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  • Trump attends the US Open as Rolex’s guest despite Swiss tariffs. Mixed cheers and boos greet him

    President Donald Trump attended the U.S. Open on Sunday and briefly stepped out from a luxury box to wave at a main court crowd mostly still arriving for the men’s final. He drew mixed cheers and boos.Arthur Ashe stadium was only partially full and Trump’s waves weren’t announced beforehand. They were also brief enough so that some of those in attendance didn’t notice them.The president attended as a guest of Rolex despite imposing steep tariffs on the Swiss watchmaker’s home country, and organizers were seeking to keep booing of him from being seen on the TV broadcast.Trump has built the bulk of his second term’s domestic travel around attending major sports events rather than hitting the road to make policy announcements or address the kind of large rallies he so relished as a candidate.Because of extra security screening, the final between second-seeded Carlos Alcaraz, a 22-year-old Spaniard, and No. 1 seed and defending champion Jannik Sinner, 24, of Italy, was pushed back half an hour — meaning Trump arrived more than 45 minutes before the new start time. The president was watching from Rolex’s suite, and his acceptance of Rolex’s invitation comes mere weeks after the Trump administration imposed a whopping 39% tariff on Swiss products.The levy is more than 2 1/2 times higher than the one the Trump administration agreed to for European Union goods exported to the U.S. and nearly four times higher than on British exports to the U.S. It has raised questions about Switzerland’s ability to compete with the 27-member bloc that it neighbors.The White House declined to comment on Trump accepting a corporate client’s invitation at the tournament, but the president has had few qualms about blurring lines between political and foreign policy decisions and efforts to boost the profits of his family business.That includes tirelessly promoting cryptocurrency interests and luxury golf properties around the country and the world that bear his name. He announced Friday that the U.S. will use its turn hosting the Group of 20 summit in December 2026 to stage the sweeping event at Trump National Doral in South Florida.Any negative reaction to Trump’s presence won’t be shown on ABC’s national telecast, per standard policy, the U.S. Tennis Association says.”We regularly ask our broadcasters to refrain from showcasing off-court disruptions,” the organization said in a statement.As heavy rains began mostly clearing, and throngs of fans arrived for the match, no major street protests against the president could be seen from the touranment’s main stadium. Attendees also steered clear of wearing any of the president’s signature “Make America Great Again” caps, though.A 58-year tennis fan originally from Turin, Italy, came from her home in the Boston area to watch the final and said that when she bought a U.S. Open cap, she went with a fuchsia-hued one so it wouldn’t be mistaken for the signature darker color of MAGA hats.”I was careful not to get the red one,” said the fan, who declined to give her name because of her employer’s rules about being publicly quoted.Attending with Trump were White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, Attorney General Pam Bondi, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, special administration envoy Steve Witkoff and Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff.Elsewhere in the crowd were a slew of celebrities — some of whom publicly backed then-Vice President Kamala Harris during last year’s election against Trump. Among them were Pink, Bruce Springsteen, Shonda Rhimes, Michael J. Fox, Sting, Shaggy, Ben Stiller and Courtney Cox.Trump came back to the press cabin on Air Force One during the flight to New York to note that the plane would be flying over Ashe stadium, but didn’t offer any further comment.Trump was once a U.S. Open mainstay, but hasn’t attended since he was loudly booed at a quarterfinals match in September 2015, months after launching his first presidential campaign.The Trump Organization once controlled its own U.S. Open suite, which was adjacent to the stadium’s television broadcasting booth, but suspended it in 2017, during the first year of Trump’s first term. The family business is now being run by Trump’s sons with their father back in the White House.Trump was born in Queens, home of the U.S. Open, and for decades was a New York-area real estate mogul and, later, a reality TV star. Attending the tournament before he was a politician, he usually sat in the suite’s balcony during night matches and was frequently shown on the arena’s video screens.In recent years, however, including between his presidential terms, Trump primarily lived at his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago.Alcaraz said before the final that having Trump on-hand would be a privilege and “great for tennis,” but also suggested that such sentiment went for any president watching from the stands. “I don’t want myself to be nervous because of it,” he said.The president has also frequently attended sporting events — where the roar of the crowd sometimes features people booing him while others cheer him.Since returning to the White House in January and prior to Sunday’s U.S Open swing, Trump went to the Super Bowl in New Orleans and the Daytona 500, as well as UFC fights in Miami and Newark, New Jersey, the NCAA wrestling championships in Philadelphia and the FIFA Club World Cup final in East Rutherford, New Jersey.Having a sitting president attend the U.S. Open hasn’t happened since Bill Clinton went to the 2000 tournament, though former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, attended the event’s opening night in 2023.___Associated Press writer Brian Mahoney contributed to this report.

    President Donald Trump attended the U.S. Open on Sunday and briefly stepped out from a luxury box to wave at a main court crowd mostly still arriving for the men’s final. He drew mixed cheers and boos.

    Arthur Ashe stadium was only partially full and Trump’s waves weren’t announced beforehand. They were also brief enough so that some of those in attendance didn’t notice them.

    The president attended as a guest of Rolex despite imposing steep tariffs on the Swiss watchmaker’s home country, and organizers were seeking to keep booing of him from being seen on the TV broadcast.

    Trump has built the bulk of his second term’s domestic travel around attending major sports events rather than hitting the road to make policy announcements or address the kind of large rallies he so relished as a candidate.

    Because of extra security screening, the final between second-seeded Carlos Alcaraz, a 22-year-old Spaniard, and No. 1 seed and defending champion Jannik Sinner, 24, of Italy, was pushed back half an hour — meaning Trump arrived more than 45 minutes before the new start time. The president was watching from Rolex’s suite, and his acceptance of Rolex’s invitation comes mere weeks after the Trump administration imposed a whopping 39% tariff on Swiss products.

