-Donald Trump's son, Don Jr., took the stand today
in the Manhattan civil fraud trial
that could cost the Trump family their entire business empire.
For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."
♪♪
Donald Trump is facing four separate criminal cases
and a civil fraud trial in Manhattan,
and so far, it's been the civil fraud trial
that seems to have triggered him the most.
And that's because, one, it's in New York,
and two, his entire personal mythology
is built on his supposed business acumen,
although at this point,
who still really thinks Trump is a great businessman?
Do the houses of great businessmen have cardboard boxes
stacked up in fake marble bathrooms
next to curtain rods from Bed Bath and Beyond?
"Oh, this must be the home of Andrew Carnegie.
What's that? It's not?
It's the home of a man
soon to be featured on 'Hoarders Extreme'?
Color me gobsmacked."
If you used the bathroom at your bank
and you walked in and it looked like this,
you would know that your money is already gone.
And it's not just that picture.
Remember this picture from the breakfast buffet
at his golf club in Florida?
The one where Trump is dressed as a Band-aid?
For some reason, that doesn't look like
the golf club of a wealthy businessman to me.
That looks like a retirement home
that's currently under investigation by the state.
And you can tell this case in particular
has really spooked Trump,
because he can't stop talking about it,
even at campaign rallies
where he's supposed to be talking himself up,
not advertising all the bad stuff that's happening to him.
In fact, if you were the average person
who doesn't follow all the daily ins and outs
of Trump's civil fraud trial,
how the hell can you even follow any of this?
-I have a highly partisan judge,
a real political guy right out of the clubhouses,
and he's been overturned many times by the appellate courts,
and he defrauded me.
They defrauded me,
because I have a house that's very valuable,
and they try and make it like I'm increasing values.
And honestly, it's a very conservative number.
But they valued a house that's worth 100 times
more than the number they used, let's say 50 to 100.
They valued it at $18 million.
And people say it's worth anywhere from 50 to 100,
and maybe even that more.
They defrauded me,
and he called me a fraud before I even got to court.
I said, "How the hell can a guy do that?"
Called me a fraud before I got to court.
-If you were in that crowd for that Trump rally,
you got to be so bummed.
That is not what you came for.
That is never what you come for.
You know, there's a guy in the crowd holding a lighter yelling,
"Do 'build the wall'!"
That's like go to a Springsteen concert
to hear "Glory Days," and instead,
he complains about property taxes for 45 minutes.
"Hey, speaking of glory days,
remember when sales tax was only 3%?
Now it's over 6%.
I bought some deodorant at CVS the other day.
I said, $0.36? $0.36 for sales tax.
You got to be kidding me.
Then I got to pay $20,000 a year in property taxes
just because I live on Thunder Road.
Two, three, four!"
Now if we translate that to human English,
Trump is saying the judge undervalued
his Mar-a-Lago estate,
and that some people say it's worth anywhere
from 50 to 100 times more, which makes no sense.
There's not that much mystery around the value of a home.
Let's say you have a house.
You paid $1 million for it five years ago.
I can tell you what it's worth now --
a little more than a million.
Mar-a-Lago is valued at $18 million,
and Trump said someone told him
it was worth $100 million or more.
Zillow that [bleep], dude.
It's Palm Beach.
You know it's not the only tacky swamp castle in the area.
Get some comps.
Find another 18-bedroom hotel and see what that's going for,
and what that is worth is what yours is worth,
minus whatever the buyer subtracts
because the bathrooms are filled with boxes.
But while Trump is claiming his statements were accurate,
he also keeps insisting he can't be held liable for fraud
because all of his financial documents
have disclaimers on them that say,
"don't believe any of this."
For real.
That is an actual thing he keeps saying.
-We have a clause in the contract.
It's like a "buyer beware" clause.
It says when you take a look at the financial statement,
don't believe anything you read.
This is up front.
"Don't believe anything you read."
Some people call it a worthless clause,
because it makes the statement
and anything you read in the statement worthless.
It says, "Go out and do your own research.
Go out and do your own due diligence."
You have to study the statement carefully.
Do not believe anything.
You know what a disclaimer is?
You have a clause up front, it says,
"Do not believe these statements.
They were made by management.
They may be high, they may be low,
they may be this, but do your own due diligence.
Do your own research. Do everything.
Do not believe a word in them."
-Interesting.
Is that disclaimer also on the podium at your rallies?
I will say, it's not a bad disclaimer for Trump to use.
I mean, I wouldn't be surprised
if that's how he ended his wedding vows.
"To have and to hold for as long as we both may live.
And also, those are just words.
Do your own research,
because I've said it twice before and I am single, so..."
Also, I'm sorry, I didn't go to business school,
but I have a hard time believing
that actual financial documents have disclaimers on them
that say, "do not believe a word of what this says."
It would be like if your doctor gave you a bottle of pills
and told you to take three a day
and you said, "Okay, what are they?"
And he said, "Oh, I don't know. I found them on a bus."
We're talking about the fundamental pillars
of our entire financial system.
You have to be able to trust what something is worth,
whether you're buying real estate or equities
or bonds, or hell, even if you're just
Bruce Springsteen buying deodorant at CVS.
That's how our finan--
"Whoa, whoa, little Stevie, did you see this?"
If that's the crux of Trump's defense,
then I have to believe his case is in bad shape.
Some of what we've already heard sounds pretty bad.
For example, years ago,
Trump expressed interest in buying the Buffalo Bills,
but when it came time to offer evidence of his assets
to back up his ability to buy the team,
what he offered was not convincing.
-So there's this former Morgan Stanley executive who
testified today that back when Trump was trying to buy
the Buffalo Bills football team,
he sent a letter claiming that his net worth was $8 billion.
