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Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Deepa Shivaram. I cover the White House. I'm Frank Ordonez. I cover the campaign. And I'm Carrie Johnson. I cover the Justice Department. It is 6.46 p.m. on Thursday, May 30th, 2024. And former President Donald Trump is guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. That verdict was handed down this afternoon by a jury in a New York court.
The charges in this trial, which has been going on for the last six weeks now, stem from hush money payments that Trump authorized to kill damaging stories in advance of the 2016 presidential election. Franco, Kerry, I mean, a pretty stunning moment in American political history today, right? The first time a former or current president has ever been found guilty in a criminal case. And
And obviously, this isn't just a former president. Trump is a current presidential candidate as well. So I know unprecedented is a word we keep tossing around a lot, especially on a week like this. But it really is an unprecedented moment, Carrie.
It really is. And, you know, while we were doing live coverage of this moment, I was getting a lot of text messages, unfortunately, on my cell phone. And one of them came in from a lawyer who's been involved in the legal community here and elsewhere around the country. And the text message said, no person is above the law. Hmm.
And, you know, that's been a pillar of our legal system since its founding, really. And now we have the idea of a former president of the United States being judged guilty by a jury of his peers in his hometown, New York City. And that's a very solemn moment and a very important moment, I think. No matter what happens in appeals processes or with the election, this trial happened and it mattered. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, and in that moment, we did hear from Donald Trump. I mean, he walked out to the cameras, made a statement shortly after the verdict and
What was his demeanor like? I mean, what did he say, Franco? I mean, he was very somber, but, you know, he delivered a very strong message. I mean, folks like ourselves, like our listeners who have heard from him and heard his language are going to be very familiar with his comments. You know, he reiterated his innocence. He called the trial rigged and disgraceful. Here's a little bit of what he said. This was a rigged, disgraceful trial.
The real verdict is going to be November 5th by the people, and they know what happened here, and everybody knows what happened here. Yeah. So using, like you said, a lot of language, we've heard from Trump pretty consistently this whole time. And on the other side of things, I mean, we haven't heard from Biden himself, but the campaign did put out a statement. One thing that did stand out to me was how much of an emphasis there is on highlighting that Biden is the rule of law candidate. They're trying to point out that
Trump is a threat to democracy. One thing that Michael Tyler, the Biden campaign manager, wrote in the statement was that, quote, a second Trump term means chaos, ripping away Americans' freedoms and fomenting political violence. And the American people will reject it this November. And they're trying to point this back to Trump being a threat to democracy. Do you think that's something that people are resonating with? Is that an effective argument?
I mean, I'd like to give a stronger answer, but I mean, I think it's we shall see. I mean, Trump has been able to turn bad news to his advantage so many times. You know, I did speak with a number of Republican strategists, you know, kind of leading up to this to get their take on how such a verdict would impact Republican and independent voters. And I'll tell you, they largely felt that this would have a limited impact.
impact on the election, that most opinions were baked in, that people really have already picked sides. But that said, it still could have an impact on the margins, particularly with independent voters. And I think what's particularly going to be key to watch
is to see how both sides kind of employ this verdict into their campaign. Yeah, we'll get more to that. And Carrie, I mean, first with this trial specifically, sentencing is still to come, right? That's set for July 11th. I will point out that shortly before the Republican National Convention takes place,
What's possible here for Trump sentencing? What are you expecting? So these 34 counts are considered Class E felonies under New York state law. And the guidelines for the judge are basically nothing, probation or up to four years of incarceration. The former president has no criminal record. And so with facts like these, this is basically falsification of business records to cover up hush money payments and
in the middle of or the waning days of the 2016 campaign, he may get no time at all. And there's also the complication of the former president rolls with the security detail, right? He's got Secret Service with him at all times. How do you even manage to incarcerate such a person? These are very difficult questions that New York state authorities and the Secret Service and others have been mulling in private for months and months now. But probably the most likely answer
is a non-incarceration sentence. That said, the former president has managed to really gall this judge, Juan Marchand. He's been fined for defying a gag order. He has attacked witnesses in the case, people like Michael Cohen, his former fixer, who testified against him famously in this case. He's attacked the judge. He's attacked the judge's daughter. And he's attacked some of the prosecutors in this case, too. And that may have irritated the judge in a sufficient way that he
No jail time is hard to stomach for the judge. The other thing I wanted to ask you, Carrie, though, is that it is very possible that there is an appeal here. No.
Not just very possible. It's going to happen, right? Todd Blanch, the lead defense lawyer for the former president, has already forecasted there is going to be an appeal. We don't know exactly what grounds, but there are a bunch of things the defense has talked about being unfair or legally problematic in the course of this case. Among them is the testimony of Stormy Daniels herself. Remember, she took the stand. She was basically testifying about her encounter with a former president at a golf tournament, and she
went into some very graphic details that seemed to alarm the judge, and he tried to put a stop to them. Todd Blanch and the Trump defense team were outraged about that testimony. They were also flagging that the jury instructions in this case were vague and unclear in several respects. Those jury instructions are super important. We know they're extra important because this jury actually asked to have some of them read back before they rendered their verdict.