    The levy is more than 2 1/2 times higher than the one the Trump administration agreed to for European Union goods exported to the U.S. and nearly four times higher than on British exports to the U.S. It has raised questions about Switzerland’s ability to compete with the 27-member bloc that it neighbors.

    The White House declined to comment on Trump accepting a corporate client’s invitation at the tournament, but the president has had few qualms about blurring lines between political and foreign policy decisions and efforts to boost the profits of his family business.

    That includes tirelessly promoting cryptocurrency interests and luxury golf properties around the country and the world that bear his name. He announced Friday that the U.S. will use its turn hosting the Group of 20 summit in December 2026 to stage the sweeping event at Trump National Doral in South Florida.

    Any negative reaction to Trump’s presence won’t be shown on ABC’s national telecast, per standard policy, the U.S. Tennis Association says.

    “We regularly ask our broadcasters to refrain from showcasing off-court disruptions,” the organization said in a statement.

    As heavy rains began mostly clearing, and throngs of fans arrived for the match, no major street protests against the president could be seen from the touranment’s main stadium. Attendees also steered clear of wearing any of the president’s signature “Make America Great Again” caps, though.

    A 58-year tennis fan originally from Turin, Italy, came from her home in the Boston area to watch the final and said that when she bought a U.S. Open cap, she went with a fuchsia-hued one so it wouldn’t be mistaken for the signature darker color of MAGA hats.

    “I was careful not to get the red one,” said the fan, who declined to give her name because of her employer’s rules about being publicly quoted.

    Attending with Trump were White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, Attorney General Pam Bondi, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, special administration envoy Steve Witkoff and Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff.

    Elsewhere in the crowd were a slew of celebrities — some of whom publicly backed then-Vice President Kamala Harris during last year’s election against Trump. Among them were Pink, Bruce Springsteen, Shonda Rhimes, Michael J. Fox, Sting, Shaggy, Ben Stiller and Courtney Cox.

    Trump came back to the press cabin on Air Force One during the flight to New York to note that the plane would be flying over Ashe stadium, but didn’t offer any further comment.

    Trump was once a U.S. Open mainstay, but hasn’t attended since he was loudly booed at a quarterfinals match in September 2015, months after launching his first presidential campaign.

    The Trump Organization once controlled its own U.S. Open suite, which was adjacent to the stadium’s television broadcasting booth, but suspended it in 2017, during the first year of Trump’s first term. The family business is now being run by Trump’s sons with their father back in the White House.

    Trump was born in Queens, home of the U.S. Open, and for decades was a New York-area real estate mogul and, later, a reality TV star. Attending the tournament before he was a politician, he usually sat in the suite’s balcony during night matches and was frequently shown on the arena’s video screens.

    In recent years, however, including between his presidential terms, Trump primarily lived at his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago.

    Alcaraz said before the final that having Trump on-hand would be a privilege and “great for tennis,” but also suggested that such sentiment went for any president watching from the stands. “I don’t want myself to be nervous because of it,” he said.

    The president has also frequently attended sporting events — where the roar of the crowd sometimes features people booing him while others cheer him.

    Since returning to the White House in January and prior to Sunday’s U.S Open swing, Trump went to the Super Bowl in New Orleans and the Daytona 500, as well as UFC fights in Miami and Newark, New Jersey, the NCAA wrestling championships in Philadelphia and the FIFA Club World Cup final in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

    Having a sitting president attend the U.S. Open hasn’t happened since Bill Clinton went to the 2000 tournament, though former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, attended the event’s opening night in 2023.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Brian Mahoney contributed to this report.

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  • Donald Trump’s Nine Lives

    Donald Trump’s Nine Lives

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    Produced by ElevenLabs and News Over Audio (NOA) using AI narration.

    Donald Trump loves the musical Cats, and like the titular creatures, the former president seems to have nine lives. Today, in the face of yet another near-death financial experience, Trump got his latest reprieve. An appeals-court panel in New York State reduced the bond he must post in a civil fraud case from more than $464 million to just $175 million.

    Given that the past few months have seen Trump repeatedly use legal procedures to his advantage, drawing out the cases against him in the hope of eventually escaping them, this decision may look like yet another infuriating case of Trump extracting injustice from the justice system. But in fact it is not such an instance, and the reduction is actually quite appropriate.

    Recall the timeline. In mid-February, Justice Arthur Engoron ruled that Trump must pay more than $350 million, plus interest, after he, his sons, and the Trump Organization engaged, according to the judge’s findings, in a years-long pattern of fraud, inflating and deflating the reported value of his assets in order to profit long-term. Trump promptly appealed the ruling, but as a defendant, he must post the value of his judgment while appealing.

    David A. Graham: Trump’s money problems are very real and very bad

    The problem for Trump is that $350 million (which interest soon brought to nearly half a billion dollars) is a huge amount, even for him. He claims to have a net worth in the billions, but that number includes a great deal of assets that aren’t really available. Part of it is nebulous brand value, but a lot is in real estate—value that can’t be quickly accessed. Trump claimed in a deposition in the case that he had more than $400 million in cash and growing. That’s questionable and, even if true, wouldn’t leave him enough to cover the bond.

    Instead, he sought to obtain a bond from a company that specializes in such products. Bonding companies promise courts to cover the cost of a judgment. In return, they usually demand collateral from a client such as Trump—or maybe particularly from Trump, given his long history of not paying his debts. One of them this month posted a bond in the much smaller judgment against Trump for defaming the writer E. Jean Carroll. But Trump was unable to obtain a bond large enough to cover the fraud judgment, even after approaching 30 companies. His lawyers said it was a “practical impossibility” in a filing. (Trump, ever helpful to his own defense, claimed on social media that he actually has more than $500 million in cash.)

    The bond was due today, and Trump got his good news from the court just in time. It is a stay, or pause, not a permanent reduction. For now, the original judgment amount will still be due if Trump doesn’t win on appeal. Today’s outcome is neither a shock nor a travesty.

