NFL QB/Potential RFK Jr. VP Aaron Rodgers Is A Sandy Hook Truther

For those who are thinking that RFK Jr. could be a viable third party candidate consider that his potential running mate NFL QB Aaron Rodgers is a Sandy Hook truther.

CNN reported:

CNN knows of two people with whom Rodgers has enthusiastically shared these stories, including with Pamela Brown, one of the journalists writing this piece.

Brown was covering the Kentucky Derby for CNN in 2013 when she was introduced to Rodgers, then with the Green Bay Packers, at a post-Derby party. Hearing that she was a journalist with CNN, Rodgers immediately began attacking the news media for covering up important stories. Rodgers brought up the tragic killing of 20 children and 6 adults by a gunman at Sandy Hook Elementary School, claiming it was actually a government inside job and the media was intentionally ignoring it.

To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.

When Brown questioned him on the evidence to show this very real shooting was staged, Rodgers began sharing various theories that have been disproven numerous times.

The nation already has to get through an election with Donald Trump and his deranged conspiracies. The country really doesn’t need an anti-vaxxer/Sandy Hook conspiracy ticket of RFK Jr and Aaron Rodgers polluting the national electoral pool even more.

Those who follow the NFL already know that Rodgers is an anti-vaxxer with some very out there beliefs and behaviors. Sandy Hook conspiracies are Alex Jones level stuff, and they have no place in a presidential election.

Hopefully, this news ends Aaron Rodgers as a potential political figure and him to keep his conspiracy theories to himself.

A Special Message From PoliticusUSA

If you are in a position to donate purely to help us keep the doors open on PoliticusUSA during what is a critical election year, please do so here. 

We have been honored to be able to put your interests first for 14 years as we only answer to our readers and we will not compromise on that fundamental, core PoliticusUSA value.

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association

Small enterprise confidence hits highest degree since Biden took workplace

Even in the face of stubborn inflation, small business owners are striking a more positive tone. Optimism surrounding the economy is rising and the CNBC|SurveyMonkey Small Business Confidence Index reached its highest level since President Joe Biden took office, according to the latest quarterly data released on Thursday morning.

Twenty-eight percent of small business owners describe the current state of the economy as “excellent” or “good,” up five percentage points from the prior quarter and up from 18% year over year, according to the CNBC|SurveyMonkey Small Business Survey for Q1 2024. It’s the most optimistic respondents to the survey have been since CNBC and SurveyMonkey began asking this question in Q2 of 2022.

The Small Business Confidence Index reading of 47 out of 100 marked the highest reading since Joe Biden took office in the first quarter of 2021.

A recent string of data has found consumers and small business owners beginning to show more confidence about the economy, even as challenges linger.

“We’re kind of seeing a potential turn around the corner in terms of small business optimism,” said Sam Gutierrez, senior research scientist at SurveyMonkey, pointing to an uptick in survey responses about economic strength and the general direction in the fight against inflation after two years of stagnation in this survey data.

The Q1 survey was conducted online from January 22 to February 1, 2024, among a national sample of 3,119 self-identified small business owners ages 18 and up using SurveyMonkey’s methodology. 

Inflation — which has proven to be stubborn based on the most recent data even as significant progress has been made in bringing prices down from a peak level — continues to weigh on owners, with nearly a third saying it is currently the biggest risk to business. That is more than double the amount who cite consumer demand, interest rates, labor shortages and supply chain disruptions as key issues.

“Inflation is still top of mind,” Gutierrez said. “But we’re seeing this cautious optimism on inflation, and costs in general.”

Confidence in the Fed to control inflation is now at 35% among small business owners, the highest it has been since the beginning of 2022. The percentage of business owners (29%) who say inflation has peaked, while it remains a minority of the survey audience, is also at its highest level since the beginning of 2022.

Inflation is part of how owners surveyed say they will evaluate candidates for the 2024 election, with 60% of small business owners reporting inflation and interest rates are their top issue when it comes to deciding who to vote for in November, along with economic growth (60%), followed by tax policy (51%). 

