March 25, 2024 • 26 mins
Before we get to #DonPorleone, we start with thoughts and prayers to everyone still stuck in the oppressive Palm Sunday traffic, as well as an explanation of why that's one of my all-time favorite jokes from my childhood. (Spoiler Alert- it has virtually nothing to do with religion.)
But it's not all chuckles and childhood capers; we slip into the more sobering topic of Donald Trump's latest courtroom drama and the hefty financial judgment that's got everyone talking—and tweeting. #DonPorleone is more than a viral sensation; it's a commentary on the high-stakes legal tango between Trump and New York Attorney General Leticia James. Explore the nitty-gritty of asset seizures, the complexities of legal strategy, and the potential ripple effects that this landmark case could have. From the valuation of luxury properties to the precedent of holding a former president accountable, this episode unpacks the serious implications behind the humor and the headlines.
Learn more about the Keystone Reckoning Project at www.keystonereckoning.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brother, can you spare 46,390 million dimes?
Good morning and welcome to theKeystone Recording Podcast for
Monday, march 25, 2024.
I'm your host, jesse White, andI'm feeling festive today.
I feel like it's a time tocelebrate for a couple of
reasons and I want to start witha non-political little story.
(00:22):
But it's one of my all-timefavorite stories of something
that happened to me in mychildhood and I didn't have a
lot of great moments to immersemy childhood.
But this is one of them andit's time sensitive, so I
thought it's a good time to tellit.
And if you ever follow me onsocial media, you look at I do
an annual post and they're likewhat the hell is this guy
talking about?
So yesterday was Palm Sunday.
(00:45):
Palm Sunday is, for those thatdon't know, it's the Sunday
before Easter and itcommemorates Christ's triumphant
entry into Jerusalem, asmentioned in each of the four
canonical Gospels, and itoriginates from the Palm
branches.
Wave to the crowd to greet andhonor Jesus as he entered the
city.
Palm Sunday marks the first dayof Holy Week, which ends in
(01:08):
Easter this coming Sunday.
So a little bit more background.
I am was raised Catholic, as in.
I was baptized, I tookcommunion.
I did not have my confirmation.
I kind of backed away afterthat but I did all the early on
Catholic things, went to CCD,you know, did all that stuff.
(01:33):
My grandmother did take me tochurch on occasion, so I was a,
you know, I kind of spoke thelanguage, but I held no currency
in terms of being a Catholic.
And as time has gone on andI'll talk about this in future
podcasts because it merits amuch longer discussion as time
went on I moved away from thechurch as I moved into public
(01:56):
life and for a lot of reasons.
But the point being, I was atheoretical lower KC Catholic as
a child and so was one of mybest friends and I'm not even
going to use names because wehad a falling out over the years
and I don't want to go thereand it was actually political
(02:17):
but one of my best friends sinceI was like five years old,
similar very.
They were adopted but it was avery.
The parents were very Italian,kind of old school Catholic and
the weekend, the one weekend, wewere driving up to his extended
families to see his extendedfamily up in Indiana, pa.
(02:39):
We lived a little south ofPittsburgh, so it was like maybe
an hour drive a little bit more.
And it was me, my best friend,his brother, who was a couple
years younger than us, and hisfather, and his father as I am
now a father myself, I findmyself using his name was Jack.
I find myself using Jackisms alot, and it's both hilarious and
(03:03):
terrifying in a lot of ways,because he was just the dad that
always got flustered andfrustrated when dealing with
smart ass kids, and we were theepitome of smart ass kids.
But at that point I'd beenaround so much.
You know we're about six we hadto be 16, at least, when this
happens, we're about 16.
And I'd been around the houseat that point since I was like
five.
So I was one of the kids and Iwas as much of a smart ass as
(03:25):
any of them.
So you got these three smart asskids and we're we're heading up
to Indiana, pa, and my friendhad just gotten his learners
permit.
And I know the rules aredifferent now with, like
learners permit and all that youhave to do so many hours or
whatever.
And this is when, like, you gotyour learners permit and as
long as you felt you were readyafter that, you could go ahead
(03:46):
and get your license.
So my friend was like superexcited to drive, which I get,
and he had convinced his dad tolet him drive from Pittsburgh up
to Indiana, which is likebasically a straight line, is
pretty straightforward, and wewere going on a Friday, like
early afternoon, so it wasn't,like you know and this plays
(04:07):
into the story it wasn't like abig traffic time, right, it was,
like you know, it was Friday atlike one o'clock.
There was not much going on andI remember the car he had, like
the dad had a Cadillac and itwas like one of those like big,
like late 80s, early 90s Caddy's.
It was a boat.
(04:27):
I mean there's just no otherway to put it.
The actually wasn't a boat, itwas like an aircraft carrier.
So we're in this car and thebrother and I are in the
backseat, we're like playingcards or just being stupid kids,
and the dad is in the passengerseat.
My friend is driving and myfriend was a little reckless as,
given the fact that he did endup backing a car into a garage
(04:48):
like less than a year later, buthe was driving fine, he was
doing all the things because hisdad was sitting, you know,
seven inches away watching hisevery move and the dad was just
getting so freaked out aboutevery little thing and in one of
the greatest fits offrustration and ill logic I've
ever heard in all parentinghistory, we're driving and the
(05:13):
dad is yelling, but yelling butlike admonishing, and he says to
my friend you've got to bereally careful because all the
traffic this weekend and likethere's like dead silence in the
car and the dad's like it's aholiday weekend, the silence
continues.
My friend doesn't want to askbecause like he's you know
(05:34):
driving and he knows, and heknows there's something coming
that's not gonna be great.
So his brother from the backseats, like dad, what holiday?
