I mean, there is an overflow crowd of media and people waiting for Trump.
Emerge from his meeting with Reince Priebus of the Republican National Committee at which meeting Trump.
By the way, CNN has sources telling them that Trump has signed the Republican National Committee loyalty pledge.
Yeah, big, big, big deal.
Yeah, see, they're all worried that Trump wouldn't go support the Republican nominee if it's not him.
They're all worried Trump would go third party.
If Trump goes third party, it screws everything up because the Democrats win practically automatic.
At least that's been the histoire.
So they've been after Trump signed this pledge.
It looks like he signed the pledge.
And now they're all waiting for Trump to come out and address the media.
The big news that he has signed the pledge.
And like I said moments ago, I happen to think that this is going to work the other way around.
What's ended up here is that all of these other Republicans have ended up pledging that they will support Trump if he's the nominee.
I don't know that that was the original intent of this.
And I don't know how many of these Republicans would support Trump.
I don't know how much anger there is.
There he is.
Can we jip this?
Are our microphones there today at Trump Tower?
Yeah, well, let's see what they just hit the microphone.
This is from the Republican Party.
Right.
We're leading in every single poll.
A new poll came out today where we're over 30 percent.
We've actually hit numbers as high as 35 and 40 percent.
And frankly, I felt that the absolute best way to win and to beat the Democrats and very easily, I think, beat the Democrats no matter who it may be, whether it's Hillary or anybody else.
And I think maybe Hillary's going to have a very hard time, frankly, with what's happening, getting to the starting gate.
The best way for the Republicans to win is if I win the nomination and go directly against whoever they happen to put up.
And for that reason, I have signed the pledge.
Yeah.
He's showing the pledge now for sure.
He's displaying it to people.
So I will be totally pledging my allegiance to the Republican Party and the conservative principles for which it stands.
And we will go out and we will fight hard.
And we will win.
We will win.
And most importantly, we will make our country great again because that's what it's all about.
We have to make our country great again.
With that, are there any questions?
Why would anyone think this pledge achieved any?
This is a self-funded campaign.
We have our heart in it.
We have our soul in it.
I don't need money.
I don't want money.
And this is going to be a campaign like I think no other.
I'm not controlled by lobbyists.
I'm not controlled by anybody.
I'm controlled by the people of the country in order to make our country great again.
Yeah, I got nothing.
All I have, yeah, I really got nothing.
What the question was, what did I get for signing the pledge?
Absolutely nothing other than the assurance that I would be treated fairly.
And I've seen that over the last two months, but they really have been very fair.
No, I have no intention of changing my mind.
Well, I think the big thing, Dana, that's changed is, and it's been obvious to all.
Number one, after I announced, we went up like a rocket ship.
Nobody thought I was going to run, and they said, oh, he won't run, and he won't put in his papers, and he won't do all of this.
I did that.
The papers, in terms of the company, turned out to be spectacular.
It's a great company.
I built a great company.
And all of the other papers have turned out to be very well received.
And I think the thing that changed is the fact that I went to number one place very quickly after I signed and after I, in this building, notified everybody that I'd be running for president.
So I think the biggest thing is that I went early to number one, and the RNC has treated me with great respect.
So that was very important.
Yes.
When you see this, check the crowd behind him, folks, when you see it.
...circumstances under which I would tear up that pledge.
So Governor Christie today said that you are so consumed and that he didn't mean rights to be just above and meet with him.
Well, you don't have to be met when you're at 2%.
It's one of those things.
That's the way life works.
And I like Governor Christie, by the way.
Well, the chairman asked if he could come up.
You saw him.
He was here a little while ago.
And I was greatly honored that he did come up, frankly.
Well, I think that when you get right down to it, we're a nation that speaks English.
And I think while we're in this nation, we should be speaking English.
And that's how assimilation takes.
And that's how, I mean, whether people like it or not, that's how we assimilate.
And that's how we go on to that next phase and that next stage.
And that's how people that don't speak English.
And I'm not just talking about Spanish, I'm talking about from various parts of the world.
That's how they will become successful and do great.
So I think it's more appropriate to be speaking English.
Well, one of the things I want to do, and I feel very strongly, it's a country based on borders and our country is based on laws.
And when people come into the country illegally, we should not allow that.
