>> if donald wants a character fight, he better stick with me, because heidi is out of his league. ♪ john: props where they are due. thanks for pointing out ted cruz' homage to the "american president."

donald trump is leading the gop field with 41%. cruz has 31% and john kasich has 25%. donald trump beats them in head-to-head matchups. trump'srumps -- donald delegate count improved. cruz won the utah caucuses by such a large margin that he got all of the delegates. mark: i asked him about the big news of the day, getting the endorsement of jeb bush. his party is beginning to see him as the only trump alternative. some of it is people who are less interested in supporting you, versus using you as a vehicle to stop donald trump. >> i welcome support for any reason. the object is to win.

>> in an interview we did, we talked a lot about the terrorist attacks in brussels. here is how the republican front-runner says the crisis affects his candidacy. trump: every time we have a problem in the world, i will do better. that is not what i want. i would rather have no problems and do worse. i think that, every time we have a problem, i do better. when there is a big national security type problem, i go up, because people view me as stronger. mark: we have our polls and the foreign policy stuff with brussels. where does that leave us? john: it leads us in a place where not much has changed in the republican race. donald trump still has a chance to get the nomination before the

convention. ted cruz is alive. wisconsin will be a real battle royale. mark: john kasich has dropped and ted cruz is in a strong position to have this as a two-person race. i believe wisconsin will be a big deal and i believe that, right now, john kasich has a few states where he has a chance to perform. in the short-term, what the last 24 hours does is elevate the national security debate. john: you pointed this out on a couple of occasions and we chatted about a debate of substance on foreign policy. ted cruz and donald trump have different ideas on how to conduct for policy. there is an emerson poll that has ted cruz a 36% and donald

trump at 35%. and john kasich at 19%. if john kasich drops, it will be hard for him to soldier on, if you cannot make wisconsin competitive. mark: with ted cruz getting the endorsement, john kasich has to be in the conversation and find a way to do that. john: it is time for family feud, starring the wives of donald trump and ted cruz. a picture of -- a partially clothed photo of melania surfaced. donald trump tweeted, be careful lying ted or i will spill the beans on your wife. ted cruz responded with a tweet of his own --

if you try to attack heidi, you are more of a coward. ted cruz continued the line of attack with trump. ted cruz: he is used to being a bully. heidi is not scared of donald trump and she has dealt with bullies in the business world her whole life. someone yelling, screaming, insulting her, it is not remotely frightening to her. she is the daughter of christian missionaries. she is my best friend. if donald wants a character fight, he ought to stick with me. heidi is way out of his league. mark: heidi cruz had this to say to supporters. heidi: most of the things donald trump says have no basis in reality.

john: in the wake of brussels, how personal can this get? mark: hard to imagine it getting more personal than this. i would just say, having talked to both, the animosity tween -- between them is real. it is not stage acting or for political purposes. i think it is a volatile situation. donald trump provides volatility, particularly if it gets down to a two-person race. john: it could get more personal than this and they have dragged the spouses in. i have to say, maybe i just have too much the core. donald trump used that occasion to go after ted cruz for something not coming out of the campaign after the attacks in belgium, it is not good for him to be going there. some personal stuff works for him. i'm not sure if this does.

mark: is a candidate responsible for things supporting the candidate? there is no evidence. -- that the ted cruz campaign did this. john: this is not a regular -- if this is a regular ted cruz super pac. mark: it would be good of donald trump would leave mrs. cruz alone. john: we know the cruz campaign has engaged in dirty tricks along the way. today, paul ryan gave an extraordinary and distinctive and optimistic speech about in the state of american politics. the audience was in the ways and means committee that paul ryan used to chair.

