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25:01The Trump campaign is going to appeal this clearly. So I would expect him to say something. And, you know, he has to address it. How could the president not address it? It's an elephant in the room in this race. Former President Trump, though, has done a very good job of counter-narrative. I mean, just listening to the last five minutes, his talking points are completely on brand. His campaign is organized. His surrogates are out there. They were very prepared for this, and they are all saying the same exact thing, which he's been saying for months. And so it's unclear to me if this is going to have much of an impact other than to energize the space.

25:46I think, you know, it's in many ways it's baked into the political psyche of where Americans are. I mean, people are he's been on this trial for a long time. He's got other cases and he is ahead of Joe Biden in in many polls. You know, we'll see if that changes in the coming days. But I would be surprised if it did. Yeah, I mean, President Biden has made some references to it. He made some jabs, for instance, at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. I think he said that President Trump was having stormy weather, things like that, but hasn't addressed it really in a full statement. You know, you just mentioned not changing things on the campaign trail.

26:26I do wonder if it impacts fundraising at all for former President Trump. Now, the first U.S. president to be found guilty of a crime, does that—the big money— And we've been reporting, you know, some of these big hedge fund managers, for instance, some of the big money backers like Steve Schwartzman, who have warmed to Trump again. Is there a risk here now of backing him after this guilty conviction? I don't think anybody on the right thinks this is a real or a fair situation. And this is including people who aren't strong Trump backers. You know, you just sort of look at the facts, the overarching facts, which is the federal government turned this down, the politics of New York City.

27:11And, you know, right or wrong, it's baked in that this is not a fair situation for the president. So I don't think it's going to impact much on the right. It is going to energize the right. I would expect President Trump to raise more money in the next 48 hours after this. I think it also probably energizes the left. And so the question is what happens to that small group of people in the middle and how do they react? And I would posit that, you know, the visuals of a sentencing, if he is cuffed or sent to jail, which seems unfathomable, like that will probably have an impact. But right now, this is just more noise that's frankly been noise every day in the press for the last many months.

28:02Sarah Fagan, thank you for jumping on the phone line, talk through some of the politics of all this. Let's continue the conversation. Let's bring in former prosecutor, current civil rights attorney David Henderson with us as this jury. Hands down, a historic conviction in the Hush Money case, 34 counts guilty for former President Donald Trump. What happens on July 11th in the sentencing? Walk us through that. Well, typically what's going to happen is before we get to the sentencing, the judge will have some version of what's called a pre-sentencing investigation. At least that's what we call it down here in Texas.

28:35And normally what he'll do is take a look at President Trump's criminal history. We all know it from the news, but they still go through the process of evaluating him to determine what the sentence should likely be. As I say that, though, it's going to be more of a formality because I don't think that there's any strong possibility that he ends up serving jail time. I think it will be some version of probation is what he'll be facing. Why? Why are you ruling out the jail time? I mean, first-time offenders for these types of offenses don't typically get jail time. In addition to that, you can't send former President Trump to jail.

29:10And by that I mean, even if the judge were to sentence him, there's not a warden in the country who's not going to say, you know, I can't keep this person safe inside my facility. My instinct is that Secret Service would probably also have to make arrangements for him to actually serve time, which would mean that him behind bars wouldn't be like anyone else serving time. I think a judge would probably take that into consideration if he even considers him. I want to go back to. Oh, sorry to cut you off. But we are getting some news here from the Biden campaign. I want to go back to our reporter, Megan Casella, and then we'll come back to you, David.

29:42Megan, what are they saying? Sarah, we're hearing from the Biden campaign that they're saying in New York today, no one is above the law. They're really celebrating this, that Trump has mistakenly believed he would never face consequences for being — for breaking the law for his own personal gain. They're saying this does not change the fact that the American people still face a simple reality in terms of who they're choosing in November. But they're also saying that the threat that Trump poses to our democracy has never been greater. So, again, they're bringing this back to the choice that voters have in November.