Inflation woes have hit John Morman’s small business, Celtic Tides, over the course of the last year. Morman imports and sells items from Wales, Ireland and Scotland, including kilts, jewelry and more. The Lexington, Virginia-based business just celebrated its 25th anniversary.

John Morman and his wife Mary Jo run Celtic Tides, a small retailer in Lexington, VA, selling imported items from Wales, Ireland and Scotland.

John and Mary Jo Morman

“When you deal with an imported item, rising costs hit us from several directions. The cost of international freight has risen. The cost of the items that are made in the places we buy our products from, their costs have all increased, the value of the dollar has dropped,” he told CNBC, adding that his costs have gone up by as much as 15% but he has passed on less than half of that to the consumer. 

“We hold off on price increases, absolutely, as best we can. But inevitably, some of those costs do have to be passed on,” he said. 

Right now, Morman’s top concern is a lack of consumer spending, even though he’s feeling on the whole that this year will be better than the last.

“It’s been a very strange year so far. There have been times when normally we would be busy and we haven’t been, and times when we would normally expect to be quiet and we’ve been busy, so the year so far is lagging behind last year. So as a community we’re, as I say, we’re a little concerned,” Morman said. “I think there is still a lot of concern over rising costs.”

Eli Lilly faucets Amazon Pharmacy to assist ship Zepbound, different medication

Close-up of a hand holding a cellphone displaying the Amazon Pharmacy system, Lafayette, California, September 15, 2021. 

Smith Collection | Gado | Getty Images

Eli Lilly on Wednesday said Amazon Pharmacy will help send certain prescription drugs, including the red-hot weight loss treatment Zepbound, to patients’ homes through the drugmaker’s new direct-to-consumer program. 

Starting Wednesday, Amazon Pharmacy can deliver certain drugs from Eli Lilly that are prescribed for obesity, diabetes or migraine to patients who order them from the drugmaker’s direct sales website, according to an email from Eli Lilly. It is the second online pharmacy to partner with Eli Lilly’s platform, and can provide two-day deliveries to certain patients.

The website, LillyDirect, connects people with an independent telehealth company that can prescribe certain drugs if they are eligible. The site also offers a home-delivery option if the prescribed treatment is Eli Lilly’s, tapping a third-party online pharmacy to fill prescriptions and send them directly to patients. 

LillyDirect, which launched in January, aims to make Zepbound and other drugs easier for patients to access. It eliminates the need to go to the doctor for a prescription and, in some cases, to a pharmacy to fill it.

The site is one of several ways companies are moving to disrupt the complex system for distributing, pricing and prescribing drugs in the U.S., in part as they face more political pressure to cut consumer costs. 

The new partnership with Amazon comes as the popularity of Zepbound and other weight loss drugs soars because of their ability to help patients lose significant weight over time. But Eli Lilly has struggled to meet demand, and many of those drugs have faced intermittent shortages over the last year.

Eli Lilly has not said how many patients have used LillyDirect so far. But in an email on Tuesday, the company said it has seen “significant interest in the platform.” LillyDirect plans to expand the medicines it offers and the companies it partners with in the future, Eli Lilly said.

Amazon Pharmacy offers free two-day deliveries to patients with an Amazon Prime membership, which will also apply if they use LillyDirect.

“I think it’s a wonderful advantage,” Frank Cunningham, Eli Lilly’s senior vice president of global value and access, said of Amazon’s two-day delivery option during an interview. “The goal is to have a fantastic customer experience where the product gets to them as soon as possible.”

Cunningham did not disclose how many days it typically takes for the site’s other pharmacy partner – digital health startup Truepill – to deliver medicines to patients. But he told CNBC that Eli Lilly expects Amazon Pharmacy and Truepill to have similar processing and shipping times.

Amazon Pharmacy Vice President John Love told CNBC that it is examining how it can deliver drugs faster than two days. 

