--:-- Yasmin Khan: Good morning. It's Friday, May 31st. I'm Yasmin Khan in for Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The verdict for Donald Trump is in. Count 34, guilty. Donald Trump has become the first former president ever convicted of a crime.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The 12 everyday jurors vowed to make a decision based on the evidence and the law, and the evidence and the law alone. This is a unanimous decision by the jury on each of these counts.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: We didn't do a thing wrong. I'm a very innocent man. He said the real verdict will come November 5th. An unbelievable moment in American history.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: This is the conclusion of a trial, but it's only the beginning of a fight. Just after the verdict was delivered, Donald Trump spoke from the courthouse and vowed to appeal.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And I think it's just a disgrace. And we'll keep fighting. We'll fight till the end and we'll win. Legal experts expect his appeal to focus on testimony from Stormy Daniels and the obscure state election law used by New York prosecutors in the case.
--:-- Erica Orden: I'm a legal reporter for Politico who's been in the courtroom for the past six weeks covering the trial. There was audible shock yesterday when the jury said they were ready with a verdict. There were some gasps in the room. People were very surprised at that news.
--:-- Erica Orden: When he stood up to exit the courtroom, the only really clear view most people in the courtroom got of his face was when he stood up to exit the courtroom. And when he walked out the aisle, he sort of had like a slight grimace on his face, I would say.
--:-- Erica Orden: He kind of inhaled a little bit and had like a slight grimace as he looked around the gallery and then walked straight out.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: As for what comes next for Trump, he'll be sentenced on July 11th, just days before Republicans are set to select him as their party nominee for president. He faces up to four years in prison.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Most people agree that it is unlikely that he will get a prison sentence because he is, as we all know, a former president who might be president again. But there are other options. If he isn't sentenced to prison, he could be sentenced to probation, home confinement, community service.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And, you know, Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan District Attorney, was asked whether he will seek a prison sentence, and he sidestepped that question. So we don't have much insight into what prosecutors will do about that.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: For more analysis on this historic moment, I called up The New Yorker's Susan Glasser. She's a staff writer and co-author of The Divider, a bestselling history of Donald Trump in the White House, which she co-wrote with her husband, New York Times reporter Peter Baker.
--:-- Susan Glasser: It is a shocking thing, right, to have the first former president in American history not only accused of crimes, but actually to be convicted after a long, complicated, serious, six-week-long trial.
--:-- Susan Glasser: I think it's a pretty important and remarkable moment in American history. Were you surprised? Was it what you expected?
--:-- Susan Glasser: Well, I will say one thing that took me a little aback was that Trump, even though this was a plausible, if not likely or expected outcome, he seemed to me when he came out of the courthouse to be a little bit stunned himself, certainly deflated, maybe in a bit of shell shock.
--:-- Susan Glasser: You know, he has had more than a year to prepare for this. In fact, he's built his entire 2024 re-election campaign around the notion of himself as a victim of an out-of-control, weaponized legal system.
--:-- Susan Glasser: And so it wasn't a surprise for him. And yet when the moment came, I think it still was a gut punch. And by the way, remember that even if Trump were to be elected president again, he cannot pardon himself from a state crime.
--:-- Susan Glasser: His pardon power, which has never been tested, whether a president can pardon himself, but even putting that aside, that's only at the federal level. So if this verdict stands, it stands.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Well, that's right. And I think it's worth reminding people about what the rules are in our system around convicted felons running for office.
--:-- Susan Glasser: So we know that Donald Trump can still run for president, even with a felony record, and that he could run from prison should he be sentenced to prison.
--:-- Susan Glasser: What do you make of these rules? Well, I'm glad that they haven't had to be tested very much in our history.
--:-- Susan Glasser: Whether one can do such a thing is a very different question than the question of whether one ought to do such a thing. And the bottom line is we've never had a major party candidate for president in either the Democratic or the Republican Party that has been a convicted felon.
--:-- Susan Glasser: And that distinction belongs to Eugene V. Debs, who was protesting against U.S. entry into the World War and ran for president unsuccessfully, I might add, from prison back in the early 20th century.