30:12They say that a second Trump term in wrapping up here means chaos, ripping away Americans' freedoms and fomenting political violence. And the American people, they say, will reject it in November. Sarah, that's from the Biden campaign. Okay. Thank you very much, Megan. Keep us posted as the reaction comes in. With us still is David Henderson, former prosecutor, civil rights attorney. 11 counts related to invoices, 12 counts related to ledger entries, 11 counts related to checks. Were you surprised after hearing from the witnesses over the past, what, six weeks or so, that this is how it came down?

30:46It was impossible to predict what the outcome of this case was going to be. What was more surprising for me is how the defense handled its case in terms of how they cross-examine the witnesses, in terms of their arguments. But given what they had to work with, they got outclassed by the prosecution. When you consider that, the judgment is not a shock. But I'll say again, it was very difficult to predict what the outcome was likely to be in this case. I just wonder, you know, what we make of this, you know, that this is where we are a few months out into the election. Does it does it put and I've asked this before, does it put any restrictions on him legally as far as running for president?

31:25So here's the thing. Lawyers aren't good at dealing with new situations. We typically look at past history to determine how to analyze even any given circumstance. And there is no metric for breaking this down. In fact, when I heard the verdict was coming down, the first thing I did was look up the law to confirm what states do not allow felons with convictions to vote. And so it's crazy if you think about the fact that he could be elected by Texans when he would not be allowed to cast a vote in this state for himself if he were a resident here. So in terms of what impact that has on the election overall, legally, I don't think there's anything to prevent him from running, nothing to prevent him from getting elected again.

32:06but it's wildly inconsistent with the rest of our laws. Megan Casella, more fundraising emails, this time from the Democrats. Absolutely. We should have expected it. Joe Biden is tweeting from the Joe Biden campaign account on X saying there's only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office, and that's at the ballot box. Donate to our campaign today. So I just, this really shows us, Sarah, we're already seeing both campaigns fundraise off of this. And this goes to that question of will this change anything? We know that both camps are so entrenched at this point, they're both likely to raise a huge amount of money.

32:41I know when Sarah was talking about how, you know, both camps are so entrenched here, will this really change the game? It's going to be interesting to see these fundraising numbers, but it's likely to animate the left as much as it animates the right. David Henderson still with us, former prosecutor, as we see a crowd looking like it's gathering outside the courthouse. Unclear, obviously, it's been a media circus out there, but whether they're coming out in support, we've seen both sort of campaign stage events and trying to use the sort of backdrop against this courthouse in the last few days ahead of this decision.

33:16Now that we have the guilty verdict, David Henderson still with us. What does the Trump camp have to prove or say in order to back up the claim that it's rigged because that's what they're going with, right? It's disgraceful. It's rigged. It's political. They're trying to get after an opponent. Is there evidence of that? No, none whatsoever. For the people who are going to be convinced by that argument, I would say they don't have to prove anything because they're willing to take it just based on him articulating it. But the one thing I can tell you from the beginning of this trial, as I've had people asking me, is this what it typically looks like down at the courthouse?

33:56And my response is absolutely positively not. I've seen people be incarcerated during trials for not calling the judge sir or ma 'am during proceedings, let alone going outside and violating gag orders on multiple occasions, issuing veiled threats against the judge and members of the staff. The judge bent over backwards in this case to give him a fair trial. The prosecution also did some things that I thought were unreasonable, to be frank, like give a four and a half hour closing. Part of the reason that they did that was to ensure that they put all the evidence that they had on the record. That's why this trial also took longer to present than it actually needed to.

34:34I think most judges probably would have limited you to a week for this trial. But they put in all that evidence. The judge maintained an even keel throughout the presentation of evidence so that he would not have a basis for saying that he did not get a fair trial. He didn't simply get a fair trial. He did a more fair trial than I've seen the vast majority of criminal defendants receive. You know, we should also remind people that he still faces criminal trials in Washington, as well as Georgia, over the attempt to overturn the 2020 election. One in Florida about his failure to return classified national security documents that he took from the White House.