“We actually don’t think that’s a high enough bar. We’re still getting started,” he said in an interview. “But this is what I think makes us an attractive partner and collaborator for all sorts of folks like Lilly, payers, providers who are looking for a different type of pharmacy.” 

An injection pen of Zepbound, Eli Lilly’s weight loss drug, is displayed in New York City on Dec. 11, 2023.

Brendan Mcdermid | Reuters

Patients aren’t required to use LillyDirect’s telehealth services to access the home delivery option, according to the site.

Once a patient receives a prescription for a certain Eli Lilly drug, they can ask their health-care professional to select LillyDirect as the pharmacy within their provider’s electronic health records system that will dispense the medication. The prescription will then be routed to LillyDirect, which will deliver the drug to the patient’s door either through Amazon Pharmacy or Truepill. 

Eli Lilly in an email said the majority of prescription drug deliveries will be split between the two partners. But the company noted that there will be some instances where one online pharmacy will be more appropriate than the other for a delivery based on the patient’s “individual details,” including their insurance network. 

Along with home delivery, Amazon Pharmacy will offer 24/7 access to clinical pharmacists for patients who have questions about the medications they receive, chief medical officer Dr. Vin Gupta told CNBC. 

Those pharmacists are especially important for new patients on weight loss injections such as Zepbound. Those drugs are known to have a handful of side effects, including nausea and vomiting.

“We can walk them through that journey and make them feel like they have support because a provider may not have time and may not be accessible for all of those questions,” Gupta said. “There is clinical excellence and clinical support that is not widely available in the pharmacy ecosystem that we’re providing.”

John Love, Vice President of Amazon Pharmacy, talks about healthcare delivery by drone during Amazon’s “Delivering the Future” event at the company’s BFI1 Fulfillment Center, Robotics Research and Development Hub in Sumner, Washington on October 18, 2023.

Jason Redmond | AFP | Getty Images

This isn’t the first time Amazon has collaborated with Eli Lilly. In August, Amazon worked with Eli Lilly and other companies to add more than 15 coupons for insulin and diabetes medicine to the online pharmacy.

Amazon shook up the retail drug store space when it acquired online pharmacy PillPack in 2018 and later rolled out Amazon Pharmacy in 2020. That was part of Amazon’s broader multi-year push into health care. The company also bought primary care provider One Medical for roughly $3.9 billion in 2022.

In February, Amazon confirmed to CNBC that it had eliminated hundreds of jobs in its pharmacy and One Medical divisions as CEO Andy Jassy aggressively cuts costs at the company.

But Amazon is seeing “tremendous growth” from Amazon Pharmacy, One Medical and its virtual health clinic, Neil Lindsay, who leads Amazon Health Services, wrote in a memo to employees last month. Lindsay did not provide specific metrics.

Amazon Pharmacy has increased its presence in the broader health-care industry over the last year.

A major California health insurer, Blue Shield of California, announced it will no longer use health-care giant CVS as its pharmacy benefits manager and instead will partner with several other businesses, including Amazon Pharmacy.

–CNBC’s Annie Palmer contributed to this report.

Analysts count on XAG to outperform XAU in 2024

One-kilogram silver bars sit stacked at Gold Investments Ltd. bullion dealers in this arranged photograph in London, U.K., on Wednesday, July 29, 2020.

Chris Ratcliffe | Bloomberg | Getty Images

A record-breaking rally for gold may yet continue, particularly as investors position for interest rate cuts — but analysts say silver appears well placed to outshine the yellow metal in the second half of the year.

Spot gold prices on Monday edged higher to $2,178 per ounce, after settling at their highest since 1979 on Thursday last week.

Spot silver prices, meanwhile, were last seen up 0.2% at $24.36 per ounce at 6:24 a.m. London time (1:24 a.m. ET). The contract, which rose over 5% last week, on Thursday settled at its highest level since late December.

Precious metal prices have pushed higher in recent weeks amid growing expectations of U.S. interest rate cuts. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Thursday said that inflation is “not far” from where it needs to be for the central bank to start cutting rates.

