When people say an act is of desperation, they mean someone willing to throw away anything besides their most important thing.

This isn't an act of desperation, because even if he "pays up" it doesn't negatively effect them.

It's like if you were robbing me, so I said "wait, if you don't take my stuff, you can rob the neighbor!"

An act of desperation is if a home invader had a gun to your head and you said "take all my stuff just don't kill me"

I know I can be pedantic, but this clearly isn't an act of desperation because trump isn't offering anything he owns.