Days after he became the first former president convicted of a crime in U.S. history, Donald Trump said he would be “OK” with house arrest or jail.
But the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee warned that "it’d be tough for the public to take," adding: "At a certain point there’s a breaking point.”
“I’m OK with it,” Trump said at his Bedminister, N.J., golf club when asked by a host of Fox News' “Fox & Friends” about facing possible imprisonment. “I don't know that the public would stand it.”
“I think it'd be tough for the public to take,” the former president said in the interview which aired Sunday. "You know, at a certain point there’s a breaking point."
Trump’s warning comes as multiple media outlets have reported about threats of violence — including on Trump’s social media network Truth Social — towards the judge, the district attorney and the 12 jurors who voted to convict him on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in his criminal hush-money trial in New York City last week. Trump himself frequently attacked Judge Juan Merchan, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, witnesses and the judge’s daughter in public remarks and social media posts.
Merchan scheduled sentencing for July 11, with both the prosecution and defense expected to make their case in court filings in the interim. Each count of falsifying business records is punishable by up to four years behind bars, but it's possible that Trump will get only fines or probation. Beyond the unprecedented complications of imprisoning a former president and current candidate for president months before November’s election, Trump’s attorneys have said they will appeal and will fight the state case all the way to the Supreme Court if they can.
“We're going to be vigorously challenging this verdict on appeal. We think we have ample grounds,” said Will Scharf, a Republican candidate for Missouri secretary of state and an attorney for Trump in other cases, on ABC News’ “This Week” on Sunday. “I think Judge Merchan should have clearly recused, I think he was irretrievably biased and I think that came through in decisions throughout the conduct of this trial.”
“I don't think President Trump is going to end up being subjected to any sentence whatsoever,” he later added.
But Trump’s lead trial attorney in the Manhattan case, former federal prosecutor Todd Blanche, acknowledged in an interview with The Associated Press this weekend that Trump may face jail time.
“On the one hand, it would be extraordinary to send a 77-year-old to prison for a case like this. A first-time offender who was also president of the United States, I mean, I think almost unheard of,” Blanche said, while noting the “highly publicized” nature of the case and Trump’s three other yet-to-be-resolved prosecutions may weigh against his favor. “It’s going to be a very, I think, contentious sentencing where we’re going to obviously argue strenuously for a non-incarceratory sentence.”
Trump faces a federal prosecution centered on his attempts to stay in power after his 2020 election loss and the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, as well as a racketeering prosecution in Georgia for his attempts to overturn his 2020 loss there and another federal prosecution in Florida for his handling of classified documents after leaving office. Those cases are in limbo as Trump’s legal team makes appeals and, for the federal cases, awaits word from the Supreme Court on their argument that presidents have total immunity for official acts conducted while in office.
In an interview of his own with “Fox News Sunday,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said congressional Republicans would continue investigations into Bragg and special prosecutor Jack Smith, who is overseeing Trump’s federal cases. Johnson said he believes Smith was “abusing his authority” and noted Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, is trying to get Bragg and another Manhattan prosecutor to testify at Congress later this month.
“We have to fight back and we will with everything in our arsenal, but we’ll do that within the confines of the rule of law,” Johnson said. “We're not going to tolerate this you had and at the end of the day, people are losing their faith in our system of justice itself. And that's a serious threat.”
After Trump was arrested and arraigned last April, Bragg’s offices received racist emails, death threats and two packages containing white powder. Last August, the FBI killed a Utah man during an attempted arrest for violent threats to President Joe Biden, Bragg and others. The Long Island home of another New York judge overseeing Trump’s civil fraud trial received a bomb threat in January.
During the Manhattan criminal trial, Merchan hit Trump with a gag order preventing him from publicly addressing witnesses, jurors, court staff, Bragg’s staff and Merchan’s daughter, a Democratic operative who came under attack by Trump and his allies. Bragg and Merchan themselves were not protected by the order. Trump was held in contempt of court, fined $10,000 and threatened with jail time for violating the gag order ten times.
Adapting to the gag order, Trump invited campaign surrogates, vice presidential hopefuls and members of Congress — including Johnson — to do his criticizing and insulting for him in remarks to the press outside the courthouse.
Scharf argued on Sunday that Trump’s attacks on Merchan, often from a rally stage, and witnesses like his former attorney Michael Cohen shouldn’t factor into the sentencing.
“I think it's really important to note that President Trump is running for president of the United States of America and he has an absolute constitutional right to comment on matters of public importance,” Scharf said. “I think the fact that he labored under a gag order for as long as he did, was manifestly unjust… and I don’t see how anyone can really poke holes at that.”
In his Fox News interview, Trump said the guilty verdicts were “tougher” on his family than him.
“They've good people, all of them, everyone. I have a wonderful wife who has to listen to this stuff all the time. They do that for this reason. They do that, all these salacious names that they put in of these people. And I'm not even allowed to defend myself because of a gag order,” Trump said. “She's fine, but I think it's very hard for her. I mean, she's fine. But it's, you know, she has to read all this crap.”
Trump was convicted of falsifying business records to cover up payments made during the 2016 campaign to adult film actress Stormy Daniels who testified she had an affair with the newly married businessman in 2006. Former First Lady Melania Trump did not attend the six-week trial.
The former president blames much of his legal woes on President Joe Biden, who has no role in local New York City prosecutions and who refrained from commenting on the case publicly until after the verdict. On Saturday, he said “revenge will be success, and I mean that,” but did not rule out wielding the Department of Justice in the way he claims without evidence that Biden does.
“It's awfully hard when you see what they've done,” Trump said. “These people are so evil.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.