Donald Trump's first quoted words in The New York Times 42 years ago: 'That's ridiculous'

(Image credit: Screenshot/Twitter)

published 31 July 2015

Donald Trump's tradition of giving hyperbolic sound bites dates all the way back to 1973, when he was the 27-year-old president of the Trump Management Corporation in Brooklyn. The New York Times unearthed its very first mention of the now-inescapable public figure, and his first-ever quote is quite fitting.

In the Oct. 16, 1973 article "Major Landlord Accused of Antiblack Bias in City," Trump got his first taste of infamy after the Justice Department brought a suit in federal court against Trump and his father, Fred C. Trump, accusing them of violating the Fair Housing Act of 1968 by refusing to "rent or negotiate rentals because of race and color." The suit "charged that the company had required different rental terms and conditions because of race and that it had misrepresented to blacks that apartments were not available," The New York Times writes. Trump, of course, was indignant:

Though Trump Management later sued the government for $100 million over the accusation, the two parties reached an agreement in 1975 in which the company had to provide the New York Urban League with a list of apartment vacancies every week for two years, and the league could present qualified applicants to every fifth opening in a Trump building where less than 10 percent of the occupants were black.

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Samantha Rollins is TheWeek.com's news editor. She has previously worked for The New York Times and TIME and is a graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.

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