One of the trending tags on Twitter this past week has been #DonaldTrumpIsBrokeAF. It is blazing today. And Trump is blowing a gasket, per usual, on Truth Social. I speculate that’s because he thought his lawyers’ smoke and mirrors gambit would work and their plea for a stay of the appeal would be granted. Wrong. Letitia James’ group of lawyers argued the facts and the law (which is how the pros do it. Trump’s lawyers make arguments that ignore both but sound good for Fox News hosts to repeat) and unless something else dramatically changes, Trump will still have to come up with the money on Monday.
The attorney general’s office pointed out in their reply today that Trump didn’t need to get indemnification from one company. He could have used several. Since then two things have happened: 1. Response from Trump’s attorneys = crickets. 2. Lots of documentation coming up online of how Trump truly is the “King Of Debt” as he proclaimed in 2016:
Yes, this list of his liabilities is from six-plus months ago, and there has been public reporting that certain loans have been refinanced. But don’t sleep on the fact that this disclosure was signed by Trump himself—and that he initialed each page. 2/
— Lisa Rubin (@lawofruby) March 20, 2024
And giving credit where it’s due, you can find Trump’s August 2023 Office of Government Ethics disclosure — in 3 parts — where I did: through @CREWcrew, which obtained it in October and has posted all three parts for all to see:https://t.co/V4Xfld5fdQ
— Lisa Rubin (@lawofruby) March 20, 2024
On Wednesday, MSNBC’s Lisa Rubin shared a list of Trump’s liabilities that had been filed with the court in August.
It revealed that Trump Tower comes with a debt of $50 million. In 2017, Forbes estimated the building was worth $371 million.
But Forbes also reported that a $100 million mortgage was taken out on it in 2022.
“If NY Attorney General is able to start enforcing her judgment as soon as next week, don’t expect Trump Tower to top her list,” Rubin wrote on X.
“Why? Because as recently as August ‘23, Trump reported Axos Bank still has an outstanding loan on that property for “over $50,000,000.”
“Yes, this list of his liabilities is from six-plus months ago,” said Rubin. “And there has been public reporting that certain loans have been refinanced. But don’t sleep on the fact that this disclosure was signed by Trump himself — and that he initialed each page.”
Trump declared himself the “king of debt” in the 2016 presidential race. He told CBS’s Norah O’Donnell, “I’m great with debt. Nobody knows debt better than me. I’ve made a fortune by using debt, and if things don’t work out, I renegotiate the debt. I mean, that’s a smart thing, not a stupid thing.”
Trump opened the building in 1983, but financial reporters explained to MSNBC this week that there’s not much of it that he now owns outright because he’s sold off condos.
You can see where this is going. Trump doesn’t have a fraction of what he claims to have. He is a madman with delusions of grandeur — yet he remains at the top of the GOP ticket, barring some miraculous reversal of posture and policy on their part. This is the crook that they want to lead them to victory. Richard Nixon said, “I am not a crook.” Donald Trump says, “I’m the biggest crook in town and damned proud of it. You got a problem with that?” And the GOP just smiles, like the Cheshire cat, as their party vanishes before their eyes.
People often misinterpret passages in the Bible as saying money is the root of all evil…actually it’s the LOVE of money that is the root of all evil. As reported, Jesus said you can’t serve two masters. The gop, with their evil master, clearly has shown their religious devotion to power and money.
That is exactly it. They have no policies. They’re doing a hail Mary with Trump. They’re praying that by some miracle he gets back in and they’ll be restored to power. They apparently are oblivious to the 20% that Trump is bleeding in the primaries. As Rick Wilson said, even half that could tank him.
They were expecting the red tsunami in 2022. They got a pink trickle, if that. I guess delusions die hard.
They know Trump doesn’t know anything or care about policy. He will.sign anything the GOP passes,and veto.anything the Dems. He only wants to be re-elected to.shut down the investigation sand Griffin himself I to financial.stability. He hasn’t figured out that Bragg. go to trial and he can’t stop a state court. And those crimes,are not related to.his presidency but occurred before it.
