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Trump Says Romney Planned To Run, But Was Scared Of Him; Trump Slams Romney and Rubio As "Choke Artists"; Trump Labels Romney As A Failure and Irrelevant. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired March 03, 2016 - 14:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[14:30:02] DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He settle cases, I don't like to do it -- so just so you understand, 98 percent approval rating, an aid from the Better Business Bureau. We're going to win the case. Mark it down. We're going to win the case. It will be forever because it takes forever. But that's the way it is. I don't like to settle cases. I don't like to do it. Once you settle cases, what happens is everybody says he's a settle settler, let's sue. That's not me. A lot of people don't sue me because it's too hard.

So, one of the things that Mitt brought up, which I think is so serious, he said about trade, we have to keep trade. Nobody knows more about trade than me. I made so much more money than Mitt, you know, I have a store that's worth more money than Mitt. It's a store. And actually it was funny because I made that statement jokingly when I was in Iowa. And the Des Moines Register, a paper that's actually a terrible paper if you want to know the truth, but they called up and said, oh, that's a terrible statement, that's a terrible statement for you to make that statement about.

And the people put me on. I said what are you saying? They said you have a store more than Mitt. So, let's say, Mitt's worth a $150, $200 million. I said, what's he worth? I said $150 million. Yes, he had the store's worth much more than him. It's on Fifth Avenue, you know, it's Gucci -- the Gucci stuff.

So, I said yeah, it's worth much more. We don't believe a store worth 150 million. I said, well, go ahead, go get a couple of -- they actually went out, got three appraisers. And they said, you know what that store's worth from $400 million to $1.2 billion dough (ph), and by the way this isn't. And by the way, this isn't me talking. You can go check your local Des Moines Register. If it's still open. I'm not sure it's still open.

But anyway, but I built an amazing company. And you know one of the reasons you know it's amazing. The hottest development -- the hottest development site probably in the history of the general services administration, the GSA, that's the government service, is the old post office site. That's where the post office is built in Washington, D.C. an entire block fronting on Pennsylvania Avenue. In other words, if I don't get there through the White House, I'm getting there anyway, OK folks

And fronting on Pennsylvania avenue. Look, one of the most beautiful buildings in the country, and incredible. It's a landmark building. The GSA for many for many, many years has owned it. And they've wanted to develop it for 30, 35 years. That it just sort of never worked out. Big job. And it never happened. And then they went to bid. Bidding it, they had more bidders and more high level bidders I think than they ever had before. Let's assume it's just about the hottest job they ever put out to bid. Every hotel company wanted it. I actually got it. I'm building a 300-room super, super luxury hotel.

But, they build it and every hotel company, every office company, everybody wanted it. So they went out to a public bid. One of the things in choosing the bidder was how strong is the bidder and how good is the bidder's idea. Well, they loved my idea because what we're going to do -- are you serious, this will be one of the great hotels of the world. It is now two years ahead of schedule. It's going to open in September. It was supposed to open up in September in two years.

We're two years ahead of schedule. And by the way, the GSA people are terrific people. We're under budget a little bit. In fact, the only reason we're only a little bit under budget is because I'm using marble instead of terezzo. Not a bad deal, right.

So exception, and a lot of different things but we're going super end, the highest end. And the reason I got chosen was number one my financial statement was so strong that it could guarantee completion because they didn't want to have a mess where they billed 25 percent then it goes out of business.

And number two, we had the best idea. When I listened to this myth, and by the way this is in the Obama administration in all fairness, I wouldn't say I had an advantage. In fact, said to my daughter, she was involved with that, I said, you know, maybe, maybe we're not going to get it no matter how good we do. But m financial statement is so strong. By the way, I put it in, you know, Romney talks about taxes, right, why isn't he doing his taxes. Maybe just -- You don't learn anything from -- very little do you learn from taxes. Very little. You know you look at taxes, you can't learn very much.

But I did file almost 100 pages of financial statements with the Federal elections. And it shows that I have a net worth that could be over $10 billion. Probably over. And I don't want to do that in a bragging way. I tell you because that's the kind of thinking we need. We have $19 trillion, as Paul was saying, $19 trillion in debt. It's the kind of thinking we need. I have very low debt. I have tremendous cash flow. It's an unbelievable company that I built. And I filed my financials.

