March 7, 2024 • 15 mins
Donald Trump faces four criminal trials amounting to 91 felony counts, and three civil cases. None of this has fazed his base as he runs for election. “If he was in jail, I sure would vote for him,” said Ralph Hunter, a South Carolina resident. He told the Big Take DC podcast that while he doesn’t like Trump “as a person,” he was impressed with his presidency.
Trump’s electability is intact – but his finances are another story. Today on the Big Take DC: How Trump’s legal woes are hitting his wallet and his re-election bid.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
It's been about a year since the first indictment was
announced against former President Donald Trump.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
He's indicted.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
He's the first former president of the United States to
be indicted on.
Speaker 4 (00:19):
Charges related to hush money payments paid to Stormy Daniels.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
It raised a ton of questions, does.
Speaker 4 (00:25):
He get his fingerprints? Will there be a mugshot? Is
he going to be in handcuffs?
Speaker 3 (00:29):
And that was just the beginning breaking news on the
indictment of former President Donald Trump.
Speaker 4 (00:34):
The case in the classified documents found at his home.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
At marl Laga, racketeering, conspiracy to commit fraud, to influence witnesses.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Perjury, conspiracy to obstruct him justice.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
Several conspiracy charges relating to January sixth.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
With his wins on Super Tuesday, Trump is cruising toward
the GOP nomination for president, but as he shifts to
the general election, he faces a mountain of leles. There
are so many trial proceedings and dates, not to mention
campaign rallies in an election year, that I often find
myself pulling up charts that my colleagues have made just
(01:11):
to keep track of it all. But the logistics are
only one of the many unprecedented challenges the former president
now faces as he navigates the campaign trail while on trial.
From Bloomberg's Washington A Bureau. This is the Big Take
DC podcast. I'm Salaiahmosen. Today we sift through Bloomberg reporting,
(01:31):
interviews with Trump voters, and election data to understand how
is Trump going to balance a general election campaign while
facing four criminal trials and untold millions in legal bills,
and will any of this affect him at the polls.
(01:53):
Let's cover some basics. Trump is facing four criminal cases.
The first indictment came about a year ago, when the
state of New York charged the former president with falsifying
business records to cover up hush money payments to the
porn star Stormy Daniels.
Speaker 5 (02:10):
It is simple. An American president has been indicted for
a crime.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
It is a regional American history yesterday afternoon. Then came
a federal case in Florida accusing Trump of refusing to
return hundreds of classified documents he was keeping at his
Marlago home. And then there was arguably the most consequential
case in Washington, d C. The January sixth case accusing
Trump of trying to overturn the twenty twenty election results
(02:38):
and inciting the capital attack. And lastly, there's a state
case in Georgia accusing Trump of trying to overturn the
results of the twenty twenty election. There there have also
been three civil trials, and Trump has lost them all.
A fraud case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia
James over his asset valuations, and then a defamation case
(02:58):
brought by e Gene Carroll for comments Trump made after
she accused him of sexually assaulting her in the nineties.
And then another defamation case by Carol, also alleging sexual
assault under a New York law that briefly lifted the
statute of limitations on pass assault claims. He's appealing all three.
Between the four criminal trials, Trump faces a grand total
(03:20):
of ninety one felony counts. For a while, it looked
like the proceedings for many of those cases would fall
on top of each other and land right in the
middle of the twenty twenty four campaign. But that started
to shift.
Speaker 5 (03:34):
What we're seeing with the legal calendar is that it's
actually slowing down.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
That's my colleague Sarah Fordon. She leads a Bloomberg team
covering the legal news coming out of Washington.
Speaker 5 (03:44):
D C. So I think we're going to have an
ebb and flow. The only trial that's actually scheduled to
go forward right now is the hush money case in
New York, which is due to start March twenty fifth.
This is the Manhattan District Attorney Alvin brad and it's
going to be about a month long trial. It is
a criminal trial, so on criminal trials, he does have
(04:07):
to be in the courtroom, so we will expect him
to be in New York day and day out for
about a month, so that will certainly affect his movements.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
The trial dates for the other three criminal cases are
still in flux and could be pushed back to after
election day, so.
Speaker 5 (04:22):
There may be, you know, several months over the summer
where there's nothing pressing on his legal calendar and he'll
have ample time to campaign.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
But even if Trump has time to campaign, these legal
battles still come with huge price tags, both for his
campaign and his personal finances.
