Florida man convicted

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Sean Rameswaram: The former and potentially future president is now a convicted felon. 34 times over. That's 34 more felony convictions than all the other presidents combined.

Noel King: You know the trial? It's the one about Stormy. Nothing ever happened. And Michael. You know, he's a sleazebag. And the falsified business records. It means that legal expense. I paid a lawyer. Totally legal. With the judge. I'm under a gag order by a man that can't put two sentences together. And the Manhattan DA. They were literally crucified by this man who looks like an angel, but he's really a devil. He looks so nice and soft. And the plot. This is bigger than Trump. This is bigger than me. This is bigger than my presidency. We're going to figure out how the former president fumbled this case so badly and what comes next for him and for us.

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Sean Rameswaram: Bing, bing, bing, bong, bong, bong, bong, bing. Today Explained here with Andrew Rice, features writer at New York Magazine. Andrew, we're already hearing a lot about the Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg who won this case. We will continue to hear a lot about him. But I want to talk about the losers. Who lost this case for Donald Trump?

Andrew Rice: Donald Trump lost this case for Donald Trump. I mean, they think that Donald Trump has done a lot of things in the course of his prosecutions that have run counter to his legal interests. This judge should be recused and the case should be thrown out. He's totally conflicted. There's never been a judge more conflicted than this one.

Noel King: The interesting dynamic here is that oftentimes the things that work to Trump's political benefit, for instance, attacking judges, attacking prosecutors, decrying the system, trying to display his contempt for the process and for the legal system itself, all those sorts of things generally tend to run counter to his actual legal interests. They play well maybe with Republican voters and maybe with voters who themselves are interested in upsetting the system. But juries tend not to like them and judges tend not to like them. And I think you see the results. He's had catastrophic civil verdicts against him this year and then ultimately a 34-count conviction.

Sean Rameswaram: So Donald Trump lost the case for Donald Trump, but Donald Trump did not testify at this trial. Who was his mouthpiece?

Andrew Rice: So Todd Blanche was his primary lead defense attorney, somebody who is a pretty respected Manhattan criminal defense attorney. Before that, he was a federal prosecutor, somebody with a very strong reputation in the New York legal community, which is one reason why a lot of people in that New York legal community were surprised when he not only became Donald Trump's attorney, but actually left a very prestigious law firm in order to take on Trump as essentially his sole client.

Noel King: During the six weeks of the trial, he represented Trump, I think, quite ably and gave him a chance at at the very least winning a mistrial. Ultimately, it didn't happen. But I think even up to the moment that the verdict was delivered, A lot of people in the courtroom, especially members of the press, were thinking that a hung jury was a distinct possibility, that the defense had raised a lot of questions about the credibility, particularly of Michael Cohen, the lead witness for the prosecution and Trump's former attorney. And I think that, you know, ultimately, you know, the jury just chose to believe Michael Cohen over Donald Trump. And that's why Donald Trump was convicted.

Sean Rameswaram: You spent a bunch of time with Todd Blanche to profile him for New York Magazine, and you revealed that he's a registered Democrat. The president's constantly saying the Democrats are prosecuting me, but his own defense attorney and his lead defense attorney is a registered Democrat?

Andrew Rice: Well, he was a registered Democrat, I guess. I was. He's gone, by his own admission, he has gone on something of a political journey over the last couple of years. I mean, he's far from the only person for whom this is true. And it just seems that the economy does better under the Democrats than the Republicans. But somebody who, as a prosecutor in the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's Office, was known as being sort of apolitical, straightforward criminal prosecutor. He's somebody who's become quite political. He moved to Florida. He re-registered as a Republican. He's very much become somebody who sympathizes with Donald Trump, both politically and as a client.

Noel King: In many people's lives, the hardest thing you do is go through a criminal trial. And I was impressed, especially today, at the way that he carried himself and handled himself. That's not to say that he, I think, embraces everything that Donald Trump stands for or likes all the things that he says. But he's a Republican and he very much supports Trump.

