Can Bibles, sneakers and social media save Trump from financial ruin?

This is The Guardian.

In Norway, a woman's boyfriend forgets who she is. overnight. In Detroit, a man is arrested, but he was never at the crime scene. In Spain, disturbing pictures of young girls have appeared, and no one knows who's behind them. Something strange is happening, a collision between people and artificial intelligence.

For anyone celebrating Easter this weekend, Donald Trump has the perfect gift for you. And no, it isn't a chocolate egg.

Former President Donald Trump has started selling Bibles. He has released a video on Truth Social urging his supporters to buy what he has called the God Bless the USA Bible.

That's right. For a mere $60, you can buy the Word of God endorsed by Trump himself, with a cover design based on the American flag. This latest Trump-touted product comes just weeks after he made a surprise appearance on stage at SneakerCon to push his very own brand of footwear.

The gold never surrender. High tops officially sold out. No word yet on if the limited supply of $399 kicks will be restocked.

And the selling doesn't stop there.

The company behind former President Donald Trump's social media app Truth Social has gone public, and it is off to a strong start.

Trump Media's listing on the stock exchange has netted the former president billions of dollars, at least on paper. So why is the self-proclaimed billionaire doing all this?

State appeals court judge has just granted Trump's request to stay the $464 million judgment in his New York civil fraud case.

Trump is currently caught between several criminal and civil trials, which could cost him millions and potentially even see him behind bars. On top of that, there's the small matter of a presidential campaign. So the question is, can Donald Trump afford to do it all? I'm Jonathan Friedland, columnist at The Guardian, and this is Politics Weekly America.

So, even though it is still highly unusual to have a former president appearing in court, at this point, there's some normalcy to the proceeding.

Erica Orden is a legal reporter for Politico based in New York. She's had a very busy week.

Hi, I'm Diana Sano. We have breaking news. Former President Trump will stand trial in the hush money case against him starting April 15th. So the hearing on Monday was for the judge to determine whether the lawyers on both sides require more time to go through this last-minute set of documents that they received from federal prosecutors that are relevant to this criminal case that Donald Trump is facing. This one is for falsifying business records to hide the hush money payments Trump signed off on ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

So that was one very dramatic bit of legal action for Donald Trump. But meanwhile, there's a whole other parallel track going on. Just fill us in on that one as well.

That's right. So during this courtroom hearing, a separate court, an appellate court in New York, a panel of judges from that court decided that Donald Trump could put up a bond of far, far less than he was originally required to post in a civil fraud case. He owed $464 million by midnight, but now he has 10 days to pay $175 million. Now, this is a case in which a judge found that Donald Trump and his adult sons and his business associates committed widespread business fraud by overvaluing properties owned by the Trump organization. The judge imposed a fine of, with interest, about $454 million on Donald Trump alone.

Which is what they've done. So they've reduced the price on him. The price tag is down to a manageable $175 million. Did you know what the judge's thinking was? Why they decided?

So the fine is still $454 million and interest is still accruing on that. The decision they made was to allow him to post a smaller bond. But if he doesn't win his appeal, he will still have to pay the full amount of the judgment. And the panel of judges didn't give any explanation for their decision. So we could guess, but we don't know what their, what their reasoning was.

It's fascinating, this business about the need he had for the price tag, even albeit for an interim payment, to be reduced, because it goes to this kind of split narrative that Donald Trump maintains, certainly when he talks to his supporters. On the one hand, he presents himself as this very wealthy man, the successful businessman, the blue collar billionaire, they called him back in 2016.. And indeed, his followers on Truth Social were led to believe that he had $500 million in ready cash available, just not for this bond. And then, on the other hand, when he's in the court, he's obviously, his lawyers are arguing that, look, I just can't make that amount of money and can't even get the bond to pay for it. Where does that leave him legally, sort of saying these two things at the same time?

Well, the irony is that the entire civil fraud trial was about the fact that he inflated his net worth. Yes. The outcome of that trial was that the judge found that, in fact, he did that. So the court itself came to the conclusion that he is not worth as much as he has said he's worth.

Yeah, they're almost conceding to the other side. Yeah, you were right. We really don't have the money. What is the, given that he's in a way made that sort of concession? I'm curious to know what grounds he will have to appeal that verdict handed down in January to say that he had been exaggerating his wealth.

