Former president blasts New York Attorney General Letitia James as an ‘insane radical’ in a desperate plea for cash – claiming Democrats are trying to ‘intimidate’ him into abandoning his campaign for the White House

Former president blasts New York Attorney General Letitia James as an ‘insane radical’ in a desperate plea for cash – claiming Democrats are trying to ‘intimidate’ him into abandoning his campaign for the White House

Donald Trump has sent out a panicked fundraising message to his supporters as he begs them to help foot his ballooning legal bills.

The desperate memo, titled “Keep your filthy hands off Trump Tower!”, comes as the Monday deadline to pay his $464m bond in his New York fraud trial judgement ticks ever closer.

“KEEP YOUR FILTHY HANDS OFF TRUMP TOWER!” the text reads, linking to an accompanying memo that states: “Insane radical Democrat AG Letitia Jameswants to SEIZE my properties in New York. THIS INCLUDES THE ICONIC TRUMP TOWER!”

It continues: “Democrats think this will intimidate me. They think that if they take my cash to stifle my campaign, that I’ll give up! Here’s one thing they don’t know: WE WILL NEVER SURRENDER!”

The frantic tone of the plea stands in stark contrast to the statement issued by Trump spokesman Steven Cheung to CNN on Wednesday in which he dismissed the network’s reporting that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee was in “panic mode” over the matter as “pure bulls*** and fake news”.

  • Veedem@lemmy.worldEnglish
    287·
    8 months ago

    Robert Reich posted this the other day and I can’t help but think this is probably more accurate than anyone in the Trump org wants to admit.

    • Billiam@lemmy.world
      163·
      8 months ago

      Alternatively, putting them up for collateral would require their real valuation to be assessed, which someone guilty of lying about their worth for sure wouldn’t want to be known.

        • Billiam@lemmy.world
          47·
          8 months ago

          Hell, the NYAG would be interested, because just that fact would probably tank his appeal instantly.

          “Your Honor, the value of the property Defendant put up as collateral for this appeal is less than the value of the property Defendant has claimed on his taxes and more than the value of the property the Defendant has claimed in various loan applications, and I need not remind the court they’re all the same property, therefore we move to dismiss this appeal because duh.”

          • orbitz@lemmy.ca
            22·
            8 months ago

            That’s the real reason he’s scared now, it’ll be known how little he actually has in equity once the AG has to start selling them off.

            I hope not, but I think there’s a strong possibility that Trump has a devil’s bargain available to get him the money but it’s almost worse than everyone knowing he’s pretty broke. Mean maybe not since that’s his whole charade, he pretty much kowtowed to Putin in front of cameras at Helsinki (think that’s the spot where he denied US intelligence agencie’s opinion) so here’s to hoping he’s actually going to have at least some comeuppance to his life of fraud.

            • bluewing@lemm.ee
              5·
              8 months ago

              Meh, he would just sell it to the magas that all the other billionaires are lowballing the values to take advantage of him. And the new “low” valuations are just out to bankrupt him.

    • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
      691·
      8 months ago

      Don’t fool yourself into thinking Trump has no money. He does have money, he’s just lying about the amount.

      The answer is probably very simple. He probably has enough assets to pledge them as collateral for a loan, but he doesn’t want to. He wants other people to pay instead. That’s how he always works and why no one in NYC will do business with him.

      • whereisk@lemmy.world
        36·
        8 months ago

        The fine becomes payable with interest if you lose the case on appeal, which is nearly inevitable.

        So he may be able to post bond by collateralising assets but is he able to pay the fine when he inevitably loses the appeal?

        Also bond loans are not free. That’s what he’s afraid of - singing off a building’s ownership to a bond holding company means it’s gone.

        He’d rather fight the procedural slow-moving government instead of a company whose actual job is relieving people of assets all day long.

      • just_change_it@lemmy.world
        14·
        8 months ago

        The answer is probably very simple. He probably has enough assets to pledge them as collateral for a loan, but he doesn’t want to. He wants other people to pay instead. That’s how he always works and why no one in NYC will do business with him.