--:-- Susan Glasser: You know, Donald Trump, because of his ability to appeal this verdict and how long that is likely to take, even were the judge to sentence him to prison, it would be unlikely to take effect before the November election, regardless.
--:-- Susan Glasser: And then a whole different other set of complications would apply. I do think it just underscores what an extraordinary and, you know, sort of out of any known realm we're operating in.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The judge said he would set the sentencing date for July 11th. If that date held, that will be just a few days before the Republican National Convention is set to meet in Wisconsin to re-nominate Donald Trump.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And it will be the same day as in Washington is the culmination of the NATO summit where Joe Biden will be convening all of the U.S.'s closest allies in Washington to reaffirm their support for Ukraine, which whose fate might very well be very different if Trump is returned to office.
--:-- Susan Glasser: Yeah. I mean, I also want to point out that he can run, but he would not necessarily be allowed to vote.
--:-- Susan Glasser: Well, there's an interesting question. Florida does not allow felons to vote. Apparently, the way that the reciprocity law is worded, I was just looking at this before our conversation, it's possible if he was not already in prison, which he probably won't be, that he would be able to vote in this election, but not in future ones.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Oh, interesting. So it's a nuance we can watch out for.
--:-- Susan Glasser: Exactly. So we're going to hear and actually we're already hearing, you know, Trump supporters say that this prosecution is a sign of Democrats going after their political rivals, that this is a sign that the United States is turning into a banana republic.
--:-- Susan Glasser: What do you think of these criticisms? Well, I think they're saying exactly what Trump wants them to say in this situation.
--:-- Susan Glasser: You know, Trump has this almost laser-like focus on tearing down institutions in American society that he does not control.
--:-- Susan Glasser: That has been a focus of him as a public figure, going after independent sources of power. And obviously this isn't—the judiciary in this country is an independent source of power that could actually affect his personal freedom as well as his political latitude.
--:-- Susan Glasser: And while you're hearing that from Trump and his supporters, you know, the flip side is what you're hearing from critics of Trump, which is that not only is this not a banana republic, but this is exactly how American democracy is supposed to work.
--:-- Susan Glasser: That no man or woman is above the law. Trump who many believe has escaped accountability again and again and again throughout his long career both as a businessman and a public figure that finally this represents some measure of accountability for some of the many ways in which he has challenged or abused the system.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: I appreciate that observation because it is extraordinary.
--:-- Susan Glasser: And not only that, but when we wrote our history of Trump in the White House, one of the hallmarks of Trump's time in office was his desire and willingness to politicize the instruments of justice, the Justice Department, the FBI, and to pursue them in his own ends.
--:-- Susan Glasser: In many ways, that's actually what his first impeachment was about in 2019, was literally taking five hundred million dollars in U.S. security assistance for Ukraine and turning that into an instrument of his personal political power.
--:-- Susan Glasser: And he felt so strongly, not only did he come to office with supporters chanting and him applauding cheers of lock her up, but when he was president in the middle of the 2020 election, he demanded publicly on Twitter in the fall of 2020 that the Justice Department should go after Joe Biden.
--:-- Susan Glasser: He tweeted, where are the indictments? In fact, he was so angry with his attorney general, Bill Barr, at that time, it led to them not speaking to each other for many weeks before the 2020 election.
--:-- Susan Glasser: So this is a man whose entire persona and political belief is that he as president should have the power to do whatever he wants against his opponent using the legal system.
--:-- Susan Glasser: It's just, you know, he'll say whatever he has to say now that it's been turned against him.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: I want to hear, you know, what you think about how this verdict might hit voters.
--:-- Susan Glasser: You know, look, Trump is nothing without that base. And they have stuck with him through everything.
--:-- Susan Glasser: And that includes becoming the first president in American history to refuse to accept the results of a legitimate election in 2020. That includes all the events of January 6th.
--:-- Susan Glasser: And so I think there's a pretty strong basis for suspecting that for most of certainly the MAGA Republican universe, this is not going to change their opinion of Trump in any way.
