A former ally of Donald Trump has branded him "an idiot," and claimed that the presidential hopeful is making a big mistake that could eventually prove costly.
Read on to find out why the former member of Trump's inner circle believes the 45th is on a dangerous path – and what he thinks the aspiring POTUS will try to do next.
All dollar amounts in US dollars.
Speaking to CNN, Michael Cohen (pictured) – Trump's former attorney and fixer who has since become one of his most outspoken critics –didn't hold back from discussing Trump's recent indictment in Georgia. In particular, Cohen slated Trump's decision not to pay the legal expenses incurred by Rudy Giuliani, the lawyer and former New York mayor who's been named as a co-conspirator in the case.
"Donald's an idiot," Cohen said. "Let me just be very clear [that] when it comes to paying money, he is truly an idiot. He has not learned yet that [there are] three people you don't want to throw under the bus like that: your lawyer, your doctor and your mechanic. Because one way or the other, you're going to go down the hill and there'll be no brakes."
Giuliani (pictured in the middle here) is no stranger to legal difficulties. According to CNN, the controversial lawyer is "staring down hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal bills and sanctions amid numerous lawsuits in addition to the new criminal charges" that involve his friend Trump.
In court for an unrelated case this week, Giuliani admitted that he was running out of cash, which could explain reports that he's recently put his three-bedroom Manhattan apartment up for sale for $6.5 million.
The New York Times reported that Giuliani has repeatedly sought financial assistance from Trump, but is believed to have received just $340,000 from Trump's political action committee to offset his estimated $3 million in legal fees. According to the Times, there is "bafflement, concern and frustration" among Giuliani's allies that he's received so little from the man he's stood by through thick and thin.
Trump also has his fair share of financial demands right now. Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis has set his bond at $200,000, a figure the billionaire will have no problem covering, according to Cohen. "At the end of the day," he told CNN, "he'll have no problem with raising the money. Worse comes to worse, he'll go to his stupid supporters to do it and they'll just pony up to one of his various different PACs."
Trump has so far resisted efforts to cover Giuliani's legal fees and, as Cohen predicts, could drum up his bond from supporters rather than paying up himself. So what IS he spending his multi-billion-dollar fortune on? Read on to find out...
Donald Trump is known for his decadent taste in décor, with the interiors of his Fifth Avenue penthouse reportedly inspired by the Palace of Versailles. The apartment is adorned with gold candelabras, classical paintings, and designer furniture.
Ahead of the former president’s departure from the White House, he splashed his cash on renovations at Mar-a-Lago – and the alterations won’t have come cheap, as they were rumored to have featured large quantities of dark wood and white marble.
It’s safe to say that the 45th president of the United States has a penchant for luxury, and that also applies to how he travels. Trump’s air fleet includes a Boeing 757 – nicknamed Trump Force One – with fuel costs that rocket into the thousands of dollars per hour of flying. The airliner was allegedly bought in 2010 for $100 million to replace Trump’s older plane – an $8 million Boeing 727 bought in the 1980s.
In March last year, Trump Force One was forced to make an emergency landing and Trump announced that he'd be replacing the aircraft. In an email to supporters, he reportedly wrote: "I have a very important update on my plane, but I need to trust that you won’t share it with anyone: my team is building a BRAND NEW Trump Force One. The construction of this plane has been under wraps – not even the fake news media knows about it – and I can’t wait to unveil it for everyone to see."
Shortly after announcing his 2024 presidential bid in November, it was revealed that Trump has refurbished his existing Boeing 757, which has since conveyed him to and from campaign rallies.
Also among Trump's fleet is a 1997 Cessna Citation X jet, which would have been worth around $15.3 million new, along with three Sikorsky helicopters, which typically sets a buyer back between $5 million and $7 million. In true Trump style, the aircraft are lavishly decked out.
Trump Force One boasts gold-plated seat belts and a bathroom with golden sinks, while a refurbishment of one helicopter in the early 2010s saw the interiors finessed with 24-carat gold-plated hardware at a cost of $750,000.
Trump also has a pretty impressive garage, featuring various top-of-the-line cars including a vintage Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud, a Rolls-Royce Phantom, a Ferrari, a Maybach, and a Mercedes-Benz 3600, according to Business Insider. The billionaire has always had a taste for flash cars – pictured is the 1987 Mercedes Cabrio bought by Trump and his late first wife Ivana in the late 1980s.
