while this defendant may be up like any other in american

history, we arrived at this trial and ultimately today at this verdict in the same manner as every other case that comes through the courtroom doors, by following the facts and the law and doing so without fear or favor. many voices out there, the only voice that matters is the voice of the jury. and the jury has spoken. >> that's manhattan district attorney alvin bragg following the historic conviction of donald trump on all 34 counts in his hush money trial. we'll have expert legal analysis on the verdict and the timeline for trump's sentencing. also ahead we'll bring you reaction from republicans who rushed to trump's defense yesterday as well as president joe biden's response to the verdict. plus, the conviction has many people wondering if trump can

still run for president. we'll go through the what impact if any this all has on november's election. good morning and welcome to "way too early" on this friday, may 31st. i'm jonathan lemire. katty kay is alongside this morning. for the first time in american history a former u.s. president has been tried in a court of law and has been convicted of a crime. late yesterday a jury of 12 new yorkers found former president donald trump guilty on all 34 felony counts against him in his hush money criminal trial. the verdict was read just around 5:00 p.m. eastern in a new york city courtroom after jurors deliberated for roughly 9 1/2 hours over two days. each of the 34 counts is

associated with a falsified business record pertaining to trump's reimbursement of his former attorney and fixer, michael cohen, for a hush money payment to adult film actress stormy daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign in order to keep her quiet about a sexual encounter she says that she had with trump back in 2006. trump all along has denied her claim. sentencing is set for july 11th, which is just four days before the republican national convention begins in milwaukee when trump would officially become the gop nominee for president. the maximum sentence for falsification of business records is four years in prison, but incarceration is not a mandatory sentence for this crime. it will be judge juan merchan who ultimately decides the punishment. we have been looking at this

case for a long time. people wonder what it means. we'll get into that all morning long. there's no question yesterday felt significant. >> yeah, and in the end it was stormy daniels who triggered all of this, who was the one who brought donald trump down when all of the other cases for various reasons got delayed, pushed back until after the election. there may have been stronger cases. there may have been more consequential cases in terms of politics and legality, but yesterday we heard 12 american jurors decided on all 34 counts that donald trump was guilty of the charges that were leveled against him. and speaking to reporters after the verdict was read, trump again, however, proclaimed his innocence and repeated his frequent false claim about the judicial system being rigged against him. >> this was a disgrace. this was a rigged trial by a conflicted judge who was

corrupt. it's a rigged trial and disgraced. the real verdict is going to be november 5th by the people, and they know what happened here and everybody knows what happened here. you have to show respect, d.a., and the whole thing. we didn't do a thing wrong. i'm an innocent man. we have a country that's in big trouble, but this was a rigged decision right from day one with a conflicted judge who should have never been allowed to try this case, never. and we will fight for our constitution. >> we have to fact check that. there is no evidence the system is rigged. later on the now convicted former president took to truth social to announce a press conference going to be scheduled for 11:00 eastern time today. that will take place from trump tower in manhattan. and i'm hearing -- i don't know what you're hearing but i'm hearing from people in the trump's orbit this is now the beginning, john, as one of the put it to me as a gop civil war

to see who's on his side and who's thought. >> it very well could be, and we certainly saw a more deflated trump than we're used to in those remarks. right now for trump not much has changed in his ability to run for president, however. the constitution only has three qualifications for someone to campaign for the presidency. they must be a natural born citizen, must be at least 35 years old, and must have lived in america for 14 years. the constitution does not mention anything about felony convictions. and this isn't the first time in american history that someone was found guilty and then ran for the white house. back in 1920 eugene debbs campaigned from a prison cell in atlanta as the socialist party nominee after he was found guilty of sedition. trump will likely be allowed to vote in the upcoming election so long as he's not sentenced to jail. the state of new york only restricts voting rights for people who are incarcerated. joining us now msnbc legal analyst danny cevallos and

