Donald Trump ridiculed as he goes after ‘criminals’ in Minnesota rally speech

US politics continues to get even wilder, as while Vice President Kamala Harris is enjoying all of the brat memes and Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance gets ruthlessly mocked with couch gags, convicted criminal Donald Trump has given a speech at a rally in which he criticises… criminals.

Wait, what?

Back on the campaign trail following an assassination attempt earlier this month, the Republican presidential nominee addressed a crowd at a rally in Minnesota on Saturday and said: “A criminal is a criminal, they generally stay a criminal and we do not have time to figure it out.”

Except, Trump became a convicted criminal himself back in May, when a jury found him guilty on all 34 counts relating to the falsification of business records to hide hush money payments.

He was due to be sentenced on 11 July, but after the Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling which said Trump was entitled to immunity from criminal prosecution when it came to “official” actions, this has now been pushed back to September.

Justice Juan Merchan will make a decision on Trump’s legal arguments on 6 September, and if sentencing is “still necessary”, then that will take place on 18 September.

But for now at least, Trump remains the first American president to have a criminal conviction.

And so, naturally, Twitter users have wondered whether Trump is really just engaging in some “self-reflection” here:

There’s also the fact that Trump wasn’t just convicted on a single count, but more than 30 times:

Meanwhile, others predicted it will form part of a future campaign ad from Harris’ team:

And indeed, they did:

This has happened before too, with Kamala HQ taking comments from the former president in North Carolina to push their message.

At that rally, Trump said: “And then their campaign says: ‘I’m the prosecutor, and he is the convicted criminal’.”

A picture of Harris then appears, with the vice president adding: “I’m Kamala Harris and I approve this message.”.

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