Donald Trump held a surreal press conference on his 757 to defend his embattled campaign manager

Donald Trump held a somewhat unusual press conference on his plane Tuesday afternoon.

The Republican presidential frontrunner tangled with reporters on board his own Trump-branded 757 after his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, was charged with simple battery earlier in the day.

The charge stemmed from an incident that occurred after Trump's victory speech in Florida following his wins in the March 8 primaries.

The Jupiter, Florida, police department released video of the incident, in which Lewandowski apparently grabbed then-Breitbart News reporter Michelle Fields by the arm and shoved her away as she was attempting to question Trump.

During the press conference, Trump insisted that he would be sticking by Lewandowski despite the charge against him.

"When somebody is maligned so unfairly as that, I will stick by them," he said, adding that the video showed the incident was actually "so minor."

Trump, who repeatedly questioned Fields' credibility on Twitter earlier that afternoon, asked the assembled reporters if he should file charges against Fields for supposedly touching him right before Lewandowski intervened.

"I think it's a very very sad day in this country when a man can be destroyed over something like that," he said.

He said the reporters asking him questions "got pushed around more getting on this plane than she got pushed around."

After saying that the reporters around him get "treated worse on a daily basis" than Fields, Trump was asked about the bruises on her arm. When Fields accused Trump's campaign manager of manhandling her, she tweeted out a photo of her arm:

"How do you know those bruises weren't there before?" Trump offered Tuesday. "If you're going to get squeezed, don't you think you would've let out a scream?"

The press conference came after Trump fired off a tweetstorm in defense of Lewandowski. Lewandowski turned himself in to Jupiter police and is reportedly due in court on May 4.

Fields called for Trump to "stop lying" in a Tuesday afternoon tweet.