Christmas came early for Jimmy Kimmel, who gleefully responded to Donald Trump’s guilty verdict last night on Jimmy Kimmel Live. The late-night host opened the show by announcing, “We have a verdict in the case of the people vs. OJ… I mean DJ… Donald John Trump is guilty of 34 felony charges. After seven long weeks, the courtroom is empty and Donald Trump’s diaper is full.”
He explained the New York jury’s relatively quick decision was unanimous, marking the first-ever criminal conviction of an American president. “You do have to hand it to him,” Kimmel said. “No president has ever been convicted more than Donald Trump. How long before he starts bragging about this?” Kimmel praised the jurors, noting, “We should automatically make those jurors the new Supreme Court.”
Sentencing for Trump will be held on July 11, which Kimmel noted “happens to be the same day Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton, and it’s the day El Chapo escaped from prison.”
“Will the judge send him to Rikers Island?” Kimmel wondered. “Will he get probation? Maybe they’ll put him under house arrest. Oh man, for Melania, that is a double whammy with cheese is what that is. Apparently he could even be sentenced to community service. The judge could make him pick up trash along the side of the road. No joke! I vote for that. That is a beautiful image. Imagine Trump with a Hefty bag picking up ketchup packets with one of those grabber pole things.”
The host also recounted Eric Trump’s reaction on social media following the verdict, which said, “May 30 2024 might be remembered as the day Donald J Trump won the 2024 presidential election.” “Or,” Kimmel replied, “it will be remembered as the day a jury in New York spanked your dad even harder than Stormy did with that Forbes magazine. I guess we’ll have to wait to find out.”
Yesterday, a jury in New York found Trump guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records stemming from a payment to keep adult film actress Stormy Daniels quiet about an alleged affair out of fear that it would hurt his chances of winning the 2016 election. The jury began deliberating on Tuesday before returning the verdict Thursday afternoon. They were unanimous in their decision, which took them about 7.5 hours to reach.
The conviction comes in the heat of Trump’s third presidential campaign, which he has largely organized around the idea that President Joe Biden is masterminding a vast conspiracy to bring a series of criminal cases against him in order to hamstring his chances of winning back the White House. There’s no basis for the outlandish claim, which has been widely adopted by the Republican Party. Trump is the party’s presumptive presidential nominee and will debate Biden on CNN later this month.
Judge Juan Merchan set Trump’s sentencing for July 11, just days before the Republican National Convention.
