Trump Just Hung His Lawyers and Himself. He Can’t Squirm Out Of This

It’s hard to serve two masters. This is a known fact. And unfortunately for Donald Trump, he has to now find out how hard that is. The two masters he has to serve are the same two that have been at war for quite some time in his life. One master is his Ego and a demanding master that is. That’s how he has messed up most of his life, serving his Ego. The second master is an even tougher one and that involves you, me, the rest of the electorate, the court system, the banks, in short we are talking about Reality. And Reality is the master we all serve. The problem for Donald is that most of us begin serving Reality early on and we learn how to make adjustments. He never has.

This weekend Trump, in an effort to serve his Ego and to make his followers love and admire him, told a whopper of a tale. He said he had half a billon dollars in cash. Wonderful. That means that he can pay his $464M bond and have plenty to spare.

Now here’s where it gets problematic. Does Trump actually have that kind of money, in which case he lied to the court last week when he mewled that he didn’t have the money, couldn’t get it, it was a “practical impossibility” all that. Or, is he lying now to serve his Ego and to impress his followers?

And with respect to impressing his followers, if he’s got half a billion dollars just sitting around liquid plus another nine or ten billion in assets, then why would he need their $5, which Donald Trump, Jr. begs for? So, here’s the problem that Trump got himself into this weekend: either he lied about not having money, or he lied about having money before (the amount then was $400M) or he’s lying right now about having the $500M. It can’t be all of the above. And if Trump has actually perjured himself to the court, then he’s in trouble and so are his lawyers.

Trump needs to seriously decide how he wants to play it:

1. The Deep State has taken all his money and there’s none left;
2. He has plenty of money;
3. He has plenty of money but it should go for his campaign not his legal judgments, so there;
4. He has plenty of money but needs yours more than you do, so keep giving it to him;
5. He needs your money because if he can’t pay Melania, she’ll split and how will that look?

Once again, it’s hard to serve two masters. Wait for Monday. Let’s see if Reality manages to get the attention of Trump’s Ego and let him know who’s boss. That is what is expected at this moment. The Ego isn’t going to win this game. He tried that with E. Jean Carroll and it cost him an additional $83M.

The lawyers must be scratching their heads and making their exit plans and that probably includes Alina Habba. This situation is not sustainable.

What’s known at this time is that another destabilizing drama is about to unfold.

He’s sworn to the court it would be impossible for anyone to meet. [the bond amount]

To be sure, the lies Trump has told on this score are too many to count. Most notably, of those lenders that simply refused to do business with him he has now said that they lacked the financial ability—not the willingness—to aid him; he has falsely stated that no bond of this size has ever been required of a corporate entity in American history; and he pretends that he’s being asked to liquidate assets in a matter of days that in truth he and his sprawling team of lawyers, business subordinates, accountants, and real estate managers had half a year (at a minimum) to transform into new liquidity.

Now, at the eleventh hour, the man who even his allies in the Kremlin—including top Kremlin propagandist Konstantin Rykov—like to call an “old brigand” is suddenly saying that a supposedly impossible bond payment may be possible after all. So what has Trump been doing in the shadows since September 2023 to bring us to this point, and how will this declaration change what’s now set to happen this coming Monday?

The simple fact is that either Trump makes his bond or the State of New York begins seizing his New York properties, likely starting with 40 Wall Street and some smaller properties in Westchester County. It would be a slow collapse of a business “empire” that would take months to reach completion; would happen in full view of the public; would drain monies and attention (including Trump’s attention) from his presidential campaign; would change forever how millions of Americans who thought of Trump as a successful businessman see him; and could even have a significant influence on the results of the 2024 U.S. presidential election. This collapse of one of the most wildly over-hyped brands in international business history could lead to personal bankruptcy proceedings, the end of Trump’s political career, or even, depending on how deranged he becomes at the prospect of losing not only his money but whatever dignity he had left, renewed attempts to incite localized violence against state and/or federal officials.

So what’ll it be? What destabilizing drama does Trump’s latest moral and ethical and legal and logistical and political and financial failure now import for the rest of us?

What I’m waiting to see is whether he guts Truth Social. I think there’s a better than 50/50 chance he’ll do that because he’s got no other means of coming up with the money. Unless his lawyers can find a way to persuade him not to do so, that’s my best guess as to what he will do.