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morning, I'm Taylor Wilson and today is

0:29

Tuesday, March 19, 2024. This

0:33

is The Excerpt. Today,

0:38

a look at Trump's financial hurdles from

0:40

his civil fraud case judgment and more.

0:43

Plus, famine is imminent in parts

0:45

of Gaza and conspiracy theories are

0:48

putting a bipartisan voter integrity system

0:50

in peril. Former

0:52

President Donald Trump has not been able to

0:54

get a bond in his civil fraud case

0:57

to protect his assets while he appeals a

0:59

$454 million judgment. That's

1:02

according to his lawyers in a New York appeals

1:04

court yesterday. I caught up

1:06

with USA Today Justice Department correspondent Aisha

1:09

Bagchi for the latest. Aisha,

1:11

thanks for hopping on today. Hi, Taylor. Good to

1:13

see you. So, Aisha, what's

1:15

the latest surrounding bond in Trump's civil

1:17

fraud case here? And what

1:20

did we learn exactly from his lawyers in

1:22

this court filing yesterday? Trump's lawyers told

1:24

us that he's having a lot of trouble

1:26

coming up with a bond in this case

1:29

and he needs to post a bond

1:31

by the end of this week or

1:33

early next week, basically to stop the

1:36

New York Attorney General Letitia James from

1:38

starting to go after his assets. That's

1:40

the deadline for him to post the

1:42

equivalent of what he owes in this

1:44

case, which is $454 million plus interest

1:47

in order to stop her from trying

1:49

to get a court to help her

1:51

go after his assets. She has already

1:53

said that she is ready to go after his properties.

1:56

What Are we talking about specifically here, Aisha?

1:58

Is This real estate? or which? The assets are

2:00

they I. While. Letitia James has talked

2:02

about how she sees the Trump Building in

2:04

Manhattan on a regular basis, so that doesn't

2:07

mean that has to be, but she goes

2:09

after. I don't think she's going to

2:11

lay out the entire strategy for how to

2:13

go about this and it may not happen.

2:16

Will still have to see Trump does have

2:18

some days last, but he is asking

2:20

the appeals court to intervene and help him.

2:22

Basically, he wanted a court order to stop

2:25

Letitia James from being able to collect and

2:27

he's making this argument that we can't insurers

2:29

and we just cannot come up. With

2:31

a bond He says that they say

2:33

he needs to have nearly a billion

2:36

dollars in cash or things. A

2:38

similar at a cast like securities in order

2:40

to be able to keep running his business

2:42

pays I've heard that and to get someone

2:44

to help him with this bond and it's

2:46

just not happening for him. And you know

2:49

they should be on the civil cases, juggling

2:51

all kinds of legal headaches across the board.

2:53

You don't just curious how much more money

2:55

he has the handle all of these other

2:57

court issues and. You. Know what's next for

2:59

the mountain costs of his issues in court. For

3:02

the problem is, no one really knows

3:04

how much money Trump has. He has

3:06

made some big statements about how much

3:08

can see house and and twenty twenty

3:10

two deposition. He said he had about

3:12

four hundred million dollars in cash. We

3:14

don't know if that is true for

3:16

seeing what's happening as he tries to

3:18

get these on. He was able to

3:20

post a bond to stop advice columnist

3:22

eating Carol from collecting on her eighty

3:24

three point three million dollar verdict against

3:26

him he posted and ninety two million

3:28

dollar bond in that case in the

3:30

insurance company said. that it did

3:32

get collateral worth one hundred percent of the

3:34

judgment when i gave him that bond thought

3:37

we don't know what's happening here we see

3:39

the statements from his attorneys that he's struggling

3:41

and he's tried to use real estate as

3:43

collateral to get this bond and the civil

3:46

fraud case and so far no one seems

3:48

to be biting so the question of what's

3:50

gonna happen to trump and his cash really

3:53

has to do with how much cash he

3:55

has we don't know the answer and he

3:57

may try to find other mechanisms to pay

3:59

for his mounting legal costs.

4:02

You know, already Trump has been exploring using

4:04

packs in different avenues to try to divert

4:06

resources to this space. So it really remains

4:08

to be seen how he's gonna manage to

4:11

handle all these costs and whether he's going

4:13

to be able to post a bond by

4:15

the end of this week. All right,

4:17

Aisha Baghshi covers the Justice Department

4:19

for USA Today. Great info as

4:21

always. Thanks, Aisha. Thanks, Taylor. Meanwhile,

4:23

in other Trump news, lawyers for

4:26

him and eight co-defendants filed an

4:28

emergency appeal yesterday of a Georgia

4:30

judge's decision allowing Fulton County District

4:32

Attorney Fonny Willis to stay on

4:34

the election fraud case against the

4:36

former president. They argue the

4:38

ruling does not go far enough

4:40

by just forcing out special prosecutor

4:42

Nathan Wade. Trump lawyer Steven Seydow

4:44

said the nine are seeking to

4:46

disqualify Willis and the entire DA's

4:48

office, which was the basis of

4:50

an initial motion filed in January.

