WINDHAM, N.H. – Supporters of Donald Trump are continuing their staunch backing of the former president following his most recent arraignment in federal court, with some vowing to vote for him ‘even if he’s in jail’ for his alleged crimes.

Fox News Digital traveled to Windham, New Hampshire, last week for a Trump rally, and spoke with a number of attendees who blasted Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation as ‘a witch hunt,’ a line often repeated by the former president.

‘Even if he’s in jail I will vote for him,’ Al from Florida said when asked if he still planned to support Trump. ‘He’s being indicted because of political reasons. It’s a political game they’re playing, and it’s not right. They’re going to keep on doing it until they get him out of the picture. And he’s a strong survivor.’

Joanne, a resident of both Massachusetts and Florida, said, ‘I sure do,’ when asked if she still planned to vote for Trump, and added that he kept getting ‘stronger and stronger’ with each indictment.

‘They want him out of the picture. He is too threatening to the other party, and he uncovers a lot of things that should not be exposed, and that should be exposed. And I feel as though the other party is covering up a lot,’ she added.

Jim from New Hampshire said he was ‘even more intent’ on voting for Trump because of the charges.

‘It’s just so obvious what’s going on that it’s just impossible not to see it. It’s just too much. They came on with too much, stuff that nobody else in the world would even be reprimanded for. They’re indicting him,’ he said.

Jason from Rhode Island said, ‘I think they’re all a political witch hunt. They’ve been after Trump since he announced when he was going to run, and they haven’t stopped. Fake news media is the worst it’s ever been.’

When asked whether there was a second-best choice for president among the Republicans running, the attendees were split. Some were intent on sticking only with Trump, while others with ties to Florida said they would support Gov. Ron DeSantis as an alternative.

‘I am a resident of Florida and Ron DeSantis is my governor and I think the world of him. If Trump couldn’t get in then I would love to see DeSantis in,’ Joanne said, with Al echoing that sentiment.

‘Not really.… It’s got to be [Trump],’ Jim said. ‘He has a lot of guts. I’ll say it that way. When he starts to do something he finishes it. And they try to make him out as a liar and I have not seen any lies.’ 

‘He’s said what he was going to do at the beginning in 2016, and he tried to do everything that he said he was going to do despite opposition like nobody’s ever seen. So you got to admire a guy like that,’ he added.

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy rapped a part of Eminem’s 2002 hit song ‘Lose Yourself’ onstage at the Iowa State Fair on Saturday.

Ramaswamy had just wrapped up his ‘Fair-Side Chat’ with Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds and was signing autographs onstage when the Eminem song started playing.

‘Snap back to reality, ope, there goes gravity,’ Ramaswamy recited. ‘Ope, there goes Rabbit, he choked, he’s so mad / But he won’t give up that easy, no, he won’t have it / He knows his whole back’s to these ropes, it don’t matter.’

During his chat with Reynolds, the 38-year-old Ramaswamy explained that the song, featured in the film ‘8 Mile,’ starring Eminem, is his favorite ‘walkout song’ on the campaign trail.

‘I actually like Eminem’s ‘Lose Yourself,’ to be honest with you,’ Ramaswamy said, adding that the song was ‘young and scrappy.’

The choice prompted Reynolds to joke, ‘I am really starting to understand my age.’

Ramaswamy, who has made reaching young voters a campaign priority, appeared on Fox News last month when he spoke about his college past as a libertarian rapper.

‘My name’s Vivek / It rhymes with cake,’ he rapped on ‘Fox & Friends.’ ‘It isn’t about me, it’s about thee, the United States is about liberty.’

On Saturday, Ramaswamy told Reynolds that the crushing of free speech and dissent is one of the most ‘grave threats to liberty.’  

‘Wherever you stand on climate change, I think most of the climate change agenda – I’m just going to say it is a hoax,’ he said. ‘Wherever you stand on racial equity audits – I personally believe we’re a country that should have a colorblind meritocracy – that’s my view. But wherever you stand, we should settle that through free speech in an open debate in the public square in a constitutional republic.’

Ramaswamy is polling in third place in the GOP primary at 6.1% behind Ron DeSantis at 15.1%, and former President Donald Trump as the clear front-runner at 54.2%, according to the RealClearPolitics national average.

Ramaswamy officially qualified for the Aug. 23 Republican debate hosted by Fox News in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, after he became the first candidate to agree to the language drawn up by the Republican National Committee (RNC) to support the party’s nominee – whomever that may be.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie speculated that former President Donald Trump could make a last-minute decision to sign the Republican National Committee’s debate pledge in the days leading up to the first Republican presidential debate. 

‘[Trump] plays misdirection all the time,’ Christie, who is running for president in the 2024 election, said Sunday on ABC’s ‘This Week.’ ‘I would not be the least bit surprised if some time around Sunday or Monday of next week, that he signs the pledge, and he shows up on the stage on Wednesday.’ 

