Reuters
The former president and future Republican candidate for the U.S. November elections, Donald Trump, once again compared himself to Nelson Mandela by assuring that he is a victim of political persecution.
"I will gladly become a modern-day Nelson Mandela. It will be a great honor," Trump wrote on his social network Truth Social on Saturday, in a new attempt to present himself as a victim.
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A 1993 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Mandela was imprisoned for nearly 30 years for fighting apartheid, or racial segregation, and became South Africa's first president of African descent in the first free elections in 1994, which ended more than three centuries of white rule.
Trump's remarks sparked criticism from the campaign of U.S. President Joe Biden, a Democrat.
"Imagine being so self-centered as to compare yourself to Jesus Christ and Nelson Mandela in the short span of a little more than a week: that's Donald Trump," Jasmine Harris, director for African-American media for Biden's campaign, said with derision.
This is not the first time Trump has equated himself with Mandela. He did so at a rally in New Hampshire last October.
His new statements come after Judge Juan Merchan this week extended the gag order preventing Trump from making public statements about the criminal trial set to begin April 15 in New York over the case of irregular payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels during his 2016 campaign.
Trump has been harshly critical of Merchan and has gone so far as to pick on his daughter, which is why that measure was imposed on him.
For violating that order, Trump could face a fine or, depending on the severity, even jail time, according to legal experts.
It is difficult, however, to know what consequences Trump could face because never before has a former U.S. president been criminally charged.
In total, Trump faces four criminal cases.
In addition to the trial in New York, he faces a case in Washington D.C. for attempting to reverse the results of the 2020 election, in which he lost to Biden, and in Georgia he is being investigated for his attempts to invalidate the election results in that state.
Likewise, in Florida he is accused of having illegally stored classified material in his Mar-a-Lago mansion after leaving the presidency.