EXCLUSIVE: Former President Trump said Georgia officials ‘insisted’ he have a mugshot taken Thursday night during processing at the Fulton County Jail, telling Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview that doing so was ‘not a comfortable feeling—especially when you’ve done nothing wrong.’ 

The former president and current 2024 Republican front-runner turned himself in Thursday night at the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, Ga. after being charged out of District Attorney Fani Willis’ investigation into his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in the state.

Trump, in an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital Thursday night, said officials in Georgia ‘insisted’ on a mugshot. 

‘They insisted on a mugshot and I agreed to do that,’ he said. ‘This is the only time I’ve ever taken a mugshot.’

He added: ‘It is not a comfortable feeling—especially when you’ve done nothing wrong.’

‘This is all about election interference,’ Trump said. ‘It all comes through Washington and the DOJ and Crooked Joe Biden—nothing like this has ever happened in our country before.’

Trump said the United States is ‘doing horribly, but now, it is doing worse because we have become a Third World country.’ 

The court had set Trump’s bail at $200,000. He was quickly processed and released Thursday evening.

The jail records stated that Trump stands at 6 feet, 3 inches and 215 pounds. The records state he has ‘Blond or Strawberry’ hair and blue eyes. 

Fox News Digital has learned his formal arraignment, where he is expected to plead not guilty, will take place sometime early next month. 

Trump was charged with one count of violation of the Georgia RICO Act, three counts of criminal solicitation, six counts of criminal conspiracy, one count of filing false documents and two counts of making false statements.

Trump and more than a dozen others were charged out of the Fulton County probe, including his former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, his former attorneys Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis, Kenneth Chesebro, Jeff Clark, John Eastman, among others.

‘It is election interference,’ he said. ‘We did nothing wrong at all. And we have every right every single right to challenge an election that we think is dishonest that we think is very dishonest.’ 

Willis, on Thursday, asked the Fulton County court to set a trial date for Trump and all 18 co-defendants in the case for October 23. The move was in response to a motion for a speedy trial from defendant Kenneth Chesebro. 

The judge approved the October 23 trial date, but only for Chesebro, as he was the only defendant to request a speedy trial. 

Meanwhile, Trump retained Steven Sadow, an Atlanta-based white collar defense attorney, to represent him in the Fulton County case. Sadow will replace Drew Findling, who had been representing him in the matter. Findling is no longer representing Trump, a source familiar told Fox News Digital. 

‘I have been retained to represent President Trump in the Fulton County, Georgia case,’ Sadow said in a statement. ‘The President should never have been indicted. He is innocent of all the charges brought against him.’ 

Sadow added: ‘We look forward to the case being dismissed or, if necessary, an unbiased, open minded jury finding the President not guilty. Prosecutions intended to advance or serve the ambitions and careers of political opponents of the President have no place in our justice system.’ 

The indictment out of Georgia was the fourth for Trump, who is the first former president in United States history to face criminal charges. 

Trump was first charged in March out of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s years-long investigation related to hush-money payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Bragg alleged that Trump ‘repeatedly and fraudulently falsified New York business records to conceal criminal conduct that hid damaging information from the voting public during the 2016 presidential election.’

Trump pleaded not guilty to all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first degree in New York.

Those charges from Bragg came amid Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into Trump’s alleged improper retention of classified records from his presidency at his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Fla.

Trump pleaded not guilty to all 37 felony charges out of that probe. The charges include willful retention of national defense information, conspiracy to obstruct justice and false statements.

Last month, on July 27, Trump was charged with an additional three counts as part of a superseding indictment out of Smith’s investigation — an additional count of willful retention of national defense information and two additional obstruction counts.

Smith was also investigating whether Trump was involved in the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, and any alleged interference in the 2020 election result.

On Aug. 1, Trump was indicted on four federal charges out of Smith’s Jan. 6 probe.

Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges, which included conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights.

The celebrations from Democrats, including President Biden, have begun rolling in following former President Donald Trump’s booking in the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta on Thursday.

Some sought to remind others of the phrase often repeated by members of their party that ‘no one is above the law,’ while Biden used the opportunity to fundraise for his 2024 re-election campaign.

