Former President Trump said he averted a “nuclear holocaust” with North Korea and “saved millions of lives” during his time as president, according to his newly released April deposition in his New York civil fraud case.

For nearly seven hours, lawyers with the New York attorney general’s office grilled Trump over his company’s business practices and his children’s roles within the Trump Organization. When asked about how his position changed within the Trump Organization when elected president, Trump said he was “very busy” and considered the presidency “the most important job in the world, saving millions of lives.”

“I think you would have nuclear holocaust, if I didn’t deal with North Korea,” Trump said. “I think you would have a nuclear war, if I weren’t elected. And I think you might have a nuclear war now, if you want to know the truth.”

Trump said his sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, both of whom currently serve as executive vice presidents at the Trump organization and are named in the suit, saw their roles change once he came president.

“They became more intensely involved with the company, I was virtually not involved at all,” Trump said. “I rarely — I’d rarely have anything to do with anything having to do with the company.”

The testimony is part of New York Attorney General Letitia James’s (D) lawsuit against Trump, the Trump Organization and two of the former president’s children over allegations of major fraud. Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, was previously included in the lawsuit but later dismissed from it by a state appeals judge.

Trump’s lawyers released Trump’s 479-page deposition transcript Wednesday ahead of a Sept. 22 hearing where a judge could resolve part or all of the lawsuit before it goes to trial in October.

In a separate court document filed Wednesday, James alleges Trump inflated his net worth by as much as $2.2 billion in 2014, and from 2011-21 defrauded lenders, insurers and others.

  • ArugulaZ
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    4710 months ago

    Total horseshit. He did COST a whole lot of Americans their lives when he indulged in COVID denial, though. What was the death toll on that? A million? It would have been substantially less if he had been responsible and given Americans useful advice, rather than telling them to ingest aquarium cleaner and shine lights up their butts.

  • athos77
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    2310 months ago

    A) I believe most of the false valuations happened before he became president.

    B) It sure didn’t take very much for him to throw his sons under the bus.

    • ArugulaZ
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      1010 months ago

      Eric was probably happy just to have that interaction. “He NOTICED me! Also, ouch!”

  • mrbubblesort
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    1610 months ago

    All right, sure, for the sake of argument he is 100% telling the truth. And that proves he’s not guilty … why?

  • Rottcodd
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    1610 months ago

    Seriously - how can anybody fail to recognize that Trump is profoundly mentally ill?

    • donuts
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      210 months ago

      There are plenty of people with mental illnesses who are good people and upstanding members of society. Trump, on the other hand, is a toxic cocktail of narcissism, greed, stupidity, amorality, mental illness and evil.

  • @Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world
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    1110 months ago

    I remember when he almost caused a nuclear disaster when he wanted to launch nukes into a hurricane. Goddamn, conservatives are dumb as fuck.

  • @Cheems@lemmy.world
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    910 months ago

    I believe in my heart of hearts, that he was talking about a shit he didn’t take in a public place.

      • @Got_Bent@lemmy.world
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        110 months ago

        That exists at the Korean DMZ. There are signs warning not to go after out of bounds balls because of land mines.

        Let’s go!

    • Jordan Lund
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      210 months ago

      “I got an ‘18’ again! You?”

      “Somehow, and I don’t know how this happened, I’m usually very, very good, but I can’t say I’ve ever been quite this good, must be all the practice I’ve been having hosting LIV, you know LIV, right? She’s great, fantastic golfer. Anyway, I got a ‘12’.”