For someone who gloats about his billionaire status so often, Donald Trump sure is pinching pennies these days. The former one-term president, following decades of gloating about his sky-high finances and stellar skills as a “businessman,” is now trying to dodge payments in one of his many civil trials. He recently lost a New York civil fraud trial relating to the purposeful manipulation of his net worth and was slapped with an eye-wateringly high fine. The 77-year-old has been ordered to pay a staggering $454 million, with interest, to the state of New York, and if he can’t pay up, then New York Attorney General Letitia James is ready to take the money out of his assets instead.
Trump’s defendants are already attempting to find a way around him actually paying for his crimes, but it’s not going well for them. They sought a delay in punishment — both the fine and a ban on Trump running business in the state — and were quickly shot down. State attorney Andrew Amer argued against their requests for a 30-day delay to allow for “orderly post-judgment process” and emphasized that there was “no room for further debate” in the proceeding. Trump intends to appeal the decision, but he’ll find plenty of pushback there as well. If he finds himself unable to shell out the astoundingly high amount — which rises by a good $87,502 every day — then James is not afraid to hit him where it hurts. As she told ABC reporter Aaron Katersky, if Trump “does not have funds to pay off the judgment,” then she “will seek judgment enforcement mechanisms in court” and “ask the judge to seize his assets.”
Trump’s assets are in clear and definite danger, with the mounting costs of his legal woes starting to weigh him down. He already owes more than $80 million for his defamation of E. Jean Carroll, and by the time he’s done in court, he could easily owe hundreds of millions more. It seems that all the wealth he’s been gloating about for years is about to vanish into thin air. Remember when he crooned about the $400 million he has in cash at any given time? That’s pretty much been eliminated by the unceasing costs his legal proceedings demand, which shouldn’t really shouldn’t matter to someone who’s a self-proclaimed multi-billionaire. Alas, the guy is so desperate that he’s selling shoes, and obvious knockoffs at that.
To be fair, Trump lying about his worth is exactly what landed him in this position in the first place. You’d think he’d still be able to find the cash somewhere, especially with his beloved businesses on the line, but his team was likely seeking a delay so they could get the appeal process underway. That process will automatically put a pause on his penalty anyway, so don’t expect the former Cheeto-in-Chief to go broke anytime soon, but he can only dodge the penalties for so long. By the time the 2024 presidential election is decided, the blustering former billionaire may be scraping pennies together while his rival, Joe Biden, continues to fly high with more than double Trump’s donors and a cool $130 mil in the re-election bank.