charles coleman. danny, let's start with you here on set. what was your reaction to the verdict? >> any one, any lawyer, anyone who says they knew what was going to happen is making it up. it is really easy now to say i see how the jury had their path to a conviction, and i think a lot of people did say that prior to the verdict, but you never know. no lawyer ever knows, no regular citizen ever knows. you do not know until they render the verdict, and i suspect over the weeks and years as we perhaps hear from some of those jurors, i predict we will be surprised at some of the things they seized upon and some of the things that maybe weren't as important to them. so overall i mean the next big question is sentencing, what will happen at sentencing. and my big question is what will the prosecution seek given that they know that the odds are i think somewhat in favor of a nonincarceration sentence, what

political decision will the manhattan d.a.'s office make in asking for an incarceration sentence or probation or whatever it is they choose to ask for in their sentencing memorandum. >> charles, where with your reaction taking on what danny was just saying there, what are the legal decisions now that the judge is facing when it comes to how to sentence donald trump? what's he going to weighing specifically? >> i think danny said it nicely. he has to consider donald trump who prior to this had no legal contacts or with respect to the justice system. and so this is his first offense he's been convicted of or even arrested for that matter. and that's going to weigh heavily in terms of the sentencing guidelines, and also there's a notion for donald trump's previous disregard for the rule of law in respect to the gag order and not necessarily regarding judge merchan's personal attacks or the attacks made upon him personally but just the overall sense of the gag order imposed

upon donald trump in his repeated violations of that. i think that's also going to factor in to how the judge ultimately factors into his sentencing with respect to donald trump and his now conviction on these 34 felony counts. >> danny, he was convicted of all 34. first of all, give us your sense that was a surprise. there was some thought it wouldn't be unanimous like that. and the fact it is all 34, does that hurt -- explain to the lay people out there. does that hurt trump's sentence on appeal or strengthen the sentence against him? >> i wasn't surprised they were all 34 counts. let's say a structuring case or certain cases involving bank deposits, there might be differences in say the days or how the transactions were made or the the intent behind them, but here you had 34 counts and you could really divide them by three as you see that really helpful graph there. each of these were divisible by three because for each check you

had the voucher and then you had the invoice, and they were all related. so it really was in a way more closer to 11 or 10 counts they had to parse through, but i think that the prosecution did a good job of framing it that, look, if you find he was deceptive, if you find this general the intent, you can sort of apply it to all these counts because the 34 counts really aren't 34 counts, and it was really the same the intent. the dollar amount was almost exactly the same, however i did think there was a small possibility that among the differences, for example, donald trump didn't sign all the checks. i know that may not sound like a big deal to a lot of people, but they like images, they like graphics and they see a check someone else other than donald trump, they say, well, i think we got them on that because there's that signature in that giant sharpy, but we don't have him there. and they say the invoices were

generated by someone else, but the checks clearly donald trump signed them, that's on him. maybe they might have only convicted on the checks you see right there, only the checks and not the invoices or the vouchers. but all in all i don't think too many people were surprised it was all or nothing here. >> charles, just to dig a bit more into the sentencing, we seem to be in agreement, most legal analysts seem to be in agreement it's not a violent crime, so what would the time frame of those punishments be? how would they impact his ability to campaign potentially? >> because it's a felony he has a year and a day at a minimum that would need to or that's eligible for what he can be sentenced to. i think that home confinement is not necessarily out of the question. certainly a large fine is something he's going to be staring at. there could be anywhere between

probation and some period of probation after. and obviously that is going to have a tremendous impact on his ability to be out on the campaign trail. he would be able to ostensibly campaign from his home in terms of how many and that kind of thing. it's just a matter of him where he can be physically, and i think that's going to be question if there is a period of home confinement, the judge could potentially put it up to at least over a year. but i don't necessarily see that happening even if he doesn't post some degree of home confinement. and that's going to be the impact it'll have on his ability because he won't be able to get out, to travel, go to campaign rallies, to reach out and touch the people he likes to do in terms of how he likes to campaign and get up his acolytes. >> charles, very briefly, that home confinement does that necessity an ankle bracelet or not necessarily?