And his dad gets all flusteredbecause he realizes what's about
to come out of his mouth makesno sense at all and he goes it's
bomb Sunday.
Now, this was Friday, it wasFriday at like 1 pm.
(05:54):
His dad warns him about isgiving him a hard time, about
traffic for Palm Sunday, whichis two days away, and that still
assumes that there could be alot of traffic on Palm Sunday
itself.
It's a whole other thing.
But I don't know if I've everlaughed as hard in my entire
life as I did when I heard that.
And we all did right, we werelosing it.
Now the dad did not find itnearly as funny because he
(06:15):
realized, like it me as a dad.
Now I'd be like, okay, that wasridiculous.
And I'd like, yeah, laugh along.
Yeah, this guy did not havethat level of like chill and it
just made it that much funnier.
So, long story short, we go upthere and we did go to Palm
Sunday A service on Sunday butthe entire thing just became
this massive running joke aboutPalm Sunday.
(06:38):
I don't know how he didn't Justleave us in a field to die
somewhere.
We were so Obnoxious, everylittle thing, what.
We were just so ridiculous intothe point where we actually
went to church on Palm Sundayand it reached like it's
pinnacle and like I'm prettysure we left early Because we
were being so Ridiculous.
(07:00):
Any of you an idea of just howlike, totally out of it and
disrespectful we were?
I don't think I was told inadvance that we were going to
church.
I was wearing like a MichaelJordan, like space jam t-shirt
to church for Palm Sunday, likethis was not my finest hour.
But so now you know, it's one ofthose great jokes that is just
Endured and it's actually gonefurther out into my you know, my
(07:22):
family and my you know closegroup of friends.
And so now Palm Sunday is, youknow, I get like seven tech
saying like please be carefulout there, the traffic Don't go
anywhere.
To now I have my kids thinkingit like I took us to go see
Ghostbusters yesterday and we'redriving a movie theater and
he's like, hey, he's like yousure you want to go today.
And I'm like why he's like PalmSunday, I'm just worried about
(07:42):
the traffic, you know.
So like it's this neveranything.
So anyway, every year on socialI give them the typical Palm
Sunday be careful out therewarning.
It is one of the very few jokesthat is just going to go to my
grave.
If there is any justice in theworld, I would.
If I could pick any Day of theyear to die like you know, I'm
(08:02):
not saying I wanted to be aspiff of a year, but if I could
pick any one day of the year todie where I think it would be
like the most fun for the peoplethat were going to be Morning
slash celebrating my life wouldbe.
If I died on Palm Sunday, notbecause of anything religious,
just because it would be.
It would be something thatwould make the people in my life
laugh and that would be awonderful gift to give them
(08:25):
after I'm gone.
So I just want to say belatedhappy Palm Sunday.
I imagine most of you areprobably listening to this
podcast sitting in your carsBecause you're still stuck in
Palm Sunday traffic from the daybefore.
And to you I say that's on youfor not doing the proper
planning.
You knew it was gonna be PalmSunday.
(08:46):
I have no sympathy for you.
You gotta prepare in this dayof Google Maps and Waze and all
the things.
Back then we didn't see We'dhave GPS.
We didn't know that the trafficwas gonna be so bad
theoretically.
But now, thanks to moderntechnology, there's no excuse.
So I have no sympathy for onyou.
So sit in the traffic andlisten.
(09:06):
Now, while we're talking aboutthings to celebrate, let's talk
about what else today is, andthat is civil asset for
forfeiture day for Donald Trumpthe 463.9 million dollars in his
New York fraud trial the civiljudgment is owed.
Today he has been unable tosecure a bond I to pay that,
(09:30):
which is just delightful on somany levels, because you know,
it's almost hard to believe thatsomeone finally realized that
lending this guy money was areally, really bad idea.
Like, is there anybody that'smore famous for not paying their
bills than Donald Trump?
Like, of course, no one's gonnalend him the money.
I mean, it was one thing.
(09:50):
When he needs to borrow, likeyou know a little bit, you know
a $2 million, you knowrelatively speaking, but $463
million, it's like real money.
That's real money.
It's just about anybody.
So it is really hilarious.
And the best thing I've seen onTwitter so far has been hashtag
(10:10):
Don Porleone, which is just awonderful, a wonderful Twitter
hashtag If you want to go checkout something entertaining.
Yeah, don Porleone, obviously aplay on the Godfather, and so
here's the thing, though.
So what's going to happen?
Right, let's, let's look andsee.
Let's talk about this for asecond for real.
So he owes the money, and NewYork Attorney General Leticia
(10:33):
James now has, like, all sortsof tools in her toolbox to go
get the money, and the questioneverybody's asking is you know
what?
How aggressive are they goingto be?
I am, from what I'm seeing andreading and guessing and wishing
and loving and hoping is thatthey are going to be aggressive
in going after it, but if theyget for no other reason for a
(10:53):
couple of reasons.
One is I think you have to senda message right, you didn't go
through this whole process to?
You know, go after this guy forfraud, and you know so
overwhelming, and they get thishistoric judgment to then not go
aggressively collect on it.
You know, this is New York,right, when someone owes you
money, you go get paid.
(11:14):
You know, as a business owner,someone owes me money.
One of the things I learnedearlier when someone owes you
money, you go get it that day.
If they have it right, if theyhave it in hand, you go get it.
Well, in this case, he doesn'thave it in hand, but they're
going to get it and they can doit in a variety of ways.
The other thing is like to takea step back for a minute.
You know, I, just I one of thethings is this was unfolding is.
(11:36):
I just did not understand waswhy in the world he continued,
trump continued to provoke andinsult and try to humiliate the
judge, the prosecutors,everybody.
Like at some point there's likeI don't poke the bear component
(11:56):
of this, and I get it.
