Donald Trump plans to sue Univision over its decision to renege on its contract to air the Miss Universe pageant. The real estate mogul also says that Univision executive’s social media post comparing him to mass shooter Dylann Roof will cost the Hispanic media company a “fortune.”
Univision announced on Thursday that it is cutting ties with the Miss Universe Organization because Trump, who owns a stake in the pageant, has been critical of Mexican illegal immigrants.
That decision comes a week after Alberto Ciurana, Univision’s president of programming and content, posted a picture to the social media website Instagram comparing Trump to Roof, the 21-year-old white supremacist who killed nine people at a black church in Charleston, S.C. last week.
In interview with The Daily Caller, Trump said his company will sue Univision for backing out of its five-year, $13.5 million “iron-clad” contract with the Miss Universe Organization. Trump said the media company had no “out clauses” to quash the deal.
“So now they’ll be sued for a tremendous amount of money, and I’ll win,” Trump said. “It’s unfortunate I have to do that.”
Trump said that Univision representatives called him on Thursday to apologize for the move, though he did not go into greater detail about those conversations.
Addressing Ciurana’s social media post, Trump said it will factor into the larger lawsuit concerning the pageant.
“They put a picture of me up next to that horrible human being who killed nine people,” Trump said. “You know what that picture’s going to cost them? It’s going to cost them a fortune.”
“That whack-job, that disgusting human being,” Trump said of Roof. “My lawyer said that’s going to play very prominently [in the lawsuit].”