Trump brought up the two impeachments against him — the first in 2019 and the second not long after the Jan. 6 insurrection in 2021. He called both impeachments by the House hoaxes.

He then called the House select committee that investigated the attack on the Capitol in the last Congress a "committee of thugs."

Trump repeated his claim about the nondisclosure agreement that Michael Cohen paid porn actor Stormy Daniels for, saying the related payments were legal because they were for standard NDAs.

"It’s a big deal, the nondisclosure agreement, totally honorable, totally good, totally accepted," Trump said. "Every company has nondisclosure agreements."

"It's a disgrace," the former president continued, going on to emphasize that because the payments were made for NDAs, they should not be considered "hush money."

"So it's not hush money. It's a nondisclosure agreement. Totally legal. Totally common," Trump said.

Trump said that "the people of our country know it's a hoax. ... They get it, you know, they're really smart."

"We're going to be appealing this scam. We're going to be appealing it on many different things," he said.

The judge "wouldn't allow us to have witnesses, you wouldn't allow us to talk, you wouldn't allow us to do anything," Trump added. "The judge was a tyrant."

As Trump railed against the verdict, calling the trial "ridiculous," he claimed that he is "going to jail for 187 years."

As a first-time, nonviolent offender, it is unlikely that Trump will face a long sentence — and perhaps could not even have to go jail at all.

Trump was convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records, a class E felony that is punishable by a fine, probation or up to four years in prison per count. It’s expected that any sentence would be imposed concurrently, instead of consecutively.

Trump jumped back to one of his repeated defenses that he didn't know what the case was even about, adding that he was "very upset" with his own lawyers for not being clear about the charges being brought against him.

"Even my own lawyers, I get very upset with them because they don't say what it is," Trump said.

Trump's lawyer Todd Blanche was smiling in the crowd as Trump said this and complained that the charges didn't make sense.

Trump questioned the DA's indictment charging him with 34 counts of falsifying business records.

"I paid a lawyer, totally legal. I paid a lawyer, a legal expense," he said.

"It's not Sheetrock construction, or any other thing. It's a legal expense. Think of that. This is what the falsification of business records were. And I said, what else are you going to call it?"

Trump said he would have testified during the trial and wanted to testify, but he said: "The theory is you never testify because as soon as you testify ... they'll get you on something that you said slightly wrong, and then they sue you for perjury, but I didn't care about that. I wanted to."

Trump continued: "This is a scam. There's a rigged trial. It shouldn't have been in that venue. We shouldn't have had that judge."

"As far as the trial itself, it was very unfair. We weren't allowed to use our election expert under any circumstances," said Trump, who said that witnesses were "crucified" by Judge Merchan.

"You saw what happened to some of the witnesses that were on our side," he said. "They were literally crucified by this man who looks like an angel but he’s really a devil. He looks so nice and soft. People always say he seems like such a nice man. No, unless you saw him in action. And you saw that with a certain witness that went through hell."

House Speaker Mike Johnson said today about Trump's conviction that he believes Supreme Court justices, some of whom he knows personally, are "deeply concerned" and he urged the court to step in when the case is appealed.

In an interview on "Fox and Friends," Johnson, R-La., said the conviction was "totally unprecedented" and "dangerous to our system" because it diminishes people's faith in the criminal process and the courts.

"People have to believe that justice is fair, that there’s equal justice under law. They don’t see that right now," he said. "And I think that the justices on the court, I know many of them personally, I think they’re deeply concerned about that, as we are. So I think they’ll set this straight but it’s going to take a while."

Trump started his off-the-cuff remarks saying, "These are bad people. These are in many cases, I believe, sick people."

He said "millions of people are flowing in from all parts of the world, not just South America, from Africa, from Asia from the Middle East, and they're coming in from jails and prisons, and they are coming in from mental institutions and insane asylums. They're coming in from all over the world into our country."

"We have a president and a group of fascists that don't want to do anything about it because they could right now, today, he could stop it," he continued. "But he's not. They're destroying our country. Our country is in very bad shape. And they're very much against me, saying these things."

Protesters are demonstrating outside Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan ahead of Trump's press conference there. They're holding signs that say, for example, "lock him up" and "guilty" in all caps.