White House slams Trump for calling Hezbollah ‘very smart’ – live

He may be at home at Mar-a-Lago and not sitting in court in Lower Manhattan, but Donald Trump is keeping up with testimony in his civil fraud trial regarding the inflation of his net worth to secure better financing terms.

After yesterday’s testimony about the financing of the development of the Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC by Deutsche Bank, he posted this on Truth Social today:

This Trophy was given to me by Deutsche Bank because they were so proud of the Loan they made. They had the best Lawyers, the smartest Loan Officers, and were thrilled to do business with “TRUMP.” Interest was fully paid every month (no payment ever missed!), never received a default notice, and if Interest came due on a weekend, I paid it on a Friday. THE LOAN WAS PAID OFF FAR AHEAD OF SCHEDULE! Except for me, because of the Corrupt DOJ, FBI, and Racist New York State Attorney General, there were no Victims, there were only happy Bankers! But despite a PERFECT LOAN, I was sued by the Incompetent, Radical Left New York State AG, Letitia “Peekaboo” James, under a Statute that was never used for this before, and where I am not even entitled to a Jury. A Liberal Democrat Judge, with all Trump Haters surrounding him, is going to make this very important decision. If I had a Jury, I would win easily, but regardless, this is a case that should never have been brought. ELECTION INTERFERENCE!

Nicholas Haigh’s testimony has concluded.

Former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg has now returned to the witness stand for the resumption of his direct examination by Louis Solomon of the New York Attorney General’s Office.

This comes just an hour after the explosive allegations published by Forbes about his earlier testimony.

The publication was referred to multiple times during Weisselberg’s time on the stand as part of the $250m civil fraud lawsuit brought against Donald Trump, his sons, his associates — including Weisselberg — and his company. They are charged with inflating Mr Trump’s net worth in order to get favourable financing terms from banks.

In order to arrive at the inflated figures, the company would in some cases use incorrect facts such as tripling the square footage of Mr Trump’s triplex penthouse apartment at Trump Tower on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue, claiming it was 30,000sq ft and not 10,996sq ft as it actually is.

Weisselberg argued in court that he had little to do with the calculation of the penthouse’s value, repeating the claim several times and saying it was not a concern and a de minimus asset in relation to the overall financial condition of Mr Trump.

Dan Alexander, senior editor for Forbes, who has been reporting on the former president and his business for years, says that that is not true.

“A review of old emails and notes, some of which the attorney general’s office does not possess, show that Weisselberg absolutely thought about Trump’s apartment—and played a key role in trying to convince Forbes over the course of several years that it was worth more than it really was,” he writes.

“Given the fact that these discussions continued for years, and that Weisselberg took a very detailed approach in reviewing Trump’s assets with Forbes, it defies all logic to think he truly believes what he is now saying in court.”

Alexander then gives a detailed breakdown of communications about the size of the penthouse between journalists at Forbes and Weisselberg beginning in 2009, culminating in the publication in 2017 exposing the lie about the square footage.

The company then changed the size of the penthouse on internal documents.

Weisselberg was demoted after being criminally charged in a separate tax case in 2021 and left the Trump Organization in January when was sentenced to five months in jail.

White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates said in a statement that, although the Biden administration doesn’t typically comment on the 2024 presidential race, Mr Trump’s remarks were “dangerous and unhinged”.

“It’s completely lost on us why any American would ever praise an Iran-backed terrorist organization as ‘smart.’ Or have any objection to the United States warning terrorists not to attack Israel,” Mr Bates said.

“Especially now as Israel is fighting back against one of the worst acts of mass murder in the country’s history.”

Cross-examination of Deutsche Bank risk manager Nicholas Haigh continued this morning with Trump attorney Jesus Suarez questioning him about a 2012 loan of $107m secured by a Trump luxury hotel and condominium building in Chicago and a personal guarantee by Donald Trump.

Suarez keeps making the point that the bank would lowball its valuations of Mr Trump’s net worth and assets after its own valuations and analysis of Trump properties and lend in accordance with those figures.

The implication Suarez is trying to get across to Judge Arthur Engoron (as there is no jury) is that Deutsche Bank knew the Trump Organization figures were inflated but still did business with them and therefore was not defrauded.

“Increasing the relationship to President Trump was important to Deutsche Bank’s private wealth management business, wasn’t it?” Suarez asks.

“Yes it was one of the aims of the private wealth management business to increase its relationships with all of its clients,” Haigh says.

Deutsche Bank was by far the biggest creditor to Trump and as of May 2022 the company owed the bank approximately $340m and spent tens of millions of dollars servicing the debt, according to the New York attorney general’s office.

As Suarez continues to go through loan after loan, Judge Engoron gets bored and says this examination is redundant and obvious, and the document says what it says.

“We can all read,” he says.

Returning to evidence heard yesterday, Suarez points to the reasoning the bank gives for extending credit to Trump other than his alleged net worth — his experience as a developer, hi relationship with the bank etc.

He goes on to note that there were no issues with repayments or refinancing, and Judge Engoron says that that is not in dispute and points to his September summary judgment finding the defendants did defraud lenders but everything was paid on time.

Read Judge Engoron’s judgement here:

Reacting to remarks made by Mr Biden on the current state of affairs in the Middle-East, the right-wing anchor called for a “prosecutorial ceasefire” on the former president.

It comes as Mr Biden announced on Tuesday that at least 14 American civilians had been killed in the brutal attacks on Israel, condemning the “unadulterated evil” unleashed by Hamas.

The last Republicans to top a presidential ticket before Donald Trump’s takeover of the GOP are still holding out hope that a more palatable alternative to the ex-president will present itself before nominating contests for next year’s election are complete.

On Tuesday, Utah Senator Mitt Romney and former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan convened a high-level confab in Park City, Utah to discuss foreign policy, technology and business matters at this year’s edition of the annual E2 summit.

Among the attendees will be four of the candidates who’ve been vying — thus far unsuccessfully — to gain traction against Mr Trump in next year’s GOP primary: ex-UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, former vice president Mike Pence, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum.

“He has been hurt very badly because of what’s happened here,” Mr Trump said of Mr Netanyahu on Wednesday night. “He was not prepared. He was not prepared and Israel was not prepared.”