So, when he says, Oh, maybe there's something in his tax return, there's nothing. But I get audited every single year. And because the company is so big, they audit -- I understand, Fortune 500 companies every year, because my company is so big, or some other reason, which is unfair -- but because my company's so big, let's leave it at that. They audit me every year. I think it's very unfair that they audit me every year. But been audited every year from many years.

Now, when the audit's finished, I'll release my tax returns. I have nothing -- but I don't want to do it. And nobody in this room would say you're being audited and here's the tax return. You get audited, did you finished up the audit routine stuff, you finish, and then you release the tax returns.

[14:35:12] But if anybody wants to -- like Mitt would like to go down and go to the federal election office, you'll see almost a 100 pages of financials that were filed ahead of schedule.

I could have delayed it for six months. I filed them within 30 days. And believe me, I had to work hard with the accountants. The accountants worked overtime because I didn't want them saying, oh, he's asking for extensions.

So, that's really the thing. So with Mitt, I just wanted to tell you that he came out, it was very nasty. I mean I thought he was a better person than that. I did help him. I raised money for his campaign. I actually had two fundraisers for him.

In fact the first fund-raiser was so successful that we had the second one that same day. His wife was a lovely woman, by the way, a really lovely woman. She came up. We had a fund-raiser in my apartment at Trump tower. And it was so oversubscribed. I did a great job.

They couldn't have cared less about him. In fact a lot of them said, Donald, he's a stiff, he's not going to win. I said, no, he'll be fine. He's a stiff, I should have listened to the guy.

But we had a fund-raiser and it was so big and it was raining out. I won't forget this one. It was raining and really raining. It was a miserable, miserable day.

And the people came in, hundreds of people, phase one. And then we said, there's too many people to put them in one. So we called for another one an hour later after it ended one hour.

And because everybody's shoes were so wet, I ruined my carpet. That's why I -- this carpet was wiped out. And nobody thanked me for the carpet. And maybe I can send Mitt a bill for carpet ruined, right?

But I always, you know, when you help somebody, when you help somebody, he asked me to make robocalls. I made six robocalls for him.

Every single place I made the robocall, he won. North Carolina. There were six different places.

So you help somebody. And then he turns. Now, I will say this, I will say this. I will say this. He probably had a right to turn. Because nobody could have been nastier than me in getting him not to run by saying he's a choke artist. And I will say the reason I think that he was going to run, I love our country too much.

If he would have run, even if he would have won, it would have been bad. He doesn't have what it takes to be president. That I can tell you. He doesn't have what it takes to be president.

So I do want to mention one thing because it works so well because his speech was long and it covered so much territory, it was ridiculous. And you're right, he didn't mention any of the many, many, many buildings.

We're building now over 120 jobs in the works, over 120 jobs all over the world. We just got Turnberry in Scotland, one of the great places of the world. Doral, where they're having the tournament today by the way. They're having the world golf championship today. And I'm in Maine. I'm in Maine with you.

I don't know. Rory -- and Rory Mcllroy, everybody's down there, and Tiger's going there later. Look, he's going to better, he's going to be fine. But they're all there. They're all at my place. And here I am making a speech at Maine, OK, see.

So, if I don't win on Saturday, I'll say, boy, was that a mistake, right? Anyway I think we will. But I will say this, look trade. He talked about domestic --

UNKNOWN MALE: Get your (inaudible) out of that now.

(INAUDIBLE REMARKS)

TRUMP: Bye-bye, bye-bye. Bye-bye. Get him out. Get them out.

UNKNOWN MALE: I love you Donald

TRUMP: I love you too. These people ...

I tell you what, your police are fantastic. Do we love our police?

UNKNOWN MALE: We love our police.

TRUMP: Where would we be without them? And in fairness they are so abused and, you know, one stupid incident or bad incident or if there's one bad person, which happens, out of the whole country, and it's the biggest story in the news and the place forever. And people don't realize how great a job the police of this country do. I have to tell you so.

So one of the things that Mitt was talking about was domestic policy and we need trade, and we need trade and we have to deal with China, we have to deal with all these people.

Look, last year in terms of a trade deficit, we lost with China $500 billion OK. We lost with Mexico. That's why Mexico's going to pay for the wall, folks.

Mexico, look, the wall, we need actually -- its 2,000 miles. We're going to pay -- we need 1,000 because we have a lot of natural barriers just so you understand. Wall's going to cost $10 billion. It's an expensive wall. It's going to be a Trump wall, bring it another budget, ahead of schedule the budget (ph).