    Offering temporary relief on the bond makes some sense. Imagine that the panel had not reduced the bond amount. Attorney General Letitia James could have started seizing his accounts or his properties, or else he would have been forced to start selling them. But this is a terrible moment to be selling commercial real estate, because the office market has not recovered from COVID. Beyond that, any buyers would know Trump was in a pinch and be happy to profiteer off him.

    Read: The cases against Trump—a guide

    But then imagine that a few weeks from now, Trump won his appeal, convincing the court that Engoron’s finding was incorrect, or that the calculated amount of the penalty was unfair. Trump would have no way to recover the assets he’d been forced to unload at fire-sale prices. It doesn’t take any affection for Trump to see why a court would want to avoid such an outcome, and why—even if Trump would still be filthy rich—this would be unjust punishment.

    The problem for Trump remains winning on appeal. He railed against Engoron in a statement and claimed that the judge was wrong on law, but legal experts told me that they thought Trump would struggle to win his appeal. Engoron’s decision was written in clear detail, as was his calculation of Trump’s penalty, which is based on how much ill-gotten gain Trump extracted from his fraud. “The judge here did a very good job,” Jim Wheaton, a law professor at William & Mary, told me. “Whether you agree or not, the judge very carefully made factual conclusions based on testimony in front of the judge. The judge made credibility decisions based on testimony of witnesses before him.”

    David A. Graham: Trump’s ‘fraudulent ways’ cost him $355 million

    Trump’s instinct for stalling the legal cases against him is pernicious. U.S. courts must find a way to balance the need for procedural protection with the principle that justice delayed is justice denied, and so far they have shown themselves ill-equipped; consider that the U.S. Supreme Court won’t even hear arguments about Trump’s immunity from criminal prosecution until a month from today. But forcing Trump to put a FOR SALE BY OWNER sign out in front of Trump Tower today wouldn’t serve justice, and might actually undermine it. As for Trump, he may just be delaying that outcome—but that’s another problem for him to try to wriggle, cat-like, out of on another day.

    David A. Graham

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  • The Real Difference Between Trump and Biden

    The Real Difference Between Trump and Biden

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    Produced by ElevenLabs and NOA, News Over Audio, using AI narration.

    Americans likely face a choice this fall between two men they don’t want for president. Or they can stay home and get one of the two guys they don’t want for president anyway. The reasons for voter disdain are clear enough: Poll respondents say Joe Biden is too old, an impression reinforced by last week’s special-counsel report, and they have always been troubled by Donald Trump’s judgment and character (though a majority think he’s too old too.)

    Voters have genuine questions about both men. But we’ve seen each occupy the presidency. One thing the two administrations have made clear is that whereas Biden follows an approach to governance that seems to offset some of his weaknesses, Trump’s preferred managerial style seems to amplify his.

    Many people treat elections as a chance to vote a single individual into office; as a result, they tend to focus disproportionately on the personality, character, and temperament of the people running. But voters are also choosing a platform—a set of policies as well as a set of people, chosen by the president, who will shape and implement them. The president is the conductor of an orchestra, not a solo artist. As the past eight years have made very clear, the difference in governance between a Trump administration and a Biden administration is not subtle—for example, on foreign policy, border security, and economics—and voters have plenty of evidence on which to base their decision.

    But for the sake of argument, let’s consider the potential effects of Biden’s failures of memory and Trump’s … well, it’s a little tough to say what exactly is going on with Trump’s mental state. The former president has always had a penchant for saying strange things and acting impulsively, and it’s hard to know whether recent lapses are indications of new troubles or the same deficits that have long been present. His always-dark rhetoric has become more apocalyptic and vengeance-focused, and he frequently seems forgetful or confused about basic facts.

    To what extent would either of their struggles be material in a future presidential term? One key distinction is that Biden and Trump have fundamentally different conceptions of the presidency as an office. Biden’s approach to governance has been more or less in keeping with the traditions of recent decades. Biden’s Cabinet and West Wing are (for better or worse) stocked with longtime political and policy hands who have extensive experience in government. Cabinet secretaries largely run their departments through normal channels. Policy proposals are usually formulated by subject-area experts. The president’s job is to sit atop this apparatus and set broad direction.

    Read: The presidency is not a math test

    Biden doesn’t always defer to experts, and he has clashed with and overruled advisers on some topics, including, notably, the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Such occasional clashes are fairly typical—as long as they’re occasional. As my colleague Graeme Wood wrote this week, “The presidency is an endless series of judgment calls, not a four-year math test. In fact, large parts of the executive branch exist, in effect, to do the math problems on the president’s behalf, then present to him all those tough judgment calls with the calculations already factored in.”

    This doesn’t mean that Biden’s readily apparent aging doesn’t bring risks. The presidency requires a great deal of energy, and crises can happen at all hours and on top of one another, testing the stamina of any person. The oldest president before Biden, Ronald Reagan, struggled with acuity in his second term, an administration that produced a huge, appalling scandal of which he claimed to be unaware.

    In contrast to the model of the president as the ultimate decision maker, Trump has approached the presidency less like a Fortune 500 CEO and more like the sole proprietor of a small business. (Though he boasts about his experience running a business empire, the Trump Organization also ran this way—it is a company with a large bottom line but with concentrated and insular management by corporate standards.) As president, Trump had a tendency to micromanage details—the launching system for a new aircraft carrier, the paint scheme on Air Force One—while evincing little interest in major policy questions, such as a long-promised replacement for Obamacare.

    At times, Trump has described his role in practically messianic terms: “I alone can fix it,” he infamously said at the 2016 Republican National Convention. He has claimed to be the world’s foremost expert on a wide variety of subjects, and he often disregarded the views of policy experts in his administration, complaining that they tried to talk him out of ideas (when they didn’t just obstruct him). He and his allies have embarked on a major campaign to ensure that staffers in a second Trump administration would be picked for their ideological and personal loyalty to him. Axios has reported that the speechwriter Stephen Miller could be the next attorney general, even though Miller is not an attorney.

