Shadee Elmasry – When Donald Trump Tried to Buy Out Sharif’s Building

So to give people a background, the building you're talking about

is when you decided to make a masjid or community center, we

just started up as a masjid, right. And though the the piece of

property that you found was like three blocks from World Trade

Center from ground zero, so they started calling it the Ground Zero

Mosque, that's what you're talking about. Exactly. And it was a big

Hullabaloo, but he jumped on that. And he said, I'll buy it from you,

which is probably a publicity just just to get 100% of publicity. So

he has to get part of the pie. And so he sent us a formal offer. And

when he sent us the formal offer, he send it to, you know, I think

he sends it to the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal at the

same time. And that, in his offer, he said, Listen, you know, I want

to buy the building from you, I want to give you 25% More than

what you paid for it. And in the event that you accept my offer,

you have to agree that you will not build your mosque within a

specific radius of the World Trade Center. So I immediately,

you know, was was obviously reacting, I was reacting to so

many different things that were happening so quickly, and,

and we weren't prepared for what was coming at us. And what I ended

up doing is I picked up the phone, and I called him and I got him on

the phone. And obviously, there was a certain level of respect for

who Donald Trump is. Right? In our business. He's,

you know, he's one of the most accomplished

real estate players, whether you like him or don't like him, he has

accomplished, you know, tremendous success in his career in his

business career, whether he did it right, or whether he did it wrong.

He's accomplished it, right. And so there was obviously a level of

humility when I picked up the phone, and I called him and, and I

said, you know, immediately, Mr. Trump, thank you for the offer

that you sent me. But I have a couple of you know, I have a

couple of questions and things that I want to discuss with you.

Because obviously, part of doing business is never

is never not entertaining something or never not letting

something flush out. You always want to drill a little deeper, you

want to be curious, you want to you want to investigate things

when they come on your door. And so part of what

what I did immediately, as I said, you know, first, you know, thank

you for sending the offer. And

you know, why only 25% I said the building. And this was, by the

way, one of the best real estate deals that I've ever done in my

career. Okay, the building was appraised for 10 times what I had

bought it for by CBRE. So I immediately said to him, and CBRE

is one of the most

recognized

appraisal firms in the world, right? They're probably top three

in our business globally recognized globally as one of the

top three, and they appraise the building for almost 10 times what

we had paid for it. And so

his first remark was one of what was one of anger and puzzlement.

Why did you only pay that much for it? If it was worth 10 times what

this appraisal from CBRE and I immediately said to him, I said,

What difference does it make? How many good deals have you done in

your life? You know, we were talking about deals a few minutes

ago, what makes a good deal, right? And so obviously a good

deal. The first part of making a good deal is on the acquisition,

right? When you acquire something, you have to have bought it right?

In order for it to be a good deal. That's the first criteria of a

good deal is on the acquisition. And so

he, you know, he started clamping down and now he was he was angry.

How did you get this for for this value, and it's being, you know,

said here, and very candidly, at that moment in time,

there wasn't a price that you could have given me to sell that

real estate. If you had come up to me and offered me $100 million.

I don't think I would have sold the real estate. And only Allah

knows what my intention was. But you know, looking back now, I

don't know, maybe I should have sold it for 100 million.

But what it would look like you gave up because you can't put a

price tag on winning and losing battles. And that's a publicity

battle that, you know, everyone sees that you want, right? So you

can't buy those types of wins and losses. That's why when you say I

can't put a price tag on it, it's not the building it the building

symbolizes a struggle, and a fight. Like in this and in this

field was You look like you're someone who gives up easily and

just capitulates right, you're not gonna get so far 100%

Yeah. So the conversation was just ended at you. I don't want to I

don't want to sell this or Oh, no. So so that was the first part of

the conversation. But then I and then and then I asked him a

question after I told him what the valuation by CBRE was, I said, you

know, Mr. Trump, I want to ask you a question. I said to him, I said,

Are you ethnically an American Indian? Or are you

this sort of immigrant? Like I am the son of immigrants? I said, did

your parents come from Scotland or Ireland? or did somebody come from

somewhere? Or are you an American Indian,

and he got all flustered at this point, because he didn't see this

one coming. Right? He didn't see this one coming. I said to him,

your second part of your proposal to me, has asked him to

essentially establish the first Muslim freezone in the United

States of America. If I accept your offer right now, you're

saying to me that you want me to be responsible for subjecting my

children to carry a heavier backpack? Okay, everyday that they

go to school that their father agreed to establish a Muslim, a

Muslim free zone. Okay. Are you

an American Indian restriction.

