‘This is an Attack on America’: Shark Tank Celebrity Slams ‘Woke’ Policies

Shark Tank investor Kevin O’Leary criticized New York’s legal actions against Donald Trump.

Shark Tank investor Kevin O’Leary and legal scholar Jonathan Turley strongly criticized New York’s legal actions against former President Donald Trump as an attack on core American legal principles. O’Leary warned the move undermines property rights and due process, damaging the US reputation as a stable investment destination.

“More importantly, the message about the American brand. You think about America. The reason this is the number one economy on earth is that we have laws and we have due process and we have property rights. It attracts foreign capital from all around the world. All of that is being shaken to the core here,” O’Leary said.

“The concept of seizing assets in 30 days on a bond number that’s never been issued,” he added. “No insurance bond company’s ever issued anything near this, so there was no chance it was going to happen. And only giving 30 days notice and time. That’s a really bad message, and I think New Yorkers should think well past Trump, whether he’s president or not, or whether this attorney’s general is gone in four years or not. It’s irrelevant.”

“This is case-setting against the American brand. The most stable country on earth, anywhere, to put capital to work over a long period of time, particularly in real estate, is the United States of America,” he said. “This is an assault on what we believe to be core, and I find it extraordinary. I think it’s very troubling. It has absolutely nothing to do with Donald Trump at this point, in my view, and it is completely bipartisan.”

“This is an attack on America,” O’Leary said bluntly. “I don’t know how you can look at it any other way,” he added.

“As an investor, and I know plenty of investors are completely disturbed by this, but I mean, no one is going to put any money to work in New York in these amounts until this thing settles down,” O’Leary said.

A New York judge ordered Trump to pay $454 million without a jury trial over standard real estate valuation practices, a figure even critics said was arbitrary and preventative of appeal. Both felt this set a troubling precedent and questioned the lack of “adult supervision” to curb overtly political prosecutions.

“The whole world is watching and everybody’s waiting for one thing we haven’t got yet. Adult supervision. Where is it? Where are the adults in this crazy narrative?” O’Leary asked. “Certainly there’s got to be adult supervision at some point, and I understand the war going on here and all the political, yada, yada, woof, woof, woof, but we need an adult in the room.”

While opinions on Trump vary, they argued the case has larger implications for separating legal processes from personalities if New York wants to maintain its reputation as a premier legal jurisdiction.

“Trump does not have much runway left. He is at that point where he is committed, he can’t really stop the plane but he needs it to take off, because at the end of that runway, if he doesn’t get that bond, he could be viewed in default and he can be viewed as losing his right to appeal,” Turley said. “That would be the worst possible prospect not just for Trump, but for the New York legal system.”

“I think what the court did here was outrageous,” Turley added. “It came out with this figure, none of us can really figure how he could justify that. He could have said a billion or two billion because it would have the same level of relevance in connection to the evidence, but it would also have the same impact. You can’t just go to a person and say produce half a billion dollars if you want any other judge to look at what I did.”

“You don’t have to like Trump not to like what is happening here, and this is one of the premier legal jurisdictions that I think is going to have an existential moment here of whether they can separate themselves from the personalities and the passions of the moment,” Turley said.

An appeals court decreased former President Trump’s bond payment, saying Trump must pay $175 million within the next 10 days.

Trump was ordered to pay a $454 million bond that came as a result of civil fraud allegations from New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Trump responded, “Judge Engoron has refused to obey the decision of the Appellate Division relative to the Statute of Limitations. This is a confrontation between a Judge and those that rule above him – A very bad situation in which to place New York State and the Rule of Law!’

“Engoron has disrespected the Appellate Division and its very clear and precise ruling,” Trump posted on his Truth Social account. “He should be made to do so, and at the same time, release the GAG ORDER.”