Frasiers left hook. He connected. Feet off the ground, flying through the air, left hook, boom. Really hit him hard. Before we even got to a trial. He said we know fraud when we see it. Weve looked at all the evidence, this is fraud. There will be a version of the trial maybe starting next week. Well get more details in a minute. The judge could not have been more clear in his ruling yesterday that what donald trump and the organization perpetrated over many, many years, in his eyes, is fraud. Yeah, part of the case brought by new York Attorney general Letitia James. Well get to that in just a moment. Thats our top story. Also ahead, the History Making Stop on the picket line for President Biden. Well show you what he had to say to striking autoworkers who are demanding a significant pay raise. Plus, senator bob menendez is refusing to resign despite calls from 2 dozen colleagues to do so following his indictment on bribery charges. You wouldnt believe the republicans who are now defending him. It seems like in some ways both sides might be making this about trump, but, yeah, really interesting. Meanwhile, House Republicans are making some progress on a package of spending bills, but congress is still on a path to a government shutdown. And well have a preview of tonights republican president ial debate taking place at the reagan library. The second showdown for the candidates will not feature the frontrunner in the polls t. Donald trump simply will not show up at the debate. He apparently has a grudge toward the Ronald Reagan president ial library as well, which means he has a grudge a lot of grudges. A grudge about every republican institution, every governmental institution, every military institution. A lot of grudges going around for a guy who wants to run a country he seems to hate. Yeah, i mean, the reagan president ial library out in california is sacred ground for republicans, as you know, and they host debates every cycle and President Trump has been in a fight with them. He views himself, as always, having been wronged in some way by the reagan family, and will not show up. Theres a political strategy to that. He may not need to show up. He didnt need to show up last one and is still up 35, 40 points on his closest challenger. I do want to briefly say off the top of the show, willie, we saw the Passing Yesterday of one of the greatest Baseball Players of all time. Certainly the greatest third baseman of all time, a guy that when i was a little kid, i got the chance to lean over, meet, and get an autograph from the stands. Brooks robinson. Just an absolute superstar at the baltimore with the Baltimore Orioles. And as tom bosswell wrote for the Washington Post, in 1993 when he was admitted into the hall of fame, one of the greatest ballplayers ever, even better as a man. Yeah, and if you look at his career, joe well have barnicle and lupica break this down 23 seasons with the same team. Thats something you dont see very often, certainly not anymore. Theres a picture going around yesterday of him standing at third base with all his gold glove awards, and its preposterous, there are 16 trophies. He won 16 consecutive gold gloves, jonathan lemire, played in 18 allstar games. They called him the hoover because he vacuumed up anything that came even close to him at third base. The Greatest Defensive Third Baseman in the history of the game. As joe said, by all accounts, one of the best guys around baseball. A complete class act and the tributes came pouring out yesterday, an American League mvp, won a world series mvp, was a World Champion and, without question, the Greatest Defensive Third Baseman of all time, and arguably the greatest defensive player of all time. You simply couldnt get the ball past him. Jen, the tributes pouring out. A sad day at a time the orioles are on the verge of the playoffs. Its sad but sort of poignant. You think of the orioles, you think of cal ripken. We are the proud owners of a signed baseball in our home. Coming up, we have so much going on today. We begin with a major ruling in a civil case against donald trump and his family business. In a 35page decision yesterday, manhattan judge Arthur Engoron found the former president and his two oldest sons and their companies liable for fraud. According to the judge, the trumps spent years inflating the value of their assets and Financial Statements given to banks and insurance companies. The ruling is tied to a case brought by new York Attorney general, Letitia James, in 2019, which was scheduled to go to a bench trial early next week. Yesterday the judge effectively decided he didnt need a trial to determine the trumps were liable. The judge wrote in his ruling, quote this is a Fantasy World, not the real world, and admonished the former president for his overvaluing his holdings by as much as 2. 