On Thursday at 5:06 p.m., shortly after NBC News broke in with a special report, Savannah Guthrie and Lester Holt told viewers that a verdict was imminent in the first criminal trial of an American president. After weeks of dramatic testimony that had little impact on television without cameras in the courtroom, the tension suddenly spilled over to the airwaves.
“Oh, here we go,” Ms. Guthrie said abruptly as the voice of Laura Jarrett, NBC’s senior legal correspondent, could be heard offscreen in the background. “Boys! We have to go,” said Mrs. Jarrett. “We have to go.”
“Go,” urged Ms. Guthrie. The camera jumped to Ms. Jarrett outside a Manhattan courthouse, who over the next 87 mesmerizing seconds read each count one by one, followed by the same two-syllable verdict:
“Guilty.”
On all major television networks, presenters reported on the result for former President Donald J. Trump at the rapid pace of an auctioneer. “Number 1, guilty; Count 2, guilty; Count 3, guilty,” intoned Ari Melber, MSNBC’s legal correspondent, as a sober-faced Rachel Maddow sat next to him, taking notes on a legal pad. An on-air graphic showed the final result: 34 guilty, 0 not guilty.
It was a riveting moment that Mr. Trump, himself a television maven, might have enjoyed if he had not been the subject. “It’s a remarkable moment in American history,” Anderson Cooper said as CNN broke the news.
However, the announcement of the verdict quickly sparked very different reactions on partisan cable news channels.
“Something is very wrong here; “We have fallen over a cliff in America,” said Jeanine Pirro, a Fox News host and longtime Trump supporter. She called the case “rife with errors” and criticized Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and the trial judge for what she said was a politically motivated prosecution. “God help America after what I’ve seen in the last few weeks,” she said.
Trey Gowdy, another Fox News host, had already made his viewers skeptical of a guilty verdict by calling the jury instructions “pro-prosecution.” The top headline on FoxNews.com mixed news of the guilty verdict with Mr. Trump’s accusation that the trial was “rigged” and “disgraceful.”
On MSNBC, the mood was different.
“This is a final and irrefutable verdict,” said Ms. Maddow, who warned that the country now faces a “test” of whether Mr. Trump can “undermine the rule of law so that people reject this as a legitimate function of the rule of law.” in our country.” She said the jury “deserves to be thanked for their efforts and to be protected from the attacks and accusations that the president and his allies have tried to impede this process.”
“The rule of law is deadly,” said presenter Nicolle Wallace, echoing an earlier comment from Ms Maddow. “It needs to be protected. It’s not an abstract thing.”
Other presenters took a moment to highlight the historical significance of the day. “Hearing the word ‘guilty’ not once but 34 times about a former president of the United States in any context is completely new territory,” said CBS correspondent Major Garrett. “It is a moment in which everything about politics and law and our focus on both is being shaken like never before.”
On CNN, Jake Tapper called the day “an incredible moment in American history” but acknowledged there was little immediate sense of how the ruling would play out in this year’s presidential campaign.
“For those wondering about the political implications of these 34 guilty verdicts, the short answer is: Nobody has a clue,” Mr. Tapper said. “Period.”
Fox News, which employs several of Mr. Trump’s key media partners, is often seen as a gauge of how the former president’s supporters will react to negative news. News anchor Shannon Bream led the station’s coverage of the verdict, followed later by chief political anchor Bret Baier. Several conservative pundits from “The Five” commented shortly after 5:30 p.m
Instead of railing against the jury’s verdict, host Greg Gutfeld said he believed it would reflect positively on Mr. Trump. “Americans love the story of a lonely man with his back against the wall fighting a corrupt system,” he said. “You just gave Popeye a gallon of spinach.”
Jesse Watters, his co-host, agreed. “I thought I would be angry, but I feel this cool resignation,” he said. “We will rise again, we will regain our strength, and we will defeat the evil forces that are destroying this republic.”
As the evening lineups began at 7 p.m., less than two hours after the verdict, the parallel realities of cable news were fully visible on the split screen.
Laura Ingraham opened her Fox News show by saying: “A disgraceful day for the United States, a day from which America may never recover.” And on MSNBC, Joy Reid called Mr. Trump “a hateful, angry man, who hates the same system he wants to lead.”
Tiffany Hsu contributed reporting.
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2024-05-31 00:59:49
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