Top Five Absurd Republican Reactions to Trump’s Guilty Verdict

After Donald Trump was found guilty of 34 felony counts in his hush-money trial Thursday, Republicans threw a fit. Old criticisms of Trump were immediately forgotten, and full-throated defenses of the first president to be convicted of a crime began.

Former Representative Justin Amash, one of the few conservatives who supported Trump’s impeachment over the Ukraine scandal during his presidency, surprisingly came out swinging, calling the verdict “an affront to the rule of law.” Amash probably seeks to get more Republican support for his run for the Senate in Michigan.

Senator Marco Rubio, who Trump derisively called “little Marco” during the 2016 presidential elections, said that “Biden leftists in New York made a mockery of our criminal justice system,” and predicted Trump would win anyway.

Senator J.D. Vance, a Trump V.P. contender and one of the first Republican politicians to react to the news, called the verdict “election interference.”

Hours after the verdict was delivered, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell saw fit to chime in.

And, in a case of poor timing, Senator Chuck Grassley tweeted out a picture of himself enjoying ice cream not long after the verdict.

(More than an hour later, he condemned the verdict and said he expected it to be overturned.)

Ivanka Trump offered just four words in support of her freshly convicted felon father on Thursday, publishing to her Instagram stories a photo of herself as a child sitting on her future-convict father’s lap with the text “I love you dad” with a heart emoji. The post was kept to Ivanka’s stories, where it will disappear in a matter of hours—evidently not worth sharing as a post and soiling her highly curated influencer-style grid.

It’s the kind of thing you’d expect to see from someone who forgot it was Father’s Day and who doesn’t really keep in contact with their dad, not from the daughter of a former president turned convict in one of the most highly publicized trials of the century.

Despite profiting tremendously from Trump’s political career, Ivanka has remained completely silent through his criminal one. And while her brothers, Don Jr. and Eric, have made appearances at the Manhattan courthouse—including Don Jr. stuffing his face with junk food while awaiting the verdict with his dad and Eric reportedly staring a hole in the back of a court officer in the courtroom as the guilty verdicts came down—Ivanka didn’t show up at all.

Trump was found guilty by a jury of New Yorkers of 34 felonies on Thursday, over payments he sent to Stormy Daniels to keep silent about their queasy tryst. He’s due back in court for sentencing in July.

Donald Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche still believes in his failed legal strategy to defend the former president—even though he’ll readily admit that the plan did not cover all the bases.

Hours after the courtroom adjourned Thursday, Blanche ran a media circuit, standing firm that the defense had done “the best we could” while still insisting that the defense strategy had been airtight.

“We never saw… some key figures who got brought up a lot. Why didn’t the defense call any of these witnesses?” asked CNN’s Kaitlan Collins.

“Well, because we happen to live in America,” Blanche chortled. “We don’t have the burden of proof. So, that’s not the point.”

“The question that we asked the jury… is why the prosecution didn’t call those witnesses,” he continued. “As a defense attorney, you don’t go into a case saying, ‘I’m going to fill the holes of the prosecution.’”

It’s wild to claim it simply wasn’t his responsibility to call supposedly crucial witnesses who could have exonerated his client, and Trump himself wasn’t happy with the lapse. In the days leading up to the jury’s decision, Trump torched his attorneys online, claiming that his team had not pursued the legal strategy he wanted and that crucial witnesses had been left on the table.

But Blanche couldn’t defend that narrative either, instead telling Fox News’s Jesse Watters that Trump was “very involved” in his own defense.

“He’s a smart guy, he knows what he’s doing. He jokingly said to us a lot that sometimes he wanted to be the litigator, he wanted to be arguing, because he knows what he’s doing,” Blanche said. “We made every decision together.”

And mind-bogglingly, when Watters asked if he would have done anything differently, Blanche said he “wouldn’t change anything that we did”—apparently including ending with a conviction.

The month-long trial ended in a guilty verdict for Trump, the first criminal conviction of a former president in U.S. history. Trump’s sentencing is scheduled for July 11, just three days before the Republican National Convention.

