91 Felony Counts and a Campaign to Run

Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.

Hey, it's Sarah. Trump and Biden's presidential campaigns are ramping up, and people all around the world are watching not just to see how Trump is doing on the campaign trail, but how he's going to fare in the courtroom. Today on The Big Take, we'll learn more about Trump on trial in an episode of The Big Take DC hosted by my colleague, Senior Washington correspondent Seleia Mosen. Here's Seleia.

It's been about a year since the first indictment was announced against former President Donald Trump.

He's indicted.

He's the first former president of the United States to be indicted on.

Charges related to hush money payments paid to Stormy Daniels. It raised a ton of questions, does.

He get his fingerprints?

Will there be a mugshot?

Is he going to be in handcuffs?

And that was just the beginning breaking news on the indictment of former President Donald trumpsified.

Doc aments founded his pone at.

Mar Laga, rackteering, conspiracy to commit fraud to influence witnesses.

Perjury, conspiracy to obstruct injustice.

Several conspiracy charges relating to January sixth, with his wins on Super Tuesday. Trump is cruising toward the GOP nomination for president, but as he shifts to the general election, he faces a mountain of legal troubles. There are so many trial proceedings and dates, not to mention campaign rallies in an election year, that I often find myself pulling up charts that my colleagues have made just to keep

It is simple. An American president has been indicted for a crime. It is original American history.

Yesterday afternoon. Then came a federal case in Florida accusing Trump of refusing to return hundreds of classified documents he was keeping at his mar Alago home. And then there was arguably the most consequential case in Washington, d C. The January sixth case accusing Trump of trying to overturn in the twenty twenty election result and inciting the capital attack. And lastly there's a state case in Georgia accusing Trump of trying to overturn the results of the twenty twenty election.

What we're seeing with the league calendar is that it's actually slowing down.

That's my colleague, Sarah Fordon. She leads a Bloomberg team covering the legal news coming out of Washington, d C.

So I think we're going to have an ebb and flow. The only trial that's actually scheduled to go forward right now is the hush money case in New York, which is due to start March twenty fifth. This is the Manhattan District Attorney, Alvin Bragg, and it's going to be about a month long trial. It is a criminal trial, so on criminal trials he does have to be in the courtroom, so we will expect him to be in New York day and day out for about a month, so that will certainly affect his movements.

The trial dates for the other three criminal cases are still in flux and could be pushed back to after election day, so.

There may be, you know, several months over the summer where there's nothing pressing on his legal calendar, and he'll have ample time to campaign.

But even if Trump has time to campaign, these legal battles still come with huge price tags, both for his ca pain and his personal finances.

The big one is a case brought by the New York Attorney General. It is a fraud case accusing him of inflating his assets. He has been issued a verdict in that case of over four hundred million dollars and the interest is accruing on that at a pace of about one hundred and twelve thousand dollars.

A day, as in, for every day Trump doesn't pay the state's verdict against him, he owes an additional one hundred and twelve thousand dollars.

That combined with a separate verdict in a defamation trial. This is a case brought by the author, Egene Carroll, So she brought two separate defamation cases against him and won both of those. And that big verdict in the second case is eighty three point three million dollars. So he's in the process of appealing those two, but he will have to put that money into escrow while the appeal process is playing out.

Sarah, what does it mean that he needs to put money in escrow?

If he ultimately loses these verdicts on appeal, he will have to pay that money, And the way the process works, they don't wait for him to pay until the end of the process. He has to set aside this money so that it's already in like a custodial account.

So with verdicts in just two of his cases, Trump already owes over five hundred million dollars, and that number is climbing by the day. These are civil cases brought against Trump as a private citizen, so he can't use campaign funds to pay the damages.

Adding up the two New York verdicts and the interest, which is occurring at a pace that would practically wipe out what he's declared as his liquidity his cash on hand.

Trump says that he has just about six hundred million dollars in liquid assets, as in cash sitting in his bank account. The Bloomberg Billionaire's Index, which also factors in his real estate and business dealings, puts his net worth at over three billion dollars, but accessing that money would require liquidating those assets.

He's already said in some files that he may have to sell a property in order to cover these costs. And these are costs that he cannot use campaign money to fund.

The hundreds of millions of dollars in damages are only part of what Trump's court cases are costing him. He also has to pay the lawyers who are defending him.

For that.

He can use campaign funds, and he has, but any money he puts toward his legal fees will mean less money to spend on the campaign trail, and the possibility of running out of money part way through an election year is a huge problem for Trump.

The last report he spent nearly three million dollars on legal fees over what period That was just for January.

Coming up, we'll dig into how Trump is trying to offset these costs and how this is all landing with voters' back. So far, we've broken down the four criminal cases and three civil cases against Trump, how much they're costing him, and how he's paying for them. As my colleague Sarah Forden mentioned, one of the biggest impacts on Trump is the financial cost of covering damages and paying for his legal fees. If you're running a presidential campaign. You can't

Every time there's a development in one of these cases, you see some sort of fundraising appeal go out of You know, the evil Democrats are out to get me. Chip in five dollars, fifteen dollars, twenty dollars or else, You're not going to have a country anymore type message.

