Former President Trump spoke from Mar-a-Lago just hours after the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in his favor, keeping him on the 2024 primary ballot in Colorado, thanking the high court for its unifying decision and looking ahead to its pending ruling on his presidential immunity appeal.
“I want to start by thanking the Supreme Court for its unanimous decision today. It was a very important decision, were very well crafted, and I think it will go a long way toward bringing our country together, which our country needs,” Trump said. “And they worked long, they worked hard, and frankly, they worked very quickly on something that will be spoken about 100 years from now and 200 years from now. Extremely important.”
Trump also blamed President Biden for his legal challenges, and claimed he is using judges and prosecutors to influence the election.
The Supreme Court sided unanimously with the 2024 GOP frontrunner in his challenge to Colorado’s attempt to kick him off the 2024 primary ballot.
EXCLUSIVE: TRUMP SAYS SUPREME COURT RULING IN COLORADO CASE IS ‘UNIFYING AND INSPIRATIONAL’
Former President Donald Trump gestures to supporters during an election night watch party on Feb. 24, 2024, in Columbia, South Carolina. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
The high court ruled in favor of Trump’s arguments in the case, which will impact the status of efforts in several other states to remove the likely GOP nominee from their respective ballots.
Trump said Monday, “essentially, you cannot take somebody out of a race because an opponent would like to have it that way. And it has nothing to do with the fact that it’s the leading candidate, whether it was the leading candidate or a candidate that was well down on the totem pole. You cannot take somebody out of a race.”
SUPREME COURT RULES UNANIMOUSLY FOR TRUMP IN COLORADO BALLOT DISQUALIFICATION DISPUTE
“The voters can take the person out of the race very quickly. But a court shouldn’t be doing that. And the Supreme Court saw that very well,” Trump said. “And I really do believe that will be a unifying factor because while most states were thrilled to have me know, there were some that didn’t and they didn’t want that for political reasons.”
Trump touted his poll numbers, saying he is “beating President Biden in almost every poll.”
Trump blamed the president for his legal challenges, and claimed Biden is using judges and prosecutors to influence the election. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court last week agreed to hear arguments on presidential immunity, after Trump and his legal team brought the appeal to the high court. Those arguments will be heard beginning on April 22. A Supreme Court decision is expected in mid to late June. Special Counsel Jack Smith’s election interference case is on hold pending that ruling.
“If a president doesn’t have full immunity, you really don’t have a president because nobody that is serving in that office will have the courage to make, in many cases what would be the right decision, or it could be the wrong decision,” Trump said, adding that a president should not be prosecuted for doing something that is “for the good of the country and actually for the good of the world.”
“A president shouldn’t have that on his mind, and he has to have a free and clear mind when he makes very big decisions or it’s going to be nothing more than a ceremonial post,” he explained. “You’ll be president. That’ll be a wonderful thing. And you won’t do anything because you don’t want to be hit by your opponent or hit by somebody else because who wants to leave office and go through what I’ve gone through?”
Trump went on to reflect on the legal challenges he is fighting during an election year, saying he is “being prosecuted by Biden,” saying every case is “in total coordination with the White House.”
The 2024 GOP frontrunner issued a message to Biden.
“I will say that President Biden, number one, stop weaponization. Fight your fight yourself. Don’t use prosecutors and judges to go after your opponent to try and damage your opponent so you can win an election,” he said. “Our country is much bigger than that.”
Trump is facing a number of legal challenges in multiple jurisdictions. The former president has pleaded not guilty to all charges across all jurisdictions.
Trump, on Monday, said “the whole thing is a rigged deal and the public understands it.”
“I’m lucky that I’m able explain it to the public because if you weren’t able to explain it, the public wouldn’t know. They believe what they see,” Trump said.
But the former president stressed: “I don’t want to win this way.”
“Look, I want to win based on my policies,” he said. “We’re going to cut taxes. We’re going to get interest rates down. You’re going to be able to buy homes again. I mean, you can’t buy a home today. The interest rates are so high. I want to win those supporters.”
Trump added: “I want to stop wars. I want to stop the war in Ukraine with Russia. I want to stop what’s happening in Israel would have never been attacked if I were president. Ukraine would have never, ever been attacked. If I was president, you wouldn’t have had inflation. Inflation was caused by high energy prices. I had low energy prices. I would have kept them there very easily. And it probably maybe caused the war with Ukraine because Putin became rich. All of a sudden it went up so much.”
Trump said Russian President Vladimir Putin “became very rich because at $100 a barrel, he’s got so much money to fight a war at $40 a barrel.”
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“He doesn’t have the money to fight a war, but he wouldn’t have done it anyway because I told him not to,” Trump said.
Meanwhile, Trump went on to demand that Biden “close the borders now.”
“This is not sustainable for our country. It’s not sustainable for our cities. Our country is under siege,” he said. “This is a violent thing that you’ve done. And many people are dying. Many, many people are dying. They die on the trip up, they die going through the border, and they die in our country.”
Trump warned about the people entering the country, saying they are entering from “some of the roughest countries in the world, in some of the roughest prisons. We have prisons in the Congo, in Africa coming. We have people coming from all parts of the Middle East. They’re coming from Yemen, and yet we’re bombing Yemen.”
Former President Trump points to supporters at the conclusion of a campaign rally at the Atkinson Country Club on Jan. 16, 2024, in Atkinson, New Hampshire. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
“You have to stop. You have to close the border. You have absolute authorization. You don’t need Congress,” Trump said. “I had the safest border in the history of our country. And I didn’t use Congress for it. And then I built hundreds of miles of wall. And the reason I built it and how I built it was I considered it an invasion of our country and I took the money from the military and the Army Corps of Engineers did it with me, and we did a great job.”
Trump said “we had the safest border we’ve ever had, and now we have the most unsafe border anywhere in the world at any time.”
“There’s never been a border like this at any country, anywhere in the world. They would have fought with sticks and stones to stop the horrible situation that’s occurring,” he continued. “Our people can’t stand it and the people coming in really can’t it because they’re dying. Many are dying on the trip up and they’re dying in the country and also many of the people are criminals and they’re doing tremendous harm.”
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He added: “I call it migrant crime. It’s migrant crime. It’s a new category of crime. They’re hurting our country horribly. And we’ve become a laughingstock all over the world.”
Trump again said “respectfully to President Biden, you have the authorization right now.”
“I did it. I didn’t go to Congress and say, do I have the right to close? I fought Congress on it, close the borders. You can do it right now,” he said.