35:07Not clear whether any of that, though, any developments will happen before the election. Let's bring in CNBC.com political finance reporter Brian Schwartz. Brian, as the fundraising emails are both out from both sides, what do you expect to happen next from your vantage point? Well, we've been making calls about this for the last 48 hours and the buildup to what we thought was going to be a guilty verdict. And, you know, I haven't found a single Republican mega donor or business leader aligned with the Republican Party who really cared about this verdict. And they're actually doubling and tripling down in their support for Donald Trump as we speak.

35:40There's a variety of events being scheduled in the coming weeks, in fact, that have been scheduled to be prior to the guilty verdict that we've seen tonight. And so, you know, I really don't expect this to impact Donald Trump's fundraising. I think, in fact, it's going to help him raise money because a lot of the business leaders that are in his camp are just moving and continuing to move in support of him. We've heard we heard today that hedge fund executive Bill Ackman is likely to support Donald Trump. And we heard about this in the buildup to this to this guilty verdict. So we're not really sure if there's going to be a negative for Donald Trump in fundraising.

36:14Not yet, but we are definitely certain that he is going to see a boom from a lot of major business leaders that are slowly moving into his camp or are there already. Right. So this this notion that it's rigged and that this is further evidence, he says that they are going after him politically. That's something that's resonating with donors, big donors to finance, financiers. I mentioned Stephen Schwartzman has come back to Trump. Nelson Peltz has come back to Trump after they denounced him after January 6th. But given the state of the country, given what they see from the Biden administration, given issues that we're dealing with here, like immigration and anti-Semitism, which all seem much bigger than all of this, they're going to continue to back him now that he's a felon.

36:55Yeah, that's right. I mean, when you look at it, I don't know if they're thinking about whether they believe Trump in how he says things are rigged regarding the election, these claims that he's made about that, or if this process has been rigged. I don't know if they go that far. But they're definitely looking at the state of the country. And in their view, things are just not going as well as they want it to be. Right. You mentioned what's happening in Israel. You mentioned what's happening at the border. And really, these are just pushing people into Trump's camp. And but you really just take a step back.

37:22And it is, to me, pretty fascinating. These are some of the same people who, you know, cried about when January 6th took place. These people who really were upset when the riot took place on Capitol Hill on January 6th, 2021, and really denounced Trump, if not denounced Trump, they denounced what took place on Capitol Hill. And you fast forward to today, many of those very same people are back with Trump anyway. And I think that's really, really notable. But what we're going to see going forward, past this guilty verdict, kind of a coalescing around Donald Trump among a variety of different business leaders.

37:53You mentioned Steve Schwarzman. He made that announcement about a week ago. And so, you know, this is pretty notable about the timing of these announcers, timing of things we're hearing. And based on the calls I've been making in the last 48 hours, things on the fundraising fund are necessarily not going to go against him at this time. Yeah, no, I mean, what I hear anecdotally from people on Wall Street in circles is that it's other reasons that they are supporting President Trump, whereas they wouldn't have before. But given what's happening in the state of our country, given what's happening abroad, moving over to his side and no mention necessarily of this, I wonder if it'll change or not now that we have the guilty verdict.

38:31Brian Schwartz, Brian, thank you very much. Thank you. We want to go back to Megan Casella as we monitor the crowds outside the courthouse after we did hear from former President Donald Trump after that guilty verdict. Megan, what are you tracking? Sarah, we've just gotten some new data from predicted. did. It's almost like a snap poll of how people are feeling right now. It's sort of the stock market for political events where people trade shares of what they think is most likely to happen. So Biden, the probability that he would win this election initially jumped right after this verdict. He's popped up to about 49 percent probability that he will win.

39:04Former President Trump fell initially right after the verdict to 47 percent, then jumped back up to 50 percent and then fell back to 49 percent. So that shows us really that, again, in a very unscientific snap poll sort of way, that we don't quite know yet what's going to happen. There was initially a bump for President Trump, and then it turned out that maybe people don't care. I think it could be interesting to watch whether that becomes sort of a metaphor or a signal for what we're likely to see throughout the rest of the year. Yeah, and sort of relatedly, we have the Trump Media and Technology Group shares, which have been trading, and after hours, they did initially fall as much as 15 percent right afterwards.