[14:40:10] But we're going to have a real wall and it's going to be a great wall and it's going to work and we're going to stop drugs some pouring into Maine and New Hampshire and all these places. It's going to work. Believe me. It's going to work. The walls work. Properly done, walls work and it's going to happen. But -- but, just so you understand, they come up to me and they say, but Mexico will never pay, the politicians, people that are on the dais with me. But Donald, the next first they said there's no wall, right? You can't build a wall. How can you build a wall? China built a wall that's 13,000 miles long 2,000 years ago. We can do one that's a 1,000 miles right? Believe me, we can.

So now they realize that. And the other day, I hear this guy Cruz saying, we can't build a wall. And then I hear him saying, we're going to build a wall. And my wife came, darling, could you come back and listen to this. Well, it will be the first time I heard him say that. And I don't know if Rubio said it I think Rubio has got bigger problems than worrying about walls. But now all of a sudden they're talking about walls. But here's the thing, we have, with Mexico, a $58 billion trade deficit. If the wall cost $10 billion, that's a tiny fraction. If the wall costs $10 billion, I guarantee you folks that Mexico is going to pay for the wall, just as sure as you're standing there.

Now, a politician wouldn't say that. And you saw this Vicente Fox, the previous president, who by the way threw a horrible word out. He threw the f-word out, OK, the f-bomb. He threw the f-bomb. Can you imagine if I use that word? Men, that would be a big story. That will be all over the world. He threw it out and nobody cares. And then we had our vice president apologize to him. Now, look, I love Mexico. I love the Mexican people. I have many, many hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of Mexican people. Thousands over the years, thousands have worked for me. The Hispanics are phenomenal people. I told you. I won the poll in Nevada. These are phenomenal people. I won Nevada. And I won with the Hispanics which is so good, right, so good.

But look, here's the problem. Their leaders are too smart for our leader. We're getting killed at the border. We're getting killed on trade. And Nabisco is moving in from Chicago. They're closing their big plant. They are moving in. You look at Ford. Ford's building a massive, massive car complex there. That means they're closing places in Michigan. Great places. Michigan and other places. And they are closing. And they are going to Mexico. We can't let that happen. The other day, carrier announced air conditioners. I buy carrier air conditioners. It could be there conditioners. I'm not buying them anymore. They announced 1,400 men and women are being laid off and somebody had the cell phone going, right, a lot of you saw that. Big, big story. 1,400 and this manager was like, well, ladies and gentlemen, we are closing our plant, we're moving to Mexico, bye-bye. He was pretty tough for this was not a guy with social grace, believe me. So they're going to move to Mexico.

So, here's what we have to do, folks. Mitt Romney said we have to keep free trade, right. We'll we keep free trade the way we have it now. We're not going to have any companies left at all. And you people know more about NAFTA than anybody. OK, anybody because you know how you were stripped with NAFTA which was a disaster. But we're going to do something much different. We're going to be smart people now, okay. I built a tremendous fortune. And believe me I started off with very little. You know, they like to say oh my father, my father. If my father would have give me 200 million -- in fact my sister and brother called me up, they said, Don what, are they kidding, these people are such liars.

I borrowed a tiny amount of money and started something and now it's worth billions and billions and billions of dollars. And I will tell you something with the carrier plant what you have to do is you have to be smart. So this isn't free trade. We have to have smart trade.

China charges tremendous tariffs and taxes when you want to sell. I have a friend who is a manufacturer. He makes great product. He puts it into China, they send it back. Puts it again, they send it back. The third time, they take it but he has to pay a tremendous tax. He sees me and he goes, Oh, Don, you have no idea how tough it is to negotiate with China. They don't want the product and when they take the product, they charge you a tax. That's not the way it's supposed -- that's not free trade. Now China when they sell their product to us, no tax, come on in folks, take our jobs, everything else, no tax, no nothing. Not going to work that way. Mexico, the same thing.

So Ford goes out and builds this two and a half million dollar plant. They're going to make cars, trucks, and parts, right. And they're going to send them into our country. No tax. Where is that good for us? So when I watch a guy like Romney who truly is a lightweight. When you watch a guy like Mitt Romney. No, no think of it. He's talking about trade. And I love free trade. I am the free trader. You know a lot of the Conservatives, they say Donald Trump does not like free trade. Isn't it that? I want a smart trade. I want trade where at least there's an even balance, right. I don't want to be losing $500 billion a year. I don't want to be losing $58 billion a year. I want to make money or I want to break even at worst, okay?

