Trump adviser compares Trump's charges to those of civil rights activists

Bruce LeVell, a senior adviser to former President Donald Trump, said the early race call for Trump in the Iowa caucuses affirms the campaign's confidence that Trump will win the Republican nomination.

"It will be a sweep all the way," LeVell told NPR as the campaign now shifts to the next nominating contests in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada.

When asked about Trump's 91 criminal charges, Levell made a link to the charges faced by civil rights activists in the 1960s.

"You're talking to person on the phone that's linked to Atlanta with the civil rights movement and my uncles and all them were arrested hundreds of times because they were pushing back against some old quote Jim Crow laws," he said. "It's fair to say that because the same so-called justice system weaponized the law to persecute Black Americans — it's the same justice system that they use to try to persecute and block President Trump being on the ballot."

Levell referred to Trump's legal woes as "just an inconvenience" but maintained the campaign feel confident as it turns to the remaining primary contests and ahead to the general.

This story first appeared in NPR's Iowa caucus liveblog.