And this is not from South America.
This is not from Mexico.
This is from all over the world.
When people come illegally, we cannot allow that.
And I want people to come legally.
I want very much to take care of our border because our southern border is a total mess.
That's been proven.
And interestingly, a couple of months ago when I announced, I made some very strong statements about the crime and the problems that were happening.
And I've been proven right.
And many of the people in this audience actually have apologized to me, which I very much appreciate.
Of course, they haven't done it publicly, but these are minor details.
Someday they will.
The fact is that we are a nation that wants and needs borders.
We're a nation that wants and needs and is based on laws.
And we will make sure that that takes place.
With that being said, I want people to come into our country legally.
I want to have a big, fat, beautiful, open door.
I want people of great talent to come in, for Silicon Valley.
I want engineers.
I want physicists.
I want people with great talent to come into the United States.
When people graduate from college, you can be number one in your class at Harvard or number one at Yale or the Wharton School of Finance or Princeton or Stanford.
And immediately, if you're not a citizen of the United States, you get thrown out of the country.
We want those people to stay.
We want people of great talent to be in the United States, to work here, and ultimately to become a citizen.
I don't know enough about it to comment on it.
Was she jailed?
I really don't know much about it.
No, no.
Yes, go ahead.
That's absolutely false.
I win at golf.
I win at golf.
That I can tell you.
Yes.
Accused him of cheating at golf.
Well, I understand how the system works may be better than anybody.
I understand the political system, and I understand also very much a system of coming in for illegal immigrants.
Don't forget, if I didn't bring up the subject of illegal immigration, you wouldn't be asking the question.
Nobody would even be talking about immigration.
And immigration, and in particular illegal immigration, has become a very big factor.
Now, a lot of bad things have happened with respect to crime since I brought it up.
But if I didn't bring it up, immigration would not even be a subject that we're talking about.
And it happens to be a very important subject.
I have to say this.
It can also be a very positive subject because I believe so strongly in immigration.
And I just, we have to stop illegal immigration.
And we have to look forward to great immigration done in a legal manner.
It's time to start thinking about wrapping this up now, Donald.
We've got to break your.
No, go ahead.
Donald, starting to get away from the state.
Not time to end this, Donald.
Well, there is gridlock in Congress right now, and that's because there's no leadership at the top.
You have to be able to lead.
You have to get people into your office.
You have to get people go to them any way you want to do it.
But you have to be able to lead.
There is no leadership at the top.
Signing executive orders is not the way our country was supposed to be run.
Yeah, go ahead.
I don't want to talk about that here.
It's inappropriate.
Yes, sir.
Go ahead.
Tom Brady?
Well, Tom Brady is a very good friend of mine.
He's a great guy.
For those of you that don't know him, he's a very honorable guy and an honest guy and a truly great athlete.
He is really a very good friend of mine.
And I just spoke to him a little while ago.
He's so thrilled and so happy.
Tom Brady, I think what they've done is terrible.
And he has been exonerated, as I understand it, because I just heard about it.
But I'm very happy for Tom.
As far as the Commission is concerned, they're having a rough year, let's face it.
They're having a very rough year.
Yeah, go ahead.
Well, in Europe, they have tremendous problems where people are going in and storming, and it's a huge humanitarian problem.
And I just say this: the United States has tremendous problems of their own.
We have infrastructure that we have to fix.
We have bridges and roads and tunnels, and everything's falling apart.
Our region's in such trouble.
That's why being a builder and a great builder and a very successful builder, I think will greatly help.
But we have so many of our own problems, including the border, including the wall, which we will get built, including all of the things we have, health care, which is a mess.
You know, if you look at Obamacare, the premiums have gone up 45, 50, 55 percent.
People are saying this is turning out to be a disaster.
Deductibles are through the roof.
The deductibles on Obamacare, it's through the roof.
So we have a lot of problems.
We have to take care of our vets.
We have to build up our military.
Just the other day, General Ordeano said that the Army is in the worst shape in its history in terms of preparedness.
Now, for them to be in bad shape with the way we are and with the world hating us, and you look at Hillary Clinton, and I've said she's the worst Secretary of State in the history of this country.
Now, in all fairness, because of the agreement that's about to be finalized with Iran, John Kerry may very well take her place.