39:39Hard to tell whether that's any kind of barometer for the prospects for him from the election. But we do have that tradable security now that we saw that SPAC go through to determine how people are feeling about him. So just remind us, the next, we're watching the sentencing on July 11th. What happens next? Take us through that. Yep. On July 11th, we will hear from the judge as to what exactly the sentencing will be. That maximum sentence is up to four years in prison. It might not include any prison time at all. We just don't know yet. We won't know until July 11th. Four days later, I want to flag, four days later on July 15th is when the Republican National Convention begins.

40:20And that's when Trump is expected to formally get the nomination to be the Republican nominee for president. So you can only imagine the atmosphere that we're going to be seeing in July. We're going to get the sentencing and likely a formal conviction at that point on July 11th. we could be hearing about prison time. And then almost immediately, we'll be going into the National Convention, which really becomes a party for former President Trump and a party for all of the Republicans, likely a big fundraising opportunity as well. So it's just going to be, you know, a really big event in July after we get the sentencing to carry them through.

40:54Well, let's talk more about that, Megan. Thank you. As we monitor the crowds, they're growing outside the New York City courthouse. Criminal defense attorney, former federal and Manhattan prosecutor Duncan Levin joins us. Duncan, is there any way that there's any chance that the sentencing could be delayed? Well, there's obviously some appellate rights that he has, but it's unlikely that this is going to get pushed out. I mean, obviously, Trump's main legal defense has been to delay, delay, delay on all of his criminal matters. But up till now, this judge is not having it. He hasn't had it from the beginning, and he has set a very rigorous schedule.

41:29And I don't think there's anything that's going to come in the way of this sentencing. I'm sure you're going to see a flurry of appeals going up to the next level, to the appellate courts in New York in coming days. But I don't think it's likely to derail anything. The judge has the unilateral power to move forward with the sentencing, and he's made it clear that that's exactly what he's going to do. So is it your view, as some of the other lawyers we've talked to this hour, that any prison time would be unlikely? Well, it is a low-level e-felony, and it's his first criminal offense. And so in that regard, it's unlikely.

42:04But to the extent that the legislature has said that an e-felony of falsifying business records can be punishable by up to four years, you can expect that the prosecutors in this case are going to make exactly that argument, that if there's ever a case of somebody who should get prison time, it is this defendant, And this defendant who not only committed these offenses, but also thumbed his nose that the judicial system was found in criminal contempt for 10 different occasions of breaking a gag order, who's been engaged in witness intimidation and threats against the judge and his family, the prosecution and the staff of the courthouse.

42:40This is somebody they're going to argue who deserves jail time. I think it may wind up being a mix of both. But there's a menu of options available to Judge Mershon. He can impose up to four years in what's called an indeterminate sentence. So it could be one to three, two to four. You may see something lower than that, 30 days. You might see home confinement. Probation is on the table, as is something called a conditional discharge, which really is just a discharge with some conditions. And in a typical case, the conditions you might see would be, you know, refrain from drugs, travel restrictions, that kind of thing.

43:17And just to be clear, I mean, he will probably no doubt appeal this case, and then will he be free in the interim? It's up to the judge whether to impose jail and get him incarcerated before the appeal is perfected. And so it's really—this judge all of a sudden now has a lot of power to both set the timing for the sentencing as well as to impose sentence. And unless the appellate courts stop him from doing that, which is a possibility but not a probability, I think you're going to see a sentence can go ahead and probably to the extent there is incarceration, a pretty quick surrender date. Now, I think that it's unlikely that you're going to see a lengthy prison term from this case, but it is definitely something that is now in the unilateral power of Judge Mershon.

44:07Duncan, stay with us if you could. I just want to fill everybody in. For those just tuning in, former President Donald Trump found guilty on all 34 counts. He will be sentenced on July 11th. Here's what he had to say as he left the courthouse just in the last hour or so. This was a disgrace. This was a rigged trial by a conflicted judge who was corrupt. It's a rigged trial, a disgrace. They wouldn't give us a venue change. We were at 5 % or 6 % in this district, in this area. This was a rigged, disgraceful trial. The real verdict is going to be November 5th by the people. And they know what happened here, and everybody knows what happened here.