>> not in all cases. i don't know necessarily in this case it would, but it could and that's up to judge merchan's discretion. >> msnbc legal analyst john cevallos. there's a lot we don't know. the punishment and how they could be enacted and how severe it might be. but it's interesting hearing from people who know donald trump and have known him for years, all have said to me he must be absolutely furious at the moment, that this is the kind of thing where he feels out of control, and as one put it to me, it makes him boil. >> furious and terrified, despite the bluster and harsh rhetoric we've heard for months, people have been telling me along he doesn't want go to prison and be a martyr. we're now in uncharted territory in terms of the politics of all this, and we should note as the

verdict came down yesterday president biden was in delaware to mark the ninth anniversary of his son beau's death. in an official statement the white house council's office wrote simply this we respect the rule of law and have no additional comment. president biden writing in his twitter "x" account there's only one way to keep donald trump out of the office, donate to our campaign today. in new york today we saw no one is above the law. donald trump has always mistakenly believed he would never face consequences for breaking the law. it does not change americans face a simple reality. there's only way way to keep donald trump out of office, at the ballot box. convicted felon or not trump will be the republican nominee for president. a democratic strategist familiar with the biden campaign's thinking tell nbc news they're

looking at the bigger picture of the campaign and it won't be a central message. the same strategist added biden will focus on what matters to democracy, personal freedoms. as i reported president biden has made silent on this legal process throughout and we will likely hear from him in the days ahead in an informal setting more than likely. not some sort of oval office address but simply fielding a question from a reporter, he will be at the white house later today, and he's expected to talk about the need to respect the verdict and how the american legal system worked. in the days ahead we'll hear more from the campaign about how this verdict means trump is not fit for office, but they do not expect this to be a central campaign issue. this will simply be part of a larger case they built. still ahead we'll have of course much, much more on the historic guilty verdict for trump now the first former president ever to be convicted of a crime.

plus we'll bring you new reporting on a major policy shift from the biden administration on ukraine, now giving the country permission to use u.s. weapons to strike inside russia. that story and a check on the weekend weather forecast when we come right back. d weather forece come right back. ah, these bills are crazy. she has no idea she's sitting on a goldmine. well she doesn't know that if she owns a life insurance policy of $100,000 or more she can sell all or part of it to coventry for

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welcome back. we'll have more on the historic conviction of donald trump in a moment, but now a few news stories for overseas. president biden secretly gave ukraine permission to use u.s. weapons to strike inside russia, according to two american officials. the decision, which applies only to the area around the north eastern city of kharkiv, aims to ensure ukrainian forces can strike the russian military as it attacks or repairs to attack. politico was the first to report this decision. the officials noted that long-range strikes inside russia would not be allowed. a limited policy shift but a

significant one all the same. >> important one for ukrainians at this particular moment anyway. the white house is set to hold a meeting between u.s., egyptian, and israeli officials to discuss reopening the rafah crossing. the crossing has been closed since the u.s. seized control of the gaza side earlier this month. egypt has said it wouldn't cross it, the border is vital to getting humanitarian aid into gaza, but israel believes hamas has been using it to smuggle in weapons. now officials are set to meet in cairo next week to discuss a plan to secure the egypt and gaza border. according to axios the trip was agreed on during a phone call last friday between president biden and egypt's leader. biden reportedly threatened to publicly criticize egypt if it did not resume the delivery of aid trucks into gaza. that could happen soon. the humanitarian section of

course in gaza deteriorating by the day without those aid trucks getting in. >> truly dire situation there as we wait to see what israel's next move in the region will be. next up on "way too early" we'll show you how donald trump's allies are reacting to his conviction, plus a look at the post-verdict talking points at the rnc sent to all 50 gop state chairs. all of that plus a check on the weekend forecast when we come right back. e weekend forecast when we come right back dealdash.com, online auctions since 2009. this playstation 5 sold for only 50 cents. this ipad pro sold for less than $34. and this nintendo switch, sold for less than $20. go to dealdash.com and see how much you can save.

