1/ "I WILL NOT BE TESTIFYING ON MONDAY," Donald Trump says in an all-caps statement posted on his social-media platform, Truth Social.

He'd been slated to retake the stand in his fraud trial against the New York attorney general.

I have a lot of thoughts on this development. 2/ The likelihood that Trump was going to say anything that would help his case was close to zero. He admitted as much in his statement.

1/ Donald Trump Jr. enters the New York City courthouse where he and his father on in the midst of a fraud trial. Follow along for an account of the day, including a detailed blow-by-blow on the Forbes website: forbes.com/sites/danalexa…
2/ Don Jr. is on the stand. He talks about how his family limited its international licensing business after his father became president. “In retrospect, that was probably a mistake,” he says, noting that his family did not get much credit for it.

1/ Ivanka Trump just made the long walk up the stairs of the Lower Manhattan courthouse where she will face questioning this morning from the New York attorney general’s office as part of her father’s 250 million fraud suit. I’m headed inside now. Follow along here for updates. 2/ "All rise!" Judge Engoron walks into the courtroom. Other major players are mostly here, too: Trump's lawyers, the attorney general. Not here yet: Ivanka Trump, who was just called to the witness stand.

Follow along below for a play-by-play. forbes.com/sites/danalexa…

1/ I'm inside the New York City courthouse where Donald Trump is slated to testify this morning.

He will be under the watch of a judge who has already found him liable for fraud and untrustworthy on the witness stand.

Follow along for a play-by-play. forbes.com/sites/danalexa… 2/ First observation: There are far more people here today than we've seen in the last several weeks. The courtroom is packed. Same with the overflow room, which generally has only a handful of people. Same with a 2nd overflow room, where I'm watching.

1/ I’m back in Lower Manhattan, where Donald Trump and his associates are facing fraud allegations. Eric Trump returns to the stand this morning after tense testimony yesterday.

Read along for updates, and follow a blow-by-blow account at the link below. forbes.com/sites/danalexa… 2/ Eric strolls into the courtroom, wearing a dark suit and blue tie. He stands at the defense table, with his hands in his pockets. The attorney general is here as well, seated in her usual front-row spot. When the judge arrives in about 5 minutes, things should start rolling.

1/ I’m back at the courthouse in Lower Manhattan for Donald Trump’s fraud case.

His two oldest sons, Eric and Don Jr., are both expected to testify today. The security lines are longer than anything I’ve seen yet.

Should be an exciting day. Follow along for updates. 2/ Donald Trump Jr. enters the courtroom, wearing a Navy blue suit, pink shirt and light blue tie. Like yesterday, he has his hair slicked back and is sporting a beard.

Follow along for more complete updates here: forbes.com/sites/danalexa…

1/ I’m at the court house in Lower Manhattan on this cold, gray day, when Donald Trump Jr. is expected to take the witness stand in his father’s fraud case. 2/ Before Don Jr., we’ll see 2 others on the stand. “Witness entering!” an officer yells out. In walks David Orowitz, a former Trump employee, who was involved in the bid to secure a lease to Washington DC’s Old Post Office, which Trump spent more than $200M turning into a hotel.

1/ I’m in New York City, where Donald Trump is facing fraud allegations. Also here: Michael Cohen, the tycoon’s former lawyer and current nemesis, who recently climbed the steps to enter the court house.

Follow along here for a play-by-play of what unfolds inside today. 2/ "All rise!" The judge enters the courtroom. Trump strolls in afterward, wearing a blue suit and blue tie, a similar outfit to one he has worn on other days in this trial. His son, Eric, is here, too, sitting in the front row of the gallery, over his father's left shoulder.

1/ I’m back in Lower Manhattan, where Donald Trump is on trial for alleged fraud. Michael Cohen, his former attorney, is expected to show up 10 a.m.

Should be an interesting day. Follow along here for updates. 2/ Donald Trump walks into the court room, rocking a blue suit and a more casual stride this morning. "All rise!" the judge enters and takes his seat at the front of the room. A crowd of photographers come next and square up to the former president.

1/ I’m at the court house in Manhattan again this morning to watch the New York attorney general’s fraud case against Donald Trump.

Also in attendance: the former president. Follow along here for updates all day. 2/ Doug Larson, who valued Trump's 40 Wall Street, is fielding questions from Trump's team about appraisals he conducted on the property. Trump valued it even higher than those appraisals--but Larson's numbers were already too high. Let's do some math.

