What just happened to Donald Trump, and what happens to the rest of us next? Plus: hot cicada summer.
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In today’s special hush money edition:
A report from the scene of a Donald Trump who’s down and out — but probably not for long; where the campaigns go next if the verdict doesn’t much matter; the weaknesses of the verdict and Trump’s favorite plan for overturning it; the only way to keep a felon from the White House; a fabulously imagined fundraising email from the Trump teamGet ready for hot cicada summerWell, it’s over
I thought we might take today to spend some more time talking about the spelling bee.
Just kidding! Could you imagine? The only thing on anyone’s mind is Thursday evening’s conviction of former president and current felon Donald Trump in his hush money trial in New York, and this edition is your one-stop shop for our columnists’ reactions.
Dana Milbank reported from the scene that after hearing “guilty” on all 34 felony counts, Trump, the man who always has something to say, was at a loss. In a 98-second statement delivered with “downcast eyes,” he eked out five allegations that the decision was rigged, but not much else.
Perhaps that’s because, as Jim Geraghty observes, something significant shifted with this decision: “Trump’s legendary run of good luck and Houdini-like ability to escape the consequences of his actions ended.” Keep in mind that Trump needed only one holdout juror for a mistrial; the man has always been rescued by somebody.
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(“Did Trump just lose his Teflon armor?” Alexi McCammond wondered in an emergency edition of her Prompt 2024 newsletter, for which she convened conservative Jason Willick and progressive E.J. Dionne to discuss trial fallout.)
Jim likens the situation to Road Runner at last caught by Wile E. Coyote. (The judiciary might bristle at the notion that it’s prone to running headlong into cliffs painted to look like tunnels.) But the inviolable maxim of Looney Tunes is that Road Runner always, always gets away. Jim isn’t convinced the convictions will ding Trump in the long run.
Apparently, neither is the Trump team. Its officials maintain that the conviction won’t do much to sway a race that’s close and likely to stay that way. The main takeaway of the jury’s ruling, one cynical official told Karen Tumulty, is that “we’ll go raise $10 million off of it.”
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(Alexandra Petri imagines that fundraising email: “A so-called JURY OF HIS PEERS (absurd! the man is peerless!) dared to pass judgment on Donald J. Trump as though he were an ORDINARY CITIZEN, SUBJECT TO LAWS, and not the GOD-KING OF AMERICA THAT HE WAS AND SHALL BE!” )
Interestingly, Karen reports, President Biden’s campaign seems to agree on the race’s stasis, focusing in an initial statement less on the verdict and more on what lies ahead. Karen previews what the next moves are for a team that has spent the past six........