NEW: Trump destroys ‘conflicted’ Dem Judge Merchan, ‘scam’ trial keeping him off campaign trail

Trump told reporters, "This is a scam. I think it's a terrible thing that's happening to democracy in this country." He read out articles and posts from lawmakers and officials like Senator JD Vance and Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird, as well as journalists and pundits like Andy McCarthy, Leo Terrell, and Jonathan Turley.

"But everybody says there's no crime," said Trump.

Trump said of the trial, "They're doing great. You know why they're doing great? They’ve kept me here for three and a half, four weeks instead of campaigning yet we still have the best poll numbers — just came out in the New York Times as we discussed before."

After reading out a section of a piece speaking about how the FEC and DOJ took no action against Trump previously related to the charges that were brought forth, Trump said, "They took no action against me. They looked at it, they said it's fine. The only one that did is Soros-backed DA Bragg who turned down the case, by the way, he turned down the case. And it could have been brought six years ago, seven years, almost eight years ago. They bring it right in the middle of my presidential campaign."

Trump later added that when Bragg came into office "he turned [the case] down and he was angry because of what took place when he saw that they were going to use this scam. He was angry."

"Even Michael Smerconish of CNN: 'a person four or five weeks into a trial ought to be told exactly that which they're being prosecuted for. And that hasn't happened,'" Trump said.

"You know what happened, it didn't happen for one very simple reason, because there is no crime," he added.

Trump later noted, "There's no fraud here. There's no crime here. This is four weeks of keeping me from not campaigning."

Trump said that "the whole world is laughing" at New York’s "weaponized legal system."

"There's no problem. You know, the FEC, the elections commission, Federal Elections Commission they looked at this years ago and they took a pass they said there's no problem here."

Trump said that it was a "really a very sad day for the country, it’s sad for New York," saying that Judge Merchan is "highly conflicted at a level that nobody seen before" and is keeping him from campaigning.

"He's an appointed New York judge, he’s appointed. You know who appointed him? Democrat politicians. He’s appointed appointed. He's a corrupt judge, and he's a conflicted judge, and he ought to let us go out and campaign and get rid of this scam. Every single legal outlet, even CNN, even MSDNC, they’re saying there's no case here.