While you were just talking,
our colleague
Kara Scannell
reporting that an appeals court
has ruled on this bond issue.
We know the former president was he
he had to post over $460 million today.
And we learned that
a New York
Court of Appeals has given Trump
ten additional days
to post a bond of 175 million.
Now that would cover
the $464 million judgment
against him in the civil fraud trial.
So this is significant
because this reduces the amount
that he needs to post
and also gives him ten additional days.
Now there was a concern today
that if he wasn't able to do this,
that the attorney general, Letitia James,
she could move to start
seizing his assets.
But now we're learning
that the appeals court
has weighed in here.
They ruled that he only needs
to pose $175 million.
Still a lot of money,
but less than half of what
he had to post before.
And he now has ten days to do that.
So that is a significant,
huge, significant difference
because the
And also,
we typically don't hear
from the appeals court on Monday.
So even Trump's
team was under the belief
that they would only make an argument on
or ruling on Tuesdays. Or Thursdays.
So while they've been inside this room,
the appeals court has just said
not only does
he not have to pay the full amount,
the only three, 175 million,
they've been trying
I believe, for 100 million.
But he also has ten more days
to come up with that.
$175 million in this case.
I'm going to read this.
So, yeah,
this is a huge a huge win for him.
I'm not crazy.
Take it for what
she's getting from the Trump team in all.
Read this an enormous lot
because the fact
that he would not have to pay the huge
sum of nearly $500 million,
which he couldn't pay,
which we were waiting essentially
to see what's going to happen,
we had absolutely no word from
Trump's attorneys
whether or not he could post the bond.
We were essentially under the impression
he had not come up with.
As you said,
Robert, in the heart
for the 11th hour
that it was going to shift now
to this idea of whether or not Letitia
James was going to start
seizing these assets.
The other thing to point out here,
we may approach those 30
or so underwriters.
One of the big complaints
that they were essentially having
was that underwriters
don't usually go
for this amount
of nearly half a billion dollars.
They were saying that
the underwriters were saying,
okay, we'll do 100 million.
That's kind of our cap.
Now, there's a little bit of wiggle
room, right?
It's $175 million.
Still an enormous amount of money,
a lot closer to what
they were willing to do
in the first place.
Then that 464, $500 million mark.
So now they have
they can go back to some of these places
and see, would you be willing to do this?
Also, here's the ten days to figure out
does he have any of the assets
he can add to this.
Well, and this is a huge surprise
even for Trump's
legal team
who walked into this courthouse
this morning
for the criminal case
and to figure out what's going on there,
which I should know
it's going about as bad
as it could
inside that courtroom right now.
But this is huge news
for them to come out and hear that
not only do
they have more time
here, but it's way
less than what they thought
that they would have to pay
and maybe more palatable
to these insurance
giants to help underwrite that.
Yeah,
this is really significant
because as we talked about today,
you know, even by Trump standards,
this is such a consequential day.
He's in here
potentially learning
about when the first criminal trial
he will face will begin.
And then he was facing the possibility
that he would not be able
to post this bond.
And then the attorney general
will be seizing his assets.
His identity for
so long has been as a successful
billionaire businessman.
His name adorns buildings in this city
and around the world.
And we had talked about earlier
the fact that he had appealed.
We didn't expect to get a decision today.
But here, I mean,
this is a huge relief for him.
And it does make it possible, though,
not certain,
that he might be able to post this bond,
saying that they've made it
less than half
and given him ten days
to figure out
how to potentially come up
with this money.
So this is
this is a huge relief for Trump.
And let's see,
we'll start working the phones
and see if they can come up
with this money.
Well, and I think what is notable here
is that as everyone
at home is learning about this,
as we were learning about this, Trump
and his legal team
are just learning about this
because they've been inside
that courtroom for 2 hours
arguing something entirely different
and unaware that this was a ruling
that was coming today.
They were expecting
if it was coming, it would come tomorrow
or maybe Thursday.
And I think that they weren't necessarily
holding their breath
that this is going to change at all.
I mean, we talk about this a lot.
What they weren't.
Yes.
They weren't
counting on the appeals court
that they thought that
maybe they were going to have to end up
trying to figure out what happens next
in terms of seizing assets, in terms
of Letitia James moving forward.
You know, we talk a lot about what
Trump's legal team does in court
and what their expectation is.
A lot of it is done
to kind of try to delay
or to come up with new solutions.
It's exhausting every avenue again.
That's what your lawyers are paid to do.
That's what they should be doing.
