that is tonight's last word. the 11th hour with stephanie ruhle starts now. tonight, hunter biden guilty in his federal gun case. what's next for the president's only living son as he awaits sentence thing and what it could mean for the race. then my exclusive interview with john bolton. why he thinks we are not taking the former president's threats seriously enough. plus, pride month under attack. why progress is being lost as the 11th hour gets underway on this tuesday night. good evening once again, i am stephanie ruhle and we are now 147 days away from the election and today the president son, hunter biden, was convicted on all counts in his federal gun trial. the jury deliberated the three counts for just three hours. president biden says he accepts the outcome of the case and will always be there for his son. here is my colleague ryan nobles with more. >> reporter: tonight president biden arriving in delaware, hugging his son on the tarmac after hunter biden became the first child of a sitting president found guilty in a criminal trial. >> no one in this country is above the law. >> reporter: it took three hours of deliberations for 12 jurors to unanimously determine hunter biden guilty of three felony counts. for lying about his drug use on a federal background check to buy a gun. special counsel david weiss, who oversaw the prosecution, saying this is not a case about hunter's struggles with crack, but his decision to break the law. >>'s choice to lie on a government form when he bought a gun and then to possess that gun. it was these choices and the combination of guns and drugs that made his conduct dangerous. >> reporter: inside the courtroom, the president's 54- year-old son did not react as the verdict was read. he left the courthouse holding the hand of the first lady, later releasing a statement saying i am more grateful today for the love and support i experienced this last week from melissa, my family, my friends, and my community then i am disappointed about the outcome. the verdict comes after four days of testimony from people who are or were once close to hunter biden. many testifying about his drug use around the time he filled out the background check saying he was not a drug user. his ex-girlfriend testified she witnessed hunter smoking crack every 20 minutes or so. the prosecution also using clips from hunter's own book. >> i have no plans beyond the moment. >> reporter: the defense argued hunter biden did not knowingly lie on the form. tonight we spoke to juror number 10, who asked that we conceal his identity. separating the politics from the case a >> absolutely. for us it was not politically motivated. politics never played into anything that we said in the jury room. >> reporter: president biden, who said he would not pardon his son, writing, jill and i love our son and we are so proud of the man he is today. jill and i will always be there for hunter and the rest of our family with our love and support. nothing will ever change that. >> with that let's get smarter with the help of our leadoff panel this evening. mike memoli is here. he has covered president biden and his family for more than a decade. susan glasser joins us, staff writer for the new yorker and harry litman, former assistant attorney general. mike, you know this president and his family better than any other reporter out there. how are they all reacting to this? >> biden has a lot of family expressions and one i have heard him invoke so often is that family is everything. it is the beginning, it is the middle, and it is the end. in the more than decade of covered president biden i have seen them come together to celebrate their greatest triumphs. the election, the inauguration most recently. i have also seen them have to endure some of the most difficult and tragic moments as a family. this is one that yet again has brought the family together. to really take stock of a very difficult moment. really the past week and a half has been so difficult to have to relive through this trial the most difficult moments of their family, starting with the death of beau biden and what it did to hunter biden, leading to the addiction to drugs. as i have been talking to people close to the family tonight i have been struck by a tone of defiance about what comes next. there has been concern about what this might mean politically, but also personally for president biden. he is 21 weeks away from his last election. 16 days away from a consequential debate against donald trump, but the tone i am hearing from people close to the president is that they are so proud of their public service as a family and nothing is going to stop them from achieving the goal that is set out in front of them. they know they have a difficult task ahead. the politics, the legal situation does not get easier from here but they are determined to face this together as a family. >> harry, you wrote in the l.a. times that the jury decision was right, but the prosecution was wrong. i don't think i know what that means. >> let me try. department of justice guidelines, stephanie, have ways of handling cases and cases like this in which someone lies on a form but does not do any other crime with a gun or part of a gang or whatever are universally dismissed or not treated with the severity that david weiss treated this one. that is how david weiss first proposed to treat this one about a year ago when the gun charges were going to be the subject of a diversion agreement if hunter biden kept clean for two years. it would go away. so the screaming question, not the jury verdict but the question to charge presents and i don't know what the answer is. what happened to change his view of what was the proper punishment and treatment of hunter biden to take it outside how gop practice would normally treat it. because he is a special counsel no