NEW YORK – Donald Trump’s conviction Thursday makes him the first former president to become a felon, and he will be the first to claim in a presidential campaign that it is even more of a reason to elect him again.
That rally over his criminal conviction began the moment Trump emerged from the courtroom in Manhattan, turning to the group of reporters and speaking of the verdict in terms of a broader war in which he is engaged.
“I am a very innocent man and it is okay, I am fighting for our country. I’m fighting for our constitution. Our entire country is being rigged now,” Trump said, calling the process a “rigged and shameful trial.”
A conviction may change little about Trump’s current grievance-filled campaign strategy. At rallies and public statements over the past year, Trump has described sinister Democratic forces pursuing him and warned his supporters, without evidence, that the powers that be will also fall to Americans whose beliefs are similar to his. Trump is the only one who can stop them, he says.
Trump’s guilty verdict, despite being determined by a jury of average New Yorkers, will only further fuel his claims that the legal system is targeting him as a way to prevent him from taking back the White House. President Joe Biden has said little about Trump’s legal problems, other than making some indirect comments and jokes about Trump being involved in the trial and sending surrogates to the court on Tuesday, although he is expected to change tactics now that Trump has been condemned.
Shortly after the jury returned the verdict, Biden’s communications director, Michael Tyler, said in a statement that “today’s verdict does not change the fact that the American people are faced with a simple reality. There is still only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office: at the ballot box. Convicted or not, Trump will be the Republican candidate for president.”
Biden’s campaign also posted a fundraising request on social media.
In recent days, Trump and his team were already setting expectations for a possible guilty conviction, suggesting it was likely (“Mother Teresa couldn’t beat these charges,” he said a day earlier), but trying to downplay its importance among voters (“The average American worker has already acquitted Donald Trump,” North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, a Trump surrogate, told Fox News outside court as the jury deliberated Thursday.)
But now he will have to accept his status as a criminal (and, as he has long said, a victim of the “militarization of the justice system” and political persecution) as Trump continues his presidential campaign, including the first televised general election debate. in less than a month. Trump has remained ahead of Biden in swing-state polls throughout the trial, which he and his campaign have argued is a sign that Americans are not swayed by the prospect of him being convicted. .
A campaign video released Thursday morning, featuring dramatic shots of Trump walking and images of him at rallies and waving to supporters, showed a message on the screen: “They’re trying to stop him. It does not work. TRUMP WILL NOT BE STOPPED.”
Trump’s lawyer, Alina Habba, who is not representing him in the New York case but has regularly attended court with him, told reporters before the decision that her message to Trump supporters is: “Be patient. Don’t look at the verdicts we received. Wait.”
“We will go and appeal,” Habba continued. “We’ll show them what really happened.”
Trump’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, told Fox News’ Jesse Watters during an interview Thursday night that the former president was “very involved” in his legal defense and had previously joked that he wanted to be the litigator. Blanche also condemned the case overall.
“This is not fair. This is not what this country should do to its political leaders past and present,” he said.
A person with knowledge of the strategy said earlier this week that the Trump campaign, anticipating any outcome, had prepared to campaign on a guilty verdict.
Throughout the trial, Trump sought to capitalize on his courtroom confinement by sending fundraising emails and text messages that ostensibly chronicled his courtroom experience: that he was entering the courtroom for the day, that he had just “ storm out” of the court, which was holding an “emergency press conference” at the end of the day.
There is no clear evidence that Trump’s conviction will have a drastic effect on the presidential election, and polling on the case and its impact on voters has been limited. Since the trial was not televised, the proceedings remained opaque to those outside the courtroom (which was almost everyone in the United States) and coverage of the verdict and subsequent sentencing and expected appeal could have a greater impact. in public opinion.
Polls over the past month and a half have offered mixed information on how closely voters were following news of the trial, but have generally shown that Americans view the Manhattan criminal case as less serious than Trump’s other three. that they might not go to trial. before the November elections.
A Quinnipiac University survey held in mid-May found that while 46 percent of respondents believed Trump had done something illegal in the hush money payment case, 29 percent said it was unethical but not illegal, and 21 percent said Trump He didn’t do anything wrong; the last two groups make up a combined 50 percent. percent.
Those numbers were similar to polls taken at the start of the trial, showing that news about the case has done little to change public opinion about Trump’s behavior.
Trump will undoubtedly use the conviction to further accuse President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party of political persecution, a line of attack he employed long before the trial began.
The trial unfolded as Trump enjoys a months-long lead over Biden in critical swing-state polls.
