‘The Beginning of the End of the American Experiment’: 2024 Republican Presidential Candidate Reacts to Trump’s Potential Indictment, Calls for DA to Drop Case

On Saturday morning, 45th President Donald J. Trump made a statement in response to news that broke Friday that he would be indicted next week by the Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D).

As previously reported by the DC Enquirer, five senior officials told NBC News that law enforcement agencies are conducting “preliminary security assessments” for the Manhattan Criminal Court in case Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) brings charges. 

In response to this news, President Trump responded, saying that he will be “arrested” on Tuesday:

“Our nation is now third world and dying. The American dream is dead! The radical left anarchists have stolen our presidential election, and with it, the heart of our country. American patriots are being arrested and held in captivity like animals, while criminals and leftist thugs are allowed to roam the streets, killing and burning with no retribution. Millions are flooding through our open borders, many from prisons and mental institutions. Crime and inflation are destroying our very way of life. Now illegal leaks from a corrupt and highly political Manhattan district attorney’s office, which has allowed new records to be set in violence crime and whose leader is funded by George Soros indicate that, with no crime being able to be proven, and based on an old and fully debunked (by numerous other prosecutors!) fairytale, the far and away leading Republican candidate and former president of the United States of America, will be arrested on Tuesday of next week. Protest, take our nation back!”

In response to the news, businessman and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who is currently running against Trump, took to a Twitter Space to blast the Manhattan DA for potentially bringing an indictment against the leading 2024 GOP candidate.

Throughout his response, Vivek emphasized that he believes that a potential indictment could lead “to the end of the American experiment” and called for DA Bragg to not indict President Trump.

“I’m saying this as somebody who is running in an election against Trump here. This has nothing to do with me and even nothing to do with Trump actually,” Vivek said on Saturday morning. “It has to do with integrity in the country. For these set of same facts, would somebody else have been criminally prosecuted? The answer is obsoletely not. So this argument that he should be protected just because he is a political candidate is a straw man because the real answer is that he is being prosecuted precisely because he is one.”

“The thing that he would supposedly be prosecuted for was actually making a hush money payment. You look at historical business figures, you look at political figures. This would be at most a ministerial campaign finance or finance-related violation that from me to Maggie Hagerman, I don’t think you’ll find a credible legal expert that would tell you that if this hadn’t been Donald Trump that this would be prosecuted as a felony. It would be a misdemeanor at most. And I think that’s the essence of what’s going on here,” Ramaswamy explained. “They are throwing the book and figuring out how to charge. Where the way the Justice Department is supposed to work is that they are actually looking out for violations of the law and charging them rather than figuring out who to charge and then justifying it by looking at the statute book afterward which is exactly what I think happened here.”

Vivek was then asked what impact this news will have on the campaign trail to which he said he did not know and stated that others in the race may be “quietly celebrating it.”

LAWMAKERS REACT TO PRESIDENT TRUMP’S ANNOUNCEMENT THAT HE EXPECTS TO BE ARRESTED TUESDAY

“Today’s announcement I worry about for the same reason that I differentiate myself from Trump is that I think this takes us a step closer to a national divorce. I think that when you politicize the justice system itself to prosecute a political opponent of the party in power, the lead political opponent of the party in power. That is not one small step but a giant leap towards a national divorce if they follow through with it too,” he explained. “So it is in some ways the same reason that I am drawn into this race as a candidate running against Trump that also draws me to be a hardliner against the possibility that Trump be indicted on ministerial and politicized grounds.”

“It is my firm conviction that this prosecution is unprincipled. It is wrong. It is also the beginning of a national disaster and could lead us closer to a national divorce. I think it is fundamentally wrong and I think that the Manhattan DA for the sake of the country, but also for the sake of actually carrying out his duties as a member of the justice system, should strongly reconsider and hopefully, what I hope we see this week, is that actually that indictment does no follow,” the 2024 GOP candidate said, adding, “That’s the outcome that I’m rooting for as an America. Not for Trump but for this country.”

Ramaswamy then turned his attention to those that opposed Trump emphasizing that they routinely say that they want to “protect our democracy.” He asked those who oppose Trump, “think about what you mean when you say that. What do those words mean? You utter those words. What does that actually mean? It means that you live in a country where the people you elect to run the government are the ones who actually run the government. It means you live in a country where laws are applied even-handedly no matter if you are a prominent figure or an everyday citizen. You apply those laws evenly and if it would have been charged as a misdemeanor one way, it should be charged as a misdemeanor another way, if charged at all. It means that actually, we have trust in an electoral system and a justice system that separates justice from politics.”

He then went on to create a hypothetical scenario of Trump doing the same thing to his own political opponents asking about what their reaction would be their reaction about “someone who cares about preserving the proverbial our democracy.”

Vivek then said that Trump’s message to Truth Social calling for protests was a knee-jerk reaction to being cornered. He also said that he was hopeful that Democrats change their discourse so that it “stops the Manhattan DA from doing irreversible damage to this country.”

“I hope that this does not happen this week. Even at this moment, he is considering doing it. Folks like myself and others, who on principled positions against potentially their own interests, siding for the country why this would be a failure for faith in the justice system and would not carry out justice in this country,” he emphasized. “I am hopeful that actually what we will see, I’m trying to be optimistic about this, that what we will see this week will not be something that tears this nation apart.”

When asked whether or not there will be a significant response, the candidate said that he wants to stay focused on what will happen in the coming week, saying, “I don’t want to respond to speculation right based on people who are speculating about what’s going to happen this week. If that speculation is correct, then I’ve already said my peace. I think it’s dead wrong. I think it’s a natural disaster if we proceed with it. I think that it could really be one of those steps that leads us to the beginning of the end of the American experiment. I think that once we get into the business of a party in power using a police state to stop someone from running against the party in power. Boy, that’s the kind of stuff that our Founding Fathers would be rolling over in their graves for. Doing backflips in their graves. And I think that that’s dangerous stuff but we haven’t gotten there yet. I am hopeful and I am calling on the Manhattan DA and anyone else who’s in a position of authority to determine whether or not this politicized prosecution proceeds to drop it. Do it for the sake of justice. Do it for the sake of doing your job. Do it for the sake of this country.”

“I think the stakes are very high if this proceeds or not for trust in the country and trust in the justice department itself,” Vivek concluded. “Once that trust is gone, it will take a generation to earn it back. Do not do that damage.”

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