Donald Trump faces significant financial risk as he was ordered to pay $83.3 million for defamation and may face a $370 million verdict in a civil fraud trial.
These legal challenges could potentially wipe out a substantial portion of his cash reserves.
While Trump’s campaign finances remain strong, he may not be able to use these funds to cover these verdicts.
“There aren’t any exceptions that would cover a damages award for a matter not involving him as a candidate or officeholder,” former federal prosecutor Jennifer Rodgers said.
“Super PACs are not supposed to donate to candidates, they’re supposed to be independent,” Brennan Center for Justice director Daniel Weiner said. “It would violate the spirit of the law to use Super PAC money, raised to support the candidate, to pay his debts.”
“We have a lot of cash,” Trump said in 2023.
“I believe we have substantially in excess of $400 million in cash, which is a lot for a developer,” he added. “Developers usually don’t have cash. They have assets, not cash. We have, I believe, 400 plus and going up very substantially every month. My biggest expense is probably legal fees, unfortunately.”
His net worth is estimated at $3.1 billion, mostly tied up in real estate, and the potential $450 million penalty would account for about 15% of his net worth.
“A billionaire like Donald Trump could pay a million dollars a day for ten years and still have money left in the bank,” Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan said. “With that sort of extreme wealth, it will take an unusually high punitive damages award to have any hope of stopping Donald Trump, to have any chance of allowing Ms. Carroll’s life to return to normal.”
Trump has indicated plans to appeal these verdicts, but the financial impact could still be significant.
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