CNN
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President Donald Trump's anger over the requirement to secure hundreds of millions of dollars in bond funding by Monday has been brewing for days behind the scenes and in a steady stream of posts on social media.
Friday's barrage of attacks on the Truth Social platform included multiple all-caps posts, including a judge who handed down a $464 million judgment, a New York attorney general who brought a civil fraud case, and all His persistent anger at President Trump's claims that the attack was staged has become clear. This is to derail his presidential campaign.
The posts, including one sent just before 2 a.m. Friday, were a mix of offensive content and claims without facts or evidence. (There is no evidence that the White House played any role in the lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James, much less that it ordered her to pursue the effort. Nor is there any evidence that the White House played any role in the lawsuit filed by New York State Attorney General Letitia James, much less ordered her to pursue the effort.) There is also no evidence that Trump plans to use it. He has spent his own money on his presidential campaign.)
But embedded in the post was the reality that President Trump's business and personal finances were being pushed to the brink with just two days left until resolution.
As Trump himself pointed out, a review of the latest candidates' financial disclosures and personal financial statements shows that Trump has quite a bit of cash.
But this is a point he reiterated in depositions and testimony during his New York fraud trial, a departure from his latest social media claim that he “has about $500 million in cash.” There is. He has consistently maintained that figure at $400 million during legal proceedings, and barring a recent unreported cash injection, his cash holdings would remain roughly where they are, according to financial experts. Officials confirmed this.
But as Mr. Trump's lawyers made clear in a sober and detailed filing, even if the cap estimate were accurate, it would not be enough.
The $464 million judgment imposed in the verdict, and the bond that President Trump is scrambling to secure to prevent possible property foreclosure, is worth about $557 million in cash or cash, based on industry practice. A considerable amount is required.
And at least some of Mr. Trump's funds are tied up in loan agreements that include terms that require him to have tens of millions of dollars in cash on hand.
In other words, as the clock ticks toward Monday's deadline, it remains, in the words of President Trump's own lawyer, “practically impossible” to secure a bond of the size needed. Thing.
Trump's ability to maneuver and capitalize on unprecedented conflicts in the campaign and in the courts determined his bulldozing path to once again become the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.
But a filing by New York state attorneys at the county clerk's office 25 miles north of Trump Tower showed how dangerously the former president was on the verge of a dramatic derailment of that strategy. It was something.
James' office's move to have the case sentenced in Westchester County is the first step toward seizing Trump's assets if he is unable to secure bail.
Westchester County is home to President Trump's golf course and a private property known as Seven Springs.
Initial steps already taken by state attorneys in Manhattan are just the beginning of a complex and lengthy process.
This also comes as President Trump's lawyers continue to request that his bail be lowered or waived, calling it “clearly unreasonable, unjust, and unconstitutional,” in a filing Wednesday.
But for Trump, who has made his brand and its buildings central features of his animations, this application targeting one of his properties is unlike any other moment he has faced in his bid to return to the White House. It made the moment tangible.
“I think the whole thing is bullshit,” one House Republican in touch with the Trump campaign said of the order setting aside $464 million in bond pending a ruling on the appeal. “But this was different because I had gotten to the point where I wasn’t going to have anything attached to him anymore.”
In other words, there can be real consequences.
For nearly a year, amid four indictments and 88 indictments, Trump's poll numbers in the Republican primary continued to climb steadily.
The days Trump faces charges or goes to court to face charges consistently rank as the highest-fundraising days of the campaign.
Some of that money covered Trump's legal costs, so he wouldn't have to file a lawsuit himself.
Funded lawyers have been transparent about pursuing vested interests strategies and have repeatedly been successful in their efforts.
If time is a presidential candidate's most valuable asset, as countless former campaign officials have said, President Trump's decision to repeatedly appear at court hearings even when he is not required to attend , made his views on incentives clear. So did voters.
Trump has managed to defeat the best-funded and most politically gifted of his primary challengers with relative ease. He all but clinched the Republican nomination in just two primaries, as the party largely trailed behind losing candidates for the House, Senate and White House during his term.
Trump also spoke out about the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and the spate of revelations that Trump and his advisers were trying to overthrow President Joe Biden's 2020 administration. He was also a candidate that some members of the public and many individuals expected to simply disappear. victory.