Sean Rameswaram: Did you get a sense from speaking to Blanche how much he was calling the shots in Trump's defense and how much he was just taking orders from his client?

Andrew Rice: I think it's a mix. And I think it's complicated. I mean I think he be the first to tell you I think he said as much on CNN last night that If there a lawyer that comes in and says that they in charge of their defense strategy they not doing a service to their client Every decision that we made we made as a team and not just President Trump and myself but the whole team

Noel King: So it's not unusual that the client would dictate legal strategy, at least at a broad level. But Trump, of course, is a micromanager. He's described himself as having a Ph.D. in litigation. I'm like a PhD in litigation, OK? And it's not exactly an exaggeration. In this case, he's been involved in so many lawsuits over the years and so many depositions and trials and so on. The guy really does know a lot about the legal system. And so anyone who represents Trump is going to have a very opinionated and actually pretty knowledgeable through experience client.

Sean Rameswaram: But I think that there is evidence that he had some influence over Trump. Trump's demeanor and behavior in the courtroom during the criminal trial, even when some very tough testimony was being given against him, remained pretty even-handed. Outside of the courtroom, of course, another matter. He was held in contempt 10 times for his comments outside of court. But I think Blanche's view on it was like he can only really control what happens inside of court. What happens outside of court is more up to Donald Trump.

Noel King: It's something that we had to deal with during the trial as a team and understanding that there's a message that he needed to get to the people, to the American people, the people who are deciding who to vote for in November.

Sean Rameswaram: The cross-examination of Stormy Daniels, Blanche's co-counsel in this case, Susan Necklace, delivered a pretty scathing cross-examination of Stormy Daniels. talked about how she worked in pornography and so on and so forth, really kind of seeking to shame her in a way that seemed more driven by Donald Trump's desire to try to destroy her credibility than what might work for a defendant facing these kinds of financial crimes ultimately in a Manhattan courtroom.

Andrew Rice: Right. That seems to be the crux of the matter here. The defense's strategy was to deny everything to try and discredit everyone, which feels very Trumpy. Might they have had a stronger argument if they just had, you know, leaned into the fact that there was no smoking gun here? There was no email that had Donald Trump spelling out everything he wanted Michael Cohen to do on his behalf.

Noel King: Well, I think that, you know, some of the attacks on credibility were needed if the defense was going to have any shot of winning. I mean, And there was a really only one witness who could directly connect Trump to the scheme. And that witness was Michael Cohen. And Michael Cohen, of course, has pleaded guilty to numerous crimes and by his own admission as a liar, somebody who lied for Donald Trump, somebody who has subsequently become a kind of Trump antagonist podcaster and has made a lot of money off of it.

Sean Rameswaram: Trump is a notorious germaphobe who was most likely born in a suit and tie. And he's right now having nightmares of having to trade his business attire and golf shirts for classic prison duds. So some of the attacks on witness credibility were necessary. I think that where Blanche endured a lot of criticism, particularly from lawyers and legal commentators who were in the room and in the courtroom serving the proceedings, was for seeming as if he kind of was scattershot in the way he went about going after Cohen in particular. So throwing all sorts of stuff at the wall and seeing what stuck.

Noel King: So he would sort of attack him as a liar. He also, before he left, said, like goat, which is the greatest of all time. Blanche called Michael Cohen the gloat, greatest liar of all time. At one point, they attacked him as a thief by saying that he had overstated the amount of money that Donald Trump owed him for something and had taken a larger than deserved reimbursement for some expenses that he had done that were sort of rolled into this big $420,000 payment that was at the center of the criminal case.

Sean Rameswaram: And the prosecutors on their summation said, you know, this is a little rich. So, you know, the prosecutor said you really can't have it both ways. You can't say that it's both a legitimate payment for legal services and he was, you know, stealing from Donald Trump by claiming for more reimbursement. So I think that's just one sort of small example of ways in which trying to make all the arguments against Michael Cohen simultaneously might have ended up undermining his broader case.

Noel King: The former president famously loves to fire people. Todd Blanche is representing him in three out of his four trials right now. He hasn't fired him yet, as far as I know, but do you think that's what comes next here?