his target for some of his best lines was donald trump. paul ryan: the discourse we see on tv, and the kind that we experience among each other did not used to be this bad and it does not have to be this way. instead of playing to anxieties, we can appeal to aspirations. people with different ideas are not traitors. we do not insult them into agreeing with us. we should not accept ugliness as a norm. personalities come and go. but principles and your. mark: clearly, donald trump was on his mind. john: you see a wide range of potential motives here, one of which is creating some distance between the presidential race

and what is going on for races. -- on the senate in the house side. there is a little bit of a pre-autopsy here. that could also be paul ryan uping himself -- set himself to be a white knight in a contested convention scenario. mark: anyone who cares about the politics of personal the structure and and is exposed to it wants to try to bring things into order and he is in a position where he can influence the public debates. i believe the first thing you said. he wants to create a substantive space for members to operate in, no matter who the nominee is, especially if they are donald trump. john: he will have to and mitch mcconnell and paul ryan know that, if donald trump is the

nominee, there are a lot of congressmen and senators who run away from that ticket and he is trying to give them the alternative platform to the public platform that donald trump is filling with invective and heat and nothing like the tone or substance that paul ryan wants. mark: there is not total trust between those guys yet. john: when we get back, we asked donald trump about nuclear weapons and hillary clinton. that interview is when we come back. ♪ ♪

mark: last night, we sat down with donald trump. to talk about the aftermath in the terrorist attack in brussels. among the other matters, we asked him to clarify zoning he told the editorial board. it was about whether he would use tactical weapons against islamic state. trump: i would be late, compared to the opponents i'm running against. a lot of people say that i was sort of for the iraq war. i was against the iraq war. i said, i don't know. i'm a great businessman over the years. it did not sound so good to me. by the time it started, i was

very much against the war and hillary clinton wanted to do it. hillary clinton would be such a bad president. she does not have the strength and stamina to be a good president. people wanted to go to war. i did not. i am supposed to be that one. i would be the last to use this. i have to say -- john: the last to use nuclear weapons against isis? you wouldn't rule that out. trump: i would never rule anything out. that wouldn't tell you that because i want them to think that we would use them. when you ask a question like that and everybody comes clean and is honest, you know, we need unpredictability. isis is an enemy not wearing uniform and we do not knew who they are. they would be dressed, we would be dressed.

we know who would be fighting. the fact is that we need unpredictability. you ask a question like that and it is a very sad thing to have to answer because the enemy is watching and i have a good chance of winning and do not want them to know what i'm thinking. mark: looking back, rather than forward, have there been provocations in the past 15 years when, if you had been president, you have considered using nuclear weapons? after 9/11? trump: no. we attacked the wrong country. we went after iraq. iraq did not know. we could've taken out the taliban, if we really wanted to. i would say that nuclear weapons

are a last resort. i understand the power of nuclear weapons. i had an uncle at mit who would tell me about the power of nuclear weapons and other things. and, it is so devastating. i would say, "absolutely, as a last resort." that does not mean that we should not be prepared. i watched 60 minutes from a year ago where the administration should never have allowed these nuclear weapons that are not in a state of preparedness. i will to you that i would never want to use those. we have to be prepared to be absolutely perfect. john: you are talking and thinking more about national security. where the areas you need to learn more?

trump: i have a good instinct. mark: i am not asking about instincts. is there no area where you think you need to know more? trump: i want to know more about everything in every little area and every little corner. i think that i have good instincts. i said take the oil. we shouldn't be in iraq. leaving, iranre is going to take the oil. iraq has the second largest oil reserves in the world. they have really good oil. now, who has the oil, isis and iran. >> the president of the united states, would you think of yourself as a leader of the free world? trump: i would. i would not spend trillions of dollars on nationbuilding and the days of nation-building are over. >> do you think america is the

most powerful nation on earth? trump: weapons are changing and power of weaponry is incredible. if we were not talking about the power of weapons, i would have said, if you go in, making mistake, go out. you cannot let this happen with the weapons produced today. >> you talk about losing to isis and they make us look soft. trump: isis. the president always says isil. it is all most like he is doing something to bother people. the president always says isil. everyone else says isis. i think he does it to bother people. i think china is catching up.

i think russia is catching up. if you look at our budgets, we have cut way back on the military. we have a military that needs help and i have a friend whose son has spent quite a bit of time over in iraq and afghanistan. our weapons are not as good as the enemy because they take the weapons. we give them to people who we think are fighting for us. the enemy takes the weapons and he is disheartened to see the enemy habetter weapons. >> national security is a big issue. let's say there is a general election between the two of you. she was the secretary of state. trump: she did a bad job. >> you are a businessman and the host of a tv show. trump: i am more confident and much smarter than she is.