one in the doj supervisory structure which normally would say we don't do that to these cases, here is how we handle these cases. no one was there to say that and i think it is certain for whatever reason that hunter was treated more severely than another defendant with the same facts. >> you have written that you don't think a game changer could change voters minds about this election so i assume you think this verdict won't have much of an impact. >> we are getting to the point that you are anticipating me too well. look, if donald trump's conviction and becoming the first convicted felon in american history who was a former president, if that was not a radical change in the election, i don't see the conviction of a private citizen, even one who was the son of a current president to be a game changer in this race. it was that close. there was a minor, incremental shift at best toward biden. it is not entirely clear how this conviction of biden's son will play politically. certainly republicans were immediately questioning this, saying this is really just a distraction and all sorts of instantaneous conspiracy theories. default setting from some of trumps public supporters and defenders. you know, hunter biden is not running for president and that's the bottom line. there is no evidence that years of investigations of him, of dragging his name around, has really affected biden's political standing and i don't anticipate this would, either. >> hunter biden is not running for president. we should remind our audience he has no role in our government, past, present, and no plans for the future. harry, what could he be looking at as far as sentence goes? >> the standard guidelines would dictate a sentence between 15 to 21 months, based on the conduct and lack of criminal history. those are just recommendations and my best guess, consistent with what i was saying about how people who don't do anything else other than lie on the form are treated is that he will receive a fair bit less than that from the judge. remember however that there are still the tax charges he has to face and david weiss made it clear that the investigation is ongoing and he may be targeting some of hunter biden's conduct in 2014 or so in china, in business dealings. for this charge i expect him to get a sentence that is a matter of months, not the 15 to 21 that the guidelines would otherwise dictate. >> even if it is just a few months, hunter biden, unlike most people in his situation has secret service protection. so how does that work? >> your guess is as good as mine, though we have been thinking about it and we know the secret service prepared a plan when it came up with donald trump. trump would have his own wing and people would be there. there would be a lot of cooperation with local authorities. here it is easier because it is federal authorities, bureau of prisons and secret service. that will be worked out one way or another. i think that is sort of the least of the practical issues that this conviction poses today. >> michael, you laid it out for us, how close the biden family has. how to finance the president is when it comes to protecting his family, how he talks about the family. around this time last year i interviewed the president. much to his teams chagrin, anger, fury, i asked about hunter and he said my son is an innocent man, my son is a good man. the president is now headed deeper into this campaign into the debate stage. how is he going to handle the questions he is asked, the narrative around hunter now that we have this guilty verdict and a president who does respect the rule of law and decisions made by a jury? >> just think about the gauntlet that is ahead. i mentioned 16 days from now is the first debate. preparation is critical. the president tomorrow is leaving for an important foreign trip. meeting with other key leaders as well as pope francis. you know how close this president is with that hope. it will be an interesting meeting, but then he comes back and has a little over a week to prepare for that debate. we have never in modern history scenery match between combatants like trump and biden and we know the strategy on the part of the former president is very likely to try to get under president biden skin and use this against him. the biden team looks at 2020 when, yes, hunter biden was a frequent political cudgel that trump tried to use against him and the president's advisers say it did not work then and it actually backfired on donald trump. they are presenting this as do this at your own peril to donald trump, but i think it is a concern to people close to president biden that as important as the debate is and as important as preparation is, will he be able to focus on the task at hand? the answer from those i've spoken to today is that is not going to be an issue. >> susan, i'm sure you remember this question. former president trump and his friends at fox news said it over and over and over. where is hunter? they said it for days, weeks, months. it seemed like years. yet after today's verdict the trump campaign was basically silent, saying it is just a distraction. what in the world is going on here, susan? >> well, first of all i guess now that donald trump himself where's the label of convicted felon and has been at the spearhead of the most kind of concerted assault that we have ever seen, i think, by one political party in this country against the very legitimacy of the legal system. it is not exactly a comparison that is favorable where you have democrats on down today saying listen, we respect the rule of law. biden isn't going to issue a pardon for his own son. as painful as this is we think that the jury system works and things like that. the contrast with trump is obviously one that is very unfavorable and i am struck by how quickly trumps allies immediately reverted