Trump faces bond deadline in civil fraud case | The Excerpt podcast

On Monday’s episode of The Excerpt podcast: Former President Donald Trump faces a bond deadline in his civil fraud case. Plus, he'll have a Monday hearing in his New York hush money case. USA TODAY Justice Department Correspondent Aysha Bagchi fills us in. A PAC scheme is helping pay Trump's legal fees. USA TODAY National Reporter Lauren Villagran talks about what pawn shops can tell us about the economy. Dozens sue saying weight loss and diabetes drugs cause harmful side effects.

Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it.  This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.

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Taylor Wilson:

Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson and today is Monday, March 25th, 2024. This is The Excerpt. Today, what's next for Donald Trump's bond in his civil fraud case. Plus how a PAC scheme is helping pay his legal fees and what pawn shops can tell us about the state of the economy. Former President Donald Trump's bond in his New York civil fraud case is due today and he so far hasn't been able to make it. I caught up with USA today, Justice Department Correspondent Aysha Bagchi for more on what might happen to his assets and a look ahead to another one of his legal issues. Aysha, thanks for making the time today.

Aysha Bagchi:

Hi, Taylor. It's good to be here.

Taylor Wilson:

So Aysha, what have we been hearing in the buildup to this bond deadline?

Aysha Bagchi:

It's been unclear. Trump's lawyers told a New York Appeals court that they have gone to 30 bonding companies and not one of them was willing to provide this entire bond based on the terms Trump's team was willing or able to offer. They said that they wanted a bond where they would put up a mixture of assets including some real estate, and no bonding company was willing to take that as collateral to put up a bond of $464 million. So they have been struggling for a while. We have seen this. That doesn't mean that he couldn't have come up with something somehow at the last minute, but that hasn't happened yet.

Taylor Wilson:

So Aysha, what does this functionally mean for Trump and his assets going forward? I know you and I have talked about which of his assets might be seized.

Aysha Bagchi:

Yes, so this means sometime this week the New York Attorney General could start going after Trump's assets. How that looks in practice kind of depends on the asset you're talking about and where the asset is. But the fastest thing that she could go after is a bank account and cash in a bank account. If she knows where his bank accounts are already, she could send a subpoena there or she could send an official document, it's called a writ of execution, to a marshal in New York with a request for an immediate levy on the bank. And then his assets in a bank account could be frozen pretty much immediately. And the turnaround time for actually seizing those funds would be measured in days or weeks I've been told. So very fast. Then when you're talking about other types of property, real estate would take the longest, especially if you're talking about real estate that is in Donald Trump's name alone.

There are some protections, particularly in New York when it comes to residences. So that would probably involve a kind of court process. If it's real estate that's in a corporation's name that's subject to this judgment, then things could happen faster. And personal property is somewhere in between in terms of the speed with which Letitia James could take these assets, but she can get the ball rolling. And actually even before this deadline, we saw that she was rolling the ball. She had already extended the lien, which is in New York County and Manhattan where the judgment was to another in New York State, which is a preliminary thing she would need to do to go after his real estate there. So things could start to unfold very quickly, especially when it comes to cash.

Taylor Wilson:

Meanwhile, the Trump legal news just never stops. There's a big court hearing today in Trump's separate criminal hush money case. Aysha, refresh us on what's at stake in this case and what we can expect later today.

Aysha Bagchi:

Right. So this was the one Trump criminal case that had a firm date that seemed to be sticking of March 25th to start. And then suddenly this month that date was wiped from the books. There were federal prosecutors who sent over 100,000 pages of new documents to Donald Trump, or at least some of them are new. And that document dump caused this delay. And basically the hearing today is over a couple of things. Trump has said that state prosecutors who are bringing the case should have gotten these documents and turned them over themselves. And so Trump thinks the entire case should be dismissed because he didn't get these documents sooner. But the judge has said he's going to have a hearing to review that, but also to review setting a new trial date. The judge only created a delay through mid-April, so it's still very possible that we could get a new trial date where this trial gets underway pretty soon.

But the case is about 34 felony counts that Donald Trump is facing for falsifying business records. So it's a kind of technical case about New York law around business records, but it really comes down to thinking about what was happening in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election. At that time, Donald Trump's lawyer at the time, Michael Cohen, made a $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels, an adult film actor, allegedly in order to cover up a story that Stormy Daniels had about having had an affair with Donald Trump in the past. And this was at a time when the Access Hollywood tape had come out. Donald Trump's campaign was really worried about how voters, especially women, would view him as a candidate. And this payment was made. And then according to prosecutors, Donald Trump reimbursed Michael Cohen later and falsified records having to do with what that reimbursement was for in order allegedly to cover up a hush money payment.

So that's what the case is about. Each of the counts carries a maximum penalty of four years. So technically you could be theoretically talking about over 100 years in prison if each count he was found guilty and they were all run consecutively. But that is extremely unlikely. I've talked to people who have estimated that even if Trump were found guilty on every count, we're talking about a range of maybe no prison time at all to four years in prison. Nothing's so extreme, but it is a criminal case that he's facing. And if he were found guilty, he could be a convicted felon before election day this year.

Taylor Wilson:

All right, Aysha Bagchi covers the Justice Department for USA today. Thank you, Aysha.

Aysha Bagchi:

Thanks, Taylor.