He just doesn't know how toshut up right, and it's just.
You know, it's constant outrageand he's being unfairly treated
.
And I do wonder and we'll neverreally know is does he really
believe that?
And does he really think thatlashing out is going to get him
what he's looking for?
I don't know, I don't know theanswer to that, but so the point
(12:19):
is there, the money is to behad now and the toolbox for
Leticia James to go get it isexpansive, because at this point
, you know, one of the thingsthat's made Trump, I think, in a
lot of ways, so immune toconsequence in so many ways, has
been the fact that, like youknow, it's the political
(12:41):
pressure and he's a formerpresident, and there's, there's,
you know, precedent, and youknow there are all these norms
which I've always believed.
If you're not willing to respectthose norms, and those norms
should not respect you, and I'vemaintained that for a lot of
different things, because you'realso setting a.
You know everybody talks aboutprecedent and you know the way
things work Well, you're settinga precedent.
(13:02):
The other direction, that isjust as dangerous, if not more
dangerous.
So, but that's a discussion foranother day.
So they could seize a lot ofdifferent assets.
The easiest one to go get wouldbe bank accounts, which is, you
know it's literally as simple asfiling some basic paperwork.
I mean, at this point, goingafter some of these assets.
The amount is, you know,astonishingly high.
(13:23):
But the process goes to thesame.
If you're somewhere that you'rea couple thousand dollars and
you know a small claims court,once the appeals are done or
what one in New York, you know,even though the appeal is
pending and that's what this ishe has to put up a bond pending
the appeal.
So New York doesn't get themoney right from like winning
(13:43):
the case, but the money has tobe held with interest, which you
know we're talking about 450million.
You know the interest isalready going up to 464.
The interest is going to itsstatutory interest.
It's going to get real, big,real fast.
But that money has to sit in anescrow account until the appeal
is over and honestly, I have afeeling it's going to get
(14:06):
lowered somewhat on appeal.
I kind of don't blame him forappealing it, because why not if
you've got the money to put upfor the bond, but I obviously
clearly doesn't.
So they could go get the bankaccounts, they could seize those
.
That's not going to be enoughthe other.
So then they're talking aboutproperties.
They're talking about.
You know all those differentthings.
(14:27):
One of the things because whatyou can do is you can seize the
properties and then sell them atlike a sheriff sale, right, and
you know at that point they'reopen to the highest or, you know
, in this case, lowest bidder,you know, or Trump could sell
them himself at, most likely a asubstantially depleted Value,
(14:48):
much lower valuation, becauseeverybody knows there's urgency
and it's a quick sell.
So I don't know, you know.
I think what's gonna happen isyou're gonna see some leans
Slapped on to some of theproperties.
I think they're gonna focus onthe New York properties Because
you know the New York AttorneyGeneral's office is basically
the biggest law firm in New York, right, so they can go and
(15:11):
Easily go anywhere in New Yorkand effectuate that paperwork
and those processes to make ithappen.
You know the obviously hispremier property and his mind is
Mar-a-Lago in Florida.
That requires, you know, goingacross different states.
I mean, they could do it.
It is not the lowest hangingfruit from a pure law
enforcement or pure Assets,asset seizure point of view,
(15:36):
right, it's not.
It's not easy.
Yeah, the only thing moredifficult will probably be you
know his properties abroad.
You know that would beextremely difficult.
So, but anything in New York is, you know, kind of right in
their wheelhouse.
So I wouldn't be surprised ifthere are not leans at least
placed on that and there's aprocess.
They have to give you 60 daysand the way I mean it would be a
(15:57):
process, but it's a relativelyshort ramp, right, it is not
anything that's gonna be.
He can't delay this a whole lotlonger.
At this point the ball is out ofhis court, which is a unique
position for him to be in, andyou know that's leading to some
amazing temper tantrums fromTrump amazing.
You know you can go.
And you know his goofy web, hisgoofy true social, that it's
(16:19):
all getting reposted on theTwitter and he's just like going
nothing, which, again, fun towatch.
So you know hashtag, oh, noConsequences.
So To me, you know, the thingthat I wonder and hasn't really
been talked about a lot, is ifyou see an asset and it's
Already got loans andencumbrances against the title
and since, like my law degree atwork in my mind, if so, let's
(16:41):
say, for example, me, you have aproperty worth, let's say, one
of his golf courses.
Right, it's worth a hundredmillion dollars.
Let's just take that as anexample.
If worth a hundred milliondollars.
But if he's already got itmortgaged and leaned and you
know there's other loans againstit, it's really not worth a
hundred million dollars becausethose, those leans have to be
paid, right?
So if let's say it's, he's got$40 million in loan secured
(17:08):
against the golf course ascollateral and Leticia James
goes and puts a lien on it andgoes to sell it, let's say it's
it's, you know, on paper worth ahundred million, although,
given the nature of what thewhole lawsuit was about, you
know miss value or overinflating the value of assets.
You know what's really worth,right.
So let's just say, for the sakeof argument, that's worth a
hundred million dollars.
(17:28):
There's a 40 million dollarencumbrance on the title already
.
She goes to sell it.
It sells for the hundredmillion that look, those loans
and leans have to get paid offfirst and Then the AG would get
what's left.
So really that hundred milliondollar asset meant would only
net 60 million dollars.
And you have to figure that alot of these assets are Financed
(17:53):
over, you know, put up ascollateral out the wazoo,
because otherwise he could havegone and borrowed against them
in Order to pay down some of theyou know to maybe come up with
the cash, right like.
It's a lot easier if you need togo borrow money.
Right, let's just go out ofTrump world for a minute.
