Trump: I Urged Yankees to Stop Paying A-Rod

Donald Trump says he suggested that the New York Yankees stop paying Alex Rodriguez his multimillion-dollar salary after the star third baseman admitted using performance-enhancing drugs — but the team didn't listen.

"I would have taken a much different tack, and I told this to the Yankees . . . I would have stopped paying him as soon as I found out about the drugs," the billionaire developer told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV.

"This isn't what they bargained for, for $28 million a year . . . and I told [Yankees President] Randy [Levine] . . . you should just stop paying him, " Trump said Tuesday.

"There's not a court in the nation that would let him win . . . but they chose to continue to pay to go through this long process of years of arbitration. I would have been much different. I would have stopped paying him a number of years ago and let him sue."

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In 2009, Rodriguez admitted to ESPN that he had used performance-enhancing drugs while playing for the Texas Rangers during a three-year period beginning in 2001.

"When I arrived in Texas in 2001, I felt an enormous amount of pressure. I felt like I had all the weight of the world on top of me and I needed to perform, and perform at a high level every day," Rodriguez said in an ESPN interview back in 2009.

"Back then, [baseball] was a different culture. It was very loose. I was young. I was stupid. I was naive. And I wanted to prove to everyone that I was worth being one of the greatest players of all time . . . I did take a banned substance. And for that, I am very sorry and deeply regretful."

Rodriguez is now fighting a one-year suspension from baseball for his alleged use of performance-enhancing drugs beginning again in 2009.

Trump said the Yankees' decision to keep shelling out Rodriguez's salary was "a mistake, but part of the reason they made a mistake is because they saw him using drugs and he was a different player."

"So, they were getting something that they didn't bargain for, which is a shell of a player."

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