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Trump spoke to reporters at his eponymous tower in Manhattan on Friday, returning to his campaign a day after he was convicted of trying to illegally influence the 2016 election by falsifying business records to hide a quiet payment of money to porn an actor who claims they had sex.
The former Republican president, as always, claimed the verdict was illegitimate and politically driven and tried to play down the facts behind the case.
“It’s not hush money. It’s a non-disclosure agreement. Totally legal, totally customary,” he said.
In a message intended to galvanize his supporters, he portrayed himself as a martyr, suggesting that if this could happen to him, “They can do this to anyone.”
“I am willing to do whatever it takes to save our country and our constitution. I don’t mind,” he said.
“Then we will continue the fight.”
No former US president or presumptive party nominee has been convicted of a felony or faced prison time, and Trump is expected to keep his legal troubles central to his campaign.
He has long claimed, without evidence, that the four impeachments against him were orchestrated by Democratic President Joe Biden to try to keep him out of the White House.
The hush money case was brought by local Manhattan prosecutors who do not work for the Justice Department or any White House office.
Trump, who has cast himself as a defender of law enforcement and has even spoken out about how officers can be rough with suspects, has spent the past two years attacking parts of the criminal justice system as it relates to him and raising questions about fairness and the motives of agents and prosecutors.
After weeks of speaking mostly from an aging Manhattan courthouse, Trump opted to return to campaign mode Friday in the atrium of his Trump Tower, the brass and pink marble lobby where he descended his golden escalator to announce his campaign from 2016 nine years ago. month.
“We’re going to fight,” Trump said. “I’m set up in a way that a lot of people would be gone a long time ago.”
When Trump left the courtroom immediately after Thursday’s verdict, he appeared tense and deeply angry, his words sharp and clipped. But at Trump Tower on Friday, he seemed more at ease, especially as his speech continued and he went into his standard rally mode, full of prank stories. He did not respond to questions from reporters.
Despite the historic decision, the convicted Trump sounded almost the same as the pre-convicted Trump as he delivered what amounted to a shortened version of his usual rally speech.
In his unrelated remarks, Trump initially began attacking Biden on immigration and tax policy before turning to his case, snarling that he was threatened with prison if he violated a gag order.
He singled out complex parts of the case and the court proceedings as unfair, making false claims and misrepresentations as he did so.
Trump said he wanted to testify, a right he chose not to exercise. That would allow prosecutors to question him.
The former president on Friday raised the specter of being charged with perjury over a verbal error, saying: “The theory is that you never testify because as soon as you testify — anybody, if it was George Washington — don’t testify because I’m going to make you to realize something you said a little wrong.”
Testing the limits of a gag order that bars him from publicly criticizing witnesses including Michael Cohen, Trump called his former mediator, the prosecution’s star witness in the case, a “scumbag.”
He also returned to some of the same authoritarian themes he has repeatedly focused on in speeches and rallies, painting the US under Biden as a “corrupt” and “fascist” nation.
His son Eric Trump and daughter-in-law Lara Trump joined him, but his wife Melania Trump, who has remained publicly silent since the verdict, was nowhere to be seen.
Outside, on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue, supporters gathered across the street waved a huge red “TRUMP OR DEATH” sign that swung outside a high-end boutique.
A small group of protesters held up placards reading “Guilty” and “Justice Matters.”
On Friday morning, Trump’s campaign announced it had collected US$34.8 million ($52.4 million) in donations that have poured in since the verdict. That’s more than US$1 million ($1.5 million) for each felony charge and more than his political operation raised in January and February combined.
Trump and his campaign had been preparing for a guilty verdict for days, even as they entertained hopes of a jury default. On Tuesday, Trump decried that not even Mother Teresa, the nun and saint, could defeat the accusations, which he repeatedly called “rigged.”
His top aides released a memo Wednesday insisting the verdict would have no impact on the election, whether Trump is convicted or acquitted.
However, the news shook. Trump listened as the jury returned guilty verdicts on each count. Trump sat stony-faced as the verdict was read.
His campaign sparked a wave of fundraising appeals and GOP allies rallied to his side. One text called him a “political prisoner,” although he has yet to find out if he will be sentenced to prison. The campaign also began selling black hats emblazoned with the words “Make America Great Again” instead of the usual red ones to reflect “a dark day in history.”
Aides reported an immediate rush of donations so intense that WinRed, the platform used by the fundraising campaign, crashed. The US$34.8 million ($52.4 million) raised on Thursday does not include what Trump raised in his personal fundraising or any donations that continued to come in online on Friday.
Over the next two months, Trump must hold his first debate with Biden, announce his running mate and formally accept his party’s nomination at the Republican National Convention.
But before going to Milwaukee for the RNC, Trump will have to return to court on July 11 for sentencing.
He can face penalties ranging from a fine or probation to four years in prison.
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