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system. >> this is a justice system that hugs republicans while protecting democrats. this was certainly a hoax, a sham, this was devastating for the average american watching. >> it is shameful to see this and i hope americans are paying attention because america, they think you are stupid. >> what we saw today was an absolute travesty of justice. this was not law. this was not criminal justice. this was politics. this was a political smear job. this was an attack job. this is what you see in banana republics, and it is -- i am both furious and heartbroken at the same time. >> on the accusation that the justice department only hunts republicans, president biden's own son was on trial monday in a case brought by the justice department. meanwhile, nbc news also learned rnc political director james burglary had a call of all 50 gop state chairs after the verdict in order to issue post

messaging talking points for the jury. those talking points include, quote, this is unjust, the conviction will be good for republicans, we will win the appeal, and we just elected the next president of the united states. much, much more on the verdict just ahead, but now a look at the weather. and let's go to meteorologist michelle grossman for the weekend forecast. michelle, how's it looking? >> hi there, jonathan. we're looking at more storms today, that will be into the southern plains and also the midwest could see rainy weather as well. we're looking at storms early this morning, and that will be the theme as we go throughout this friday. storms and flooding throughout the gulf coast as well, especially in texas once again, also into louisiana. nice day on the east coast. we're looking at temperatures in the 70s, lots of sunshine. that will continue tomorrow, so a nice beach day on saturday. once again a flood risk as we go throughout saturday and portions of of the southern plains. look at the west and lots of

sunshine throughout portions of of the inner mountain west and southwest, going to be hot though as we head into the triple digits. then sunday looking at severe storms into central plains and storms in the east also as we head to sunday in parts of the interior north east. back to you. >> the one sports note this morning the nba finals matchup is set, mavericks versus celtics. michelle grossman, thank you. we'll talk to you again next week. still ahead here donald trump is trying to capitalize on his conviction. we'll show you his campaign's cash grab that started moments after the verdict came down. "way too early" will be right back. t came down. "way too early" will be right back ipad pro sold for less than $34. and this nintendo switch, sold for less than $20. go to dealdash.com and see how much you can save.

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welcome back to "way too early." it is 5:30 a.m. on the east coast, 2:30 out west. i'm jonathan lemire alongside katty kay. donald trump's guilty verdict is garning attention across the u.s. newspapers such as "the new york times," "the washington post," and wall street journal have full covers of the former president's conviction. now let's bring in other than for palm beach county. give us your thoughts. any surprise at the speed the verdict was reached and what's your thoughts for sentencing? >> i wasn't too surprised. the prosecution successfully establishes a firewall around

michael cohen, and that was important because it neutralizes donald trump's best defense which is to call michael cohen a liar and the case built around michael cohen, and the failure of todd blanche to wound cohen on the stand was devastating because i thought cohen made crucial errors merchandise first he stuck by trump's claim stormy daniels was lying, and that allowed daniels to provide dirty details about her sexual encounter with donald trump, and also it cost blanche and trump credibility because no one believed that the sexual encounter didn't happen. and secondly, he claimed that the $35,000 a month payment to michael cohen was not a reimbursement but for legal services, and that was i think trump's best defense that the legal services actually covered a reimbursement and trump didn't intend to deceive. but it made it easier for

prosecutors to prove he acted deceptively and turning it a $420,000 legal expense, this is going to be appealed for some time. i don't expect donald trump to be wearing an orange jumpsuit anytime soon. >> i remember when stormy daniels testified and went into all that detail, which i'm trying to block out of my mind, there was legal speculation that she may have opened the door to a chance for an appeal from donald trump, because there was too much salacious detail. she may have helped prosecution because she built credibility around the idea this had actually taken place, so that helped her credibility. do you see there donald trump still a good chance for appeal for him? >> katty i do think trump has legitimate grounds for appeal. one of them as you said judge merchan allowed a lot of salacious details into evidence. and part of that was a self-inflicted wound by trump's