That's really up in the air. There isn't a firm timeline for when the appeal will be decided. And it is also possible that even after that appeal is decided, if the verdict is upheld, he could potentially appeal it to a higher court in New York, which is the New York's highest court is the Court of Appeals.

And we just know this is his modus operandi going back decades to draw things out, to go through the court's appeal after appeal, to put off the day of reckoning. That's how that's been his style back to when he was a real estate tycoon, getting into legal hot water in New York back in the 70s and 80s.

It is. And you have to think that in this case, where the judgment is so large that it will have a substantial impact on his personal wealth and the sort of functionality of his family business, that he will do whatever it takes, as much as he can, to get it reversed.

So we've got our heads around those two legal tracks. But because this is Donald Trump, there are more, you know, plenty more court actions and court cases out there, including, if we're talking about money and bonds, that he has to pay, that just a few weeks ago, another bond was put on him worth more than $90 million. as he fights yet another verdict, the $83.3 million verdict against him in the case involving the author and advice columnist E. Jean Carroll, who, listeners will remember, accused Donald Trump of raping her in a department store, dressing her back in the 1990s. Trump denied the claim, but then a federal civil court jury said that he was indeed liable for sexual assault.

That's right. So there was the case you just mentioned, the trial against E. Jean Carroll, and he did come up with a bond in that case for, as you mentioned, more than $90 million. He has already posted that bond, and we don't know exactly what he put as what he used as collateral for that bond, but the bond is posted. And there was, in fact, even another trial against E.

Yeah. I mean, his financial advisors will be sweating a little bit. I mean, voters would be forgiven if all of this was all too confusing, this blizzard of telephone number sums of money, but different court processes and tracks. It can get very confusing. The thing that is not confusing is the image of a former president on trial in a courtroom.

So this trial is expected to take about six weeks, which is which is fairly long. It's not months, but it's it's quite a bit of time. It's also quite a bit of time that Donald Trump will not be able to go on the campaign trail during regular business hours. He could go on the weekends, he could go in the evenings.

But he does have to be in court, right? This is not optional.

He is required to be in court every minute that that trial is occurring. The trial will not be televised. There are often news cameras that are allowed to be in the hallways outside the courtroom. And that was also the case in the civil fraud trial. And he would usually, several times a day, stop before the news cameras and make remarks.

What he's done is terrible.

Business is aflame.

You see that he just released a statement on June.

So he had an opportunity to sort of communicate his feelings about the trial and whatever else he wanted to say several times a day during the civil fraud trial. And that will likely be the case in this criminal trial. But other than that, you will not see him in court.

We've talked about the way he likes to present this persona publicly, of being, you know, fabulously wealthy, with the private jet and the sort of, you know, gold gilded palace in that he lives in in Trump Tower and so on. Yet, on the other hand, telling the court, I don't have enough money to pay this bond. Now he's going to actually have to raise this money. Let's talk about how he does that and this news this week where he floated his social media operation, True Social and related digital enterprises.

Former President Trump's social media company, True Social, just ended its first day of trading on the Nasdaq. The stock closed at just under 58 dollars a share. And while that is a 16 percent gain, it represents a considerable fall from the 56 percent surge when the market opened. That said, the company still finished the day valued at 11 billion dollars.

Just tell us about what that is and how that, how much money, real money, that is made for him.

Well, that deal will increase his net worth by quite a bit.

Trump owns 58 percent of the company, potentially worth up to five billion dollars, quadrupling his wealth overnight.

However, he is prohibited for six months from either selling his shares or using them as a collateral borrowing against them. So that is not going to help him right now pay his legal bills or pay his judgments. But it could, because it could in the future, because it's possible that by the time his appeal in the civil fraud case is decided, that he will have come into that money. He'll be able to sell the shares or he will be able to use them for a loan. So that is possibly a big win for him.

I mean, all of this arises because he floated on the stock market, his digital media empire, on Tuesday, and he owned 60 percent of it. And it's been valued now, in terms of the sort of stock market response to it, at some five billion dollars for his stake, which is a huge amount of money. I mean, it surprises people who are stock market watchers, because this is a pretty small operation. I think it has five million active users, certainly in February this year, whereas the likes of TikTok or Facebook, they measure their users in the billions. He's got, you know, he's got even fewer followers on Truth Social than he did on Twitter or now X.

