In his closing remarks, former President Donald Trump said there is a "very dark cloud over our beloved country."

He addressed the crowd for about 25 minutes.

Former President Donald Trump has started his address at his Mar-a-Lago estate, hours after he was arraigned on criminal charges.

"God bless you all. I never thought anything like this could happen in America," were Trump's first words.

Trump claimed the "fake case" was brought "only to interfere with the upcoming 2024 election" and said it should be "dropped immediately."

Some members of Donald Trump's family just entered the Mar-a-Lago ballroom for the former president's remarks.

Trump's son Donald Trump Jr., with Kimberly Guilfoyle, and his daughter Tiffany Trump entered the room to loud applause from the crowd.

-ABC News' Will Steakin

Former President Donald Trump was still revising his speech less than an hour before his scheduled remarks at 8:15 p.m. ET, sources said.

Sources said he spent the entire flight to Florida working on his speech. While his remarks are expected to be in a teleprompter, aides are preparing for him to go off script.

Sources described Trump's mood as "determined, resolute and up for the challenge," though that he was also "angry" leaving court this afternoon.

-ABC News' Katherine Faulders, John Santucci and Rachel Scott

ABC News asked legal experts their thoughts on the indictment and statement of facts document unsealed Tuesday in the Manhattan district attorney's case against former President Donald Trump.

According to Lance Fletcher, a former assistant district attorney at the Manhattan DA's Office, the indictment "discusses an intent to defraud, and an intent to commit another crime, but does not specify what that other crime is."

"This is an important issue because the intent to defraud and intent to commit another crime is what bumps this up from a misdemeanor to a felony," Fletcher continued.

The timing of meetings and payments relative to the 2016 election is also important "because it indirectly argues purpose was campaign-related and not for Trump's personal reasons (such as keeping his marriage together)," Fletcher said.

Marc Scholl, who was a prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office for nearly 40 years and is now in private practice with the New York-based firm Lewis Baach Kaufmann Middlemiss, called the statement of facts document "an oddity."

"Why it was not part of the indictment as a conspiracy count is odd, but I guess the DA didn't want to have a misdemeanor," Scholl said, adding that statements of facts like this "are not commonplace."

Scholl noted that the district attorney doesn't need to prove anything that's said in the statement of facts -- just what’s in the indictment.

Michael Bachner, a former assistant district attorney in the Rackets Bureau of the Manhattan DA's Office, said the only surprise in the indictment was "it being expanded to include [former Playboy model Karen] McDougal."

"The theory of the prosecution is exactly as we expected and that is that there was a scheme to bury stories through this catch-and-kill process in order to help Donald Trump get elected, and that these payments were in the campaign contributions which were improperly buried," Bachner continued.

As far as next steps, Trump's attorneys are now "obviously going to file some very significant motions to dismiss the indictment," including by citing statute of limitations, and the theory "that there was no effort to interfere with an election," Bachner said.

"This was all payments made for personal purposes. However, given the timing of the payment is right after the Access Hollywood story, I think the judge is going to let this indictment stand," Bachner said.

-ABC News' Soo Rin Kim and Mike Levine