[14:45:03] So, I tell people, if you had like lightweight Rubio as president, he's all controlled by the special interest, a 100 percent. He gets all his money -- I remember I'm self-funding. They're not paying me anything. So he gets his money. If you have a guy like Ted Cruz getting a lot of money form a lot, from oil and other places. OK, so I mean honestly that's the way life works.

So what happens is oil, 100 percent. They'll get a lobbyist to take care, a 100 percent. They're not going to do anything. Me, it's different. So here's what I do. Tell Carrier, tell Ford, tell whoever wants to listen. And it's the only way you can do it folks. The only way we're going to stop this tremendous outflow of companies is the following. And by the way Pfizer, great, great massive company, drug company, pharmaceutical company, leaving, going to Ireland. Wonderful. That's wonderful. But you're not going to take advantage of us, OK. You're not going to take advantage of us.

So here's what happens. Let's use Carrier as an example. I know it's not presidential. But my wife called just before and she said, darling, would you please react "presidentially"? Be presidential, like you were the other night when you had all those victories, you stood on the stage and everybody like it.

I said, yeah, but I have incoming. When you have incoming, you can't be too presidential and yeah right, does that make -- I said I have incoming. So here's what happens. Yeah, a lot of truth to that. They said, act presidential tonight. I said, I'll act presidential but if somebody hits me, I'm going to hit them back harder, right?

So what happens, you know, it's one of those things? So, what happens is this, they will not do anything because the lobbyists will call and say you cannot do anything to Carrier, you cannot do anything to Ford. And they'll say, oh, OK. They gave you a $2 million contribution or $5 million contribution. You can't touch them. They have been very loyal to you. They have been very good. And they'll go, all right, OK, go. That's the end of that, right. All those jobs go.

Here's what I'd do. I'd call them (ph) up and I'd like to use one of my guys. You know, Carl Icahn, a great businessman and he endorsed me. Many of the great businessmen endorsed me and women. I have have a lot of endorsements from business -- I'd announce them except nobody cares. But these are the most important people in a sense because I will use the greatest minds. We have the greatest business people, the greatest negotiators in the world. But I -- This is so easy. I want to sort of do it myself. But it's so unpresidential for me to be calling up Carrier. I'm the president of the United States.

And I call up, I say, hi, Donald Trump, President of the United States. I hope you enjoy your stay in Mexico. I hope you build a beautiful, beautiful factory, beautiful plant. And I really want to wish you well, but let me just tell you something, you moved out, you hurt 1,400 people. These people were devastated. By the way, I've watched it. And they've done a great job. You've hurt 1,400 people. And there's no free trade because it's totally imbalanced. I mean their politicians are so much sharper and smarter and street wise than ours. I said, here is the story, every air conditioning unit that you make and every single air conditioning unit that you make and comes across the border into the United States, we're going to charge you a 35 percent tax, OK, 35 percent tax.

And that's it. Now, here's what happens, OK, as sure as you're standing there. Look, they're going to call their lobbyists. Oh, you're going to speak to the president. You got of it but they can't speak to them I didn't take any of there money, I don 't want their money right? So that's not going to work. Here's what's going to happen. As sure as you're here, they're going to call me up within 24 hours. They'll going to say, Mr. President, do you have any second thoughts? I'll say absolutely not. This is where we have decided to stay in the United States.

See, very simple. Truth aside -- Now, we can be cute or we can say we're coming up with word. You know in Washington, they're playing around with all sorts of fund. There is no formula. That's the formula. So, when Mitt made the statement, he said, he will ruin free trade. Ruin free trade? If I'm losing $505 billion with China, if I'm losing $58 billion a year with Mexico in terms of deficits, why do I want that kind of trade for anyway? Ruin it? Who needs that kind of trade? Seriously? Who needs that kind of trade?

Now, Mitt admitted that I'm a much better businessman than him and I am. I'm a much, much better businessman that him. We will actually have better relationships with Mexico. We will have better relationships with China. They'll respect us. They don't respect us now. They think we're the dumbest people on earth led by the world's dumbest people.

Now, look, let me just tell you something, China, in the South China Sea, is building a massive military fort with runways and a tremendous complex. They're not supposed to be doing that. They didn't tell us. They have no respect for our country. With me, I'll cut -- I'm going to rip up those trade deals and we're going to make really good ones. And by the way, we have the cards. Just so you understand. Remember, I wrote "The Art of the Deal" which is in all fairness I think the number one selling business book of all time. But just remember this, we have the cards.

