let your freak flag fly. don't miss the grooviest trip at sea. ♪ mark: welcome to this edition of the best of "with all due respect". the latest results, each candidate to respond to the terror attacks in brussels and play in hollywood protect the u.s. against the islamic state. >> several made their case on this program.

the next day, we caught up with senator ted cruz as he campaigned in new york city. >> we look back with donald trump. >> i was called by a friend. he set a terrible thing happened in brussels. i have been saying brussels has been a mess with what has been going on. i saw what was going on and it

is deplorable. >> you talked about giving a pep talk. when you talk about these issues, you talk about them in negative ways. you say the terrorists are winning. mr. trump: they are winning. they are shutting down the world. we are worried about laws and we cannot waterboard. they are chopping off heads and drowning people in steel cages. >> if you were president, what would you say about winning the war? senator cruz said he thought we

should have patrols in muslim neighborhoods in the u.s. you said you thought that was a good idea earlier today. we had ryan crocker on our show and he said that it would be exactly what jesus would want us to do because we're pretraining the u.s. as the indiscriminately prejudice against muslims. how do you respond? mr. trump: i'm ok. we have to be vigilant, careful. if you talk about the two lens, we were watching closer than anybody else and it was an amazing group and they call people in terms of stopping attacks. blasio.nded by mayor to they ended it. we should bring it back. we should look, even at the

mosques. >> there's a problem. you are saying ambassador crocker is wrong? you denounce that isis would take that as a victory? muchthink we have to be tougher, stronger, more vigilant. career, what is the kind of decision you have had to previouslyr career that is the closest thing to the kind of decision you have had to make in your career previously that was the closest thing to the kind of decision a president has to make when he decides to send american forces into combat? mr. trump: you're talking about lives, potentially thousands of lives. if we are going to be weak and ineffective -- which is what we are right now. i have watched president obama land in cuba with nobody to greet him. i thought that was terrible.

i watched him at a press conference yesterday. it looked like he was a baby, castro was the boss. i watched them at a baseball game in cuba while people, body parts are laying over a place with threats to us and everybody else. i am watching him sitting in the sun watching a baseball game. it looks so bad. he could have left cuba and said this was an emergency. he should be in washington, in the white house. it looks so bad. >> what is the toughest decision you have made in your career? mr. trump: i do multimillion dollar deals. vast amounts of debt to do large transactions. it takes courage. i have taken deals that should have not have worked out and i have made them good deals. it wasn't pretty, but i have made them good deals.

the market is great and in the market turns bad. i'm very tough on banks. i make them turn out. i do that often. very often, things don't work out the way you think they are going to work out. that is the sign of a great business person, a great deal maker. things change. it is how you do in the bad times, not how do you do in the good times. >> you have talked about the border and isis. these are short-term issues. if you were president, this notion of being optimistic, you talked about being at war in the west, what is the plan long-term to make the relationship better? mr. trump: they have to respect us. they do not respect us at all. they don't respect a lot of things happening throughout our country. what angela merkel has done to germany is an outrage. i know german people here all the time.

people who love germany and people tell me two years ago, they were saying it is the greatest country on earth and now they are going to leave germany. the first thing you have to do is get them to respect the west and respect us. this has been going on for a long time. i tell the story about general pershing, where there were problems, where they had radical islamic terrorism in the philippines and it is a well-known story. they had a huge problem with the

terrorism having to do with islam or having to do with radical islam. he was unbelievably harsh. they didn't have a problem for 28 years. >> people and the islamic world respect the west more? mr. trump: i don't think you can do anything or will be successful unless they respect you. >> let's talk about nato. maybe the u.s. should have a different role. that nato might need a different type of mission. people say america needs to be the leader of nato. do you agree? mr. trump: we are paying for a lot of nato and it is helping them more than it is helping us. what about the country surrounding ukraine? they don't say anything. we are the one that wants to go to world war iii with russia over ukraine. we put up a lot of the money for a lot of countries. we defend south korea, saudi arabia, we defend germany.