Speaker 5 (04:38):
The big one is a case brought by the New
York Attorney General. It is a fraud case accusing him
of inflating his assets he has been issued a verdict
in that case of over four hundred million dollars and
the interest is accruing on that at a pace of
about one hundred and twelve thousand dollars a day.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
As and for every day Trump doesn't pay the state's
verdict against him, he owes an additional one hundred and
twelve thousand dollars.
Speaker 5 (05:08):
That combined with a separate verdict in a defamation trial.
This is a case brought by the author, Egen Carroll,
so she brought two separate defamation cases against him and
won both of those, and that big verdict in the
second case is eighty three point three million dollars. So
he's in the process of appealing those two, but he
will have to put that money into escrow while the
(05:30):
appeal process is playing out.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Sarah, what does it mean that he needs to put
money in escro.
Speaker 5 (05:34):
If he ultimately loses these verdicts on appeal, he will
have to pay that money, and the way the process works,
they don't wait for him to pay until the end
of the process. He has to set aside this money
so that it's already in like a custodial account.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
So with verdicts in just two of his cases, Trump
already owes over five hundred million dollars, and that number
is climbing by the day. The civil cases brought against
Trump as a private citizen, so he can't use campaign
funds to pay the damages.
Speaker 5 (06:06):
Adding up the two New York verdicts and the interest,
which is occurring at a pace that would practically wipe
out what he's declared as his liquidity his cash on hand.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Trump says that he has just about six hundred million
dollars in liquid assets, as in cash sitting in his
bank account. The Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which also factors in
his real estate and business dealings, puts his net worth
at over three billion dollars, but accessing that money would
require liquidating those assets.
Speaker 5 (06:36):
He's already said in some files that he may have
to sell a property in order to cover these costs,
and these are costs that he cannot use campaign money
to fund.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
The hundreds of millions of dollars in damages are only
part of what Trump's court cases are costing him. He
also has to pay the lawyers who are defending him.
For that he can use campaign funds, and he has
but any money he puts toward his legal fees will
mean less money to spend on the campaign trail, and
the possibility of running out of money part way through
(07:08):
an election year is a huge problem for Trump.
Speaker 5 (07:11):
The last report, he spent nearly three million dollars on
legal fees over what period That was just for January.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Coming up, we'll dig into how Trump is trying to
offset these costs and how this is all landing with voters.
We're back so far, we've broken down the four criminal
cases and three civil cases against Trump, how much they're
(07:42):
costing him, and how he's paying for them. As my
colleague Sarah Forden mentioned, one of the biggest impacts on
Trump is the financial cost of covering damages and paying
for his legal fees. If you're running a presidential campaign,
you can't afford to run out of money midyear. If anything,
you want a lot of campaign money ready to go
(08:03):
for September and October, when voters are paying the most
attention to the race. We're seeing Trump turn to creative
ways to bring cash into his coffers. One of the
big ones is turning every indictment into an opportunity to
rally his base and then ask them for money.
Speaker 6 (08:20):
Every time there's a development in one of these cases,
you see some sort of fundraising appeal go out of
you know, the evil Democrats are out to get me.
Chip in five dollars, fifteen dollars, twenty dollars or else,
You're not going to have a country anymore type message.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
That's my colleague Laura Davison, she covers politics at Bloomberg.
We grabbed some of the fundraising texts that she described.
Here are a couple, word for word, make a contribution
to evict crooked Joe Biden from the White House and
save America during this dark chapter in our nation's history,
we're watching our republic die before our very eyes. The
(08:54):
Biden appointed special Council has indicted me in yet another
witch hunt. How is that talk resonating with voters?
Speaker 6 (09:02):
We do know that his supporters see these legal woes,
you know, as evidence that Trump is being persecuted. It
doesn't really seem to dent their support. They don't see
it as a negative, and in fact they're giving We know,
indictments came down, you know, millions of dollars came into
his coffers. So these things are things that are resonating.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
And he's used his indictments as a talking point on
the campaign trail, like this speech in Iowai in January.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
I got in dieted more than.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
The late great gangster Alphage heavier about the public scarference.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Our producer Julia Press spoke with Jesse Stumbaugh, an attendee
at the rally, who said Trump's lawsuit didn't concern him.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
In fact, that's one of the reasons why I'm voting
for him. If our former president, an American citizen who's
a billionaire, is handcuffed by the political system and the
justice system, cause a regular citizen like myself ever going
to be able to stand up to the government.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Over the last few weeks, my Bloomberg colleagues have fanned
out across the country to talk to Trump's supporters about
how they're viewing the cases against the former president. Bloomberg's
Mike Sasso spoke with James Griffin. He's a sixty four
year old from Greenville, South Carolina.