    Perhaps as a result of these different approaches to the job, people who have served under the men have divergent views on them. Whereas Biden can seem bumbling and mild in public, aides’ accounts of his private demeanor depict an engaged, incisive, and sometimes hot-tempered president. That’s also the view that emerges from my colleague Franklin Foer’s book The Last Politician. “He has a kind of mantra: ‘You can never give me too much detail,’” National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has said. “The most difficult part about a meeting with President Biden is preparing for it, because he is sharp, intensely probing, and detail-oriented and focused,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said last weekend. (As Jon Stewart noted on Monday night, the public might be more convinced were these moments videotaped, like the gaffes.)

    Former Trump aides are not so complimentary. Former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly called Trump “a person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law,” adding, “God help us.” Former Attorney General Bill Barr said that he “shouldn’t be anywhere near the Oval Office.” Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper described him as “unfit for office.” Of 44 former Cabinet members queried by NBC, only four said they supported Trump’s return to office. Even allowing for the puffery of politics, the contrast is dramatic.

    Read: A Hail Mary to save ‘The Daily Show’

    None of this is to say that Biden’s memory lapses aren’t worth concern or that he is as vigorous as he was as a younger man. But someone voting for Biden is selecting, above all, a set of policy ideas and promises that he has laid out, with the expectation that the apparatus of the executive branch will implement them.

    Voting for Trump is opting for a charismatic individual who brings to office a set of attitudes rather than a platform. Considering the presidency as a matter of individual mental acuity grants the field to Trump’s own preferred conception of unified personal power, so it’s striking that the comparison makes the dangers posed by Trump’s mentality so stark.

    David A. Graham

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  • Special monitor suggests Trump falsified disclosures over $48 million loan in what could be tax evasion, report says

    Special monitor suggests Trump falsified disclosures over $48 million loan in what could be tax evasion, report says


    • A court-appointed monitor in Trump’s fraud case said his company filed disclosures with “errors.”

    • Tucked in a footnote is also an indication he may have committed tax fraud, per The Daily Beast.

    • The letter indicates Trump may have lied about the existence of a $48 million loan.

    Tucked into a footnote in a letter written by former federal judge Barbara Jones, the court-appointed special monitor overseeing Donald Trump’s New York business fraud case is a bombshell that appears to indicate the former president may have engaged in massive tax evasion, according to a new report released by The Daily Beast.

    The letter, first reported by The Messenger, was delivered Friday to update Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron on Jones’ findings while reviewing the former president’s business dealings through his company, the Trump Organization.

    In it, Jones writes that the financial information filed to her by Trump’s team has contained “incomplete” or “inconsistent” disclosures containing multiple “errors.” However, she describes Trump and his businesses as “cooperative” with her investigation.

    But buried in the sixth footnote of the 12-page letter is what the Daily Beast indicated is a clue that Trump may have evaded taxes on $48 million in income, with Jones writing that the massive sum — which Trump has claimed for years that he owes as a debt to one of his companies — never existed.

    “When I inquired about this loan, I was informed that there are no loan agreements that memorialize the loan, but that it was a loan that was believed to be between Donald J. Trump, individually, and Chicago Unit Acquisition for $48 million,” Jones wrote.

    She added: “However, in recent discussions with the Trump Organization, it indicated that it has determined that this loan never existed — and thus that it would be removed from any upcoming forms submitted to the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) and would also be removed from subsequent versions of MAML,” Jones wrote, referring to corporate financial statements filed by the company.

    Jones and Trump Organization attorney Alan Garten did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

    A ‘pretty brazen’ plot

    Garten told The Daily Beast an “internal loan” wherein Trump “leant money to the entity that he owns” does exist.

    “That’s one of many inaccuracies contained in the monitor’s letter, which we will be addressing with the court,” Garten told the outlet.

    However, per the Daily Beast, as recently as October, Trump has claimed in financial disclosures that he owes the sum to his company, Chicago Unit Acquisition LLC, listing his debt as more than $50 million.

    The discrepancies, if true, would indicate that the disclosures Trump has filed with the federal government were intentionally submitted with inaccuracies related to the debt equating to tens of millions of dollars. “It would appear, assuming Judge Jones’ letter is accurate, that this amounts to tax evasion,” Martin Lobel, a tax lawyer, told The Daily Beast.

    He added: “This explains why the Republicans have been so intent on cutting the IRS’s budget, because they don’t want it to be able to audit transactions like this.”

    The $48 million central to this issue has been scrutinized before. In 2016, the then-candidate for president told The New York Times that he purchased an outstanding loan from several banks he owed money to and, instead of retiring it, chose to keep the debt outstanding and pay interest on it to himself.

    However, in 2019, Mother Jones reported a significant portion of Trump’s debt was forgiven by the hedge fund he owed money to after he paid about half of it.

    So, instead of paying income taxes of up to 39% on the forgiven debt, the outlet reported, Trump “invented a loan — and then parked it.” Debt parking is the process of purchasing debt using a corporation to avoid paying income taxes on it. The maneuver is legal as long as the borrower intends to repay the loan but is illegal to engage in indefinitely.

    Adam Levitin, a Georgetown University law professor specializing in commercial real estate finance, told Mother Jones at the time that the plot was “pretty brazen,” adding: “if he didn’t actually buy the loan, this is just garden-variety fraud.”

    “While the reasons behind claiming this fake loan are still unknown, at the very least he misled the government for years about his finances,” Jordan Libowitz, communications director at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told The Daily Beast. “It appears that Trump knowingly and intentionally broke the law. The only question is how many laws.”

    Read the original article on Business Insider



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  • Donald Trump Goes From Calm To Indignant In Newly Released Deposition Video Of Civil Fraud Lawsuit

    Donald Trump Goes From Calm To Indignant In Newly Released Deposition Video Of Civil Fraud Lawsuit

    NEW YORK (AP) — Months before Donald Trump’s defiant turn as a witness at his New York civil fraud trial, the former president came face-to-face with the state attorney general who is suing him when he sat for a deposition last year at her Manhattan office.