we put up a lot of money and people wonder why we own $19 trillion. we put up a lot of money. everyone sees it as many times higher. it is not for us. it is because we are defending everybody else. we are defending the whole world. >> should american be the leader of nato or not necessarily? mr. trump: nato was set up a long time ago. we were a richer nation then. we had power and far more than we have today in a true sense. nato, you have to examine nato. it does not help us. it helps other countries. i don't think those other countries appreciate what we are doing. >> you may 2 slightly different arguments. one is that the u.s. will pay

less money into nato. mr. trump: definitely. >> it is possible that nato is obsolete. mr. trump: i would look at it. the one thing definitely, we are paying too much. as to whether or not it is obsolete, i will make that determination. >> up next, more of our interview with donald trump and his thoughts on using nuclear weapons against islamic state. stay tuned. ♪

mr. trump: i would be late compared to my opponents that are running. people don't realize, a lot of people like to say he was for the war. i was against the iraq war. in all fairness, i have been a great businessman. by the time it started, there's plenty of articles from that time, i was very much against it. hillary clinton will be such a bad president.

she doesn't have the strength or stamina to be a good president. i'm supposed to be the ones saying oh he would use it. i would be the last to use it. >> nuclear weapons against isis. you would rule in the process of using nuclear weapons against isis. mr. trump: i would not want to tell you that. at a minimum, i want them to think maybe we would use it. it is the worst thing when we do these interviews with everybody and you ask a question like that and everybody comes in and they are honest. we need unpredictability. we have enemies. isis is an enemy not wearing a uniform. we don't know who the enemy is. in the old days, we would have uniforms. it was called a war.

we do not know who these people are. we need unpredictability. when you ask a question like that, it is a sad thing to have to answer it. the enemy is watching. i have a good chance of winning. i don't want the enemy to know how i am thinking. don't rule out anything. >> have there been circumstances, provocations where you would have considered using nuclear weapons? for instance, after 9/11? mr. trump: no. we went after the wrong country. we could have taken out the taliban if we wanted to. i would say definitely nuclear weapons are a last reserve.

i understand the power of nuclear weapons. 30 years ago, he told me about the power of weaponry. it is so devastating. i would say absolutely as a last resort. that doesn't mean we shouldn't be prepared and our equipment should not be prepared. i watched 60 minutes from about a year ago where they should have never put this on. the administration should have never allowed it. they showed these nuclear weapons that are not in a state of preparedness. i would never want to use them. we have to be prepared. they have to be perfect. >> you are thinking about national security more than ever before. where are the areas you need to learn more? mr. 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? mr. 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. four years ago. we should not have been in iraq. now that you are leaving, iran is going to take the oil. people don't realize iraq has the second largest oil reserves in the world. they have really good oil. i said take the oil. now, who has the oil? isis has the oil and iran is going to have the oil. >> the president of the united states, would you think of yourself as a leader of the free world? mr. 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? mr. 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. mr. trump: isis. the president always says isil. everyone else says isis. 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. >> when people are talking about the most powerful nation on earth, they are talking economics and everything.

is america right now the most powerful country on earth? mr. trump: people are catching up. 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. the equipment is old. 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 as we give them to people. we give them to people who we think are fighting for us. a bullet is shot in the air and they run and the enemy takes the weapons. he is disheartened to see the enemy has better weapons. and they are american weapons. >> national security is a big issue. you and hillary clinton are both the way ahead in delegates. let's say there is a general election between the two of you. she was the secretary of state. mr. trump: she did a bad job. look at syria look at the job , she did. >> you are a businessman and the host of a tv show. how do you win that argument? mr. trump: i'm much more

competent than she is. i think she has been very weak and i have said it before, 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. when you look at hillary with that phony ad she did, the 3:00 in the morning ad she did, she never woke up. the phone call was made. the ambassador to benghazi, the call was made many hundreds of times. she took blumenthal's call. she did not take the call from the people. she was sleeping. >> do you think there was anything she did as secretary that was good? mr. trump: not that i can think of. she did a lot of traveling. i think she worked hard. she was always on airplanes. going back and forth. she lied and said that she was attacked and she came under attack.

