Bill Cohan Predicts Trump Will Declare Bankruptcy: ‘His Only Choice at This Point’

AP Photo/Evan Vucci

Financial journalist Bill Cohan predicted that Donald Trump will declare bankruptcy when he’s unable to produce the $464 million bond that’s due on Monday.

Cohan spoke with Puck’s Peter Hamby on The Powers That Be: Daily podcast about Trump’s financial situation and the looming deadline to pay the bond.

“You suggested something that would seem pretty crazy for a guy who’s so egotistical and proud of all his money and accomplishments,” Hamby said. “You suggested that he might have to file for bankruptcy or  he might file for bankruptcy? How likely would that be?

“I think it’s his only choice at this point. The only way he’s going to — unless the court of appeals comes through for him and reduces the amount of what he has to pay, or the bond, or gives him more time. Again I don’t see a New York State court of appeals doing that for this guy. Why should they? But they might,” Cohan said, continuing:

So, if that happens, OK, that’s one way. If that doesn’t happen, then he’s out of luck, and he’s going to have to file for personal bankruptcy because that way, he can stay the judgment, stay any asset sales, buy himself a whole lot of time. You know this thing going into bankruptcy court would definitely buy him time. Maybe a year, maybe two years, it’s like a freefall bankruptcy. Who knows what kind of mess he’s got there?

And you know he could — and you know state of New York becomes a general and secured creditor of the Trump Organization or Donald trump personally, whatever ends up being the debtor here. And who knows where they would fall or what kind of recovery they would get? That’s probably his best way to reducing the size of the judgment. It’s his best way of having like an orderly sale of his assets. You know, he will lose them. He will lose the assets, absolutely. He’ll have to pay the judgment. But it would all be done in a much more timely, slower, more orderly way than in the next five days.

Trump’s lawyers admitted in a court filing last week that he could not secure the bond for his civil fraud judgment, calling it a “practical impossibility.” But Trump, in a Truth Social post, declared he had $500 million in cash, “A SUBSTANTIAL AMOUNT OF WHICH I INTENDED TO USE IN MY CAMPAIGN FOR PRESIDENT.” It remains to be seen which way things will go for the former president on Monday.

Listen to the podcast here.