This case
I think it was really
50 50 in their minds
as to whether or not
the appeals court
would come back and have any changes
at all,
particularly having
both of these is a good thing
for Donald Trump.
Yeah.
And Jim,
this is notable
because this is these two moments
that we've been talking
about all morning, these twin moments.
What is happening right now
inside the court has not been going
well for Donald Trump and his legal team.
The judge has been kind
of reprimanding his attorney,
but they just walked out for that
45 minute recess
to some very welcome news
from this appeals court.
When it comes to that bond
now, being lowered
and having more time to front that bond.
Yeah, Caitlin, I mean,
Trump has been referring
to some of these properties
as his, quote, babies.
So perhaps the babies are safe for now.
Let me go back to our panel
here in Washington, Phil Mattingly.
I mean, Trump catches a break
there on the bond issue.
There's no question about it.
And I think it's important to the extent
without getting too deep
into the financial weeds
to explain why this is so important
and why
the initial bond that had been set
was so extraordinarily difficult for him
to be able to meet
It wasn't just that
it was $465 million,
which was the judgment.
It was that the way insurers work
to underwrite
that they almost
without fail, require 120%
of the bond itself.
So that pushed it over $550 million.
The point was also made,
I think was by Caitlin
or by Kristen, that these
insurers themselves
usually aren't
trying to go over $100 million.
It is not normal.
This is the size of this.
There's not a lot of precedent
when it comes
particularly to an individual
and a very small company.
This isn't some massive public company
that has huge revenues, has huge
access to credit lines at major banks.
Most.
Donald Trump's banking
relationships had all but disintegrated
over the course
of the last several years.
And so not only is well,
Donald Trump is liquid, he's
not that liquid.
They're requiring
cash and cash equivalents.
They're saying no to any property.
Most of Donald Trump's
value is in property.
What this allows
by reducing this by about $300 million,
giving him ten days to find it is one,
he has cash.
He's made clear
he has cash and cash equivalents.
And actually, for Donald Trump,
the record is actually backed that up.
So he does have some cash.
The other thing
that's really interesting here
and I was talking about this last week,
there's the truth social element of this.
There's a merger that closed last week
or is in the process of closing
could start trading
as a public company by Tuesday
or Wednesday of this week,
while those shares,
which are worth billions of dollars
for Donald Trump,
would technically be under
a lock up agreement for six months.
You wouldn't be able to use
and wouldn't be able to sell them.
He may be able to get a waiver to
take out a loan against them right now.
That would be impossible
without a waiver.
If the board gives him a waiver,
that's another avenue,
significantly less money, more time,
and opens up
some options that perhaps didn't exist.
Ali, tell us,
I mean, did he catch a break?
I mean,
he has ten days to fork over 175 billion.
That's still a lot of money.
Yes. But oh, my goodness. Did he catch.
But but the buildings may be safe.
I mean, for now, for sure.
I mean,
so a couple that two big things happen.
First, he got them extra time.
Ten days time is very valuable here.
But the amount of the bond he has to post
has been cut by more than in half.
And here comes the appeals court
at the 11th hour
and 59th minute and 59 second
to give him this huge reduction.
I just read through the order
issued by the Court of Appeals
It's two pages long.
There's next to nothing
in terms of here's
why we've come in
with this huge reduction.
But the fact that they've
issued a substantial reduction
it happens.
There are other cases
we've seen
where courts of appeals
have come in and reduced bonds amounts
by more than this by 80, 90%.
There is some,
I think, implicit judgment in here
that the amount of the bond,
the four, 500
plus million dollars was unnecessary
or excessive.
It's not necessarily
they're passing judgment on the case
as a whole,
but what the Court of Appeals is
saying is we
the court system will be fine with a bond
of $175 million, you know,
for the purpose of the bond.
This is not the full decision
as to whether an appeal
or the lower court ruling was wrong.
In order
to actually go
through the appellate process for Trump,
he had to have posted this bond.
Now, many would look at this
issue and say, well, hold on a second.
That doesn't seem fair
inherently, that you have to resolve
this money
prior to the full
appeal process happening
so that to with legislature,
if that's your issue, by the way,
and the court rules.
But this the court
is likely saying right now,
we are confident that
with this amount of money,
that there is enough there to support
that he can go forward
with the procedural
aspects of the appeal.
I wouldn't read the tea leaves
to suggest that they think that Warren
was wrong
in his ultimate ruling
or that the proportionality is so skewed
But certainly this is
one heck of a break for yet again,
Teflon Don.