Trump Civil Trial, Genocide Case Against Israel, A New Way to Invest in Bitcoin

A. Martinez, we're in the same...

First time ever.

It's incredible. We're in the same studio.

We have hosted together, I don't know how many times.

One night only. One night only.

But lawyers will argue the case of inflated real estate values.

How's this fit with other cases against him?

South Africa brought a case against Israel at the International Court of Justice,

and court proceedings begin today.

What would it take to prove the allegation of genocide against Palestinians,

and who would hold Israel accountable?

Cryptocurrency is pretty famous for grifters and scams.

Now the SEC says certain exchange-traded funds meet its standards.

Could that draw more people to the industry?

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That's on the TED Radio Hour from NPR.

in the trial involving his business practices.

What we're now expecting is a little less dramatic than that.

Andrea, so which of his many court cases is this one?

by repeatedly lying about the value of his properties, like his triplex in Trump Tower,

which he claimed was worth three times as big as it actually was.

About $300 million more than it actually was worth.

This is important because banks and insurance companies made financial decisions

based on these false statements.

Even before testimony began, the judge ruled that Trump had committed

persistent and repeated fraud.

So think about that.

We have the leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination,

who a judge has found lied over and over to illicitly profit.

They involve conspiracy, insurance fraud, and falsifying documents.

The Attorney General says Trump made $370 million more than he should have

because he lied and that he owes that back to New York.

The number actually went up after the trial testimony from $250 million.

And the New York AG wants Trump permanently banned from doing business in New York

and for his older sons, Don Jr. and Eric, to be barred for five years.

But Trump's lawyers say no one was harmed.

The banks made out and that the AG didn't prove her case.

What happened to that?

In an email chain released by the court yesterday,

Trump's lawyers said he'd be making arguments on his own behalf.

The AG objected and the judge said,

that's not really the normal course of business,

but okay, Trump can speak if he sticks to the same rules as his lawyers,

making legal arguments, not disparaging people or making a political speech.

And Trump's lawyers said, nope, we don't agree.

So the judge said, no dice.

After that, Trump's lawyer, Alina Haba, said,

is anyone surprised anymore?

That's a statement that can work on a lot of levels.

As of now, we don't expect Trump today.

He was in Iowa last night at a town hall.

But we expect a day of arguments followed by a verdict in the next few weeks.

What's that one about?

Last spring, a jury found Trump had sexually assaulted her

and then defamed her and awarded her $5 million.

There were two major incidents of defamation and two cases.

That was the second case, which for complex legal reasons,

was the first to go to trial.

This trial, starting Monday, is for the first instance of defamation,

when Trump as president said, quote, she's not my type.

And as the judge in the case put it this week, quote,

the fact that Mr. Trump sexually abused, indeed, raped Ms. Carroll

has been conclusively established.

So the only issue is how much money Trump owes her.

It's expected it could be tens of millions of dollars more

since the first instance of defamation is the one that really affected her reputation.

So we could also see a verdict in that case sometime this month.

He has fewer rivals for the Republican presidential nomination.

Chris Christie dropped out yesterday and endorsed none of Trump's other opponents.

Christie had been far more vocal than others in calling Trump unfit for office.

We're following a court proceeding today at The Hague in the Netherlands.

That city is home to the International Court of Justice,

part of the United Nations.

alleging genocide against Palestinians.

The filing asked the court to order a stop to the war in Gaza

as a provisional measure while it decides the case.

Let's start with what South Africa is alleging in this case.

What evidence does it present for Israel committing genocide?

and it writes that Israel has engaged in and failed to prevent

or to punish acts and measures which are genocidal,

constituting flagrant violations of Israel's obligations

under numerous articles of the Convention on the Prevention

and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

And that would include, according to South Africa,

killing Palestinians in Gaza,

including a large proportion of women and children,

which it estimates to account for around 70% of the more than 23,000 fatalities,

according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

Israel's military response followed the Hamas attack on October 7,

which killed 1,200, according to Israel.

South Africa also accuses Israel of causing the forced evacuation

and displacement of around 85% of Palestinians in Gaza,

as well as causing the wide-scale destruction of homes,

villages, and refugee camps in Gaza,

preventing a significant proportion of the Palestinian people

from returning to their homes.

And that's because the legal definition of genocide depends on proving intent.