‘Apropos of nothing, I think today’s a great day to give to my campaign,’ Biden posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. Trump’s campaign also later posted its own fundraising request on Truth Social, using the mugshot taken at the jail.

‘In the United States, no one is above the law. No one,’ Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, also wrote on X, including a photo of Trump’s mugshot.

Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Pa., echoed Pingree in her own X post, citing the ‘four indictments and 91 charges in total’ against Trump, and arguing it was ‘not normal.’

‘I’m sad for our country; hopeful for justice; thoughtful for Mr. Trump’s day in court; disappointed yet confident for our democracy and rule of law. No one is above the law,’ she wrote.

Trump’s mugshot was released after he was booked into the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta earlier in the evening on charges stemming from District Attorney Dani Willis’ investigation into alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state.

The mugshot is the first ever taken by a former U.S. president and comes as Trump faces a total of 13 charges, including racketeering.

Former President Donald Trump made his first post on X, formerly known as Twitter, after being booked into the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, Georgia, Thursday evening.

The post on X contained a picture reading ‘Mug Shot – August 24, 2023. Election interference. Never Surrender! DonaldJTrump.Com.’ 

Trump was suspended from what was then known as Twitter in January 2021, but Elon Musk allowed him back on the platform shortly after buying the company in October 2022.

Trump made the social media post shortly after Fulton County Jail officials released his mugshot, which is the first ever taken of a former president.

He faces 13 charges in relation to his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia.

Fox News Digital’s Brandon Gillespie and Bradford Betz contributed to this report.

FIRST ON FOX: Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy frequently touts a rags-to-riches story on the campaign trail, declaring during Wednesday night’s debate that his parents immigrated to the U.S. with nothing, but public records and Ramaswamy’s past writings paint a more nuanced picture about his upbringing.

‘I’m not a politician,’ Ramaswamy said during his opening remarks at the Fox News-hosted debate in Milwaukee. ‘I’m an entrepreneur. My parents came to this country with no money 40 years ago. I have gone on to found multibillion dollar companies.’

Later in the debate, while discussing his support for school choice, Ramaswamy said he ‘didn’t grow up in money.’

It’s a narrative the multimillionaire millennial often uses to connect with voters on the campaign trail, while also attempting to differentiate himself from former President Donald Trump. 

Before the debate Wednesday, Ramaswamy sat down with ABC News and said that unlike Trump, he ‘actually built the companies from scratch.’ 

‘I didn’t inherit anything,’ he said. ‘I built the companies from zero to nothing. My parents came to this country with no money.’

Ramaswamy, 38, was born in 1985 in Cincinnati to V. Ganapathy Ramaswamy and Geetha Ramaswamy, who were upper-caste Tamil Brahmin in India. Both parents were highly educated professionals in India before they made the decision to move to the U.S. and start a family. 

Ramaswamy’s father held a graduate degree in engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Calicut, when he immigrated to the U.S. in the 1970s.

In his 2022 book ‘Nation of Victims,’ Ramaswamy wrote that when he was in sixth grade, or about 11 years old, his father had been working as an engineer at General Electric for the past 20 years, or since about 1976.

Two years after their marriage, Ramaswamy’s father earned his Ph.D. from the University of Cincinnati while still working at General Electric in 1985, according to details in his father’s dissertation. That same year, Ramaswamy’s mother immigrated to America, and Vivek was born that August, followed by his younger brother Shankar.

Ramaswamy’s mother already held a medical degree in geriatric psychiatry from Mysore Medical College & Research Institute in India by the time she arrived in the U.S. in 1985. She obtained her license to practice in Oklahoma less than six months after coming to the U.S., according to state records, though it is unclear why in Oklahoma. That license expired in 2014.

Ramaswamy’s mother obtained her Ohio medical license the following year, in February 1987, which is still active, according to public records, and she worked as a geriatric psychiatrist and medical director at a private practice in Cincinnati from the time her son was 4 years old until he was in college, according to her LinkedIn profile.

In ‘Nation of Victims,’ Ramaswamy wrote that when he was in the sixth grade, he belonged to a ‘comfortably middle-class family with two incomes,’ but the threat of layoffs still loomed.

By 2000, during Ramaswamy’s high school years, his father was working as a patent attorney at General Electric.

