we have to make a decision in this country. not that moderates suddenly come to some sense of reason. but finally, to discover the diversity that's at the heart of the country. i hope we can do it. i pray we can do it. we need to. >> thank you so much for your wisdom, your perspective during these challenging times for america. that's going to wrap up the hour for us. >> thank you for the privilege of your time. andrea mitchell, chris jansing and katy tur pick up our coverage next. ♪♪ good day, everyone. i'm andrea mitchell in new york. with my colleague chris jansing for a landmark moment in our nation's history. our teammate katy tur will join us in a moment from inside trump tower where donald trump has just talked about the prosecutor and judge who presided over his case and said he would have loved to testify. >> this is a scam. this is a rigged trial. it shouldn't haven't been in that venue. we shouldn't have had that judge. he should have allowed us to have an election expert. we will appeal this scam. we will be appealing it on many different things. he wouldn't allow us to have witnesses. he wouldn't allow us to talk. he wouldn't allow us to do anything. the judge was a tyrant. >> sentencing is set for july 11th, days before the republican national convention kicks off. trump is expected to be overwhelmingly declared the official party nominee. while other felons have run for president in the past, trump will be the first nominated by a major party with a felony conviction and a solid shot of winning the white house. nothing in the u.s. constitution bars a felon from becoming president. >> despite the state of our heavily divided nation, with defiant elected officials speaking out against the trial, a far right effort to publicly out the jurors and violent rhetoric aimed at the judge and others involved in the case, we have seen that our judicial system did work with a jury of donald trump's piers finding mr. trump guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. rendering a verdict like any other criminal case. that was stressed by the manhattan d.a. alvin bragg. >> 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 through the courtroom doors, by following the facts and the law and doing so without fear or favor. i did my job. we did our job. >> joining us to kick off four hours of special coverage, catherine christian, andrew weissmann, don lamoine. we start with katy tur at trump tower. this is where we first saw you in june of 2015 as donald trump was coming down the escalator to declare his presidency with some of the same inaccurate and very controversial rhetoric about migrants and others that we heard today. this is when you first started covering him full-time nine years ago. >> what a nine years it has been. in many ways so familiar and so completely the same. talking about immigration and migrants then. talking about immigration and migrants today. this is a surreal moment to be here in trump tower, because this is literally the scene of the crime. this is what he was convicted for in a manhattan courtroom, 34 felony counts of falsifying documents for a scheme hatched above my head. donald trump, david pecker, michael cohen, to go after donald trump's opponents in the presidential race and to bury stories that are negative about him, including stories from women, including one of stormy daniels. that's what he was convicted for. after that conviction, he came back here and held a news conference. there's a heaviness to this lobby that has not -- i have never felt here before. i have been coming here a long, long time. the doormen, all the same. they are not smiling as easily as they once were. he had a crowd of supporters here. they looked to be trump organization employees, because they came out from the elevators behind me. there was a forced enthusiasm you could argue from some of them. donald trump went through his campaign highlights. they have been the same now for nine years. there was something forced about the way he was giving it as well. this conviction has actually gotten to him. there is a significance to him for what this means. it's not a civil fine. granted the civil fines were extremely large. this is a criminal conviction by 12 of his peers in new york city for the way he did business. he was talking about falsifying records, it was almost as if he took person offense to it. on the subject of immigration, it's important to note today -- he talked about how immigrants are coming in and more terrorists than ever coming in. nothing based in evidence in terms of terrorists. nothing based in anything we can confirm. on the subject of immigration, there was a fix in congress. republicans led this fix in congress. a compromise in the senate that leaned republican, that republicans wanted, demanded for years. democrats made heavy concessions. some democrats said they couldn't vote for it. president biden was getting a lot of flak from the left for this immigration bill. it never got -- it never passed the senate. it went to the floor for a show vote so democrats could show how republicans weren't supporting it. it would never have gotten to the house floor because donald trump intervened and told republican lawmakers he didn't want there to be an immigration bill, because he wanted to be able to run on it. this is a crisis of his own making, or at least a crisis he has been unwilling to help. this is a bill that would have allowed president biden to shut down the border. it didn't go anywhere because donald trump didn't want it to go anywhere. i was in court yesterday as this verdict was read. i wanted to see his face as it was read. i wanted to see the reaction from the former president. i watched him. he was stone-faced. he barely made an expression. as the jurors walked by, he looked at every single one of them. none of them looked at him at all. there was something to the expression. it's the same we have seen from him, the unmoving kind of a scowl. there was something about it that didn't seem as natural as it had in the past, as confident as it had in the past. you gotta wonder -- i know donald trump is still running for president. he says he will continue to fight. i wonder how much of the fight is really still left in him. >> that's an important question. will it change to anger and manifest itself on the campaign trail? he has to go to an interview process. there's going to be presentencing reports. he will be sentenced. take me back to your observations today. to those of us who are watching it on tv, there's the sameness to it. exactly as you pointed