Well, I think one thing to keep in mind is that it seems like the entire value is wrapped up in his voice on the being on the platform and the fact that he is, you know, he's a leading presidential candidate and he's the focus of a lot of attention because of these legal battles we've been talking about. I think the big question is what happens to the value of this company if he doesn't become president again? Will anybody care what he has to say if he loses the election? Beyond that, if he's in jail and can't use it at all, which is a possibility, albeit a remote possibility at this point, but a possibility, one would expect that that would significantly impact the value of this company.

And he's not putting all his eggs in the single basket of Truth Social. There's been more entrepreneurial activity endorsing a Bible. this week. The company made it clear on their website, God Bless the USA Bible dot com, that their business is not owned or managed or controlled by Donald Trump or the Trump organization. It was just an endorsement.

He is also a person who is about to go on trial for paying a porn star to keep quiet about affair allegations with him.

Yes. One would have thought that would undermine the brand a little bit. But we'll put that aside. Also, you know, the sneakers, those sort of high end gold, are certainly expensive, whether or not they're high quality or not. Trump sneakers.

Effectively, yes. He has largely paid up to this point for his legal bills through his Save America pack. Last year, that pack paid more than 50 million dollars in legal bills for him. But this week, there was some news related to that, because Trump inked a new fundraising agreement with the RNC. That means that a portion of the donations to the RNC will go to either his campaign and then also to his Save America pack.

And made all the easier by the fact that his daughter in law, Lara Trump, is now co-chair of the Republican National Committee. So it's all very cozy for Donald Trump. And it just shows the extent to which he is absolutely dominant that he can have this arrangement. that obviously will help him. A friend of the podcast, Margaret Sullivan, who's a Guardian contributor, wrote about her worry that this predicament that Donald Trump finds himself in could very easily lead to influence or access to the president being sort of for sale because of former president and potential future president.

There is. If he does, in fact, become president, I think, you know, for all of the guardrails that people attempted to put in place to minimize these conflicts of interest or opportunities to influence him during his presidency starting in 2017, it seems like they'll have to be much, you know, many more additional measures implemented if he becomes president. As you pointed out, there are many other opportunities to get his attention, let's say. Yeah.

Yeah. No. And when you say there will have to be a whole lot more guardrails if Trump is president again, you know, ain't that the truth? And that was true not just in this area that we've been talking about. Look, just to demonstrate that this isn't only on one side, this business of fundraising and campaigns and money, on Thursday night, it will happen after you and I are speaking now, Joe Biden will be, is due to be, in Radio City Music Hall in New York for a real fundraising gala, where he'll be with his predecessors, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, who's not often present at these sorts of things.

Oh, Biden by far.

Which may surprise people, right? People think of Trump as the money guy.

Yeah, but the Democrats are far, far outpacing Republicans when it comes to fundraising this election.

Erica, we always ask our guests on the podcast a what else? question, something different. I want to ask you about Ronna McDaniel, who was, in fact, Laura Trump's predecessor as chair of the RNC, Republican National Committee. She signed on to be a commentator, sort of expert pundit for NBC News. That was announced.

Sure. Well, it's quite a mess.

The McDaniel mess is over. Her ouster from NBC News, coming after an unprecedented on-air rebellion from NBC's top anchors over Ronna McDaniel's role in subverting democracy in 2020..

It seems like it's going to continue to be quite a debacle. The Washington Post reported that McDaniel is lawyering up and preparing to sue the company. And if all the reporting is true, it seems that NBC has quite a mess on its hands internally of many people. Many of the reporters there and anchors there were very displeased and actually went public with their displeasure about this hire. And although they've parted ways now, I would imagine that that hasn't ended the conversation internally.

And it did. in this case. A lot of those NBC star names just drew the line at Ronna McDaniel because they believed she had been an election denier after 2020, just wouldn't concede the truth that Joe Biden had won. Then she did on NBC say he won fair and square, and that brought mockery from Donald Trump. So she just couldn't win.

Thank you so much for having me.

And that is all from me for this week. Now, it's one year since The Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was detained in Russia on espionage charges. His friends, family and colleagues believe that he's a victim of international politics. Last year, I spoke to his friend, Polina Ivanova, about what Joe Biden could do to help secure Evan Gershkovich's release. So do listen back to that.

This is The Guardian.