‘This is a persecution’: Trump vows comeback after indictment
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (FLV) – Former President Donald Trump delivered an address to ardent supporters of his 2024 presidential campaign at Mar-a-Lago Tuesday evening, after having traveled back from New York where he faced an indictment on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
Trump berated District Attorney Alvin Bragg for pursuing the case surrounding hush money payments to a porn star and playboy model, arguing the unprecedent indictment of a former president is “persecution.”
Bragg is a Democrat.
“This is a persecution, not an investigation,” Trump said. “But our heads are held very, very high.”
“[Bragg] campaigned on the fact that he would get President Trump,” he said. “‘I’m gonna get him, I’m gonna get him.’ This is a guy campaigning […] Virtually everybody that has looked at this case, including RINOs and even hardcore Democrats, say[ing] [that] there is no crime, and that it should never have been brought, never have been done.”
The former president described the state of the country as one with a “dark cloud” hovering overhead.
“We are now a failing nation. We are a nation in decline. And now, these radical left lunatics want to interfere with our elections by using law enforcement,” the former president said.
“We can’t let that happen.”
Trump flew to New York on Monday to face the unsealing of the indictment Tuesday afternoon, when he was arraigned before traveling back to his Florida residence for the address.
He slammed New York’s overall crime rate: “[It] was up 30% last year, much more than that the year before, with felony assaults, robberies and burglaries all up by massive massive numbers.”
“Not the same place that I know, not the same place that you know, and this is where we are right now.”
On top of discussing the indictment, Trump continued his 2024 campaign messaging of painting President Joe Biden’s America as a country in decline, which he said is a stark contrast from his first term in the White House.
“Our open borders, our incompetent withdrawal from Afghanistan where we left behind American citizens: $85 billion, 13 magnificent young lives and far too many to mention that are so badly hurt with the loss of arms and legs and facial obliteration,” he said.
“The most embarrassing time in our country’s history, in my opinion, [and giving up] energy independence and even [being] energy dominant. We [were] going to be dominant within six months more than any other nation times two, we had this all just three years ago.”
He also continued his message of warning against total nuclear war amidst Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year.
“The open threats by various countries of the use of nuclear weapons, something never mentioned or discussed by outside nations during the Trump administration – in which could very well lead, under the Biden administration’s leadership, to an all out nuclear World War Three.”
“I have no doubt nevertheless, that we will make America great again,” he concluded.
Although Trump’s lawyers Tuesday, speaking with the press, said Trump was upset and angry at the indictment, his campaign has raked in millions of dollars in a short time and is promoting makeshift mugshot merchandise to capitalize on the Manhattan case.
2024 GOP primary polls have also given Trump a bolstered lead in a pack of both announced and unannounced candidates.
