USA, conviction sends Trump's campaign soaring: 70 million raised in 48 hours

Being found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records is worth $70 million. At least if your name is Donald Trump. In just 48 hours since the conviction relating to the Slashy Daniels scandal , the tycoon's campaign has raised a total of$70 million. And this is no surprise, considering that Judge Juan M. Merchan had just finished delivering his guilty verdict when the Winred site, used by the former president's staff to collect donations, went down due to excessive traffic.

In short, in the midst of an unprecedented judicial storm, Donald Trump continues to demonstrate a remarkable capacity for political and financial mobilisation. And he knows it well. So much so that he declared in a Fox interview that a potential prison sentence could represent a "breaking point" for his supporters. In other words, his incarceration could, he says, be difficult for the American public to accept.

But is this really the case? An Abc-Ipsos poll reveals that 50% of Americans consider the verdict 'fair'; 49%, answering a different question, think Trump should withdraw from the race for the White House. And there is also a 47% who consider the accusations against him to be politically motivated. In short, a divided, polarised and disoriented country, as the assault on Capitol Hill on 6 January 2021 had already shown the world.

However, Trump pulling out of the race is not even thinking about it. And after giving updates on his wife Melania in an interview, saying that 'she's fine but the process was very hard on her. She had to read all that junk,' he immediately went back to work. First, he joined TikTok. That is, the - Chinese - platform he had once tried to ban by talking about national security concerns. A change of course that takes on the contours of a real strategy: to connect with the young electorate, a demographic segment that could be crucial in the upcoming 2024 elections, at the cost of abjuring his promise to keep as his only social profile the one on his Truth .

As for the conviction, the former president announced that he will appeal. His legal team, led by Todd Blanche, is preparing to challenge the verdict after the 11 July sentencing date, pointing to alleged significant errors made by Judge Juan Merchan during the trial. It is a very delicate legal phase, this one, which could extend well beyond the election date of 5 November. The day that for Donald Trump has the flavour of a showdown with the Democratic President, Joe Biden.