, piggy" soon went viral, prompting widespread concerns about his increasingly hostile treatment toward reporters
The shocking "piggy" insult from the world's most powerful leader echoed a line that Trump himself was hit with in 1987, when he picked an ugly fight with the New York City mayor
Long before Donald Trump became president, he was on the receiving end of an insult that he would wield nearly four decades later against a reporter.
In the 1980s, the rising real estate tycoon had his sights set on developing a flashy and controversial new complex in New York City's Upper West Side, which he planned to call "Television City" in hopes that the set of towers would replace Rockefeller Center as NBC's new headquarters. Trump's ambitious proposal, widely protested by locals, sought to cement his legacy as a developer by erecting the world's tallest building.
But Democrat Ed Koch, the city's well-regarded mayor at the time, wasn't sold on Trump's idea, growing particularly sour toward the project when the Queens-born developer asked for significant tax abatements that Koch claimed were "three times" higher than any amount afforded in history.
The mayor insisted that agreeing to the deal would have excessively enriched Trump at the expense of public dollars, though Trump insisted his demands were fair and necessary in order to keep NBC from fleeing New York.
Their disagreement in the spring of 1987 threatened to sink Trump's high-stakes negotiations, prompting an epic exchange of nasty letters and public comments between the two as Trump tried to bully a famously feisty politician into submission.
Between the written notes and verbal jabs, Trump called Koch a "horrible manager" and "moron" who "can't hack it anymore" and "should resign from office," according to archived newspaper articles that documented the showdown.
In a press conference called specifically to gain an edge on Koch in the emerging PR battle, Trump said, ''The City of New York, is suffering, in my opinion, the worst corruption scandals in the history of the city and suffering from totally incompetent management," according to The New York Times.
Koch, who leaked the scathing letters in a power move of his own, had responded to Trump's attacks by calling the developer "greedy, greedy, greedy," and adding, ''If Donald Trump is squealing like a stuck pig, I must have done something right. Common sense does not allow me to give away the city's treasury to Donald Trump.''
Though Koch at one point paused to reflect on the feud — saying, "Donald Trump has engaged in invective, but I have no intention of letting this degenerate into a barnyard kind of contest" — the mayor was also the one who delivered perhaps the most humiliating blow.
In one sharp moment amid the back and forth, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer, Koch referred to his rival as "piggy, piggy, piggy, piggy Donald Trump."
Trump's negotiations with NBC and the city ultimately fell through, and he was forced to abandon his dream to build the world's highest tower. After several years of setbacks and modifications, he started construction on a much more modest project in the neighborhood that was largely residential.
President Ronald Reagan presenting Ed Koch and other New York leaders, including Governor Mario Cuomo, with a check for Westway Project Funds, September 1981
Ed Koch - Wikipedia
Edward Irving Koch (Help:IPA/English - Wikipedia KOTCH; December 12, 1924 – February 1, 2013) was an American politician who served in the United States House of Representatives from 1969 to 1977 and was mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989. A popular figure, Koch rode the New York City Subway and stood at street corners greeting passersby with the slogan "How'm I doin'?" He was a lifelong bachelor and had no children.
Koch was a lifelong Democrat who described himself as a "liberal with sanity". The author of an ambitious public housing renewal program in his later years as mayor, he began by cutting spending and taxes and cutting 7,000 employees from the city payroll. He was the city's second Jewish mayor after his predecessor Abraham Beame.[a] He crossed party lines to endorse Rudy Giuliani for mayor of New York City in 1993, Al D'Amato for Senate in 1998, Michael Bloomberg for mayor of New York City in 2001, and George W. Bush for president in 2004.
Koch was first elected mayor of New York City in 1977 and was re-elected in 1981 with 75% of the vote. He was the first New York City mayor to win endorsement on both the Democratic and Republican party tickets. In 1985, Koch was elected to a third term with 78% of the vote. His third term was fraught with scandal regarding political associates (although the scandal never touched him personally) and with racial tensions, including the killings of Michael Griffith and Yusuf Hawkins. In a close race, Koch lost the 1989 Democratic primary to his successor, David Dinkins.
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