And then in a meeting with the Buffalo Bills management,
Trump handed out a "Forbes" article
of the top-paid entertainers to back up that claim.
Does this sort of testimony bolster
what the prosecutors are alleging?
-It does, Jake.
Using a "Forbes" magazine or any magazine article
to justify your net worth does not cut it in a court case.
-Be honest.
If Donald Trump showed up to your office with a magazine,
would you be worried he was going to use it
as a financial document or that he was intending to take a dump?
"You can't use a magazine as proof of liquidity!
We're done here."
"You might be done here,
but I still have some business to attend to.
Now, could someone point me to the classified document room?"
"I'm about to...
I'm about to clog up a file cabinet."
Also, thank God Trump never bought the team.
because the good people of Buffalo have suffered enough.
It's one thing to lose four Super Bowls.
It'd be another to have an owner
who claimed, actually, we won four Super Bowls.
Coach Giuliani giving postgame press conferences
claiming, "The kick wasn't wide right.
They moved the goalposts."
So the case is already going badly for Trump,
but today may well have gotten worse
because as of this taping, his eldest son, Don Jr.,
was scheduled to take the stump.
Sorry, take the stand.
What's interesting about this is in a criminal case,
he wouldn't necessarily have to testify,
but because it's a civil trial,
prosecutors can subpoena him and force him to comply,
and that's why he had to show up in person.
In fact, here he is arriving
at the Manhattan courthouse today, stumpless.
And moreover, unlike a criminal case,
if he takes the fifth, that can actually hurt him.
-If this was a criminal case,
a prosecutor can never force a defendant to testify,
but because this is a civil case, the plaintiff here,
the New York State Attorney General,
can issue a subpoena, which is mandatory,
which requires a defendant -- in this case,
Eric Trump's a defendant,
Donald Trump Jr. is a defendant, to testify.
Their only other option, though, Jake,
is they can take the fifth.
They can invoke the Fifth Amendment
and refuse to testify,
but if they do that, under New York State law,
the judge can consider that against them.
The judge can essentially say,
"I'm going to assume the worst
about what your testimony would have done."
So there's risk either way here.
-There's no wriggling your way out of this one.
If you take the fifth, the judge could assume the worst,
and if you answer the questions honestly,
you can incriminate yourself.
There's no third option where you answer the questions,
lie, and hold up a disclaimer that says,
"Don't believe a word I'm saying."
And if Don Jr. refuses to provide full
and complete answers, prosecutors also have
another option available to them.
-If they're not forthcoming in their testimony,
you know, when you have a witness on direct,
you have to ask them who, what, when,
where, why kinds of questions.
You can't lead them to the answer that you want,
but if the witnesses aren't forthcoming,
then James can ask for permission
to treat them as hostile witnesses.
She will almost certainly have to do that here,
and she can ask them more pointed questions,
questions that really divulge
the information she's interested in.
"Isn't it true that you were present
when this conversation occurred?"
That sort of a thing.
-And it doesn't help Don Jr.
that he already comes off as a hostile witness.
The man has no chill.
I mean, just look at the way he stands.
He's got his chest puffed out like a guy at a bar
saying the words, "Step off."
He looks like he just challenged a much bigger guy to a fight,
and now he's waiting for his friends to hold him back.
"You want to take this outside? Let's go.
[Quietly] Alright, come on, guys. He said yes.
Somebody grab me, or I'm gonna need a Band-Aid,
and I mean the big one."
And if Don Jr.'s deposition from the investigation
before the trial is any indication,
it's safe to assume he won't be willing
or able to answer many questions.
For example, at one point in that deposition,
he was asked about something called
Generally Accepted Accounting Principles or GAAP.
It's a standard business practice
he claims he learned in Accounting 101.
So you would assume he could at least explain the basics.
Here is how that exchange went.
-Do you have any familiarity with an acronym GAAP?
GAAP?
-Generally Accepted Accounting Principles?
Yes. -Okay.
How did you become familiar with that acronym?
-Probably in Accounting 101 at Wharton.
-Okay.
What do they teach you about
Generally Accepted Accounting Principles
in Wharton?
-Well, I'm not an accountant,
but that they are generally accepted.
-[ Laughing ] Anything else?
-That's pretty much what I remember
from Accounting 101, so...
-[ Laughing ]
-Have you told me everything you know about GAAP?
-Uh, basically.
-Well, I do not think they will be showing that
in the Wharton Business School orientation video.
"You want to see one of our graduates crushing it?"
I love that it's a sworn deposition
and they're all just laughing at how bad the answers are.
"This is fun. We're having fun, right?"
I'm not totally [bleep]?"
Also, he's so confident when he knows what GAAP stands for
that he doesn't even consider
there's going to be a follow-up.
"What do you know about
Generally Accepted Accounting Principles?"
"That they're generally accepted.
Is that all? May I leave victorious?"
"Do you know anything else?"
"Uh...
It's generally accepted that they make fantastic clothes."
Trump is facing four criminal cases
that could theoretically put him behind bars,
but this is clearly the one that has touched a nerve.
It threatens his financial empire
and his personal mythology
as a supposedly successful businessman.
The only good news is that he may come out of this trial
with a new slogan.
Instead of "Make American Great Again,"
he could sell hats that say
"Get Angry At Prosecutors --"
-GAAP?
[ Laughter ]
[ Applause ]
I stumbled, I didn't --
I stumbled over it a little bit,
but it still wasn't going to work.
[ Laughter ]
This has been "A Closer Look."
♪♪
Hey, everybody, thanks for watching "A Closer Look."
And as a reminder, my brother Josh and I
have started a new podcast
called "Family Trips with the Meyers Brothers."
We hope you listen. We hope you like it.
See you soon.