We have a rogue judge who ruled the properties are worth a tiny fraction, 1 100th, a tiny fraction of what they actually are. We have a racist Attorney General who is a horror show who ran on the basis she would get trump before she even knew anything about me. She used this to run for governor. She failed in her attempt to run for governor. Virtually no following. She came back and said now i will go back to get trump again. This is what we have is a scam and sham. Just so you know, my Financial Statements are phenomenal. They are actually less in terms of the numbers used than the actual net worth. The actual neath worth is substantially nor. No bank was affected or hurt and dont know why they have to be involved. They have so testified. They cant believe that they are involved because they were paid back on time, there were no defaults, no problems, and it was like a perfect client. Meantime people are being murdered all over the sidewalks of new york. There was no victim here. The banks were represented by the best, biggest, most prestigious law firms in the state of new york. Actually in the country. Some of the biggest and best law firms in all cases the biggest and best law firms. Thats who represented them. The banks got back their money. Again there was never a default. There was never a problem. Everything was perfect. There was no crime. The crime is against me because we have a corrupt District Attorney but we have a corrupt Attorney General, and it all comes down from the d. O. J. They are coordinating this in washington because im leading biden by ten points and leading the republicans by 50 and 60 points. Thats much they say is over. I never accept that. They say its over. Election interference, plain and simple. They are trying to damage me so i dont do as well as i am doing in the election. Our country has gone to hell, a country in serious decline. A man running our country who has no clues and doesnt know what he is doing. You have to cover him. What theyve done with open borders, what theyve done with interest rates, and taxes, it is a disgrace. So what we have here is an attempt to hurt me in an election. An attempt to hurt me in an election. This never happened before where a president of the United States leaves office and gets indicted. The reason i got indicted i ran. If i didnt run i would be sitting at a beach like biden does every time even though he is supposed to be working. Very simply put, its a witch hunt, its a disgrace. We have a corrupt Attorney General in this state. You see how she does. This trial was railroaded and fast tracked. This trial could have been brought years ago but they waited until i was right in the middle of my campaign. The same with other trials and indictments. All run by d. O. J. Which is corrupt in washington. Everything goes through them. They are all corrupt people. Frankly, our country is corrupt and it is one of the reasons im running. We will straighten it out. They have one property that is worth anywhere from 50 to 100 times what this judge put down as a value. Put down a value of 18 million and the property is probably worth could be anywhere from 50 to 100 times more than thachlt a lot of those numbers could even be low. We have other properties the same thing. He devalued anything. I didnt even put in my best asset. The brand in terms of value. Cocacola, look at their value. They have a value, the value of their brand is more than Everything Else put together. My brand is extremely valuable. I didnt use it in my financials. If i wanted to build up a financial statement, i would have built it up by using brand in addition to Everything Else. We have the greatest properties we have among the greatest properties in the world. I have to go through this for political reasons. This judge is a politician, he comes out of the clubs, he is running unopposed. The reason he is unopposed is because he is getting trump. They always run opposed. He is getting trump. The bosses say dont run against this guy, he is doing great. He is getting trump. He overplayed his hand and he should be investigated for what he has done. What he did in undervaluing these properties is a disgrace to our nation. This shouldnt be a case. One other thing, we have a clause in the contract which tells essentially buyer beware. The contract is very, very if you take a look and speak to the banks. I hope you speak to the banks. They got paid in full. I hope you speak to the banks. But we have a clause in the contract, it is like a buyer beware clause that says when you take a look at the financial statement, dont believe anything you read. This is up front. Dont believe anything you read. Some people it makes the statement and anything you read in the statement worthless. It says go out and do your own research and due diligence. You have to study the statement carefully. Do not believe anything. In fact, it is so strong that people read it and they dont even accept it. They dont even want it. They dont even use it. It is called a Disclaimer Clause. Its very common. If you put it in, if you dont have time to do statements or even if you do have time, people like to have it. This is what is called a full disclaimer. We disclaim the financial statement. But even with a full disclaimer, which immediately takes you out of any fraud situation and any litigation, by the way when the Attorney General found out about Disclaimer Clause she said thats okay, lets go forward anyway, it is good publicity. These are corrupt people. The most corrupt people. We have a great company, i built a great company. It has tremendous