The RNC released requirements in June that Republican candidates must fulfill in order to take part in primary debates, including reaching 1% in three national polls, amassing 40,000 unique donors to their campaign committee, and signing a pledge agreeing to support the eventual Republican presidential nominee. 

Fox News’ Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum will moderate the first Republican primary debate on Aug. 23 in Milwaukee. Trump has said he was unsure if he would take part in the debate. Various polls show Trump is the overwhelming front-runner as voters head into election season. 

‘Let them debate so I can see who I MIGHT consider for Vice President!’ Trump posted on his Truth Social account late last month, implying that he might skip the event.

Christie argued that the former president enjoys keeping the attention on himself, and a last-minute debate agreement would make headlines. 

‘He might not also, but I would not be the least bit surprised if he did. This is about Donald Trump keeping the attention on Donald Trump. And he’s doing pretty well because in the first question this morning, we’re talking about him and that’s what he likes,’ Christie told ABC’s Jonathan Karl. 

Trump has said he refuses to sign the GOP loyalty pledge, which has raised doubts that he would be allowed to join fellow Republicans running to secure the White House in 2024. Christie speculated that the RNC would refuse to allow Trump on debate stages without signing the pledge. 

‘I think that they are serious about wanting this pledge signed. And I do think that they’d keep Donald Trump off the stage if he chose not to sign the pledge…. He did the same thing in 2016, in terms of not wanting to sign the pledge and waiting until the very last minute to do it. We don’t know how much he would have respected the pledge, even after having signed it. So, look I think this is all kind of nonsensical theater,’ Christie said. 

The former New Jersey governor has previously criticized the pledge, calling it ‘just a useless idea.’

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Hunter Biden’s legal team still maintains that a trial is ‘not inevitable’ and the president’s son could still negotiate a plea agreement.

Attorney Abbe Lowell made the statement Sunday morning during an appearance on CBS’ ‘Face the Nation.’ Lowell told host Margaret Brennan that he was still working to ‘avoid’ a trial for Hunter.

Brennan highlighted comments from the U.S. attorney in the case stating that a trial is ‘in order’ due to an impasse on plea negotiations, but Lowell downplayed the statement.

‘When you do not have a resolution and somebody pleads not guilty, as Hunter did, then two things happen: The judge could put together a scheduling order, the end of which would be a trial. There’d be discovery and motions, etc. So that’s why that statement was made,’ Lowell said.

‘So it’s not inevitable?’ Brennan asked.

‘It’s not inevitable,’ he said, adding that ‘we were trying to avoid [a trial] all along, and so were the prosecutors who came forward to us and were the ones to say can there be a resolution short of a prosecution.’

The interview came just days after the Justice Department appeared to indicate that a trial was imminent in a Friday filing in Delaware.

‘At the hearing on July 26, 2023, the Defendant did not plead guilty and therefore did not waive venue,’ the Justice Department’s filing reads. ‘After the hearing, the parties continued negotiating but reached an impasse. A trial is therefore in order. And that trial cannot take place in this District because, as explained, venue does not lie here.’

Hunter’s legal team must respond by Monday, and Lowell’s statements to ‘Face the Nation’ may be the first clue as to their strategy.

Hunter was expected to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax counts of willful failure to pay federal income tax as part of a deal to avoid jail time on a felony gun charge before the plea deal collapsed.

Former Vice President Mike Pence vowed Sunday to ‘clean house on the whole top floor’ of the Department of Justice if he is elected president in 2024.

Pence, who is seeking the Republican Party’s nomination for president, said he knows firsthand what it’s like to be treated unfairly by the DOJ due to what conservatives believe is political bias.

‘I mean, it started in 2016, when James [Comey] gave Hillary Clinton a pass, right, that no other American would have gotten,’ he argued. ‘But then what we found out since is the truth about what was going on during the Mueller investigation.’

‘You know, I lived through that for two and a half years when we were busy rebuilding our military, cutting taxes, unleashing American energy, securing our border, all the while we actually had FBI agents that were falsifying documents and pushing a political agenda within the Justice Department,’ he continued.

‘It’s one of the reasons why I tell people that if I have the privilege of being president of the United States, we’re not just gonna have a new attorney general and a new FBI director, Chuck, but I’m gonna clean house on the whole top floor of the Justice Department and demand that we have men and women who are respected on both sides of the aisle as people of integrity who will apply the rule of law in this country equally to every American,’ he added.

Attorney General Merrick Garland on Friday appointed U.S. Attorney David Weiss as special counsel in the federal investigation into Hunter Biden. Republicans immediately criticized Garland’s selection of Weiss, who led the prosecution in Hunter Biden’s tax and gun charges that conservatives blasted as too lax.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., called Garland’s announcement ‘part of the Justice Department’s efforts to attempt a Biden family coverup in light of [House Oversight Republicans’] mounting evidence of President Biden’s role in his family’s schemes selling ‘the brand’ for millions of dollars to foreign nationals.’

