The first of former President Donald Trump's four criminal trials began this week. Vox's Andrew Prokop explains what's at stake, and Vox's Abdallah Fayyad explains how he might (or might not) pay the mounting legal bills.

This episode was produced by Jesse Alejandro Cottrell with help from Hady Mawajdeh, edited by Amina Al-Sadi, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, Matt Collette and Amanda Lewellyn, engineered by Patrick Boyd and Rob Byers, and hosted by Noel King.

Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained

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