she was blending someplace and she was under this vicious attack. it turned out to be a total fraud. >> coming up, we hear from his most formidable opponent, ted cruz on why he thinks he can stop the donald next. ♪

>> you are now the candidate of mitt romney and jeb bush. how did that happen? cruz: we are seeing republicans unite. we have been endorsed by jeb bush, mitt romney, mike lee, mark levin. that is about as broad a spectrum in the republican party as you can get. the reason is simple. for some time 65% to 70% of republicans have recognized donald trump is not the candidate to go up against hillary clinton. what we are seeing as republicans coming together,

that is what it is going to take to be donald for the nomination and hillary in november. >> some people are less interested in voting for you as using you as a vehicle to stop donald trump. sen. cruz: the object here is to win. if we keep going, we have had seven years under obama. seven years of stagnation and misery. seven years of weakness and appeasement. >> politics is not static. if you look at a snapshot of where we are, it is not clear based on polling that you are a stronger candidate.

sen. cruz: it shows hillary beats donald. it shows i beat hillary. last week, there was a general election poll in utah. it showed hillary beating donald trump in utah. conservative utah. if the republican nominee cannot carry utah, you are looking at a landslide defeat. that is one of the reason so many republicans across the spectrum are uniting behind our campaign. >> politics is rough and this

has been a tough fight. your wives are involved now. i was surprised how quickly that escalated. a group reacted and then you reacted. is this personal or is it politics? sen. cruz: whenever donald feels scared, whenever he is afraid of what happens, whenever bad news breaks for him, his reaction is to yell and scream and try to bully people and threaten people. last night was a bad night for donald trump. we were hoping in utah to break 50%. not only to break 50%, but we had a landslide three. nearly 70% of the vote in utah. donald is scared and unhappy. my wife, she is my best friend. if donald wants a character fight, he ought to stick with

me. heidi is out of his league. >> do you expect he will keep it up? sen. cruz: heidi is not remotely scared of donald trump. someone yelling and screaming and insulting her is not remotely frightening to heidi. let's talk about nato. what is the role of nato in a ted cruz administration? sen. cruz: his foreign-policy is bizarre. what he does know is wrong. what he has been advocating is weakness, withdraw from the world. with respect to israel, he says he will be neutral between israel and the palestinians. with respect to nato, he advocated withdrawing from nato. 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. they are not arguing for withdrawing from nato. donald seems to be unable to distinguish friend from enemies. they are not arguing withdrawing from nato. >> his aipac speech may reposition him. sen. cruz: he said many times that he would be neutral. the fact he read a speech someone wrote for him off by teleprompter that attended to stand with israel is reflecting -- anyone who can't distinguish between israel, between the forces that protect innocent civilians and islamic terrorists that seek to murder us, that raises questions about their fitness and judgment to be commander in chief. we need a president who is prepared to do whatever is

necessary to defeat islamic terrorists. and his lack of understanding of radical islamic terrorism is every bit as evident with regard to iran, where he says he will keep in place this catastrophic iranian nuclear deal and just renegotiated. anyone who thinks this is not a real estate deal. the ayatollah has pledged death to america and means it. one of the simplest differences between donald trump and me, day one as president, i will rip to shreds this iranian nuclear deal. the threat of a nuclear iran is the biggest threat to america. both donald trump and hillary clinton would keep this deal in place, because other one acknowledges or understand how dangerous the ayatollah is. >> we go back to nato. i am saying we spent a lot of money on nato. they did not seem to be fighting

isis. where is the threat from russia today that nato is preventing? what is the role of nato now? sen. cruz: nato has been the most effective military alliance of modern times. it stood up to the soviet union in the cold war. the idea that russia does not pose a threat -- russia is invading its neighbors. it invaded ukraine, is threatening the baltics. nato is a strategic alliance. it should be a vehicle for going after isis. if we had american leadership -- and it does not work without american leadership. if we had american leadership, nato could play a critical role in utterly destroying isis. donald's approach is to withdraw and hide and hopefully the bad guys will leave us behind. president obama tried that. we need a president and commander in chief that will utterly destroy isis. >> last question. you had this proposed notion of increased police surveillance of