There's a reason why if youneed to borrow money, you can
get a more money and a betterdeal on a home equity loan,
(18:16):
assuming you have equity in yourhouse, right?
So the more equity you havethen, the more you can borrow
and the better rate you'll get,because the lender, the bank,
whatever Knows that if you don'tpay, they are going to get paid
because they could take yourhouse.
They can foreclose on yourhouse twice easier to get a car
loan than it is to get anunsecured loan.
If you don't pay, they come andrepo the car.
You know the lender has somesecurity there and some peace of
(18:39):
mind that they wouldn't have ifyou just went to borrow a bunch
of Money with no collateral.
I have to think and I'm sureit's out there, I haven't seen
it and maybe some of it isn'tout there because if it's tied
up in, you know all sorts ofcrazy international drama and
intrigue, what exactly thatwould look like.
So there's that part of it,right.
(18:59):
So just because you see all ofthese different assets that are
worth X, it's probably X minuswhatever's already owed on them,
which means it's going to takea lot more to secure the bond
than it might you might think itmight on paper.
That's one point.
The second point that I wonderabout is how these assets are
titled and what restrictionsthat puts on them.
(19:20):
Now, given that the, thejudgment is against like Trump,
the, his sons and the business,then you I would imagine there's
a lot of ability there to goget them.
But like in reality, out ofTrump world for a minute, if
there are assets that are jointtitled, for example.
So let's say someone has ajudgment against you in
(19:43):
Pennsylvania and I think it'sthe same in New York, but I
could be wrong.
But if someone has a judgmentagainst you in Pennsylvania for
$1,000 and you've got a bankaccount with more than $1,000 in
it, I'm like great, I'm gonnago seize that, put a lien
against that bank account.
But if that is a jointly heldbank account with you and your
spouse and the judgment is onlyagainst you, I can't touch it.
(20:05):
There are things you can do inhow you title assets for asset
protection, and especially whenyou get into the business world,
you can form corporations,shell corporations, holding
companies.
There's a million things youcan do, and I would have to
think that a significant effortwas made within the Trump
organization to hide, protectand do whatever else with assets
(20:27):
for this exact kind of theory.
Right, if he's gonna pay hislawyers to actually do anything,
this is probably something hewould have paid them for.
So there's that part of it.
The other part and this is whereit gets really interesting and
I think now we're gonna steerback into politics for a minute
is this bizarre, incestuousrelationship that Trump has with
(20:48):
his political fundraising, tax,super PACs, all of that and his
non-political expenses and thisis a big topic for another day.
But generally speaking andthere's actually one of the
lawsuits has to do it's the HushMoney lawsuit.
The Stormy Daniels Hush Moneylawsuit is that he used
political funds for anon-political purpose.
(21:11):
You know he paid the Hush Moneyto the porn star using campaign
funds or political funds, whichis prohibited by law, which, by
the way, I've never understood.
That If he was gonna pay herHush Money, why in the world
would you do it in a way thatwas publicly disclosed?
It was like the dumbest thingever.
It was like, literally, you'repaying a hooker with a check,
right, like the Jerry Springerthing.
(21:32):
If he had that much money andhe was gonna pay her off, why
did it not come from somewherethat was not public, right?
If he just paid her out of hisown pocket, no one would know,
or no, you know, it wouldn'thave been disclosed.
I mean, she could havedisclosed it.
But if there was an NDA itdoesn't matter.
But the point is I've alwayslooked back at that as a truly
head scratching moment of a.
(21:52):
To me it felt like a very cheap, the action of a very cheap
person with no awareness oflong-term implications for what
he was doing.
Really dumb, really, reallyreally dumb.
Legally, politically, whatever.
But this crazy interplay betweenhow he collects money
(22:14):
politically and then uses it youknow you could always use money
usually political funds, forlegal fees, but generally
speaking it should be related toyour campaign, right?
Like you know in Pennsylvania,if you raise money and your
political action committee as acandidate and you have a ballot
challenge, right, someonechallenges your ability to be on
a ballot or whatever and you'vegot to hire a lawyer to go
(22:37):
fight that challenge, that wouldbe a permissible use of
campaign funds, but if you get aDUI, you can't use your
campaign funds to hire yourlawyer.
So, like, there are limits andthey're fairly common sense
limits and I think, when this isall said and done, I'll be very
curious to find out like whenthe era of Trump is over
assuming there's still a countryleft If there is what happened
(22:58):
to campaign finance laws.
Now, you know, every state hastheir own, their federal.
I mean there's a milliondifferent sets, but I wonder if
anybody is going to start makingit, looking at the way this was
done because it's basicallymoney laundering, right and
doing it and making some changesto avoid this from happening in
the future.
However, at the end of the day,if the don't, if his donors are
(23:18):
dumb enough to keep funding it,then kind of shame on them,
right?
I mean, I don't know what youdo there.
So, anyhow, lots of movingparts, super interesting and
someone you know, my interestbeing both politics and the law.
This is like something I loveand I'm definitely going to be
following and we'll be comingback and talking about, but
(23:40):
there's a lot to it.
It is a little bit of a deepdive, but it's not an insanely
complicated dive.
It's definitely worth taking alook and you know, if for
nothing else, just for the Donpoorly owned memes they're just
fantastic.
So anyway, thank you very muchfor taking the time with me
today.
It has been a great fun littleexercise to just have a little
(24:03):
fun today.
We have a lot more fun plannedfor the week.
One of the things I'm going tostart doing as we get up near
the primary election here in PAis looking at individual
primaries in legislative andcongressional districts.
There's some really interestingones there and I'm going to
look at them from a perspectiveof some of the behind the scenes
politics and why things arehappening the way they are, and
(24:25):
there's a couple that are really, really interesting.