That's my colleague Laura Davison, she covers Politics of Bloomberg. We grabbed some of the fundraising texts that you described. Here are a couple, word for word. Make a contribution to evict crooked Joe Biden from the White House and save America. During this dark chapter in our nation's history, we're watching our republic die before our very eyes. The Biden appointed Special Council has indicted me, and yet another witch hunt how is that talk resonating with voters.

We do know that his supporters see these legal woes, you know, as evidence that Trump is being persecuted. It doesn't really seem to dent their support. They don't see it as a negative, and in fact they're giving We know, indictments came down, you know, millions of dollars came into his coffers. So these things are things that are resonating.

And he's used his indictments as a talking point on the campaign trail, like this speech in IOI in January, I got.

Indicted more than the late great gangster al Vos cap Ere You are about the publish co effriends.

Our producer Julia Press spoke with Jesse Stumbaugh and attending at the rally, who said Trump's lawsuit didn't concern him.

In fact, that's one of the reasons why I'm voting for him. If our former president and an American citizen who's a billionaire is handcuffed by the political system and the justice system, haw's a regular citizen like myself ever going to be able to stand up to the government.

Over the last few weeks, my Bloomberg colleagues have fanned out across the country to talk to Trump's supporters about how they're viewing the cases against the former president. Bloomberg's Mike Sasso spoke with James Griffin. He's a sixty four year old from Greenville, South Carolina.

They say he was in fault about them people telling up the White House. I mean, how can I tell a hundred people to go tell up their store over there. If they do it, it ain't on me. That's the namind. Okay, even if he got found guilty, either wouldn't necessarily buy he still go be month for rent.

In another part of South Carolina, reporter Stephanie Lyai met Ralph Hunter. He had a different perspective.

The problem that we see with.

There's so and so one question that I have if he was in jail, I was sure with both.

He said that if Trump was convicted, he'd still vote for him.

I'm gonna be honest with you. I don't like him as a person. I don't think he's someone that you know, I would i'd want to be friends with or hang out. You know, He's just seem like a nice guy.

But Ralph told her he was impressed by Trump's presidency. He said he feels like Trump delivered on some of the things that had been empty promises from other politicians in the past. To Ralph, Trump is a guy who gets stuff done.

If I need a plumber from my house, the pipe, the crap out of it, I don't necessarily need you to be a nice guy and have wonderful post on your Facebook account. You know, I've actually I don't care what you say, just get the hooped out of my house.

And here's my colleague Stephanie at a Trump event in South Carolina talking to a teacher named Debbie Sides.

One interesting thing that we've noticed is every time another one of these indictments comes down, more people are donating to him or getting involved in the campaign. And I'm curious that that's something that you had done yourself, you know, either donated after one of these Yes, one of the first indictments that I did, I mean twenty five dollars.

But that's what I could do, because I feel like I could go after him, that could go after anybody.

Trump's single largest day of fundraising for the twenty twenty four election came the week he was arraigned in Manhattan last April. Here's my colleague Laura Davison. Again, we do see spikes in giving.

You know, every time there was an indictment announced, particularly the mugshot and the Georgia case that really went viral on social media because it was a just this visual moment, there was a ton of giving.

In addition to donations, the Trump campaign is looking at other ways of raising cash, like marketing new merchandise, a signature cologne, candles, gold sneakers with red souls. Here he is unveiling his four hundred dollars shoes that Trump never surrender high tops at a sneaker convention in Philadelphia last month.

Now, this country's not doing so well. We're going to turn this country around fast.

We're going to turn it around fast, and we're going to remember the young people, and we're going to remember sneaker Cohn.

You know that.

But even Trump's shoes can't escape the possibility of litigation. People have pointed out that the red bottoms of his sneakers could open him up to a trademark lawsuit from Christian Lubitan. The year ahead for Trump could be heavily defined by the outcome of his pending criminal cases and how he navigates them financially. He's also endorsed his daughter in law, Laura Trump, to be co chair of the

The money that he has in his various accounts that it is able to pay for legal fees is set to run out sometime around June July August. This is right when both his campaign, the Republican National Committee everyone is going to be in full on election mode, buying a ton of television advertisements, wanting to hold events all across the country, and Trump's going to have to make a decision either does he turn to his donors and say, hey, can you guys give me more money for my illegal fees.

Thanks for listening to The Big Take DC podcast from Bloemberg News. I'm Saliah Mosen. This episode was produced by Julia Press and David Fox. It was edited by Aaron Edwards. It was mixed by Ben O'Brien. It was fact checked by Stacey Renee. Naomi Shaven is our senior producer. Michael Shepherd, Wendy Benjaminson and Elizabeth Ponso provide editorial direction. A special thanks to Hadrianna Lowencron, Stephanie Lai, and Michael Sasso. Nicole