(This story contains strong language in paragraph 17)
By Helen Coster, Gram Slattery and Alexandra Ulmer
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Donald Trump stared into an array of cameras in Trump Tower on Friday and delivered a message befitting both his legal and political battles: He is ready to fight.
A day after a New York jury found him guilty of 34 charges related to forging documents to conceal hush money payments to a porn star, the Republican presidential candidate rattled off a list of opponents and grievances in angry, rambling remarks.
He called Judge Juan Merchan, who presided over his trial, “crooked” and “a devil.” He described Democrat Joe Biden, his rival in the Nov. 5 election, as “the worst president in the history of our country.” He denounced the witnesses who testified against him, the members of Congress who voted to impeach him and — echoing his rally rhetoric — the immigrants he said were pouring into the country illegally.
Trump implored his supporters to donate to his campaign, viewing the challenges ahead as greater than just his own.
“Do this,” he said, “because we are fighting for America.”
While his other campaign speeches were often laced with humor, this one was especially stern. Trump held only one small page of notes during the news conference. At the end he asked no more questions and quickly withdrew from the lectern with his son, Eric Trumpat his side.
Off camera, the former president’s allies, through fundraising appeals and on social media, also lashed out at the justice system and anyone who dared to suggest Trump committed a crime.
In a race where both leading candidates have portrayed each other as a threat to the nation, the Biden campaign has seized on Trump’s comments as new evidence that he is unfit to serve.
“America has just witnessed a confused, desperate and defeated Donald Trump ramble on his own personal grievances and lies about the American justice system, leaving everyone with one obvious conclusion: this man cannot be President of the United States ,” said Michael Tyler, the Biden. the campaign’s communications director said in a statement.
Trump supporters — most of whom view the New York verdict as a miscarriage of justice — flooded his campaign with $34.8 million in donations on Thursday alone, the Trump team said. That was a single-day record for Trump on WinRed, a platform that provides digital fundraising for Republicans.
The campaign, which trails Biden in overall fundraising, tried to keep pace Friday, sending a barrage of ominous fundraising texts to supporters.
“THE DARKEST DAY IN AMERICAN HISTORY!” read one message.
“I WILL NEVER GIVE UP!” barked another after Trump’s press conference.
NO ROOM FOR SERVICES
Nearly all Republican officials and organizations sided with the former president, arguing that the trial was flawed, that the charges should never have been filed, that the jury in heavily Democratic Manhattan was tainted and that the judge was biased — charges that local authorities deny.
Where Republicans’ condemnations were not swift or strong enough, Trump allies and campaign aides went on the attack.
Chris LaCivita, Trump’s co-campaign manager, expressed disdain for a national college Republican group whose post on social media platform X said the jury’s verdict should be respected.
“Opinions are like assholes… everyone has one…” LaCivita posted.
He also took aim at Larry Hogan, a moderate former Republican governor in Maryland running for a Senate seat, who before the verdict warned Americans not to “add fuel to the fire with more toxic partisanship.”
“You just ended your campaign,” LaCivita responded to X.
In interviews with Republican voters in battleground states Pennsylvania and Georgia, several people said Trump’s conviction made them reconsider their support for him in November.
Such defections could hurt him in his rematch against Biden, given Trump’s razor-thin lead in several swing states.
But most Republicans interviewed sounded a lot like Trump himself, calling the trial a sham.
“It’s all politics, just to hurt him and keep him off the campaign trail as much as possible,” said Scott Clayton, 62, a retired police officer in Marietta, Georgia.
“If they can do this to him, they can do it to anyone. Absolutely no one is safe.”
(Reporting by Helen Coster in New York, Gram Slattery in Washington and Alexandra Ulmer in San Francisco; additional reporting by Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut, and Rich McKay in Marietta, Georgia; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Jonathan Oatis)
