You might not be familiar with the company,
Digital World Acquisition Corporation,
but there's another company that might ring a bell.
That's the Trump Media and Technology Group,
which you probably heard in reference to Truth Social.
Well, those two companies have sort of been dancing around, coming together for
some time with Digital World, trying to merge with Trump Media.
Well, Digital World now has something else on its plate that is fraud charges by
the SEC, that importantly thus far, do not involve Donald Trump specifically,
although they do apparently involve Trump Media and Technology Group.
And we wanna give you all the details and
catch you up with this weird legal back and forth.
So Digital World announced its initial public offering way back in
September of 2021.
And when it did that, it told investors that its executives had not participated
in any merger discussions with any company.
So, you can't have done that at that point.
So they reassured their investors, we're complying with the law,
we're not doing anything like that.
Well, that was found to not be the truth.
Because apparently at that time, Patrick Orlando was the chief of Digital World and
had apparently been discussing a merger with Trump Media for
seven months at that point.
And the SEC has text messages and other exchanges that apparently prove that.
So, there's your fraud, at least according to the SEC.
It's not the only crime that they are caught up in.
Federal prosecutors in New York last month charged a former Digital World board
member and
two other men with earning $22 million in illegal profits as part of an insider
trading scheme before the Trump Media merger proposal was publicly announced.
And so this is, of course, going to have to develop, and perhaps we'll learn more
about those communications, how far along the discussions were,
if there were other lies that were caught up in it.
But we do know that if the merger does eventually go through,
which is still possible, the SEC is going to fine them $18 million.
Which seems like a lot of money, I think, to regular people.
But when you hear some of the numbers that they had been making
claims about their worth as corporations, it certainly doesn't seem like a lot.
That said, both companies have, since late 2021,
suffered some damage to their bottom line.
Digital World's share price is down to
$13 from a high of $175.
That's gonna hurt.
I mean, it's not necessarily like NFT-level bad investment,
but it's not a good return on your dollar.
And then on the side for Trump Media and Technology, in a financial disclosure
filing this month covering much of his post-presidency period,
Trump said that Trump Media had earned about $1.2 million in advertising.
And it also said that Trump Media's value,
which was estimated in late 2021 to potentially climb to $1.7 billion,
was now no more than $25 million, right around the same amount of money that
those former Digital World people had apparently scammed with insider trading.
So, not good times for either of them.
Even if they do merge, it's hard to see at this point, what is that company even.
Is it even really a big factor?
Is True Social really a place that's gonna make any money?
But they could face more charges, for all we know.
>> Speaker 2: Yeah.
So, it is astounding how much money Donald Trump has lost in his life.
I mean, it might break a record.
He is almost certainly the worst businessman in the history of
the United States of America.
And it's so ironic coz one of his strengths is that, I'm a big businessman.
I'll figure it out, order the deal.
And all the Republicans believe it 100%.
And that's why the Democratic Party drives me crazy.
They keep attacking him on him being a racist bigot, etc.
I don't know if you know this, but the whole country knows that.
They already know that.
And unfortunately, that has become a strength for him in the right wing.
And that is greatly dispiriting for the nation, but that's just a reality.
Move on and undercut his strengths.
And in this case, I cannot describe to you how terrible businessman he is,
but I'm going to try.
This is another case where he's involved in fraud.
Okay, now, it's not Trump, it's his partner,
potential partners in this case, right?
But guys, there's $1.7 billion on the line, and it was totally realistic.
I did a segment on this when the news broke of the SPAC, and
I know how SPACs work.
And Trump could have had over a billion dollars.
If I was him and they're talking to me ahead of the SPAC,
I would have already researched, can you talk to me ahead of a SPAC?
And given that there's over a billion dollars on the line,
I would be, get off the phone.
Get off the phone, right?
Because I would not be a terrible businessman.
I wouldn't wanna lose a billion dollars.
But he's like, yeah, let's talk on the phone, let's do this, okay?
All right, here. So
let me show you all the money he's lost on this deal and the other deals.
Let's go to Graphic 8.
So in this case, he took $1.7 billion,
turned it into 25 million if he's lucky, and that's a loss of $1.65 billion.
Nicely done, Donnie.
And remember, Donnie got all of his money in the beginning from his dad.
So, let me explain that.
New York Times in 2018 wrote this, Trump received the equivalent today of at least
$413,000,000 from his father's real estate empire,
starting when he was a toddler and continuing to this day.
So, he blew the whole $413,000,000.
He's like, I got a small loan back in the 1970s from my dad of a million dollars.
That is not a small loan.