I think that agreement is a disaster for this country, for Israel, for the Middle East.
It's going to lead to nuclear proliferation, the 24-day clause, everything about, we don't even get our prisoners back.
You say, who negotiates a thing like that?
That won't happen.
I can guarantee you with the President Trump.
All right, one or two more questions.
See, I knew it.
I'm just going to wrap it up.
You'll see it later.
Yeah.
They don't want to hear it.
Yeah, go ahead.
Would you say it up, please?
All I want them to do, yeah, and say hello to Rosanna and Greg, okay?
Great people.
I would say, very simply, I just want to be treated like everybody else.
You see, I was always the fair-haired boy.
I was a big contributor.
Nobody knows the system, but I was on the other side.
And I was the elite.
I was the fair-haired person.
Once I ran, all of a sudden I was a little bit of an outsider.
I became an outsider because I was running, because I wasn't supposed to run.
I'm this businessman that people have given me great credit as being a great businessman, but I'm not supposed to be running for office.
The fact is that our country is being killed on trade by China, by Japan, by Mexico, both at the border and on trade.
And I'm not knocking those countries.
Their leaders are much, much smarter than our leaders.
We owe Japan with all of the cars coming in the same amount, $1.4 trillion.
That's like a magic act.
They send the cars in.
They take our jobs.
They do everything.
And we owe them money.
That's not going to happen with me.
It's been a long time.
Go.
This has got to be it, Donald.
We've got to get out of here.
Well, Jeb Bush is a very nice man.
I'll be honest.
I think he's a very nice person.
I think he's a very low energy person, and I don't think that's what the country needs.
I hear that he's going to spend a lot of money on negative ads on me.
And honestly, look, he's getting the money from special interests.
He's getting the money from lobbyists and his donors.
And they're making him do it because he's crashing in the polls.
So I don't know what's going to happen.
If he spends $20 million or $25 million on negative ads, I don't know.
I know that my life will continue.
I just don't know.
I mean, nobody's ever spent money on ads against me.
But he probably has to do that, although it would not be the way I've done it.
You know, one of the things that I'm most honored about is that so far, everybody that's attacked me has gone down the tubes.
You have Lindsey Graham attacked me.
He was at 3%.
Now he's at zero.
You have Perry attacked me.
Now he's getting out of the race.
He was at 4 or 5%.
Now he's getting out of the race.
He was at zero.
Everybody, Rand Paul attacked me.
I see the last poll, the Monmouth poll, just came out today, where I'm leading by double figures.
And Rand Paul is down to less than 2%.
And he attacked me.
Now, Jeb Bush also just went down in the Monmouth poll, very big.
So I don't know.
I mean, they're going to spend, he's going to spend lobbyists' money and special interest money.
Remember this.
They have total control over Jeb and Hillary and everybody else that takes that money.
Nobody knows the system better than me.
Folks, we've got to get out here.
We have to go to our break.
We stuck with this as long as we could.
Be right back, however.
Don't miss it.
Trump's still going.
We'll get back to it.
He just said that he's unhappy.
Rand Paul's still in the debate.
They haven't kicked him out yet.
Doesn't deserve to be there, but Carly Fiorina does.
I said, I don't know if it's appropriate, Reince, for you to be here because I don't want anything, you know, you guys will end up saying he's endorsing Trump.
That would be inappropriate for him.
So I suggested, frankly, that I'm fine with him not being here because I don't want anybody to think he's endorsing.
As far as Jeb is concerned, I watched him this morning on television, and it's a little bit sad.
Don't forget, he was supposed to win.
And he just doesn't have the energy.
But what he does have is a lot of money that was given to him, again, by special interest donors and lobbyists.
And I just hope that if he spends money on ads, which he may not, if I were him, I'd spend money on positive ads about himself.
Because if he knocks me, assuming people leave, and maybe they're at a point where they're not going to leave because they're fed up with what's happening in this country.
But I think they're going to go to people other than Jeb.
Yeah, go ahead.
Right now I'm interested in jobs.
One thing, and one of the groups, it was actually CNN, I shouldn't say that, but they did a very massive poll.
And I came out number one in leadership, number one on the economy, number one in jobs producing.
And I don't mean by number one, I mean like number one by many, many times.
