With two recently-announced verdicts – one in the case of the defamation of journalist E. Jean Carrol, for which trump was fined $83.3 million, and the other a penalty of $355 million for the fraudulent inflation of his net worth to lenders – Trump is now technically on the hook for nearly half a billion dollars. 

(Oh, and just as a refresher, a separate judry found Trump liable for sexually assaulting E.Jean Carrol last May. He’s a convicted sexual offender. Just a reminder.)

Anyway, I told my kids about these judgments, and they were all like hooh. So that’s it?! They said. He’s done? 

No. Probably not. How is that possible? They asked.

Because somehow this man seems to get away with everything. I will never understand it, but the fact is that I will be shocked – elated, but shocked – if Trump ends up paying out anywhere near that amount. Or, frankly, anything at all. 

But even if Trump does end up having to pay out money – by liquidating assets, or securing a bond, or asking his crooked buddies for a “loan” that he’ll never pay back – this is still not necessarily great news putting Trump in debt like this. Because a Trump who needs money is a Trump who is going to get it through any means possible. He will, as always, do what is best for him. 

And Trump is the republican frontrunner for President. 

Let’s think about the ways that this can go wrong. 

FIrst of all, During the campaign season that we’re currently in, Trump can gin up the woe-is-me witch-hunt narrative to galvanize his fan base, thereby increasing the pool of donations, and…oh, wait, what’s this? Did the IPO for Truth Social has just been approved by the SEC, and Trump may be on track for a windfall of nearly $4 billion? yeah, that might happen 

And billionaires who were formerly supportive of, say, Desantis or Haley. They are now aligning with Trump because they recognize – correctly – that, should he be elected again, he will reward his so-called “friends” and punish his “enemies” with impunity. 

Every indictment, every judgment, every accusation – they just add up to dollars for this man. I’m not a believer in the saying “there’s no such thing as bad publicity”…but…I may have to reconsider, because this is .. speechless, mind-blowing. 

And then there’s the matter of how Trump’s reality – the fact that no, he is not even close to as wealthy as he says he is, and is in fact hundreds of millions of dollars in debt – will impact our national security because it will. 

Remember, as an example, when foreign governments spent millions and millions of dollars at Trump’s businesses – including Mar-a-lago, the hotel in washington, et cetera – during the course of his presidency? 

When Trump is financially benefiting from a personal relationship with a country, it’s pretty hard to believe that he’ll be objective when it comes to his political decision-making.

As the chief ethics counsel at the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington Virginia Canter said, his debt “makes him prime for corruption and really exploiting his office for his own personal gain.” 

He did that before. A lot. He’ll do that again, and with an extra dose of enthusiasm. Because he’ll have learned that he can.