Andrew Rice: Well, let's put it this way. It was hard in the first place for Trump to find an attorney of Blanche's caliber to represent him. I'm not sure that he's going to do better. Now, Trump is also not known for always making the most considered strategic decisions when it comes to his personnel. So anything's possible. But I do think that it's likely that there's, you know, probably some reassessment going on inside of Trump Tower right now about how to handle these other cases.

Sean Rameswaram: I do think it's worth noting, though, that as Trump said outside of court after the verdict. The real verdict is going to be November 5th by the people. And they know what happened here and everybody knows what happened here. None of these other cases are likely to go to trial before November. And so therefore, it's probably not necessary for Trump to switch his legal representation out. His strategy all along has been to try to nullify this verdict by winning at the ballot box. And I don't think anything about the way that Blanche represented him in court will change that overall strategy.

Noel King: Next up on Today Explained, what comes next? You

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Noel King: Today Explained is back with Andrew Rice from New York Magazine. Andrew, we've been talking about how the defense kind of sort of fumbled the case, but the prosecution did a good job, presumably?

Andrew Rice: I thought that really the story of the trial was how, frankly, masterful and well-organized the prosecution was in setting out the case. And the theory of the case that they laid out was basically as follows. That the hush money payment in and of itself wasn't necessarily such a horrible thing. But what the hush money payment was a part of was part of a broader conspiracy that Donald Trump and Michael Cohen, his attorney at the time, and David Pecker, who ran the National Enquirer, and a whole bunch of other people, hatched in order to deprive the American people of knowledge that might have been beneficial to them or might have helped to guide their decision in choosing who to vote for. in the 2016 election.

Noel King: Really, the thing we learned about Donald Trump in this trial was, first of all, he was trying to get one over on a lot of people by hushing up all these things. And second of all, he was too cheap to pay for it. And ultimately, that proved to be his undoing, albeit eight years later.

Sean Rameswaram: Donald Trump could not get one over on 12 New Yorkers who sat on this jury. Who were they? We don't have names, but you were in the courtroom. What did you learn about these people?

Andrew Rice: I watched them pretty closely throughout the trial. And of course, although we didn't know their names, we did learn a lot of information about them in the jury selection process where they answered a lot of questions or there's a very detailed questionnaire. And there was a lot of questioning during the voir dire process about their political opinions at the very beginning of this jury selection process, a very telling moment. Twelve jurors, along with some alternates, the very first thing the judge asked, the first batch of 96 prospective jurors, was whether they felt they could not serve because they could not be fair or impartial. After that question, more than 50 were dismissed. Like, that's the jury poll that Donald Trump had to deal with. He got 12 people who said that they could be fair and impartial.

Noel King: Disproportionately, they were quite well-educated. I think there were five people on the jury who had master's degrees, law degrees. Several of them worked in financial services. Two of them were practicing lawyers, which is actually quite unusual for a jury. Usually, lawyers get knocked off of juries. There were two immigrants. In fact, when the word guilty was said 34 times yesterday. It was said in an Irish accent. The foreman of the jury was an Irish immigrant who's lived in the United States for a long time, but presumably a naturalized citizen. And so it's very much a jury that I think reflected the diversity of this city.

Sean Rameswaram: You know it hard to know what people are thinking but clearly a very engaged and diligent jury they were there on time every day for six weeks Normally in a jury case you always have you know some jury has a juror has a sniffle or so has an appointment. They can't make it on time. None of that happened. They kept their eyes open and were alert even when Donald Trump slept for long portions of it.

Noel King: And I think ultimately they delivered a verdict that, you know, however you feel about whether the crime was a really big, important crime or a small, piddling crime, they delivered a very considered verdict, I think.

Sean Rameswaram: Whether you're voting for Donald Trump or not this November, I imagine a lot of Americans would have liked to have been in the courtroom for that moment just to see a historic verdict being read out. You were there. What was it like, you know, beyond the Irish accent?