legal team, but the fact is you're not supposed to allow evidence in that prejudices the jury against the defense. so that's going to be an appealable issue. another issue can a state prosecutor lean on federal campaign finance laws to elevate a state misdemeanor into a state felony? well, we'll see soon enough and, you know, donald trump is going to appeal this as high up as he can. and so this is going to last at least the appeal well past the election. and as far as the chance of success on appeal, i do think actually he has a decent chance, but no matter what at least for it time being donald trump will be a convicted felon. >> and that will take him presumably through the election because that will take some time. dave aronberg, thank you. john, you mentioned this is making headlines in the united states. i had a quick check of global headlines. it is the front page news on every single paper in the u.k. as well. >> we talked so long how hard it

is to almost keep track of everything that happened with donald trump because that's such a fire hose of scandal. this one breaking through with one word, and that word is guilty. as expected the trump campaign started fund-raising off that guilty verdict almost immediately it was handed down. less than 15 minutes after trump was convicted, the campaign sent out an e-mail labeling him a, quote, political prisoner and asking supporters to please, please, please join trump at this dark hour. trump also spent the night posting links to his fund-raising website on social media. joining us now national politics reporter for the hill, julia manchester. good to see you this morning. so let's talk fund-raising. first beat give us your sense on trump. the republican fund raising site even went down because there were so many trying to donate. the trump campaign thinks will be a real boom, tell us about that. talk to us what we saw on the other side, the biden campaign. >> jonathan, this was no

surprise i think the trump campaign would try to capitalize on this. they've been trying to capitalize on this ever since he was indicted in april last year. i talked to a number of republicans yesterday who said in particular this will be a big boon for small dollar donors. trump is very much -- and you saw it with that message of i'm a political prisoner. he's trying to push this message of they're not just going after me with this verdict, with these indictments, et cetera, they're going after my supporters, they're going after you. and that's how he's very much trying to galvanize his base. the question, though, i have is this is great for fund-raising obviously for donald trump, and we know that the democrats have had somewhat of a fund-raising advantage this year in this cycle, but the question i have is how far can he go with that message while at the same time trying to appeal to these persuadable swing voters who may not be looking at this trial the same way trump's face is.

and on the other side, the democratic side you saw the biden campaign and other democrats very much working to fund raise off of this saying that this is bigger than this verdict, that democrats and voters need to defeat trumpism at the ballot box. i thought it was also very interesting. i got a fund raising text from the biden campaign yesterday and they were actually invoking robert de niro after he appeared in front of the courthouse early this week and that got mixed reviews but kind of just shows how quickly the news cycle moves and how quickly we can forget about what was called a mistake earlier this week. >> you can always rely on u.s. elections to make it about the money as quickly as possible and get that fund-raising message out there. i know it's only in 12 hours, but step back a little bit. those swing voters you mentioned a moment ago the biden campaign is already saying it came down to them, and there are going to be enough independent voters going to look at the idea of

electing someone who's been convicted of a felony and decide it's just a stretch too far. what's your hunch on how much impact this has with that fairly small slice of american voters who haven't yet made up their minds? >> i think it has the possibility to have a bigger impact maybe than we originally thought. i mean we always talk about how trump was able to turn these, you know, legal -- what would be a legal catastrophe for the average person into a political victory in many ways, using it to galvanize this base. i think the reason this is so different this time is because this is going to come down to the election either way is going to be very, very close. and some recent polling including a merris poll that came out yesterday morning before the verdict showed in the case of a conviction biden, you know, slightly led trump, and in the case of a not guilty

verdict, trump led biden. so i think it could come down to that. that being said, though, a number of democrats i spoke to yesterday were very much saying we can talk about this but we also got to talk about the kitchen table issues that actually impact voters every day. >> yeah, i'm hearing that, foo. national politics reporter for the hill julia manchester, thank you. and still ahead we'll go live to cnbc for an early look how donald trump's guilty verdict is impacting wall street including the value of the ex-president's own social media company. "way too early" will be right back. al media company "way too early" will be right back

