Trump is facing the truth about his finances in court.

On Monday, Donald Trump will be in a Manhattan courtroom for a hearing related to one of his criminal cases, facing a moment of truth regarding his finances: a deadline on the same day to either post a $454 million bond to cover a fraud judgment or risk New York starting the process of seizing some of his assets.

A billionaire from the real estate world has been warning for several weeks that he does not have enough cash to cover the bond during the appeal of the decision. He will need 120% of the amount of the decision, which is about $545 million. Trump has asked the appeals court to waive the requirement, claiming that he would have to conduct "fire sales" of his assets to raise cash. The court has not yet made a decision.

Last week, Trump stated that he has "almost $500 million" in cash, but he claims he needs about $1 billion in reserves to cover the bond and still have enough cash to manage his vast real estate. The former president said that the financial difficulties arose after 30 insurance companies, which organize such guarantees, refused to take his assets as collateral.

The weight of all of Trump's legal battles has become a heavy burden for his finances.

With the rise of legal bills and an expensive campaign to return to the White House, he lost a defamation case in Manhattan this year—posting a bond of $91.6 million to appeal that decision—and is facing four criminal prosecutions in three states and Washington.

New York Attorney General Letitia James, who won a fraud case after suing Trump, is threatening to seize assets if he does not pay. She may begin the process as early as Monday, although it is also possible that she will wait to see how the appeals court decides. James has already registered her massive ruling in Westchester County near Manhattan, which means that Trump's assets there could be at risk.

The deadline for the bail on Monday coincides with Trump's appearance in one of his criminal cases.

He will be in court for a decisive hearing on his latest attempt to dismiss the charges brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who accused Trump of falsifying business records to conceal payments made to a porn actress for silence before the 2016 election.

The trial about silence was supposed to start on Monday.

But Judge Juan Merchan postponed it after Trump's lawyers complained that tens of thousands of pages of potentially relevant evidence were handed over at the last minute.

• The Bragg case will be the first criminal case to go to trial.
• And so far, the only case scheduled for consideration before the heated elections in November. It is still unclear when the trials for the separate cases of election interference in Washington and Georgia, or the cases involving classified documents in Florida, will begin. Trump, the designated Republican presidential candidate, denies any wrongdoing in all cases and condemns Prosecutor Bragg as conducting a "witch hunt."

Bragg revived the charges against Trump almost a year ago, accusing the billionaire of falsifying business documents as part of a scheme to suppress allegations from a porn actress and others that threatened his 2016 presidential campaign.

Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal charges of campaign finance violations and tax evasion related to hush money payments. At that time, prosecutors stated that Cohen paid porn actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 to buy her silence about a sexual encounter with Trump ten years earlier. U.S. officials said the payment was made with Trump's knowledge, but he was not charged because the U.S. Justice Department insisted that a sitting president cannot be indicted.