I'm hoping to have some of thecandidates on.
If you know any candidates orif you have anybody that would
like to come on the show, pleasereach out info at
keystonerecordingcom.
That's info atkeystonerecordingcom.
Or if you have an idea or aquestion, I'd love to hear it.
Until then, this has been theKeystone Recording Podcast.
(24:47):
I'm your host, jesse White.
Have a great day.
For God's sakes.
If you're stuck in Palm Sundaytraffic, please be careful.
I'll see you next time.
Brother, can you spare 46,390 million dimes?
Good morning and welcome to theKeystone Recording Podcast for
Monday, march 25, 2024.
I'm your host, jesse White, andI'm feeling festive today.
I feel like it's a time tocelebrate for a couple of
reasons and I want to start witha non-political little story.
(00:22):
But it's one of my all-timefavorite stories of something
that happened to me in mychildhood and I didn't have a
lot of great moments to immersemy childhood.
But this is one of them andit's time sensitive, so I
thought it's a good time to tellit.
And if you ever follow me onsocial media, you look at I do
an annual post and they're likewhat the hell is this guy
talking about?
So yesterday was Palm Sunday.
(00:45):
Palm Sunday is, for those thatdon't know, it's the Sunday
before Easter and itcommemorates Christ's triumphant
entry into Jerusalem, asmentioned in each of the four
canonical Gospels, and itoriginates from the Palm
branches.
Wave to the crowd to greet andhonor Jesus as he entered the
city.
Palm Sunday marks the first dayof Holy Week, which ends in
(01:08):
Easter this coming Sunday.
So a little bit more background.
I am was raised Catholic, as in.
I was baptized, I tookcommunion.
I did not have my confirmation.
I kind of backed away afterthat but I did all the early on
Catholic things, went to CCD,you know, did all that stuff.
(01:33):
My grandmother did take me tochurch on occasion, so I was a,
you know, I kind of spoke thelanguage, but I held no currency
in terms of being a Catholic.
And as time has gone on andI'll talk about this in future
podcasts because it merits amuch longer discussion as time
went on I moved away from thechurch as I moved into public
(01:56):
life and for a lot of reasons.
But the point being, I was atheoretical lower KC Catholic as
a child and so was one of mybest friends and I'm not even
going to use names because wehad a falling out over the years
and I don't want to go thereand it was actually political
(02:17):
but one of my best friends sinceI was like five years old,
similar very.
They were adopted but it was avery.
The parents were very Italian,kind of old school Catholic and
the weekend, the one weekend, wewere driving up to his extended
families to see his extendedfamily up in Indiana, pa.
(02:39):
We lived a little south ofPittsburgh, so it was like maybe
an hour drive a little bit more.
And it was me, my best friend,his brother, who was a couple
years younger than us, and hisfather, and his father as I am
now a father myself, I findmyself using his name was Jack.
I find myself using Jackisms alot, and it's both hilarious and
(03:03):
terrifying in a lot of ways,because he was just the dad that
always got flustered andfrustrated when dealing with
smart ass kids, and we were theepitome of smart ass kids.
But at that point I'd beenaround so much.
You know we're about six we hadto be 16, at least, when this
happens, we're about 16.
And I'd been around the houseat that point since I was like
five.
So I was one of the kids and Iwas as much of a smart ass as
(03:25):
any of them.
So you got these three smart asskids and we're we're heading up
to Indiana, pa, and my friendhad just gotten his learners
permit.
And I know the rules aredifferent now with, like
learners permit and all that youhave to do so many hours or
whatever.
And this is when, like, you gotyour learners permit and as
long as you felt you were readyafter that, you could go ahead
(03:46):
and get your license.
So my friend was like superexcited to drive, which I get,
and he had convinced his dad tolet him drive from Pittsburgh up
to Indiana, which is likebasically a straight line, is
pretty straightforward, and wewere going on a Friday, like
early afternoon, so it wasn't,like you know and this plays
(04:07):
into the story it wasn't like abig traffic time, right, it was,
like you know, it was Friday atlike one o'clock.
There was not much going on andI remember the car he had, like
the dad had a Cadillac and itwas like one of those like big,
like late 80s, early 90s Caddy's.
It was a boat.
(04:27):
I mean there's just no otherway to put it.
The actually wasn't a boat, itwas like an aircraft carrier.
So we're in this car and thebrother and I are in the
backseat, we're like playingcards or just being stupid kids,
and the dad is in the passengerseat.
My friend is driving and myfriend was a little reckless as,
given the fact that he did endup backing a car into a garage
(04:48):
like less than a year later, buthe was driving fine, he was
doing all the things because hisdad was sitting, you know,
seven inches away watching hisevery move and the dad was just
getting so freaked out aboutevery little thing and in one of
the greatest fits offrustration and ill logic I've
ever heard in all parentinghistory, we're driving and the
(05:13):
dad is yelling, but yelling butlike admonishing, and he says to
my friend you've got to bereally careful because all the
traffic this weekend and likethere's like dead silence in the
car and the dad's like it's aholiday weekend, the silence
continues.
My friend doesn't want to askbecause like he's you know
(05:34):
driving and he knows, and heknows there's something coming
that's not gonna be great.
So his brother from the backseats, like dad, what holiday?
And his dad gets all flusteredbecause he realizes what's about
to come out of his mouth makesno sense at all and he goes it's
bomb Sunday.
Now, this was Friday, it wasFriday at like 1 pm.
(05:54):
His dad warns him about isgiving him a hard time, about
traffic for Palm Sunday, whichis two days away, and that still
assumes that there could be alot of traffic on Palm Sunday
itself.
It's a whole other thing.
But I don't know if I've everlaughed as hard in my entire
life as I did when I heard that.