Pence on Sunday placed less confidence in the special counsel’s probe of Hunter Biden than the investigation currently led by House Republicans.

‘I think Joe Biden has weakened America at home and abroad, but frankly, the pattern of the Justice Department during our four years in the White House and since has undermined public confidence in equal treatment under the law,’ Pence said. 

‘And while I welcome the appointment of a special counsel, which is of course appropriate and is a minimum where the attorney general has a potential conflict of interest, I’m also comforted by the fact that Congress is going to continue to do its work,’ he said. ‘I’m confident that House Republicans are going to continue to bring forward the facts in this case. The American people have a right to know whether or not President Biden’s family benefited or that he himself benefited when he was serving in the job that I had as vice president of the United States in a financial way from foreign nationals.’

Pence is polling in fourth place in the GOP primary with 5.2% of the vote, behind Vivek Ramaswamy at 6.1%, Ron DeSantis at 15.1%, and former President Donald Trump as the clear front-runner with 54.2%, according to the RealClearPolitics national average.

Hawaii Gov. Josh Green said Sunday that global warming played a major role in the Maui wildfire that destroyed a historic town and has so far killed at least 93 people.

Green spoke about the devastation in the centuries-old town of Lahaina during an appearance on MSNBC’s ‘The Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart,’ describing the wildfire as a ‘fire hurricane’ with gusting 80 mph winds and ‘1,000-degree heat creating fire cyclones going through buildings.’

‘Everything is burnt to the ground in Lahaina,’ the Democrat said, calling it a ‘war zone’ that is ‘completely destroyed.’

Green attributed strong winds from Hurricane Dora, which passed far to the south of the island last week, and very dry drought conditions on Maui to the fast-moving blaze.

‘When fire jumped from one spot to another – there were three or four fires going on at the same time – it got seeded very quickly with those 80 mph gusted winds,’ he said. ‘And then the fire moved at essentially a mile per minute, 60 mph down through the community.’

‘That’s what a fire hurricane is going to look like in the era of global warming,’ Green said.

Green said global warming is ‘very real for us and everywhere,’ issuing a call for people to do what they can to stop and reverse its effects.

The Lahaina fire has become the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century. Officials are facing the challenge of identifying the remains that have been recovered so far because the bodies were turned to ash and are falling apart in their hands.

Green also responded to criticism about the island’s siren system failing to warn residents of the approaching fire in time for them to escape.

Thousands of residents fled the town, with video showing some jumping into the Pacific Ocean to escape the inferno.

The governor said officials are looking into whether enough was done to get the sirens activated in time, noting there was mass destruction of telecommunications during the wildfire.

‘Otherwise, we ourselves would have communicated like we always do within seconds on our cellphones,’ Green said, adding that ‘we’ll make sure we get to all the answers that people deserve.’

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Rep. Mike McCaul, R-Texas, ridiculed the agreement orchestrated by the Biden administration for Iran to release five Americans in exchange for $6 billion in assets and jailed Iranians. 

‘Reagan said trust but verify. I have to use the word naïveté,’ McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said during an appearance on ‘Fox News Sunday.’

‘Look I want to get these Americans home more than anybody. And one of them is a critical asset,’ McCaul said. ‘I agree with that, but we have to go in eyes wide open; $6 billion that is now going to go into Iran and prop up their proxy war terror operations, and their nuclear bomb aspirations. They are now starting to talk about the JCPOA all over again, which in my judgment leads down a course to a legal nuclear bomb in Iran. Prime Minister Netanyahu came out strongly against this. I think we’re going back to the mistakes of the past.’ 

McCaul also referenced how the State Department placed President Biden’s envoy for Iran, Robert Malley, on unpaid leave in June amid a review into his security clearance. 

‘Our special envoy to Iran to negotiate the JCPOA is under investigation for mishandling classified information,’ McCaul said. ‘He has the most sensitive information as our top negotiator to Iran and to the ayatollah, now under investigation for mishandling classified information – very troubling story.’ 

Later on the same program, Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., defended the prisoner swap agreement, arguing that the billions of funds would be controlled by Qatar. 

Iran has moved five Iranian Americans from prison to house arrest in exchange for billions of dollars frozen in South Korea, U.S. and Iranian officials said Thursday, as part of a tentative deal that follows months of heightened tensions between the two countries. Iran acknowledged that the deal involves $6 billion to $7 billion that were frozen as a result of sanctions. Iranian officials said the money would be transferred to Qatar before being sent on to Iran if the agreement goes through.

The final transfer of the money – and the release of the five detainees – is expected in the next month or so due to the complicated nature of the financial transactions, officials said.