Speaker 5 (10:12):
Like they say, he was then fault about them people
telling up the White House.
Speaker 6 (10:16):
I mean, how can I tell a hundred people to.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Go tell up that store over there?
Speaker 5 (10:21):
If they do it, it ain't on me, that's their
naymind okay, And even if he.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
Got found guilty, that wouldn't necessarily buy still go be
month Forrin.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
In another part of South Carolina, reporter Stephanie Lai meant
Ralph Hunter he had a different perspective even.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Problem that he was president. There's so yes and so
one question that I have formos.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
If he was in jail, I was sure.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
He said that if Trump was convicted, he'd still vote
for him.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
I'm gonna be honest with you. I don't like him
as a person. I don't think he's someone that you know,
I would I'd want to be friends with or hang
out and you know, he's just does seem like a
nice guy.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
But Ralph told her he was impressed by Trump's presidency.
He said he feels like Trump delivered on some of
the things that had been empty promises from other politicians
in the past. To Ralph, Trump is a guy who
gets stuff done.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
If I need a plumber for my house, the pipe
crap out of it. I don't necessarily need you to
be a nice guy and have wonderful posts on your
Facebook account. You know I've actually I don't care what
you say. Just get the crap hoped out of my house.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
And here's my colleague Stephanie at a Trump event in
South Carolina talking to a teacher named Debbie Sides.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
One interesting thing that we've noticed is that every time
another one of these indictments come down, more people are
donating to him or getting involved in the campaign.
Speaker 6 (11:43):
And I'm curious, and that's something that you had done yourself,
you know, other're donated after one of.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
These, Yes, one of the first, and I did twenty
five dollars.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
But that's what I could do because I feel like
I could go after him, I could go after anybody.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Trump's single largest day of fundraising for the twenty twenty
four election came the week he was arraigned in Manhattan
last April. Here's my colleague Laura Davison.
Speaker 6 (12:10):
Again, we do see spikes in giving, you know, every
time there was an indictment announced, particularly the mugshot and
the Georgia case that really went viral on social media
because it was just this visual moment. There was a
ton of giving.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
In addition to donations, the Trump campaign is looking at
other ways of raising cash, like marketing new merchandise, a
signature cologne, candles, gold sneakers with red soles. Here he
is unveiling his four hundred dollars shoes, the Trump Never
Surrender high tops at a sneaker convention in Philadelphia last month.
Speaker 6 (12:41):
Row, this country's not doing so well.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
We're going to turn this country around fast.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
We're going to turn it around fast, and we're going
to remember the young people, and we're going to remember
sneaker con You know that. But even Trump's shoes can't
escape the possibility of litigation. People have pointed out that
the red bottoms of his sneakers could open him up
to a trademark lawsuit from Christian Lubitan. The year ahead
(13:09):
for Trump could be heavily defined by the outcome of
his pending criminal cases and how he navigates them financially.
He's also endorsed his daughter in law, Laura Trump, to
be co chair of the Republican National Committee that'll be
determined at an RNC meeting tomorrow, and she said that
she would put the full weight of the committee behind
paying legal fees in these cases. Those court battles, coupled
(13:31):
with his bid to voters as an overall candidate, could
spell out a complicated year for the former president.
Speaker 6 (13:36):
The money that he has in his various accounts that
is able to pay for legal fees is set to
run out sometime around June July August. This is right
when both his campaign, the Republican National Committee everyone is
going to be in full on election mode, buying a
ton of television advertisements, wanting to hold events all across
the country, and Trump's going to have to make a decision.
(13:59):
Either does he turn to donors and say, hey, can
you guys give me more money for my legal fees?
Does he decide to pay for it himself, or did
he go to the rn C and ask them for money.
And the RNC also is having their own cash troubles
as well, so this is a really setting up to
be a sort of midyear money fight.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Thanks for listening to The Big Take DC podcast from
Bloomberg News. I'm Salaiah Mosen. This episode was produced by
Julia Press and David Fox. It was edited by Aaron Edwards.
It was mixed by Ben O'Brien. It was fact checked
by Stacy Renee. Naomi Shaven is our senior producer, Michael Shepherd,
Wendy Benjaminson and Elizabeth Ponso provide editorial direction. A special
(14:45):
thanks to Hadrianna Lewencron, Stephanie Lai, and Michael Sasso. Nicole
Beemsterboer is our executive producer. Stage Bowman is Bloomberg's head
of podcasts. You can find The Big Take in print too,
on the Terminal and Bloomberg dot Com, featuring the every
best of Bloomberg's in depth original reporting around the globe.