And finally, there's the theory of the case that the district attorney, Alvin Bragg, advanced in the first place. Normally, falsification of business records is a misdemeanor. It's the lowest of low-level offenses. But under the theory of the case, the DA advanced here. He turned those misdemeanors into felonies because he said they were all in furtherance of another crime, which was trying to keep...
this information from voters days before the 2016 election. And that theory is a little controversial legally, and it could form maybe the most important plank of any appeal. We'll see. Okay, so this is far from being fully over, to underscore the important part here. We're going to take a quick break, and we'll be back in a moment. Support for NPR and the following message come from Simply Safe Home Security.
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Franco, I want to get into the politics of all of this here. We talked about it a little bit, but let's dive a little deeper. The latest poll from NPR, PBS NewsHour and Marist says that 17 percent of voters said they would be less likely to vote for Trump if he's convicted.
15% say they would be more likely to vote for him. But a majority, that's 67%, said it makes no difference. So realistically speaking, what does this mean for how the Trump campaign moves forward with this? I mean, you're kind of seeing it in action. I mean, the pleas for fundraising, the messages, the graphic images that they're putting out, never surrender. This is what the Trump campaign does. Fight, fight, fight.
I mean, this is another example of how the campaign is trying to turn a disadvantage into an advantage. I mean, we will see how it works. It certainly seems to be stoking his allies in.
in the base. And I think you're likely to see, you know, many of his strongest supporters also kind of rally around him on this case, you know, echoing his message that this was a biased case, that this was a biased judge, that it was a biased prosecution. I think the question really is going to be about
those independent voters in those battleground states, the margins, as we were talking earlier. And Carrie, I mean, it's worth noting here that these are not the only criminal charges that Donald Trump is facing. I mean, he has federal charges he's facing in D.C. and Florida, a state court in Georgia. But the important thing about this trial specifically in New York was kind of the timing of it all. I mean, this is likely the only case that's going to be heard before the election is over in November.
likely the only case that's going to begin and end before the election. The question now is how quickly the New York state appeals courts are going to take up Trump's appeal in this case, which we know is coming, and whether that gets fully adjudicated before November 5th. At the heart of the matter is that Trump, in many ways, is
If he regains the White House, we'll have the power to make the two federal cases filed by the special counsel, Jack Smith, go away. Those are among the most serious cases that Trump faces. First, you know, the one in Florida over his refusal to return highly classified documents he took out of the White House and stored at his Mar-a-Lago resort. And second, the federal case here in D.C.,
over Trump's alleged effort to cling to power, which culminated in the violent storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021. And that case is on hold because the Supreme Court is deciding how much immunity a former president should get.
And so it's not clear to me either one of those matters is going to get off the ground before the election. If Trump takes the White House, he may be able to put the kibosh on both of them. That just leaves this New York case and whatever is left of an appellate process and the case in Fulton County, Georgia, also over Trump's efforts to cling to power in 2020. Those two state cases, he has no pardon power over. But a sitting president...
may be able to even put off proceedings in state courts because he or she would be so burdened by them while trying to do the important job of running the country. And that's why this New York case, even though it may be the least important legally and substantively, may wind up meaning the most.
It is enormous, the stakes of all of this when you break it down that way, Carrie. And, you know, I mentioned this earlier that Trump's sentencing will come on July 11th. That's during the NATO summit that Biden is going to be hosting in D.C. So quite a split screen that we have coming later this summer. And it is, again, right before the RNC takes place. I mean, Trump is essentially going to show up in Milwaukee accepting the GOP nomination as someone convicted of a felony. Kind of a big picture question here, but I mean,
For both of you, what does this say about the state of this election and, broadly speaking, the state of our democracy? It is so much more going to be an issue in the election going forward. As you pointed out in Biden's campaign message, that this is another example about how Trump is a threat to democracy, that this, you know,
Biden agreed with Trump in his earlier comments that it's going to be up to the American people to decide whether Trump returns to office because convicted or not, and he is convicted. That doesn't stop the fact that he is going to be the presidential nominee for the Republican Party. And as Kerry's pointing out, he could be elected president.
For Trump, he is turning the tables and using these cases against him, these prosecutions against him to say that Biden is the threat to democracy and accusing the prosecution of doing Biden's bidding. I do want to be very, very clear, as we have been, that Biden had nothing to do with this case. There is no evidence of that.
But this is a political message that Trump is delivering to his base. And when you talk to his base, it has been an effective one. They are listening to this. The question again is how do independent voters, how does that small group of voters in those battleground states, how do they interpret this? How do they respond to this? And does it have an impact going forward? Yeah.
You know, Donald Trump threw everything he had at this case, right? All of his powers of persuasion, all of his rhetorical attacks. He blasted the judge. He blasted the prosecutors. He blasted many of the witnesses in the case, although not all of them.
And the jury didn't buy it. The jury appears to have listened to the evidence that came in, especially the documentary evidence, all the papers and the records and the audio tapes that the prosecutors introduced through 22 witnesses themselves.
And the legal system basically did its job relatively quickly, you know, a verdict in under two days of deliberation. And so I think it shows that our legal system can actually function pretty well, even under enormous stress. And whether this conviction holds up on appeal, and it may well get thrown out on appeal, and we may have to do this trial all over again,
The legal system had its time in the spotlight, and it appears to have functioned the way it was designed to do. Some things are unprecedented, and some things are working the way they're structured to. A lot to take in. Thank you both for being here. We're going to leave it there for today. You can find more coverage on our airwaves and at NPR.org.
I'm Deepa Shivaram. I cover the White House. I'm Frank Ordonez. I cover the campaign. And I'm Carrie Johnson. I cover the Justice Department. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.
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