    Video made public Friday of the seven-hour, closed-door session last April shows the Republican presidential frontrunner’s demeanor going from calm and cool to indignant — at one point ripping Attorney General Letitia James lawsuit against him as a “disgrace” and “a terrible thing.”

    Sitting with arms folded, an incredulous Trump complained to the state lawyer questioning him that he was being forced to “justify myself to you” after decades of success building a real estate empire that’s now threatened by the court case.

    Trump, who contends James’ lawsuit is part of a politically motivated “witch hunt” was demonstrative from the outset. The video shows him smirking and pouting his lips as the attorney general, a Democrat, introduced herself and told him that she was “committed to a fair and impartial legal process.”

    James’ office released the video Friday in response to requests from media outlets under New York’s Freedom of Information Law. Trump’s lawyers previously posted a transcript of his remarks to the trial docket in August.

    James’ lawsuit accuses Trump, his company and top executives of defrauding banks, insurers and others by inflating his wealth and exaggerating the value of assets on annual financial statements used to secure loans and make deals.

    Judge Arthur Engoron, who will decide the case because a jury is not allowed in this type of lawsuit, has said he hopes to have a ruling by the end of January.

    Friday’s video is a rare chance for the public at large to see Trump as a witness.

    Cameras were not permitted in the courtroom when Trump testified on Nov. 6, nor were they allowed for closing arguments in the case on Jan. 11, where Trump defied the judge and gave a six-minute diatribe after his lawyers spoke.

    Here are the highlights from Trump’s videotaped deposition:

    ‘YOU DON’T HAVE A CASE’

    Telling James and her staff, “you don’t have a case,” Trump insisted the banks she alleges were snookered with lofty valuations suffered no harm, got paid in his deals, and “to this day have no complaints.”

    “Do you know the banks made a lot of money?” Trump asked, previewing his later trial testimony. “Do you know I don’t believe I ever got even a default notice and, even during COVID, the banks were all paid. And yet you’re suing on behalf of banks, I guess. It’s crazy. The whole case is crazy.”

    Banks “want to do business with me because I’m rich,” Trump told James. “But, you know what, they’re petrified to do business because of you.”

    Trump complained New York authorities “spend all their time investigating me, instead of stopping violent crime in the streets.”

    He said they’d put his recently jailed ex-finance chief Allen Weisselberg “through hell and back” for dodging taxes on company-paid perks.

    At a previous deposition in the case, in August 2022, Trump invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination and refused to answer questions more than 400 times. He said he did so because he was certain his answers would be used as a basis for criminal charges.

    In this image taken from from video made public by the Office of the New York State Attorney General on Friday, Jan. 19, 2024, former President Donald Trump is sworn in for a deposition on April, 13, 2023, where the former president came face-to-face with the New York State Attorney General Letitia James at her Manhattan, New York Office. (Office of the New York State Attorney General via AP)

    DON’T TAKE MY WORD FOR IT

    Trump said he never felt his financial statements “would be taken very seriously,” and that people who did business with him were given ample warning not to trust them.

    Trump described the statements as “a fairly good compilation of properties” rather than a true representation of their value. Some numbers, he noted, were “guesstimates.”

    Trump claimed the statements were mainly for his use, though he conceded financial institutions sometimes asked for them. Even then, he insisted it didn’t matter legally if they were accurate or not, because they came with a disclaimer.

    “I have a clause in there that says, ’Don’t believe the statement. Go out and do your own work,” Trump testified. “You’re supposed to pay no credence to what we say whatsoever.”

    WHAT’S IN A NAME? $10 BILLION

    Trump estimated that his “brand” alone is worth “maybe $10 billion.”

    He called it “the most valuable asset I have” and attributed his political success to the ubiquity of his name and persona.

    “I became president because of the brand, OK,” Trump said. “I became president. I think it’s the hottest brand in the world.”

    ‘MOST IMPORTANT JOB IN THE WORLD’

    After Trump was elected, he put the Trump Organization into a trust overseen by his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., and longtime finance chief, Weisselberg.

    Trump claimed he did so not because it was required but because he wanted to be a “legitimate president” and avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest.

    Plus, Trump said, he was busy solving the world’s problems — like preventing North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un from launching a nuclear attack.

    “I considered this the most important job in the world, saving millions of lives,” Trump testified. “I think you would have nuclear holocaust if I didn’t deal with North Korea. I think you would have a nuclear war, if I weren’t elected. And I think you might have a nuclear war now, if you want to know the truth.”

    In one of his more animated moments, Trump urged his inquisitors to look right out the window for a view of his 40 Wall Street office tower — just across the street from James’ office where he testified.

    Asked how the building was doing, financially, Trump gestured toward the building with his thumb and answered: “Good. It’s right here. Would you like to see it?”

    “I don’t think we’re allowed to open the windows,” Wallace said.

    “Open the curtain,” Trump suggested, bobbing his head around waiting for someone to oblige.

    “Open the curtain, go ahead,” Trump said. “It’s right here. I just looked out the window.”

    “Can’t open it?” defense lawyer Clifford Robert asked, after a beat.

    “I wouldn’t,” Wallace said.

    ‘BEAUTIFUL’ AND ’INCREDIBLE’

    Trump showed off his knack for superlatives, uttering the words “beautiful” and “incredible” 15 times each and “phenomenal” six times as he described his properties.

    Trump called his Turnberry, Scotland, golf course “one of the most iconic places in the world,” and the renovated villas at his Doral golf resort near Miami “the most beautiful rooms you’ve ever seen.”

    Trump described his 213-acre Seven Springs estate north of New York City as “the greatest house in New York State.”

    His golf courses in Aberdeen, Scotland? “Really incredible.” Jupiter, Florida? “An incredible facility.” Just outside Los Angeles? “An incredible property … an unbelievable property … a phenomenal property that fronts on the ocean.”