muslim neighborhoods. can you name a neighborhood where that would be applicable and what would you tell a young muslim child seeing this increase scrutiny? sen. cruz: yesterday in brussels, we saw a horrific terror attack. our hearts are with those who were murdered and injured. this was not a lone wolf. this is part of a global jihad being waged by radical islamists. and democrats are so -- they will not say the word "radical islamist," and every time we see a terrorist attack, president obama goes on national television and lectures the american people on islamophobia. enough is enough. we need a commander in chief who recognizes his number one responsibility is to keep america safe. that is what i will do. him inthat is what i will do. when it comes to stopping radical islamic terrorists, you have to use every national security tool available to defeat it. we are in new york now. new york had in place a very effective program to work cooperatively with the muslim community to monitor and prevent radicalization and preevent

islamic terror attacks from occurring before they happened. unfortunately, mayor de blasio came into office -- every bit captive to political correctness as president obama -- and they disbanded the program. the police are here to protect us. i categorically reject the view of democrats that police are the bad guys. people are fed up with this notion -- every time there is an incidence, barack obama, or hillary clinton, or bill de blasio side with the looters or thugs rather than with the men and women in blue. there was a moment when the nypd turned their backs on bill de blasio, which spoke for the whole country. when you have police in a community that protects the

community and keeps it safe, and we need to stop pretending radical islam exists and keep working to keep the country safe. >> thank you. sen. cruz: utah was fantastic and i'm looking forward to wisconsin. >> coming up, the political implications of the brussels bombings, next. ♪

>> here now to talk about the implications of today's terror attacks in brussels is ambassador ryan crocker, who previously served as the u.s. ambassador to iraq, pakistan, kuwait, and lebanon. he is currently the dean of the george bush school of government at texas a&m university. he joins us from college station. what could europe do now as a whole or individual countries to deal with situations like this that it did not do in the wake of the paris attack? amb. crocker: there are two issues. one of them is simply the quality and coordination of european intelligence and security services. they are, by and large, certainly in belgium, far behind where we were on 9/11 and we have traveled light years in our capabilities and coordination

since then. the europeans have got to improve quality and coordination of their security services. islamic state is finding the gaps in the week spots we see the results. the second thing that is such a difference between the u.s. and europe is that we integrate people in this country. we do not have a mullenbachin the united states. that's essentially an arab and muslim ghetto. our openness, the way successive waves of immigrants are brought into american society and truly find their place here sets us apart from belgium, from france, even from britain.

as we respond to what happened, tragically, in brussels, the worst thing we could do would be to give away our greatest strengths, and that is our open society that makes everyone in america feel part of this great country. john: ambassador, you said in terms of dealing with domestic terror, the european union is further behind where the united states was on 9/11. there have been a lot of things, including 9/11, that have happened in the world that i would have thought alerted people to the notion that they needed to get more with the program. what accounts for europe's laxity in this area? amb. crocker: i think it may be

that, with the exception, say, of the train bombings in spain, the europeans have not had anything on the scale of a 9/11. i do not want to generalize here. some european countries do remarkably well on intelligence and security. i would cite sweden as an example. but it may be that they just felt this was something that could only happen over here and not over there. we are frankly kind of complacent. after what we have seen now, paris in november and now this, it is way past time for the europeans to shake themselves awake. and i hope we are making a major effort to engage them now that we have had this new tragedy. that we are going to be stepping forward, to be proactive and offering to the europeans some

of the things we have learned in the 15 years since 9/11. mark: what are the metrics you used to say whether that is happening. whether the united states is trying to step up to help europe with this problem? amb. crocker: i think it will be clearer, both by announcements from washington and european capitals. i'm quite sure we have had this on offer before. the urgency has never been greater. so i hope that we will, again, not wait for an invitation but offering to share with our european allies -- again, we are part of a nato alliance. nato was not constructed to deal with terror, but it is a security alliance. this clearly falls within its mandate. john: ambassador crocker, you talked about integration versus segregation in terms of how different the united states is and how it has dealt with its muslim population and how it is dealt with in europe. today, senator cruz's suggested we start police patrols in muslim communities in the united states.

