Trump’s legal woes have now set him back by more than $500m – how will he pay?

Donald Trump awoke on Saturday facing a stark new reality of legal obligations in excess of half a billion dollars after his stunning civil fraud trial defeat a day earlier, and questions swirled over his ability, or intention, to pay.

Yet the former president remained defiant late on Friday, insisting in a vitriolic rant from his Mar-a-Lago mansion in Florida that he would win an appeal against a New York judge’s ruling that he must pay more than $350m plus pre-judgment interest for intentional financial fraud stretching more than a decade.

Lashing out at the New York attorney general, Letitia James, who brought the case, and state judge Arthur Engoron, who issued the penalty, as “totally corrupt”, Trump slammed what he said was a “sham prosecution” driven by Joe Biden and the Democratic party to prevent him from returning to the White House.

“We’ll appeal, we’ll be successful,” he said. “A crooked New York judge ruled that I have to pay $355m for having built the perfect company. Great cash, great buildings, great everything.”

The precise amount Trump was ordered to pay is not entirely clear. At a press conference on Friday night, James put the figure at $463.9m. “That represents $363.9m in disgorgement, plus $100m in interest, which will continue to increase every single day until it is paid,” she said.

But with the ruling adding to the $83.3m he must pay writer E Jean Carroll from a defamation hearing last month, plus another $5m from the original case last year that found he sexually abused her, Trump’s legal debts are mounting quickly – and are estimated now at about $542m, including interest.

Nikki Haley, Trump’s sole remaining rival for the Republican presidential nomination, speculated he would siphon campaign cash