value and some of the greatest real estate assets in the world and now i have to go before a rogue judge as a continuation of russia, russia, russia, as a continuation of the greatest witch hunt of all time and i dont think the people of this country are going to stand for it. If i werent leading in all the polls or if i werent running, i wound have any of these cases. I wouldnt be seeing you this morning. But ill be seeing a lot of you because this is a horrible thing thats happening to our country and we have to get it straightened away. So well go in and see our rogue judge and listen to this man. I think most people get it. People are getting it. I can tell the voters are getting it. Every time they give me a fake indictment i go up in the polls and thats never happened before. But this is a disgrace. And you have to go after this Attorney General because she is turning off everybody from coming in. I dont know if you take a look at the outflow of business, businesses are fleeing new york because of horrible, horrible Attorney Generals and judges like we have. They go to other places where they can be treated fairly and with respect. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you. Thank you. Bill there we have you could say the Opening Statement in Donald Trumps civil trial as he heads into that courtroom. Called the judge rogue, said the a. G. Is racist. No bank was affected. No victim here. Well get to our analysts. He said its a scam, a sham. Its all Election Interference an attempt to hurt me in an election. Our coverage continues live in new york. Whats turned out to be a busy monday. Im bill hemmer along with gillian turner. Nice to have you here. Joining our coverage byron york, Jonathan Turley and john yu, formal official at the department of justice. First nate foye is the correspondent outside the courthouse. Give us a sense of what just happened. Hello. Bill, good morning to you. Today is day one of whats expected to be a months long Courtroom Battle Where FormerPresident Trump could lose hundreds of millions of dollars in his net worth could be pushed down as a result of this trial. Thats something that new York Attorney general Leticia James claims trump lied about in recent years. You heard trump saying no wrongdoing and he called the Judge A Rogue judge trying to misrepresent him. Take a look at this video within the past hour. Former President Trump made his way down to the courthouse. You heard him speak. It comes after a Weekend Campaigning in iowa as well as california. He spent last night at trump tower, one of the properties that the judge found he fraudulently overvalued for tax, bank and insurance benefits. There are some protestors this morning, bill. Trump calls the trial a sham. Again you heard that. He denies overvaluing his properties on truth social writing i have not even included my most valuable asset, brand. He speaking about judge should resign from the bench and be sanctioned by the courts for his abuse of power and his intentional and criminal interference with the president ial election of 2024. Now this is a no jury trial. The judge will sole discretion in punishing the former president and his family. James filed suit against trump last year along with his family and the Trump Organization itself. She is seeking a 250 million fine and severe restrictions preventing trump and his family from doing business in new york. The state has a long list of witnesses they intend to call, that includes former President Trump and his children. This trial is expected to last through most of december. Again today a day one. Send it back to you. Bill good work there. Nate foye back to you as we get developments from downtown. Lets go around the horn. Gillian lets welcome to the program john yu, former Justice Department official. Turley teased out there are two strategies here on the part of the defense. Political strategy and also the legal strategy for lack of a better word to define both of those things. What do you make about what you just heard from the president . That seems surelyly to anger the judge presiding over the case. Do you think its a smart move . Well, he can look at it in two ways as jonathan does. A political strategy and a legal strategy. I actually think they are at great odds. I think that trump has already decided i will lose on the law. Last week the judge made all the key findings against him. So what i think President Trump has done is turned this all into a political strategy. What you just heard, i like what bill said. The Opening Statement. I would change it and say it was the Acceptance Speech at the Republican National convention because everything he said whether its true or not, is all into the political sphere. Everything he said could only make sure he will lose, attacking the judge for being rogue. Saying the Attorney General is racist. Now there is no way that this judge is going to find at all in the favor of President Trump. I think on appeal he is going to lose because it is not the kind of Case Appeal Judges will want to get involved in and reverse factual findings by the trial judge. So i think what you are seeing here is actually throwing in the towel on the law and using it instead as a platform to amplify his political message. That political message will tube and tank his ability to prevail at all in this legal case. Bill two questions. We arent looking for victims as they relate to the victim of real estate assets. I just made the statement there is no victim here. Does he have an argument on that and do you have to prove there was a victim, a . B, if the