Thanks for listening, Please follow and review The Big Take
(15:07):
DC wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps new listeners
find the show
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
It's been about a year since the first indictment was
announced against former President Donald Trump.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
He's indicted.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
He's the first former president of the United States to
be indicted on.
Speaker 4 (00:19):
Charges related to hush money payments paid to Stormy Daniels.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
It raised a ton of questions, does.
Speaker 4 (00:25):
He get his fingerprints? Will there be a mugshot? Is
he going to be in handcuffs?
Speaker 3 (00:29):
And that was just the beginning breaking news on the
indictment of former President Donald Trump.
Speaker 4 (00:34):
The case in the classified documents found at his home.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
At marl Laga, racketeering, conspiracy to commit fraud, to influence witnesses.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Perjury, conspiracy to obstruct him justice.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
Several conspiracy charges relating to January sixth.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
With his wins on Super Tuesday, Trump is cruising toward
the GOP nomination for president, but as he shifts to
the general election, he faces a mountain of leles. There
are so many trial proceedings and dates, not to mention
campaign rallies in an election year, that I often find
myself pulling up charts that my colleagues have made just
(01:11):
to keep track of it all. But the logistics are
only one of the many unprecedented challenges the former president
now faces as he navigates the campaign trail while on trial.
From Bloomberg's Washington A Bureau. This is the Big Take
DC podcast. I'm Salaiahmosen. Today we sift through Bloomberg reporting,
(01:31):
interviews with Trump voters, and election data to understand how
is Trump going to balance a general election campaign while
facing four criminal trials and untold millions in legal bills,
and will any of this affect him at the polls.
(01:53):
Let's cover some basics. Trump is facing four criminal cases.
The first indictment came about a year ago, when the
state of New York charged the former president with falsifying
business records to cover up hush money payments to the
porn star Stormy Daniels.
Speaker 5 (02:10):
It is simple. An American president has been indicted for
a crime.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
It is a regional American history yesterday afternoon. Then came
a federal case in Florida accusing Trump of refusing to
return hundreds of classified documents he was keeping at his
Marlago home. And then there was arguably the most consequential
case in Washington, d C. The January sixth case accusing
Trump of trying to overturn the twenty twenty election results
(02:38):
and inciting the capital attack. And lastly, there's a state
case in Georgia accusing Trump of trying to overturn the
results of the twenty twenty election. There there have also
been three civil trials, and Trump has lost them all.
A fraud case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia
James over his asset valuations, and then a defamation case
(02:58):
brought by e Gene Carroll for comments Trump made after
she accused him of sexually assaulting her in the nineties.
And then another defamation case by Carol, also alleging sexual
assault under a New York law that briefly lifted the
statute of limitations on pass assault claims. He's appealing all three.
Between the four criminal trials, Trump faces a grand total
(03:20):
of ninety one felony counts. For a while, it looked
like the proceedings for many of those cases would fall
on top of each other and land right in the
middle of the twenty twenty four campaign. But that started
to shift.
Speaker 5 (03:34):
What we're seeing with the legal calendar is that it's
actually slowing down.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
That's my colleague Sarah Fordon. She leads a Bloomberg team
covering the legal news coming out of Washington.
Speaker 5 (03:44):
D C. So I think we're going to have an
ebb and flow. The only trial that's actually scheduled to
go forward right now is the hush money case in
New York, which is due to start March twenty fifth.
This is the Manhattan District Attorney Alvin brad and it's
going to be about a month long trial. It is
a criminal trial, so on criminal trials, he does have
(04:07):
to be in the courtroom, so we will expect him
to be in New York day and day out for
about a month, so that will certainly affect his movements.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
The trial dates for the other three criminal cases are
still in flux and could be pushed back to after
election day, so.
Speaker 5 (04:22):
There may be, you know, several months over the summer
where there's nothing pressing on his legal calendar and he'll
have ample time to campaign.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
But even if Trump has time to campaign, these legal
battles still come with huge price tags, both for his
campaign and his personal finances.
Speaker 5 (04:38):
The big one is a case brought by the New
York Attorney General. It is a fraud case accusing him
of inflating his assets he has been issued a verdict
in that case of over four hundred million dollars and
the interest is accruing on that at a pace of
about one hundred and twelve thousand dollars a day.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
As and for every day Trump doesn't pay the state's
verdict against him, he owes an additional one hundred and
twelve thousand dollars.
