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Trump slams both "The View" co-hosts as he promotes Chicago skyscraper

Friday, May 25, 2007

May 25, 2007 (CHICAGO) (WLS) -- Donald Trump has exchanged insults with Rosie O'Donnell and questions Elisabeth Hasselbeck's intelligence. So who does the real estate mogul back in the recent on-air tiff between "The View" co-hosts?

Neither, apparently.

"I've always said Rosie is very self-destructive," Trump said Thursday in Chicago. "... As far as Elisabeth Hasselbeck, I've always said she's probably the dumbest person on television, but when she called me ... obnoxious, she was probably right."

Trump came to Chicago to drum up sales for his towering condo-hotel project, under construction along the Chicago River.

But reporters couldn't resist asking about O'Donnell, who's been linked to Trump ever since the two started trading barbs about six months ago.

Rosie O'Donnell continues to hint on her blog that the war of words with Hasselbeck might signal her early exit from 'The View.' Following Wednesday's heated debate, she took the day off to celebrate her partner's birthday.

Barbara Walters joined the talk show hosts Thursday and there was peace in the kingdom.

"This program was planned to give different views," she said on the show. "Women can talk and argue and debate without it getting nasty."

Wednesday's spat included O'Donnell calling Hasselbeck "cowardly" for not defending her when media outlets suggested that she'd called U.S. troops "terrorists" during a previous debate.

"What you did was not defend me. ... I asked you if you believed what the Republican pundits were saying -- you said nothing, and that's cowardly," O'Donnell said.

Hasselbeck responded: "Do not call me a coward, because No. 1, I sit here every single day, open my heart and tell people what I believe."

Trump, star of NBC's "The Apprentice," said he doesn't watch ABC'S "The View."

"Rosie wears thin. Rosie will go on to another show, and like her first show it'll fail," Trump said.

On a more serious note, Trump said he had "no idea" if he'll be called to testify in the racketeering and fraud trial of media baron Conrad Black taking place about a mile away from the skyscraper's construction site.

A former Hollinger International Inc. executive testified Wednesday that Black told him to arrange for Trump to speak at a meeting of rebellious shareholders so that he could make remarks praising Black.

"I know he's going through a trial, I haven't been following the trial, so there's not much I can comment about," Trump said. "In New York City there's not a lot of coverage about it."

------ ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co. NBC is owned by the General Electric Co.

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