Ramaswamy attended an elite private high school in Cincinnati where tuition today costs over $16,000 per year.

His parents also apparently established a stock portfolio for him that was bringing in hundreds of dollars in dividends before he graduated high school and thousands by the time he attended Harvard, according to his 2002-2004 tax returns, which he released in June.

Ramaswamy’s campaign did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Questions about Ramaswamy’s past have been ramping up in recent months after he quickly rose in the polls to third place behind front-runner Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Fox News Digital reported earlier this week that Ramaswamy had already become a millionaire by the time he accepted a Soros-family scholarship he previously said he needed in order to pay for law school.

Ramaswamy defended himself last month for accepting a $90,000 award from the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans, which was founded by Daisy and Paul Soros, the late older brother of liberal billionaire financier George Soros. 

Ramaswamy said that after graduating from Harvard, he ‘didn’t have the money’ to afford Yale Law School.

‘There was a separate scholarship that I won at the age of 24-25, when I was going to law school in my mid-20s, in my early 20s, when I didn’t have the money and it was a merit scholarship that hundreds of kids win, that was partially funded, not by George Soros, but by Paul Soros a relative, his brother,’ Ramaswamy said.

‘And to be perfectly honest with you, I would have had to be a fool to turn down that scholarship at the age of 24,’ he added.

When Ramaswamy accepted the award in 2011, he was a first-year law student at Yale and had been working for several years as an investment analyst at the hedge fund QVT Financial.

In 2011, the same year he accepted the award, Ramaswamy reported $2,252,209 in total income, according to his tax returns. He reported a total of $1,173,690 in income in the three years prior.

‘Vivek won a generic scholarship that hundreds of students win to attend graduate school,’ his campaign’s spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin, told Fox News Digital on Monday. ‘It was funded by a relative of George Soros who is long dead.’

‘Vivek would have been a fool to turn down that scholarship – Anyone who would have shouldn’t get anywhere near the White House doing trade deals,’ she continued. ‘In fact, there’s only one candidate that will be on stage Wednesday night whom George Soros has said he wants to win this primary – and it’s not Vivek.’

A federal court in Maryland decided Thursday that parents can’t opt their kids out of reading books with LGBTQ+ content in Montgomery County Schools.

In Tamer Mahmoud v. Monica B. McKnight, parents sought to reinstate a MCPS policy that would allow them to opt their children out of reading and discussing books with LGBTQ+ characters in elementary schools. The parents argued the content in these books was a form of indoctrination that violated their families’ religious beliefs. 

The court disagreed. Judge Deborah L. Boardman, a Biden appointee, concluded that the parents’ ‘asserted due process right to direct their children’s upbringing by opting out of a public-school curriculum that conflicts with their religious views is not a fundamental right.’ 

The judge denied the parents’ request for a preliminary injunction that would allow them to opt-out their kids when school begins on August 28.

‘Because the plaintiffs have not established any of their claims is likely to succeed on the merits, the Court need not address the remaining preliminary injunction factors. Nonetheless, because a constitutional violation is not likely or imminent, it follows that the plaintiffs are not likely to suffer imminent irreparable harm, and the balance of the equities and the public interest favor denying an injunction to avoid undermining the School Board’s legitimate interests in the no-opt-out policy,’ the judge determined. 

‘The plaintiffs seek the same relief pending appeal as in their preliminary injunction motion: an injunction that requires the Board to provide advance notice and opt-outs from instruction involving the storybooks and family life and human sexuality. For the reasons stated in this opinion, the Court cannot conclude the plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits of an appeal. The plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction pending appeal is denied.’

The controversy arose last year when Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) introduced more than 22 new books featuring LGBTQ+ characters into classrooms as part of a diversity initiative. Initially, the school district notified parents when these materials would be used in class and permitted them to opt their kids out from instruction involving these books, as they can with other portions of the curriculum. 

But in March, the district changed its policy and announced that parents would no longer have that right. A group of religious families of diverse faiths sued, claiming the policy violated their First Amendment right to guide the religious instruction of their children. 