[14:50:11] We have rebuilt China with the money they've taken out of our country for many years in all fairness. We have -- And I call it the greatest single theft in the history of the world what China has done to our country. You go to China, they have trains that go 300- miles an hour. We have trains that go chug, chug, chug, and then they have to stop because the track split, right? They have trains that go 300-miles.

They have trains the Japan, China, a lot of countries. We have --we're living -- we're like the third world. You go to our airports. You go to LaGuardia. You land and you go to Dubai and you go to Qatar and you go to different places in Asia and you see airports like you've never seen. Then you come home, you land at Kennedy. You land at L.A.X. You land at LaGuardia. Oh, LaGuardia with the potholes all over the place. OK?

I mean, it's just a very sad thing what's happened. What's happened to our country is very, very, very sad. So we're going to make it a lot better and we're going to make it different and we're going to get rid of those horrible fake (ph) deals because -- and let me tell you, at some point it's going to burst. At some point, we can't continue to lose $500 billion with individual countries. We can't continue.

You add it up whether it's India, whether it's Vietnam, whether it's anybody. Every single country in the world that deals with us takes advantage of the stupidity of the United States and a lot of it is because they have the right lobbyists. They have the right negotiators. They hire the right people on Pennsylvania Avenue. We have -- they have the right people and they're negotiating with hacks, political hacks.

Not our best people, almost our worst people. So, we're going to make our country so strong. We're going to make it strong militarily, very, very strong. You know, our military is very depleted. Our military's depleted, very badly depleted and everything sort of -- the whole country is depleted and we're going to make our military strong. We're going to take care of our vets. Our vets are treated horribly, horribly.

We're going to get rid of ObamaCare and we're going to repeal it and replace it. We're going to bring education local. We're getting rid of common core which is a disaster. You know, in the world educationally, of the 30 countries that they look at, we're number 30 in education meaning we're the worst and yet per student cost, number one by far. Number two, doesn't even exist it's so far back. Number one. So with number one in cost -- number one and we're number 30 in terms of success.

So we're ranked the worst and yet we spend the most, OK? And part of that is common core. It's terrible. A part of it is a lot of other things. Part of it is theft and incompetence and waste and fraud and abuse and everything else but we're going to straighten it out. You know, it's very interesting when I won in New Hampshire. They came out with a report. Donald Trump spent $2.5 million and I won't mention names, but other people spent $45 million, OK?

(INAUDIBLE QUESTION)

I don't think he likes me, do you agree? OK. But think of it, wouldn't it be nice. So I have the lowest expenditure by far and I have the biggest result by far, a way, way, way number one. Wouldn't it be nice if we could do that for our country instead the other way around? Wouldn't it be nice? And, we're going to do that. That's all what we're going to do.

So, we are very simply, we're going to make America great again. We're going to win, win, win and we're going to win so much, you're going to get so tired of winning. You're going to say, please, please, let us have a couple of losses. I will say no way I'm going to let you have. We're going to make America great again and you'll say OK. Thank you very much. I love you. Please go and vote on Saturday. I love you. Thank you. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, everybody.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. There you have it. 50 minutes. Donald Trump speaking in Portland, Maine in there. Our people waiting all day to this day to hear what it was he would say and how he would respond to Mitt Romney's indictment of his seeking of the nomination for the presidency, for the Republicans. And wow, I mean, he zigged and he zagged.

He opened, actually and for about five minutes talked about how great Maine was even his first wife was against Marco Rubio. He called him a lightweight but then he got to it. He got to the meat. He's talking about Romney's speech. He's talking about how he was a failed candidate. He talked about how -- and I have my panel back. Here we go.

He talked about how he -- I believe the word was begged. Mitt Romney begged him to endorse him and the quote that took me back a little bit. I'm sure it did all of you. He said Mitt Romney would have dropped to his knees for me.

So let's just begin there. I have David Gregory back with me, Adrianna Cohen, Maeve Reston, and Kurt Eichenwald. Also know word, I should point out, he -- that was the first time we heard that if we were to win the party's nomination, he will self-fund when it comes for -- when it comes to general election times. [14:55:10] So, round robin, shall we, on what we thought. David Gregory up to you first.

