It won’t shock you to learn that Donald Trump’s estranged niece, Mary Trump, sees the disgraced ex-president’s conviction on 34 counts of felony fraud as a good thing. As she explained to Rachel Maddow during MSNBC’s coverage of of the verdict, “I think it’s a great day for America. I think it shows us that in some instances when it really matters, the system is holding.”
Trump was found guilty Thursday afternoon on all counts in the New York criminal fraud trial over the hush money payment he gave to Stormy Daniels in 2016 and his efforts to hide it by breaking campaign finance law.
Asked by Maddow how she felt about the ruIing, Mary Trump said, “I was as you can imagine, relieved, happy, and it took a minute to sink in. But it also as as the counts went one through 34, guilty, guilty, guilty, etc, the weight of this moment really sunk in, it really hit me.”
“This has so much meaning, for all of us. I’m incredibly proud of my city. And my state. I’m really just relieved on behalf of the American people. This is such a long time coming. And I know that he’s he’s been found guilty… of the charges that were presented to the jury, but in some ways it feels like it’s standing in for all of the other crimes this man has gotten away with his entire life,” Mary Trump continued.
She added that “there was something just incredibly gratifying and moving about it,” and contrary to people who say that “it’s a dark day in America that somebody in Trump’s position has been found guilty of these crimes,” she countered, “I think it’s a great day for America. I think it shows us that in some instances when it really matters the system is holding, and that even somebody like him, who has with impunity, gotten away with some of the most egregious crimes over the course of decades, has finally at long last been held accountable.”
Maddow then asked how she thinks the verdict will affect Trump personally. Mary Trump argued that it would be “a very similar dynamic to what happened after the 2020 election. There was a moment in private when he understood that he had lost. He will understand that he has indeed been found guilty on 34 criminal accounts. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t smile, but it makes me smile to say that out loud.”
“But,” she added, “the humiliation of that is going to hit him so deeply as it did four years ago, that he has, I believe you said earlier will have to create his alternate reality. And unfortunately, we see that this is not something that just impacts him. This is something that is drawn in millions, tens of millions of people and it has left all of us at risk. So I think we need to expect the same thing here.”
“He will do everything in his power to spin this so that it is while he’ll try to make it an advantage to him. And we need to guard against that and he will also stop at nothing to change the subject. So I do not agree that we don’t have to worry about violence here. We need to worry about his willingness and eagerness actually to use his power and his platform to get other people to carry out his threats,” she said.
Watch the whole conversation with Mary Trump at the top of the page.