Trump, appearing with Melania, slams NY fraud case, Peter Navarro sentence and more

(WASHINGTON) — While voting in Florida on Tuesday, in the presidential primary, former President Donald Trump was joined in a rare appearance by wife Melania Trump as he slammed the jail sentence of Peter Navarro, a former adviser, said he “couldn’t care less” about his former Vice President Mike Pence, and reiterated why he thinks Jewish Americans shouldn’t vote for Democrats.

“I voted for Donald Trump,” he said as he walked away laughing after speaking with reporters outside of the polling location not far from his Mar-a-Lago home.

Earlier, as he entered the polling site, Trump was asked if the Supreme Court should’ve intervened and kept Navarro, who is serving four months, out of prison.

Navarro was convicted in September of two counts of contempt of Congress for refusing to provide testimony and documents to the House committee that first investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Trump on Tuesday called his jail sentence “a disgrace” and his unsuccessful legal battle “a shame.”

“Peter was treated very unfairly, a great patriot,” Trump said when asked if he’d pardon Navarro if he is elected again to the White House.

Trump denied any knowledge of whether his convicted former campaign manager Paul Manafort will be joining his 2024 bid, simply saying that he’s another person who was “treated badly.”

“I don’t know anything about it. … But we’ll see what happens with that,” Trump said.

Asked by ABC News what his reaction is to Pence refusing to endorse him, Trump said, “I couldn’t care less.”

“We need strong people in this country. We don’t need weak people,” he said.

Melania Trump, appearing alongside her husband, teased whether or not she will make campaign appearances with the former president.

“Stay tuned,” she said.

Donald Trump on Tuesday also railed against his New York civil fraud case when asked if he’d be able to pay an approximately $460 million bond as he pursues an appeal of the ruling against him.

“This was a rigged trial,” he claimed, which prosecutors have denied.

“We’ll see how the courts rule on it,” he said.

Trump also doubled down on his comments about why Jewish Americans shouldn’t support Democrats, including by attacking Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, whom he said had been a “disgrace on Israel.”

In a radio interview on Monday, echoing previous comments, Trump had said that Jewish Americans who vote for Democrats — amid Israel’s war against Hamas and other tensions in the Middle East — “hate” their religion and Israel and that they “should be ashamed of themselves.”

“I think that the Democrats have been very, very opposed to Jewish people,” Trump argued on Tuesday.

President Joe Biden’s campaign has pushed back, saying in a statement, in part: “The only person who should be ashamed here is Donald Trump.”

And asked on Tuesday about a possible national 15-week abortion ban, Trump said: “We’ll be talking about that soon.”

Pressed again on the timeline, though, Trump dodged.

He also again made claims about immigrants who are in the country illegally and said he will deport them if he’s president while not explaining how he would conduct such “mass deportation.”

Separately, in a British TV interview also on Tuesday, Trump sounded off on multiple subjects including the controversy sparked when Kate Middleton apologized for sharing an edited photo of her with her kids.

“Everybody doctors,” Trump said on GB News, adding, “I don’t understand why there could be such a howl over that.”

He also said he’s a “big fan of the concept of the royal family,” repeatedly praising the late Queen Elizabeth.

Trump also praised King Charles, calling him a “wonderful guy” and saying they “got along” even though Charles “was a little bit more into environmental restriction than I am.”