        Pretty much… why pay anything at all if you can get somebody else to do it.

        He doesn’t want to pay for it. He doesn’t want to pay the loan fees. The rich have always factually been above the law and in this case there seems to be more than a few people who are willing to go along with just giving the guy stacks of cash. Even if someone offered him the full amount i’m guessing he would keep soliciting for donations for it to see what he could get out of it.

        It’s business fraud 101 and he’s a master of it. He wouldn’t be where he was if he was stupid.

        He’s also trying to sway public opinion to be on his side, it props up his campaign and is on message of being politically persecuted whether or not it’s true. It’s on message with the republican party’s “the democrats are the enemy” unification strategy too. If the judge backs down and asks for less or maybe even nothing at all then suddenly he’s off scot free until the appeal is done. Odds are the appeal would not increase the fines either.

        • n3m37h@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          11·
          8 months ago

          During the deregulation era (70/80’s) lots of stupid people made millions. Having lots of money does not mean you’re smart. Donald is not smart just rich , and that may be a lie too.

      • AutistoMephisto@lemmy.world
        14·
        8 months ago

        He wants other people to pay instead.

        His father bought like $3Million in chips from the Trump’s Castle Casino in Atlantic City when it started going under. Like, Fred Trump Sr. sent a chauffeur with a briefcase full of cash to buy $3M worth of chips, put them in the briefcase, and leave.

      • proleEnglish
        71·
        8 months ago

        Any value Trump may have is 100% on paper

        • aesthelete@lemmy.world
          31·
          8 months ago

          While that’s likely true, on paper assets for very rich people equal out to cash whenever they feel like because instead of cashing out paper assets, you just borrow against them.

            • aesthelete@lemmy.world
              41·
              8 months ago

              Yeah that’s where the whole house of cards comes crumbling down hopefully.

              As long as I’ve known about this guy I think I’ve known that he’s all about being over leveraged. He’s like the poster child for debt. He used to take bigly advantage of debt in his many bankrupcies too.

              I have sometimes even thought that maybe he had the Fed lower rates in December 2019 / January 2020 just so he could take out more loans at lower rates.

              • proleEnglish
                3·
                8 months ago

                The Fed isn’t controlled by the US government, and the president doesn’t set interest rates.

                • aesthelete@lemmy.world
                  21·
                  8 months ago

                  Sure, Trump definitely didn’t run a continual pressure campaign to get rate cuts in late 2019 that ultimately resulted in the Fed cutting rates two months from a worldwide economic crisis. They would’ve just done so of their own free accord as an absolutely independent body that aren’t at all indebted to the people who appoint them and keep them in their seats:

                  https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN1VB1I1/

                  Fucking /s

                  Edit: Of course there are conventions of deference and independence, but those are conventions (a.k.a. things that a blowhard, wanton dictator in the office doesn’t actually give half a shit about).

  • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.orgEnglish
    1411·
    8 months ago

    All this must really be stressing him out. Good. I sincerely hope he’s stress-eating ‘hamberders’ on the toilet.

    👏👏 Let’s go, cholesterol, 👏👏 let’s go!

    • driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br
      471·
      8 months ago

      Hope his tower get sized, he dies from the stressful situation, the tower get on a legal limbo never to be part of the Trump family again.

      • restingboredfaceEnglish
        31·
        8 months ago

        It should happen right before the election though so the GOP doesn’t have time to find another nutjob to put in his place.

        • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip
          34·
          8 months ago

          They already don’t. The closest they had to a candidate was nikki haley and she is now just as hated by “the base” as cheney or romney.

          And for as much damage as trump et al have done: It is well worth looking up clips of the times he said stuff like “I am not against vaccinations” and actually got booed by the crowd. He is not the source of the evil and is instead just a symptom of it and needs to play to his base as much as any politician.

