Donald Trump, the Man Who Never Settles, Agrees to Settle Trump University Lawsuits

Trump said he’d never settle the suits. Now he’s changing his tune.

Bebeto Matthews/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Update November 18, 4:15 p.m.: New York state attorney general Eric Schneiderman announced that Donald Trump has agreed to a $25 million settlement in the lawsuits against Trump University. In a statement, Scheinderman called the settlement “a stunning reversal by Donald Trump and a major victory for the over 6,000 victims of his fraudulent university.”

In a March debate with his Republican primary opponents, Donald Trump was unequivocal: The fraud accusations against him for his involvement with Trump University were completely false and he would never settle the case. Even as Marco Rubio taunted Trump about the case and Fox News moderator Megyn Kelly pressed him on the facts—there were more than 5,000 plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit, she noted—Trump dismissed the idea there was anything to the case or that he would settle it.

“I don’t settle cases,” Trump said. “I don’t do it because that’s why I don’t get sued very often, because I don’t settle, unlike a lot of other people.” He added, “You know what, let’s see what happens in court.”

Trump’s lawyers are due in court on Friday morning—and it looks like they might be on the verge of settling.

Trump’s insistence that he would never settle the case extended far beyond that presidential debate. Before the debate, Trump had taken to Twitter to assail the idea he would settle.

For months, long after Rubio had been vanquished, Trump remained fixated on the case and his desire to take it to court. He went so far as to bash one plaintiff who he said was trying to end the case early.

His fury over the case even led him to attack the judge in two of the three lawsuits related to Trump University. Gonazalo Curiel was born in Indiana, but Trump derided him for his Mexican ancestry, which Trump claimed made him unfit to hear the suits.

A trial in the two cases Curiel oversees is scheduled to start on November 28, and Trump’s lawyers are due in Curiel’s court on Friday morning to argue for a delay in the proceedings until after Trump is inaugurated. But the New York Daily News is reporting that Trump is very close to settling the third case, brought against him by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. That would probably lead to a settlement in the two civil cases as well. According to the Daily News, the settlement may be between $25 million and $30 million. That’s a significant sum even for Trump, whose actual income is likely far less than he has publicly stated. But the cost to Trump may be even greater, after he staked his credibility on his repeated insistence that he would never settle a case he claimed he could easily win.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate