The day after Donald J. Trump’s conviction, it quickly became clear that Republicans across the country were not going to shy away from Trump’s newfound status as a felon.
Instead, they will do it.
Republican candidates and party committees have joined Trump in denounceing the New York case as a shameful lie, and have used the first conviction of a former president as a slogan to motivate campaign finances, congressional hearings and voters in November.
That Republican leaders — congressional leaders, potential vice presidential candidates and former rivals — have endorsed Trump with little pushback or debate is no surprise in a party that is increasingly making loyalty to him a non-negotiable. But they were quick to vent their anger not just to back a candidate, but also to soak up the energy of a party base that remains loyal to Trump.
“The base has never been more motivated,” said Rep. Ronny Jackson of Texas, Trump's former White House physician and close ally.
Trump delivered a 33-minute speech Friday in the lobby of the same Trump Tower where he launched his first presidential bid nearly nine years ago, blasting prosecutors as “sick people,” criticizing key witnesses in the case and seeking to shift the focus of his candidacy from the confines of a Manhattan courtroom to the campaign trail.
The Trump campaign announced Friday morning that it had raised $34.8 million online, just hours after a jury found Trump guilty of all 34 felony charges, a reminder of how thoroughly Trump has persuaded Republican voters that his legal threats are a proxy for attacking them.
“People now see Donald Trump as a symbol of something,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Fox News on Friday. “He's not just a person. He's a symbol of a pushback against government corruption, against the deep state, against bureaucracy and all of that.”
There have been few calls among leading Republicans for Trump to resign. He is scheduled to be sentenced on July 11 and could receive probation or up to four years in prison, just days before he is formally nominated at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. The few lawmakers who uttered even a passing reverence for the “legal process” were swiftly condemned.
Instead, many Republican candidates and groups reported a surge in campaign funds. Republican campaigns for the House and Senate said they had recorded their highest totals of the election in terms of online donations. A spokesman for Representative Jackson, R-Texas, said the congressman had raised 10 times the amount of donations he normally does in a single day. The Speaker of the House launched a new website to share donations with Trump and shared the URL during an appearance on Fox News.
“This has never been about justice, this is about getting the words 'convicted felon' on the radio,” Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, who is auditioning to be Trump's running mate, told CNN. He added that “Donald Trump is guilty only of being in a courtroom in a political sham trial.”
The other vice presidential candidate, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, wrote to X, “Don't just be angry about this tragedy, get revenge!” and linked to Trump's donation page.
Meanwhile, House Republicans have announced plans to pursue prosecutors who have targeted Trump.
Rep. Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio, a close ally of President Trump and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said he would summon Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg and one of the prosecutors, Matthew Colangelo, to Congress to answer allegations that they have politicized and weaponized law enforcement against President Trump.
Mr. Jordan previously clashed with the Manhattan district attorney's office when he subpoenaed former prosecutors to testify. Mr. Bragg sued to block the testimony, but the Judiciary Committee prevailed. Former prosecutor Mark F. Pomerantz was forced to appear for a deposition but refused to answer questions, citing his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
President Biden spoke briefly about the verdict for the first time from the White House on Friday, declaring it “reaffirmed the American principle that no one is above the law” and denounced Trump's claims of a rigged trial as “dangerous” and “reckless.” As Biden left the room, a reporter yelled that Trump had called him a “political prisoner” and criticized Biden. The president stopped, turned and smiled, then kept walking without replying.
During the campaign, some Republicans moved quickly to put Democrats on the defensive over the conviction. In conservative states like Montana and Ohio, where Democratic senators are running, Republicans criticized the silence of incumbent Democrats. The National Republican Senatorial Committee called Senators Sherrod Brown and Jon Tester cowards for not condemning the trial.
The situation is different in the House, where many vulnerable Republicans are up for reelection in districts that voted for Biden in 2020. There, Democrats have emphasized the GOP's continued loyalty and support for a candidate who is now a felon.
The Republican bullishness was fueled by concern among some that a conviction could hurt Trump by losing crucial independent support, and Trump's ability to win over voters who dislike both him and Biden is widely seen as a key element of the race.
“Being convicted of 34 felony counts is not a win for anyone,” said longtime Republican pollster Whit Ayers. “The impact of this conviction is dwarfed by the weakness and unpopularity of the alternative candidate. If the Democratic candidate had been stronger, the impact of this case would have been much more severe.”
Still, Ayers added, “small changes could affect the outcome in battleground states.”
Biden's campaign has not placed much emphasis on the criminal trial and its outcome, instead focusing on abortion rights and Trump's refusal to concede the 2020 election and the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol as threats to democracy and makes him unworthy of reelection.
Republicans have sought to use Trump's indictment in Manhattan on charges related to making hush money payments to porn actresses before the 2016 election to paint a counter-accusation that he is a threat to democracy.
“If we allow a standard that allows us to send our political opponents to prison because they are doing better than us in elections, it would mean the end of our country,” Vance said.
House Speaker Johnson warned that Americans were losing faith in “the very system of justice” and called on the Supreme Court to intervene in the case.
“I believe the justices on the Supreme Court — and I know many of them personally — are deeply concerned about this, just as we are,” Johnson said.
The Supreme Court is currently considering whether the former president should enjoy some immunity from criminal prosecution, based on a separate criminal case against Trump: charges that he conspired to overturn the 2020 election.
In some ways, the near-unanimous Republican response to Trump's rivals' refusal to use the indictment against him in the 2024 presidential primaries seemed inevitable. If anything, the criminal charges have repeatedly drawn Republicans closer to the former president.
When the New York indictment was first handed down 15 months ago, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, then Trump's chief rival, struggled to fight back. He accused Bragg of pursuing a “political agenda” while also mocking Trump's questionable personal behavior that was the basis of the indictment.
“I don't know what it's like to pay a porn star to keep quiet about an alleged affair,” DeSantis said. “I just can't talk about it.”
DeSantis struck a starkly different tone after the verdict Thursday, explicitly condemning the ruling in what he called a “suck case.”
Alice McFadden Contributed report.