Speaker 5 (05:08):
That combined with a separate verdict in a defamation trial.
This is a case brought by the author, Egen Carroll,
so she brought two separate defamation cases against him and
won both of those, and that big verdict in the
second case is eighty three point three million dollars. So
he's in the process of appealing those two, but he
will have to put that money into escrow while the
(05:30):
appeal process is playing out.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Sarah, what does it mean that he needs to put
money in escro.
Speaker 5 (05:34):
If he ultimately loses these verdicts on appeal, he will
have to pay that money, and the way the process works,
they don't wait for him to pay until the end
of the process. He has to set aside this money
so that it's already in like a custodial account.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
So with verdicts in just two of his cases, Trump
already owes over five hundred million dollars, and that number
is climbing by the day. The civil cases brought against
Trump as a private citizen, so he can't use campaign
funds to pay the damages.
Speaker 5 (06:06):
Adding up the two New York verdicts and the interest,
which is occurring at a pace that would practically wipe
out what he's declared as his liquidity his cash on hand.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Trump says that he has just about six hundred million
dollars in liquid assets, as in cash sitting in his
bank account. The Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which also factors in
his real estate and business dealings, puts his net worth
at over three billion dollars, but accessing that money would
require liquidating those assets.
Speaker 5 (06:36):
He's already said in some files that he may have
to sell a property in order to cover these costs,
and these are costs that he cannot use campaign money
to fund.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
The hundreds of millions of dollars in damages are only
part of what Trump's court cases are costing him. He
also has to pay the lawyers who are defending him.
For that he can use campaign funds, and he has
but any money he puts toward his legal fees will
mean less money to spend on the campaign trail, and
the possibility of running out of money part way through
(07:08):
an election year is a huge problem for Trump.
Speaker 5 (07:11):
The last report, he spent nearly three million dollars on
legal fees over what period That was just for January.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Coming up, we'll dig into how Trump is trying to
offset these costs and how this is all landing with voters.
We're back so far, we've broken down the four criminal
cases and three civil cases against Trump, how much they're
(07:42):
costing him, and how he's paying for them. As my
colleague Sarah Forden mentioned, one of the biggest impacts on
Trump is the financial cost of covering damages and paying
for his legal fees. If you're running a presidential campaign,
you can't afford to run out of money midyear. If anything,
you want a lot of campaign money ready to go
(08:03):
for September and October, when voters are paying the most
attention to the race. We're seeing Trump turn to creative
ways to bring cash into his coffers. One of the
big ones is turning every indictment into an opportunity to
rally his base and then ask them for money.
Speaker 6 (08:20):
Every time there's a development in one of these cases,
you see some sort of fundraising appeal go out of
you know, the evil Democrats are out to get me.
Chip in five dollars, fifteen dollars, twenty dollars or else,
You're not going to have a country anymore type message.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
That's my colleague Laura Davison, she covers politics at Bloomberg.
We grabbed some of the fundraising texts that she described.
Here are a couple, word for word, make a contribution
to evict crooked Joe Biden from the White House and
save America during this dark chapter in our nation's history,
we're watching our republic die before our very eyes. The
(08:54):
Biden appointed special Council has indicted me in yet another
witch hunt. How is that talk resonating with voters?
Speaker 6 (09:02):
We do know that his supporters see these legal woes,
you know, as evidence that Trump is being persecuted. It
doesn't really seem to dent their support. They don't see
it as a negative, and in fact they're giving We know,
indictments came down, you know, millions of dollars came into
his coffers. So these things are things that are resonating.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
And he's used his indictments as a talking point on
the campaign trail, like this speech in Iowai in January.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
I got in dieted more than.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
The late great gangster Alphage heavier about the public scarference.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Our producer Julia Press spoke with Jesse Stumbaugh, an attendee
at the rally, who said Trump's lawsuit didn't concern him.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
In fact, that's one of the reasons why I'm voting
for him. If our former president, an American citizen who's
a billionaire, is handcuffed by the political system and the
justice system, cause a regular citizen like myself ever going
to be able to stand up to the government.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Over the last few weeks, my Bloomberg colleagues have fanned
out across the country to talk to Trump's supporters about
how they're viewing the cases against the former president. Bloomberg's
Mike Sasso spoke with James Griffin. He's a sixty four
year old from Greenville, South Carolina.
Speaker 5 (10:12):
Like they say, he was then fault about them people
telling up the White House.
Speaker 6 (10:16):
I mean, how can I tell a hundred people to.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Go tell up that store over there?