People close to the president say there is no sign that his latest legal stress test has caused political harm. National opinion polls continue to show that Biden is in a race within the margin of error, and polls in even more important battleground states have not revealed any clear changes. According to the latest CNN poll conducted by SSRS in two battleground states, Mr. Trump is tied with Mr. Biden in Pennsylvania with 46% each, and in Michigan Mr. Trump leads Mr. Biden 50% to 42%.
Biden flipped both states from Trump's column in 2020.
The Trump campaign is far behind the Biden campaign in fundraising, but the Trump campaign is confident that the gap will narrow. Officials say the former president secretly reached out to his party's biggest donors in ways never seen before.
“The money will be there,” one source told CNN. “He has never been more focused and effective in this area than he is now.”
One adviser believed that going after Mr. Trump's fortune would only help the campaign politically, so he discouraged donations from emails and texts that said things like, “Keep your dirty hands out of Trump Tower!” pointed out the call. As proof of that.
Yet the threat President Trump now faces is similar cuts to his political and personal core. It also comes with a level of irony.
In a career plagued by constant questions about his net worth and the value of his large real estate assets, and amid this latest verdict, Trump certainly has a large amount of cash and valuables to cover it. has an asset portfolio. Amount of bond.
But Trump's lawyers say insurance companies rarely take real estate as collateral, and that the complex process and market conditions require bids on the property to come from parties fully aware of the need to sell. They are concerned about bias.
Just two weeks ago, one insurance company, Chubb, assumed a $91.63 million bond in another of Trump's legal losses: E. Jean Carroll's defamation suit.
Mr. Trump's team had been in talks with Mr. Chubb over a second bond in a fraud case involving a combination of liquid assets and real estate. Last week, insurance companies informed Trump's team that they could not accept real estate as collateral.
A total of 30 insurance companies contacted by the Trump campaign rejected efforts to secure deposits. President Trump alluded to this fact in a post on Truth Social, saying, “There is no way a bond company could pay this much money before I appeal.'' That's crazy! If I sell the asset and win the appeal, the asset is gone forever. ”
There are persistent rumors that some of President Trump's wealthiest supporters are stepping in to provide funding.
However, so far, there has been no confirmation of any concrete requests, let alone any movement towards an agreement.
Investors on Friday approved a merger that would turn the former president's media company, Trump Media and Technology Group, into a public company, opening up another potential path that Trump allies have been discussing. It was opened. If Mr. Trump owns the new company, he will ostensibly receive billions of dollars in stock.
But the availability of that cash from Truth Social's parent company is subject to a six-month “lockup” period that limits President Trump's ability to sell the stock or use it as collateral. The billions of dollars Mr. Trump stands to gain exist only on paper and will be subject to stock price fluctuations at the start of trading.
Any efforts by Mr. Trump to circumvent the lock-up period to monetize his shares will likely have a direct and negative impact on stock prices.
President Trump has repeatedly rejected the idea of proceeding with bankruptcy proceedings, which would likely be frozen for a long time.
Advisers say the reasons cut across personal and political concerns.
Mr. Trump has been vocal publicly about the deep wounds he sustained from his decades-old bankruptcy.
“It was an experience I never want to go through again,” President Trump said in a 1992 interview with Charlie Rose. “You really, if you had to do it all over again, you don't know if you could do it. It's been a really tough two years.”
President Trump also recognizes the potential threat it poses to the carefully crafted image at the heart of his political identity: that of a billionaire businessman. There is.
One adviser said there was “no chance” of Trump pursuing bankruptcy. “He would rather show up to Letitia James and try to rob her of her property.”
Whether such convergence between the campaign and the courts will materialize will become clear in the coming days.
But for now, it is clear that the strategy that has propelled President Trump's political resurgence has hit a hundreds of millions of dollars in hurdles as the deadline to secure the bond draws closer and closer.
This is an issue that Trump's only political opponent who has ever defeated him is happy to highlight.
“I know not everyone is feeling that enthusiasm,” Biden joked at a fundraising reception in Dallas this week. “Just the other day, a loser came up to me and said, ‘Mr. I had to look at him and say, “Donald, I'm sorry.” I can't help you. ”
