Now, in 2015, he glided down an escalator in Trump Tower, announcing his run for the highest office in America. Today, 2024, Donald Trump stood in that very same building. My, a lot has changed. After a jury in his home city found him guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business records, the former President delivered a rambling, at times incoherent, 40-minute long speech, attacking his opponents, claiming the trial was rigged and pledging Heal appeal. On Thursday afternoon, on day 2 of their deliberations, the jury in New York found Mr. Trump had covered up a hush money payment to the former adult film star, Stormy Daniels. His sentencing is set for the 11th of July. He could face prison, but legal experts say a fine is more likely. Well, just four days later, on July the 15th, it's likely he'll be officially crowned as the Republican candidate for the election at their national convention. In so, But many ways, this story is unprecedented, and of course, it's unpredictable. All of this coming as the US heads towards an election just months away. We'll be discussing all the fallout with our panel of experts shortly. But first, let's start with this report from my colleague, Gary O'Donahue in New York.

The breaking news, Donald Trump guilty.

A watershed moment in this nation's history.

First former President of the United States, convicted on criminal charges.

America woke up to news this morning that few you would ever have imagined. A country that holds itself up as an example to the rest of the world, now with a former President who is a criminal. Inside this iconic building that launched the extraordinary political career nearly 10 years ago, Donald Trump vowed to fight on.

This is a scam.

This is a rig trial. It shouldn't have been in that venue. We shouldn't have had that judge.

Eight years ago, Donald Trump famously said he could shoot someone one, right here in the middle of Fifth Avenue, and not lose voters. Now, he really is a criminal multiple times over. Those voters may well get their chance to prove him right or wrong. Staten Island was the only one of New York's five boroughs to vote for the quintessential New Yorker, Donald Trump, in both 2016 and 2020. Commuters arriving from the island for work today were remaining loyal.

I love Trump.

Why?

I left her. Why? Because he's going to make America great again.

What do you think? The conviction?

He's still going to be President.

Still going to be President.

I got to get to work.

Joe Biden's out. I mean, you say convicted felon.

I don't know what this jury was thinking.

I think people are still going to vote for him anyway.

We will make America a whole people. We will make America stronger.

According to the Trump campaign, more than 34 million million dollars was raised from small donors in the hours following the guilty verdict, almost doubling their previous daily record.

But half this divided country believes Donald Trump got what was coming to him.

I don't know what to say. I did not think that this was actually going to happen.

I can't believe it. It's about time.

He was held accountable for something. I can't believe it.

It's amazing.

Donald Trump will undoubtedly appeal against verdict, but that won't happen for months. Before that, he'll be sentenced and will enter the final lap of this presidential election with a criminal conviction around his neck. This is unchartet territory in the 250 year history of this country.

Gary O'Donogh reporting there from New York. Well, we have the perfect panel of experts to react to the guilty verdicts and look at what they might mean for November's election. On the legal fallout, we have Shira Scheindlin, former Justice of the Southern district of New York. On what the former President might be thinking, well, we have his former communications director, Brian Lanza. When it comes to what voters are thinking, who better than Professor Alan Lichman, whose polling model has successfully predicted the winner of every US presidential race since 1984. What a panel. Right, Shira, I'm going to start with the legal stuff next. We heard from Mr. Trump today, as we've been saying, it was pretty rambling, couldn't make sense of all of it. But he claimed that the courts and the legal system was rigged. He says he wants to appeal the verdict. So what could What could happen next in terms of what measures he might be able to take, given that he's very unhappy?

Yes, he is very unhappy, and rightfully so, in the sense that he's now convicted felon on 34 counts, 34 crimes. The next thing that What happens is the sentencing on July 11th. You don't file the appeal till after the sentence. To decide the sentence, the judge gets a lot of input. The probation department sends a report. Each side's lawyers get to ask for the sentence they think is appropriate. People write letters in support and against, and the judge considers all of that information, and then we'll decide what sentence to give. And of course, everybody wonders, is the sentence going to include any jail time or not? I don't have a crystal ball, but my guess at the moment is that it will include a short period in jail. I'm guessing somewhere between three and six months. But he won't go in to the prison right after the sentence because 100%, I'm sure, the judge will give him what's called bail pending appeal. So he'll immediately file his appeal. The judge will say, You can remain out until after the appeal is done. And the appeal could take a year or two because there's two levels of courts, maybe three, to which he can appeal.