    “I don’t want to sell any of them,” Trump testified. “But if I ever sold them — if I ever put some of these things up for sale — I would get numbers that were staggering.”

    He said he could get $1.5 billion for his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and maybe $2.5 billion for Doral.

    Trump suggested he could get “a fortune” from the Saudi Arabia-backed LIV golf league for the Turnberry course, a former British Open site.

    “There would be people that would do anything to own Doral. There are people that would do anything to own Turnberry or Mar-a-Lago or … Trump Tower or 40 Wall Street.”

    Follow Sisak at x.com/mikesisak and send confidential tips by visiting https://www.ap.org/tips

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  • 'Control Your Client': Judge Told Trump He Couldn't Deliver Closing Arguments, He Railed Against 'Fraud' Trial Anyway

    'Control Your Client': Judge Told Trump He Couldn't Deliver Closing Arguments, He Railed Against 'Fraud' Trial Anyway

    Opinion

    Screenshot: Ron Filipkowski X Video

    Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump found a way around Judge Arthur Engoron’s ruling that he couldn’t speak during closing arguments and railed against his fraud trial anyway.

    The dramatic moment prompted Engoron to tell Trump’s lawyer to “control your client.”

    The judge had ruled Wednesday that the former President would not be allowed to speak during closing arguments over concerns he would not stick to “relevant” matters and avoid delivering “a campaign speech.”

    Trump took to his Truth Social media platform to call Engoron’s decision “MEAN & NASTY” and reiterated that he would like to “personally do the closing argument.”

    His lawyer made a last-minute effort to allow his client to speak. When the judge again reiterated the rules and inquired as to whether Trump would abide, the tirade began.

    RELATED: Trump Shares Clip Of New York Attorney General Calling Him ‘Illegitimate President’

    Trump Rails Against Judge, Trial, Attorney General

    Despite being warned by Judge Engoron to stick to the evidence and the law, Trump went off-script and seized an opportunity to express his frustration with the case.

    Trump, directing his comments toward the judge, railed against the fraud trial and said the actual fraud had been perpetrated upon him.

    “When you say don’t go outside of these things, we have a situation where I’m an innocent man, I’m being persecuted by someone running for office, and I think you have to go outside of the bounds,” Trump said.

    “This is a fraud on me,” he added. “What’s happened here, sir, is a fraud on me.”

    Trump also blasted Attorney General Letitia James for putting him through the fraud trial in the first place.

    He defended his business practices, saying that he did “nothing wrong” and that the attorney general’s office “should pay me for what we had to go through.”

    Trump has previously accused James of using the case to further her political ambitions.

    “I think she used this case to try and become governor, and she used it successfully to become attorney general. I think it’s a disgrace that this case is going on,” he said at an earlier court date.

    James had campaigned for Attorney General by saying that she would “never be afraid to challenge this illegitimate president.”

    RELATED: Trump Responds to NY AG Letitia James’ Latest Lawsuit Against Trump Organization

    ‘Control Your Client’

    Trump’s explosive takeover of the trial on Thursday prompted Judge Engoron to advise his lawyers to muzzle him.

    After Trump had accused Engoron of having an “agenda” and ripped him for interrupting his speech – “You can’t listen for one minute” – the judge tried to restore order.

    “Mr. Kise, please control your client,” he said.

    Trump’s outburst is the latest development in a trial that has been closely watched by the public. The case, brought by James, alleges that Trump and his company, the Trump Organization, committed fraud by inflating the value of their assets to secure loans and tax benefits.

    James is seeking for Trump to forfeit $370 million and to permanently bar him from the New York real estate industry.

    Engoron said he will try to have a final decision by January 31st, though he cautioned there is “no guarantee” on that timeline.

    Report: Hunter Biden Knew His ‘Sugar Brother’ Bought Nearly $1 Million Of His Paintings, A Violation Of White House Ethics Plan

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    Rusty Weiss

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  • Donald Trump’s lawyers again ask for early verdict in civil fraud trial, judge says 'no way'

    Donald Trump’s lawyers again ask for early verdict in civil fraud trial, judge says 'no way'

    NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump’s lawyers rested his defense Tuesday and sought anew to immediately end the New York civil fraud trial that threatens the former president’s real estate empire. The judge said “there’s no way I’m going to grant that.”

    Trump’s lawyers — thwarted in a similar bid last month — were swatted down as they asked Judge Arthur Engoron to cut the trial short and issue a verdict clearing Trump, his company and top executives of wrongdoing. The judge reiterated his feeling that state lawyers had met their legal burden for seeing the three-month trial through to its conclusion.

    New York Attorney General Letitia James alleges Trump duped banks, insurers and others by inflating his wealth on financial statements used in securing loans and make deals. Engoron has already ruled on James’ top claim that Trump committed fraud.

    Trump’s lawyers renewed their request for what’s known as a directed verdict a day after Trump, the leading contender for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, skipped a planned return to the witness stand as the defense’s last big witness.

    Trump lawyer Christopher Kise said the defense plans to send Engoron paperwork by the end of the week fully detailing arguments for a directed verdict.

    “You’d be wasting your time, but I’m not going to tell you not to send me something,” Engoron told Kise. But, he warned, “It doesn’t mean I’ll entertain” or even read the written request.

    State lawyer Kevin Wallace complained the long-shot bid — essentially an academic exercise given Engoron’s position on the matter — was a “colossal waste of resources.”

    Closing arguments are scheduled for Jan. 11, just four days before the Iowa caucuses start the presidential primary season. Engoron, who is deciding the case in place of a jury, which is not allowed in this type of lawsuit, said he hopes to have a decision by the end of January.

    Trump’s lawyers first asked for a directed verdict on Nov. 9 after state lawyers rested their case. Engoron said he was taking the request “under advisement” and ordered the trial to proceed as scheduled.

