44w ago / 10:50 AM EDT

How Trump and his allies are spinning his historic guilty verdict

Bianca Seward
Allan Smith and Bianca Seward

Trump and his allies immediately tried to flip the script after a New York jury found him guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records yesterday.

Most of their pushback on the airwaves and social media echoed the points they were making as the trial was ongoing: They felt that Judge Juan Merchan was conflicted, the jury was made up of liberals and the case amounted to election interference to boost Biden.

As the dust from the historic criminal verdict began to settle, Trump and his backers sought to flood the zone to insist that the system was rigged against him the whole time.

“We didn’t do a thing wrong,” Trump said outside the courthouse yesterday after the unanimous guilty verdict. “I’m a very innocent man.”

Here’s how Trump and his allies went on the offensive.

44w ago / 10:39 AM EDT

Can Trump vote in November now that he’s been convicted of felony charges?

Trump is joining the millions of Americans whose voting rights depend on their criminal records after a New York jury convicted him of felony charges in a hush money case.

But experts say Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, is unlikely to be disenfranchised by the felony convictions in the New York case, noting that it would come down to whether he goes to prison as part of his sentence.

Forty-eight states prohibit some or all Americans with felony convictions on their records from voting, according to the Sentencing Project, and an estimated 4.4 million Americans — about 2% of the voting-age population — could not vote in the 2022 elections because of those laws. The group estimates that more than 1 million of them live in Florida, where Trump established his official residency in 2019.

Read the full story here.

44w ago / 10:09 AM EDT

Senate, House Republican campaign committees say they each had their best fundraising day of the cycle

The National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee, the official campaign arms of Senate Republicans and House Republicans, respectively, said they each had their best fundraising day of the cycle yesterday.

Following the verdict, Jason Thielman, the NRSC's executive director, said in a post on X, "Outrage over the sham verdict against Trump has spurred average Americans into action! The NRSC just had its largest online daily fundraising haul of the cycle."

And Jack Pandol, communications director for the NRCC, posted on X that his committee also "shattered" a previous record for the best fundraising day of the cycle. Punchbowl first reported the NRCC news.

44w ago / 9:52 AM EDT

Biden campaign staff asked not to share personal opinions about Trump verdict on social media, sources say

An email went out to Biden campaign staff yesterday asking them not to post personal opinions or their own takes about the verdict on social media, instead suggesting they amplify the official campaign and White House statements, two sources familiar told NBC News.

In a statement yesterday after the verdict, Biden-Harris 2024 Communications Director Michael Tyler said: “In New York today, we saw that no one is above the law. Donald Trump has always mistakenly believed he would never face consequences for breaking the law for his own personal gain. But today’s verdict does not change the fact that the American people face a simple reality. There is still only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office: at the ballot box."

44w ago / 9:34 AM EDT

Group identifies online threats against Trump jurors, judge

A group that monitors right-wing social media, Advance Democracy, says it has identified online calls to dox jurors, Judge Merchan and others.

On the far-right website 8kun, an anonymous user posted the purported personal contact information and addresses for journalists, the presiding judge and some purported jurors. Advance Democracy said it has not determined whether the posted information is accurate.

Advance Democracy said it also identified “a high volume of social media posts containing violent rhetoric targeting Justice Merchan and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. The group said it has not identified, however, any posts that could be perceived as concrete plans to engage in violence."

The group also said it detected general calls to organize in reaction to the verdict, but not specific details or plans for in-person activity. Some of the calls to organize include violent rhetoric (for example, calls “to go to Washington and hang everyone”).

In the lead-up to Trump's guilty verdict, false reports that spread on right-wing media about the jury instructions led to threats against Judge Merchan.

44w ago / 9:11 AM EDT

GOP Senate candidate Kari Lake says husband was subpoenaed as verdict was handed down

Arizona GOP Senate candidate Kari Lake reacted to Trump’s conviction on Newsmax last night and announced that her husband was subpoenaed while the verdict was coming down. 

“As this was all coming down, a process server showed up at my door and served a subpoena on my husband. They’re, they’re lawfaring me to death,” she said.

44w ago / 8:32 AM EDT

Trump downplays paper trail and reiterates NDAs are standard practice

In a lengthy post on Truth Social, Trump downplayed the evidence presented at the hush money trial, saying he was “not involved” in writing “legal expense” on the business records and expressing incredulity that such a thing would be considered a crime.

“My bookkeeper called a “Legal Expense,” on the “tiny” description line of the Ledger, a “Legal Expense,” openly paid to my lawyer, at that time a fully accredited one. I was not involved in that designation, but what else would you have called it? It was, in fact, a LEGAL EXPENSE. That is the so-called “CRIME,” Trump wrote. 

Referring to Michael Cohen's efforts to secure the non-disclosure agreement with porn actor Stormy Daniels, Trump added, “My lawyer, at the time, did virtually everything on the NDA (NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT), and I assumed that what he did was correct.”

Trump reiterated that he did “nothing wrong” and said NDAs are “standard, commonly used, and LEGAL.”

“IF THIS CAN HAPPEN TO ME, IT CAN HAPPEN TO ANYONE!” he wrote. 

44w ago / 7:46 AM EDT

Trump attorney Todd Blanche not surprised by verdict, vows to win on appeal

Todd Blanche, Trump’s lead attorney in the hush money case, said this morning that he's not surprised about yesterday's historic verdict, but is confident the former president's conviction will be overturned on appeal.

Appearing on NBC’s "TODAY" show, a little over 12 hours since his client was convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records, Blanche said: "This was a verdict we were expecting. We’re going to appeal and we’re going to win on appeal," he said.

Blanche repeated the Trump team’s long-held belief that it was impossible to get a fair trial in Manhattan, where Trump has low approval ratings.

Asked whether he was surprised that not one juror questioned the unanimous verdicts, Blanche complained that the outcome may have been different if the defense team was able to submit certain evidence, such as the tax records of witnesses.

44w ago / 7:29 AM EDT

NBC News’ Shaq Brewster spoke with voters in Kenosha, Wisconsin, who explained why they would still vote for Trump despite the New York conviction.

44w ago / 7:15 AM EDT

Trump campaign newsletter attacks trial's credibility

A Trump campaign newsletter, the Palm Beach Playbook, urged supporters to get involved in the campaign after the verdict.

The campaign also reiterated criticisms of the trial, calling it a "sham" and arguing that the verdict "is the result of the Left shredding the Constitution in their savage pursuit of raw political power."