Donald Trump LIVE updates after historic guilty verdict: Ex-president's 'tough guy' routine works well with MAGA crowd but 'lack of remorse' could wind him up in jail

Donald Trump could end up with a jail sentence because of his lack of remorse and disrespect to the court, top criminal lawyers told DailyMail.com.

The former President’s ‘tough guy’ routine may play well with his supporters but the judge in his hush money case could use it to justify sending him to prison, said New York criminal attorney Mark Bederow.

Trump called Judge Juan Merchan a 'devil' during a press conference on Friday tearing into the case he says was 'rigged'.

Merchan could see Trump’s disrespect as an ‘aggravating factor’, said Bederow, who personally thought that jail would be a ‘mistake’.

Should the judge choose to give Trump community service he could force him to fund a soup kitchen or a senior center, said high profile attorney Arthur Aidala.

Aidala, who in April won a shock appeal of Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 sex crimes conviction in New York, said that Trump had a decent shot of having the verdict overturned but only in a higher appeal court.

Trump's criticisms of the U.S. legal system could resonate with black voters, who have been moving away from Joe Biden as

compared to 2020.

Donald Trump's presidential campaign announced it's launching a grassroots organizing program to engage new volunteers nationwide following his conviction.

They're calling it 'Trump Force 47.'

The program is a joint effort between the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee as they ramp up efforts ahead of the November election.

'We will continue capitalizing on the unprecedented momentum of our shared movement to ensure President Trump returns to the White House alongside House and Senate majorities,' said Trump campaign senior advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles.

'For many years, Americans have been asking "What can I do to help President Trump?" and the answer has not always been clear,' said RNC Chairman Michael Whatley. 'Trump Force 47 ensures we can always answer that question and immediately get people substantively involved in helping us win.'

The campaign said the model builds on their early-state primary strategy of organizing volunteers at the precinct level to focus on turning out a few specifically targeted voters each, which they said is critical to ensuring Trump and other Republicans win this fall.

For months, Trump trailed President Biden in both expanding his field operations in battleground states as well as fundraising. But with the GOP nomination secured, his team and the RNC has been looking at ways to ramp up for the general election.

Emily Ratajkowski has never been shy about making a statement.

So it was no surprise to see the model step out in a Stormy Daniels T-shirt on Thursday - just hours before Donald Trump was found guilty on 34 felony counts in a historic hush money trial.

After more than nine hours of deliberations over two days, the Manhattan jury found Trump guilty of falsifying business records in the case stemming from a hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels during his 2016 presidential campaign.

Donald Trump unleashed the full force of his fury on Friday at the judge, prosecutors and witnesses who made him the first former president to be found guilty at a criminal trial.

Yet among Republicans, the overwhelmingly feeling was sadness rather than anger.

An exclusive J.L. Partners poll for DailyMail.com asked 403 likely voters to describe their emotional reaction to the verdict in Trump's hush money trial.

'Sad,' was the most mentioned word followed by 'sadness,' 'angry,' and 'disappointed.'

'I just can't believe they found him guilty,' said a 47-year-old Republican woman from Arizona, one of the critical swing states. 'There are more important things to worry about right now.'

President Joe Biden called former President Donald Trump 'reckless' and 'irresponsible' in his first comments responding to the ex-president's historic guilty hush money verdict.

He later grinned though didn't respond when asked about Trump's claims his Democratic opponent is making him a 'political prisoner.'

Biden returned to Washington from Rehoboth Beach Friday to take a meeting with the Belgian prime minister and welcome to the White House the Kansas City Chiefs.

Friday morning the White House announced that the president would be addressing the situation in the Middle East, but Biden started his remarks by tackling the Trump verdict first - saying he wanted to discuss 'what happened yesterday in New York City.'

'The American principle that no one is above the law was reaffirmed,' Biden said.

President Joe Biden called Donald Trump 'reckless' and 'irresponsible' for suggesting the hush money trial was 'rigged' in his first comments on the verdict. He said:

The American principle that no one is above the law was reaffirmed. Donald Trump was given every opportunity to defend himself. It was a state case not a federal case. And it was heard by a jury of 12 citizens, 12 Americans, 12 people like you. Like millions of Americans who serve on juries.

