House

Cuban hits Ted Lieu over Trump bond fee comments: ‘You are wrong’

by Miranda Nazzaro - 03/19/24 3:05 PM ET

Mark Cuban said Tuesday that Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) is wrong after the lawmaker questioned if former President Trump is really a billionaire given the fact that his lawyers said he might not be able to pay the full bond due in his New York civil fraud trial.

“Trump claims he’s a billionaire. But he can’t pay a $464 million judgment. That means he is lying. How do I know? Math. #TrumpIsBroke,” Lieu wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

In a lengthy repost of Lieu’s remarks, Cuban — an entrepreneur and former personality on ABC’s “Shark Tank” — quipped the California Democrat is “wrong” and laid out the economics behind his argument.

“Ted, you know I’m no supporter of Trump. That’s for damn sure. How can anyone vote for someone who has so many of his executive employees turn on him, and, say he is incompetent is beyond me. But you are wrong on this topic Ted,” Cuban wrote on X.

“Net worth is completely different than cash in the bank. We were in a zero-interest rate environment for a long, long time. So, keeping cash in the bank or even money markets was dumb. In fact, searching for yield is what killed small banks last year,” he continued. “Also dumb was keeping interest rates that low for that long. Something Trump demanded more of.”

In court filings Monday, Trump’s lawyers revealed that they had spent “countless hours” negotiating with “one of the largest insurance companies in the world” and approached 30 companies to back the $454 million bond due in his New York fraud case.

Very few bonding companies will consider an amount of that magnitude, Trump’s legal team noted in the filings.

Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) questions Attorney General Merrick Garland during a House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing of the Department of Justice on Wednesday September 20, 2023. (Mattie Neretin)

New York Judge Arthur Engoron ordered the former president to pay nearly $355 million — plus interest — in penalties after determining he conspired to lie about his net worth for tax and insurance benefits. With interest tacking on about $112,000 per day, the total is now over $454 million.

“So you can argue that Trump put himself in this situation by making sure that the only way to grow his net worth was non-cash investments,” Cuban wrote. “You can also argue Trump sucked at growing his net worth which led to him putting himself in this position by lying to banks about his assets. There is only one reason to lie on a loan application — you have to.”

“On a more macro basis Ted. Even if rates were along a long term trend line for the past ten years, few people are keeping more than 45 percent of their assets in liquid assets,” he continued. “And as far as the bond companies Trump’s assets are mostly interests in commercial real estate and foreign assets. No bond company is loaning against them in this commercial real estate market, if ever.”

The Hill has reached out to Lieu’s office for further comment.

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Trump quickly railed against the bond amount, arguing extreme measures would be needed to pay it.

“Judge Engoron actually wants me to put up Hundreds of Millions of Dollars for the Right to Appeal his ridiculous decision. In other words, he is trying to take my Appellate Rights away from me,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform Tuesday morning. “Nobody has ever heard of anything like this before.”

“I would be forced to mortgage or sell Great Assets, perhaps at Fire Sale prices, and if and when I win the Appeal, they would be gone. Does that make sense? WITCH HUNT. ELECTION INTERFERENCE!” he continued.

In a separate series of posts Monday and Tuesday, Trump called the bond “unConstitutional” and “unAmerican.”

Tags Arthur Engoron Ted Lieu