4:57

The UN's World Food Program is warning

4:59

that famine is imminent in Northern Gaza

5:01

and is projected to affect more than

5:03

20,000 Palestinians by May. The

5:06

report says 70% of the 300,000 Palestinians in

5:10

Northern Gaza face catastrophic hunger.

5:13

And the almost complete lack of

5:15

access that humanitarian aid organizations face

5:18

there will likely compound the problems

5:20

of hunger, healthcare, water, and sanitation.

5:23

The report was unveiled hours before President

5:25

Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister

5:28

Benjamin Netanyahu discussed efforts to increase

5:30

humanitarian assistance to the war battered

5:32

enclave in their first call in more

5:34

than a month. EU foreign

5:36

policy chief Joseph Borrell yesterday called

5:38

on Israel to open more land

5:40

crossings. Israel has repeatedly blamed

5:43

aid delays on distribution issues it

5:45

says have been created by the

5:47

UN and other aid agencies. Also

5:50

yesterday, White House national security advisor

5:52

Jake Sullivan confirmed that Marwan Issa,

5:54

deputy commander of Hamas's military wing

5:56

and one of the architects of

5:58

the October 7th. attacks was

6:01

killed by Israel. Issa would be the

6:03

highest ranking Hamas leader to have been killed in

6:05

Gaza since the war began in

6:07

October. The

6:12

Supreme Court yesterday indefinitely paused a

6:14

Texas law that would allow police

6:16

to arrest migrants accused of crossing

6:19

into the country illegally. The

6:21

decision puts a hold on the law

6:23

while it's being litigated. The Justice Department

6:25

called the law inconsistent with the court's

6:28

past decisions, which recognized that the power

6:30

to admit and remove non-citizens lies only

6:32

with the federal government. But

6:34

Texas officials said the state is

6:36

the nation's first-line defense against transnational

6:38

violence, and that the law is

6:40

needed to deal with the federal

6:43

government's inability or unwillingness to

6:45

protect the border. The state also

6:47

argued the Supreme Court did not have to

6:49

intervene because the New Orleans-based U.S. Court of

6:51

Appeals for the Fifth Circuit is taking up

6:53

the issue in April. Meanwhile,

6:56

the Supreme Court yesterday let's

6:58

stand a New Mexico judge's

7:00

ruling barring a Donald Trump

7:02

supporter from local public office

7:04

because of an anti-insurrectionist provision

7:06

of the Constitution. The

7:08

decision came two weeks after the court

7:10

said Colorado could not use that same

7:12

provision to remove Trump from the presidential

7:14

ballot because he's a federal candidate. Coy

7:17

Griffin, a founder of Cowboys for Trump,

7:19

is the only person who participated in

7:22

the January 6th Capitol attack to be

7:24

removed from office using the 14th Amendment.

7:26

The challenge to Griffin had been a

7:28

test run for Trump opponents who successfully

7:31

argued to the Colorado Supreme Court last

7:33

year that Trump is disqualified

7:35

from the presidency by that same

7:38

Civil War-era provision. Griffin,

7:40

a former rodeo rider, was serving on

7:42

the Otero County Commission when he participated

7:44

in the attack. Far-right

7:51

conspiracy theories are putting a

7:53

bipartisan voter integrity system in

7:55

peril. I spoke with USA

7:57

Today Democracy reporter, Aaron Mansfield, for more.

