Expert reveals Trump Tower's hefty debt as Letitia James prepares to seize property

As New York Attorney General Letitia James prepares to make good on her vow to seize Donald Trump's property, an expert showed his iconic Trump Tower will likely not be top of her list.

The former president has until Monday to pay a $464 million bond after being found liable for fraud. His lawyers revealed this week that he will not be able to do that.

And James, who sued Trump for defrauding insurance companies and banks by exaggerating the value of his properties, has said she will immediately start seizing his business empire in exchange for the unpaid debt.

On Wednesday, MSNBC's Lisa Rubin shared a list of Trump's liabilities that had been filed with the court in August.

It revealed that Trump Tower comes with a debt of $50 million. In 2017, Forbes estimated the building was worth $371 million.

But Forbes also reported that a $100 million mortgage was taken out on it in 2022.

"If NY Attorney General is able to start enforcing her judgment as soon as next week, don’t expect Trump Tower to top her list," Rubin wrote on X.

"Why? Because as recently as August ‘23, Trump reported Axos Bank still has an outstanding loan on that property for “over $50,000,000.”

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"Yes, this list of his liabilities is from six-plus months ago," said Rubin. "And there has been public reporting that certain loans have been refinanced. But don’t sleep on the fact that this disclosure was signed by Trump himself — and that he initialed each page."

Trump declared himself the "king of debt" in the 2016 presidential race. He told CBS's Norah O'Donnell, "I’m great with debt. Nobody knows debt better than me. I’ve made a fortune by using debt, and if things don’t work out, I renegotiate the debt. I mean, that’s a smart thing, not a stupid thing."

Trump opened the building in 1983, but financial reporters explained to MSNBC this week that there's not much of it that he now owns outright because he's sold off condos.

In a filing Wednesday, Letitia James questioned how hard he'd tried to secure the $464 million bond.

"Trump's defense boil[s] down the proposition that sureties have been unwilling to accept Mr. Trump's real-estate holdings as collateral in this case," the filing says.

She continues: "Yet, defendants supply no documentary evidence that demonstrates precisely what real property they offer to sureties, on what terms that property was offered, or precisely why the sureties were unwilling to accept the assets."