i think that she has been very weak and i have said that i do not think she has the strength or stamina to be a good president. at 3:00 in the morning, i think she is sleeping and she does not wake up. that has been proven. look at hillary clinton with that phony 3:00 in the morning advertisement. she never woke up. the phone call got made hundreds of times and they were calling and calling and she took blumenthal's call. but she cannot take the call from the people. she was sleeping. >> do you think there was anything she did as secretary that was good? trump: she did a lot of traveling. she was always on airplanes. going back and forth. she lied and said that she was coming under attack.

she said she was under a vicious attack and it turned out to be a total fraud. mark: we will have more later in the program and we will have what hillary clinton said about donald trump today. ♪

♪ >> hillary clinton gave a speech in the wake of the attacks in brussels and talked about combating terrorism online and reinforcing relationships with allies around the globe and she took pointed stabs at remaining republican candidates by emphasizing tactics that work and not just rhetoric. -- we need to rely on what actually works.

make us safer. slogans are not strategy and loose cannons misfire. vladimir putin wants to divide of europe. if donald trump gets in the office, it is christmas in the kremlin. in our fight witradical jihad jihadism. we have to do what works. a thing we know does not work is offensive rhetoric that demonizes muslims. john: if this is a preview of the policy debate to calm, how -- to come in the general election, how strong is hillary clinton? mark: she thinks she is super-strong. george stephanopoulos said that specificity is a character issue. she can be tough and hawkish. john: i think she feels that way.

this speech was not on her schedule. they moved quickly. i believe there is another speech coming down the line in the next couple of days and she will do something similar. she sees an opportunity here and understands this election. she thinks the way that establishment think. this is a huge trump card over any republicans who have any experience. she is going to play that hard. mark: meanwhile, trump, ted cruz, and john kasich think she vulnerable. john: they do. it is passion versus experience. mark: obama has been taking a lot of heat for spending part of his day at an exhibition game with the tampa bay rays and the optics were not so great for

obama, wearing sunglasses and doing a halfhearted attempt at a wave. he explained his attendance with espn. president obama: it is always a challenge with a terrorist attack in the age of 24-7 news coverage. you want to be respectful and understand the gravity of the situation. the premise of terrorism is to disrupt the ordinary lives. >> our colleague asked if it was a mistake to do the baseball game. >> i am with obama on the principle he is trying to exemplify, these guys are not existential threat and we

should not let them try to disrupt our lives. there is a symbolic importance. that said, the optics of this are horrible and barack obama could have went to the game briefly and said, i have important things to do. sitting there in sunglasses is not a good look. it is like george bush going golfing and asking reporters to, "watch this drive." mark: the white house egg -- has acknowledged that it was a mistake. go to the game, do not wear sunglasses, leave after a little bit. go to a national security meeting. john: more trump. ♪

♪ >> now, part two of our conversation with donald trump at mar-a-lago.

trump: i was called by a friend who said something terrible happened in brussels. i have been saying brussels is a mess. i think what is going on is deplorable. >> you talk about giving the country a pep talk. when you talk about the issues, you talk about these in negative ways and say the terrorists are winning. trump: they are winning. they shut down the world and we do not do anything about it. we are worried about laws. yet, they are chopping off heads. >> i understand that is part of your view. the talk implies optimism. what would you say optimistic? trump: i will be tougher on terror and much tougher than right now. i will expand so we can do

certain things. they have no laws. they have absolutely no laws. they kill people in the do not -- and they do not talk about it. they do not worry about the law. we do something that is harsh and a soldier loses his pension and his life. we are not playing with the same rules. they are playing dirty stuff. we cannot waterboarded anymore. they say this is minimal. well, you know what, we have to go much tougher. it is eating of the world with weak and ineffective people. what is happening is unbelievable. what is happening in sweden and germany is unbelievable. and people are saying that donald trump is right. you know that and i know that. i don't want to be right about it.

