Panicking Trump coming up short for civil fraud penalty; no friends stepping up as deadline nears

first one was big maybe not insurmountably big uh with help from the federal insurance company which is a subsidiary of chub Insurance former president Donald Trump managed to post a 91.6 million bond in the defamation case he lost to egene Carroll that Bond allows Trump to avoid paying egene Carroll for real while he attempts to appeal that judgment against him if he were to lose the appeal and not pay up the Federal insurance company and chub would be on the hook to pay Ms Caroll uh that has g

iven the company's investors and Brokers and some of their customers apparently a little bit of heartburn judging from a letter the CEO of chub sent around defending the decision saying quote as the shity we don't take sides we are supporting and our part of the justice system Plumbing included in this case in other words we're just that trap thing at the bottom of the sink we are not the stuff that got stuck in it don't get mad at us for just doing our jobs but if a a 91.6 million Bond was a do

able one for the former president a $454 million Bond and Counting um is proving to be another matter entirely lawyers for Mr Trump today told a New York appellant Court that he can't find a company to help him with a nearly half billion dollar Bond while he appeals the New York civil fraud case involving his business according to the filing more than two dozen companies including chub have decided on that Bond they cannot do it and they will not do it that leaves Trump in a very vulnerable posi

tion for somebody who who brags about his personal wealth as much as he does who key to his uh his his political appeal is that he can't be bought because he has so much money than everybody else in this case what he has more than anybody else is a need for money quickly and desperately New York attorney general Tish James has said that she is ready and willing to start seizing Trump's properties in order to satis y the Judgment the clock is ticking the former president may have to put up more t

han the half billion dollar Bond that's giving him trouble already as the New York Times puts it today quote Trump might have to post an appeal bond worth more possibly above a half billion dollars to reflect the in interest heill l in order to prevent Miss James from seizing his assets on March 25th and I mean March 25th this year as in one week from tonight joining us now is suzan pullit a priz winning investigative reporter for the New York Times Sue it's really good to have you here in perso

n thank you to see you you too um we have seen Mr Trump put up one Bond already and now we are seeing him saying he can't put up the second one did we learn anything from the circumstances around which he put up that first bond that tell us if he's getting help that tell us how many of his assets have been tapped already that tell us whether or not he really might be having trouble with the second one well what really came into Focus for me today when I was reading this was that there's been a l

ot of speculation he's going to put up a building you know what what are they going to accept for this appeal Bond I think we're all learning a lot about appeal bonds as we go and what we really saw today was that they want Hard Cash they are not accepting assets and Allen Gart who's a senior officer lawyer at the Trump organization he said that they tried and with chub in particular none of them wanted real estate these aren't really State companies they want things they can liquidate immediate

ly they want cash and they talk to chub about doing this larger one that he's facing a week from today and chub last week backed away and they they're not going to take real estate so now we know for certain that he needs to come up with cash and he does not have enough cash according to the filings today so can he I mean what are his options can he sell things that he currently owns liquidate assets liquidate real estate assets or other assets in order to convert them into cash and that's the o

nly thing he can pay with here that's it and it's going to have to be like today yeah like soon he's going to have to figure he he may have we don't know he may be already in the process of potentially negotiating a sale he may have gotten a deal with somebody that he knows um and we don't know if that's in in you know in progress or not these are just sort of things that I'm speculating on um it's important to say that but that could be going on but what we do know is that the filing today was

sort of uh you know they're raising in their hands saying they don't have the cash to meet this so they want they want it stayed and I think the other thing that's really important here is this is a legal maneuver because um they're asking a judge to to set this aside and if and if it's rejected they may go to the appell at court so they may buy themselves sometimes and the Attorney General also has the option of saying you can have another 30 days if they were to come and say we have a plan the

re may there's a lot of thing we just never have seen anything like this so I just there's a lot of things that could happen but right now he is looking down the barrel of a gun I me you can hear the clock he has got one week and if nothing changes the Attorney General of New York can come in start to seize SE his accounts seize his buildings sees his M so the the thing that I am worried about now that I didn't think I would be worried about when the whole process started is that I'm worried tha

t he is in such a crunch and I'm worried what that means in terms of a national security threat for the United States is there anything about the process of putting up bonds um that prevents some angel from coming in and paying it for him and if that happened would we know well that can happen and if that happens there's going to be tax consequences for the person who gives it because there's going to it's a gift it's a there's going to it's a taxable event okay so but but you know and I've sort

of been wondering how much transparency are we going to have in it we do know with the EEG Carol Case the bond was posted and he posted his collateral it's in filings um uh brokerage account that he has that has liquid Securities in it okay so there's some visibility and keep in mind there's also a monitor over the company that is going to be watching this so I suspect at the end we're going to know I never want to say never with anything but right now I feel like we we should know at least who

comes forward with it but that's another another possibility is someone could come up with the money and write a check to cover it he also has other wealthy family members ianka Trump and her husband come to mind um so there's still I think a range of possibilities I think over the and they're exploring them all I can guarantee it they have to be um so I think that next week I think we're just going to have a lot more visibility into exactly how this is going to be dealt with but we could be fa

ced in a week with a situation where the Attorney General says the the day has come and I'm going to appeal to the court when we're going to move forward to seize the assets he recently changed his position on the culture War issue around budlight after anheiser Bush did a fundraiser for him he then changed his position on Tik Tok in the Chinese government after he met with a guy who has a big Financial stake in Tik Tock he now needs a half billion dollars right now he has to pay it on Monday an

d so I'm just worried about um what's for sale I hope you right there will be some transparency about it Susan thank you so much