On Monday, former President Donald Trump made a claim that he chose not to list Trump Media & Technology Group on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) due to the harsh treatment of businesspeople in New York, and the alleged hostility from the state’s attorney general. However, this narrative seems to lack coherence.
Fact Check: The Trump Media & Technology Group is being listed on the Nasdaq, which, like the NYSE, is headquartered in New York, specifically in the same borough of Manhattan. Therefore, the same New York laws and political oversight that would apply to the company on the NYSE will also apply on the Nasdaq.
Jonathan Macey, a Yale Law School professor specializing in corporate law, corporate finance, and securities law, described Trump’s narrative as “mind-bogglingly nonsensical”. He compared it to someone claiming to avoid persecution in New York by choosing to shop at Bloomingdale’s instead of Macy’s, both of which are located in New York.
Trump, who is now the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, made these claims during a press conference where he criticized New York Attorney General Letitia James and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg for initiating legal cases against him.
Trump also made claims about the NYSE being “very, very upset” about his decision and that the “top person” at the NYSE was “mortified”. However, the current president of the NYSE, Lynn Martin, and her predecessor, Stacey Cunningham, are both women, as is the chair of the NYSE board, Sharon Bowen. A NYSE spokesperson declined to comment on Trump’s account but stated that the exchange would welcome Trump’s company.
Trump also made baseless claims about his legal cases being orchestrated by President Joe Biden. He claimed that Matthew Colangelo, a former senior Justice Department official now working for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, was “put into” the district attorney’s office by Biden.
Fact Check: There is no evidence to support Trump’s claims. There is no indication that Biden has been involved in any of the criminal or civil cases against Trump. The Manhattan prosecution is led by Bragg and the civil fraud case by New York Attorney General Letitia James, both elected officials who do not report to the president or the federal Justice Department. Furthermore, there is no evidence that Biden influenced Colangelo’s decision to join the district attorney’s office in 2022.
Trump’s claims about Biden’s involvement in his legal cases also lack evidence. The lawsuit that led to Trump’s civil fraud trial was filed by James in September 2022, two months before Trump launched his 2024 campaign. The investigation began in 2019, two years before Biden succeeded Trump as president. There is no sign that Biden has had any role in bringing criminal charges against Trump in Manhattan or Fulton County, Georgia; those prosecutions have been led by elected local district attorneys.
Trump has provided no evidence for his repeated claims that Biden orchestrated Colangelo’s 2022 move from the Justice Department to the Manhattan district attorney’s office. Colangelo and Bragg previously worked at the same time in the office of New York’s attorney general, where Colangelo investigated Trump’s charity and financial practices and was involved in bringing various lawsuits against the Trump administration.