>> ted cruz says we need police patrols in muslim neighborhoods in the united states. you were behind that. we had ryan crocker on the show and he says that this is the worst idea and what isis wants us to do. it would be the united states being indiscriminately prejudice d against muslims. how do you respond? trump: i am ok with it. i am ok with that. new york city has amazing police and we have the strongest, if you talk about vigilance, we are watching closer and there is an amazing group and they are stopping attacks. isoas ended by a mayor or

grossly incompetent and he ended it. we should bring it back. we have to look at the mosques. i am ok with that. there is a problem john, there is a problem. >> are you saying that they are wrong? trump: i would say that he is wrong. we have to be smarter and more vigilant. >> in your career, which is obviously been successful, what is the kind of decision that you have to make that is the closest thing to the kind of decision a president makes? >> nobody has made decisions like that. you are talking about lives and talking about thousands of lives and when he do not make the decisions you talk about many more lives and it is weak and ineffective and i watched obama land in cuba with nobody greeting him.

i thought that was terrible. i watched them at the press conference yesterday and it looked like he was a baby. castro was a boss. i then watch and today -- watch and today at a baseball game while you have body parts laying all over the place with threats to us and everyone else and i'm watching him sitting in the sun and watching baseball. i think it looks bad. he could have left cuba. he should be back in washington and in the white house, where the president should be at a time like this. >> what is the toughest decision you have made? trump: i make multimillion dollar deals. >> give me one. trump: guaranteeing very large transactions takes courage. if they don't work out, i make them work out. i have taken deals that

shouldn't work out. it wasn't pretty. i will be building a massive building and then the market turns bad. i am tough on the banks and i make them turn out. very often, things do not work out the way you think they are going to. that is the sign of a great deal maker. it is how do you deal with the bad times. >> you talk about dealing with the border and isis and these are relatively short-term issues. going back to being optimistic, what is a plan to make the relationships between the western world in the muslim world better? trump: they have to respect us and they do not respect a lot of things.

i think the german people are here all the time and you see people who love germany and they tell me that it is the greatest country on earth and they want to leave germany. let me just tell you. the first thing you have to do is get them to respect the west and us. if they are not going to respect us, it will never work. this has been going a long time. i tell the story about general pershing with issues of radical islamic terrorism in the philippines. it is a well-known story. they had a huge problem with terrorism and he was unbelievably harsh. i think you know the story.

he was unbelievably harsh and they did not have a problem for 28 years. >> you would have them respect the west more? trump: they will not be successful, unless they respect you. they have no respect for the country right now. >> you suggested that the united states should have a different role in nato and that nato needs a different mission. there are people who say that america needs to be the leader. >> we pay a disproportionate share and i look at the ukraine , we are always the leader. we are the ones were always fighting. we are putting up the money for nato.

we are putting money up for a lot of countries. we defend south korea and saudi arabia. we defend germany and we put up a lots of money. when you look at our military budget it is very interesting. it is not really for us, it is defending everyone else. i think that nato may be obsolete. it was set up many years ago. things were different. we were a rich nation then. we had nothing but money and power. more than we have today in the true sense. i think we really have to examine nato. it is helping other countries and i do not think that other countries appreciate what we are doing. >> i want to clarify that you want to see the u.s. pay less.

trump: i would certainly look at it and want more help from others. we are paying too much. as to whether or not it is obsolete, i would look. >> our look to donald trump. up next, a conversation with ted cruz. you are watching, you can out listen to us. we are 91 point we will be right one fm. we will be right back.

♪ ♪ >> we caught up with ted cruz.

he got the endorsement of jeb bush. we discussed a wide ranging series of issues. donald trump has said that the united states should reconsider the involvement in nato. >> he has taken a pretty unusual position. he says that the united states has contributed to much. what is the role of nato in a ted cruz administration? cruz: you are right that donald trump's foreign policy is bizarre. he has little understanding of foreign policy and what he knows is wrong. what he has been advocating is weakness and withdrawing from the world and isolationism. with israel, and says he will be

neutral. with nato, he advocated withdrawing. that is a terrible idea and it is striking that the day after he called for that, we saw a tragic attack in brussels. we should not withdraw. we should be strengthening the alliance with europe and israel and, if donald trump had his way, if america withdrew, we would hand a massive victory to vladimir putin and isis. the idea that donald trump wants the presidency to begin with preemptive surrender, that is weakness and it is striking that donald trump's foreign policy is to the left of barack obama and hillary clinton. donald does not seem able to distinguish friend from enemies.

