Yes, Donald Trump Really Compared Himself to Nelson Mandela – Yes, he really said this. During a campaign event in Derry, New Hampshire, on Monday, former President Donald Trump likened himself to anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela, while he also claimed he was willing to go to prison “for a reason.”
Trump, who is facing criminal charges for his alleged role in attempting to overturn the 2020 U.S. presidential election, implied he wasn’t the least bit concerned about spending years behind bars – as Mandela had for his opposition to apartheid in South Africa.
“If you want to challenge the result of an election, they hound you,” Trump told supporters, after formally filing to enter the state’s GOP presidential primary race. “But we don’t get scared — we don’t get scared. I’ll tell you what, I don’t mind being Nelson Mandela because I’m doing it for a reason.”
The late South African president spent 27 years in prison and later was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize along with South Africa’s former President Frederik Willem de Klerk for the “peaceful termination” of the apartheid regime.
Donald Trump Facing Multiple Charges
Trump made the comment just days after two co-defendants – lawyers Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro – indicted alongside the former president in George under Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ election interference probe, took a plea deal and agreed to testify against others charged in the RICO case.
Trump, who is currently the GOP frontrunner, is facing 91 charges against four separate investigations but has pleaded not guilty to all the indictments against him. That includes Willis’ and Special Counsel Jack Smith’s 2020 election investigations. The former president has described all four of the probes as being nothing more than politically motivated “witch hunts” that are aimed at preventing him from winning reelection in 2024.
In New Hampshire, Trump added, “We’ve got to save our country from these fascists, these lunatics that we’re dealing with. They’re horrible people and they’re destroying our country.”
Trump won both the 2016 and 2020 Republican primaries in New Hampshire but lost the Granite State in both general elections.
Trump Also Took Aim At Rivals
The former president also took aim at Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who was once his strongest challenger, this week describing him as “dying like a falling bird from the sky,” and added, “Did you ever see a campaign as bad? You’ve got to have some personality.”
The Sunshine State governor has already filed to appear on the ballot in New Hampshire and is expected to ramp up his campaign appearances with the first GOP primary now less than four months away. However, DeSantis faces increased pressure from former UN ambassador and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, who placed second in New Hampshire In recent polls.
While in the Granite State, Trump further directed attacks at President Joe Biden, and claimed his Oval Office address was “a grotesque betrayal of Israel,” and the former president vowed to build an Iron Dome-style missile defense system over the United States that he claimed would be “capable of blasting Chinese, Russian, and Iranian missiles out of our skies.”
Author Experience and Expertise
A Senior Editor for 19FortyFive, Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer. He has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers, and websites with over 3,200 published pieces over a twenty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu.
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