And we all did right, we werelosing it.
Now the dad did not find itnearly as funny because he
(06:15):
realized, like it me as a dad.
Now I'd be like, okay, that wasridiculous.
And I'd like, yeah, laugh along.
Yeah, this guy did not havethat level of like chill and it
just made it that much funnier.
So, long story short, we go upthere and we did go to Palm
Sunday A service on Sunday butthe entire thing just became
this massive running joke aboutPalm Sunday.
(06:38):
I don't know how he didn't Justleave us in a field to die
somewhere.
We were so Obnoxious, everylittle thing, what.
We were just so ridiculous intothe point where we actually
went to church on Palm Sundayand it reached like it's
pinnacle and like I'm prettysure we left early Because we
were being so Ridiculous.
(07:00):
Any of you an idea of just howlike, totally out of it and
disrespectful we were?
I don't think I was told inadvance that we were going to
church.
I was wearing like a MichaelJordan, like space jam t-shirt
to church for Palm Sunday, likethis was not my finest hour.
But so now you know, it's one ofthose great jokes that is just
Endured and it's actually gonefurther out into my you know, my
(07:22):
family and my you know closegroup of friends.
And so now Palm Sunday is, youknow, I get like seven tech
saying like please be carefulout there, the traffic Don't go
anywhere.
To now I have my kids thinkingit like I took us to go see
Ghostbusters yesterday and we'redriving a movie theater and
he's like, hey, he's like yousure you want to go today.
And I'm like why he's like PalmSunday, I'm just worried about
(07:42):
the traffic, you know.
So like it's this neveranything.
So anyway, every year on socialI give them the typical Palm
Sunday be careful out therewarning.
It is one of the very few jokesthat is just going to go to my
grave.
If there is any justice in theworld, I would.
If I could pick any Day of theyear to die like you know, I'm
(08:02):
not saying I wanted to be aspiff of a year, but if I could
pick any one day of the year todie where I think it would be
like the most fun for the peoplethat were going to be Morning
slash celebrating my life wouldbe.
If I died on Palm Sunday, notbecause of anything religious,
just because it would be.
It would be something thatwould make the people in my life
laugh and that would be awonderful gift to give them
(08:25):
after I'm gone.
So I just want to say belatedhappy Palm Sunday.
I imagine most of you areprobably listening to this
podcast sitting in your carsBecause you're still stuck in
Palm Sunday traffic from the daybefore.
And to you I say that's on youfor not doing the proper
planning.
You knew it was gonna be PalmSunday.
(08:46):
I have no sympathy for you.
You gotta prepare in this dayof Google Maps and Waze and all
the things.
Back then we didn't see We'dhave GPS.
We didn't know that the trafficwas gonna be so bad
theoretically.
But now, thanks to moderntechnology, there's no excuse.
So I have no sympathy for onyou.
So sit in the traffic andlisten.
(09:06):
Now, while we're talking aboutthings to celebrate, let's talk
about what else today is, andthat is civil asset for
forfeiture day for Donald Trumpthe 463.9 million dollars in his
New York fraud trial the civiljudgment is owed.
Today he has been unable tosecure a bond I to pay that,
(09:30):
which is just delightful on somany levels, because you know,
it's almost hard to believe thatsomeone finally realized that
lending this guy money was areally, really bad idea.
Like, is there anybody that'smore famous for not paying their
bills than Donald Trump?
Like, of course, no one's gonnalend him the money.
I mean, it was one thing.
(09:50):
When he needs to borrow, likeyou know a little bit, you know
a $2 million, you knowrelatively speaking, but $463
million, it's like real money.
That's real money.
It's just about anybody.
So it is really hilarious.
And the best thing I've seen onTwitter so far has been hashtag
(10:10):
Don Porleone, which is just awonderful, a wonderful Twitter
hashtag If you want to go checkout something entertaining.
Yeah, don Porleone, obviously aplay on the Godfather, and so
here's the thing, though.
So what's going to happen?
Right, let's, let's look andsee.
Let's talk about this for asecond for real.
So he owes the money, and NewYork Attorney General Leticia
(10:33):
James now has, like, all sortsof tools in her toolbox to go
get the money, and the questioneverybody's asking is you know
what?
How aggressive are they goingto be?
I am, from what I'm seeing andreading and guessing and wishing
and loving and hoping is thatthey are going to be aggressive
in going after it, but if theyget for no other reason for a
(10:53):
couple of reasons.
One is I think you have to senda message right, you didn't go
through this whole process to?
You know, go after this guy forfraud, and you know so
overwhelming, and they get thishistoric judgment to then not go
aggressively collect on it.
You know, this is New York,right, when someone owes you
money, you go get paid.
(11:14):
You know, as a business owner,someone owes me money.
One of the things I learnedearlier when someone owes you
money, you go get it that day.
If they have it right, if theyhave it in hand, you go get it.
Well, in this case, he doesn'thave it in hand, but they're
going to get it and they can doit in a variety of ways.
The other thing is like to takea step back for a minute.
You know, I, just I one of thethings is this was unfolding is.
(11:36):
I just did not understand waswhy in the world he continued,
trump continued to provoke andinsult and try to humiliate the
judge, the prosecutors,everybody.
Like at some point there's likeI don't poke the bear component
(11:56):
of this, and I get it.
He just doesn't know how toshut up right, and it's just.
You know, it's constant outrageand he's being unfairly treated
.
And I do wonder and we'll neverreally know is does he really
believe that?
And does he really think thatlashing out is going to get him
what he's looking for?
