Trump's Trials - Trump owes about half a billion dollars in legal penalties — how will he pay for it?

Episode Date: February 24, 2024

This week on Trump's Trials, host Scott Detrow and Domenico Montanaro are joined by a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist and author of three books about Trump David Cay Johnston.Over the course of four weeks former President Donald Trump was slapped with nearly half a billion dollars in legal penalties. First a jury ordered him to pay writer E. Jean Carroll $83.3 million. Then a judge ordered him to pay nearly $355 million, plus $100 million in interest, for fraudulent business practices. We look into how Trump could pay these penalties and how he's paying for his lawyers. Topics include: - Importance of wealth to Trump's image- Civil fraud and E. Jean Carroll decisions- How Trump could pay legal penalties - How Trump is paying his lawyersFollow the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify for new episodes each Saturday.Sign up for sponsor-free episodes and support NPR's political journalism at plus.npr.org/trumpstrials.Email the show at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Show me the money. From NPR, this is Trump's Trials. I'm Scott Detrow. This is a persecution. He actually just stormed out of the courtroom. Innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. And we are talking money today because recently two civil verdicts have hit former President Donald Trump where it hurts the most, his wallet. Two civil verdicts have hit former President Donald Trump where it hurts the most, his wallet. First, a jury ordered Trump to pay writer E. Jean Carroll $83.3 million for defaming her. And then a judge ordered Trump to pay nearly $355 million, plus about $100 million extra in interest, for engaging in fraudulent business practices. And in total, Trump owes about a half billion dollars in legal penalties.

That is a staggering number, even if you're a billionaire. And it doesn't include the amount of money that he is spending on his legal teams that worked on those cases, as well as the ongoing four criminal cases that he is facing and that we cover every week. So we are going to pause for a moment this week, and we're going to focus in on explaining all of these finances. How can Trump pay these massive fines? Can he even afford it? And with appeals, when will he have to turn over the money? We will get into all of that and more with senior political editor and correspondent, Domenico Montanaro. Hey, Domenico.

Give me the quants, Scott. Are you calling me from a cell phone in the end zone right now? Is that what we're doing? I wish. All right. So look, let's just talk about the politics of this first. Trump's wealth has been something that he has used to define himself for years, for decades, when he ran for president the first time, as he runs for president again. How is his fortune intertwined with his political image? I mean, it's one thing that's always mattered to Trump is being seen as a wealthy and successful businessman who was part of his 2016 campaign pitch, vote for me and I'll run the country like I run my business. And a lot of people bought into

that narrative, but there's always been cracks in that facade. You know, Trump took four of his business ventures into bankruptcy. His university was determined to be a sham. His foundation was shut down. A lot of his image of success was because of a reality TV show. But now in 2024, the reality is that Trump's trials have exposed him further. He owes nearly half a billion dollars to the state of New York now for fraudulent business practices. But that's not stopping Trump from using the case against him as a way to raise money. He's selling these cases falsely as political witch hunts and using a lot of the money to pay for his legal expenses to the tune of $50 million, by the way, last year. And the campaign's biggest spikes in donations have been around news events

about these legal cases. The largest amount coming after his mugshot was released from the Georgia election interference case. Domenico, can I tell you something before we take a break? Go ahead. You complete this podcast. Okay. Thank you. More on these finances in a moment. We will be joined by David K. Johnston, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who has covered Trump and his finances for years. You didn't see the tears in my eyes. Thank you. work across multiple offices. Across Europe, we have a presence in 17 countries, which obviously

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Visit Concur.com to learn more. And we are now joined by David K. Johnston, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who covers economics and tax issues and is the author of three books about Trump, including The Making of Donald Trump. Welcome, David. Glad to be here. And let's start out with the basics here, big picture, the fines and legal fees aside. How much money do you think Donald Trump is actually worth and how much cash on hand do we think he has? I think we don't know how much he's worth. What we know is Donald always exaggerates and misleads. He testified a year ago that he has $400 million

in cash and the pile of cash is growing. At the same time, he's out hawking gold tennis shoes and perfume to raise money. So your guess is as good as mine. And David, the ways that Trump earns money have changed over the last decade or so as he's gone from New York golden building guy to populist political party leader, right? Yes. And a lot of his money comes now from deals where he gets paid to put his name on buildings. Although that image is somewhat tarnished. His name has been taken off of a number of buildings. And I think that gets to the civil fraud decision from earlier this month and what it means going forward. It suspended Trump and his two sons from doing business in New York State for a period of time. How do you think that is going to affect their income?

