A fallout from Donald Trump's conviction.
From the moment
jurors found Trump guilty
on 34 felony counts,
the former
president as allies have gone on offense,
looking to turn his historic legal loss
into a political win.
This is a scam.
There's a rigged trial.
Donald Trump vowing to fight back.
I'm willing to do whatever
I have to do to save our country.
His allies and potential running mates.
Also, quick to attack the verdict.
This is the weaponization
of the justice system
against their political opponent.
This was an attack job.
This is what you see in Banana Republic.
Trump's sentencing set
for July 11th,
just four days
before the Republican convention.
This is going to be such a tough call
for Judge Mershon.
The big question
whether the former president
could get jail time.
Any other defendant
who was similarly situated
to Donald Trump,
who is not going to show remorse,
anyone else in that position
would get would get prison.
The conviction doesn't
prevent Trump from running
for or serving as president.
There's really no projecting
how this is going to impact the race.
But while a guilty verdict
may not change, most voters minds.
7% of Trump supporters in a recent poll
said they'd be less
likely to vote for him if he's convicted.
Even a small change
in the entire electorate
could make a massive change when you have
a margin that is this close.
Here with me
today, podcaster and author Kara Swisher,
Reihan salam, president
of the Manhattan Institute
and National Review,
contributing editor,
New York Times
journalist and podcast
host Lulu GARCIA-NAVARRO
and author and conservative pollster
Kristen Soltis Anderson.
Welcome back, everyone.
Kristen, you've seen these recent polls
I just referred to where 6 to 7% of Trump
supporters said
they might reconsider their support
if he were convicted.
Can a convicted
felon be elected president?
How much has the developments this week?
How much of they hurt his chances
of winning in November?
Well, we'll know a little bit next week
when the first polls
come out of the field. I'm a pollster.
I love to rely on that data.
But even in the absence of that,
I still feel pretty confident
that, yes,
a convicted felon,
if it's Donald Trump,
can still win election
or rather reelection as president.
Right now,
when I look at polls,
I see a lot of voters
that don't like Donald Trump personally.
They don't think he's a good guy,
but they still think
he's better on the economy.
The fact that he is now
a convicted felon in court
doesn't necessarily change.
How would he perform on issues
like who's going
to make cost of living better?
So I can imagine this
not necessarily changing the race
until sentencing.
The question of do
I want to vote for somebody
who is actually looking at prison
time is different than the question of
do I think Donald Trump
is a good or bad person?
And that's where
I'm really waiting to see do the polls.
All right.
We're going to get to that in a minute.
But Lulu,
we had never had
a president who had ever faced
criminal charges.
Now we have a former president
running for reelection
who's been found guilty on 34 charges.
How big a roadblock
do you think that is to him
the rest of this campaign?
I disagree with Kristen
because I actually think it's
going to be a substantial roadblock.
I think it takes time for this
kind of thing to settle in.
We're just seeing all the messaging
going out.
We're seeing Republicans
coming and repeating the same words
over and over again.
Banana republic fraud
and that kangaroo court, kangaroo court.
That's another
one of their favorite ones.
And what we're seeing
is that that's going to
you know,
people are going to listen to that
and they're going to
make their own decision.
But ultimately, I mean,
do we want to have a president
that is a convicted felon?
Whatever you think of our justice system,
I mean, this is a huge deal.
Reihan,
as we said in the piece,
Trump will be sentenced on July 11.
That's just
four days
before the Republican convention.
You heard that former
prosecutor in New York
say anybody in this situation
who had been found guilty
of violating a gag order ten times,
who, John,
absolutely no remorse would face
jail time.
Do you think that Trump should get
jail time?
I don't.
And I also
suspect that Judge Mershon
is not going to give him
a prison sentence.
I think it's more likely
that there will perhaps
be a fine or probation,
something along those lines,
partly because,
you know,
surely he understands
this is someone who is 77 years old.
This is the first time
he's been involved
with the criminal justice system
in this way.
And also that,
you know,
this whole case relies on a very novel
legal theory.
This is something that is going to
go up to an appeal very, very soon.
And, you know, I think that it would be
really dicey
to impose a prison sentence in this case.
Should the former president
be sentenced to spend some time in jail.
You'd be surprised by saying,
no, it's it's
the office, not him, is
just the way
we sent
Nixon away to California is just is he?
He cannot be incarcerated.
He could maybe have some home custody.
Maybe there is something
I don't know, something else.
But it shouldn't be incarceration.
It's just that
this whole right now
in a really dicey period
of distrusting all our institutions,
and it seems
it just will it will help him.
It will help the MAGA people.
It's not good for America
like for America as a whole to do that.
Do you agree with that?
I'm conflicted.
I don't want to be sitting
in Judge Motion's shoes.
It's a very, very difficult decision.
But if the idea is that you are
supposed to be equal under the law, then
you should be equal under the law.
And so if the decision is that
that is what he should face,
then I think that that I would
I would trust his decision.
I want to talk about
another element of this.
The reaction
among right wing
commentators has been stunning.
Here is a Fox News anchor.
We're going to vanquish
the evil forces
that are destroying this republic.
And The Daily Wire's Matt Walsh
posted this.
Donald Trump
should make
and publish a list of ten high ranking
Democrat criminals
who he will have arrested
when he takes office.
Kristen,
what do you think
is the effect
of these Republican calls for revenge?
Well,
there's a lot of anger
and a lot of animation on the right
and the far right right now.
I mean, you look at Donald Trump's
fundraising numbers
in the 24 hours
after the verdict came out,
he raised almost 35 million.
Now, granted,
a lot of that's going to have to go pay
legal fees for this
and the other cases he's involved in.
But there is a lot of anger,
much the same that we saw after Mar
a Lago was rated
much the same as we saw
during the Republican primary
when Trump's numbers went up
every time he faced more legal peril.
So this is really, really, really
motivating parts of the right
frankly, even parts of the right
that don't like Donald Trump.
I mean, Susan
Collins, the senator from Maine,
not a Donald Trump fan at all.
It she even came out and said,
I think this is wrong.
That may be.
But what?
That was Jesse Waters saying
at Fox news host.
I could take Jesse WATTERS
with one hand tied behind my back.
The violent rhetoric is really troubling
from my perspective.
You can disagree with that.
You can say this is terrible.
This is this is shouldn't have happened.
But the idea of violent rhetoric,
we're going to arrest people.
Matt Walsh is is a menace in that regard.
This is not the way we shot a guy
who posted.
Yes, exactly.
Because, you know, it's just
this is not how we should talk.
You can have disagreement
without moving it
to violent rhetoric
and to suggest it is a real mistake.
Brian, what about that?
I mean, look, it's fair game to criticize
the result, the verdict of the jury,
but it's gone
beyond that in some cases
where there's talk about going
after Democrats
and let's put Joe Biden in jail.
And I understand that
that some would say
that's the natural
sort of consequence
of what's happened here.
But it's it's troubling, isn't it?
Well,
I do think that calling for violence
is never a good idea.
That is that is outrageous.
It's dangerous.
I'll also say that
there are a lot of folks
who have good reason to believe
that no one else
would have been prosecuted
under this novel legal theory,
and also that there are other folks
who've been guilty of campaign
finance violations
where they've been fined
and where there have been
no remotely similar consequence.
And we think that, yeah,
a tit for tat response
to that is inevitable.