Live updates: Trump trial jury deliberates in New York hush money case – NBC News
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Reporting from Atlanta
“If I’d done it, I would be in jail,” was 44-year-old DeMon DeLoatch’s reaction to the historic Trump guilty verdict today.
“So, if he’s done the crime, do the time,” DeLoatch, who is a Democrat, said when asked his reaction about the verdict in Atlanta where he lives.
David Ederer, an engineer who moved to Atlanta from Buffalo, New York, about nine months ago, also said that the guilty verdict was justified.
“I think it just goes to show that our systems of law and government have proven that they apply to everyone, and not just people that can’t afford a lawyer,” Ederer, 63, who said he is not involved in politics, said.
“He had all the money in the world to defend himself and he was still found guilty from his peers — and that’s the way it should be,” Ederer said.
Ederer, who said he followed the trial, also was not buying claims that the proceedings were “rigged” or unfair.
“When anything doesn’t go his way, he just says it’s, you know, it’s false, it’s rigged against him. It wasn’t rigged against him,” Ederer said. “I mean, if anything he got a very fair trial from that judge.”
“He’s been allowed to say so much about so many different topics that were just awful. And anybody else would have been in jail,” Ederer said, referring to a gag order that Trump violated in the case.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought the charges against Trump, addressed reporters, thanked the jury for their service, and said that they perform a “fundamental” civic duty.
Twelve New Yorkers heard witness testimony and reviewed evidence, he said, adding that white-collar prosecution is core to work at the NY DA’s office.
He thanked the prosecution team, saying they are “embodying the finest traditions of this office.” He said they are “model public servants,” noting he is proud to serve alongside them. Bragg also expressed “deep gratitude” to the NYPD and court administrators for securing their safety.
He said they arrived at the trial “in the same manner as every other case” that comes to the courtroom.
Bars in Washington, D.C., have started debuting specials related to today’s verdict.
The Midlands, a beer garden, said it would offer discounts on some of its beers.
“Trump has been found guilty! We will be celebrating with 34 ounces of Justice,” it wrote on Instagram.
David Sacks, the venture capitalist who will help host a fundraiser for Trump in San Francisco on June 6, suggested the case was brought forward to harm Trump’s chances in November.
“A sham trial designed for one purpose: to brand Donald Trump as a ‘felon.’ Watch Dems and the MSM endlessly repeat that word,” he wrote on X, adding in an additional post, “There is now only one issue in this election: whether the American people will stand for the USA becoming a Banana Republic.”
“After Biden’s disastrous presidency, Trump has a lot of supporters in Silicon Valley; many are just afraid to admit it. But with each act of courage, like this one, the dam begins to break,” he added, quote tweeting Sequoia Capital partner Shaun Maguire’s post saying he had donated $300,000 to Trump.
Sacks backed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential bid earlier this cycle and participated in his campaign launch on X.
Writer E. Jean Carroll, who accused Trump of sexual assault and won almost $90 million in civil judgments against him, had a short response on social media to the historic guilty verdict.
“Justice!!” she posted on X, along with a photo of Stormy Daniels.
Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., widely viewed as a leading contender to be Trump’s running mate, called the verdict a “hoax,” a “sham” and an “absolute injustice,” adding that Merchan and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg “should be ashamed of themselves.”
“This isn’t just ridiculous. This actually erodes the confidence that Americans have in the justice system,” Scott said in a video posted to X.
Scott teased that “good news is coming,” saying, “Joe Biden, you’re fired. We the people stand with Donald Trump.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has not yet commented on today’s verdict.
McConnell and Trump have long had a contentious relationship, though McConnell did endorse Trump in March.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., called today’s verdict “a defeat for Americans who believe in the critical legal tenet that justice is blind” and heaped criticism on President Joe Biden, who he said “teamed up” with District Attorney Alvin Bragg to harm a political opponent.
“This is nothing more than an attempt to interfere with the 2024 election,” Scalise said in a statement, adding voters would ultimately “settle this” on Election Day.
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., offered a similar assessment, writing on X alongside a link to a Trump fundraising page that Americans would “release their own verdict this November” and imploring them to “unite behind” Trump.
Republican National Committee political director James Blair had a call with all 50 GOP state chairs today after the verdict, according to two sources who were on the call.
The sources said Blair basically gave them their marching orders as far as post-verdict talking points and messaging: This is unjust, this will be good for us, we will win.
“James Blair just did a call with every state chairman,” one of the sources said. “There is a clear message [the RNC] wants us to convey: It is an unjust witch hunt. We will appeal, and we will win the appeal. Guys, we just elected the next president of the United States.”
The former president’s niece Mary Trump claimed the Manhattan guilty verdicts stunned her uncle and could be a “death knell” for his political career.
“He never saw this coming. He never in a billion years thought this would happen,” Mary Trump said on her podcast on YouTube. “I think this is a death knell. I’m not guaranteeing it, of course, but I think that’s a reasonable hope at this point.”
Trump’s niece, a longtime critic of her uncle, also said the MAGA movement suffered a significant blow.
“Once Donald is displaced, MAGA’s over,” she said. “I used to think that Trumpism would survive without Trump. I’m not so sure anymore. One, there’s nobody to replace him and two, he’s just causing way too much damage to his image.”
The drawing on the cover of next week’s issue of The New Yorker, titled “A Man of Conviction” and created by the artist John Cuneo, shows the former president being handcuffed while wearing his trademark red tie.
While Republican officeholders are rushing to defend Trump after his conviction, his primary rivals in 2023 and early 2024 warned about the possibility this would happen in the middle of the general election.
“If Donald Trump is the nominee, the election will revolve around all these legal issues, his trials, perhaps convictions if he goes to trials and loses there and about things like Jan. 6,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a Jan. 16 CNN town hall. “We’re going to lose if voters are making a decision based on that. We don’t want it to be a referendum on those issues.”
DeSantis defended Trump on X after the verdict and attacked the prosecution and the court as “captive” to a “political agenda.”
In February, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley told NBC News there “is no way that the American people are going to vote for a convicted criminal.”
Haley said last week that she was planning to vote for Trump.
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie also said last year that “we simply cannot expect that someone who is facing this number of criminal trials, and, quite frankly, the conduct that underlies those charges, can be a viable fall election candidate against Joe Biden.”
Trump’s motorcade was seen stuck in traffic on the FDR Drive after it left court in Manhattan following the historic guilty verdicts.
Helicopter video from NBC New York showed the vehicles stuck in traffic, which will not be a surprise to drivers in the Big Apple.
The motorcade later arrived at Trump Tower.
Trump is back at his namesake skyscraper in midtown Manhattan. He just waved to the crowd and raised his fist in the air.
The crowd appeared to be made up of a mix of supporters and detractors, including some people who were shouting “guilty!” and booing him.
Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, who is running to succeed Sen. Mitch McConnell as the Senate Republican leader, condemned today’s verdict in a statement on X.
“This verdict is a disgrace, and this trial should have never happened,” Cornyn said before he called on Republicans to “rally around” Trump to reclaim the White House and the Senate.
“The real verdict will be Election Day,” he added.
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