mark: his aipac speech repositioned himself. cruz: let's be clear that he said that he would be neutral between israel and the palestinians and the red a -- read a speech off of teleprompters that pretended to stand with israel and it is inconsistent with where he has been over and over again. anyone who cannot distinguish between israel and the idf forces and the islamic terrorists who seek to murder us, that raises fitness questions about being commander in chief. we need a president who is prepared to do whatever is necessary and i will point out that his lack of knowledge and understanding of islamic terrorism is every bit as evident with regard to iran. he says he will keep in place a

catastrophic nuclear deal and renegotiate it. this is not a real estate deal. the ayatollah is not selling beachfront property. he has pledged "death to america" and he means this. one of the big differences is that, i will rip to shreds this iranian nuclear deal. the biggest threat is a threat of a nuclear iran. donald trump does not understand that and neither one of them acknowledges or understands the ayatollah. mark: you talk about nato and we spend a lot of money. what is the role of nato right now?

what is the actual mission? cruz: nato is the most effective military alliance and it stood up to the soviet union and the cold war. the idea that russia doesn't pose a threat, russia is invading the ukraine, the baltic, threatening much of europe, and nato is a strategic alliance that should be a vehicle for going after isis. nato doesn't work without american leadership. if we had american leadership, nato could play a critical role in utterly destroying isis. is by trump's approach withdrawing and hiding, hoping the bad guys will leave us alone. obama leads from behind. it doesn't work. we need to utterly and completely destroy isis. mark: we will have more of this conversation when we come back.

♪

♪ >> welcome back. let's go to the second half of the conversation with ted cruz. we talked about what the landscape could look like in november. things can change. it is not clear, based on the polling, that you are stronger in the general election that -- then donald trump. cruz: the polling insistently shows that i would be hillary.

-- beat hillary. if the republican nominee cannot carry utah, you are looking at a walter mondale landslide defeat. that is a reason why so many republicans are uniting behind our campaign. mark: there is a proposal of increased police surveillance of muslims in the united states. can you name a neighborhood where you think that would be proper? what would you say to a young child and to people who wonder why their neighborhood is getting increased scrutiny? cruz: in brussels, we saw a horrific terrorist attack.

yesterday was a reminder that this was not isolated and this is part of global jihad being waged by isis and obama and hillary clinton are in a state of denial and they are in -- they are captive to political correctness. every time we see a terrorist attack coming out of san bernardino, obama goes and lectures the american people on islamophobia. enough is enough. we need a commander in chief who recognizes the responsibility to keep america safe. when it comes to stopping islamic terrorism, you have to identify the problem and use every tool available to defeat it. new york had a very effective

program to work cooperatively with the muslims to prevent attacks from occurring before they happen. mayor bill de blasio came into office, every bit as captive to political correctness, and they disbanded this program. the police are here to protect us. i categorically reject the view that the police are the bad guys and people are fed up with this notion of every time there is an incident. barack obama, hillary clinton, bill de blasio, they side with the looters. i am proud to stand with the police. there was a moment where nypd stood up and turned their backs on bill de blasio.

we need to stop pretending this -- radical terrorism doesn't exist. >> he was in good form there and in the other interviews. to overtake donald trump, he needs to get a single refrain that he repeats relentlessly. he spends a lot of time attacking in different areas. john: he was in good form. it is still unclear to me exactly that he is a guy -- even though he is one some contests with donald trump he has what he wants. he has the one-on-one. if he gets that one-on-one, would any betting man that on ted cruz?

look at the way donald trump sizes someone up and seizes on weakness. ted cruz does not have that capacity. mark: we have polls were donald trump is beating ted cruz. john: thanks to ted cruz. we will be back with a tribute to a genuine great. ♪

♪ >> we would be remiss if we did not pay a modest to a tribe called quest. five dog -- phife dog.

his records are some of the most influential hip-hop records of all time. he inspired ?uestlove. he died last night at 45 years old with complications from diabetes. you are always on point with the beats. mark: there is more from our bloomberg national poll on our website. coming up on our website, emily chang with a chief economist. thank you for watching. we will be back tomorrow. john: right here. in the studio. not on the road. mark: see tomorrow night. ♪

♪ f thursday the 24th of march. this is "trending business". i am rishaad salamat. ♪ we take you to sydney, look at what we are looking at. and am a 70ss --rs, squinting the balance squeezing the balance sheet of the biggest trading houses.