1/ I’m at the court house in Lower Manhattan, along with a lot of security and a bunch of press. One person who hasn’t showed up yet, according to one of the guards: Donald Trump.

I imagine he’ll be here soon. Follow along here for updates all day. 2/ New York Attorney General Letitia James enters the courtroom. "Hey everybody," she says, offering a wave and a smile. Trump still isn't here.

1/ I'm back in the New York court where the attorney state general is accusing Donald Trump and his associates of conducting a years-long fraud.

Follow along here for updates. 2/ Trump Org employee Patrick Birney settles into the witness chair, and the AG's office starts going through values that the Trump Organization used for golf clubs. I believe the golf clubs are some of the most egregiously inflated assets in the portfolio.

1/ I'm back inside the New York court today to watch more of the attorney general's fraud case against Donald Trump and his associates, who are accused of lying about his net worth to financial institutions for years.

Follow along here for the latest. 2/ Patrick Birney is back on the stand. "Morning," he says, settling into the chair at the witness stand. The AG's office picks up where it left off yesterday--with Mar-a-Lago.

1/ I am in court watching the New York attorney general's fraud case against Trump and his associates, including longtime CFO Allen Weisselberg, who just returned to the stand. 2/ The judge says, "I'll remind the witness, as I always do, that he's still under oath."" When Weisselberg was on the stand on Tuesday, he was also under oath. He lied during that testimony, as I reported this morning. forbes.com/sites/danalexa…

1/ Trump spoke at the courthouse again today. Let's examine his words. Here's a link to the video: 2/ "I put in financial statements with a disclaimer. In other words, don't even bother reading them, to the banks." Below, you can see the text of what he now appears to be calling a "disclaimer" but in the document calls the "basis of presentation."

1/ Trump spoke at the courthouse again today. Let's dig in.

Noting his business is privately held, he said "nobody is supposed to know my net worth," as if he were inclined to keep his finances discreet.

In fact, he has been bragging (and lying) about assets for 40+ years. 2/ Always a showman, Trump went on, "nobody is supposed to know my net worth. But now everybody is and will, and I hope you're impressed."

He may not have realized he was repeating, almost verbatim, words he had used when sending inflated net worth docs to a lender years ago.

1/ Now that our revamped estimate of Trump's net worth is out the door--at $2.6B, he fell short of making the #Forbes400--I want to dissect a few things that the former president said at the courthouse yesterday.

You can watch the video here: 2/ At about 1:30, he attacks the attorney general, claiming she "ran on the basis that she was going to get Trump."

He has a point here. Letitia James has said a lot of bad things about Trump that undermine her credibility. For example:

https://twitter.com/TishJames/status/920076346646237185

1/ We @Forbes came out with our latest estimate of Trump’s net worth this morning, pegging it at $2.5B, down $700M. To make sense of these numbers, you need to understand the bizarre math involved with his social-media business, Truth Social. Let’s dig in. forbes.com/sites/danalexa… 2/ We’ll start on Oct. 20, 2021, when Trump announced that he was going to launch Truth Social, then merge it with a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, named Digital World Acquisition (DWAC). The deal valued Trump’s business initially at $875M. ir.tmtgcorp.com/news-events/pr…

1/ This morning we unveiled our latest estimate of Donald Trump’s wealth, $3.2B. There’s a lot of misinformation about his finances, much of it stuff Trump has spewed over the years and some of it junk that his detractors toss around. Here’s the math. forbes.com/sites/danalexa… 2/ We’ll start in NYC, at Trump Tower. Trump still has the office (185K sf) and retail (60K sf). It throws off about $8.1M of net operating income, according to the latest data, down from $13.3M in 2019. We put it at $207M. Trump has a $100M mortgage there, so that’s $107M.

1/ An underappreciated story: Donald Trump has lost a lot of other people money by tainting his own brand over the last few years. I just stumbled across a stark example. 2/ In the spring of 2014, Trump sold someone a 4,555-square-foot apartment for $10.3 million inside a building named Trump Park Avenue. It’s a nice building. Jared and Ivanka used to live there.

1/10 Four years ago we knew Trump’s refusal to divest would have political consequences. Now we know it had big financial consequences as well.

In fact, the decision to retain his assets cost Trump an estimated $1.6 billion. Let’s break down the math.
forbes.com/sites/danalexa… 2/10 When Trump took office, we estimated his fortune was worth $3.5 billion (or $3.495B, to be exact). If he had sold everything off, he *might* have had to pay capital gains taxes, which would have cost him a lot of money.