Former President Donald Trump told a crowd of supporters that the most recent charges against him will aid him in Republican primary polls. The former president made the statement during his first campaign event since special counsel Jack Smith announced charges against him earlier this week.
Trump made the comments during a Republican Party event in Montgomery, Alabama. The former president said that the charges will not have “any impact, because every time they file an indictment we go way up in the polls.”
The former president consistently leads his Republican primary challengers across a number of polls. He currently holds an almost 36% lead over his next closest rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R).
Trump made light of the situation, saying that another indictment would “close out this election.”
“One more indictment and this election is closed out, nobody has even a chance,” he said to the cheering crowd.
The candidate called the latest charges a “badge of honor,” telling the crowd that he was “being indicted for you.”
The Justice Department may have "jumped the shark" with this indictment. Polls previously showed that roughly half of the public viewed earlier charges against Trump as politically motivated. Piling on new counts based on novel theories will not help. https://t.co/Xx8FXv9FNG
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) August 4, 2023
The president cited positive polling numbers against President Joe Biden during his remarks.
“They waited until I became the dominant force in the polls because we’re dominating everyone, including Biden, in the polls,” Trump said. “And then they filed them all, every one, one of them, at the same time.”
Furthermore, Trump described the charges against him as “election interference” and “an outrageous criminalization of political speech.”
Trump also said that the “ridiculous indictment against us” was not a “legal case,” but instead “an act of desperation by a failed and disgraced Joe Biden and his radical thugs.”
He further called the current president the “most incompetent and at the same time the most corrupt president in the history of the United States.”
The former president linked the timing of the charges against him as a “cover-up” for the “Biden crime family.”
He said that the president’s “henchmen indict me because they want to knock out the bad publicity.”
