Hillary Clinton appeared triumphant as she gave a not-so-subtle response to her former political rival Donald Trump’s guilty plea in a criminal trial.
“Is something going on today?” she said with a wry smile as she took the stage at the Vital Voices Global Leadership Awards in Washington DC, shortly after the jury reached its verdict in Trump’s hush money trial.
Her audience immediately responded with applause and laughter when they noticed her apparent reference to the Manhattan trial, with Clinton assuring them, “Well, I gotta tell you, there’s no place I’d rather be than here.”
Dubbed “Crooked Hillary” by Trump during his 2016 election campaign, the former Democratic candidate is likely feeling vindicated after Trump became the first ex-president to be convicted of a crime in American history.
After the jury delivered its verdict, a smug Clinton took to Instagram to poke fun at her former opponent, sharing a photo of merchandise with the tagline “turns out she was right about everything.”
Hillary Clinton appeared triumphant as she responded to her former political rival Donald Trump being found guilty in a criminal trial
The white mug features a cartoon Clinton sipping a cup of tea, while the former Secretary of State explains in the caption, “We recently had new merchandise created based on a phrase I hear a lot. Coincidentally, the design was completed today.”
Clinton advertised the ceramic cup, which retails for $22.00, as “a pretty good mug for drinking tea out of.”
She promoted it to followers and said proceeds from sales would go to “defending democracy” through her nonprofit Onward Together.
The former First Lady founded the political action group after she lost to Republican candidate Trump in the 2016 election.
At campaign rallies, Trump called Clinton “guilty as hell” and his supporters chanted “lock her up” after she was embroiled in a political scandal over her use of a private email server for secret emails.
After a years-long FBI investigation, it was determined that her server contained no information or emails clearly marked as classified, although many were later retroactively marked as such.
Trump, who is now running for president for a third time, has also been pushing his merchandise, with fundraising gaining momentum after his guilty verdict was handed down yesterday.
Republican Trump and Democrat Clinton were rivals in the 2016 presidential election
Clinton wore a wry smile as she commented on the verdict at the start of her speech at the Vital Voices Global Leadership Awards
After the verdict was handed down, aides reported an immediate flood of contributions so intense that WinRed, the platform the campaign uses for fundraising, crashed.
The campaign started with the sale of black “Make America Great Again” hats to reflect a “dark day in history.”
Speaking outside the courthouse after the verdict was handed down, Trump declared: “I’m a very innocent man and it’s okay, I’m fighting for our country. I fight for our constitution.
“Our entire country is being manipulated right now. This was done by the Biden administration to injure or hurt an opponent, a political opponent.
‘I just think it’s a shame. We will keep fighting, we will fight until the end and we will win.
“There’s only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office: through the ballot box. Donate to our campaign today,” Biden said on social media after the statement.
Republican presidential candidate and former US President Donald Trump reacts as the verdict is read in his criminal trial on charges that he falsified business records to hide money paid to silence porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016, in Manhattan state court in New York City, USA May August 30, 2024 in this courtroom sketch
As Democrats celebrate the guilty verdict, major Republican donors have rallied behind Trump, pledging millions of dollars to support the first convicted felon to run for U.S. president.
Many conservative donors already viewed the New York case, which accused Trump of falsifying corporate records to conceal a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, as political persecution.
Supporters echoed Trump’s claim that the trial was designed to weaken him ahead of the Nov. 5 election against President Biden — claims that prosecutors have dismissed as untrue.