And I am so intent on putting people back to work in this country.
You know, we have 93 million people that are not in the workforce right now.
93 million.
When they give up looking for a job, they take them off the stats.
They take them off the statistics.
We have 93 million people.
We have 50 million people between poverty levels and welfare and all.
Our country can be great again.
We have to put people back to work.
All right, one or two more.
Well, okay, on that note, we have to bump out again.
I'm sure you understand, ladies and gentlemen.
What a pleasant surprise for you Trumpsters.
We didn't know this is going to happen.
We have the flexibility.
Our microphones were there.
We were able to jip this.
And you got to hear some of it.
Maybe more when we get back.
We'll see.
And we're back.
Great to have you with us, my friends.
When you watch this, Donald Trump loves this.
He loves taking questions.
I can't remember.
Trying to think.
I can't remember the last political figure that you had to drag off the stage and people didn't want him to leave.
I can't remember that.
He's done three encores here.
Can you imagine Hillary Clinton doing something like this?
Hillary Clinton wouldn't get anywhere near something like this.
She doesn't want to answer a single question.
She doesn't want to have anybody this open an opportunity to ask her questions.
This place, Trump Tower, is mobbed with people.
And when you see, when you see the, when you see pictures of it tonight, when you look at the crowd behind Trump, what you're going to see, remember, he signed the pledge.
He held up the pledge.
He signed the pledge.
And what it really means is that all these other Republicans have pledged to support him if he wins.
It's a two-way street.
It's not just that he won't run third party.
So I don't know how these people think they pulled a fast one on him by making him sign the pledge.
It might come back and bite him.
But you're going to see a Republican Party with a huge tent.
Do you see those people behind him?
You had every race and ethnicity and gender and perhaps orientation you could think of standing.
That's it.
I don't think any were actors.
That's what Obama does.
Obama's the one that hires the actors to stand behind him.
Whoever else.
But I mean, the point is, he clearly loves this.
He's having a great time.
And if he gets a question he doesn't want, he's not going to answer that.
It's inappropriate.
I don't know what the question was.
But he does.
Yeah, he doesn't look uncomfortable with whatever comes his way.
He just absorbs it.
He eats it up.
While you were away, one of the breaks, the last break, one of the final things that he said, I think it was during a break.
He was talking about Jeb and he almost felt sorry for him.
And it's sad.
It's really sad about Jeb.
He's got all these people making him do these things and giving him his money to do these things.
And he gave Jeb some advice.
He says, you know, getting ready to spend all these people's money attacking me.
What you ought to do is maybe do some ads building yourself up.
So he practically invited Jeb to do the attack ads.
He invited anybody.
Hit me.
I've never had it happen to me before.
We'll see what happens, what it does.
And then he reminded everybody he's using his own money.
Yeah, that's right.
Somebody asked him, Kanye West.
I love Kanye West.
Kanye West has never said a bad thing about me.
Look what you people got to know.
I only hit back.
If you hit me, I'm going to hit you right back.
If you love Trump, then I'm going to love you.
Which, by the way, which, by the way, is what I've always said ought to be our foreign policy, which is, I've always said that ought to be our recipe for foreign aid.
You love us, you respect us, you speak up for us.
We'll be glad to help you out.
But if you don't, you are on our excrement list and it's going to take five years of your loving us for you to get off of it.
That's always been my foreign policy, particularly foreign aid.
Why should we be giving money to people that rip us out there?
Anyway, welcome back, folks.
It's great to have you with us.
This is the EIB network.
Who else could get a 40-minute press availability after a signing meeting with the chairman of the Republican National Committee?
Take any of these other candidates, put them anywhere, and they're going to sign the pledge with Reinz Priebus.
Do you think mobs of people would show up to be there after it happened?
As I say, this is one of those rare things where, I mean, it took him 10 or 15 minutes to wrap this up.
People didn't want him to leave.
Okay, time for a couple more.
Boo!
Audio sound bites.
I didn't know this was in the stack.
I just had I was just informed that this next bite was in the stack during the Trump appearance there.
It happened on Bloomberg TV today, Market Makers.
Eric Schatzker is the host, and he's talking with the Bloomberg Wall Street reporter Max Abelson about a recent Bloomberg story, how Trump invented Trump.