2 billion. In one example trump overestimated the size of his manhattan apartment, which he spent years living in, by 19,000 feet, or 200 . Judge engoron called that absurd writing, quote, a discrepancy of this order of magnitude by a Real Estate Developer, sizing up his own living space of decades, can only be considered fraud. Willie . Im going to have to go back. This is a good reminder. A size issue. Crowds. My 21,000foot condo, i may be off by about 19,000 feet. Maybe i need to go back and sort of reestimate that. What . Slightly off on those numbers, and thats just one of the properties were going to talk about here. Next weeks bench trial will proceed so the judge can determine the size now of the punishment. Attorney general james sued for 250 million. The judge granted her one of other punishments to cancel the Business Certificates that allow many of trumps new York Properties to operate. This means trump could lose control of his new York Properties, in addition to other real estate including trump tower in midtown manhattan. The trump lose their appeals, they could be banned from ever doing business again in New York State. This statement yesterday, the former president s attorney called the decision, quote, completely disconnected from the facts and governing law. The judge also sanctioned trumps attorney 7,500 apiece yesterday for making legal arguments that had already been rejected. Trump himself reacted to the ruling with a series of posts on social media attacking the judge, as you can imagine, who hes suing, and the new York Attorney general. Lets bring in former u. S. Attorney senior fbi official Chuck Rosenberg, investigations correspondent tom winter, and reporter on the Investigations Desk of the New York Times, russ buttner. Russ, can you boil down for our audience whats going on here and exactly what trump did, alleged to have done here, and why the judge viewed it as fraud . Well, its if you read the documents filed in the case and the judges decision, its a very clear example of misleading the banks that hes presenting his documents to in a fraudulent way. Hes not just overstating values, as he said. Hesctually withHolding Information that they have found they know themselves to be true from the banks. Theyre taking theyve had assessments done of the property that show one value. They arepresenting another value. There are documents filed they cant raise the rent on certain apartment buildings, but they act like they could sell those as condos with no regulations on them at all. They have properties where they cant actually develop it, but the recent evaluations say they could develop it. This isnt just playing with the numbers, as the Trump Organization has said. This is them actually with Holding Information in a fraudulent way and increasing the value of these things. The judge will be the finder of facts in this case when it does go to trial. He is essentially the jury, and he said theres been enough information presented on this first count, really the most important count, to find them essentially guilty and to then move on from damages. Well get to trial on the remaining six counts. Tom, donald trump has exaggerated his entire life, well before he got into politics. He would inflate his sense of worth, talk about his apartment building. My favorite example is trump tower is actually a 58 Story Building but when another building went up a little tower, he renumbered the floors on the elevators to claim it was 68 floors. There are real consequences, and it seems to be a chance gravity he could lose his ability to do business in New York State, which is where his empire is located, where trump tower is, where he has several golf courses. How realistic is that to happen . What would that mean . I think at this point its very realistic. Well have to find out what the Appellate Courts have to say and trump has vowed to appeal. So far they have not taken kindly to his arguments in New York State. The Attorney General absolutely has the authority to do so if upheld by the appellate division, the First Appellate Division in the state of new york. Thats number one. Whats interesting are the other legal arguments addressed by the judge. The trumps have said with respect to the financial documents, the statements of Financial Condition and trump talks about it in his deposition with the Attorney General himself saying, effectively, do your own homework. Im saying im worth 50 billion, but its up to you to go back and look at these various properties and these various documents and determine whether or not you believe that. Were not making any sort of guarantees as to the picture were painting here. The judge said, look, if you look at new york case law, its clear that it doesnt matter how sophisticated the party is thats looking at these documents, who is involved with it, if its a bunch of banks, a bunch of people who count these beans for a living, if you will. It doesnt matter under New York State law. The bottom line is you tried to defraud them by presenting these statements of Financial Conditions that he says, the judge says, not based on any sort of reality in a number of instances. On top of that, trump and his kids have repeatedly said, look, nobody has lost any money on our loans. Banks have made tens of millions of interest. The judge pointed out something interesting. He says, look, if you look at this, the banks would have gotten tens of millions more in interest because they would never have given up the loan terms you were able to receive. I can go up to sixth avenue and take up a collection for the banks. The banks do have investors. They do have shareholders and institutions. As my colleague has pointed out the last real Financial Institution to give the trumps loans, the former cfos son, weisselberg, his son was the one who put forward those loans and able to make the financial