President Joe Biden seems to have a new favorite Donald Trump joke, which he has used on several occasions to mock the former president’s legal penalties.
Biden, the Democratic incumbent, will likely have a rematch against Trump, the presumed 2024 GOP presidential nominee, in November. Biden’s campaign has used Trump’s legal woes as a source of criticism.
While delivering remarks at the Biden Victory Fund’s National Finance Committee meeting in New York on Friday, the president jokingly said that Trump asked him to help pay his legal fees, to which Biden replied: “Donald, I can’t help you.”
When reached for comment by Newsweek, Trump’s spokesman referred to a Monday Bloomberg article that reported Trump’s net worth increased to $6.5 billion, which made him one of the world’s 500 richest people.
The report came after Shareholders of Digital World Acquisition Corp. (DWAC), an existing shell company, agreed to merge with Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG), which owns Truth Social, last week.
With 79 million shares, Trump owns more than 50 percent of the post-merger company. The stock debuted at $44.49 per share when the market opened last Friday. At that price, Trump’s overwhelming majority stake is worth over $3.5 billion.
Newsweek reached out to Biden’s campaign via email for comment.
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Biden’s meeting comes on the heels of a major fundraiser in New York City’s Radio City Music Hall Thursday night, which brought the campaign over $26 million in donations. The star-studded event featured former Democratic presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, music powerhouses Queen Latifah and Lizzo, among others.
This is not the first time Biden has used this made-up interaction with Trump to highlight the legal and financial turmoil that the former president is in.
During a campaign event in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Tuesday with Vice President Kamala Harris, Biden quipped: “Look, I know everyone is not feeling the enthusiasm.”
“The other day, a defeated guy walked up to me and said, ‘Mr. President, I’m being crushed by debt. I’m completely wiped out.’ I had to look at him and say, ‘Sorry, Donald. I can’t help you,'” Biden said before laughter and applause erupted.
Biden made the same joke at a campaign event last week in Dallas, Texas.
The former president faces four criminal indictments and over half a billion dollars in judgments from at least two lawsuits: $83.3 million in civil defamation to writer E. Jean Carroll and $454 million for civil fraud in New York. Trump posted a bond of nearly $92 million earlier this month while appealing the ruling.
Trump was indicted in Washington D.C., and Fulton County, Georgia, for alleged election interference in the 2020 presidential race. He has also been charged in Florida for allegedly obstructing the government’s efforts to retrieve mishandled classified documents and in Manhattan for allegedly falsifying business records relating to hush-money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
The former president has pleaded not guilty to all criminal charges and claimed no wrongdoing in the lawsuits against him. He has alleged that the cases are politically motivated against him.
In the past few months, Trump has been hit with back-to-back rulings that threaten his financial status.
In January, a jury ordered Trump to pay E. Jean Carroll $83.3 million for defaming her by claiming that the former Elle columnist was lying when she came out with allegations in 2019 that the then-president sexually assaulted her in a Manhattan department store dressing room in the mid-1990s. A separate jury in a different lawsuit filed by Carroll ruled last May that Trump did sexually abuse and defame the writer.
Trump also owes $454 million after New York Judge Arthur Engoron ordered the former president to pay $355 million, plus interest, and barred him from doing business in New York for three years in February after finding him liable for fraud.
New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit against Trump in September 2022, accusing him, his two adult sons, Donald Jr. and Eric, The Trump Organization and two firm executives, Allen Weisselberg and Jeff McConney, of fraudulently overvaluing assets to secure favorable bank loans and taxation deals. The other defendants in the case face their own penalties.
Meanwhile, on Monday, when Trump’s $454 bond was due, an appeals court reduced the amount to $175 million and gave him 10 additional days to pay it.
Trump has also appealed Engoron’s ruling.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.