Donald Trump makes waves in speech after guilty verdict

In a monologue lasting more than half an hour, Donald Trump responded to his conviction yesterday in the hush money case surrounding porn star Stormy Daniels. Aided by a cheat sheet but above all using free associations, he aimed his arrows at the judge and the public prosecutor, but also at President Joe Biden.

“If they can do this to me, they can do this to anyone,” Trump began his speech without preamble. In the regularly incoherent comments, he then immediately switched to campaign rhetoric. His political rival Joe Biden and the Democrats “want to destroy the country” and are “flying sick people into the country, out of prisons and insane asylums”.

A selection from Trump’s argument:

Trump spoke for more than half an hour in Trump Tower in New York, a day after his conviction for illegally influencing the 2016 presidential elections. The jury found it proven that he had falsified business data to conceal a hush money payment to Stormy Daniels.

Trump was the first American former president ever found guilty in a criminal case.

Unfairly treated

In his speech, Trump also attacked Judge Juan Merchan, who had imposed an “ugly gag order” on him. “I’m ahead in the polls for president and I get a gag order imposed on me by a man who can’t put two sentences together,” he said, referring to Merchan.

Prosecutor Bragg also got the full brunt. He called Bragg corrupt and said he could better focus on “rampant” crime in New York. He cited a recent machete attack in a McDonald’s as evidence.

His trial had been “very unfair”, Trump added, as he repeatedly switched back and forth between the trial in New York and other comments about the deplorable state of the US in general and New York in particular.

Cohen vilified

According to him, his legal team had been treated unfairly by the judge. “We wanted to change the location, but it was refused. We wanted a different jury, but it was refused,” he said. He also said that he would like to testify, but that his lawyers had advised him against it.

“As soon as you testify, they’re going to catch you saying something a little bit wrong, and then they’re going to pick you up for perjury. But I didn’t care, I wanted to,” he said.

Trump also takes the opportunity to smear his former lawyer Michael Cohen, whom he called a “sleaze bag”. By the way, he did this because of the judge’s order to remain silent without mentioning his former lawyer by name. Cohen, who testified against him, was not his “fixer,” Trump said. “He got into trouble because he made outside deals and he had something to do with taxis with which he borrowed money,” Trump further distanced himself from Cohen.

Fine or community service

In the talk, which towards the end increasingly took the form of a campaign speech, Trump also tried to put a positive spin on the consequences of the lost lawsuit. He said $39 million had been raised for his presidential campaign in a “record period” and also referred several times to a Daily Mail poll. He would have risen in the forecasts for the presidency.

“The public understands what is going on,” he said. And all lawsuits, he repeated his well-known story, are controlled by the White House. “The only way they can win the election is in the courts, not at the ballot box,” he said.

Trump said he would appeal the verdict. He will have to do this after he has been sentenced on July 11. It is possible that he will be sentenced to a short prison term, but he could also receive a fine or community service.

Proponents and opponents of Trump demonstrated yesterday after the jury verdict at the court in New York: