"This is a dark day for America," Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said in a statement on X/Twitter. "This entire trial has been a sham, and it is nothing more than political persecution. The only reason they prosecuted Donald Trump is because Democrats are terrified that he will win reelection."
Cruz added, "This disgraceful decision is legally baseless and should be overturned promptly on appeal. Any judge with a modicum of integrity would recognize that this entire trial has been utterly fraudulent."
In an interview with Newsmax, Cruz told host Greta Van Susteren that the entire purpose of the sham prosecution was so that Democrats could "refer to Donald Trump as a, quote, ‘convicted felon.'"
“You and I are going to hear those words repeated by Democrats and the corporate media about one billion times between now and Election Day," he said. "That was the whole point: to scream felon, felon, felon, felon. This was politics and not law.”
As if to prove Cruz's point, ABC News called the guilty verdicts "a political gift to Democrats."
“Donald Trump is now a convicted felon," ABC News' Jonathan Karl said on Special Report. "Will that affect how voters will view him? And we have seen... a lot of polling, including one of our ABC News polls just in the past month, that suggests that upwards of 20% of people who have said that they plan to vote for Donald Trump... would reconsider... if he were... convicted of a felony."
Mary Bruce, the chief White House correspondent for ABC News, then reported that there were "cheers" at Biden HQ after the verdict.
"And our team has heard that there were cheers inside the Biden headquarters in Wilmington as the verdict was read," she said.
"Look, President Biden has been very careful in the last week not to comment on this trial, that I have been told will now change now that we have a verdict," she continued. "Obviously, these guilty verdicts are a political gift to Democrats, a political gift to the president. He's now running against a convicted felon."
Related: Our Country Will Never Be the Same After the Shameful Trump Verdict
However, Bruce said that Biden's messaging won't change much despite the verdicts.
"I'm told this verdict is not now going to somehow become the centerpiece of his messaging to the American people," she said. "The Biden team is very well aware of President — former President Trump's argument, as we just heard his claims that this is all somehow rigged. The President doesn't want to be overly celebratory and feed into that narrative that this was somehow a witch hunt concocted by President Biden."
She continued, "He has been adamant that he had nothing to do with this. He has said that he has never had a single conversation with anyone in his administration, with the Justice Department anyone about Donald Trump's legal troubles."
Biden also said he never spoke with his son Hunter about his business dealings either.
Bruce then explained what we can expect going forward. "What you can expect the president [to] do though, is to continue to argue that Donald Trump, he believes, is unfit to serve and he will make the argument that ultimately it is up to voters to decide Donald Trump's future because, as we have been noted, even if he does face any kind of prison time, that is unlikely, but even if it does happen, not likely to happen, certainly before an election, and so the president is going to make the argument that this ultimately comes down to the ballot."
ABC's Mary Bruce says "there were cheers inside the Biden headquarters in Wilmington as the verdict was read".
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) May 30, 2024
She added "these guilty verdicts are a political gift to Democrats, a political gift to the President...running against a convicted felon", but Biden "doesn't want to… pic.twitter.com/Dn7Xw8lA8s
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