--:-- Susan Glasser: In fact, it may spur some of them to turn out. What I would say is that it doesn't mean that this is insignificant from a political sense, because the polls regularly suggest that there is some cohort of Republicans that would be unwilling to vote for Trump as a convicted felon.
--:-- Susan Glasser: Now, even, you know, 3%, 4% of Republicans in key states that may decide this election, deciding they just can't pull the lever for a convicted felon, that could swing the election in a close election.
--:-- Susan Glasser: So I don't discount the possibility of it. But remember, it's going to be the voters who decide.
--:-- Susan Glasser: But I think it's significant that when presented with a set of facts as opposed to a set of Trump, Blarney and Bluster surrounding the specifics in this particular New York case that a group of 12 average New Yorkers didn't go for the Blarney.
--:-- Susan Glasser: They went for the facts. Right. We are in such an unprecedented time. We in unprecedented territory here.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: What do you think our listeners or the American public really need to be thinking about in the days and weeks and months ahead?
--:-- Susan Glasser: You know this is something that matters. I do think it's significant. And I think that you'll hear a lot in the coming days and weeks and months from Trump and his supporters saying, well, you know, essentially this is just another data point in American decline.
--:-- Susan Glasser: It's just another data point in, you know, the politicization of everything. It's a deeply cynical point of view.
--:-- Susan Glasser: And, you know, what is democracy in the end? It's a very idealistic form of government. It requires people's active participation to flourish and survive.
--:-- Susan Glasser: It requires facts that combat misinformation. It's going to be hard to do that this year. But to me, this is something that matters.
--:-- Susan Glasser: It is a significant moment in American history.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Susan, thank you so much for your time.
--:-- Susan Glasser: Thank you so much for having me.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Before we go, let's quickly check in on a few other stories in the news.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: President Biden is giving Ukraine permission to strike limited military targets in Russia using U.S.-provided weapons. Several media outlets are reporting on this policy reversal, which comes as Russian troops have been making advances.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Under the new policy, Ukrainian commanders are allowed to strike back against Russian forces attacking or preparing to attack around the northeastern city of Kharkiv.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: In other international news, Mexico holds its largest election ever on Sunday. Nearly 100 million Mexicans are eligible to vote.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And with women leading major party tickets, voters will likely be electing the country's first woman president. Security is a primary concern.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Some three dozen candidates in various races have been killed this election season. I talked to Mary Beth Sheridan, the Mexico City bureau chief for The Washington Post, about the impact of the violence.
--:-- Mary Beth Sheridan: Hundreds of candidates have dropped out of the race, and hundreds of people who would normally work the polls on the day of the election, they've dropped out.
--:-- Mary Beth Sheridan: So the influence of organized crime or the threat of organized crime is incredibly vivid this time.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Over 20,000 local, state, and federal government positions are on the ballot this weekend.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: In sports news, the Dallas Mavericks beat the Minnesota Timberwolves to secure a place in the NBA Finals.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: They'll play the Boston Celtics for the championship. Game one is on Thursday.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And we have a brand new champion in the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: It came down to a rapid-fire tiebreaker, where contestants get 90 seconds to spell as many words as possible.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Aposio-pesis. A-P-O-S-I-O-P-E-S-I-S. Abseil. A-B-S-E-I-L.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Pathology. That was the winner, Bruhat Soma, a 12-year-old from Florida.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: He spelled 29 words correctly in those 90 seconds. It's only the second time the contest has come down to a spell-off.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Soma takes home $50,000 plus other prizes.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app, including ongoing coverage of Donald Trump's historic felony conviction.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And if you're listening in the app right now, stick around to hear Apple News and conversation.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: This weekend's episode asks, if you could choose to live another version of your life, would you?
--:-- Yasmin Khan: No, I wouldn't, because I think you don't have to do that. You can make choices to change your life.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: That's Blake Crouch, author of the book Dark Matter, that's been turned into a show for Apple TV+.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: It explores the multiverse and what happens if you choose a different path.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: If you're listening in the Podcasts app, you can find the episode by searching for Apple News and Conversation.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Enjoy the weekend, and we'll be back with the news on Monday.
