‘Forbes Knows Less About Me Than Stormy Daniels’ Trump Finally Heard He Was Dropped From 400 List

I’m surprised that this took so long. Donald Trump was dumped from the Forbes 400 last week. I’m seriously wondering if that fact was hidden from him because he melted down Monday morning on Truth Social and that makes no sense if he knew about it the day it happened. Interesting, huh? Maybe his handlers are literally keeping him in the dark for as long as possible about developments which would enrage him.

It’s all part of a plot, you see. The Chinese are in cahoots with the attorney general of New York and Forbes Magazine. They’re all out to get Donald. If any of us talked this way it would be five point restraint and Thorazine but hey, he’s the Republican frontrunner right now. They’re playing by a totally different rule book than anybody sane or normal.

Money is Trump’s identity. It is for a lot of people. A lot of his appeal to MAGA is his claim of being richer than God. The following is excerpts from a transcript of a conversation between a reporter at Democracy Now who interviewed Trump biographer David Cay Johnston. They talk about his money and his New York civil fraud case.

DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Well, unlike the four separate criminal indictments, where Donald is at risk of incarceration, going to jail, this is a civil trial. But Donald Trump is his money. That’s the most important thing to understand about Donald. And, of course, his money is always being inflated, along with other things. You know, he claims buildings are bigger than they are. He claims more money. And in this case, the judge has already ruled that Donald committed repeated calculated frauds. The issue in this trial, the principal issue in this trial — there are some minor facts — is how much must he disgorge because his frauds resulted in ill-got gains that he must give up.

AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about why this is so important. I mean, another civil trial — right? — the sexual assault trial of E. Jean Carroll, he did not show up for.

DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Well, that’s right. And E. Jean Carroll similarly got a judge to rule there was such overwhelming evidence, there was no need to try the merits of the case. Donald Trump is a rapist. That’s been established by another judge. He already owes $5 million to the writer E. Jean Carroll, and now there’s a second defamation case that she’s brought, and there will be a trial only to determine, again, how much money he owes.

In this trial before Judge Engoron, Donald has had all of his business licenses revoked. The Trump Organization, his eyes-wide-open blind trust he created when he became president, and the at least 500 Trump legal entities, mostly limited liability companies, no longer have business licenses. And you cannot do business without a business license. The judge has appointed another judge, a retired judge, as a monitor to make sure that Trump, his sons and the two executives who are in the case don’t abscond with any of the money until it’s determine how much is there. Ultimately, we will see the Trump Organization, his umbrella group, turned over to a receiver. This is similar to bankruptcy when you dissolve a company, but it’s under New York state business law, it’s not a bankruptcy case. His properties will be sold. Creditors and the government will get paid first. And if there’s any money left at the end of the day, Amy, it will go to Donald Trump.

AMY GOODMAN: So, you’re talking about properties. That’s Donald Trump’s residence in the Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue. That’s one of the buildings. Is that right, David Cay Johnston? One of the ones that also he, to say the least, inflated, from 10,000 feet to 30,000 feet. And why that matters?

DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: Square feet.

DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Well, he claimed the building was three times the size it was, so he could justify an enormously higher value than it’s worth. And Donald does this all the time. Trump Tower is 58 stories; he’ll tell you it’s 68 stories He owns a mansion on a large wooded area in Westchester County, about a short drive from Manhattan. He’s claimed it’s worth as much as $291 million. The most generous appraisal was $30 million, roughly a tenth of that, and it was based on the idea that he could carve it up into smaller estates and sell them off. And the local authorities have said, “No, we are not going to allow you to carve it up.” So the property is more likely worth something in the order of, say, $10 million, and Donald’s claims are 29 times that much, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Samuel Bankman-Fried is on trial right nearby, here in New York. He was jailed before the trial for violating a gag order. President Trump has just had a gag order imposed, because, among other things, of what he just tweeted out in the midst of the trial, that the clerk, who was sitting just feet from him, right next to the judge, was having an affair with Chuck Schumer. Can you talk about the significance of what it would mean if the judge found him guilty of violating that gag order? Could he end up in the same position as Samuel Bankman-Fried?

DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: He absolutely could end up remanded to jail. Donald is, I believe, for political reasons, trying to provoke one of the judges in his criminal or this civil case to send him to jail, so that he can rally his supporters and say, “See, the system is rigged. They’re out to get me. I didn’t do anything wrong, but they’re going to shut me up.” He threatened General Milley, who just retired as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. That’s not going to result in being remanded to custody, because General Milley, who was a valorous infantryman in combat, is not being intimidated by Donald Trump. But the —

AMY GOODMAN: I mean, he essentially said that Milley should be executed.

DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Absolutely, he said he should be executed. The judge’s secretary, however, or clerk — I’m sorry, the judge’s clerk — has nothing to do with the merits of the proceedings. And the judge made it clear that you write or say anything about any person on my staff, and there will be consequences. And I think he’s made it pretty clear that Trump might get one more chance. But if he does it twice, I assure you, then he’s going to be remanded by this judge.

And of course Trump is playing to the peanut gallery, to MAGA. He needs to push his persecuted agenda to the max. The only problem with that, is although his polls are high among Republicans who can vote in primaries, that doesn’t address what will happen in a general election. Trump was an unknown quantity in 2016. A lot of people took a flyer on him and voted for him, just like they voted for Jessie Ventura. It was a wild thing, give it a shot. But four years of Trump showed people who and what he was.

His wild antics aren’t winning over Independents and they’re not likely to. But wild antics are all he has.

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— Meliza (@Meliza45689546) October 9, 2023

That says it all.