44:55You have a soar-respect DA and a whole thing. We didn't do a thing wrong. I'm a very innocent man and it's okay. I'm fighting for our country. I'm fighting for our constitution. Our whole country is being rigged right now. This was done by the Biden administration in order to wound or hurt an opponent, a political opponent. And I think it's just a disgrace. And we'll keep fighting. We'll fight till the end and we'll win because our country's gone to hell. We don't have the same country anymore. We have a divided mess. We're a nation in decline, serious decline. Millions and millions of people pouring into our country right now from prisons and from mental institutions, terrorists.

45:44And they're taking over our country. We have a country that's in big trouble. But this was a rigged decision right from day one with a conflicted judge who should have never been allowed to try this case. Never. And we will fight for our Constitution. This is long from over. Thank you very much. Again, former President Donald Trump reacting to that guilty verdict from the jury just in the last half hour or so. Megan Casella, reporter, has been tracking it with some new information, Megan, from the New York prosecutors. Absolutely. We just heard, Sarah, that the district attorney, Alvin Bragg, the one who initially brought these charges against former President Trump, will be holding a press conference today at 6.30 p.m., so just a little under an hour from now.

46:27They could be giving us some color on likely celebrating this victory for them, maybe a flavor of what will be coming next. So we're expecting that in about 45 minutes from now. One other piece of news I want to bring you right now is we have just heard from the White House on this. It's not much they're saying. The White House Counsel's office is saying they respect the rule of law and have no additional comment. But clearly they're following this. And we know, as we've already reported, that the Biden campaign has been all over it. OK, Megan Casella, thank you very much. Keep us posted as you learn more.

46:56With us still on the line is criminal defense attorney and former federal and Manhattan prosecutor Duncan Levin. As we really witness something pretty historic in U.S. politics, Duncan, with the conviction of a former U.S. president, and we wonder what comes next. If he gets elected, can he pardon himself on this? No, because this is a state offense. He has the ability as president to pardon federal offenses, but this is something that he can't. His only option at this point, to the extent that he has an option, is to appeal this up to the appellate division and then the Court of Appeals, which is the highest court in New York.

47:35The highest court in New York is called the Court of Appeals. The trial court is called the Supreme Court. And I'm sure we can expect that to happen. And then he may take up what's called a habeas corpus action, which would say that his constitutional rights were violated and bring that up to the United States Supreme Court. I'm sure we will see a flurry of litigation coming for several months from the Trump defense team on this. They have every right to do that. But they're, you know, and they have some appellate issues that they could bring forward. For example, the judge dressed down the defense several times during, in particular, the cross-examination and direct examination of Stormy Daniels for not objecting after they made a failed mistrial motion.

48:22And so he may have appellate rights to try to argue ineffective assistance of counsel. He may have some other things to say about the way in which the jury was able to find a verdict that was not unanimous on some of the means that were carried out. But really, it's going to be a long shot to win an appeal on this. And he can't pardon himself. NBC News is reporting that DonaldTrump.com, the website for the campaign, has crashed, presumably because they're in fundraising road and they're and they're getting support from this. The former president with a firm grip on the Republican Party on the fundraising ahead of this election.

49:01Duncan, I wonder, you know, he criticizes the prosecutors, the D.A., the judge for their political leanings. Is that a valid criticism? No, this is a jury that he picked himself. This is not a rigged trial. This is a trial that was overseen by a judge who really gave the defense a lot and gave the prosecution a lot. The jury was picked by both sides. They both had the same number of peremptory and for-cause challenges. They both had some jury instructions that they wanted that they didn't get. They both had objections sustained, and they both had objections overruled. There's really nothing to point to that was politically motivated at all.

49:46And if you recall the beginning parts of this case leading up to it, this is the case that the district attorney, who he likes to bash, turned down and said that he was not going to bring this case originally. There was a prosecutor who resigned in disagreement with the DA for his decision not to bring this case. And he finally did bring this case. The case is a, you know, it's a very straightforward case for as much as people were trying to make some confusion out of it. It's very straightforward, and both sides really had fundamental due process on it, which is the right that was guaranteed to him by the Constitution, and there's nothing showing that he was denied that.