At this point,

he started stuttering. He literally started stuttering on

the phone, though. And I said at the end of it, I said to him, I

said, Mr. Trump, before, you know, before we end, I know that you

just signed a Gucci lease on Fifth Avenue. And he had just on this

monster lease where he had leased in the base of the building that

he lives on on Fifth Avenue and 56th street. He didn't he did a

monster deal with Gucci. I said to Mr. Trump, how much do you want

for that lease, because I'll pay you cash, and I won't waste your

time.

At that point, hung up the phone. I actually had it recorded that he

at that point, hung up the phone at me. And he literally went out

and started going on the morning talk shows. And this is all you

could you could Google this, YouTube this, okay, because it's

still all day.

Give us a little history, what you wanted to do and where it is now.

Well, there's tremendous Bedlam and tremendous angst going on

downtown Manhattan. I mean, it's you see people 1000s and 1000s of

people, and they're literally close to rioting. It's really a

terrible thing that's happening. And I'm a very big believer in

freedom of religion. And I think people should have the right to

build mosques, or temples or churches or whatever they want to

build. But this is in the shadow of the World Trade Center. It's

one block from the World Trade Center. And people are really

visibly shaken by it. And I read an article about three or four

days ago, where the developers bragging about what a great deal

he made. This is the developer and he's saying What an unbelievable

deal, etcetera, etcetera, and is worth $18 million, or $20 million,

and he paid 4.8 million. So I said, you know, this sounds more

like a real estate transaction. And with all this trouble, maybe

what I'll do is call up all from a nice profit by it. I don't even

want it. I don't even like the location. It's not a great

location, as far as I'm concerned. So I called them. And he started

bragging to me about what a great deal he made. I said, Well, why

don't you sell it, I'll give you your money back. I'll give you a

small time developer, I'll give you your money back. I'll give you

a 25% increase. I'll pay your costs. I'll pay everything. And

we'll end this whole fiasco. And he said, No, no, no, I wouldn't do

that this is worth 18 or 20 million. I said, Well, are the

people that sold it stupid, because I know the people that

sold it, and they're not stupid. I said, You mean the real estate

market in less than a year is four or five times what you paid? Well,

they didn't know what they were doing. Oh, that's really that's

great. So the bottom line is I view it more as a real estate

transaction for this guy's in a mosque, frankly, where does it

stand right now? Well,

he at least tells me that he thinks it's worth much more than

he paid for it. I don't believe it is worth much more than he paid

for it. I offered him a 25% profit. And in order to end this

not in order to buy this piece of real estate, which I need, like a

hole in the head, I offered him a 25% profit. I guess he turned it

down. But something should be done because I'll tell you what, it's

only going to get worse. He literally started going on the

morning talk shows. And as he was going on the morning talk shows,

he literally started calling me a sleazy developer that was greedy,

and that he made me a fair offer. And that I refuse to take it

because he literally, you know, first of all, it bothered me one

because this was somebody that I looked up to in my career, right.

I have a history of, you know, early in my career, I met his son,

okay. And I had a relationship with his oldest son Don Jr, who

now has become a

A major pundit and face of the Republican National Party is

become this conservative voice where he is, you know, regularly

showcased on all media outlets. And he's essentially reinvented

his personality into, you know, into a sidekick for his father and

away him, you know, when his dad started going and pounding me

essentially everyday for, you know, multiple times during the

day and really getting a lot of steam from that offer that he gave

me. I called up Don and I said, Don, I go, What the * is your

father doing? Okay, you've not you've known me for 10 years.

Okay. Pete, why is he trashing me on the news every day, right? And

the kid up and done, apologize to me. He goes, Listen, I'm sorry. He

sometimes goes on tangents. Okay. And but I'm going to talk to him.

Okay. I'm going to tell him that I know you and to, to kind of lay

off you. Yeah. So the following day in the interviews out there,

because it's still recorded the following day. He goes on one of

the talk shows, and he says nice things about me.

So literally, flipped the switch, like literally the next day and

then Don called me and said, Listen, he's he's not going to

talk negative about you anymore. And so that was that was my

experience with done with our president.

This is literally how he still behaves.