transactions. Interesting. Chuck rosenberg and the kaleidoscope of issues, including the 91 counts and four indocuments, stormy daniels, defamation, where does this stand and what are the real consequences, if any, that this former president might see imminently . Its a significant case, mika, and a significant ruling by the judge. Often you see in these opinions that the language a court uses is rather muted, its rather polite. Its rather understated. Not here. I think the judge was outraged, and rightfully toe so, the language of the values the trumps put on was fantasy, untethered to reality. So where does it stack up . Important to note this is a civil case not a criminal case. And so even though the judge found fraud, widespread, rampant fraud in the valuations, no one is going to jail because of this case. You cant go to jail on a civil case. But to tom winters point and to russ point, the business can lose its ability to function, to operate in New York State. And so the consequences, while theyre not criminal and theyre not jail, can be dire for the Trump Organization and for its properties. So where does it stack up . A significant finding and a significant case by a judge who is outraged at the way the trump folks have conducted themselves, but it will not result in jail time because its a civil case. So, joe, and i guess jim, on the Seriousness Chuck talks about, and also this is a case that the American People can understand because its something trump has been known for, yesterday we were talking so much about how joe biden needs to get out there and really punch at these legal issues trump is facing or maybe the democrats, but doesnt it make more sense when judges do it . Isnt that where it should come from . And when you read this, i think its impactful and it doesnt become have you read the Mueller Report . Have you read any of the Impeachment Reports . Its piling up. Have you read any of the indictments against donald trump . Im saying, its their job people arent going to be reading. Swing voters arent going to be reading a New York State judges ruling. There are just unbelievably damaging statements there. You know hes going to truth about it, or whatever his stupid platform is, start spouting off. This will get to people. Letitia james has been looking at trump for years now. Trump has definitely talked about her. This will get out there, and this fits his game that hes been accused of all along, and thats all about the size of things. He always overblows the size of things that he owns crowds. Or things that he does. Lets talk about the fact that, again, what should the Biden Campaign do . Im not saying the president should do it. You know what, a judge, jen, has found this guy guilty of fraud. Another judge in New York State said he raped e. Jean carroll, found him guilty of sexual assault. A jury found him liable of defamation. Thats what we already know. Hes already come down the pipe, you have the United States case against donald trump for stealing Nuclear Secrets, for stealing war plans against iran. You have in the state of georgia, Another State Run by republicans. Youve got him and 20 of his associates up for trying to steal an election there. All of this adds up but it needs to be boiled down and put out to voters. We cant expect federal judges to do it or state judges to do it or anyone tolls do it but the Biden Campaign. The question is, are they able to do that . Do they have the ability to punch back . Sure. Look what they did in 2020 and tomorrow the president is giving a speech is it tomorrow . Its wednesday, right . Thursday hes giving a speech in arizona thats billed as a Democracy Speech. I think this is probably linked to the response for the Republican Debate tonight and also looming shutdown. I think theyre really good at this. The question is, and the uaw thing yesterday is a good example of this sort of choices that they have to make. If the president had gone into michigan and all he had done is attack trump, there are workers a lot of uaw workers are probably going to vote for donald trump or certainly voted for him in 2020 and 16. Joe biden has a really good argument to make with that. You can do two things at once. Isnt it even more effective to have him with a Bullhorn Doing that on the picket lines while his campaign is unleashing one video after another video after another video just pummeling Donald Trumps legal woes . One after another. The trump people are doing it. Theyre viciously attacking ron san tis, to use Ai Technology to attack ron desantis. Theyre doing it around the clock. You would think the white house would be able to do two things at once. John fetterman did it when he ran in the senate. Thats what the president the United States should be doing. His campaign operation, i dont know if everybody is over 80 in his campaign operation, but his campaign operation, they need to put stuff out that makes people go every morning, oh, my god, did you see what the Biden Campaign put out yesterday . We never say that. The media is siloed. You can have the president do one thing, the Campaign Something else, and the uaw workers hearing the president in michigan arent receiving the stuff thats siloed in nondigital. Sure you should do both. Thats what campaigns are for, and the general election started, and trump is acting that way and the Biden Campaign should,