DAVID GREGORY, FORMER MODERATOR, "MEET THE PRESS": Well, I wasn't particularly surprised. He was a vulgar. He was insulting. He was he was belittling and he wasn't terribly substantive about what it is that Mitt Romney brought up against him.

I think that's true to form for Trump when he takes on people who challenge him, and he'll get more of that in the debate tonight. But I think, in essence, this was a good day for Trump. He takes Romney's critique. He turns it back on him by saying he was a failed nominee, that he represents establishment of Republican politics that have failed the ranking file of the Republican voters.

He gets wall to wall coverage all day long by someone attacking him who is not in the race and who will not be on the debate stage. And in the process, I think it probably makes Cruz and Rubio look smaller. I think that Romney makes them looks smaller by taking Trump on.

So, all in all, I think it's kind of, you know, right in stride for Donald Trump.

BALDWIN: Adriana, how did he do?

ADRIANA COHEN, COLUMNIST, BOSTON HERALD: I think he just fantastic. He is intelligent. He was charming. He made us laugh, and then he countered a lot of the bad attacks that Mitt Romney threw at him today when, you know, Mitt Romney called him that alluded that Donald Trump was a bad businessman. He reminded us of all his great successes with all his properties, how much money he's grown his business. He's created tens of thousands of jobs. I think he did fantastic. He did it with charm and he also looked presidential. And so, I don't think Mitt Romney's, you know, scathing critique of him today is going to do anything. It's just going to mobilize the supporters.

BALDWIN: Kurt?

KURT EICHENWALD, SENIOR WRITER AND COLUMNIST, NEWSWEEK: Well, that was a very typical Trump speech actually. It's very rambling, but a lot of the same points I've heard before using the exact same examples most of the time. But he treated, you know, this is just a sign that the Republican establishment does not understand what's going on.

He treated Romney like a gnat. He swatted him and in fact, as you could see, he used it to backfire on to the Republican establishment. It's like these are what the moneyed guys say. These are what the losers say. I'm the guy who's going to win. I'm self-financing and that's exactly the kind of stuff that appeals to Trump voters. So, you know, Romney got Trump wall to wall coverage like David said, and it was a huge favor.

BALDWIN: Maeve?

MAEVE RESTON, COVERED ROMNEY'S 2012 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN: Let's be honest, Trump gets wall to wall coverage pretty much everywhere all the time, as many the other campaigns would complain about. I thought what was interesting about the speech was that, is it was really Trump on the defensive about his business record. It kind of walking through a series of attacks that Romney had made, trying to, you know, put his spin and explanation on some of it and I think that's interesting.

Also the fact that he did not answer a number of Mitt Romney's foreign policy critiques. One of the big frustrations with the Trump campaign as you and then I talk many times about, Brooke , is that there are very few details to -- around a lot of his policies and that's been really frustrating as the reporter.

And I think that the voters out there, not the Trump voters, but the undecided voters out there, you know, may have be listening for more specific at this point as he gets closer and closer to being the nominee and I think he's going to have to lay those out there.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Let me get -- actually. Let me just point out. Let me point a quick tweet, as we're listening to Trump talk, there was a tweet from Mitt Romney. It was probably the counter punch and here's the counter to the counter punch. So let's just go to the tweet up on the screen and, that David, I promise I'll come to you.

Mitt Romney tweeted, "if Trump had said four years ago, the things he says today about the KKK, the Muslims, Mexicans, disabled, I would not have accepted his endorsement". David?

GREGORY: Well, right. I actually think it would have been effective for Mitt Romney to have preempted that attaining in his remarks today.

BALDWIN: I wonder to say. Yeah. I'm sorry.

GREGORY: I think he should have said, look, I know I endorse him. I know he said these things but let me tell you why I've changed my mind and what happens. I think Maeve makes an important point and that is that Donald Trump is not providing details. He has not shown any kind of substantive depth.

We certainly didn't hear that today contrary to one of his supporters saying here among us.

But I think what's important for Donald Trump to do is sit down for an hour-long interview and to be interviewed by someone who can ask a series of detailed questions and follow-ups about what he would do as president. Not take swipes that temperament. Not treat him like a phenomenon, but just question after question to make very clear what he believes, what he knows, what he doesn't know, what might be contradictory. That would benefit voters at this point.

[15:00:17] BALDWIN: I am sure many people are trying to get that entire hour with Mr. Trump. For now, David Gregory, Adriana Cohen.