Gold, which is typically considered a “safe haven” asset at times of financial uncertainty, has rallied despite high interest rates and a relatively strong U.S. dollar.

“If you look at gold’s correlations, what you can see is that actually despite the narrative of it being a defensive asset, really it oscillates between the two. It can sometimes perform in line with risk and sometimes against risk,” Marcus Garvey, head of commodities strategy at Macquarie, told CNBC’s “Street Signs Europe” on Friday.

“What you need to then get back to is what is the underlying causation of those moves and why is gold reacting in one way or the other, and I think here, really the thing that is setting up gold very well … is expectations of rate cuts. That’s clearly risk positive.”

An employee holds one kilogram gold bullion at the YLG Bullion International Co. headquarters in Bangkok, Thailand, on Friday, Dec. 22, 2023.

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Garvey said near-term U.S. jobs and inflation data could determine whether gold prices, which he described as “incredibly resilient” so far, push as high as $2,300 or drop back to around $2,100.

“From silver’s perspective, I mean it is sort of round numbers really, you want to get comfortably clear of the $24 level to feel that you have got a bit more room to run. While you are only just north of it, the scope for a correction back down is clearly still a vulnerability,” Garvey said.

“The last thing I might add on silver though, as a dual precious and industrial metal, if we start to see global growth pick up a bit more over the course of this year — which is very much our base case — then I would expect silver to go from a relative underperformer to gold to being a relative outperformer to gold over really the third and fourth quarter of this year.”

A ‘terrific year’ ahead for silver?

Gold and silver prices have traditionally shown a strong positive correlation, although silver has sometimes been described as the “poorer cousin” of gold.

Earlier in the year, the Silver Institute said in a report that global silver demand was expected to reach 1.2 billion ounces in 2024, hitting its second-highest level on record.

The institute, a non-profit international association composed of various members across the silver industry, told CNBC last month that it expects silver to have a “terrific year,” particularly in terms of demand.

Silver is primarily used for industrial purposes and commonly incorporated in the manufacturing of automobiles, solar panels, jewelry and electronics.

“Here’s what usually happens with silver: it does move with gold, but it moves later,” Randy Smallwood, CEO of Wheaton Precious Metals, told CNBC in early February.

“Gold will shoot up first and then you will see silver take off rapidly. And silver always outperforms. It’s just late.”

— CNBC’s Lee Ying Shan contributed to this report.

Sen. Katie Britt blasted for Biden rebuttal intercourse site visitors declare

Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., is seen in the U.S. Capitol during votes on Tuesday, January 9, 2024. 

Anna Moneymaker | Getty Images

Alabama Republican Sen. Katie Britt is under fire for using what appears to be a sex trafficking victim’s experience from the early 2000s to condemn President Joe Biden and his border policy.

Britt gave the GOP rebuttal to Biden’s State of the Union address to Congress this week.

During her rebuttal, Britt referenced a visit to the Del Rio sector of the Texas border where she depicted a seemingly personal conversation with someone who had survived sex trafficking by groups in the U.S.

“That’s where I spoke to a woman who shared her story with me,” Britt said in the video. “She had been sex trafficked by the cartels starting at the age of 12.”

The victim Britt referenced was Karla Jacinto Romero, who was sex trafficked in Mexico — not the United States, as the senator suggested — from 2004 to 2008, twenty years before the Democrat Biden became president.

The journalist Jonathan Katz first pieced together Britt’s presentation of Jacinto Romero’s experience in a TikTok video.

Britt seemingly attempted to present the anecdote as a damning example of Biden’s border management.

“We wouldn’t be okay with this happening in a third-world country,” she added. “President Biden’s border policies are a disgrace. This crisis is despicable.”

But Jacinto Romero did not experience sex trafficking in the U.S. as a result of Biden’s border policy — because he was not president from 2004 to 2008 and because she was sex trafficked in Mexico.

Katz slammed Britt for the implication that Jacinto Romero divulged her experiences privately.

