Republican polling leader Donald Trump on Tuesday threatened unrest if the criminal charges against him cause him to lose the 2024 election.
Speaking to reporters after an appeals court hearing in which Trump’s lawyers said he should be immune from prosecution for trying to overturn the 2020 election, Trump claimed without evidence that he was being prosecuted because of polls showing him leading President Biden. He warned that if the charges succeed in damaging his candidacy, the result would be “bedlam.”
“I think they feel this is the way they’re going to try and win, and that’s not the way it goes,” Trump said. “It’ll be bedlam in the country. It’s a very bad thing. It’s a very bad precedent. As we said, it’s the opening of a Pandora’s box.”
The former president did not take questions and walked away as a Washington Post reporter asked him to rule out violence by his supporters.
Trump’s comments came three days after the third anniversary of his supporters’ attack on the U.S. Capitol, inspired by Trump’s false insistence that the 2020 election was stolen. Over the years, Trump has increasingly defended the riot and embraced people charged in the attack. On Saturday he called them “hostages” and demanded their release.