judge ruled last week, whats this all about . This proceeding itself is really just about how far should the judge go in punishing trump and the Trump Organization and his family for the violations of a law he already found last week. If you want to compare it to a criminal case. This is the sentencing phase. The judge has already found that trump has lost. He is only trying to decide how many years is the Trump Organization going to stay in the penalty box and not be allowed to do business in new york. You are quite right, bill. He does have a legal argument. His claim that nobody was hurt. Nobody on the other side of these transactions, the lenders didnt feel they were defrauded. They got paid. However, the trial judge has already rejected that defense. In fact, he said im basically going to sanction the lawyers for trump if they keep repeating this defense. I rejected it over and over again. Bill im trying to follow the legal order here, right . If the judge ruled against him a week ago, why can you not appeal that ruling first before you essentially move to this next phase . Thats a good question, bill. You would think you should be able to go right away to the Appeals Courts. Usually they want to see the whole thing over. So they like to see the trial in a nice box with a bow wrapped on it, everything is complete so that they can settle the thing all at once if they can. And so for example they might say maybe the trial judge here will actually be pretty lenient in the kind of punishment it hands out to Trump Organization. Maybe theyll even settle. You often see that sometimes. There is still time for trump to settle for the Attorney General to settle. Although the thing you saw in this i think of it as an Acceptance Speech at the convention. Trump doesnt want to settle. In fact, trump has decided politically he benefits the more confrontation and the more fighting that he engenders throughout this legal process. I think the appeal at judges will wait and have a month and however im afraid, i dont see an Appeals Court reversing. They dont like to reverse trial judges whether they find what we call facts here like what exactly happened. How much money was lost. Or not as you point out. What kind of defenses were appropriate or not. Usually the Appeals Court only want to focus on questions of law, maybe there is a question of law about whether the state should wait after the president ial election. An unprecedented claim to take up on appeal. I dont think there are a lot of grounds you could have a successful appeal here. Gillian john, in light of the fact you say the judge determined fraud was committed in this case, i guess the question is what is the judge hoping now to lay bare Going Forward during the actual trial . Meaning is this going to be exclusively about the mechanisms by which the fraud was committed . We talked about insurance fraud, falsification of business records. Is it now incumbent on the judge to prove to himself that at every step along the way these illegal moves were carried out . Is that the right way to look at this, what we expect over the next few months . In a way, gillian. What a judge does having decided fraud occurred, is what kind of punishment and damages we call it on the civil side of things is appropriate. They look at two things. First, how do you compensate the state and people of new york . The other thing, you saw a glimmer of this in trumps remarks just now is what effect is this going to have on new york and on the Trump OrganizationGoing Forward . If you were a judge here, one thing you should be conscious of i said this what trump mentioned, what effect is this having on new york, already a city beset by crime, beset by politicians who President Trump is saying are corrupt . New york is the Financial Center of the United States if not the world. The greatest Financial Companies set up and do business there. What if the message this trial sends out is well, you can come to new york and do business but only if you are a democrat. If are you a republican well start using the political system to harass you. A judge might think i dont know if i want to overly punish the Trump Organization if it will send a message out that businesses and corporations which are new yorks lifeblood should do their business somewhere else in the United States or even abroad. Bill interesting point. Want to bring in Jonathan Turley. Professor, what did you think of the statement just made by the former president . What did you take from that . Well, the president made some valid points. It is true that these forms come with a clause that says you shouldnt rely on the representations that have been made. But the court rejected that argument. Bill i have interrupted you so many times. I think were seeing something that we frankly did not expect. There is a camera in that courtroom. Was that supposed to be or would they just be simply ushered out when were gaveled to order . Well, you are more likely to have cameras in state proceedings. It is up to the discretion of the judge. And quite frankly im not too sure that both parties would want this. Trump views the optics of this as working to his advantage. People looking at this live picture right now will be either filled with rage or they will be thrilled. And thats the problem is that you have james now being shown in the background. You have trump in the foreground and it fulfills the narrative on both sides. Trump is likely right. He is being shown in a sort of Tag Team Series of prosecutions and civil lawsuits where one prosecutor attacks another. They are all ins