US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is vowing to stand by his campaign manager despite the aide's arrest over a misdemeanour battery charge, drawing criticism from rivals.
Trump, in a round of television interviews on Wednesday, played down the incident involving a reporter and campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, 42, who was arrested in Florida on Tuesday.
Police in Jupiter, Florida, charged Lewandowski with intentionally grabbing and bruising the arm of Michelle Fields, then a reporter for the conservative news outlet Breitbart, when she tried to question Trump at a campaign event on March 8.
Trump and Lewandowski had both initially denied the incident occurred.
Trump, a New York real estate magnate, is front-runner to be the Republican nominee after running an insurgent campaign that has alarmed many in the party establishment.
On Wednesday, Trump defended Lewandowski and went further to allege that the reporter had grabbed Trump.
"I'm sure there will be a counter-claim coming down the line," he told ABC News.
"She made up this story," Trump added on NBC. He told Fox News that Lewandowski had likely grabbed the reporter "unknowingly."
Fields has stood by her account.
"Seriously, just stop lying," she said in response to a Twitter post by Trump following the arrest.
Trump leads his opponents, US Senator Ted Cruz and Ohio Governor John Kasich, in the race for 1237 delegates needed to secure the nomination at this summer's Republican Party convention.
Cruz told CNN on Tuesday that "of course" he would fire Lewandowski over the battery charge.
"It shouldn't be complicated that members of the campaign staff should not be physically assaulting the press," Cruz said.
If Trump does not win the delegates needed before July, the party will need to turn to a complicated and likely contentious process to formally select a nominee at the convention.
