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How Partisan Media Outlets Covered Trump’s Guilty Verdict

This article is part of Media Bubbles, a regular feature that looks at how different news and opinion outlets — large, small, and often partisan — are covering the 2024 presidential election.

May 31, 2024, 1:07 p.m. ET

Partisan news media’s reaction to the historic conviction of former President Donald J. Trump was swift.

Conservative websites and commentators blasted the verdict as a sham, intensifying and escalating the attacks on the prosecution and the judge that they lobbed throughout the seven-week criminal trial in Manhattan. Several websites misleadingly referred to the trial as “rigged” and “corrupt.”

Liberal outlets, though, couldn’t quite agree on what to make of the verdict, even if they broadly welcomed it. While some mocked Mr. Trump for the potential loss of his right to vote in November’s election, several outlets also called the verdict “unsatisfying” and potentially “irrelevant.”

Here is how a selection of outlets covered the same verdict:

The Daily Wire, a conservative site, was not shy about its disapproval of the verdict. “Trump Found Guilty. Pray for the Republic,” was the headline of one story by Ben Shapiro, the site’s founder and editor emeritus.

Mr. Shapiro, who went live on his podcast after the verdict, said it was “a terrible day for the country” and that “this was the weakest of the charges” against the former president. Mr. Shapiro went on to claim falsely that Mr. Trump was “convicted of crimes that don’t exist.” Mr. Trump was convicted of falsifying business records related to so-called hush-money payments to the porn actress Stormy Daniels.


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