Once upon a time, long before he set his sights on the White House, Donald Trump leveraged his massive real estate empire into a braggadocious reality TV show called The Apprentice. The show’s bombastic theme song sang “money, money, money, money,” at viewers over shots of Trump’s New York properties, private planes, and helicopters. Now, two decades after the show first premiered, the former president is begging his followers to fork over cash in order to preserve the assets on which he built his throne.
“KEEP YOUR FILTHY HANDS OFF TRUMP TOWER!” Trump’s campaign screamed in a text message sent out Wednesday morning to potential donors. “Insane radical Democrat AG Letitia James wants to SEIZE my properties in New York. THIS INCLUDES THE ICONIC TRUMP TOWER!” Trump added in a memo linked in the text message.
“Before the day is over, I’m calling on ONE MILLION Pro-Trump patriots to chip in and say: STOP THE WITCH HUNT AGAINST PRESIDENT TRUMP!” the donation page read.
On Monday, the former president’s attorneys revealed that they had been unable to secure a bond backer to guarantee the nearly half a billion dollars he would need to submit an appeal on a massive New York civil fraud ruling against him and his company. Last month, Trump was ordered to pay $355 million in damages to the state of New York and barred “from serving as an officer or director of any New York corporation or other legal entity in New York for a period of three years,” after being found liable for defrauding investors and the state through his real estate holdings.
Trump is livid — ot only because he was rejected by 30 different underwriters, but because unless he comes up with the money by Monday, the state could begin seizing his assets to collect payment.
“If he does not have funds to pay off the judgment, then we will seek judgment enforcement mechanisms in court, and we will ask the judge to seize his assets,” New York Attorney General Letitia James told ABC News last month.
Attorneys for the former president also indicated in court filings that Trump may be forced to sell his properties to make the payment. On Tuesday, he raged on Truth Social that he would “be forced to mortgage or sell Great Assets, perhaps at Fire Sale prices, and if and when I win the Appeal, they would be gone.”
But while Trump has historically been very adept at skirting the consequences of his actions, if he can’t come up with that all-important “money, money, money, money,” he might be shit out of luck.