The former president of the USA donald trump, who may face charges for allegedly buying the silence of porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016, alleged on television Monday night, “fraud” and an “election meddling” orchestrated by “bums” in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election .

“It’s a new way to steal the election,” Trump told Fox News when asked about the investigation by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. “This is called meddling in the elections,” he added.

Alvin Bragg is a Manhattan district attorney—one of New York’s five elected district attorneys.

On March 18, Trump predicted that he would be arrested in three days, which turned out to be wrong. But in recent days he has engaged in inflammatory rhetoric about possible indictment, including warning of “potential death and destruction” if he is indicted.

Trump insisted, however, that he was “not calling for violence” and argued that the post on the Truth Social platform of a collage showing him holding a baseball bat and next to his Bragg “it was done without his knowledge.”

“We didn’t see any pictures. We published a story that was very “indulgent,” a very good story from the point of view of what we’re saying,” he claimed.

“We are dealing with very dishonest people. We’re dealing with bums. We are dealing with people who I really believe hate our country,” he said of his opponents.

But Trump reserved his harshest criticism for Ron DeSandis.“No friends,” the former president said of their relationship before DeSandis became a presidential candidate, and his Republican opponent. “I didn’t know him well,” he claimed.

Trump described his intra-party rival De Sandys as a “desperate” politician, who, he claimed, came to him with “tears in her eyes” asking for his endorsement to run for governor in Florida. As Trump sees it, DeSandis “owes him his good fortune” and shouldn’t face him in 2024.

“I helped a lot of people get elected,” he said, adding, “But I put some of them in (governor). I put Ron in. They lost. There was no chance (of victory). It had finished. He was dead. They would resign. It had finished”.