Trump 'okay with it' if Judge Merchan sentences him to jail time

Donald Trump was asked in a Sunday morning interview about the possibility of his being sentenced to jail time when he faces Judge Juan Merchan on July 11 for his arraignment. "I'm okay with it," he said. 

In a wide-ranging interview with Rachel Campos-Duffy, Pete Hegseth and Will Cain, Hegseth asked about the timing of the arraignment, which is only four days before the RNC is scheduled to begin in Milwaukee, Wisc. where Trump will be officially nominated to be the party's presidential candidate.

"That's part of the game," Trump said. 

Hegseth said that it has been suggested that Trump could "appeal directly to the Supreme Court due to the special nature of this case. When it comes to the legal maze that you're still facing, and the judge could decide to say 'hey, house arrest, or even jail.'"

"I'm okay with it," Trump said. "I saw one of my lawyers on television the other day saying 'oh no, you don't want to do that to the president.' You don't beg for anything, that's just the way it is."

Trump was convicted on 34 class E felony counts of the falsification of business records in a New York court room on Thursday for having recorded payments to his then-attorney Michael Cohen as legal fees in bookkeeping records. Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg alleged that this was election interference. Without the payments made by Cohen to Stormy Daniels, a woman with whom Trump was alleged to have had an affair, Bragg contended that Trump would not have won the 2016 election.

Each count could bring a sentence of four years in prison. New York Mayor Eric Adams has said that the city's incarceration facilities had already begun considering how to imprison the former president, who brings with him a Secret Service detail.

Trump is the first president who was criminally prosecuted and the first who is facing jail time. While Richard Nixon was brought up on charges after the Watergate scandal, he was pardoned by his successor and vice president, Gerald Ford.