Donald Trump offered a bizarre and rambling response when he was asked about a controversial Truth Social post showing him wielding a baseball bat next to Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg’s head.
Mr Trump’s defence has come as his social media shows an increase in inflammatory rhetoric against the investigation on a hush money payment that could lead to charges being brought against him, but which the twice-impeached president now claims have been dropped.
In a Fox News interview on Monday, the former president claimed the two photos in the post were unrelated.
Fox host Sean Hannity began by questioning Mr Trump about the post, which was later taken down, and the criticism it generated.
“Why open yourself up to criticism?” Hannity asked.
In a rambling response, Mr Trump claimed the photo of him holding a baseball bat was first put up by his social media team, but the photo of Mr Bragg was added later by “somebody”.
“We put up a story that was very exculpatory, very good story from the standpoint of what we’re talking about,” Mr Trump said, referring to the link of an article that was shared with the photo.
“They put up a picture of me, and you know, where I was holding the baseball bat, it was at the White House.”
“Make America, Buy America. Because I did a lot of Buy America things and this is a company that makes baseball bats,” he said.
“Then they put next to that picture a picture of Alvin Bragg.”
“I didn’t do it, they did it,” the former president claimed. “I guess the people that do the paper or somebody put pictures together. But I was holding the baseball bat in order to promote ‘Made in America’.”
Hannity then interjects and asks: “It wasn’t on your post on Truth social?”
“What they did is, we posted the story, but they had a picture up that they then put a picture up or the picture was put up that nobody noticed to saw or that nobody thought was bad. These were two separate pictures,” he replied.
“They took that picture from the White House and they put it up and then they put a picture of Alvin Bragg up.”
“But you know how it was interpreted?” asked Hannity, to which Mr Trump pointed to the “fake news media” and Democrats.
“Democrats are genius at a few things. They’re horrible at foreign relations. They are horrible at policy. They are horrible at everything,” he said. “But they’re good at a number of things though. Misinformation or disinformation, depending on your definition.”
He also tried to defend his “death and destruction” post, perceived in some quarters to be a warning for what could come if he was indicted.
The one-time president said he was not calling for “death and destruction”, but warning that “people are angry” at his “fake prosecution”.
Mr Trump could face a potential indictment over a hush money payment made during his 2016 campaign to adult film star Stormy Daniels. Mr Bragg is probing how the payments were documented on the Trump Organisation’s books.
