Donald Trump has claimed court officials “were crying” as he was indicted on business fraud charges last week.
The former US president said many of the staff at the Manhattan court last week “were in tears or close to it” in his first interview since the historic arraignment, in which he also said he’d not drop put of the 2024 presidential race if convicted.
The former president pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records over hush money payments when he appeared in court last Tuesday as the first former president to face criminal charges.
During an interview with Tucker Carlson on Fox News at Mr Trump’s Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, he described how he was processed at the court by officials, including police. He said “tears were pouring down their eyes”.
“They were incredible,” he said. “When I went to the courthouse, which is also a prison in a sense, they signed me in and I’ll tell you people were crying.
“People that work there. Professionally work there that have no problems putting in murderers and they see everybody.
“It’s a tough, tough place and they were crying. They were actually crying. They said, ‘I’m sorry.’”
In the interview, Mr Trump maintained he is innocent and argued there is no case against him.
He insisted he would “never drop out” of the presidential race even if he got convicted of a crime, saying “It’s not my thing. I wouldn’t do it”. He suggested Joe Biden would be the one to drop out of the race.
Much of the interview focused on foreign policy. Mr Trump said Russian President Vladimir Putin was “very smart”, praised Chinese President Xi Jinping as a “brilliant man” and called the leaders of Saudi Arabia “great people”.
The ex-president also said he and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un “get along great to this day”.