“Britt tells it like she’s sitting by the banks of the Rio Grande, like holding her hand, like getting her to tell the story that she won’t tell anyone else,” he said.

Instead, he added, Jacinto Romero is a public advocate for sex trafficking and has repeatedly shared her story publicly to shed light on the issue. Jacinto Romero has testified to U.S. Congress, the Mexican House of Representatives and the Vatican, according to a short 2015 profile in a U.S. House of Representatives document.

Britt visited the Del Rio area in January 2023 on a joint trip with Sens. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss. During that trip, Jacinto Romero appeared at a press conference with Britt, Blackburn and Hyde-Smith where she publicly relayed her grueling sex-trafficking story.

Britt has faced a flurry of online criticism since the anecdote was exposed as misplaced, compounding previous disapproval about her rebuttal’s delivery.

“So not only was Katie Britt a flaming embarrassment. She is also an out and out liar. Alabama’s finest!” political scientist Norman Ornstein wrote in an X post.

Ornstein is a part of a broader chorus of journalists and authors slamming Britt for her storytelling.

“This was old Alabama politics. The politics of fear and confusion,” Alabama columnist Kyle Whitmire wrote on X. “Britt blamed Biden for an assault that appears to have happened 20 years ago. Her spokesman won’t give a clear answer when asked.”

Sean Ross, spokesperson for Sen. Britt, did not deny that Jacinto Romero is the sex-trafficking survivor in question but doubled down on Britt’s story.

“The story Senator Britt told was 100% correct,” Ross said in a statement to CNBC. “But there are more innocent victims of that kind of disgusting, brutal trafficking by the cartels than ever before right now.”

Though sex trafficking has taken place in the U.S. under the Biden administration, Jacinto Romero’s sex-trafficking story is not an example of it.

“Today, Karla is a happy and successful mother of two beautiful girls, a wife, a student, and an international activist,” reads the 2015 House document.

Weight reduction tablet might change into a best-in-class drug

Novo Nordisk CEO Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen on Friday said the company’s experimental weight loss pill, amycretin, could eventually become a best-in-class treatment for obesity. 

The Danish drugmaker is racing to capitalize on the runaway success of its blockbuster weight loss drug Wegovy by developing a new generation of treatments for obesity, including more convenient and potentially cheaper pills. 

His remarks came one day after Novo Nordisk impressed investors with early-stage trial data on amycretin. Patients on the pill lost about 13.1% of their weight after 12 weeks, Jørgensen said on CNBC’s “Money Movers.” 

That surpasses the 6% weight loss seen in those who took Wegovy after the same time period. It also adds to the growing enthusiasm around the potential of weight loss pills. 

Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen, CEO of Novo Nordisk, speaks during an interview in New York on Aug. 10, 2022.

Christopher Goodney | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Along with convenience for patients, pills could help alleviate some of the supply constraints plaguing weight loss injections. Wegovy, along with similar drugs, has soared in demand and slipped into intermittent shortages over the past year due to its ability to help patients shed significant weight over time. 

“We believe in the future there’ll be different segments of anti-obesity treatments, with different patients having different preferences,” Jørgensen told CNBC. “Some will prefer an injectable and we really believe that once we can take a pill, it’s a very convenient offering.”

But those pills won’t join the market any time soon. A midstage trial on amycretin will begin in the second half of this year, with results expected in early 2026, the company said Thursday. 

In a separate interview with Reuters on Friday, Novo Nordisk’s head of development Martin Holst Lange said the company is comfortable in being able to launch amycretin this decade.

Amycretin suppresses appetite by targeting the same gut hormone that Wegovy mimics, which is known as GLP-1. But amycretin also targets a pancreas hormone called amylin, which affects hunger.

U.S.-traded shares of Novo Nordisk rose as much as 8.3% on Thursday after the company released the data, extending the past year’s 68% gain. But the company’s stock fell 2% on Friday. 

