Donald Trump will move forward with his candidacy even if he is convicted on all 37 counts for the classified Mar-a-Lago papers. In an interview on the plane, the former president again lashed out at Special Prosecutor Jack Smith and the Biden Administration, whom he called "thugs and degenerates who are after me."
Exclusive: Trump vows he’ll continue running for president even if he’s convicted as part of the 37-count federal felony indictment that was issued against him this week.
“I’ll never leave,” he told us. https://t.co/yChupLg92o
— POLITICO (@politico) June 10, 2023
When asked by Politico whether he would leave the campaign if convicted, Trump said, "I'll never leave." The former president claimed that, if he were a quitter, "I would have left prior to the original race in 2016. That was a rough one. In theory that was not doable."
Trump rules out self-pardon if he wins in 2024
Trump is convinced that he will not be convicted, so he does not anticipate having to make a plea bargain. However, the former president indicated that he might try to do so if a deal was reached "where they pay me some damages." Insisting on his innocence, he ruled out granting himself a pardon if he were to become president again in 2024: "I don't think I will ever have to. I didn't do anything wrong."
Even though every setback increases his popularity, as well as his lead against his rivals for the Republican nomination in the primaries, Trump stressed that being indicted is not ideal. "Nobody wants to be indicted. I don’t care that my poll numbers went up by a lot. I don’t want to be indicted. I’ve never been indicted. I went through my whole life, now I get indicted every two months. It’s been political."