But Boardman said otherwise: ‘The no-opt-out policy does not pressure the parents to refrain from teaching their faiths, to engage in conduct that would violate their religious beliefs, or to change their religious beliefs. The policy may pressure them to discuss the topics raised by the storybooks with their children, but those discussions are anticipated, not prohibited, by the parents’ faiths. The parents are not pressured into violating their religious beliefs in order to obtain the benefits of a public education.’

Eric Baxter, VP and Senior Counsel at Becket – the law firm representing the families – said the ruling ‘flies in the face of parental freedom, childhood innocence, and basic human decency.’ 

‘The court’s decision is an assault on children’s right to be guided by their parents on complex and sensitive issues regarding human sexuality. The School Board should let kids be kids and let parents decide how and when to best educate their own children consistent with their religious beliefs,’ Baxter said. 

The LGBTQ+ books added to the district’s curriculum are included in pre-K through eighth-grade classrooms and feature references to gay pride parades, gender transition and pronoun preference. 

Tennessee Republican lawmakers hit an impasse Thursday just a few days into a special session sparked by a deadly school shooting in March, leaving little certainty about what they might ultimately pass, yet all but guaranteeing it won’t be any significant gun control change.

After advancing a few bills this week, the GOP-dominant Senate quickly adjourned Thursday without taking up any more proposals, promising to come back Monday. The announcement prompted booing and jeers from the crowd of gun control advocates watching in the galleries.

But the decision also ignited outrage among the Republican supermajority inside the House as they continue to churn through a full slate of other proposals. House leaders argue that they’re using the special session to take up a wide range of proposals, while the Senate has refused to budge from passing anything that wasn’t in the limited legislative agenda outlined by the governor at the beginning of the special session.

Meanwhile, Democratic lawmakers have expressed alarm that the only bills being considered in either chamber have only focused on mass tragedy responses rather than preventive measures specifically addressing gun violence.

‘We are preparing for the next tragedy,’ said Democratic Rep. Justin Pearson, who was expelled from the House earlier this year for joining pro-gun control protesters from the House floor but has since been reinstated. ‘Preparing for the next victims of children … to be met with gun violence because maybe this is the best we can do.’

The standoff between the two chambers has added fuel to an already emotional and chaotic special legislative session, where gun-control advocates want the GOP-dominant Statehouse to consider tweaking the state’s relaxed gun laws.

Instead, Republican legislative leaders have taken steps to limit public access to the Capitol building and increased the presence of law enforcement. House Republicans attempted to ban the public from holding signs during floor and committee proceedings, but a Tennessee judge has since blocked that rule from being implemented. In one hearing, a House subcommittee chairman had troopers make the public leave the room after deeming the crowd too unruly. That included grieving parents closely connected to the school shooting, who broke down in tears at the decision.

Senate Speaker Randy McNally told reporters Thursday that senators will consider any bills the House may amend, but held off from promising to making a compromise with the other chamber.

‘We might be here for too long of a period of time,’ McNally said.

Legislative officials have said it costs nearly $60,000 a day when lawmakers are in session, but that doesn’t take into account the many state troopers that have lined the walls of the Capitol and legislative offices over the past week.

Republican Gov. Bill Lee called lawmakers back into session after the March shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville, where three children and three adults were killed. Lee had hoped to cobble together a coalition to pass his proposal to keep guns away from people who are judged to pose a threat to themselves or others, which he argued stopped well short of being a so-called red flag law. It had already failed to get a vote in the final days of the monthslong regular session that ended in April.

Ultimately, no Republican would even sponsor the bill for this week, and Democratic versions of it were spiked in committee without any debate.

Beyond that, the governor has proposed a few smaller changes that he touted would improve public safety, some of which the Senate has passed. They would incentivize people to use safe gun storage items; require an annual human trafficking report; etch into state law some changes to background checks already made by an order of the governor; and set aside more state money for school resource officers, and bonuses and scholarships for behavioral professionals.

House Republicans have taken up much more.

One of the proposals moving in the House would require that juveniles age 16 or older be charged as adults in murder or attempted murder cases. The measure would allow for a juvenile sentence combined with an adult sentence for when the offender turns 19, and would cover more than a dozen other offenses ranging from robbery to rape.

The House’s other active bills include one to shield the public disclosure of autopsies of child homicide victims, which is supported by a group of some Covenant School parents.