50:28Duncan Levin, thank you for joining us on the CNBC Newsline. As we continue to get more headlines surrounding this verdict, let's go back to Megan Casella. Megan. Sarah, we're just starting to see some more reaction from members of Congress here, There are members from both parties really showing on social media their thoughts on this. Congressman Paul Gosar says, quote, justice is lost here. A Republican, Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis from New York, also a Republican, calling this a sadly unsurprising miscarriage of justice. She had a very complete statement, really blaming this on the decision to hold the trial in New York, saying that given that more than 80 percent of voters had rejected Donald Trump in the elections, that he was never going to hold a fair trial there or be able to have a fair trial there.

51:16Congresswoman Barbara Lee saying that she commends the public servants who were doing their civic duty here. Dina Titus from Nevada, outside of Las Vegas, saying that for the first time in our nation's history, a former president is found guilty of multiple felonies. She's saying that our justice system has proved that Donald Trump, twice impeached, now four times indicted, morally bankrupt individual is not above the law. So you can see members of both parties turning to their talking points here, much as we've seen the two candidates already do that. Republicans saying this was never going to be a fair trial.

51:49Democrats really highlighting the historic nature of this and trying to point to the fact that they think that this means Donald Trump is no longer fit to serve as president when we get to November's election. Fiery and digging in on both sides. Megan, thank you very much. Keep us posted. Let's bring in Paul Callen, former NYC prosecutor and criminal defense attorney. Paul, for your reaction and how surprised you were with where this went. Not so much with respect to the result. The evidence against him was very, very strong and was put in methodically and with great care by the assistant district attorneys who tried this case.

52:31But a lot of times in such a high profile case as this, you would see jurors taking a longer period of time to reach a verdict. But obviously they had decided right away based on the evidence that went in. And who knows, maybe even based on Trump's conduct in that courtroom, he treated the judge with absolute dripping contempt throughout. He was falling asleep half the time during the presentation of the case. There might have been resentments from the jury that were built up by that. And they did have strong evidence against him to support a guilty verdict. But it came in very, very fast for such a big and important case.

53:13Nine and a half hours of deliberation. This morning they heard more legal guidelines repeated to them by the judge, including how to assess credibility of some of the witnesses. And they read testimony over from Michael Cohen and also from the tabloid chief. Do Republicans have an argument—you just heard Megan talking about some of the reactions—to call this a miscarriage of justice in any way? Well, you know, an appellate court will have a look at this, but I can tell you that the evidence that was put in against him was carefully evaluated by the court. There were pretrial motions made and argued very vociferously and in great detail by defense counsel for Trump.

54:00So he had his day in court. And then appellate court will look at this, but I think he's going to have a hard time getting it overturned. It was this judge was very careful about being fair in terms of what he led into evidence. And he excluded evidence that the prosecutor wanted to get in. So, you know, I think an appellate court probably is going to uphold this conviction. I just want to tell people what we're looking at, which is the New York City highway. We're following the Trump motorcade as he... It looks like the O.J. Simpson car. If you remember those scenes. Yes, I do. Not a chase, but just a motorcade.

54:41Is Trump in a Bronco? He's not in a Bronco. No, he's not in a Bronco. He's in a motorcade, residential motorcade, leaving the courthouse, going back to regroup. Clearly, they have to have been expecting this. And now, I guess, Paul, one of the questions is what happens between now and July 11th, which is when the sentencing is scheduled for, which is also very close to the GOP convention, which is just hard to believe. What are you expecting? Well, if a case follows It's a normal course in New York. What happens now is the probation department has to prepare a report back to the judge with a sentence recommendation.

55:23And with a normal human being, they'd be out interviewing family members and friends to determine what kind of character the defendant has and trying to get a sense of whether it's an appropriate case for probation as opposed to jail time. But obviously, you know, this is a former president of the United States, and I don't know that probation will be getting too much useful information from friends and family here. It's going to be up to the judge. Now, he faces potentially four years in prison on a Class E felony, which is what this is. He could be fined$5 ,000. He could also be put on probation for probably as much as four years.