First, he appeals to the Appellate Court in New York, and then to the High Court in New York, the New York Court of Appeals. And then he might even try the Supreme Court if he loses in the two other courts.

So O'Sheera, what we're looking at then, because we can anticipate, given what we've heard from him today that he is likely to file an appeal, is that we head towards the presidential election. He's likely to be anointed the candidate at the RNC in July, and he has this appeal, or these appeals, at various levels of the US Court system hanging in the background. So he could be appealing even when he's potentially in the White House.

Oh, not could be. He will be. He will be filing an appeal immediately after the sentence. There's no question about that. And yes, it will take him past the election, well past. If he wins, he will be President while his appeal is before three courts.

Okay, thank you very much, Shira. Brian, I want to come to you next. Have you spoken to Mr. Trump or people close to him since the last 24 hours?

First of all, thank you for having me. I haven't spoken with the President directly, but I have spoken with the leadership of the campaign.

And what are they saying?

Listen, they expected this. I mean, this was a Manhattan jury. In the state of New York, this was a stretch law. They expected this from day one, and they anticipated it. That's why you saw them have such a strong PR effort with respect to the trial. So I mean, this is something they expected. They knew this is going to be the beginning of the process for them, not the end of it. President Trump's obviously going to have a quick appeal. It'll be vigorous. I mean, the lawyers are going to be what the lawyers do. You have some lawyers on the left, some lawyers on the right that's saying there There's a strong case for appeal on several lines, and we'll go forward. The question becomes, what's the impact on the election? And I think we're seeing it immediately right now. The impact is, is Donald Trump is breaking records fundraising in a short amount of time, and Joe Biden isn't. That says something about where the energy is in this election.

Yeah, that was pretty staggering when he talked about how many people have donated to his campaign since that verdict came in. Let's bring Alan in on that point. Alan, I interviewed you in 2016, about this time in the campaign season, and I asked you to predict who was going to win. You got it right. You said Mr. Trump would be in the White House, and he sure was. What do you think is going to happen now, given the verdicts of guilty? Kelly.

With all due respect to the last speaker who had a lot of intelligence things to say, any assessment, any punditry today or tomorrow about the effect of this verdict, you should take it and do to it with the great British philosopher David Hume said, You should do to works of superstition. Consign them to the flames. They have no value whatsoever. I do, as you know, however, have a prediction system, the 13 keys to the White House, which has been right since 1984. The way it works, if six of the 13 go against the White House party, they are a predicted loser. Otherwise, they are a predicted winner. Haven't made a final prediction yet, but on my keys, which are independent of all this, but look at the fundamentals of an election, a lot would have to go wrong for Biden to lose. He's down only two keys, and there are four shaky keys: social unrest, foreign policy, success and failure, and third party. Now, my keys are based on history, and it's possible an event like this, which, as you say, is without precedent in US history, potentially cataclysmic It could have an effect on the election outside the keys.

The speaker was right. It's not going to dent his core base. But even if it eroded 2 or 3%, that could be fatal. But what we got to look at are the swing voters, the moderate voters, the independent voters, because Trump can't win with his base alone. Those are the voters who might be vulnerable to reacting against a felon who was not convicted by Joe Biden or his political enemies, but by a jury of 12 persons in a trial that was not rigged. The judge bent over backwards for Trump. Trump and his lawyers had plenty of chances to vet the jury, and they had full to put on a case, and they didn't. They put on one substantive witness who backfired.

Okay, Alan, do stay with us. Thank you very much. It might be worth going to the bookmakers every time Alan says something like this because he's always right. Alan, Brian, you'll stay with us, Shira. Thank you very much for taking us through the legal timeline and the legal ramifications. We appreciate that. Now, we're going to take a short break, and then we will be hearing from a Trump voter about whether that conviction impacts the way they will cast a ballot in November. Around the world and across the UK, this is BBC News.

What difference will Mr. Trump's conviction make? Will it turn away his loyal supporters, or will it harden their resolve? And what difference will it make to swing voters? A Snap survey overnight from Reuters Ipsos found that most Trump supporters, that's 56% say, the conviction will have no impact on the way they plan to vote. 10% say they're now less likely to vote for the former President, but 35%, so more than a third, said that the conviction makes them more likely to vote for Donald Trump. A sign of the unwavering support for the presumptive Republican nominee. Well, now it's time to speak to one diehard Trump voter, Sandra Wong. Well, I first met Sandra Sandra, when I was covering the 2016 election, one of the many diehard Trump fans that I met on my travels when I was covering the campaign. Sandra lives in the key swing state of Florida. I met her twice when I met her midway into Mr. Trump's presidency. She told me she loved him even more than before. Well, how does Sandra feel now, especially after yesterday's verdict? Well, we had to get her on the context to find out. Hello, Sandra.

