Trump says he will stay in race if indicted

Former President Trump said on Saturday that he would remain in the 2024 presidential race even if he is indicted in a number of state and federal investigations that he faces.

“Oh, absolutely, I won’t even think about leaving,” Trump told reporters ahead of his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in suburban Washington, D.C., when asked if he would drop out of the race if he is indicted. He added that “probably it’ll enhance my numbers, but it’s a very bad thing for America. It’s very bad for the country.”

The former president is involved in a number of investigations at the state and federal level, mostly stemming from his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his handling of classified information. 

He took particular aim during remarks at CPAC on Saturday at the Georgia investigation into his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, after the grand jury’s foreperson earlier this month made a number of TV appearances and gave cryptic interviews on the outcome of the panel’s findings.

“Jury foreman, a rather bizarre young woman is going around doing media interviews and saying exactly what’s going on, one of many grand juries,” Trump told the crowd, saying his opponents “do anything they can to hurt me politically, because they’re afraid of me and they’re afraid of you, that’s what it is.”

But the scrutiny from law enforcement has not slowed Trump’s latest campaign for the White House. Trump used his platform at CPAC to pitch himself to Republican voters as a savior for the Republican Party.

“In 2016, I declared I am your voice. Today I add: I am your warrior. I am your justice, and for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution,” Trump said in the speech.

As the GOP field for the campaign comes into sharper focus, with a number of other presidential hopefuls appearing at the conference last week, Trump framed his 2024 bid as the “final battle.”

“This is the final battle, they know it,” Trump said. “I know it, you know it, and everybody knows it, this is it. Either they win or we win. And if they win, we no longer have a country.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report, which was updated at 7:35 a.m.