Andrew Rice: Well, it was very tense, as you might imagine. And it all happened very fast. You're waiting for a jury's verdict is a really, frankly, kind of boring process. You don't know how long it's going to go. You kind of sit around and like, you know, just kind of pass in the time. And then all of a sudden, the judge emerged with a kind of strange expression on his face, and he said, we have a note. And he read it out and said the jury has reached a verdict. And there were audible gasps in the courtroom.

Noel King: So rather than being sort of let out at 4.30, the jurors came into the courtroom. None of them appeared to look at Donald Trump as they walked into the courtroom, which can be a telltale sign, I guess, of what's coming. And truthfully, the fact that they reached a verdict at all was a telltale sign of what was coming because I don't think anyone thought that they would reach an acquittal at all, certainly not a quick acquittal.

Sean Rameswaram: So I think Donald Trump knew what was coming. He nonetheless stood respectfully as they walked to the jury box and listened as the word guilty was read out 34 times. And they filed back out and the judge set a sentencing hearing for July 11th, which happens to be four days before the Republican convention is scheduled to be held. And he released Donald Trump on his own recognizance like any other perp. And yet these ordinary people had delivered such an extraordinary moment.

Noel King: From being in the courtroom for weeks on weeks, what do you expect from sentencing in July? I mean, nobody knows. And the reason it's hard to know is because, to state the obvious, there's never been a convicted criminal like Donald Trump. There's never been somebody convicted of this specific crime like Donald Trump.

Sean Rameswaram: I think if it were any other defendant, first-time offender, it's a class E felony, which is sort of the lowest-level felony that you can commit. I don't think anyone would expect an offender like that to receive jail time. That said, this particular defendant has done an awful lot to thumb his nose at the legal system, specifically to attack the judge. And his daughter. And his daughter. He's been held in contempt 10 separate times. He has decried the system. He's talked about how it's corrupt. He has attacked the prosecutors, attacked Alvin Bragg.

Noel King: We had a DA who was a failed DA. Crime is rampant in New York, violent crime. That's what he's really supposed to be looking at. So these are all things that the judge can and may take into account when deciding how to sentence him.

Sean Rameswaram: But because this is Donald Trump, all of these convictions get appealed, yeah?

Andrew Rice: Yes. The conviction will be appealed, and it's important to note that if Donald Trump is elected president constitutionally, state court wouldn't be able to incarcerate him as president of the United States. So ultimately the appeal, yes, he'll appeal it to higher courts in New York, but the more immediate appeal is to the American people. Donald Trump has already signaled his intent to take this to the American people. And if he's elected, I think there's probably very little chance that this particular conviction will end up standing up.

Noel King: Andrew, a lot of Americans are celebrating this moment. A lot of Americans are incredibly upset. And you got the president walking out of that courtroom and saying this was Joe Biden's prosecution, even though it wasn't. Does it feel like this latest unprecedented is both a triumph and a threat to our democracy? I mean, it's not a great look for the world's oldest democracy to be prosecuting a former president for crimes.

Andrew Rice: I mean, I don't think that that's a situation anyone would want to be in. And hopefully these prosecutions are the last prosecutions, criminal prosecutions of a president of the United States. But is anyone confident that that's likely? It seems as if the pattern of the last 10, 15 years has been for each unprecedented event to be met with an equal and opposite unprecedented event.

Sean Rameswaram: So I'm sad to say that it seems as if we're less likely to be the end of the story than the beginning of another cycle.

Noel King: Avishai Artsy pitched in too We were edited by Miranda Kennedy Fact checked by Laura Bullard and Amina Al-Sadi And mixed by Patrick Boyd and Andrea Christensdottir The rest of our team is comprised of Matthew Collette, Victoria Chamberlain Denise Guerra, Peter Ballin and Rosen Amanda Llewellyn, Miles Bryan, Rob Byers And Noel King Beats by Breakmaster Cylinder I'm Sean Ramos for him Today Explained is distributed by WNYC The show is a part of Vox Support Vox's journalism by joining our membership program today. If you please go to vox.com slash members to sign up.