Trump seems to have learned the same lesson that folks like, I don't want to equate them.
I'm just drawing a comparison.
That Russ Limbaugh learned.
The more you say something, even if it isn't true, the more people believe it is true.
Well, that's definitely probably a very profound American reality.
But on the other hand, I will say that Rush Limbaugh, actually, I was just about to say Rush Limbaugh is not a businessman in the same sense Donald Trump is, but maybe the excellence in broadcasting, is that what Rush Limbaugh's company is called?
I think it is.
He's certainly a successful person.
He probably has a real company.
But Donald Trump, to be fair, though, has put up huge buildings.
These guys are comparing me to Trump as well.
But Limbaugh doesn't have buildings, and Trump has buildings.
But it's really still an impresario.
But Trump has learned what Limbaugh learned, and then they get this BS about say something often enough, it doesn't matter whether it's true.
You in this audience know full well that everything said on this program is research to be the truth, and if we screw it up, we correct it.
Besides that, these guys forgot about the EIB building in Midtown Manhattan.
To the phones we go, Macon, Georgia, this is Bill.
You're next, sir.
I'm glad you waited, and it's great to have you with us.
Hello.
Hey, I think it's going to still shape out to be a four-way race in November of 16 with a Democrat, not Hillary.
You're going to have a Republican, who knows, and you're going to have a Bernie Sanders running as an independent and Donald Trump running as an independent.
And I can say to you honestly, real-time feedback from my two Tea Party gals here, they are furious, not at Trump, but at the Republican Party for the way that they are treating not only Trump, but the supporters.
Because what's upsetting my wife more than anything else is, why isn't Bernie Sanders being made to sign a pledge?
He's actually run and won as a third-party candidate, and my answer to her was, the Democrats want him out, but his voters in.
The Republicans want Trump out, but they don't care whether their voters stay in or not.
And, again, I think 2016 is going to be an election where all the rules are out.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, just a second.
Before you, did you just say that the difference in the Republicans and Democrats is that the Democrats will force Bernie out but try to keep his voters?
And the Republicans will force Trump out, but they don't worry.
They don't care whether they lose his voters or not?
Yeah, because who are his supporters?
You talked and you articulated it yesterday.
His voters are not necessarily conservatives for conservative reasons.
They're Tea Party people.
My dad is what you used to call like a Reagan Democrat or a Blue Dog Democrat.
He's from Massachusetts.
He's a Trump supporter.
But you get him talking about economics, you sound like you're talking to Mao Zedong.
You talk to gun control.
It's like you're talking to John Wayne.
You've got all kinds of people supporting Trump, but the Republicans just alienated a lot of people.
Now, with Bernie Sanders, they don't want Bernie Sanders getting a nomination anymore than they want Hillary Clinton.
Because, as you said, Bernie Sanders believes what he's saying.
But if you may try to make Bernie Sanders sign a pledge, you're saying to his voters, we don't think he can win.
And he'll either run as an angry third-party guy, which means his supporters are going to go with him.
Well, here's the difference.
Bernie Sanders is not Donald Trump.
I don't think anybody would even think of dealing with Bernie Sanders with a pledge.
They'll deal with Bernie Sanders in a little room behind the scenes, and it'll be like Peter Finch being dragged in to meet the big multinational CEO.
But it appears.
It's how it appears, Rush.
It's how it appears.
If Bernie Sanders supporters think he's just lost fair and square or he realizes and he bows out gracefully and endorses somebody, I think that's the scenario they want.
But if they make Bernie Sanders' supporters angry, they're going to leave.
And I think this is really going to be one of those elections, especially more so for the Democrats.
They're going to need everybody to turn out.
Well, wait a minute, though.
About that point, Trump just signed the pledge that he won't do, what you're theorizing.
It's going to be carved in stone, and it's going to depend.
If Donald Trump, again, this is 2016, if Donald Trump's supporters are angry and they're telling Donald Trump, who cares what the Republican Party, we want you as president, he's going to go with what his supporters want.
If he thinks he can win as a third-party candidate, he's going to do it.
And I'm telling you, everything that we've had with past elections is going to change this year.
I think you're going to see more people register to vote.
We only got like half the people in this country above 18 are actually registered to vote.
I've got friends of mine who have never voted who are starting to register to vote.