Speaker 5 (10:21):
If they do it, it ain't on me, that's their
naymind okay, And even if he.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
Got found guilty, that wouldn't necessarily buy still go be
month Forrin.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
In another part of South Carolina, reporter Stephanie Lai meant
Ralph Hunter he had a different perspective even.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Problem that he was president. There's so yes and so
one question that I have formos.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
If he was in jail, I was sure.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
He said that if Trump was convicted, he'd still vote
for him.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
I'm gonna be honest with you. I don't like him
as a person. I don't think he's someone that you know,
I would I'd want to be friends with or hang
out and you know, he's just does seem like a
nice guy.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
But Ralph told her he was impressed by Trump's presidency.
He said he feels like Trump delivered on some of
the things that had been empty promises from other politicians
in the past. To Ralph, Trump is a guy who
gets stuff done.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
If I need a plumber for my house, the pipe
crap out of it. I don't necessarily need you to
be a nice guy and have wonderful posts on your
Facebook account. You know I've actually I don't care what
you say. Just get the crap hoped out of my house.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
And here's my colleague Stephanie at a Trump event in
South Carolina talking to a teacher named Debbie Sides.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
One interesting thing that we've noticed is that every time
another one of these indictments come down, more people are
donating to him or getting involved in the campaign.
Speaker 6 (11:43):
And I'm curious, and that's something that you had done yourself,
you know, other're donated after one of.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
These, Yes, one of the first, and I did twenty
five dollars.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
But that's what I could do because I feel like
I could go after him, I could go after anybody.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Trump's single largest day of fundraising for the twenty twenty
four election came the week he was arraigned in Manhattan
last April. Here's my colleague Laura Davison.
Speaker 6 (12:10):
Again, we do see spikes in giving, you know, every
time there was an indictment announced, particularly the mugshot and
the Georgia case that really went viral on social media
because it was just this visual moment. There was a
ton of giving.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
In addition to donations, the Trump campaign is looking at
other ways of raising cash, like marketing new merchandise, a
signature cologne, candles, gold sneakers with red soles. Here he
is unveiling his four hundred dollars shoes, the Trump Never
Surrender high tops at a sneaker convention in Philadelphia last month.
Speaker 6 (12:41):
Row, this country's not doing so well.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
We're going to turn this country around fast.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
We're going to turn it around fast, and we're going
to remember the young people, and we're going to remember
sneaker con You know that. But even Trump's shoes can't
escape the possibility of litigation. People have pointed out that
the red bottoms of his sneakers could open him up
to a trademark lawsuit from Christian Lubitan. The year ahead
(13:09):
for Trump could be heavily defined by the outcome of
his pending criminal cases and how he navigates them financially.
He's also endorsed his daughter in law, Laura Trump, to
be co chair of the Republican National Committee that'll be
determined at an RNC meeting tomorrow, and she said that
she would put the full weight of the committee behind
paying legal fees in these cases. Those court battles, coupled
(13:31):
with his bid to voters as an overall candidate, could
spell out a complicated year for the former president.
Speaker 6 (13:36):
The money that he has in his various accounts that
is able to pay for legal fees is set to
run out sometime around June July August. This is right
when both his campaign, the Republican National Committee everyone is
going to be in full on election mode, buying a
ton of television advertisements, wanting to hold events all across
the country, and Trump's going to have to make a decision.
(13:59):
Either does he turn to donors and say, hey, can
you guys give me more money for my legal fees?
Does he decide to pay for it himself, or did
he go to the rn C and ask them for money.
And the RNC also is having their own cash troubles
as well, so this is a really setting up to
be a sort of midyear money fight.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Thanks for listening to The Big Take DC podcast from
Bloomberg News. I'm Salaiah Mosen. This episode was produced by
Julia Press and David Fox. It was edited by Aaron Edwards.
It was mixed by Ben O'Brien. It was fact checked
by Stacy Renee. Naomi Shaven is our senior producer, Michael Shepherd,
Wendy Benjaminson and Elizabeth Ponso provide editorial direction. A special
(14:45):
thanks to Hadrianna Lewencron, Stephanie Lai, and Michael Sasso. Nicole
Beemsterboer is our executive producer. Stage Bowman is Bloomberg's head
of podcasts. You can find The Big Take in print too,
on the Terminal and Bloomberg dot Com, featuring the every
best of Bloomberg's in depth original reporting around the globe.
Thanks for listening, Please follow and review The Big Take
(15:07):
DC wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps new listeners
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