Washington, Mar 18 (EFE).- Some of Donald Trump’s potential Republican rivals in the 2024 elections reinforced their respective candidacies this Saturday in a meeting that coincided with the former US president’s announcement that he faces imminent arrest.

The meeting was convened in South Carolina by the Palmetto Family organization, defender of traditional values, and included, among others, former US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley or businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, who have already confirmed their electoral intentions , or former Arkanas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and Sen. Tim Scott, who are considering running.

On the agenda, the situation on the southern border, the crisis caused by the use of fentanyl or education on gender identity in schools, with the possibility of Trump being arrested as a backdrop.

The former Republican president (2017-2021), who assured this Saturday that he will be arrested on Tuesday and urged the public to protest to “recover” the country, is being investigated by the New York Prosecutor’s Office for paying money to the movie star Stormy Daniels porn to allegedly silence a sexual relationship.

“We shouldn’t pick a candidate just because he’s a Christian or a conservative. We must make sure that he is not someone who tears our country apart,” Hutchinson said in a special appeal to the evangelical community, to which he belongs.

While appearances like Haley’s focused on their own agenda, stressing among other points that Mexican cartels must be given the same treatment as the Islamic State jihadist group, Ramaswamy’s went directly to that “elephant in the room” to criticize in change to ruling party for “using police force to arrest an opponent.”

From the most conservative wing of the Republicans, support for Trump was also made public.

“The New York attorney has done more to help you get elected president than anyone else in the United States today. They’re making things up that they’ve never used against anyone else. Is this the most important thing that’s happening in Manhattan? It is an attempt to destroy him and everything around him,” Senator Lindsey Graham said at that meeting.

On Twitter, legislators such as the leader of the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, also spoke out, denouncing that the possible arrest is a “shameful abuse of power by a radical prosecutor” seeking “political revenge.”

“This is what they do in communist countries to destroy their political opponents,” added Marjorie Taylor Greene, while fellow House member Matt Gaetz noted that it should be seen as “the pathetic partisan plot that it is.”

Trump plans to hold his first big electoral rally next weekend in Texas and today he did not stop reiterating his calls for protest: “Our enemies are trying to intimidate me. But this is my message to them: I will never give up, ”he said, claiming that the opposing side is trying to“ kill ”the country.

His former vice president, Mike Pence, added today that, like many Americans, he is “baffled” by the news of his eventual arrest.

“With a giant crime wave in New York and a Republican Party that has literally dismantled the criminal justice system in that city, is that what the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office considers a priority?” he criticized.

From the Democratic Administration, the former speaker of the Lower House Nancy Pelosi spoke in a statement to emphasize that “no one is above the law” and allege that Trump’s announcement is “reckless” and encourages agitation among his followers.

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