[VIDEO IN EXTENDED ARTICLE]

Donald Trump says he’s “instructed my people” to explore the possibility of helping pay the legal bills for a 78-year-old man charged with assault at a Trump rally.

Authorities have said John Franklin McGraw of Linden, North Carolina, was charged after he was caught on video hitting a man deputies were escorting at a Trump rally last Wednesday in Fayetteville.

Trump tells NBC’s “Meet the Press” that McGraw “got carried away” and “maybe he doesn’t like seeing what’s happening to the country.”

Trump was asked if he might help McGraw with legal fees, if McGraw needed it.

Trump says: “I’ve actually instructed my people to look into it, yes.”

The man who was punched has told The Associated Press that he and others went to the event as observers, not protesters. He says someone swore at one in their group, and by the time they tried to object, the police were escorting him out.

(AP)