'What?' Legal expert fact-checks Trump’s 'mind-bogglingly nonsensical' NYSE story

A story Donald Trump told reporters following his Monday, March 25 court appearance in New York isn't quite adding up, according to CNN Washington, DC bureau senior political reporter Daniel Dale.

C-SPAN communications director Howard Mortman shared a video of the former president speaking at a news conference via X (formerly Twitter), writing, "'Truth Social is doing well. It's hot as a pistol. It's going public. The New York Stock Exchange wants to have us badly. I told them we can't do the NYSE, you're treated too badly in New York...The people at the stock exchange are very upset about' NY. - Trump to @maggieNYT."

Mortman noted Trump was replying to a question from New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, claiming being treated "badly" is why he decided against listing the Trump Media & Technology Group on the NYSE.

READ MORE: Fact-check demolishes Trump’s bogus account of first impeachment

Noting that the former president was speaking during "a press conference in which he denounced New York Attorney General Letitia James and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg for bringing legal cases against him," Dale notes, "There is one problem. The story does not make any sense."

Dale writes:

Facts First:The stock exchange on which the Trump Media & Technology Group is being listed, the Nasdaq, is also headquartered in New York. In fact, the Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange are located in the same New York City borough of Manhattan. In other words, all of the New York laws and political oversight that would have applied to the company if it was listed on the NYSE will apply to the company when it is listed on the Nasdaq.

The CNN reporter also notes:

[Trump] claimed that 'the people at the stock exchange are very, very upset' that he decided against listing the company on the NYSE and that 'the top person is mortified, can’t believe it.' And he said of this supposed NYSE official: 'He said, ‘I’m losing business because of New York – because people don’t want to be in New York and they don’t want to go on the New York Stock Exchange.’ So you can ask them about it,” he said.

The 'top person' at the NYSE, however, is not a 'he.' The president of the NYSE since 2022, Lynn Martin, is a woman, as is her predecessor Stacey Cunningham. And the NYSE board is chaired by a woman, Sharon Bowen.

Yale Law School corporate law, corporate finance and securities law professor Jonathan Macey told CNN Trump's story is "just mind-bogglingly nonsensical."

Dale reports, "Macey repeatedly laughed while discussing the story in an interview. He said it would be the equivalent of someone claiming that, to avoid persecution in New York, they were going to avoid shopping at Macy’s in New York but instead would shop at the Bloomingdale’s store next door in New York. He said: 'Like, what?'"

READ MORE: GOP represents 'most significant threat to basic constitutionalism since Civil War': historian

The Yale law professor emphasized, "I hope somebody advising President Trump informs him that the same investor protection rules that safeguard investors of the New York Stock Exchange also safeguard investors on the Nasdaq Stock Market."

Watch the video below or at this link.

CNN's full report is here.