As an amoral New York City real estate developer, Trump has long supported the use of asbestos. In his 1997 book The Art of the Comeback, the future president wrote that asbestos is “100 percent safe, once applied,” despite the overwhelming scientific evidence supporting the contrary. Here’s what else Trump had to say about the carcinogen:
“I believe that the movement against asbestos was led by the mob, because it was often mob-related companies that would do the asbestos removal. Great pressure was put on politicians, and as usual, the politicians relented. Millions of truckloads of this incredible fire-proofing material were taken to special ‘dump sites’ and asbestos was replaced by materials that were supposedly safe but couldn’t hold a candle to asbestos in limiting the ravages of fire.”
Trump has also on multiple occasions blamed the collapse of the two World Trade Center towers on the absence of asbestos. In June, All in With Chris Hayes aired a clip of Trump defending the material before Congress in 2005. “A lot of people say that if the World Trade Center had asbestos is wouldn’t have burned down, it’s wouldn’t have melted. OK?,” he said. “A lot of people in my industry think asbestos is the greatest fireproofing material ever made.” Trump went on to compare asbestos to a “heavyweight champion” compared to other building material, which he likened to a “light-weight from high school.”