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‘Our country is going to hell’: Trump remains defiant in wake of arraignment

"I never thought anything like this could happen in America," he told supporters at his Mar-a-Lago estate on Tuesday night.

Image via Gotham / Getty Images

After being arraigned in New York and pleading “not guilty” to 34 felony charges in the Stormy Daniels hush money case, former U.S. President Donald Trump has returned to his Mar-A-Lago estate and addressed the charges he is facing. Unsurprisingly, the former President remained adamant that there was no wrongdoing on his part. 

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“I never thought anything like this could happen in America,” Trump opened, immediately recapping Democrat “attacks” against him, throwing the onus back on his political competitors. Trump’s address played out more like an election stump speech than a defense, which is unsurprising considering his consistent denial of guilt since the case came back to the fore.

“This fake case was only brought only to interfere with the 2024 election, and it should be dropped immediately,” Trump continued. The former president spent a good chunk of time berating and slinging insults at a number of interested parties in the case, including Attorney General of New York Letitia James, and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. “This is a persecution and not an investigation, she has put our family through hell,” he said of the former, and “The criminal is the district attorney,” of the latter, via PBS.

He went on to claim that “every” legal pundit is maintaining that “there is no case” to pursue. He continued attacking the Biden administration for the remainder of the speech: “If you took the five worst Presidents in the history of the United States, and added them up, they would not have done near the destruction to our country as Joe Biden, and the Biden administration have done.” 

Trump maintains that his case in New York in nothing more than a witch hunt, and that perhaps a change in scenery could be what’s needed to turn the tide in his favor.