Former president Donald Trump vowed to stay in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination and the 2024 general election despite his mounting legal troubles, even if it means he’ll be locked up in a jail cell by the time his name appears on a ballot.
Mr Trump made the defiant pronouncement during a Tuesday evening interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson, the twice-impeached ex-president’s first sit-down with a media outlet since he was arraigned on 34 felony charges of falsifying business records in his former home state of New York.
The former president, who has pleaded not guilty to the charges, also faces the possibility of felony indictments in three other matters. Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis is reportedly considering asking a grand jury to indict Mr Trump and a number of his associates over the ex-president’s attempt to overturn his 2020 election loss in the Peach State. Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith is supervising two grand jury probes into the ex-president’s conduct.
One of the federal probes is examining Mr Trump’s alleged unlawful retention of national defence information after the end of his presidency, as well as his alleged obstruction of that investigation. The other grand jury is looking into Mr Trump’s efforts to overturn the election and his alleged role in fomenting the January 6 attack on the Capitol.
When Mr Carlson asked the indicted former president if there is “anything they [prosecutors] could throw at you legally that would convince you to drop out of the race,” Mr Trump replied: “No, I’d never drop out”.
“It’s not my thing. I wouldn’t do it,” he said.
At his arraignment last week, the judge overseeing the criminal case against him warned the ex-president not to make statements that could incite violence, but declined to impose any sort of order as a condition of Mr Trump’s release.
If Mr Trump is subject to a future gag order and violates it, he could be jailed for contempt. But that couldn’t keep him off a ballot, and a conviction wouldn’t disqualify him, either.
Previous presidential candidates have appeared on a ballot while imprisoned, including the late right-wing conspiracy theorist Lyndon LaRouche, who served five years in federal prison for fraud, and Eugene Debs, the Socialist Party leader who appeared on a general election ballot in 1920 while imprisoned following a conviction for sedition.