The House had considered, but stopped advancing, two bills to allow more teachers and staff, or members of the broader public with carry permits, to bring guns into public K-12 schools. Some bills about armed security in schools remain alive, including a proposal that would let local law enforcement leaders decide on their own whether to place officers in schools that don’t already have school resource officers.

‘At this point, the Senate haven’t put forth a single idea that’s theirs,’ House Speaker Cameron Sexton told reporters from the House floor. ‘So maybe next week they’ll come back and do something.’

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A mugshot of former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows was released on Thursday after he turned himself in at a jail in Atlanta, Georgia, connected to alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Meadows, a former congressman who served as chief of staff to President Trump, was indicted along with Trump and more than a dozen others out of the Fulton County probe launched by the district attorney.

The charges include violating the Georgia RICO Act—the Racketeer Influenced And Corrupt Organizations Act. The court set Trump’s bail at $200,000, and he is expected to be quickly processed and released. Fox News Digital has learned his formal arraignment, where he is expected to plead not guilty, will take place sometime early next month. 

Others charged out of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ probe, like former Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis and more had their photos taken during processing. 

It marks the latest in a number of prosecutions against Trump, but this is the first that will require him also to pose for a mug shot — an image that is likely to be seen as iconic. Trump has denied wrongdoing in this case and others.

He has disputed the call at the center of the case, in which he urged Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger to find 11,000 votes to overturn his loss to President Biden. Trump has called the phone call ‘perfect.’

In April, Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 charges of falsifying business records brought by a Manhattan grand jury after a years-long investigation into alleged hush-money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal leading up to the 2016 election. Both women were paid for their silence on alleged affairs with Trump — affairs Trump has repeatedly denied.

In June, Trump was indicted on federal charges that emerged out of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation related to the handling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate. He again pleaded not guilty.

Earlier this month, he pleaded not guilty to more charges stemming from the same investigation, but relating to 2020 election interference and the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. 

Fox News’ Brooke Singman contributed to this report.

Change may be in the offing in a city that’s infamous for its homeless street camping and poop map.

San Francisco Mayor London Breed on Wednesday accused the homeless coalition of holding the city ‘hostage for decades.’ 

London made those comments while joining a crowd of more than 200 people who had gathered outside the federal courthouse to urge the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to cancel a federal judge’s order banning the city from clearing tent encampments until there are more shelter beds than homeless individuals.

‘The homeless coalition has held San Francisco hostage for decades. It is time for their reign to end,’ Breed said, noting that the city has spent billions of dollars to help homeless people. 

People who want more tents cleared chanted ‘save our streets’ while a smaller crowd of those supporting the injunction rallied on the sidewalk beside them, chanting ‘stop the sweeps.’ 

The downtown courthouse is near a Whole Foods Market store that closed in April, citing worker safety amid deteriorating street conditions. 

By San Francisco’s own estimates, there are more than 3,300 people sleeping in the city’s homeless shelters, with around 4,400 sleeping on the city’s streets on a given night. 

The order banning the city from clearing homeless encampments until there are more shelter beds available has drawn furious responses from city leaders. But attorneys for homeless residents who sued the city argued before the panel that the district court judge was correct and they intend to ask the same judge at a hearing Thursday to enforce the injunction.

‘There are 3,000 shelter beds in the city for 7,000 or more unhoused people who are sleeping outside every night because they have no choice in the matter,’ said Zal Shroff, interim legal director at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, at Wednesday’s rally.

It is unclear when the panel of Judges Patrick J. Bumatay, Roopali Desai and Lucy Koh will issue a decision. They sought clarifications from the other side on which enforcement actions were acceptable.

San Francisco officials say their encampment operations allow outreach workers to connect homeless people to services while cleaning areas soiled with trash, used needles, and spoiled food. Breed and others also say it’s inhumane to allow unhygienic encampments to fester, scaring away customers and blocking sidewalks for people who use wheelchairs.

Advocates for homeless people say the encampment operations merely serve to harass homeless people as there are few services and appropriate shelter beds available. They say it’s cruel and counterproductive to criminalize people for not having a place to live with affordable housing so scarce.

Fox News Digital has reached out to the Coalition on Homelessness for comment. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.