I don't know, I don't know theanswer to that, but so the point
(12:19):
is there, the money is to behad now and the toolbox for
Leticia James to go get it isexpansive, because at this point
, you know, one of the thingsthat's made Trump, I think, in a
lot of ways, so immune toconsequence in so many ways, has
been the fact that, like youknow, it's the political
(12:41):
pressure and he's a formerpresident, and there's, there's,
you know, precedent, and youknow there are all these norms
which I've always believed.
If you're not willing to respectthose norms, and those norms
should not respect you, and I'vemaintained that for a lot of
different things, because you'realso setting a.
You know everybody talks aboutprecedent and you know the way
things work Well, you're settinga precedent.
(13:02):
The other direction, that isjust as dangerous, if not more
dangerous.
So, but that's a discussion foranother day.
So they could seize a lot ofdifferent assets.
The easiest one to go get wouldbe bank accounts, which is, you
know it's literally as simple asfiling some basic paperwork.
I mean, at this point, goingafter some of these assets.
The amount is, you know,astonishingly high.
(13:23):
But the process goes to thesame.
If you're somewhere that you'rea couple thousand dollars and
you know a small claims court,once the appeals are done or
what one in New York, you know,even though the appeal is
pending and that's what this ishe has to put up a bond pending
the appeal.
So New York doesn't get themoney right from like winning
(13:43):
the case, but the money has tobe held with interest, which you
know we're talking about 450million.
You know the interest isalready going up to 464.
The interest is going to itsstatutory interest.
It's going to get real, big,real fast.
But that money has to sit in anescrow account until the appeal
is over and honestly, I have afeeling it's going to get
(14:06):
lowered somewhat on appeal.
I kind of don't blame him forappealing it, because why not if
you've got the money to put upfor the bond, but I obviously
clearly doesn't.
So they could go get the bankaccounts, they could seize those
.
That's not going to be enoughthe other.
So then they're talking aboutproperties.
They're talking about.
You know all those differentthings.
(14:27):
One of the things because whatyou can do is you can seize the
properties and then sell them atlike a sheriff sale, right, and
you know at that point they'reopen to the highest or, you know
, in this case, lowest bidder,you know, or Trump could sell
them himself at, most likely a asubstantially depleted Value,
(14:48):
much lower valuation, becauseeverybody knows there's urgency
and it's a quick sell.
So I don't know, you know.
I think what's gonna happen isyou're gonna see some leans
Slapped on to some of theproperties.
I think they're gonna focus onthe New York properties Because
you know the New York AttorneyGeneral's office is basically
the biggest law firm in New York, right, so they can go and
(15:11):
Easily go anywhere in New Yorkand effectuate that paperwork
and those processes to make ithappen.
You know the obviously hispremier property and his mind is
Mar-a-Lago in Florida.
That requires, you know, goingacross different states.
I mean, they could do it.
It is not the lowest hangingfruit from a pure law
enforcement or pure Assets,asset seizure point of view,
(15:36):
right, it's not.
It's not easy.
Yeah, the only thing moredifficult will probably be you
know his properties abroad.
You know that would beextremely difficult.
So, but anything in New York is, you know, kind of right in
their wheelhouse.
So I wouldn't be surprised ifthere are not leans at least
placed on that and there's aprocess.
They have to give you 60 daysand the way I mean it would be a
(15:57):
process, but it's a relativelyshort ramp, right, it is not
anything that's gonna be.
He can't delay this a whole lotlonger.
At this point the ball is out ofhis court, which is a unique
position for him to be in, andyou know that's leading to some
amazing temper tantrums fromTrump amazing.
You know you can go.
And you know his goofy web, hisgoofy true social, that it's
(16:19):
all getting reposted on theTwitter and he's just like going
nothing, which, again, fun towatch.
So you know hashtag, oh, noConsequences.
So To me, you know, the thingthat I wonder and hasn't really
been talked about a lot, is ifyou see an asset and it's
Already got loans andencumbrances against the title
and since, like my law degree atwork in my mind, if so, let's
(16:41):
say, for example, me, you have aproperty worth, let's say, one
of his golf courses.
Right, it's worth a hundredmillion dollars.
Let's just take that as anexample.
If worth a hundred milliondollars.
But if he's already got itmortgaged and leaned and you
know there's other loans againstit, it's really not worth a
hundred million dollars becausethose, those leans have to be
paid, right?
So if let's say it's, he's got$40 million in loan secured
(17:08):
against the golf course ascollateral and Leticia James
goes and puts a lien on it andgoes to sell it, let's say it's
it's, you know, on paper worth ahundred million, although,
given the nature of what thewhole lawsuit was about, you
know miss value or overinflating the value of assets.
You know what's really worth,right.
So let's just say, for the sakeof argument, that's worth a
hundred million dollars.
(17:28):
There's a 40 million dollarencumbrance on the title already
.
She goes to sell it.
It sells for the hundredmillion that look, those loans
and leans have to get paid offfirst and Then the AG would get
what's left.
So really that hundred milliondollar asset meant would only
net 60 million dollars.
And you have to figure that alot of these assets are Financed
(17:53):
over, you know, put up ascollateral out the wazoo,
because otherwise he could havegone and borrowed against them
in Order to pay down some of theyou know to maybe come up with
the cash, right like.
It's a lot easier if you need togo borrow money.
Right, let's just go out ofTrump world for a minute.
There's a reason why if youneed to borrow money, you can
get a more money and a betterdeal on a home equity loan,
(18:16):
assuming you have equity in yourhouse, right?
So the more equity you havethen, the more you can borrow
and the better rate you'll get,because the lender, the bank,
whatever Knows that if you don'tpay, they are going to get paid
because they could take yourhouse.
They can foreclose on yourhouse twice easier to get a car
loan than it is to get anunsecured loan.
If you don't pay, they come andrepo the car.
