Biden campaign HQ erupted in cheers after Trump guilty verdict: report

On Thursday, as news of the verdict in a Manhattan courtroom came in, announcing that former President Donald Trump had been found guilty on all counts, Biden campaign staffers in the Wilmington headquarters reportedly burst into cheers. 

ABC's White House correspondent Mary Bruce reported the cheers from the headquarters after the jury found Trump guilty on all 34 charges of falsifying business records.  

Bruce said on air following the verdict, "Our team has heard that there were cheers inside the Biden headquarters in Wilmington as the verdict was read." 

She added, that Biden had "been very careful in the last weeks not to comment on this trial," but noted that her sources claimed, "that will now change." 

Immediately following the verdict against his top political rival, President Joe Biden and his VP Kamala Harris issued a statement from their re-election campaign claiming "the threat Trump poses to our democracy has never been greater. 

Bruce claimed, "These guilty verdicts are a political gift to Democrats, a political gift to the president. He is now running against a convicted felon — but don't expect the president to completely upend his campaign messaging because of this, I'm told. This verdict is not now going to somehow become the centerpiece of his messaging to the American people." 

She continued saying that Biden didn’t want to seem "overly celebratory" in response to the verdict to avoid contributing “to that narrative that this was somehow a witch hunt concocted by President Biden." 

Bruce noted, "He has been adamant that he had nothing to do with this… What you can expect the president to do though, is to continue to argue that Donald Trump, he believes, is unfit to serve and he will make the argument that ultimately it is up to voters to decide Donald Trump's future because even if he does face any kind of prison … that is unlikely to happen before an election. So, the president is going to make the argument that this ultimately comes down to the ballot." 

Following the verdict, Trump said that the “rigged” verdict was "disgraceful" and said the "real verdict is going to be Nov. 5 by the people.”