Yeah. I just want to talk more about what the judge said here, because in this ruling, there was a part where he talked about the lack of remorse that the judge said he believed was bordering on pathological. He didn't end there, though. I'm quoting part of the end of this ruling where the judge said, quote, referring to the Trump, Trump and his family and his companies, they are accused only of inflating asset values to make more money. The documents prove this over and over again. This is not a venial sin, not a sin. Defendants did not commit murder or arson. They did not rob a bank at gunpoint. Donald Trump is not Bernie Madoff, yet the defendants are incapable of admitting the error of their ways. Instead, they adopt a see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil, posture that the evidence belies. David K. Johnston, you have been covering Donald Trump and his businesses and his family for years. I just wonder, when you read that part of this ruling from the judge that was particularly harsh, where he basically says, Trump can't change his ways. It made me think of you have said that multiple times here on this show.

Leopards don't change their spots, and Donald Trump has done this his entire life. Not until now has he ever been held accountable? The judge did a fabulous job, 92 pages, meticulously dissecting all the lies, the made-up testimony, with one exception, and pointed out that this person was a Trump witness, was very careful to make sure he didn't say something he could be criticized for.

I wonder what you made of what the judge said about Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. And also even Ivanka Trump saying that she was very poised and thoughtful in her testimony, but also saying that it was suspect what she couldn't remember, which he said the documents themselves could prove.

Well, she was thoroughly impeached. She couldn't remember anything at all about details that she'd obviously written memos about and emails that were introduced into evidence exchanges about details of things. This is the Trump way. You simply lie and deny and don't worry about it because it's just your word against the other person. This judge did a very good job of showing how this was a web of lies calculated to deceive even in his courtroom.

I wonder what you made of just the... No one went into today knowing this judgment was coming, thinking that Trump was necessarily going to get off well. He had already been found liable for fraud. But I wonder what you think it was, what it was like for Trump to actually see that he was held accountable for $355 million.

Donald will be in a state of denial to the end of his life. He immediately said people on his mailing list like me, You're the one who's under attack. And by the way, please send money to help me. And he has more troubles coming ahead. He has one benefit, Kaitlyn, the interest rate on loans starting this year is only two %, not loans, on civil judgments, drops from 9 % to 2 %. It's the one benefit, perhaps, he's gotten out of this. But Donald not only has to raise money, he can't deal with any bank Certified New York. So he could go to Russian oligarchs, MBS in Saudi Arabia, people like that, if they're willing to put up money for him.

You really think he would have to do that?

Well, he can't borrow from any bank registered in New York State. Every big bank in the world, pretty much, that deals in the Western world is registered here. Deutsche Bank, for example, his favorite lender, they're registered in New York. They are off limits to him. So it's going to It's going to be very difficult for him to raise any money. He now has this independent director who, in effect, is going to be the chief operating officer of the company. They can pay salaries and routine things, but any financial transaction has to be approved in advance.

Well, that's my other question when I was reading this immediately was, who runs the company now? Because Eric Trump is the de facto chief of the Trump organization, but he has this ban as well, at least a temporary one for two years. I do think it's a major question of who is actually going to be in charge. I've asked people. I don't think that they know yet at this point.

Well, as a practical matter, the independent compliance auditor, whose position the judge created and Trump has to pay for, is going to be running the company in the executive sense of making large decisions because money can't be moved. You can't even apply for a loan in a New York-registered bank without the approval of that person and the monitor, Judge Jones, because during the trial and during these proceedings, they violated the judge's orders repeatedly, moving money without the knowledge of Judge Jones. So Now it is you can't move the money without pre-approval.

The judge also in this ruling cited these specific examples of when Trump was caught lying about his business. One of them, and I'm quoting here from the ruling, said, When questioned about whether he had ever inflated the value of 40 Wall Street, Donald Trump was confronted with a Forbes article, including a published audio recording dated September 21, 2022. That would be this article here that is written by a guest you have seen here on The Source. Dan Alexander. Dan is here with us. Dan, I mean, obviously, just I think the key question is, can Donald Trump afford this?

He doesn't have the cash right now, especially if you add on that penalty with that interest and the Eugene Carroll penalty, which comes with the two rulings on that comes to $88 million. Altogether, you're looking at over half a billion dollars. Right now, Trump does legitimately have roughly $400 million in cash. That's not going to be enough. Remember that you can't just empty out your coffers and say, Okay, now I'm down to zero. I'm still going to operate a major real estate company. He needs to have some cushion here. He's going to have a couple of options. He is either going to need to refinance things. As you guys have talked about, the banks are going to have issues with being able to lend to him. He can't even apply for a loan with many of these banks. But there are, for example, plenty of rich guys who might be interested in lending him $100 million or $200 million and may have good interest in wanting to do that for somebody who might become the President of the United States here in about a year. Another option is that he could sell assets, but Donald Trump has always been reluctant to sell things for what they're actually worth, not to mention much less than they're actually worth.

He could be forced to a fire sale here and get really desperate.

Well, one thing that he's talked about repeatedly in his criticism of this judge was the valuation of Mora Laga, I mean, it's been a huge focus of his. The judge got into that in this ruling saying that Trump is claiming Mar-a-Lago's worth between a billion and a billion five. He said that would require not only valuing it as a private residence, which the deed prohibits, but also as more than the most expensive private resident listed in the country by approximately 400 %. And he notes in a footnote, Trump knows that because Trump signed the deed for Mar-a-Lago prohibiting that very factor.

Yeah, it's ridiculous. And those lies are continuing to live in today. And that statement that he gave tonight, he said that... He didn't say the exact numbers, but if you do out the math, he was saying that Mara Lago was worth $900 million to $1.8 billion tonight. Even after he He's faced hundreds of millions of dollars of penalty for lying about the value of his assets. He's continuing to lie about the value of his assets. But I will say that Mara Lago is worth a lot of money. It's a hard thing to value. We pegged it roughly $290 million dollars, and it doesn't have any debt on it right now. So he could theoretically take a loan against Mar-a-Lago. Somebody takes Mar-a-Lago as collateral, perhaps, again, some rich guy or some foreign lender or whatever that wants to say, Okay, sure, we'll take that as collateral. We'll hand you $100 or $200 million. But those are going to be the things he's going to have to do. It's to look at his assets and say, What can I put at risk by taking a large loan against it in order to now pay these penalties?

Well, and Christie, the other part of this was There's a lot of talk about Michael Cohen and his credibility, which obviously has been a subject of ours. We've had Michael Cohen on the show. We've talked about that. But he wrote at one point where they said, Pretty matter of fact, that Michael Cohen told the truth, something that Michael Cohen is touting tonight. But I wonder what you make of that, not only given the role that he played in jumpstarting this investigation, but also he's expected to be a key witness in the Hush Money case that we now know has a court date next month.

I have to say that part of the opinion surprised me when Judge Ang Goran basically went witness by witness. When he got to Michael Cohen said, Yes, he has been convicted of perjury. Nevertheless, somebody who is convicted of perjury can still tell the truth. I observed him. He was corroborated by other evidence in the case, and I believe he was telling the truth here. Alvin Bragg must be breathing a sigh of relief tonight.

Yeah, and I think, again, thinking about the appeal, that's going to make that appeal even weaker for the former President, because Judge Goran is saying, I was the one in the courtroom. I saw these witnesses, and here's my credibility finding. And an appellal court is not going to be in a position to overturn that or otherwise disagree because they weren't there.

Everybody, thank you so much for breaking that down. A very lengthy and important ruling. Glad to have each and every one of you here tonight.