The chairman of the Republican National Committee says the party is considering how to hold its convention if its presumptive presidential nominee is in jail.
The party’s national convention is scheduled to take place from July 15 to July 18 in Milwaukee – four days after former President Donald Trump will be sentenced in New York. RNC Chair Michael Whatley acknowledged the unprecedented conundrum while appearing on Newsmax’s “Wake Up America.”
“We’re working on that right now,” Whatley said. “I’m actually going up to Milwaukee this week, and we’re going to have a series of conversations.”
“We expect that Donald Trump is going to be in Milwaukee and he’s going to be able to accept that nomination and if not, we will make whatever contingency planning we need to make for it,” he added. “But the fact is, he’s going to be our nominee, and he’s going to be the 47th president of the United States.”
Trump was found guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. While the charges are typically a misdemeanor, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg argued that Trump was attempting to cover up another crime – although he never named a specific violation – and pursued the case as a felony.
The results of the five-week trial underscored the political divide in America. Trump’s reelection campaign announced it had raised roughly $54 million in the 24 hours after the jury’s decision was released. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson told the media he believes the United States Supreme Court should “step in.”
“I think they'll set this straight but it's going to take a while,” he said during an interview, per POLITICO.
“How long can our Republic survive once partisans have taken over the judicial process?” wrote Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky in a May 30 X post. “This verdict will tragically undermine Americans’ confidence in impartial justice. A sad day for America…”
The Biden-Harris campaign celebrated the conviction but warned that “the threat Trump poses to our democracy has never been greater.”
“He is running an increasingly unhinged campaign of revenge and retribution,” the campaign said in a statement. “A second Trump term means chaos, ripping away Americans’ freedoms and fomenting political violence.”
“America is a nation built upon the rule of law. The jury has spoken and carefully rendered a decision,” wrote New York Congressman Hakeem Jefferies on X. “Responsible leadership requires the verdict to be respected.”
Trump’s legal team plans to file an appeal but cannot act until after the July 11 sentencing date.
During his June 4 interview, Whatley did not address questions about Trump’s potential sentence. He stressed that “everything is being thought about.”
“We'll be thinking about it, and we're working on that right now,” he explained. “But what we want to do is we want to have a show that is going to roll out Donald Trump and his vision for America, which is going to set up this election cycle.”
“We will have to wait and see what the courts present us with the opportunity to do, but look, Donald Trump will communicate directly with the American voters the way that he always does," Whatley said.
