Donald Trump’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, ran straight to Fox News following his client’s conviction on 34 counts of business fraud, going through a laundry list of grievances while host Jesse Watters consoled him that “things will get better.”
On Jesse Watters Primetime, Blanche at one point reacted to a clip from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s post-verdict press conference by trying to depict prosecutors and reporters as “laughing at” Trump rather than at the length of prosecutor Joshua Steinglass’ summation earlier this week.
In the clip, a reporter asks Steinglass, “Many people have said the prosecution was masterful and flawless. I just wanted to know how you feel in this moment?”
After Steinglass declined to answer the question, Bragg responded on his behalf.
“Mr. Steinglass—I think some of you saw him speak for a little bit the other day,” he said jokingly, clearly referring to Steinglass’ more than four-hour closing argument on Tuesday. Several prosecutors behind Bragg were smiling, while Steingalss and some reporters in the room laughed—a moment which Blanche took offense at.
“They won today and they’re having their celebration right now and I suppose they’re entitled to that,” he said at first, before claiming that that brief moment “kind of confirms the point in many ways…that this is not fair.”
“This is not what this country should be doing to its political leaders past and present, and then when you see it happen and when you see it celebrated and you hear laughter from the reporters at somebody who has just been convicted of 34 felonies,” he went on, not quite finishing his thought.
After calling Trump “amazing,” Blanche said he was emotionally harmed by Bragg’s press conference.
“When you see that happen to him—I was standing right next to him today—it’s heartbreaking because they’re laughing—laughing!—at a man, at a father, at a husband, at a grandfather, and as somebody who is running for president and looks like will win, that’s something that people should be troubled with, no matter who you are going to vote for,” he claimed.
After being consoled by Watters—“it didn’t work out the way it should have, but that’s life, and things will get better”—Blanche went over to CNN’s The Source, where he was asked if he accepted that Trump had had his day in court in front of a jury of his peers.
“No, not at all!” Blanche exclaimed, claiming—again—that “it was very hard for us to get a fair trial.”
Relatedly, Blanche later said that he and Trump were prepared for a conviction, and that the two worked together to devise a defense strategy—one that revolved around one of the prosecution’s witnesses, former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen.
Cohen also sat for a television interview Thursday night. On MSNBC, he described Blanche—who had dubbed him in court a “GLOAT: Greatest Liar of All Time”—as a “SLOAT,” or, “the Stupidest Lawyer of All Time.”
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