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session. how are the markets shaping up this morning, and does it look like donald trump's guilty verdict could have an impact? >> well, it's certainly having an impact when it comes to trump's media shares. we are seeing them moving lower by about 8% in premarket trade. and in extended trade on thursday they were down by as much as 15%. so investors invested in this stock are seriously concerned about the outcome of this trial. however, when you take a step back and look at what else is happening in the markets, clearly the minds of investors are elsewhere. they're thinking more about what corporates are telling us. they are digesting key economic data, and of course trying to understand what the fed is going to do in terms of rate cuts this year. so with that in mind futures at this stage suggest it could be a lower start to the trading session on wall street, and this is actually after we saw all the three major indices on thursday posting negative gains for the

day. when it comes to the sector break down let me mention 9 out of 11 sectors ended thursday's session in positive territory. but if you look at tech shares were down by 2.4%, so significant losses when it came to the tech sector, but all in all when you look at their month to date performance, and today is the last day of this month, we're actually on track to seeing tech performing quite well. they're on track to end the month down by -- up by almost 10%, so let's see what will happen in trading session today. >> all right, we appreciate it. cnbc's silvia amaro live from london, thank you. have a good weekend. next up here we'll continue to follow donald trump's historic guilty verdict including what his lawyer had to say about the outcome and the former president's involvement in the case. we'll be right back with that. k. has no idea she's sitting on a goldmine. well she doesn't

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how involved was donald trump in his own defense? >> what do you think? i mean very involved. he's a smart guy. he knows what he's doing. he jokingly said that to us a lot he wanted to be the litigator. he wanted to be the one that was actually arguing because he's a smart guy and he knows what he's doing. and we made every decision together, we did. and there were things he was frustrated with. >> were you satisfied with jury selection? and was the former president involved in that in any way? >> i mean very much involved. he was right there with the whole team talking about the potential jurors. look, was i satisfied? we heard the motion because we said we could not get a fair jury in manhattan, and i'm not being discouraging to the jurors. they were great. they were committed. they paid attention. but we're in a situation where we had a limited number of

people we could strike and most of folks, overwhelming number of folks had a strong opinion of president trump, and it wasn't possible. >> that was donald trump's lead defense attorney, todd blanche, on fox news last night speaking about the guilty verdict. joining us now msnbc justice and legal affairs analyst anthony coley. he previously served as the top spokesperson for attorney general merrick garland. let's get your reaction to the verdict in terms of its swiftness and that trump was found guilty on all 34 counts. >> yeah, how about that? it's remarkable day in the country, and it's an important day for the rule of law. what's front of mind for me, jonathan, is what i just heard donald trump's lawyer talking about the jury. what that perspective ignores is that -- what that perspective ignores is that the jury looked at the facts, and the facts

don't have any political party. and the facts here were clear and overwhelming in this case. i mean, you have audio, you have signed checks with his signature. you have donald trump in the room at critical moments including at the very start of this scheme at trump tower with david pecker, with michael cohen when this catch and kill scheme was first developed. i'm not surprised but i still am kind of disheartened when i hear the attorney and so many others just dismissing the facts in this case because the facts were clear and overwhelming. >> as we played earlier in and other republicans, as well, they're continuing to falsely claim that it is a politically-motivated case brought by the justice department. >> right. >> in coordination with joe

biden. as somebody who served in that justice department, what's the best way for, is it the biden team, is it the justice department, is it senior republicans ideally, to come out and say, "no, the system doesn't work like that. this is a fair system. joe biden had nothing to do with this trial?" >> well, it's all of the above. it's me and it's you as conservative moderate republicans who are pro-constitution and pro-democracy. all of us have a responsibility to educate the public. the fact of the matter is, if donald trump has anyone to blame for his legal woes, he needs to look at the man in the mirror. the second thing i would observe, the federal system doesn't impede on local jurisdictions here. even if you take a step back and look at whether the federal justice department is politicized, there is clear evidence that it is not politicized. as jonathan lemire noted earlier

in the show, on monday of this week, of next week, joe biden's justice department is prosecuting the president's own son. that, to me, doesn't feel like a federal justice department that has been politicized. >> yeah, let's see if that message gets out amongst people who are hearing quite a lot of misinformation around who is responsible for all of this. >> right. >> msnbc justice and legal affairs analyst anthony coley, thank you. john, there are people out there who are going to be making their decisions in the next few days and in the next few months about donald trump. if they could make those decisions with as many objective facts as possible and not have the kind of misinformation they are hearing at the moment, particularly from the trump campaign, that would be helpful to them. the question is, how can the biden team reach those people and reassure them this was a fair process, this was a fair trial, this was the verdict? >> yeah, that has been the