8:00

Aaron, thanks for helping me out on the excerpt today. Thank

8:02

you for having me. So, Aaron, what is

8:04

this Electronic Registration Information Center, also

8:07

known as ERIC? It's

8:09

a very mundane tool. It's

8:12

about as interesting as the way the water gets

8:14

treated. One of those government things that you don't

8:16

really think about, but it's actually really important. And

8:18

what it does is it's basically

8:21

a team of data analysts who

8:23

work with a group of about two dozen states,

8:25

and they help keep their voting roles

8:27

up to date. And because

8:29

they work with a massive amount of data, they

8:31

also encourage states to do a little outreach to

8:33

help them get people registered to vote. But

8:36

it's essentially you take a bunch of

8:38

data from the Secretary of State, you take a bunch

8:40

of data from the DMV, you take a bunch

8:42

of data from the Post Office, from the Social

8:44

Security Administration, and you try to make sure

8:46

that the voter roles are up to date, right, so

8:48

that they don't look like our browsing history or

8:50

the 50,000 tabs that we have open,

8:52

so that they reflect everyone who's on

8:54

the roles, who hasn't moved to another

8:57

state, who hasn't died. So,

8:59

Erin, why do proponents say this is necessary? Actually,

9:01

under federal law, states have to

9:04

maintain their voter roles. But

9:06

also, it helps prevent voter fraud, which just

9:08

to be clear, we know is exceedingly rare.

9:12

But it does kind of happen,

9:14

theoretically, someone who moves from one

9:16

state to another can't

9:18

try to vote in both of those states, as

9:20

long as the voter roles are up to

9:22

date. Let's say someone moves from Kentucky to

9:24

Pennsylvania. Well, if they're keeping their voter roles

9:26

up to date, and they've already reached out

9:28

to me and asked, hey, have you moved?

9:30

Can you update this for us? And I

9:33

responded and said, yeah, I moved, or I

9:35

haven't responded, and they put me in an

9:37

inactive voter section, then they know. It

9:39

really is like voter security at

9:41

its most basic form. And

9:43

then it also prevents things like, let's say

9:45

someone dies, and they're still on the voter

9:47

role, and maybe there's an absentee ballot in

9:49

their name from before they died sending it

9:51

back in. I think there was one case

9:53

of that. It's to be clear, very, very

9:55

rare. But it has happened.

9:57

Aaron, there are some conspiracy theories that have

10:00

circulated about this system. What are some of

10:02

those and why did some states drop out

10:04

of this program? There were Republican states

10:06

who weren't so happy with the voter registration

10:08

requirement that if you find people who are

10:10

eligible, you maybe send them a postcard every so

10:12

often, you say, hey, why don't you

10:14

register to vote? But most of all, it

10:17

was just conspiracy theories. And then it was

10:19

also, oh, this is just the Democrats pumping

10:21

the rolls. It's a liberal scheme. It's funded

10:24

by George Soros, who was liberal. And then

10:26

Trump went on Truth Social and was like,

10:28

Republicans need to leave this. And

10:31

so nine states have left. It

10:33

started with Louisiana. It peaked at

10:35

over 30 states and now it's at

10:37

about two dozen states. So it's a

10:40

little bit less effective for people because say

10:42

I spoke to the Secretary of State, Michael Adams

10:45

in Kentucky, and he was like, only one of

10:47

our neighboring states is part of this now because

10:49

for example, Ohio left. Indiana never

10:51

joined. He's trying to figure out is

10:53

this still useful because most people

10:55

will move states, but they'll go

10:58

to a neighboring state. So going

11:00

forward, what's next for the ERIC

11:02

program? It's continuing. There are two

11:04

dozen states in it, as District

11:06

of Columbia, they're trying to get New York

11:08

and New Hampshire in it. The governor in

11:10

Virginia just vetoed a bill. The legislature was

11:12

trying to get them to rejoin ERIC. From

11:15

what I can tell from those people I've spoken

11:17

with, it sounds like a lot of the height

11:19

of the conspiracy theories has died down. People are

11:21

still doing voter roll maintenance. I spoke to the

11:23

Secretary of State in Missouri. He says they're just

11:25

doing it in-house. They have an IT staff. They

11:28

do this kind of thing themselves. That's

11:30

the other thing is for states that do choose

11:32

to leave, they're trying to figure out what

11:34

they do, whether that means going directly to a

11:36

state, for example, Florida, right? A

11:39

lot of folks get older and die

11:41

there. Maybe they reach out to

11:43

Florida and try to get the data from

11:45

them and do their own analysis. All right,

11:47

Aaron Mansfield is a democracy reporter with USA

11:49

Today. Thank you, Aaron. Thank you for having

11:51

me. And happy first day

11:54

of spring. To ring in the

11:56

new season, check out a photo gallery of

11:58

DC's famous cherry blossoms. gift of

12:00

3000 trees from Japan more than a

12:02

century ago. We have a

12:04

link in today's show notes. Thanks

12:07

for listening to the excerpt. You can

12:09

get the podcast wherever you get your

12:11

pods. And if you're on a smart

12:13

speaker, just ask for the excerpt. I'm

12:15

Taylor Wilson back tomorrow with more of

12:18

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