Former President Trump on Sunday said he sees “no case” in which he’d drop out of the 2024 presidential race, even as he faces down a myriad of legal challenges, including a recent federal indictment over his alleged mishandling of classified documents.
“Is there any circumstances under which you could see yourself dropping out of the 2024 presidential election?” host and longtime Trump ally Roger Stone asked the former president on the debut episode of “The Roger Stone Show” on 77 WABC.
“No. None whatsoever,” Trump said, speaking to Stone just days after he was federally indicted in a 37-count indictment over his handling of classified materials after leaving the White House. He called the indictment “a disgrace” on Sunday.
“No, I see no case in which I would do that. I just wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t do it. I had opportunities in 2016 to do it. And I didn’t do it,” Trump said of dropping out of the 2024 race.
The charges against Trump do not disqualify from running for president. The indictment has changed few minds in the GOP, with lawmakers and even his 2024 primary opponents coming to his defense along with likely Republican voters indicating in a new CBS-YouGov poll that he should still be able to serve as president even if he is convicted.
Trump, who is running to retake the White House in 2024 after losing his 2020 reelection bid to President Biden, became the first former president to face criminal charges when was charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records after an investigation from the Manhattan district attorney earlier this year.
He’s also being looked at by the DOJ’s special counsel in a probe into the transfer of power after the 2020 election, and by a district attorney in Georgia who’s investigating possible election interference attempts in the state.
Trump said in April, after the Manhattan indictment, that he wouldn’t drop out of the race for any legal reason, and doubled down on that sentiment in the wake of the federal indictment in his conversation with Stone, who he notably pardoned at the end of his presidency.