This jury was chosen the same way every jury in America is chosen. It was a process that Donald Trump's attorney was part of. The jury heard five weeks of evidence. After careful deliberation the jury reached a unanimous verdict. They found Donald Trump guilty on all 34 felony counts.

Now, he'll be given the opportunity, as he should, to appeal that decision just like everyone else has that opportunity. That's how the American system of justice works. And it's reckless, it's dangerous, it's irresponsible for anyone to say this was rigged just because they don't like the verdict.

Donald Trump called the U.S. a 'fascist state' as he tore into the hush money trial and the judge in his press conference on Friday.

He accused Biden of being 'a very big danger to our country' and called him a 'Manchurian candidate,' a phrase implying the president is corrupt and being used as a puppet by a political enemy.

He called the committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol 'thugs.'

'We’re living in a fascist state.'

Whaaat??? How can anyone survive that? By all the laws of politics the Trump campaign should today be a smoking ruin.

He's a felon. He's a criminal – and he is the first president in US history to be convicted of such ostensibly serious offences.

Every time that jury foreman pronounced the word 'Guilty' in the Manhattan court on Thursday, he should by all normal logic have been dealing a death-blow to Donald Trump's hopes of regaining the White House.

He said it not just once but 34 times. This was no ordinary political assassination. This was a machine-gun mob-style hit-job on Trump.

Read more from Boris Johnson below.

President Joe Biden's campaign called former President Donald Trump 'confused, desperate, and defeated' on the heels of the ex-president's Trump Tower press conference, where he complained about the hush money trial verdict for 30-plus minutes.

'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. 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. 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.'

'This will be interesting,' Musk posted to his platform after announcing X will hold a live video town hall with Trump.

The pair have forged a friendship over recent months.

Donald Trump brought along his 18-year old son Barron to a high impact meeting that included Elon Musk and billionaire Nelson Peltz, exposing his son to some of the backroom dealings that could shape the 2024 campaign or a second Trump term.

The get-together came at Peltz's Palm Beach estate, and also included X, Musk's now 4-year-old son with actress Grimes.

It came at a March meeting where Musk, one of the world's richest men and the Tesla and Space X founder, spoke about a potential 'advisory role' for himself that would involve counseling Trump, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Former Vice President Mike Pence, who split with his former boss, backed Trump over his conviction.

Pence told Fox News:

The conviction of former President Trump on politically motivated charges is an outrage and disservice to the nation. No one is above the law but our courts must not become a tool to be used against political opponents.

This conviction also sends a terrible message to the wider world about the American justice system...I trust it will be overturned on appeal.'

Donald Trump's daughter-in-law and RNC co-chair Lara Trump posted a video just after Trump gave remarks on Friday of the ex-president with his two grandkids.

Her post included the line 'This is why he does it.'

Her husband, Trump's son Eric, could also be spotted seated nearby in the video as the kids give their grandfather a picture and receive hugs.

Both Lara and Eric were spotted watching Trump give remarks after his conviction. They were also frequently in the courtroom for the trial.

Some of the Republicans who previously risked their political careers to vote to impeach Donald Trump say the conviction against him in New York on Thursday was flawed.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., said: 'Given the way the defense was conducted, the trial was managed, the jury was instructed, and the DA's desire to fulfill a campaign promise, the guilty verdict was not surprising.'

He went on: 'The jury was led to believe that two misdemeanors make a felony and that a state court could enforce federal law. None of this seems right. The rule of law should apply equally to both parties. I disagree with the verdict.'

'The political underpinnings of this case further blur the lines between the judicial system and the electoral system, and this verdict likely will be the subject of a protracted appeals process,' warned Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.

Cara Mund, who won the Miss America contest in 2018 and is running as a Republican for North Dakota's at-large House seat in Congress, slammed Donald Trump for his felony conviction.

Her attack on Trump puts her in a small group of Republicans who aren't supporting the former president.

'Proud to be the ONLY ND Republican Candidate not worshiping a convicted felon during this election,' the beauty pageant winner posted on X Thursday evening.

'I’ll be the voice of ND, not Donald Trump. I’ll be the leader who helps move the party back to law and order,' her statement continued, adding 'I’ll be on the right side of history!'

Even after acknowledging the judge’s gag order on him is still in effect, Trump ripped his former lawyer Michael Cohen. He called the star witness in his trial a ‘sleazebag’ even while defending his legal chops, calling him ‘effective.’

‘He wasn’t a fixer, he was a lawyer,’ Trump said.

Then he talked up defense witness Robert Costello, calling him a ‘fine man.’ He also complimented former FEC Chair Brad Smith, who the defense had considered calling.

And he defended former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg, who the prosecution didn’t call despite Cohen’s testimony that they communicated about the Stormy Daniels payoff. ‘They destroyed his life,’ he said of Weisselberg, who is currently incarcerated at Rikers Island after a five-month sentence for perjury.

Donald Trump says 'it's my honor to be doing this it really is' after his conviction on all 34 counts.

He called it 'a really unpleasant thing, to be honost' but said it's an honor.

'We're going to do what we have to do,' he says.

Donald Trump called Judge Juan Merchan 'the devil' and some lof the potential witnesses were 'literally crucified' by the judge.

They were literally crucified by this man (the judge) who looks like an angel, but he is really a devil. He looks so nice and soft. People say he seems like such a nice man. Unless you saw him in action and you saw that with a certain witness that went through hell

Trump is going off on his political opponent, calling him the 'dumbest' president ever.

'He's the dumbest president we have have ever had,' Trump says.

He also called Biden the most 'dishonest' president ever.

Donald Trump says the 34 counts of falsifying business records sounds bad, but he really did nothing wrong.

'Falsifying business records — that sounds so bad, to me it sounds very bad,' Trump said.

'That's a bad thing for me, I've never had that before,' he added.

He then insisted the crime was a bookkeeper 'correctly' marking an expense down.

Donald Trump praised DailyMail.com's exclusive poll for a second time during remarks Thursday.

The poll found that the guilty verdict in Manhattan only improved the former president's standing with likely voters ahead of the 2024 election.

'The other thing - a poll came out. The first poll. Maybe others will be bad. But the poll just came out a little while ago [by] the Daily Mail. Does anybody read the Daily Mail? They have a good poll. I like it today.' 

'The Daily Mail just came out with a poll and it has Trump up six points in the last 12 hours. Six points since this happened. Who thought this could happen,' said Trump to applause among his supporters gathered at Trump Tower.

'Because the people of our country know it's a hoax. They know it's a hoax. They get it. They are really smart and it's really something.'

He went on to promise that his team will be 'appealing this scam.'

Donald Trump claims 'I would have testified, I wanted to testify' as he speaks following his conviction.

Trump did not take the stand in his own defense as is his right.

Trump claims the theory is you 'never testify' but he 'didn't care about that, I wanted to.'

The ex-president suggests it would have opened him up to perjury when he claims the judge would allow them to 'go inot every single thing' he has ever done.

'To this day I would have liked to have testified,' he argues.

Former President Donald Trump plugged an exclusive DailyMail.com poll in his first formal press conference since his guilty verdict.

'This is bigger than Trump and bigger than me and bigger than my presidency,' Turmp said Thursday about the outcome of his criminal hush money case.

And the people understand it because I just see a poll came out, the Daily Mail. The first one came out done last night right after the verdict where I'm up six points. Six points from what we already were. We were leading fairly substantially. We're up six points in the Daily Mail poll. 

Maybe other polls come out and say something differently. But a lot of people have predicted it. The public understands what is going on. This is a scam. This is a rigged trial. It shouldn't have been in that venue. We shouldn't have had that.

Trump isn’t backing down from attacks on Judge Juan Merchan, who will decide his sentence in July.

‘So we have a judge who’s highly conflicted. You know what the confliction is,’ Trump said at the start of his Friday presser, in a reference to Merchan’s daughter, who works at a firm with big Democratic clients.

‘There’s never been a more conflicted judge,’ Trump said. ‘I’m under a gag order, nasty gag order,’ he continued.

Trump repeatedly complained about a gag order by a man who can’t put two sentences together.’

Trump has made similar comments about the ‘conflicted’ judge without incident. On Friday he asked commentators to do his talking for him. ‘We’ll play that game a little bit longer we won’t talk about it. But you’re allowed to talk about it, I hope you do.'

Donald Trump speaks live from Trump Tower after the historic guilty verdicts.

A crowd of Trump supporters waving flags and anti-Trump protesters with 'guilty' and 'loser' signs are gathered outside Trump Tower.

Trump is expected to hold a press conference at 11am ET. It is his first event after his conviction on all charges in the NY hush money case.

Newspapers worldwide covered the outcome of the blockbuster trial on their front pages.

Here are some of them, including our print edition in the UK.

Teflon Don rides again, according to an exclusive snap poll for DailyMail.com which found that the guilty verdict in Manhattan only improved the former president's standing with likely voters ahead of the 2024 election.

Of those who said the 34 guilty counts had changed their view of Donald Trump, 22 percent said they now had a more favorable rating compared with 16 percent who said they viewed him more negatively.

That six-point net positive result is another sign of the way the businessman-turned-politician seems able to ride out crises that would sink anyone else.

Read m

ore below

Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, issued rare backing for Donald Trump after his conviction.

The two Republicans have long been at odds.

But McConnell said:

These charges never should have been brought in the first place. I expect the conviction to be overturned on appeal.

Hillary Clinton appeared triumphant as she delivered a not-so-subtle response to her former political rival Donald Trump being found guilty in a criminal trial.

'Anything going on today?' she said with a wry smile as she took to the podium at the Vital Voices Global Leadership Awards in Washington DC, shortly after the jury reached its verdict in Trump's hush money trial.

Her audience immediately responded with applause and laughter as they caught her apparent reference to the trial in Manhattan, with Clinton assuring them: 'Well, I have to tell you, there's nowhere I'd rather be than right here.'

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., joined Fox News to talk about voter's reactions to Trump's felony convictions, saying Americans are 'disgusted' with the outcome.

'It doesn’t matter whether I am in a blue state or a red state, people are disgusted by this,' Johnson told the hosts of Fox & Friends.

'They see exactly what's happening, old charges, a tainted judge.'

'This judge on this case in Manhattan was an open Biden supporter, an open activist, a political activist.'

'And no one cared about that. So the double standard is clear, everybody sees it.’

Melania Trump has been silent in the wake of Donald Trump's conviction but one of her top former advisers predicts she wasn't surprised by her husband's behavior.

'Melania knew exactly who she married. She knew that this was a transactional marriage. She became a top model. He became a loving doting father, and it set them up for their win for the White House,' Stephanie Winston Wolkoff told CNN.

Wolkoff worked with Melania in the White House in the early years of the Trump administration. The two had a friendship going back to their New York days but fell out during Trump's presidency. They no longer speak and Wolkoff wrote a tell-all memoir about her time with the Trumps.

At a time when top GOP officials including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell are rallying behind Trump, there were almost no calls to remove him from the Republican presidential ticket.

Trump is set to be nominated at the Republican nomination in Milwaukee, having dominated the primaries even while facing four criminal trials and leading President Biden in the polls.

One exception to the wagon circling is Trump’s former national security advisor John Bolton, who blasted his former boss in a 2020 book.

‘Today's verdict is a fire-bell in the night’, Bolton posted late Thursday. ‘The Republican Party now has one last chance to change course, and not nominate a convicted felon for President.’

Cara Mund, who won the Miss America contest in 2018 and is running for North Dakota's only seat in Congress, piled into Trump for his felonies.

'Proud to be the ONLY ND Republican Candidate not worshiping a convicted felon during this election,' the pageant winner posted on X.

'I’ll be the voice of ND, not Donald Trump.'

'I’ll be the leader who helps move the party back to law and order,' her statement continued. 'I’ll be on the right side of history!'

Mund ran unsuccessfully for office against Rep. Kelly Armstrong, R-N.D., in 2022.

The eminent lawyer, who has attended the trial, said no judge in New York wanted to be 'responsible for freeing Donald Trump'.

Dershowitz told Steve Bannon's War Room:

These are people with their families. These are people who don’t want to be "Dershowitzed". People know what happened to me when I defended Donald Trump on the floor of the Senate. Nobody on Martha’s Vineyard would speak to me.

Harvard Law School canceled me after I’d been there for 50 years, and judge’s don’t want that to happen to them. So I am not encouraged that he’ll get a fair appeal.

Prime Minster Rishi Sunak dodged and said the case was 'not my focus'.

However, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer gave a fuller response.

He respected the decision of the 'independent court' but said he would work with 'whoever' is elected U.S. President in November.

Melania Trump remains silent on the verdict.

It's also unclear where Melania Trump is located. This time of year the Trump family is usually camped out at their place on the former president's golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey.

Mar-a-Lago is closed for the season but Melania has private rooms there she could stay in. Or she could be at Trump Tower in New York. Or she could be anywhere.

Her office did not respond to DailyMail.com's repeated requests for comment.

The former first lady and son Barron are the only members of the Trump to either not appear in court with the former president or to post supportive messages on social media.

Don Jr., Eric and Tiffany all made courtroom appearances. Ivanka Trump posted a four-word message on Instagram Thursday night in support of her father: 'I love you dad.'

Donald Trump squandered a 'winnable case' where he could have got a hung jury or escaped with only a misdemeanor, legal experts have argued.

The former president was found guilty by a jury of 34 counts of falsifying business records in the so-called 'hush money' trial in New York.

Trump covered up $130,000 in payments to porn star Stormy Daniels to hide extramarital affairs and now faces the unlikely possibility of jail time.

Veteran lawyers argue District Attorney Alvin Bragg's case had weaknesses - despite 200 pieces of evidence and weeks of witness testimony.

But Trump's lawyers failed to exploit them, confusing the jury by fighting every aspect of the indictment and refusing to offer the option of a lesser charge.

The Kremlin said on Friday that Donald Trump's guilty verdict showed all legal and illegal means were being used in the United States to get rid of political rivals

Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov, pictures with Putin, said:

If we speak about Trump, the fact that there is simply the elimination, in effect, of political rivals by all possible means, legal and illegal, is obvious.

Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt has a message for Biden:

Crooked Joe Biden and the Democrats confined President Trump to a courtroom for more than eight hours a day for more than six weeks, and he’s still winning.

Now that he is fully back on the campaign trial, Biden and the Democrats better buckle up.

Donald Trump squandered a 'winnable case' where he could have got a hung jury or escaped with only a misdemeanor, legal experts have argued.

The former president was found guilty by a jury of 34 counts of falsifying business records in the so-called 'hush money' trial in New York.

Trump covered up $130,000 in payments to porn star Stormy Daniels to hide extramarital affairs and now faces the unlikely possibility of jail time.

Veteran lawyers argue District Attorney Alvin Bragg's case had weaknesses - despite 200 pieces of evidence and weeks of witness testimony.

But Trump's lawyers failed to exploit them, confusing the jury by fighting every aspect of the indictment and refusing to offer the option of a lesser charge.

Bill O'Reilly has said president Joe Biden should pardon his son Hunter and Donald Trump in order to heal the nation.

The former Fox News star appeared on News Nation's Cuomo on Thursday to discuss Trump's conviction in his New York hush money trial, and warned the verdict could bring 'violence.'

'President Biden should pardon Donald Trump of any and all crimes and suggest publicly that governor [Kathy] Hochul do the same thing,' O'Reilly told Chris Cuomo.

'And then … President Biden should pardon his son Hunter. That would throw the whole acrimonious system into absolute chaos.'

O'Reilly said that while Biden could 'bring down the level of hatred... he won’t, because he doesn’t have the "fiber" of Gerald Ford.'

Trump will face sentencing on July 11, just four days before the beginning of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, where the party is set to nominate Trump for President a third time.

Here are some of the key takeaways from Thursday's trial.

• Trump's team will fight back - Lead attorney Todd Blanche said in multiple interviews Thursday that they will appeal the verdict. However, that appeal - which would be based on Judge Juan Merchan's refusal to recuse himself - could last past the 2024 election. Trump himself said he would fight the decision to the end.
• Liberals taking delight - President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris praised the decision in a statement, while Hillary Clinton sold mugs declaring her to be right about Trump and left-leaning comedian Jimmy Kimmel spent 20 minutes of his show Wednesday night gloating about the verdict.
• Conservatives remain steadfastly behind Trump - Everyone from commentators like Tucker Carlson and Ben Shapiro to elected officials like Ted Cruz and Marjorie Taylor Greene slammed the decision and even predicting it would lead to Trump returning to the White House in November.