President Donald J. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump greet White House staff members waving American flags as they depart the South Portico entrance of the White House Thursday, Oct. 22, 2020, before boarding Marine One on the South Lawn to begin their trip to Nashville, Tennessee. (Official White House photo by Tia Dufour)
By Katelynn Richardson
Daily Caller News Foundation
Former President Donald Trump said Wednesday he would not drop out of the 2024 race to avoid charges from the four indictments against him.
Trump is facing two indictments from Special Counsel Jack Smith, one from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and one from Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, which many Republicans view as partisan attacks on the former president. Radio show host Hugh Hewitt asked Trump if he’d be willing to suspend his reelection campaign if all three prosecutors offered to drop the charges.
“If Jack Smith and Fani Willis and Alvin Bragg all get together and they come see you at Bedminster or Mar-A-Lago and they say to you, ‘We will drop everything, it will all go away if you withdraw from the race and politics.’ Will you take that deal?” Hewitt asked.
“I have no interest. You know me well enough. No interest. Absolutely no interest. I think they’d make that deal right now,” Trump told Hewitt. “That’s what it’s all about — this is interfering with an election. And all those fools that write, that ‘oh, they really want Trump to win,’ they changed it, actually. So now, they say they did it in order to keep me strong. They thought this was going to take me down, this was not going to keep me strong.”
“This has never happened before where somebody got indicted and ended up the polls went up by 20% or 25% or something. No, no, if they came to me and they would do that, they would make that deal in two seconds,” Trump added.
Also from this AM interview w/ former President Trump (transcript still not finished but getting there: https://t.co/ew4qpqbHib): pic.twitter.com/Vn57s9m0Fd
— Hugh Hewitt (@hughhewitt) September 6, 2023
The RealClearPolitics (RCP) average for a 2024 national Republican primary, based on polls conducted between Aug. 24 and Aug. 31, indicates Trump is leading a crowded field by nearly 40 points. Polling suggests that since Trump was first indicted in late March, the gap between him and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has continued to increase.
Bragg indicted Trump on March 30 for allegedly falsifying business records when reimbursing a hush money payment to former attorney Michael Cohen who paid porn star actress Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about an alleged affair. Smith indicted the former president in early June for alleged mishandling of classified documents; he then indicted Trump in early August for alleged involvement in Jan. 6 and alleged interference in the 2020 election. Willis most recently indicted the former president for alleged interference in Georgia’s 2020 election on Aug. 14.
Smith, Bragg and Willis did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comment.
This story originally was published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
SUPPORT TRUTHFUL JOURNALISM. MAKE A DONATION TO THE NONPROFIT WND NEWS CENTER. THANK YOU!
The post Trump asked point-blank if he'd drop out of race to escape indictments appeared first on WND.