It depends on who doesn't anger their base the most on how this is all played.
And I think the Republicans are doing – it's the Republicans' election to lose.
It's not the Democrats' election to win.
And I think it's how people treat their bases.
And right now, the Democrats are doing a better job of treating all segments of their voter base than the Republicans are treating their people.
As of right now.
There's no question about that.
As of right now.
So he's predicting a four-way race in 2016.
Now, Bernie Sanders, just to be technical here, Bernie Sanders is an independent.
He's not a Democrat.
He's an independent, self-avowed socialist.
But that really doesn't matter to anything.
If he runs, it'll be with if he were to win this legitimately and is the winner.
He will run on the Democrat ticket, the Democrat line.
So for all intents and purposes, general election-wise, he'd be a Democrat.
And it will be the Democrats that will see to it that he doesn't.
Now, you're right, how they do it, how they convince him to get out and hold on to his supporters will be crucial.
And it won't be with a pledge.
You reminded me of something else.
My brother sent me a note last night.
He'd gotten into a big Twitter fight with some people who misunderstood me yesterday when I was talking about Trump supporters.
And some people heard it out of context and thought that I said the exact opposite of what I said.
Let me repeat something I said yesterday.
I was reacting to, well, two things primarily, but then everything that these two things symbolize and represent.
There was a piece in the Wall Street Journal, and there was another piece at National Review Online.
And the Wall Street Journal piece was that if you are supporting Trump, you are appalling.
It's an appalling thing to do, and you are appalling, and you're not a real conservative.
And National Review Online had a story saying that people supporting Trump are just throwing away their conservative principles.
And I said in response and analyzing, I said, these people are missing what's happening here.
All I said was that the Trump phenomenon is not rooted in conservatism.
I did not say that Trump's supporters are not conservative.
I said that Trump's, this phenomenon is about more than conservatism.
It's not populism.
This is the next critical bit of analysis that is now starting to come from the conservative intelligentsia.
It's either bad conservatives that are abandoning their principles or are just populists.
And populists are held in especial contempt by the people who are accusing you of just being populists.
That's akin to being nationalists and xenophobes in this context.
And I was simply trying to tell these people that are worried about what's happening to conservatism.
I said at the same time, I said, what good is conservative principles if all you do is write about them?
And all these great conservatives out there, and I'll acknowledge we have a whole bunch of really great ones, but you have to do more than write about it.
You have to do more than go on TV and offer commentary.
There has to be some action implemented here.
And that's what people see in Trump.
They see the implementation of action, not just somebody spouting things.
They think he's going to do something that they want done, a series of things that they want done.
In that sense, it's not just conservatism that is driving this Trump phenomenon.
And I don't say that in a critical way at all.
So just to clear that, if any of you misheard yesterday, something must have happened that heard people or caused people to hear this out of context.
I was not reacting, not even talking about Trump when I made this comment yesterday.
I was talking about all of these conservative writers and commentators who are complaining about all the Trump supporters abandoning their conservatism in order to support him.
And they're worried that this is destroying conservatism.
It's diluting it.
It's watering it down.
It's misdefining it, redefining it.
And it isn't.
None of that is happening at all.
The real question is.
Well, I got to take a break.
I'm sorry.
If I don't, I'm going to be in big trouble on the episode.
So I got to.
Cookie, for tomorrow, I need you to get me the last five minutes of CNN.
What Gloria Borger said about Trump and immigration and Romney and Spanish Hispanics in the last five minutes for tomorrow.
This business about conservative principles being abandoned in order to support Trump.
If I'm not mistaken, snurdily back me up.
If I'm not mistaken, do the Republicans not tell us to abandon our principles to vote for McCain?
Do they not tell us to abandon our conservatism in order to support Romney?
Do they not demand loyalty?
So what is this concern about abandoning principles to support Trump, especially when it isn't happening?
Yeah, I know, I know the Trump Easter Sunday golf story.
I'll have that tomorrow.
I just have run out of time here, folks.
Trump hijacked the show today, otherwise, I would have had plenty of time to get it in.
Open line Friday tomorrow, folks.
I have a feeling it'll be percolating, and you got to hear this Gloria Borger audio from today.
I'm not even going to tease it other than to say that Cookie will get it.