Don’t miss these stories from CNBC PRO:

GM cuts Chevy Blazer EV value as gross sales restart after software program points

Chevrolet All-Electric Blazer EV

Scott Mlyn | CNBC

DETROIT – General Motors is reducing the price of its new Chevrolet Blazer EV as it restarts sales of the vehicle Friday following an 11-week stoppage to address software issues.

GM halted sales of the EV in late December following reports by customers and media of problems involving the vehicle’s infotainment and charging systems, including an inability to charge its battery that could leave drivers stranded.

The issues all affected the vehicle’s software and were fixed without any physical changes to the vehicle, according to Baris Cetinok, GM vice president of product, software & services. They ranged from small bugs in coding to the vehicle’s ability to communicate with certain public EV chargers.

“There is not this singular, predominant root cause that causes all of these issues” Cetinok told CNBC during an interview. “It’s circumstances and rare cases coming together.”

Cetinok, a former Apple executive who joined GM in September, said many issues were “rare but still disruptive.” The automaker initiated the stop-sale to avoid issues for additional customers.

2024 Chevrolet Blazer SS EV

GM

To find and address the problems, GM conducted a “testing matrix” involving repeatedly rewriting and testing coding as well as physical on-road testing across the country, Cetinok said.

“For us, it was important to get it right rather than fast. Right and fast is of course ideal, but the point is we rather put the pain on ourselves to take the time and pause and fix it,” he said.

GM said the processes to fix the Blazer EV have helped it strengthen its software quality validation testing for future vehicles.

President Biden Democracy, Roe v. Wade, And many others. State Of The Union

Joe Biden delivered a fiery State of the Union Address to Congress on Thursday (March 7). PBS reports, the President addressed several pressing issues and began his speech with a stern message to Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.

In the Union Address, Biden covered the Jan. 6 insurrection, women’s health care and defending democracy, amongst other issues. Additionally, he listed his successes since becoming the leader of the free world and his future plans if reelected.

 President Biden Begins With Spicy Talk For Trump And Putin

The President came in hot. First, warning American citizens that the Russian President would “not stop at Ukraine.” Implying Putin can start a war elsewhere if he chose.

Additionally, he explained that Ukraine could defeat Putin if they had help from the United States. Furthermore, Biden expressed his plans to aid them with weaponry to fight Russia. But he made it clear that no US soldiers would be fighting on Ukrainian soil.

Biden had a stern message for Putin stating:

“We will not walk away. We will not bow down. I will not bow down.”

The President slammed Trump for befriending the controversial politican. He even quoted Trump when he advised Putin to, “Do whatever the hell you want.”

Biden reminded listeners that the US was a founding member of NATO. An organization designed to guarantee the liberty and security of countries via political and military means.

President Biden Denounces Domestic Terrorism

The President then moved on to the Jan. 6 insurrection. Last month marked the 3-year anniversary of the domestic terrorist act. Biden labeled it as the greatest threat to democracy since the Civil War in the 1800s. In addition, he seemingly addressed Trump when he stated that some people are trying to “hide the truth” and “bury democracy.”

Furthermore, he stated, “You can’t love your country only when you win.”

“As I’ve done ever since being elected to office, I ask you all, without regard to party, to join together and defend our democracy!”

Moreover, he declared, “Respect free and fair elections! Restore trust in our institutions! And make clear –political violence has absolutely no place in America!”

Roe v. Wade & Women’s Rights

Biden then discussed the importance to protecting women’s health rights. He said “Roe v. Wade got it right.” He thanked his VP Kamala Harris for defending women’s reproductive freedom. In addition, The President expressed his disgust for Trump bragging about overturning Roe v. Wade. He vowed to restore the legislation, per PBS.

“If Americans send me a Congress that supports the right to choose, I promise you: I will restore Roe v. Wade as the law of the land again,” the President stated.

Voting Rights & Wealth

He also addressed passing voting rights into law, specifically the John Lewis Voting Rights and the Freedom to Vote Act. Biden emphasized the importance of closing the wealth gap and properly taxing the wealthy, especially billionaires.

