In an interview with Spectrum News 1 Wisconsin on Tuesday ahead of the start of the 13th day of his hush money trial, former President Donald Trump said that he will “probably” testify in the case.

“I would like to,” Trump, speaking from New York, told Spectrum News’ Anthony DaBruzzi before launching into a laundry list of now familiar complaints about the case, the judge overseeing it and the gag order preventing him from talking about witnesses.

What You Need To Know

  • Former President Donald Trump in an interview with Spectrum News 1 Wisconsin on Tuesday that he will “probably” testify in the hush money case against him

  • Trump on called Judge Juan Merchan “a partisan, biased judge,” “a terrible judge who’s totally conflicted” and suggested that he “shouldn’t be a judge, certainly not in this case, [he] probably shouldn’t be a judge, period"

  • The ex-president also discussed the race to be his running mate, praising the fact that Republican vice presidential hopefuls are "actually all out there" on the campaign trail while the ex-president is limited to staying in New York to appear at the hush money trial

  • Trump also mentioned South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, who is at the center of a political firestorm after detailing in her memoir shooting and killing a 14-month-old dog in a gravel pit; the ex-president praised her as "somebody that has been supportive of me from the beginning" but admitted she has "had a rough couple of days"

Trump faces 34 charges of falsifying business records around purported efforts to cover up his alleged infidelity with an adult film actress during his 2016 presidential campaign. The former president has pleaded not guilty and denied any wrongdoing.

“You have a judge who’s taken away my First Amendment right, so I’m not allowed to speak, essentially,” Trump said of Judge Juan Merchan, the magistrate overseeing the New York criminal trial. “If you say anything slightly off, he wants to put you in jail.”

Merchan, who fined Trump for a second time Monday for violating the gag order, warned that further comments about jurors, witnesses and others in the case could result in jail time, though he admitted that “incarceration is truly a last resort for me.”

When asked how Trump, who has called himself the "law and order candidate" dating back to his 2016 presidential campaign, reckons that stance with risking further violations of the gag order, including jail time, the presumptive Republican nominee admitted that it's "very uncomfortable" not being able to answer certain questions put forward by reporters about the case.

"You can't take away somebody's First Amendment – I mean, you can't take away somebody's freedom of speech," Trump contended. "And if they do it to me, they're going to do it to everybody else ... I get asked simple questions that – I can't answer them, I have to tell reporters, 'I'm sorry, I'm gagged,' or 'I'm sorry, I can't answer that question.' And not even tough questions, they're easy questions. But it's a very draconian thing what this man [Judge Merchan] has done. It's a terrible thing what he's done."

Judge Merchan specified last week that the gag order does not prevent Trump from testifying on his own behalf.

Trump on Tuesday called Merchan “a partisan, biased judge,” “a terrible judge who’s totally conflicted” and suggested that he “shouldn’t be a judge, certainly not in this case, [he] probably shouldn’t be a judge, period.”

The ex-president went on to call the proceedings “very unfair” and a “witch hunt” and baselessly accused his rival and likely opponent in November’s election, President Joe Biden, of being behind the prosecution. (There is no evidence Biden is behind any of the criminal proceedings against Trump; in the example of the hush money trial, the president does not have jurisdiction over state-level cases.)

Trump's No. 1 criteria in a running mate pick: If they'll 'be a good president'

When Trump spoke to Spectrum News last month, he teased that he would announce his running mate pick "sometime around" the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in July, or "maybe a little before." 

Since then, several Republican vice presidential hopefuls have hit the campaign trail as surrogates for the ex-president, most notably at a donor retreat over the weekend at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. Among those in attendance were South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and House Republican conference Chair Elise Stefanik.

When asked if he might announce the pick sooner, Trump praised the fact that "they're actually all out there" on the campaign trail while the ex-president is limited to staying in New York to appear at the hush money trial.

"This weekend, we had 15 people, I guess all of them supposedly have a chance if you read the media," Trump said. "But they're all out there campaigning. It might actually be more effective this way because, you know, every one of them thinks they could be chosen, which I guess possibly is so – but we have a lot of people, we have a lot of great surrogates out ... really great surrogates, many of them are being considered for VP."

Another one of the attendees at the donor retreat was South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, who has recently found herself at the center of a political firestorm, receiving rare bipartisan condemnation for detailing in her memoir a story about shooting and killing her 14-month-old dog, Cricket, in a gravel pit.

She also writes in the book about shooting a goat the same day and alludes to killing President Biden's dog, a German shepherd named Commander, who was removed from the White House in October of last year after biting several members of the Secret Service. Noem also erroneously described in the memoir meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, which she said in an interview on CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday is being removed from the book.

When asked about Noem, Trump said that the South Dakota governor is "somebody that has been supportive of me from the beginning" and added that he likes her "a lot," but admitted she's "had a rough couple of days" amid the controversy.

"I don't want to comment on anybody on the list," Trump said. "But she had a rough couple of days, I will say that." 

Trump said that the "most important thing" in a potential running mate pick is if they'll be "a good president."

"Because if something should happen, you know, it's such an important, such an important position," Trump said, adding: "If something should happen to me, when something happens to me, which can happen, you have to make sure that somebody really good is in there to take your place, so that's always got to be the number one criteria."

The second most important factor, Trump noted, is if they can help him win votes.

"Traditionally, however, and you know this probably better than I do, VPs have never really helped in the election process," Trump added. "It's a one-day story, it's a big story, and then it's back to work. They want to really know who's No. 1 on the ticket. The VP, I don't know if any time where VP has greatly enhanced, greatly helped somebody get elected. They just don't. It surprises me actually, because you would think they would, but they just don't."