    A few weeks later, Engoron rejected the defense’s request for a mistrial, denying its claims that he was politically biased and had irreparably harmed Trump’s right to a fair trial through “astonishing departures from ordinary standards of impartiality.”

    Trump’s lawyers moved again on Tuesday to short-circuit the trial after finishing with their final witness — an accounting expert whom Trump lauded after he testified he found no evidence of accounting fraud in Trump’s financial statements. State lawyers later started calling rebuttal witnesses. Testimony is expected to wrap Wednesday.

    The state’s case involved six weeks of testimony from about two-dozen witnesses, including Trump, his eldest sons Eric and Donald Jr., daughter Ivanka, outside accountants and Trump Organization executives.

    The defense then called witnesses over the course of about five weeks. They included real estate developers and brokers, a former federal financial regulator and accounting gurus.

    Donald Trump Jr. also returned to the witness stand, this time to present “The Trump Story,” a slideshow of golf course fairways, skyscrapers and gilded interiors. He hailed his father as a real estate visionary while making no mention of his casino bankruptcies or other ventures that fizzled or drew regulatory scrutiny.

    The defense rested after New York University accounting professor Eli Bartov’s third and final day of testimony. Bartov has blasted the state’s case and said Trump’s financial statements “were not materially misstated.”

    In cross-examining Bartov, state lawyer Louis Solomon sought to undermine the contention that major Trump lender Deutsche Bank didn’t rely on his financial statements. Bartov emphasized earlier in his testimony that the bank often reduced the values Trump provided, and the professor had concluded such cuts were not merely “mechanical” but the results of bankers’ own analysis.

    Solomon noted that retired Deutsche Bank executive Nicholas Haigh had testified that he believed such cuts were “standardized” for client-reported commercial real estate values.

    “There’s no contradiction at all between those two statements,” Bartov said. He opined that the bank would have scrutinized enough of Trump’s assets to be satisfied he had the wherewithal to warrant the loan, and then, to save staff work but still be conservative, bankers would have applied a standard deduction to the remaining holdings.

    Later, Solomon asked about a Trump Organization calculation that set the net operating income for a Wall Street office building at about four times the number that appraisers listed. If the Trump Organization’s number was inflated, he asked, wouldn’t the bank’s adjustment also be too high?

    “I don’t agree with your premise,” said Bartov, later explaining that appraisers and the company used different methods for the income calculation.

    In an unusual turn, Solomon also pointed to one of his colleagues’ defeats in another high-profile case to try to cast doubt on Bartov’s views.

    In the same courthouse, Bartov once testified as an expert witness for the attorney general’s office in its lawsuit accusing Exxon Mobil of duping investors about the toll that climate change regulations could take on its business. Exxon won that case, and Judge Barry Ostrager’s ruling shrugged off the professor’s testimony as “unpersuasive” and “flatly contradicted by the weight of the evidence.”

    Trump attorney Christopher Kise objected that the Exxon episode was irrelevant.

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  • Donald Trump and Sam Bankman-Fried Pulled the Same Trial Tricks

    Donald Trump and Sam Bankman-Fried Pulled the Same Trial Tricks

    Thursday night, crypto kingpin turned con man Sam Bankman-Fried was found guilty of perpetrating “one of the biggest financial frauds in American history.” At first glance, the baby faced California wunderkind seems an odd fit for the role of archvillain. In the courthouse next door, a more conventional choice for the part offered his own performance Monday. Former fraudster-in-chief Donald J. Trump took the stand in his civil trial on allegations of financial fraud.

    On the surface, the two men appear to be polar opposites. Having spent the last month observing SBF’s trial in person, however, I was struck by the numerous ways in which they are similar. All good con men, like all good actors, understand the power of storytelling. Sam Bankman-Fried and Donald Trump are experts in the field.

    When I first saw SBF in court, it took me a second to recognize him. His usual uniform—an FTX T-shirt, cargo shorts, and sneakers—had been replaced with a drab purple tie and an ill-fitting gray suit that nearly swallowed him whole. It was more appropriate attire for a man facing life in prison, even if he looked like a kid forced to participate in the school play. But it was his new haircut that really stood out. SBF’s signature had previously been a mop of curly black hair that appeared to be left to its own devices. While sporting it, he came off as an eccentric so brilliant he had no time to focus on his appearance. In court, however, the ’do had been shorn—and without it, he had lost his power, looking like just another finance wiz kid caught playing with other people’s money.

    One of the many fictions SBF cultivated was that he was unaware of his image. As his former girlfriend (and former Alameda Research CEO) Caroline Ellison testified, the opposite was true. “He thought his hair was very valuable,” she said in court, and that it was “essential to his image.” The change in SBF’s appearance was so stark that Ellison took nearly 30 seconds to identify him from the witness stand. On the other end of the spectrum is our former president. Donald Trump sells himself as a real estate magnate, the scion of a New York dynasty. The power suit, perma-tan, and well-coiffed hair are essential for creating the character and helping us forget the reality of his origins: a kid from Queens and the son of a slumlord.

    In a similar manner, Trump prides himself on an ostentatious display of wealth. The marble and the omnipresent gold leaf of Trump Tower may seem garish, but the intention behind them is clear: to project an aura of extraordinary power and fabulous affluence. For the supposedly humble billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, the opposite was true: He needed to convey humility and disdain for material possessions in order to sell himself as an effective altruist. He drove a Toyota Corolla and encouraged Ellison to drive a Honda Civic. Although he lived in a $40 million penthouse and frequently flew on a private plane, the myth of SBF as a generous genius spread far and wide, aided and abetted by a fawning press.

    Of course, as with any performance, a certain amount of improvisation is crucial. Trump is famous for claiming his net worth is whatever he feels it should be. It’s also important to remember: practice makes perfect. According to Ellison’s testimony, SBF instructed her to prepare seven different balance sheets for him before approving one he felt comfortable sharing with stakeholders. FTX and Alameda were privately held businesses, so these shenanigans were shielded from public view. The Trump Organization is also privately held; only through the lawsuit by the New York attorney general has its skullduggery been brought to light.