Additionally, the President refused to allow Republicans to repeal the Affordable Care Act, cut or Medicare or Social Security.

The politician emphasized his overall message that America is writing “the greatest comeback story never told.”

The 81-year-old reminded citizens that the American story was built on progress, and resilience.

President Biden pleaded for unity and bipartisan bills.

Only time will tell if his requests will be answered.

RELATED: Oop! Donald Trump Jr. Sparks Backlash After Making NSFW Comment About President Joe Biden

Trump’s greatest choice to get $540M might be ‘clear’ property, personal lenders

Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a Fox News town hall at the Greenville Convention Center in Greenville, South Carolina, on Feb. 20, 2024.

Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

Donald Trump is racing to stave off a pair of civil penalties totaling nearly $540 million, without having to first put up the full amounts in cash or bonds.

The former president’s lawyers claim that he would face “irreparable” harm if required to fully secure his judgments in order to keep them from coming due, and might even have to quickly sell off properties that can’t be rebought.

They also say Trump can’t simply post a cash deposit — at least not in his New York civil business fraud case, where he is facing $454 million in fines and interest alone.

“No one, including Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Donald Trump, has five hundred million laying around,” Trump’s attorney Chris Kise told an appeals court judge last week.

But legal experts say there’s another option that Trump’s lawyers haven’t mentioned in the court filings: Trump could offer up some of his properties as collateral to borrow what he needs — potentially from private equity sources.

There are “lots of private lenders out there in the debt markets and private equity markets that could lend” to Trump, said Columbia University law professor Eric Talley.

“In all cases, the loans would probably have to be secured with Trump properties, but if there is enough equity in some of them, he should be able to obtain secured credit, even on a compressed timeline,” Talley said.

In this courtroom sketch, former U.S. President Donald Trump looks on as his attorney Alina Habba delivers closing arguments during E. Jean Carroll’s second civil trial in which Carroll accused Trump of raping her decades ago, at Manhattan Federal Court in New York City on Jan. 26, 2024.

Jane Rosenberg | Reuters

The professor underscored the irony of Trump using his real estate to fight a lawsuit in which he was found liable for fraudulently inflating his property values for financial gain.

Any loans “would themselves involve making declarations of the value of the property — and that of course is what got him into this mess to begin with,” said Talley.

But accurately appraising the value of Trump’s assets is not a serious obstacle. As Trump’s lawyers noted during the fraud trial, the institutions that have lent him money already have conducted their own analyses of Trump’s finances, and did not rely solely on the claims at issue in his financial statements.

A more important factor could be whether Trump’s real estate assets are already mortgaged, said law professor John Coffee.

“He would have to come up with clean real estate property that is not already securing something that some other bank has a lien on,” Coffee said.

“Does he have that property? I can’t tell you.”

More CNBC news on Donald Trump

What Trump owns

As of late January, the Trump Organization comprised 415 entities, according to Barbara Jones, a retired federal judge tasked with monitoring the company’s finances.

Of those, Jones identified 70 operating entities that generate revenue. That includes long-term leases of buildings such as 40 Wall Street, commercial office space on 13 floors of the 58-story Trump Tower, plus the Trump National Doral Miami resort.

In New York City, the value of Trump’s real estate holdings totals $690 million, according to a September 2023 estimate by Forbes. Some of the most prominent buildings that bear Trump’s name in the city are largely owned by other entities.

New York Attorney General Letitia James, who brought the fraud case, said she would seize Trump’s real estate assets if he cannot pay his civil penalty.

“There’s absolutely no reason for the New York attorney general to be kind and gentle to him if he doesn’t post the bond,” Coffee said.

A view leading into Trump National Doral in Miami, Florida, on April 3, 2018.

Michele Eve Sandberg | AFP | Getty Images

Trump said in a deposition last year that he had “substantially in excess of $400 million in cash.” But his lawyers claimed last week that, if Trump is forced to secure the full $454 million penalty, “properties would likely need to be sold to raise capital under exigent circumstances.”

They instead offered to post a $100 million bond, but New York appeals court Judge Anil Singh rejected the proposal.

