Former US President Donald Trump launched a blistering attack at the Biden administration after facing criminal charges over the 2016 pre-election hush money case, and said that the "country is going to hell” and that the "world is laughing at us". With this, Donald Trump became the first sitting or former US President to face criminal charges.

Addressing the media and his supporters from Mar-a-Lago, his Florida home, the 76-year-old said, "We have to save our country. I never thought anything like this could happen in America -- never thought it could happen. The only crime that I’ve committed is to fearlessly defend our nation from those who seek to destroy it".

“Our country is going to hell”, Donald Trump said as the crowd of supporters clapped for him in support as he said that his campaign was a victim of election interference, lashing out at New York prosecutor Alvin Bragg for bringing criminal charges against him.

“This fake case was brought only to interfere with the upcoming 2024 election and it should be dropped immediately," he said. Targeting the Joe Biden administration, Donald Trump- frontrunner in the race for the 2024 Republican nomination- said that "radical left" prosecutors were out to get him "at any cost."

Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges, which reportedly include the felony of conspiracy and stem from hush money paid to a former porn star during the tycoon's 2016 election campaign, to keep quiet over an alleged affair.

Trump, 76, was indicted by a Manhattan grand jury last week in a case stemming from a 2016 hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, though the specific charges have yet to be disclosed.

In a different case, adult film star Stormy Daniels has been ordered to pay over $120,000 in legal fees to the attorneys of former US President Donald Trump by a federal appeals court in California. That`s on top of the over $500,000 in court-ordered payments to Trump attorneys that she has to pay.

The order was delivered on the same day that a Manhattan court arraigned Trump on 34 charges related to alleged hush money payments to Daniels to cover up a purported affair between the two.