The US President, who was on his way to a rally in West Virginia for candidate Patrick Morrisey, said he “feels sad” for Mr Manafort, who he described as a “good man”.
He told reporters: “He was with Ronald Reagan, he was with a lot of different people over the years, and I feel very sad about that.
“It doesn’t involve me, but I still feel it’s a very sad thing that happened.”
The American firebrand also stated more than once during the brief interview that Mr Manafort’s case “has nothing to do with Russian collusion”.
He called the conviction a “witch hunt” and a “disgrace”.
Mr Manafort, 69, was convicted on Tuesday of five counts of tax fraud, two counts of bank fraud and one count of failure to report a foreign bank account.
However, he avoided conviction on some charges as the jury could not reach a consensus.
The former campaign chief had been charged with bank fraud, tax fraud, failure to report foreign bank accounts and also conspiracy.
It emerged that his fraud activity took place when he was chairing the Trump election campaign.
Kevin Downing, Mr Manafort’s lawyer, said that his client was “evaluating all of his options”.
Mr Downing added that Mr Manafort was “disappointed of not getting acquittals all the way through or a complete hung jury on all counts”.
More to follow…