Unless a full appeals court reverses Singh’s decision, Trump has until March 25 to post an “undertaking” — cash or bonds — covering the entire penalty in order to stop it from taking effect during his appeal.

Trump has also asked a federal judge to delay another fast-approaching deadline to pay an $83.3 million penalty in E. Jean Carroll’s civil defamation case.

Carroll’s attorneys argued that Trump’s request “boils down to nothing more than ‘trust me.'”

Trump’s next move

If Trump does attempt to sell assets to meet his undertaking, he won’t have much time to get it done.

He would have to hire a broker to market his properties, and any deal would have to close to free up the cash to use toward a bond, said Neil Pedersen, owner of New York-based bond agency Pedersen & Sons.

“There could be opportunistic buyers approaching him as well,” Pedersen noted.

So far, Trump has given no indication that he is moving in that direction.

“There are no sales planned or contemplated,” Kise told CNBC in an email before Singh’s ruling. “So no appraisers hired, no steps taken, etc.”

The Trump Tower on 5th Avenue is pictured in the Manhattan borough of New York City on April 18, 2019.

Caitlin Ochs | Reuters

After Singh ordered Trump to pay the full penalty, Kise and Trump’s other attorneys did not reply to questions about whether they were now preparing to sell off properties.

Coffee said Trump “can very likely” get a loan to help him meet his undertaking. That’s in part because Singh temporarily halted another penalty that would bar Trump from applying for loans from New York registered lenders.

Moreover, said Coffee, Trump is well-known within New York financial circles, so he is “not going into a market with strangers.”

“The real problem is, can he give the banks enough collateral that they’re satisfied?”

Talley agreed. “There is a lot of ‘dry powder’ out there — not just with banks, but also in non-banks,” he said.

Don’t miss these stories from CNBC PRO:

High Political Strategist Says Trump Is Getting Worse And Melting Down

Paul Begala said that Joe Biden hasn’t really changed, but Trump’s mental abilities have gotten worse, and he’s melting down.

Begala said on CNN, “Remember when Joe Biden confused Barack Obama with Donald Trump? Oh, wait, no, that was Trump. Well, remember when Joe Biden was under oath, and he mistook a woman he raped for his wife. Oh no, that was Donald Trump. In other words, I think the coverage of this has, has frankly, not been very accurate, right? Biden’s gaffes have always been built in. He’s always had his verbal slip-ups, as we all do. I’ve known him for 35 years. I haven’t seen it really get worse. Trump is getting worse. He’s  elting down.”

Video:

Paul Begala tells @Acosta about Biden and Trump “Gaffes have always been built in. He’s always had his verbal slips as we we all do. I’ve known him for 35 years. I haven’t seen it really get worse. Trump is getting worse. He’s melting down. ” pic.twitter.com/GriaFpHxUz

To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.

— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) March 5, 2024

Begala is right. The coverage has been unfair. He went on to say that if Biden did any of the things that Trump has done, there would be four-inch headlines in The New York Times, and it would dominate the news.

The good news is that Biden and his party are not powerless in this situation. Part of the answer is what the White House has started doing. President Biden is getting out there and doing more interviews. The more visible Biden is, the more concerns about his age will ease.

The second half of what Democrats can do is highlight Trump’s decline. It needs to be made clear to the American people that this Donald Trump is not the same person who ran in 2016 and 2020. They can hammer the idea that Trump is in decline in every media appearance, and they can use some of their massive fundraising advantage to define Trump with ads, while he and the Republican Party are broke.

The vast majority of voters are paying zero attention to the election right now, but Trump seems to be declining more by the day, and Democrats should be ready to highlight this reality in every way possible.

Special Message From PoliticusUSA

If you are in a position to donate purely to help us keep the doors open on PoliticusUSA during what is a critical election year, please do so here. 

We have been honored to be able to put your interests first for 14 years as we only answer to our readers and we will not compromise on that fundamental, core PoliticusUSA value.

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association