How do you think that is going to affect their income? Well, they'll still be able to get their regular draw or salary out of the business, and vendors and employees will get paid routinely. What the judge has done is required that no large money movements can take place without the approval of Barbara Jones, a retired judge, and he's put in someone he calls an independent compliance director who, for all practical matters, will now run the company for the next few years. So they'll be able to take some money out of it, but they will not be able to cash out of things. Let's talk about the fines. $355 million fine last week. You include interest. It's another $100 million or so. More than $80 million a few weeks earlier in a different case. When does Trump actually have to pay that money and how tricky do you think it'll be for him to

post the payments? Well, I think it'll be very tricky. On March 12th, Monday of March 12th, is the deadline for him to appeal the E. Gene Carroll case. He seems to have very few legal grounds for doing that. And he either has to put up the $83 million or get a bond in some financial institution or person to back him. or person to back him. If he doesn't, then I've written a piece for DC Report saying that Trump may well file personal bankruptcy. And some other people who follow Trump think that is a distinct possibility. And Donald would spin that by saying, you know, this is forced on me by the Marxist fascist deep state. I mean, Domenico, that idea on one hand seems like it would be disastrous politically, especially if you're selling yourself as the business guy.

On the other hand, like David said, Trump has made martyrdom such a core part of his political message this year as he faces all these trials. How do you think that could play? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's what his whole thing has been. It's been a grievance campaign.

It's been painting himself as a martyr. But it's really interesting. I mean, you look at the fact that he's involved in half a dozen cases. I mean, two of them now with the E. Jean Carroll decision and the case here that we're talking about where he's going to owe potentially up to half a billion dollars to the state of New York for fraudulent business practices. You know, I mean, how many cases can you go for people to then think, you know, maybe all of this isn't a deep state conspiracy. Maybe all of this isn't just everyone out to get them. It's a whole lot of people and judges and juries that are all in on it if that's the case. And I think that that's why we've seen some of the numbers move with independents. Obviously, Democrats have been where they've been. But, you know, the swing voters in this country, it is something that has resonated with them. Yeah. I mean, David, can you

explain a little more for people who don't follow this as closely why bankruptcy would be an option to consider? Well, bankruptcy will not prevent the payment. If Trump does file, its purpose is strategic. It's to get him past November 5th, the day of the presidential election. And Alex Jones, the conspiracy terrorist, filed personal bankruptcy, and it's now been more than two years he hasn't paid a dime. This follows the number one legal tactic Donald has always followed, talked to him by the notorious Roy Cohn. Delay, delay, delay. The second tactic, attack anybody who comes after you. You're completely pure and honest. They're utterly corrupt. There is like a social justice piece of this, though, where it's like you hear about these

massive numbers. You see that the courts have made these judgments. You would think that these families and the people who've been wronged should get some of that money. And then you see Trump delaying. You see Alex Jones delaying. And you wonder if these folks will ever get any of their money and what any of the ability to claw back any of those funds are. I feel like a lot of people think that if this happened to people of less means that we'd have our wages garnished, that, you know, we would have

our houses, you know, foreclosed on. And that just doesn't seem to be the case for people in Trump or Jones's class. A couple more questions on this before we shift gears. David, one other thing I want to ask about, you talked about bankruptcy as a possibility. Is there a possibility that in theory, Trump could have this money loaned to him from either an individual or an entity? Oh, he absolutely could if someone is willing to take that risk. And what we should be concerned about is if he were to borrow that money from a foreign government or a foreign person who he then would obviously be very obligated to if he became president. And of course, the person making the loan

probably would recognize that when the appeals are over, if Trump loses and doesn't get any major modifications of the size of the awards, they're going to have to fight him in court to get paid. Yeah. Domenico, I should make it clear we're talking hypothetically here on one hand, but on the other hand, there are long track records of this. You look at the amount of money that foreign governments spent on his various hotels, his hotel in Washington, D.C. in particular, when he was president. It still would be a huge risk for Trump to go and reach out to some foreign billionaire to bring in that money, because where's that money going to be coming from? You know, the web of people who have that kind of money abroad are not exactly the most

above board all the time. So, you know, it would be a huge risk in a political year to do that. I would be surprised if that took place in 2024. But, you know, a lot of surprising things have happened before. If he can push this off, you know, beyond the election and loses, I think that there's a much better chance that he would probably go and do something like that. Domenico, we need to talk about Trump's legal bills here. We're not talking about fees at this point. We are talking about the millions of dollars that he is racking up facing multiple criminal cases, multiple civil cases. How much money has Trump spent so far and where is that money coming from? Well, we can let's talk about it from an electoral standpoint, where trump is getting a lot of money from small

donors from kind of these mega voters um mostly around these uh news events of when he either makes an appearance at court or um you know there's something that happens like the mugshot that came out during um the the the case in in georgia where he was booked on that case. That one day was where he raised actually the most money in any single day because he's sending these emails to people to say, hey, the witch hunt is after me. Give money. Let's stop them from coming after me because they're really trying to come after you. I mean, even just yesterday.