56:08He could be told to wear an ankle bracelet and confined to his home. There are all kinds of options here. And frankly, he's been so brutal in his attacks on the judge. The judge, by the way, held him in contempt 10 times during the course of the trial for violating the gag order. So if he was an ordinary human being, he'd definitely be looking at jail time. But as a former president, I don't know. The judge really has been very careful and has treated him very fairly throughout the trial. So I really don't know what the judge is going to do. And first-time offender, some of your colleagues have noted.

56:47Yeah, he's a first-time offender. And I will tell you that statistically, first-time offenders normally do not get jail time on this offense. So historically, that's been the case. But he's been held in contempt of court 10 times during the trial. Now, I've never seen a case. I've tried a lot of criminal cases, and I've never seen somebody held in contempt 10 times during the course of the trial. Of course, normally they'd be thrown in jail immediately in the middle of the trial. That didn't happen here. But, you know, will the judge be angry about that, about his performance during the trial?

57:21I don't know. He has every right to be. But I think in the end Trump will probably get probation and not jail. All right, Paul, thank you for joining us and weighing in on this breaking news. Paul Callen, former NYC prosecutor, as we watch the motorcade leaving the courthouse up to presumably Trump Tower. Megan Casella with some new statements coming in. Sarah, we're just now hearing from Michael Cohen, who has really been at the center of this case. He says, today is an important day for accountability and the rule of law. While it has been a difficult journey for me and my family, the truth always matters.

57:57I want to thank my attorneys for their invaluable guidance and support through this process. That's Michael Cohen, who was literally at the center of this case. He's the one who made those payments to Stormy Daniels, who President Trump was reimbursing at the heart of this case. He testified. The defense really tried to paint him as an imperfect witness, saying that there had been a fallout between him and Donald Trump, and that's why the jury should not believe him. Clearly, the jury thought otherwise, but that's him saying today's an important day for accountability. Sarah. I mean, so many fascinating aspects to talk about now, Megan, the politics of all of this, the legality, what happens next on the legal side of it, which we've talked about, into the sentencing.

58:39What will you be watching as reports come in, for instance, from NBC that the website is crashing on DonaldTrump.com? He's being painted as a martyr. And this is what he's been saying all along. It's rigged. It's against me. And you do wonder how much it could help him. Absolutely. I think the first thing I'm going to be looking at, the first concrete piece of data that we're going to get are those fundraising totals from both campaigns. We know the Trump website is down. Like you said, we know the Biden campaign is planning to ride this as long as they can. So we'll get those fundraising totals.

59:12I'm sure we'll be out with polls. We'll be seeing polls within a few days or a week to see what that initial bump is going to be. And then it's just going to be, how does each campaign start to frame this? You know, The campaign season is kicking off in earnest now. Trump no longer has to spend his weekdays sitting in court. So what comes next? How does he ride this? And do we see those polls? Not only what's the initial change, but do they stay? Do they last? Can both candidates ride it the way they want to? I mean, you can imagine both sides being so fired up. The Trump rallies on the back of this.

59:45Megan Casella, thank you very much. Stay close with us. It has been a monumental hour and a pretty historic moment here in U.S. political history as the former president is convicted guilty on all 34 counts on this hush money trial. This is the first time a former U.S. president has been a convicted felon. We've been talking about the legal ramifications, the political ramifications. That conversation is going to continue. Obviously, it's something that investors and all citizens are paying very close attention to right now. In the next hour, we're going to go to last call. Mad Money is going to be on at 7 p.m.

1:00:21tonight. We're going to pick up the coverage with Brian Sullivan, Brian, because there is so much to unpack here in this story that is developing. We're watching the motorcade. We're watching for reaction that's coming in pretty fast and furiously from both sides of the aisle and both campaigns. Yes, it is. Certainly, Sarah Eisen, rolling with the live breaking coverage as well. Sarah, thank you very much.