challenge throughout. now, only accelerated. up next here on "way too early," we'll play more reaction from one of donald trump's allies. republican senator marco rubio, why he just compared the verdict to communist show trials. then coming up on "morning joe," our legal experts are standing by with the key takeaways and what this could mean for trump's other cases. plus, democratic congressman dan goldman of new york and jamie raskin of maryland will join the conversation. "morning joe" just a few moments away. get all-day and all-night heartburn acid prevention with just one pill a day. choose acid prevention. choose nexium. it ain't my dad's razor, dad. ay watch it! it's from gillettelabs. this green bar releases trapped hairs from my face... gamechanga! ...while the flexdisc contours to it. so the five blades can get virtually every hair in one stroke. for the ultimate gillette shaving experience.

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welcome back. among the republicans defending donald trump last night, senator marco rubio of florida. here's what he had to say last night on fox news. >> this is a quintessential show trial. this is what you see in communist countries. this is what i grew up having people in the community tell me happened after the castro revolution. obviously, that led to executions. this is an effort to interfere in an election. >> communist countries. senator rubio defended trump over a year ago when the former

president was found liable of defaming e. jean carroll. rubio told reporters then that jury was a joke. joining us now, former white house director of communications to president obama and msnbc political analyst, our friend jennifer palmieri. jen, good to see you this morning. the answer is we don't know the political implications of this verdict. both campaigns do agree, they don't think it'll matter all that much, though they don't know either. but there is a thought that there is a slim sector of the electorate, the undecideds, independents, people who don't like either man, maybe they'll be swayed. if enough swayed along the margins in battleground states, that could tip ones one way or the other. what's your take? >> right, i agree with that. we've seen polling from the republican primary that suggests people, republicans, would not vote for him if he is convicted. there was an npr poll that showed 10% or 11% of republicans said they would not support him if he was convicted. there is -- it's not true that

people only, you know, that republicans only watch fox and are not open to fact. i think the biden campaign needs to craft a strategy to reach those people, fair-minded people, and do so in the window between now and the sentencing july 11th and then the rnc on the 15th. make people realize this was a fair trial. >> how should the biden campaign tackle this? they want to keep this in the minds of those independent voters. they don't want to appear to be overly exploiting it. if you were advising them, how should they be handling it now and, you know, later on in the summer, as well? >> you know, they had holding statements last night from spokespeople. don't suggest we'll expect more, but at some point, the president will be hearing about this. he's getting ready to go on a

european trip for our d-day. prior to the trip, it seemed to be a good time to speak about democracy and perhaps speak about the verdict in that lens. then i think you kind of have to see how it goes. like i said, if i were them, i'd be looking, like, okay, we have six weeks to make sure this is in the right place. who are the former doj republican choices we can get out? who are the fair-minded republicans that are willing to stand up and say something and craft a strategy that gets you to the point where people are looking at this? you want to make sure this was a fair process. you have 2%, 3%, whatever it is, margins matter, that going to see this as a disqualifying event. >> president biden will return to the white house today. it is possible he'll field a question from a reporter then about a verdict. aides said that will likely be

the format in which he'd discuss it. it could slide, as jen said, to next week before he heads to europe and that trip. it is a remarkable morning here, and we should reiterate, the sentencing scheduled for july 11th. that is just a few days before donald trump becomes officially the republican nominee for president at the republican national convention. what a surreal moment that will be. msnbc political analyst jennifer palmieri, thank you for joining us this morning. thanks to all of you for getting up "way too early" with us on this important friday morning. thank you, katty kay. "morning joe" starts right now. >> while this defendant may be unlike any other in american history, we arrived at this trial and ultimately today at this verdict in the same manner as every other case that comes to the courtroom doors. by following the facts and the law and doing so without fear or