President Donald Trump took the stage on Thursday at the newly branded Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace to sign a minerals-heavy peace deal with two African nations, marking his first appearance at an agency he gutted earlier this year.
Trump greeted the African leaders and their host, Darren Beattie, the acting head of the Institute of Peace, before thanking Secretary of State Marco Rubio for naming the building after him.
“Thank you for putting a certain name on that building. I came, I said, ‘Boy, that is beautiful’,” Trump said to Rubio. “That blew up last night … It’s a great honor. Thank you very much. I assume you had a lot to do with that … just a little bit?”
“We are here together for the first time ever in this building, brand new, beautiful building,” Trump later said. “I don’t want to tell you how much it costs, because I hear it’s a lot. They don’t build inexpensively here.” The U.S. Institute of Peace moved into the building in 2011, after breaking ground on the facility — projected to cost $185 million — in 2008.