And then I did it's not a small loan today ,definitely wasn't a small loan in
the 1970s.
And it's not even true, you didn't get a million dollars, you got $413,000,000.
But he blew it all, that's why he was doing all these little scams like,
Trump University, give me $10,000, and you could take a picture with a cutout,
Donald Trump picture.
And you won't get actually, university, obviously, we're going to scam you.
Trump charity was a scam, and these are all low-level scams.
And by the way, I'm calling him scams, is that right?
Yeah, he settled.
He said, yeah, it was a scam.
Here's the fine I'm paying.
He's a con man.
He's a two bit con man coz he already blew the $400 million.
But wait, I'm not done yet.
Trump's tax documents revealed that he netted $427,000,000 in earnings,
endorsements and licensing from 14 seasons of The Apprentice.
Now, look, you could say, hey, he earned that by being a celebrity on television,
and he did a great job of hosting and etc.
Now, in reality, Jeff Zucker, who ran NBC at the time,
was like, look, we need some sort of schmuck to go here and do this show.
Any schmuck who does it will get $427,000,000.
Now, to be fair, not any schmuck, but almost any schmuck.
And they're like, well, Jeff, Donald Trump is a failed businessman.
He's had six bankruptcies.
He can't run a business if his life depended on it.
And Zucker was like, who cares?
It's TV.
We'll just lie to them and pretend he's a good businessman.
So that wound up giving him another 427.
He blew that, too.
My God.
That's why he's always like, just send me money, send me money.
You remember when he claimed to have 10 billion?
Okay, of course he doesn't.
But even if he just kept the 800, some odd million from his dad and from his second
dad, Jeff Sucker, who later ran CNN and helped to make him president,
if he just kept that 800 million, let alone the 1.7 billion, he'd be
infinitely rich and he wouldn't need any of your guy's money or anything like that.
But he's still running cupid schemes, send for my legal defense [SOUND].
Yeah, I spent it on rent [LAUGH] at my properties.
And I increased the rent by four times and screwed over my own voters.
He does those stupid cons coz he's a miserable failure as a businessman.
And oops, he did it again.
>> Speaker 3: We can't help him.
So, if at first you don't succeed, try again.
And if at first you don't fail deeply enough, keep on trying.
I mean, that is Trump.
And then the point about him being still a toddler, very much so.
And that is an insult to toddlers.
And in terms of the money, his father giving him a small loan,
I guess small is relative.
I mean, when you live the kind of extra privileged life that Donald J Trump has,
and people not saying no to you, and you've been given everything,
this is what you fully expect.
And he comported himself this way.
So Cenk, the fact that you're laying out how he got here tells us
almost all we need to know about his presidency,
about why he comported himself in office that way,
why he's doing what he's doing right now in a fight for his life, in some ways.
This is Donald Trump's Mo, this is how he rolls.
He doesn't know how to do anything else but to scam people and then to cry victim.
Because this has worked for him all of his life.
>> Speaker 2: Yeah, come to think of it, now that you framed it that way, Nina,
I just realized who his third daddy is, and that's MAGA.
So, he took the 400 million from Papa Trump, then he took the 400
some odd from NBC and Zucker, and now he's like, MAGA, you're my new daddy.
Gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme.
And you guys can't even afford it, but you're paying for me, and
I'm claiming to be a billionaire.
Haha, jokes on you.
And that's what Trump always does, and he brags about it.
When it comes to people who make the mistake of trusting him to give him
money for an investment, he brags later, like, yeah,
that's what a smart businessman does.
You declare bankruptcy, and you go, haha, I stiffed you, you dumb lenders.
You should have never trusted me.
And that's it.
>> He constantly says he's playing by the rules.
Remember in that presidential debates in 2016 when they asked him about taxes.
He said, I'm playing by the rules.
If you don't like it, change the rules.
I mean, this is what this man does.
He is the ultimate snake oil salesman.
>> Speaker 2: Exactly, that's such another great point.
So he stiffed investors, then he stiffed taxpayers, and now he's stiffing MAGA.
And he's like, yeah, keep giving to me, you schmucks.
Come to True Social, participate in every one of my scams,
those dumbass NFTs that you can find online.
Give me, gimme ,gimme, because you're my third daddy.
So MAGA, enjoy your toddler, Donny Trump.
>> Only thing I wanna add to this is I think that you make a good case that he's
the worst businessman in history.
We can't say for sure yet, but there is someone who is trying to eclipse him.
If you can spend $44 billion on Twitter and burn the higher thing down,
I think Trump wishes he could lose that much money.
But remains to be seen.
Maybe he'll write the ship, and Twitter will be awesome and profitable.