out. some of the same issues. making same misstatements and lies he made in the past. hard to follow where he was going. i do think with donald trump -- you and i have talked about this before -- his mood, his reaction can inform how he deals with people, how he deals with issues, how he deals with what's facing him. who is the donald trump you saw today versus the guy you saw come down that escalator who most people thought didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of becoming president of the united states? >> i will make one small correction. i was not there for the announcement. i started covering him two days later. i was in london. i was a foreign correspondent. i started covering him. i was not there for the escalator announcement. i was there every day after that. i was here a lot. my first big interview was around the trump bar here. the donald trump back then was an outsider candidate who had a small chance. nobody believed in him. he was -- he was acting as if he had nothing to lose. when it started going, he built confidence. he was always confident but he got angrier and angrier. he started rallying his base around him with that anger, with that vitriol, using it to his advantage. he has been doing that for nine years since. today he has that same instinct in him. he didn't seem to be as committed to it as he had, at least personally committed to it as he had in the past. he lifted his arms up and dropped them. i have never seen him do that before. it was resigned. that being said, it's almost as if he doesn't need to be wielding the power as forcefully as he once was. it's nine years. he has aged. we have all aged. the apparatus around him, the system around him, the people around him are pushing forward with that regardless. there's a well-oiled machine of anger and vitriol that the trump campaign has been using for years now with fund-raising emails, with truth social posts. posts that aren't always coming from him. they are coming from his social media manager. they know what to say. people around him know what to say. his allies know what to say. there was a reason why the allies out there said the same thing when this verdict came down, it was corrupt, it's a banana republic. they know the talking points by heart. i want to leave you with one thing, because i think had is really interesting. donald trump came out today and talked to the press and these cameras alone. no family members by his side. eric and lara were standing to the side of the lobby. there was nobody next to him. there were no republican lawmakers here. there were no potential vice presidential candidates. we had seen so many of them travel to court with him, stand outside, give press conferences, wear the same suit and tie. yet, there was nobody here today. where were they? where was boebert, gaetz, the people we have seen around him day in and day out? why were they not here? why on the first full day where donald trump has been convicted of felonies, becoming the first president in history to be convicted of a crime, why was he standing here alone? it's an interesting question. i don't know the answer. it's a remarkable image. it's a symbolic image for him to stand here by himself today without supporters he normally has. >> lots of reaction, but no one showing up. you will make your way back to us, which we are happy to have you here. thank you very much. we will see you soon. >> it's only a few blocks away. donald trump certainly railed against the judge. let's show what he had to say. this seems like a violation of the gag order, which is still in place. >> if i wrote down -- this was a highly qualified lawyer. i'm not allowed to use his name because of the gag order. he is a sleaze. it took me a while to find out. he was effective. he did work. he wasn't a fixer. he was a lawyer. they like to use the word fixer. he was a lawyer. at the time, he was a fully accredited lawyer. >> andrew weissmann, let me come to you first on this. the gag order is still in place. we can get to how these violations and others could affect his own sentencing. >> right. >> the gag order affects the witnesses, the jurors, and he has been railing against them since this verdict that came down shortly after 5:00 last night and then again in this high profile nationally covered -- it wasn't a news conference because he didn't take questions, but his comments today. >> it will be interesting to see whether the prosecutors do anything about this at this time as opposed to bringing it up at sentencing. i suspect it will be the latter. the judge will be concerned about witnesses, in part because he is thinking about the next trial, for any trial, not having retaliation against witnesses, with jurors, we know judge is concerned. that's a live issue about protecting these jurors, not just future jurors. all of this as you correctly point out, that all of this is something both the violations that have happened and his continued conduct goes directly to sentencing factors. the judge is looking for whether there is an acceptance of responsibility, of remorse. this is a poster child for the antithesis of that. for the risk of recidivism. how much are you prone to just commit crimes again and again and again? just to be fair, appealing and taking appeals and making legal arguments about why you didn't think you had a fair trial, all of that is fair game. that's how our system works. the same way our system worked yesterday. that's just part of the process. >> also, the gag order did not stop him from testifying. in fact, the judge made sure he understood fully that he was giving up his right to testify, as he said he would. now that you brought up sentencing, as a co-conspirator, michael cohen, he got a three-year sentence. it was dialed back because he was a cooperator and he pleaded guilty. i was hearing you say that there's a principle that the boss should not get a lighter sentence than the underlings, the employees, and also that he is not showing remorse. i was surprised because what you and others were saying -- let me bring everyone else into this -- is that certainly the d.a. could recommend jail time. i thought that as a first-time offender and non-violent offender, it would be off the chart -- off the table. apparently, according to the various principles of sentencing, he is violating almost everything here. >> our justice system is built on the system you treat likes alike. obviously, the complication there is lawyers on both sides are going to argue about what is a like -- how much are you similar? to be clear, michael cohen