In 2016 Donald Trump promised he would donate all of his salary if elected as president, and he stuck to his word. Each quarter a different federal agency received a $100,000 check on his behalf. After tax deductions Trump’s take-home salary would have been closer to $78,000, so it’s likely the then-president dipped into his own finances to donate a round $100,000 every three months, or $1.6 million over the four-year term.
Trump also donated a total of $130 million to charity between 2005 and 2020 according to his tax returns, although $119.3 million of that was in conservation easements, which involve donating land development rights to a conservation charity while retaining ownership of the land and gaining considerable tax benefits in the process.
Golf isn't a new hobby for Trump; if he wasn’t in the White House during his term in office, you could almost certainly find him on a golf course. He made an estimated 298 golf outings during his presidency, at an alleged cost of around $145 million to the American taxpayer. The expenses covered travel, overnight stays, and the extensive security detail he required as head of state.
Now that he's left the White House, Trump picks up most of those costs himself, although former presidents are afforded life-long security protection as part of their retirement package.
As a man who's always in the spotlight, appearance is incredibly important to Donald Trump. The former president has long had an affinity for Brioni menswear. While it was supplied free of charge during his run on The Apprentice, Trump started to pay for his suits during the 2016 presidential campaign. Each suit sets him back between $5,250 and $6,900.
The former president’s tax returns also revealed that $70,000 had been spent on styling his hair while he was on the hit TV show, all of which had been claimed back as expenses. It appears that being camera-ready is no cheap pursuit if you’re Donald Trump.
From suave suits to lawsuits. Donald Trump has had a fair few run-ins with the law during his lengthy career, and had been involved in a total of 3,500 legal actions across federal and state courts before he first ran for office in 2016, according to USA Today. The best-known and priciest was the Trump University litigation. He was slapped with a $25 million settlement fee in 2016 to repay students who had paid $35,000 for ‘get rich quick’ classes, which failed to deliver and were described as “fraudulent” by an attorney general.
Having lost the protections afforded by the White House, Trump is set to be stung financially by the current investigations into him and the Trump Organization. Although we don't know the financial details of every lawsuit, the legal fees and potential payouts could cost Trump millions, especially if they last years. The former president has been vocal about his frustration at the cost of legal fees, calling them "such a pain in the a**" according to a Daily Beast source.
The fraud lawsuit filed last September by New York Attorney General Letitia James, for example, claims that by inflating the value of his assets by "billions", Trump unlawfully gained $250 million. The state now wants to win the sum back in court.
While Donald Trump infamously told the Fox & Friends talk show that his birthday gift for wife Melania in 2018 was “a very nice card” as he’s too “busy to be running out looking for presents,” the rest of the former president’s family doesn’t appear to be too hard-up when it comes to benefiting from Trump’s wealth.
Donald and Melania Trump’s only son together, 17-year-old Barron, attended St. Andrew’s Episcopal School in Maryland during his father’s presidency, at a cost of $40,000 a year. He later moved to the Oxbridge Academy in Palm Beach, Florida, which costs $34,800 a year.
The teenager (pictured with Melania and half-sister Ivanka in 2009) is very accustomed to a life of luxury and, when he was just seven years old, Melania told ABC News that she lathered him in her now-defunct brand of caviar moisturizer each night before bed. Barron also enjoys his own floor of the triplex Trump Tower penthouse when the family is living in New York and has received a plethora of gifts thanks to his father’s celebrity, including a chandelier from Ellen DeGeneres and a horse from the former President of Mongolia.
Sharing his father’s name could be a blessing or a curse for Donald Trump Jr, but it has highlighted something that his father doesn’t splash the cash on, and that’s gifts. Donald Jr. often received second-hand monogrammed presents that had been given to the former president but then passed onto him given that they share the same initials, according to an interview with Extra TV.
Ivanka Trump (pictured right) is the richest of the Trump siblings, having built up a fashion empire alongside her dealings at the family business, giving her a net worth of around $375 million. She also seems to have inherited her father’s affinity for expensive grooming services, as a sum of $95,464 was among the expenses in the 2020 reveal of Donald Trump’s finances.
Tiffany (pictured left) is the only grown-up Trump child who isn't involved in the family business. Instead, she attended Georgetown Law school until 2020, at a cost of around $69,000 per academic year.
Now see where Donald Trump ranks among the richest world leaders of all time