to conspiracy theories and make- believe. i can't stress that enough. they are still in burnet down mode when it comes to our legal system and that includes, you know, trying to imply that this case is a distraction from the real secret being covered up, the real case that should be brought against hunter biden. whatever the conspiracy theory is, it is part of a purposeful plan to rip down the authority and the legitimacy of the legal system, because of donald trump. because of one man. >> republicans like to say the current president weaponize is the justice department, but i want to share with democrat jim mcgovern had to say about that very thing. watch this. >> apparently when a republican is convicted it is weaponization, but when a democrat is convicted, the president's son no less, that is justice. give me a break. hunter biden was found guilty by a jury of his peers, just like donald trump. the divide is stunning and it is a great reminder that one political party remains committed to the rule of law and the other doesn't. >> jim mcgovern bringing a rational thought to a political party. crazy to do these days. michael, there are a lot of apolitical people. it seems like what you laid out with the a clear contrast for voters. is it? >> it is interesting because what we didn't hear from the president, from those around him tonight, was criticism of a trump appointed judge that presided over this trial or the prosecution from the trump appointed special counsel. there was none of that in the statement before the trial began and today when the try was over, he reiterated his respect for the rule of law and freedom and democracy have been an important part of the president's campaign. that is an example he is showing not just through those words, but the words we saw in another interview last week. the president has the power after this difficult moment, this difficult verdict, to free his son of any potential jail time. he can issue a pardon as soon as the sentence comes down and he has said he will not do that. if ever there was an opportunity for a president to put their finger on the scale of the justice system and given how close he and his family are, it would seem to be in this moment and he said he is not going to do that. >> thank you all for starting us off on this very serious news evening. when we return this man once worked in the trump administration and a cabinet level position. now one of his biggest critics. john bolton talks the verdicts in both trump and hunter biden's trials. later the biden campaign has an aggressive strategy to brand trump as a felon. how the president's sons verdict could complicate that. the 11th hour, just getting underway on a tuesday night. da. 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( ♪♪ ) ( ♪♪ ) this one will never see the light of day. all right. i bought the team! kevin...? i put it on my chase freedom unlimited card. and i'm gonna' cashback on a few other things too! starting with the sound system... that's caaaaaaaaash. cashback like a pro with chase freedom unlimited. how do you cashback? revenge does take time, i will say that. sometimes revenge can be justified. sometimes it can. look, when this election is over, based on what they've done, i would have every right to go after them and it is easy, because it is joe biden. you see all of the criminality. i know a lot of republicans want retribution. we are going to see what happens. >> the former president has been vague on details, but there is no doubt that revenge has been top of mind for donald trump. nbc news noting, quote, trump has done at least five interviews since his guilty verdict. in all five he has talked about possible retribution. his former national security advisor john bolton has been warning about this for years. in february, 2023 he wrote trump really cares only about retribution for himself and it will consume much of his second term. john bolton joins us now. ambassador, thank you for being here. i wanted to talk to you because donald trump is clearly not shy about saying he would get revenge on his perceived enemies in a second term. are we taking his threats seriously enough? >> i don't think enough people are. when you hear trump saying things like people are saying that retribution can be justified, what he really means is i am saying that retribution can be justified. i think he has a long list of adversaries he wants to go after, but i think the justice department under the trump administration will be in continuing chaos as he tells his political appointee is to go after people whether there are grounds to do it or not and what those lawyers do will tell you a lot about their legal integrity. i think it will put the judiciary under real pressure. >> you might be on the perceived enemy list. are you concerned at all for your safety? >> i'm concerned about a lot of people that i think he made clear he wants to go after. he tried to suppress my book. he tried to get a criminal investigation started. both of those have been settled and taken out of the picture because they were utterly without merit, but i don't think those technicalities stand in trumps way. he said for example he wants to prosecute the former chairman of the joint chief of staff's for daring to have a conversation with his chinese counterpart in the run-up to january 6, to assure the chinese that they need not worry. trump says that his treason and he reminded people that the death penalty used to apply. i think he is very serious. he may joke about it a little bit, but this will be a retribution presidency and i think the justice department will be where the rubber meets the road. >> you called the new york verdict a fire bell in the night and you urged your party to nominate somebody else at the convention. do you think that is something that could realistically happ