is that a useful or constructive suggestion? amb. crocker: i absolutely do not. this is precisely what islamic state would like us to do. to present an image of a country that is suspicious of people simply because they are muslims or arabs. that plays right into their hand and allows them to hold out to arab and muslim populations the line that the united states is fundamentally anti-arab and anti-islamic. we obviously need to be doing everything we can to ensure our security, but we don't need to be taking steps that will harm our security. i understand the fears. that is why terrorists practice terror, so they can frighten people into doing things that are ultimately counterproductive for their own society. we just need to be sure we do not fall into that trap.

mark: ambassador crocker, thank you for joining us. we appreciate it. are journalists responsible for donald trump? we get a take on that, next. ♪

mark: in his very first new york media column, today, our friend, jim rutenberg, wrote this about the often obsessive coverage of the donald trump presidential campaign. thanks for being with us. how much of trump's voluminous coverage is his doing and how much is it the media acting on its own? jim: my favorite quote was that trump said to a reporter, "i do these tweets and they could be totally insignificant and they break into the news." it is not all his doing.

mark: if trump continues to get coverage like this, do you think that would be a huge advantage in the general election? jim: a lot of people make the argument -- and i am sure we would all agree -- that not all of the coverage is positive. do you remember in 2004 when the war was being discussed a lot? reporters would say they are talking about the war and it is not going well, and they would say as long as we are talking about the war, we are winning. as long as we talk about trump,

he is winning. al: first, great debut. reading your column, you pointed him out that fox, and chuck todd of nbc, said no more of this special treatment where you get to phone in. then i watched george stephanopoulos, who let him phone in, and he slam dunked. will the others cave-in now? jim: maybe george decides those guys are not going to take him on the phone, i will. i will get a spike in the ratings. al: as you know, a phone interview for a subject is a lot easier than an in person interview. trump almost always does well. jim: my impression is that he steamrolled the interviewer. they cannot get a break in. my bigger problem is that the traditional public affairs shows, the sunday broadcast shows, were based on "here is the candidate" at the advent of television. we see them. it is not radio. i am not sure why they would abdicate that responsibility.

something they built privately over decades. mark: we have seen in past campaigns, some candidates get more and better coverage than others. this seems on a scale unlike we have ever seen. jim: i have never seen anything like it. i think about the upshot the new york times presented, putting -- i know you guys have talked about it, but almost $2 billion in free media coverage for donald trump compared to hillary clinton, about half of that. i think it is a disadvantage for mrs. clinton. bernie sanders was way lower. and ted cruz was way lower. mark: you just started this column. there will be a temptation to keep writing about donald trump. jim: i am trying to think about what to do about that. here i am, saying everyone is giving trump all of this coverage, and here i am writing about it. there is a hall of mirrors factor. this is what i was trying to be careful with today.

he is a giant story. so of course, we will have to all over this and explore it for months to come, if not years, if he wins the presidency. al: many years ago after joe mccarthy, there were postmortems devastating for the press. after this election, in a generic sense not "the new york times" specifically, are we going to look bad? jim: this period, i do not think anyone can say it has been good. i think so far, so bad. or mostly bad or very bad. here is what i wonder. you mentioned that chuck todd said he will not take donald trump on the phone anymore.

cnn said we will not be roped in to doing a donald trump qvc-style press conference. maybe there will be a giant change. it has to happen soon. i hope there is a correction for all of our sakes. it is better for donald trump to have a different coverage and it is better for democracy to have better coverage. the other thing i mentioned, which, to me is kind of new, as i have been try to get back in touch with the media industries, people are afraid. they need those ratings. it is kind of an up for grab moment in the digital age. donald trump is coming in at a perfect time. mark: jim rutenberg stepping into big shoes. off to a great start. thank you so much. allore of the best "with due respect" added. ♪

>> that was really a momentous week in the 2016 race.

thanks for watching this edition of "with all due respect" best of. we will be right back with you here on monday. sayonara. ♪