pled guilty to other crimes as well. there was a wider range. on the other hand, he accepted responsibility and gets a lower sentence and credit for that. cooperated with the mueller investigation. i know that firsthand. all of that was a factor for getting a lower sentence. he was a lower-level participant. this was the crime that donald trump was convicted of, was as a leader of this crime. he was leading people to do it. he is fomenting a disrespect for law as we sit here. one thing that's notable, that i don't think people have focused on, is as katy tur pointed out, the scheme was hatched at trump tower that we just saw. where was it carried out? where was the final place in which it happened that the juror found unanimously? in the oval office of this country. in the oval office in 2017, that's where the crime occurred and was found unanimously beyond a reasonable doubt that the president of the united states committed 34 felonies in the oval office. >> you talk about the lack of remorse. we have heard nothing from him. i thought it was striking even yesterday when he came out after court, even if you lose, typically you will hear a defendant thanking his team. they worked so hard for me, the family, the people who supported him. i don't know there's been a defendant in the history of the united states that's had more fervent supporters than donald trump. none of that was mentioned. he continued to rail again today about every part of the process. this was not that he did something wrong. it's the system is wrong. this is a witch hunt. he is being not prosecuted but persecuted. how we got here is going to be something that's going to be taught in law schools, i'm guessing, for a while. todd blanche said on fox that every decision was made in cooperation with donald trump. i want to play that. >> how involved was donald trump in his own defense? >> what do you think? very involved. he is a smart guy. he knows what he is doing. he jokingly said to us a lot, he wanted to be the litigator, the one actually arguing, because he is a smart guy and he knows what he is doing. we made every decision together, we did. there were things he was frustrated with. >> we made every decision together. >> it sounds like a lawyer is saying, don't blame me for putting robert costello on the stand. >> i wonder, at some point do you look at, i've lost trial after trial after trial, e. jean carroll, trump org, which was about his company and not about him, now a felony case, i am a convicted felon. >> the system was the opposite of rigged. this man was -- lived most of his life and worked in manhattan. that jury, manhattan jury, is a true jury of his peers. his defense attorneys helped select that jury. this was a trial with a very fair judge. he didn't roll over for the prosecution. he did not roll over for the die fence. he has an appellate process and those rights. it's very sad that his followers, including people who are united states senators, are putting out this, this was rigged. you should have respect for a jury verdict, whether an acquittal or a conviction. that's the rule of law and respect for the rule of law. >> that brings me back to what andrew was saying that maybe it's likely if there's a violation of the gag order that it waits until the day of sentencing. if there's concern about the safety of jurors, if there's concern about the safety of anybody involved in this case, does the prosecution have to come forward? can a judge independently say, you are coming back in? we think you violated the gag order. what are the possibilities here? >> the judge has the ability on his own to enforce the gag order. it's his order. it's the court's order. he doesn't need the prosecutor do that. if you recall, at some point even towards the last few days of the trial, there were further violations of that gag order in mr. trump's comments after court. at the time, the prosecutors weren't doing anything about it because there was momentum towards the end of trial. it would have been disruptive. there wasn't much they could do that wouldn't disrupt the end of trial. now the trial is over. we are awaiting a sentencing date. i think you are going to see these things get conflated on sentencing. i think the remarks today, which violate the gag order -- i don't think there's any world in this the judge is not going to think that just not mentioning the name michael cohen gets you out of the gag order. everyone knows who he is talking about. he who shall not be named -- >> he called him the fixer. >> everyone knows who he was talking about. he calls him a sleaze. it's clearly a violation of the gag order. it will increase the chances not only that the prosecution asks for jail time but that he gets it. there's the separate issue of whether the judge is going to see these as separate violations of the gag order. there's a reasonable possibility that you see that get conflated in the proceeding on the same day. >> that brings us back to what andrew was saying. i want to bring in peter baker. the political context here with the speaker, mike johnson, wanting the supreme court to step in. reactions from republicans, not just mitch mcconnell but all of the vice presidential wanna-bes. bill cassidy, a more centrist republican, a doctor, both of which publicly -- all of these falling into line behind donald trump after this conviction tells you it's donald trump's party going into the debate and the republican national convention, but also larry hogan, republican former governor, candidate for senate in maryland in a very important race, saying the rule of law -- you have to respect the jury process, he was attacked by fellow republicans. >> yeah. there's no room in this party right now for anyone who does not think that, a, this verdict was the result of a rigged process, b, the 2020 election was stolen, and c, that donald trump is the victim of a vast conspiracy. those who do not follow that line will be punished. trump people made that clear. actually tossed out of the party. that doesn't mean all republicans believe all this. i think most republican office holders don't. but they learned the lesson not to say so. you have seen a lot of statements in the last 24 hours from key republicans, most notably as you pointed out, mike johnson, the speaker of the house, second in line to the presidency behind the vice president, that's significant. most republicans actually are keeping quiet. look and think about it. most of them don't feel comfortable with this situation. they don't recognize an alternative panel forward. speaking out agai