    Speaking of skullduggery, there are broad similarities between the internal operations of Bankman-Fried’s empire and the Trump Organization. Trump Inc. is alleged to have inflated the value of its assets to receive loans, and then purposefully undercounted their value when it came to paying taxes. SBF’s version of this was to mark the value of illiquid cryptocurrencies he owned (and one he created himself) far beyond the price they could reasonably be expected to sell for should the need arise. Hence why tokens like FTT, created by Bankman-Fried and his colleague Gary Wang, are referred to as “shitcoins” by the crypto crowd. SBF and Ellison had been manipulating the price of FTT for years, buying back tokens whenever the price dipped. When forced to liquidate them to meet surging customer withdrawals from FTX last November, they discovered—quelle surprise—no one actually wanted to buy the damn things. FTT became virtually worthless overnight, and FTX filed for bankruptcy shortly thereafter. (Ellison and Wang pleaded guilty to fraud and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.)

    To enable this scheme, SBF kept his circle of trust tight, a crucial ingredient for running a successful con. He hired people he had known for years, such as his on-again, off-again ex-girlfriend, and a childhood friend from math camp, and allegedly consulted his parents on the company’s operations. Ten of the top employees of FTX/Alameda even lived together in a luxury penthouse in the Bahamas. The Trump Organization, meanwhile, is a family affair, and members of the inner circle are valued based on their loyalty to the man in charge. Trump is notorious for never writing emails and not trusting anyone who takes notes. According to an FBI agent called by the prosecution, SBF, who conducted essential business operations via the encrypted application Signal, participated in 288 chat groups that were set to auto-delete.

    Finally, a con man needs to hire the right legal counsel. Trump was a devotee of the notorious shark and legal fixer Roy Cohn. Cohn was an adviser to Joseph McCarthy, as well as a long list of mobsters (Fat Tony Salerno and John Gotti among others) and numerous businessmen of ill repute. From Cohn, Trump learned a simple legal strategy that has so far served him well: never give an inch, always go on the offense, and make things up if you must. The truth is immaterial; it’s the story that counts, at least in the court of public opinion. This strategy was on full display during Trump’s testimony Monday when he tried to turn his own misdeeds into an indictment of the legal process: “This is a very unfair trial, very, very unfair, and I hope the public is watching.” It was a performance Cohn himself might have attempted.

    Sam Bankman-Fried hired Daniel Friedberg as FTX’s in-house counsel, an attorney whose previous stints included working for an online poker site that folded when it was revealed insiders could access a secret “god mode” to see other players’ cards. Of course, once he gets in hot water, a con man must look after himself above all else. After his indictment, SBF hired new lawyers who attempted to blame Friedberg for FTX’s illegal activities—the exact maneuver Trump pulled with Michael Cohen. (Friedberg has reportedly cooperated with US investigators by providing information on how FTX operated.)

    Ultimately, SBF’s attempts to evade punishment for his crimes proved unsuccessful. Donald Trump faces not just the New York attorney general’s lawsuit, but indictments in four separate states. And with any luck, he may see the same fate.

    Ben McKenzie

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  • What was Ivanka Trump’s job in Trump Organization? Her role explained

    What was Ivanka Trump’s job in Trump Organization? Her role explained

    Ivanka Trump is expected to provide testimony in her father’s fraud trial on Wednesday.

    New York Attorney General James is suing former President Donald Trump for $250 million, accusing him of inflating his net worth by billions of dollars to obtain benefits such as better bank loans and reduced tax bills between 2011 and 2021. Trump maintains his innocence in the case, accusing prosecutors of targeting him for political purposes. The lawsuit is civil, not criminal, meaning he will not face jail time.

    James compelled testimony from Trump’s three eldest children in the business fraud lawsuit. Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump are listed as defendants in the civil suit and testified last week. The former president provided testimony on Monday.

    Ivanka Trump, who left the Trump Organization in 2017 for a role in the White House, will testify on Wednesday. Unlike her brothers, she is not a defendant in the civil suit and was dropped from it earlier this year due to a statute of limitations.

    Ivanka Trump attends a Department of Justice event in Washington, D.C., on August 4, 2020. Trump is set to testify in the Trump Organization’s business fraud trial on November 8, 2023.
    Drew Angerer/Getty Images

    She previously served as the executive vice president for development and acquisitions at the Trump Organization. James’ office has argued that while she is not a defendant, she still played a key role in negotiating and financing Trump Organization properties.

    She served as a “primary contact” for Deutsche Bank, the company’s largest lender, for three loans that are at the center of the case, according to the attorney general’s office.

    Newsweek reached out to Ivanka Trump‘s attorney for comment via email.

    The projects Ivanka Trump worked on at the Trump Organization included securing a lease and loan for a Washington hotel, loans for Trump’s Doral golf resort in South Florida, and a Trump-owned hotel and condo skyscraper in Chicago, the Associated Press reported.

    Federal prosecutors have argued her finances remained intertwined with the Trump Organization even after her 2017 departure.

    “She does not seem to be averse to her involvement in the family business when it comes to owning and collecting proceeds from the OPO sale, the Trump Organization purchasing insurance for her and her companies, managing her household staff and credit card bills, renting her apartment or even paying her legal fees in this action,” James wrote in a court filing last month.

    She reported $2.6 million in income from Trump entities in 2021 federal disclosures, the AP reported.

    Ivanka Trump tried, but failed, to fight a subpoena compelling her testimony in the business fraud trial, arguing that her testimony would cause “undue hardship” if it were to be held during a school week. A New York court rejected her request.

    She is expected to be the last member of the Trump family to testify and will follow the testimony of her father. The former president’s behavior during the trial drew a rebuke from Judge Arthur Engoron, who ordered his attorneys to “control him” following a series of tangents.