I hope SCOTUS decides that you can try a president after his term for illegal acts like rape or murder, or crimes committed before or after his term of office ( and for ones committed before taking office,,the statute of limitation stops ticking while he President).
surprise! nothing that comes out of dingleberry’s mouth can be trusted. Many of us knew back in 2015-2016 he was leveraged to the hilt and being in debt does not, despite his claims, make one a billionaire, a millionaire, or whatever in the f*ck he’s calling himself now. It just means you’re in debt and if you do not pay on your debt you can lose the asset being used as collateral. If the magats would pay even a teensy, weensy, bit of attention they would figure out just how badly they’ve been scammed.
Hey, magats! your turd emperor is not a businessman, is not a billionaire, and is not good at anything other than whining. Get the f*ck over him.
As Mark Twain said, “It’s easier to con people than to convince them they’ve been conned.” And I believe Twain was friends, or at the very least acquaintances, with P.T. Barnum. And Barnum is the one who charged “$0.25 cents to see the egress.” And dummies paid it, not knowing egress meant exit.
I’m not great at math, but if Trump Tower is worth $371 million, and he has mortgages on it for $50 million + $100 million, then he has $221 million inequity in it.
And that figure is subject to reduction by the value of any condos sold, whether the property value from 2017 has gone up or down – and perhaps most importantly whether that value can be realized in a forced, ‘deadline’, ‘mortgagee’, sale.
So, optimistically he would get maybe $100 million or so from the sale, (if that).
Fairly obviously all his other properties will be similarly geared, because why wouldn’t they be?
If everything he had was sold, forcibly, in these circumstances, would he even have a billion dollars?
Is he, under such self-induced duress, even a multi-millionaire? Is he that poor?
It sure is looking like it.
It’s worth it, at this juncture, to look back at why he got in this mess and why the court decided he was guilty of what he did – and why he was fined what he has been fined.
https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/tto_release_properties_addendum_-_final.pdf
In it are revealed some of his frauds, like claiming, for tax purposes, that a property was worth literally nothing while, at the same time raising a mortgage of multi-millions on it. It is why any claims of any valuations put forward by his side should be taken with more than a pinch of salt.
Now might just be a good time to find the actual, true ‘market value’ of his properties.
By putting them on the market.
You may rest assured that the actuaries in each of these 30 surety companies that Trump went to asking for a bond have done precisely this analysis. That’s what they are paid for. I went to law school with a guy whose brother was an actuary and he made bank. It was his job to figure out exactly what we’re discussing here.
My prayer is that some investigative reporter gets his or her hands on the details from just one of these companies. That would be a killer.
Trump tried to sue Tim O’Brien, one of his biographers, for defamation. O’Brien’s conjecture was that Trump was actually worth $150 to $250 million. Which is rich, in anybody’s book. That’s pretty far up there. But $250 million does not equal the $10B and $12B that he has claimed.
So I guess Trump just multiplies what he really has by ten. So if Trump Tower is worth $371M, then maybe it’s worth $37M, when all is said and one. Nothing would surprise me with this clown. Nothing.
the financial disclosure form only has categories for loans outstanding. “Over $50 million” could be any figure higher than that, the sky’s the limit. And all Trump owns of Trump Tower is his own penthouse and the commercial space on the first floor. that isn’t much equity compared to the debt.
Not just the mortgages, but also capital gains taxes. His equity after these are paid off may be reduced to a small percentage of the liquidation price. So, pretty everything he ‘owns’ in NY State may be going to the block soon, and even that may not be enough to pay off the judgment. It may turn out the you’s and me’s of this world have more money than him, Ursula.
Trump tried to sue Tim O’Brien, one of his biographers, for defamation. O’Brien’s conjecture was that Trump was actually worth $150 to $250 million. Which is rich, in anybody’s book. That’s pretty far up there. But $250 million does not equal the $10B and $12B that he has claimed.
So I guess Trump just multiplies what he really has by ten. So if Trump Tower is worth $371M, then maybe it’s worth $37M, when all is said and one. Nothing would surprise me with this clown. Nothing.
well there’s always Marolago and she can turn it into a YMCA!
It would give a lot of us satisfaction if Trump Tower on 5th Avenue were auctioned off so that the Trump name would be stripped from the building–even if the state didn’t net much out of it. It’s the beauty of the thing.
Removing Trump’s name from buildings has been an international trend for a long time.
Here’s the state of play as of 2019:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisettevoytko/2019/10/23/heres-every-trump-property-thats-dropped-his-name/?sh=5e2ebe9c3571
The Trump names just keeps coming off in 2021:
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-name-removed-landmarks-1561490
The Trump name was lowering property values . . .