          So if he does have a truly tragic and sad heart attack: There basically won’t be a republican candidate for POTUS this fall. We’ll just speedrun to the “they stole the election, get your guns” stage of 2024.

          • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
            81·
            8 months ago

            she is now just as hated by “the base” as cheney or romney.

            Has anybody else been reading that in its Arabic translation lately, or is it just me?

            • A Phlaming Phoenix@lemm.ee
              8·
              8 months ago

              I think what they’re getting at is that he’s not giving his base their fears, he’s just willfully activating them for political clout. I don’t think anyone is disagreeing that Trump himself is evil.

    • EnderMB@lemmy.world
      9·
      8 months ago

      As someone with an elderly father, I have no idea how Trump is still alive given his diet, lack of exercise, and the amount of stress he’s probably been under from being 99% hate.

      He’s either got the genetics on his side, or he ain’t making it through a second term. If he loses to Biden again, I give him a few years before he’s in a hospital bed for good.

  • paddirn@lemmy.worldEnglish
    461·
    8 months ago

    We’ve gone from Charleton Heston talking about guns, “From my cold dead hands!” to DJ Trump saying, “KEEP YOUR FILTHY HANDS OFF TRUMP TOWER!” as if they were some sort of American national monument and not the sleezy shithole that it is.

  • bitwolf@lemmy.one
    45·
    8 months ago

    I hope they use Trump Tower to house the homeless immigrants being shipped in from Texas.

    • proleEnglish
      11·
      8 months ago

      That would be amazing… Too bad it would become a massive target for MAGA people and it would only be a matter of time before it was attacked

      • PhAzE@lemmy.ca
        6·
        8 months ago

        That’s actually a good point, whoever buys it must be aware that it comes with inherent risk just to own after this. Best to bulldoze it.

        • shastaxc@lemm.ee
          1·
          8 months ago

          That’s why it will be auctioned off and sell for a small fraction of its value if it were any other tower.

      • GoosLife@lemmy.world
        24·
        8 months ago

        Maybe we should stop calling it taxes and just start a GoFundMe for universal health care, it seems to be more effective lol

      • AWildMimicAppears@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        18·
        8 months ago

        Well that might take a while longer than he has lol

        Edit: 21:00 CET, so over 24h later… well that’s not going well, isn’t it :-D

        • cygon@lemmy.world
          2·
          8 months ago

          This is the first time I wish I could donate against something. Like, pay them $100 so they subtract $50 from the collected donations :)

        • Dippy@lemmy.world
          1·
          8 months ago

          I am impressed it’s that high. ~60$ per donor. Will be funny when none of it gets to trump and whoever set this up spends it all.

        • Tangentism@lemmy.ml
          4·
          8 months ago

          I didnt check if its only funded if the target is reached or whether its all cash taken at donation. Its very likely the latter because the grift aint gonna grift itself!

  • sylver_dragon@lemmy.worldEnglish
    311·
    8 months ago

    Mr Trump’s lawyers notified an appeals court earlier this week that their client has failed to raise the capital to cover the bond, saying finding a surety company to help them was proving a “practical impossibility”.
    The former president has approached “about 30 surety companies through four separate brokers”, his attorneys said, but had so far come back empty-handed in the face of “insurmountable difficulties”.
    “Critical among these challenges is not just the inability and reluctance of the vast majority of sureties to underwrite a bond for this unprecedented sum, but, even more significantly, the unwillingness of every surety bond provider approached by defendants to accept real estate as collateral,” his attorneys wrote.

    Wait, so you’re telling me that all those surety companies aren’t willing to loan money to a known grifter who is famous for not paying back his loans? I’m shocked, I tell you, shocked!
    Ok, not that shocked.

    • Nusm@yall.theatl.socialEnglish
      15·
      8 months ago

      You left out “who is known to grossly overvalue the properties he’s trying to use as collateral?”

  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
    30·
    8 months ago

    Maybe he needs a gofundme, just like regular Americans who can’t afford stuff like health care or unexpected funeral costs. See? He’s just like us.