Convicted felon Donald Trump might need to turn to some of his ex-allies in order to help him out with his newfound legal guilt—namely, “Tiny D” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

Trump’s ability to vote for himself in November will depend on the details of his sentence, which is expected July 11. His vote is further complicated by his choice of permanent residence—Florida—which bars felons from participating in elections. And Florida’s regulations on the issue are particularly restrictive: even if a person is convicted of a felony in another state, as long as the state recognizes the crime, they still won’t be allowed to cast their ballots until they complete their sentence.

Trump has another option, though: DeSantis, whom Trump has also dubbed “Meatball Ron” and “Pudding Fingers,” could make a special exception for his former primary competitor.

New York Justice Juan Merchan could sentence Trump to up to four years in prison. He could also impose probation, supervised release, or order Trump to do community service or pay fines. Trump would need to complete all portions of his sentence before he’d be allowed to vote again in Florida, Alex Saiz, legal director of the Florida Justice Center, explained to Politico.

“Let’s say for whatever reason, Donald Trump gets just a fine and no [prison] sentence. If he doesn’t pay that fine, then he can’t vote until that fine is paid,” Saiz told the publication. “But if he gets given time served and a $500 fine, once he has paid that $500 fine and owes no more money and has no more supervision, then he is eligible to vote in the state of Florida.”

If Trump completes his sentence, he may still be loath to ask DeSantis for help. But considering the fact that DeSantis seems perfectly happy fundraising for the man who once called him a groomer, he may be willing to intervene.

After a Manhattan jury found him guilty on all 34 felony charges in his hush-money trial in New York Thursday, Donald Trump said that the whole thing was rigged against him.

“This was a disgrace, this was a rigged trial by a conflicted judge who was corrupt. It’s a rigged trial, a disgrace,” Trump said to reporters as he left the Manhattan courtroom.

“They wouldn’t give us a venue change, we were at 5 percent or 6 percent in this district, in this area. This was a rigged, disgraceful trial. The real verdict is going to be November 5 by the people, and they know what happened here and everybody knows what happened here,” Trump added.

Trump went on to blame District Attorney Alvin Bragg, calling him Soros-backed, and accused the Biden administration of trying to weaken him to win the election.

The former president’s sentencing is scheduled to take place by Judge Juan Merchan on July 11 at 10 a.m., just four days before the Republican National Convention begins in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His post-trial remarks could affect his sentencing, as a lack of remorse is often considered by judges in criminal cases.

Immediately after the trial, Trump also sent a fundraising email to his followers where he declared himself a political prisoner.

In the event Trump is sentenced to prison time, it’s uncertain how the presumptive Republican presidential nominee will attempt to continue his campaign from behind bars—which some of his followers falsely claim has already been explored by the Secret Service. Trump does have the option to appeal the guilty verdict, which could mean that he wouldn’t have to start serving any sentence until an appeals court makes a decision. An appeal could push the possibility of jail time until after the election.

Read Trump’s full remarks on his guilty verdict below:

This was a disgrace, this was a rigged trial by a conflicted judge who was corrupt. It’s a rigged trial, a disgrace. They wouldn’t give us a venue change, we were at 5 percent or 6 percent in this district, in this area. This was a rigged, disgraceful trial. The real verdict is going to be November 5 by the people, and they know what happened here and everybody knows what happened here. You have a Soros-backed DA, and the whole thing, we didn’t do a thing wrong.

I’m a very innocent man, and it’s OK, I’m fighting for our country, I’m fighting for our Constitution, our whole country is being rigged right now. This was being done by the Biden administration in order to wound or hurt an opponent, a political opponent, and I think it’s just a disgrace and we’ll keep fighting, we’ll fight till the end and we’ll win because our country’s gone to hell.

We don’t have the same country anymore. We have a divided mess, we’re a nation in decline, serious decline, millions and millions of people pouring into our country right now. From prisons and from mental institutions, terrorists and they’re taking over our country. We have a country that’s in big trouble, but this was a rigged decision right from day one with a conflicted judge who should have never been allowed to try this case. Never. And we fight for our Constitution. This is long from over. Thank you very much.