No. of Recommendations: 8
In an appearance on MSNBC, career Trump journalist David Cay Johnson -- who described in excruciating detail the full extent of Trump's life of grifting for all to read well before 2016 -- pointed out some key aspects of the 6-month freeze period after IPO and ways it can be circumvented.
Technically, owners of the SPAC cannot unload shares in the spun-off company DJT for 6 months after the IPO date. But...
Trump can petition the partners to alter the terms of the deal to allow him to sell prior to that date. But...
Per other restrictions (SEC rules? NY state law? not totally clear what was being referenced...), even if the 6-month freeze period is relaxed, Trump would still be limited to selling no more than 1% of the outstanding shares in any month (or maybe quarter, I may be mis-remembering what he said). Which essentially means Trump would still be constrained from selling enough of his share to come close to covering his $554 million dollars in judgments or likely even another $100 million towards a bond from someone else to cover the $554 million. But...
As Cay Johnson put it, Wall Street solved this problem back during the beginning of the Internet bubble in the late 1990s. If a budding billionaire-to-be tech CEO takes a company public and wants to begin leading the high life even though they technically don't have their billions for another six months, there's another alternative for reaching the gold brick road earlier. The person facing the 6-month freeze can enter into a contract with someone else to accept the shares in 6 months in exchange for cash now. Of course, the person on the other side of this "deal" is facing a HUGE risk because the vast majority of stocks decline precipitously after IPO and the taker of this deal would be facing all of that downside over the six months. Of course, no smart investor with a billion dollars laying around coveted by the person in the 6-month freeze is going to take that risk blindly. They don't. They take out a naked short position on the stock involved and hedge their position.
So it IS conceptually possible for a deal to be cobbled together prior to the end of March 25 that could rescue Trump. Whether such a deal materializes depends upon the willingness of another party to venture into any economic deal with Trump that will likely trigger additional litigation (remember, four partners in the original SPAC deal are suing each other already over perceived efforts to cheat someone else out of their due share of the SPAC IPO).
Pulling back the lens a bit to look at Trump's larger situation, it may become more apparent over the next few weeks if Trump's political support is nearing some sort of half-life decay point.
* Dems have raised nearly $95 million for Biden + Congressional races
* Reps have only raised about $43 million between Trump directly, Trump's PAC and RNC
* leadership of RNC has been outsed and replaced with lackeys who are willing to shift
RNC money to Trump legal bills
* Trump PAC is already shifting dollars from his individual "campaign" to his legal bills
* Trump PAC is on track to have $0 by June at current inflow / outflow rates
* state Republican Party coffers in many states are FAR below norms for a Presidential election year
* state Republican Party leadership is in turmoil in many states
* RNC has already cut national campaign staff
I'd like to think that something similar to this mini four-paragraph play is transpiring in every red-leaning hamlet across the hinterlands:
Honeybun, we're out of food and Darrel Jr., Darrel Jr., Darrel Jr. and Darla are hungry. Can you go to Dollar General and pick up some dry dog food and a 2 liter bottle of Coke for dinner?
Well, I'd love to but the Taurus is outta gas and I was watching the news on The Daily Grifter and they had a clip of the fat guy climbing in his private 757 and he said he needed money to keep Trump Tower and his resort so I signed up to buy a square of toilet paper that was at one point stuck to the bottom of his shoe with our last $18.92 in the checking account. That included rush shipping so don't shoot at the FedEx guy tomorrow when he comes to the house.
Well dammit Darrel, I was gonna buy birth control with that.
Woman, I told you, the orange one says we don't believe in that anymore. We're just gonna have to take the kids on a walk on I-95 looking for something fresh.
The reality is that the truly MAGA faithful are likely to be unfazed by ANY of this since frankly, they are financially innumerate and have already proven they are gullible beyond rescue. However, more moderate Republicans who might have been tempted to hold their nose and vote for Trump could be getting fatiqued from his constant whining about persecution and requests for money.
At some point, one has to believe the Big Bang levels of energy being produced by the cognitive dissonance of a "billionaire" bilking millions of non-billionaires have to get released somehow. It's just a matter of when and what the final tipping point event will be. I'm not sure the current insanity can last until the Republican convention.
WTH