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Taylor Wilson:

Meanwhile, an elaborate PAC scheme is helping pay Donald Trump's legal fees. A pro-Trump super PAC has been millions of dollars every month to the former President's Fund for paying his ballooning legal bills. The transfers have kept the fund Save America afloat, as it bled tens of millions of dollars on legal bills in the year since a New York grand jury indicted Trump the first in a wave of criminal indictments and civil judgments against him. In the past, Save America's highest spending involved audiovisual expenses for Trump's public appearances, and donations to other groups, including a super PAC started in 2022 called Make America Great Again Incorporated.

But the money Save America has spent on legal bills, including the firms that represent Trump in both civil and criminal cases, has skyrocketed in the past two years. So MAGA Inc. has stepped in to bail out Save America by paying it back. It sent five million dollars at the beginning of every month from last July through February to save America, totaling 40 million in addition to 12.3 million that MAGA Inc transferred in May and June. That's according to records from the Federal Election Commission. You can read more with a link in today's show notes.

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President Joe Biden says the economy is on the upswing. And while that's true for some, pawn shops are telling a different story. I spoke with USA Today National Reporter, Lauren Villagran to learn more. Lauren, thanks for dropping on.

Lauren Villagran:

Hey Taylor. Thank you.

Taylor Wilson:

So Lauren, let's just start with this, President Joe Biden has been touting the economy's success. What indicators does he point to?

Lauren Villagran:

So there are a lot of things that are going really well for the economy. There are nine million job openings. The unemployment is at record lows. Americans have been dealing with really severe inflation over the past couple of years, but it's slowed considerably despite picking up a little bit in January and February. The Federal Reserve Bank has said that they may start to cut interest rates this year, so that would help with access to credit in the country. But that economic picture is not as rosy for everyone.

Taylor Wilson:

Yeah. So you wrote about pawn shops. I'm curious, Lauren, how do pawn shops act as a kind of rainy day fund for many Americans?

Lauren Villagran:

Well, incredibly Taylor, there are many Americans who don't have enough money to open a bank account. They live in a cash economy and don't have access to things like credit cards. So the pawn shop can act as a sort of rainy day fund as you said, between paychecks, for example. I met a man in El Paso who is sort of a frequent flyer, he brings in things that he has of value to get short-term loans which is what pawn shops offer.

Taylor Wilson:

Pawn shops are currently accumulating inventory as you write in the piece, Lauren, what can this tell us about the economy as a whole right now?

Lauren Villagran:

Well, we know that the economic recovery after COVID-19 has been uneven. And I got to thinking, what does a pawn shop owner know that maybe many Americans or even the Biden administration doesn't? And I had the opportunity to talk to a fourth generation pawn shop owner in El Paso, Texas, Clay Barron. He runs a really famous shop in downtown El Paso called Dave's. There's an Elvis statue outside, and the King's hits are always playing into the street. And he shared some information that I thought was really interesting. He said, "It seemed like a lot of Americans are a bit dry now. Folks are coming in looking for short-term cash loans." And of course there's also the price of gold.

Taylor Wilson:

Yeah. So what are we seeing with the price of gold and what else are we seeing nationally on this conversation, Lauren?

Lauren Villagran:

Folks start to dig up their grandma's gold rings when the price of gold goes a bit crazy, which is where it's at now. The price of gold has been hitting new records starting in December, and even just as recently as this week, gold hit $2,200 a Troy ounce, which was a historic peak. Gold, Taylor, is a traditional hedge against inflation. People often flock to gold when they feel like their dollars aren't going to be worth as much. But you see the pattern that Clay Barron has seen in his shop repeated across the country. Two major corporate owners of pawn shops in the US also are reporting higher inventory. So what does that mean? It means that folks are coming in, they're pawning an item for a short-term loan and they're not coming back to pay that loan or to pick up the item. And so pawn shops put those items up for sale. And again, both Barron's shop, which is just chock-full of inventory like rings and watches and belt buckles and stereo equipment, pawn shops across the country are seeing something similar.

Taylor Wilson:

All right. Lauren Villagran is a national reporter with USA Today. Thank you, Lauren.

Lauren Villagran:

Thank you.

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Taylor Wilson:

Dozens of people are suing saying that Ozempic and other weight loss and diabetes drugs cause harmful side effects. Patients are suing Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, the two companies that make drugs within this class of medication saying they suffer distressing digestive symptoms like gallbladder removal or gastroparesis after taking the drug. Millions of Americans have flocked to this class of drugs which are prescribed for diabetes and weight loss, and have become a blockbuster category of medications for drug companies. The suits accused the companies of to notify patients about the side effects of their popular diabetes or weight loss drugs. Those drugs include Novo Nordisk's Ozempic, Wegovy and Rybelsus and Eli Lilly's Trulicity and Mounjaro. Novo Nordisk faces the most suits, and representatives of the company said in a statement that the cases are without merit.

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And today is the celebration of Holi, the Hindu festival of colors. Sometimes people celebrating Holi will use colored powders, colored waters, or other substances to celebrate. And festivities can also include drumming, singing and dancing along with bonfires. Thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You can get the podcast wherever you get your pods. And if you're on a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. I'm Taylor Wilson, back tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from USA Today.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump bond comes due and hearing held on hush money case | The Excerpt