In his first lengthy address after being found guilty by a jury of 34 felony counts, former President Donald Trump railed against the hush money case in a rambling speech littered with falsehoods and personal attacks.
“If they can do this to me, they can do this to anyone,” Trump, the first former president to be convicted of a crime, said. “These are bad people. These are, in many cases, sick people.”
The ex-president and presumptive Republican nominee in November’s election also touted what his campaign is calling a record fundraising haul in the hours after the verdict was reached and vowed to appeal his criminal conviction.
Trump espoused a number of complaints about the case and his conviction, as well as several other prominent figures: Judge Juan Merchan, who oversaw the trial, Michael Cohen, his former personal attorney who testified against him— without using his name due to the gag order in the case, which is still in place — and President Joe Biden, falsely accusing his opponent in November of orchestrating the prosecution against him. (There is no evidence of Biden’s involvement in the case.)
“As far as the trial itself, it was very unfair,” Trump said, later adding: “You saw what happened to some of the witnesses that were on our side, they were literally crucified by this man [Judge Merchan] who looks like an angel, but he is really a devil.”
Of Merchan, Trump continued: “He looks so nice and soft. People say, oh he seems like such nice man unless you saw him in action. And you saw that with a certain witness that went through hell.”
Trump vowed that “we’re going to be appealing” the verdict, which he called “a scam.”
“We're going to be appealing it on many different things,” Trump said. “[Merchan] wouldn't allow us to have witnesses, he wouldn't allow us to talk, he wouldn't allow us to do anything. The judge was a tyrant.”
Without naming Cohen, Trump called his ex-attorney a “sleazebag.”
“By the way, this was a highly qualified lawyer,” Trump said. “I’m not allowed to use his name because of the gag order. But, you know, he’s a sleazebag, everybody knows that."
Trump also complained that he “wanted to testify” — even though he was never prevented from doing so — but claimed that the judge “allowed them to go into everything that I was ever involved in.”
“I wanted to testify,” he said. “The theory is, you never testify. As soon as you testify, anybody, if it were George Washington, don't testify, because they will get you on something you said slightly wrong and then they’ll sue you for perjury. But I didn’t care about that, I wanted to, but the judge allowed them to go into everything that I was ever involved in, not this case, everything I was ever involved in, which is a first.”
The ex-president also highlighted the nearly $35 million his campaign said it raised following the guilty verdict, which overwhelmed his fundraising website in the minutes after it was announced. Trump’s campaign said it was a small-dollar fundraising record and almost 30% were from new donors to the WinRed platform.
“I like those people,” Trump said of the donors.
In railing against Biden, Trump said that “we’re living in a fascist state,” attacking the president for his policies at the U.S.-Mexico border and calling him “incompetent,” “dishonest” and “the worst president in the history of our country.”
“This is all done by Biden and his people,” Trump falsely claimed. “This is done by Washington. No one has ever seen anything like this.”
Biden's campaign called the speech "unhinged" in a statement.
"America just witnessed a confused, desperate, and defeated Donald Trump ramble about his own personal grievances and lie about the American justice system, leaving anyone watching with one obvious conclusion: This man cannot be president of the United States," said Michael Tyler, the Biden campaign's communications director. "Unhinged by his 2020 election loss and spiraling from his criminal convictions, Trump is consumed by his own thirst for revenge and retribution. He thinks this election is about him. But it’s not. It’s about the American people: lowering their costs, protecting their freedoms, defending their democracy."
“That’s what Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are fighting for," Tyler continued. "Donald Trump is sowing chaos, attacking the rule of law, and fighting for the only thing in the world he gives a damn about: Donald Trump.”
Despite it being billed as a press conference, Trump did not take questions from reporters, ending his 33-minute remarks by saying that Nov. 5 — the date of the presidential election — “is the most important day in the history of our country,” echoing a sentiment that he and his allies have made repeatedly since the verdict came down.
Friday’s remarks were the latest attempt by the ex-president and his allies to assail the prosecution against him. The House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, which is chaired by staunch ally Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, requested that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought the case against Trump, and prosecutor Matthew Colangelo appear for a hearing next month.
Jordan has previously sought documents and testimony from Bragg in relation to the case, and the district attorney has resisted those efforts, charging that the Ohio Republican was interfering in the case.
Trump faces three other criminal proceedings, none of which are yet set to go to trial. The ex-president faces a federal case in Washington, D.C., alleging that he sought to subvert the 2020 presidential election, another in Florida accusing him of mishandling classified documents and hampering the federal government’s efforts to retrieve them, and a state case in Georgia charging that Trump and several allies orchestrated a “criminal enterprise” to overturn his loss in the state to Biden.
He has pleaded not guilty to all of the cases against him and denied any wrongdoing.