Republicans Respond to Trump’s Conviction

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This week, a New York jury found Donald Trump guilty of engaging in a financial scheme to pay hush money to the adult-film actor Stormy Daniels. Trump, who remains the presumptive Republican nominee for president, is also now the only former president in American history to have received a felony conviction.

Trump has already decried the decision from the New York jury—and Republican leaders have largely rallied around him. “The base feels this emotional connection to him,” McKay Coppins said last night on Washington Week With The Atlantic. “As long as Donald Trump is the dominant figure in Republican politics, we’re kind of trapped in this cycle.”

The reaction from voters on the campaign trail and at the polls in November remains to be seen. Some suggest that the trial has never been top of mind for voters, while others believe that the conviction could play out in favor of Joe Biden’s campaign.

Joining the editor in chief of The Atlantic, Jeffery Goldberg, to discuss this and more: Peter Baker, the chief White House correspondent for The New York Times; Ashley Parker, a senior national political correspondent for The Washington Post; Asma Khalid, a White House correspondent for NPR; and McKay Coppins, a staff writer at The Atlantic.

Watch the full episode here.