In a statement Friday, Iran’s Ministry if Foreign Affairs said, ‘The decision on how to utilize these unfrozen resources and financial asserts lies with the Islamic Republic of Iran.’ The statement ran counter to the claim that the money would only be released by Qatar to Iran for specific purposes.

Fox News host Shannon Bream noted critics of the agreement said it amounts to an exorbitant ransom payment. 

‘But again, it’s not,’ Smith said. ‘Where were those real concerns during the Trump administration when money from a bunch of other countries was being transferred to Iran no strings attached, no prisoners returned? It just doesn’t seem like a legitimate complaint based on the facts of the situation.’ 

‘That’s a fundamental misunderstanding of what this money is,’ Smith argued, pushing back against former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s criticism that the deal would mean placing a bounty on Americans’ heads. ‘It’s not a bounty because we’re not paying the money. It’s Iran’s money that was sitting in South Korea.’

‘Withheld under sanctions,’ Bream interjected, adding clarification. Smith further stated, ‘It’s not a bounty.’ 

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

A member of the White House press corps has filed a lawsuit against White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and the Secret Service, alleging they wrongfully revoked his press badge.

In his suit filed Thursday, African journalist Simon Ateba argues that the White House policy for revoking press access violates the First and Fifth Amendments of the Constitution. President Biden’s White House announced new rules in May that – for the first time – allowed for rescinding a press badge.

‘Defendants violated Mr. Ateba’s First Amendment rights by changing the criteria for hard pass credentials to intentionally prevent Mr. Ateba from obtaining hard pass access,’ the lawsuit reads.

‘Defendants did so by adopting credentialing criteria specifically designed to exclude Mr. Ateba from eligibility. Such discrimination amounts to a content-based regulation and viewpoint discrimination against Mr. Ateba in violation of the First Amendment,’ it continues.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.

Ateba says his press pass expired on July 31, and he has not been able to renew it. There are currently 975 reporters with White House hard passes. Hard passes allow journalists to come and go from the White House briefing room and press area freely.

Reporters without hard passes must contact the White House to obtain a day pass for a specific date.

Ateba, who works for Today News Africa, has been at the center of several briefing room blowups. The journalist lashed out at Jean-Pierre during a March 20 briefing when the White House was playing host to the celebrity cast of ‘Ted Lasso.’

Ateba’s main complaint at the time was that he had been unable to ask a question in seven months. The reporter has repeatedly said the White House has discriminated against him and other reporters.

‘This is not China. This is not Russia. What you are doing, you’re making a mockery of the First Amendment,’ Ateba said at the time.

DES MOINES, Iowa – Former President Donald Trump may not show up at the first Republican presidential primary debate, but that doesn’t bother North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum.

The multi-millionaire former software company CEO turned two-term governor who’s a dark horse for the 2024 GOP nomination said in a one-on-one interview with Fox News Digital as he walked through the Iowa State Fair that ‘we’re looking forward to the debate. We’re excited to be there, and we’re excited regardless of who shows up.’

Burgum is one of eight candidates (so far) who have met the Republican National Committee’s criteria to make the debate stage at the Fox News hosted showdown on August 23 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. That list also includes Trump, former Vice President Mike Pence, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, former ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, and entrepreneur and best-selling author Vivek Ramaswamy.

‘It’s obviously an opportunity for us,’ Burgum said in his Friday interview,’ because…of the eight candidates who’ve made the stage, we’re the least well know. By definition that gives us the most upside. And part of that is – we’ve already defied the odds because when we launched people said he’ll never make the debate stage. People said you could never build a global software company in Fargo, North Dakota. People said we would never get elected governor when we were down 60 points six months before the primary. So, we like our position, and we are looking forward to the debate.’

Burgum’s not well known outside his home state of North Dakota and has been running a positive campaign to date, as he introduces himself to voters.

 Asked if he’ll have to eventually throw some punches, the governor said ‘people don’t know who we are and I think people need to find out who we are, what we’ve done, what our vision is for the country. Presidential campaigns need to be about the future, not about the past. If it gets down to two people, then that would be the time to create differentiation but in the meantime, we’ve just got to keep telling our story.’

But Burgum was apparently critical of some of his rivals, questioning whether they had the experience needed to serve as president.

‘I think one of the criteria for running for president ought to be some of your relevant experience,’ he emphasized.

And Burgum pointed to those candidates who ‘haven’t had an opportunity to work in an executive branch role, which is what the presidency is, that would include people being governor, or if you haven’t worked in the private sector.’

‘I think a lot of Americans would look forward to having president who understands what working Americans are actually going through and what it takes to make payroll every two weeks, what I’ve been doing since I was 26 years old. And what it means to cut you own pay to make sure you’ve got enough money to pay people that are working for you,’ Burgum stressed. ‘These are things that I think are prerequisites and we’re counting on the voters to understand that.’