I spoke with Gleyda Hernandez,

a professor of international law at Leuven University in Belgium,

who is also the president of the European Society of International Law.

Here's what he said.

There is specific intent that must be proven.

You must prove the desire to exterminate a group

by reason of one of the characteristics.

Race, religion, nationality.

Israel's strongest defense is likely to be

to suggest that the evidence does not establish intention

on the part of Israel or its organs to commit genocide.

might be prohibited under international laws that deal with armed conflict,

they may not constitute genocide,

because Israel will likely say they're taking in self-defense,

and international law does allow a state to defend itself.

Israel's President Isaac Herzog said this.

Actually, our enemies, the Hamas and their charter,

call for the destruction and annihilation of the state of Israel,

the only nation-state of the Jewish people.

was enacted by the international community after the Holocaust,

modern history's defining act of genocide,

which was committed against the Jewish people.

A ruling may not come for years.

What may happen within weeks or months, though,

is that the court could issue a provisional ruling,

similar to an emergency injunction.

So, for example, the court might direct Israel to refrain from its attacks on Gaza,

anything that would aggravate this dispute.

But another legal scholar I spoke to told me that enforcing this is really difficult,

and Israel could very well ignore it.

States typically only comply with the court's provisional rulings

in around half of all cases.

Rob, thanks.

but has also now won some approval from regulators.

ETF.

That's a new kind of cryptocurrency investment fund that debuts today.

David, Bitcoin ETFs.

The ETF stands for exchange-traded funds.

What is it?

of course, the world's oldest and most popular cryptocurrency,

without having to own any actual Bitcoin.

So stay with me here.

Exchange-traded funds or ETFs are very popular.

This is a $7 trillion industry.

A lot of people have them in their portfolios.

And in general, what they do is track common investments like stocks and bonds.

But the ones that just got clearance,

these new ETFs are going to track the price of Bitcoin.

The SEC just approved about a dozen of them,

and they start trading on U.S. stock markets today.

Now, people in the crypto industry had been hoping for this for years.

There was a lot of buildup.

In fact, in the last year, Bitcoin's price shot up more than 150%.

And there were more twists and turns this week.

One day before the decision,

someone caused a real frenzy by hacking into the SEC's account

on the social media site X, formerly known as Twitter.

That, by the way, now is something the FBI is looking into.

like BlackRock and Fidelity,

they said this is going to be a way to get more people into crypto.

Of course, buying Bitcoin has gotten easier in recent years,

for better or worse, but it still takes a few steps to do it.

You have to use a specialized exchange.

It's kind of complicated.

Brian Armour is an analyst with Morningstar who follows the world of ETFs,

and he told me these new ETFs will make the barrier to entry much lower.

So there's no signing up with a crypto exchange, managing a wallet,

but regulators have been wary of this.

One crypto company took them to court

because they felt the SEC didn't give them a fair shake, and it won.

Now, Sarit Markovic is a professor at the Kellogg School of Business at Northwestern,

and she says what's really valuable here is the legal clarity

that comes from what the SEC has done.

is willing to kind of give us clear guidance

in terms of what's legal and what's not legal.

It's evident, though, A, from this 20-something page decision

and from a statement from the head of the SEC

that regulators did this, they made this decision with some reluctance.

and he has spent most of his tenure at that agency trying to rein in crypto.

He famously said early on, it's like the Wild West.

And I'll remind everyone, Bitcoin and most cryptocurrencies are very volatile.

Prices can move up and down a lot in a single day.

And, as he said, there's been a lot of unfavorable news about crypto, to say the least.

The SEC still has major lawsuits pending against Sam Bankman Freed,

that, of course, being the disgraced crypto mogul

who was convicted just a few months ago

of orchestrating one of the largest financial frauds in history.

He's scheduled to be sentenced in March.

The SEC is also suing Binance, whose founder is also looking at prison time.

So Gary Gensler is still very concerned about how risky crypto is,

and A, he emphasized that.

While the SEC is giving the go-ahead to these specific funds,

he and his colleagues are by no means endorsing Bitcoin itself

or any other cryptocurrency.

Mark Katkoff, Pallavi Gogoi, and Miguel Macias.

It was produced by Ziad Butch, Ben Abrams, and Lindsay Toddy.

We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott,

and our technical director is Zach Coleman.

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