You know the lender has somesecurity there and some peace of
(18:39):
mind that they wouldn't have ifyou just went to borrow a bunch
of Money with no collateral.
I have to think and I'm sureit's out there, I haven't seen
it and maybe some of it isn'tout there because if it's tied
up in, you know all sorts ofcrazy international drama and
intrigue, what exactly thatwould look like.
So there's that part of it,right.
(18:59):
So just because you see all ofthese different assets that are
worth X, it's probably X minuswhatever's already owed on them,
which means it's going to takea lot more to secure the bond
than it might you might think itmight on paper.
That's one point.
The second point that I wonderabout is how these assets are
titled and what restrictionsthat puts on them.
(19:20):
Now, given that the, thejudgment is against like Trump,
the, his sons and the business,then you I would imagine there's
a lot of ability there to goget them.
But like in reality, out ofTrump world for a minute, if
there are assets that are jointtitled, for example.
So let's say someone has ajudgment against you in
(19:43):
Pennsylvania and I think it'sthe same in New York, but I
could be wrong.
But if someone has a judgmentagainst you in Pennsylvania for
$1,000 and you've got a bankaccount with more than $1,000 in
it, I'm like great, I'm gonnago seize that, put a lien
against that bank account.
But if that is a jointly heldbank account with you and your
spouse and the judgment is onlyagainst you, I can't touch it.
(20:05):
There are things you can do inhow you title assets for asset
protection, and especially whenyou get into the business world,
you can form corporations,shell corporations, holding
companies.
There's a million things youcan do, and I would have to
think that a significant effortwas made within the Trump
organization to hide, protectand do whatever else with assets
(20:27):
for this exact kind of theory.
Right, if he's gonna pay hislawyers to actually do anything,
this is probably something hewould have paid them for.
So there's that part of it.
The other part and this is whereit gets really interesting and
I think now we're gonna steerback into politics for a minute
is this bizarre, incestuousrelationship that Trump has with
(20:48):
his political fundraising, tax,super PACs, all of that and his
non-political expenses and thisis a big topic for another day.
But generally speaking andthere's actually one of the
lawsuits has to do it's the HushMoney lawsuit.
The Stormy Daniels Hush Moneylawsuit is that he used
political funds for anon-political purpose.
(21:11):
You know he paid the Hush Moneyto the porn star using campaign
funds or political funds, whichis prohibited by law, which, by
the way, I've never understood.
That If he was gonna pay herHush Money, why in the world
would you do it in a way thatwas publicly disclosed?
It was like the dumbest thingever.
It was like, literally, you'repaying a hooker with a check,
right, like the Jerry Springerthing.
(21:32):
If he had that much money andhe was gonna pay her off, why
did it not come from somewherethat was not public, right?
If he just paid her out of hisown pocket, no one would know,
or no, you know, it wouldn'thave been disclosed.
I mean, she could havedisclosed it.
But if there was an NDA itdoesn't matter.
But the point is I've alwayslooked back at that as a truly
head scratching moment of a.
(21:52):
To me it felt like a very cheap, the action of a very cheap
person with no awareness oflong-term implications for what
he was doing.
Really dumb, really, reallyreally dumb.
Legally, politically, whatever.
But this crazy interplay betweenhow he collects money
(22:14):
politically and then uses it youknow you could always use money
usually political funds, forlegal fees, but generally
speaking it should be related toyour campaign, right?
Like you know in Pennsylvania,if you raise money and your
political action committee as acandidate and you have a ballot
challenge, right, someonechallenges your ability to be on
a ballot or whatever and you'vegot to hire a lawyer to go
(22:37):
fight that challenge, that wouldbe a permissible use of
campaign funds, but if you get aDUI, you can't use your
campaign funds to hire yourlawyer.
So, like, there are limits andthey're fairly common sense
limits and I think, when this isall said and done, I'll be very
curious to find out like whenthe era of Trump is over
assuming there's still a countryleft If there is what happened
(22:58):
to campaign finance laws.
Now, you know, every state hastheir own, their federal.
I mean there's a milliondifferent sets, but I wonder if
anybody is going to start makingit, looking at the way this was
done because it's basicallymoney laundering, right and
doing it and making some changesto avoid this from happening in
the future.
However, at the end of the day,if the don't, if his donors are
(23:18):
dumb enough to keep funding it,then kind of shame on them,
right?
I mean, I don't know what youdo there.
So, anyhow, lots of movingparts, super interesting and
someone you know, my interestbeing both politics and the law.
This is like something I loveand I'm definitely going to be
following and we'll be comingback and talking about, but
(23:40):
there's a lot to it.
It is a little bit of a deepdive, but it's not an insanely
complicated dive.
It's definitely worth taking alook and you know, if for
nothing else, just for the Donpoorly owned memes they're just
fantastic.
So anyway, thank you very muchfor taking the time with me
today.
It has been a great fun littleexercise to just have a little
(24:03):
fun today.
We have a lot more fun plannedfor the week.
One of the things I'm going tostart doing as we get up near
the primary election here in PAis looking at individual
primaries in legislative andcongressional districts.
There's some really interestingones there and I'm going to
look at them from a perspectiveof some of the behind the scenes
politics and why things arehappening the way they are, and
(24:25):
there's a couple that are really, really interesting.
I'm hoping to have some of thecandidates on.
If you know any candidates orif you have anybody that would
like to come on the show, pleasereach out info at
keystonerecordingcom.
That's info atkeystonerecordingcom.
Or if you have an idea or aquestion, I'd love to hear it.
Until then, this has been theKeystone Recording Podcast.
(24:47):
I'm your host, jesse White.
Have a great day.
For God's sakes.
If you're stuck in Palm Sundaytraffic, please be careful.
I'll see you next time.
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