Hello.

How are Nice to see you.

Nice to hear from you.

Now, Sandra, are you still going to vote for Mr. Trump?

More than ever.

More than ever?

We are maga, more than ever.

Now, Sandra, There are many people who will be watching this around the world who will say, Why is Sandra still going to vote for Donald Trump? He is now a convicted criminal. He's got a slew of other cases he faces as well. He's controversial. Why would anyone still vote for him? That's what some people will ask. We're going to put that to you. What's your answer to that?

I'm a well-informed voter. When you say convicted, who convicted him? Not the people of the United States. A minority who was seeking a political revenge on a man that they know is sure to win in November.

Now, Sandra, is there anything Anything Donald Trump can do to put you off him?

So far, he has not. I have not heard anything from him that will It makes me change my mind.

What would you... In terms of if he ends up being put behind bars, how would you feel about that?

It doesn't change my mind. There's a lot of innocent people in jail, in prison, a lot of them. Those people that are outside, that are seeing what's going on on the media, is now more convinced than ever to vote for an innocent man, innocent. Carry on, Sandra. All the magnitude.

Sandra, what issues are going to matter to you in this election? It It sounds like no matter what Donald Trump says, whatever policies he has, he's always going to be your man.

Yes. I applaud everything that he is for, which is put in America first, border control, pro-life, freedom of religion. Those are my views. That's what I support. He has my vote.

Okay, Sandra, thank you very much for answering those questions that many people I have. You are even more of a diehard Trump fan than when I met you on those two previous occasions. I know exactly where you are speaking to me from. I've been to your house in Florida. Maybe I'll visit you once again. Thanks for the moment, Sandra Wong.

You're welcome. Thank you.

That was nice. It's always nice to catch up with people that you meet when you're out on your travels. Well, Brian, I could see you on my screen when I was speaking to Sandra. You were beaming.

You're a lovely woman.

She is lovely, but you were beaming for another reason, I know.

I was entertained by it. I think this is people ask, what is President Trump's power? It's his ability to connect with people. He clearly connected with Sandra in a way that she's probably never connected with a politician. That's the magnetism when that's a draw. She's not the first person I've seen have that reaction, and it reminds me of that. I'm sure we'll see more of it along the way.

I asked Sandra this question, but I feel like I I wanted to ask you the same. What could Donald Trump do to really put you off him?

Talk seriously about a third term.

Okay. I wasn't expecting that answer because people like you, and particularly people like Sandra and other people I've met in 2016 who I still remain in touch with, they call themselves the Deplorable, some of them. It's like it's a blind faith for Donald Trump, no matter what, even if he's convicted in all the Any other cases that he faces. I mean, he himself said he could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and do whatever, and he'd still have that support.

Listen, I think that's where our politics is today. It is red versus blue. It is Republican versus Democrat. I think you'd have the same phenomena take place in a Democratic Party. Actually, you saw this take place during Obama. There's never any disagreement with anything there, which is bizarre. Usually with senior-level people, you have disagreements, but you had a bunch of sycophants saying, yes, yes, yes, whatever you say. Listen, I think it happens in both parties. I think the politics is where it is. If the roles were reversed, and they're certainly reversed with respect to Hunter Biden, you see the same rationalization taking place.

Brian, as someone who used to be a comms director for Donald Trump, what would you have said to him today after he finished that ramble? I think it's fair to call it that.

Listen, I wouldn't call it a ramble. You have to remember, his audience His audience is not you. It's not even me most of the time. His audience is working class blue collar voters. What I would say in his position at this particular moment is the deck is stacked. I agree with you. I agree with the working class folks that the American system is stacked against them economically, that the American system is stacked against them politically. Look at me, the American system is now stacked against me judicially. And I think that connects them with the working class voter, with the blue collar voter, and I think that's a good thing.

Okay, thanks for the moment. Brian, Brian, will be back with you after a short break. That's Brian Lanza, who used to work for Donald Trump. I'm Rajini Vaivian-Ardhan. You're watching The Context here on BBC News.