You got to put more all caps and tonemen in that when you're paraphrasing those emails to me. Okay. Well, this is NPR. But yesterday even I just got an email from the Trump campaign that said, hands off Trump Tower. How's that for all caps? All right. Because – and this is about Letitia James, the attorney general in New York, potentially saying that she would seize some of Trump's buildings if he doesn't pay up. They're using this repeatedly over and over.

That's where a lot of the money is coming from. It's filtering to not just Trump's campaign, but different PACs that are supporting him. And then those PACs are actually paying a lot of his legal bills. In 2023, $50 million came from those other groups to help support him in paying those legal bills. In fact, in January, the groups all around Trump, including this campaign, raised only about $13.8 million, which is about $3 million less than Nikki Haley, his rival for the Republican nomination, that she was able to raise in January. And almost one out of every $4 that were spent went toward legal fees. All right. So, Domenico, we're talking about Trump raising money for campaigns, spending it on legal fees.

We should also talk about the RNC situation. He is he is pushing his daughter-in-law, Laura Trump, to maybe take over the RNC. And she is making it clear that she sees the RNC's mission as supporting Donald Trump personally and that the RNC could be contributing to these legal bills as well. Yeah, definitely. I mean it's one advantage that Joe Biden, the president, has over former President Trump right now is that the DNC is in a much better place than the RNC is. The RNC only had about $9 million at the end of the year cash on hand, which is why there's been this conversation about potentially replacing Ronna McDaniel, who is the current chairwoman of the RNC. And Trump is pushing for his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, to be co-chair of the RNC.

And she's made the rounds this week and saying that every single penny that goes to the RNC should go to Trump's campaign, which, by the way, could really hurt state Republican parties and Republicans down ballot. But also she's saying that that money could potentially be used for Trump's legal expenses as well. So you're creating essentially, in one sense, another avenue for a slush fund to go into Trump's legal fees. I mean, it does. I understand this is allowed, but it seems at face value, very dubious that you can be allowed

to take money that people give you to run for president and use it to pay your legal fees. Are there limits to this? I mean, is this yet another instance where he's pressing the limit of what is allowed? Or is this just standard practice?

It's definitely not standard practice. We could say he's pushing the limits or that he's operating in a space that goes beyond the limits, but that there's no enforcement really from the Federal Election Commission. A big piece of this here is that the FEC allows you to spend money on legal fees if it arises from the campaign. So, you know, there are things that happen in campaigns or recounts, for example, you want to pay for a recount, you got to go to court, you can use money that you've raised in a campaign to go toward that. That's why when you hear Trump listen very carefully to when he talks about this, he was asked about this last month about, you know, using fees, he says, I haven't

done anything illegal. These are all political cases. These are witch hunts. It's politics. They're coming after me. He's trying to thread this needle to say, look, it is about politics. It is campaign related. It's a stretch, but there's not a lot that the FEC can do because it's really been so hobbled over the years. David, is all of this sustainable for Trump or do you think it's, is it sustainable through November, which is the deadline of whether or not he'll be elected president again? Is it sustainable past that? Well, if you're talking about raising money, I think he's tapped out an awful lot of small donors and their capacity to give. And we've seen the fundraising sort of generally declined down. He's got other problems with this, by the way. He's able to divert some of the money because

there's a fine print disclosure that he can take 10 percent of it for legal fees. But that money is taxable income to him. And he will face a significant tax bill down the road for that money. That's David K. Johnston, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who covers economics and tax issues and Trump's finances. Thanks, David. Thank you. And also, as always, NPR senior political editor and correspondent, Domenico Montanaro. Thanks, Domenico. You got it, Scott.

We will be back next week with another episode of Trump's Trials. And thank you to our supporters who hear the show sponsor-free. If that is not you, it could be. Sign up at plus.npr.org or subscribe on our show page at Apple Podcast. The show is produced by Tyler Bartleman, edited by Tinbeat Ermias, Christian F. Kalamar, and Steve Drummond. Our executive producers are Beth Donovan and Sammy Yenigan. Eric Maripoti is NPR's vice president of news programming. I have taken my manifesto for improving NPR. I have printed it out at Kinko's. I have slid it under his door. He has not yet responded. I'm Scott Detrow. Thank you for listening to Trump's Trials from NPR. SAP Concur, a leading brand for integrated travel expense and invoice management solutions. With SAP

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