>> let's talk about all of this now. joining us by phone, republican presidential candidate donald trump. good morning, mr. trump. >> good morning. >> thanks so much for being here. let's talk about these new polls hot off the presses this morning. you once again are leading the pack. as we just said, you have 27%. you've gone up three points since last month. >> right. >> your closest competitor is ben carson there, he's gone up eight points since last month. let's talk about you, because you have defied all of the conventional wisdom, the pundits said by now we'd be seeing the polls drop. your numbers plum empty or you would have gotten out of the race or you would have imploded. what do the pundits not realize about you? >> they don't know me. they don't know where i come from. they done the understand about winning and i enjoy this. i'm seeing, as you know, i was at a place last night which was so incredible. we were -- the crowd of people that we have is incredible. it's incredible.

i was in south carolina and the place was packed. and the enthusiasm and the love in the room, it's love. it's beyond a regular going to make a speech. love in the room. people want to see something happen. i was in new hampshire. i was in iowa. i was in virginia the other day. we had 10,000 people. last night we had 8,000 people. it's that way all the time. the only thing that stops even more, the size of the arenas. you can't get bigger. >> i do want to get to what you talked about last night in one moment. a couple more things about the polls. ben carson is running second to you. he's at 22%. could there be any two more different people? how do you explain that you both are winning with republicans? >> well, we've hit a chord. we're not as different as people think. we have a very good relationship. we're not as different as people think. there's certainly a different style. you know, i have great assets and he has great assets. but we are both resonating,

there's no question about it. nbc just came out with their poll and it's similar. i'm in first place and ben's in second place. and i went up a lot from my original, i've gone up a lot. and you know, the other candidates are similar. maybe these polls are starting to accurate out. >> can you imagine a trump/carson ticket? >> well, i like him. he likes me. i mean, stranger things have happened. that i can tell you. but it's too early to think about that. it certainly is interesting. so many people have suggested it because we seem to be doing awfully well. >> yes. very quickly, can we talk about carly fiorina for a second? >> yes. >> you've had your issues in the past. how do you explain how your poll numbers plummeted? she had a big bump after the debate, going from 15% to now 4%. >> that's a big drop. i don't know. i like carly, actually. i don't know why she would have dropped so much. that's a very, very big drop. there's no answer to that. a couple of others have dropped

pretty good, too. there's no answer to carly. she's talented. i'm surprised to see that much of a drop. >> okay. let's talk about last night. you were in south carolina. you had as you said, a passionate crowd there. you said something to them. you said about guns. you said you know the president is thinking about signing an executive order where he wants to take away your guns. you hear about this? now, mr. trump, the president has not signed an executive order to take away guns. >> i heard that he wants to. on your network, somebody said that's what he's thinking about. i didn't think he's signing it. that will be a tough one to sign. >> it's impossible, in fact. >> nevertheless, he was thinking about it and i've heard it from numerous networks and read it in the papers. my source is the papers. they're pretty good sources. >> the president constitutionally cannot sign an executive order to take away guns. what are you doing? >> he can't sign an executive order on immigration either and he did.

>> but when you're telling your crowd last night that he's coming after you and your guns, you know that not to be true. >> no web has been in different forms. he's very much against -- in my opinion he's against the second amendment, which is ridiculous. he has certainly not been pro second amendment. you can say that at a minimum. i've heard from numerous sources and i've heard from the media. i've seen in the media, the papers, i think if you look back, a couple of -- maybe a week, you'll see it on your own network, people were saying he is thinking about doing it. i didn't say he's doing it. i said, how is he going to do that. certainly, i think he is currently thinking about doing it. >> all right. let's talk about 9/11. because you have been in a squabble with jeb bush for the past few days, since weekend about this. this past weekend you said that george w. bush did not keep the country safe because 9/11 happened on his watch. i'd like you to expound on that a little bit.

what do you think george w. bush could have or should have done differently? >> okay. well, first of all, it started much differently than this. jeb at the debate, i wanted to be nice. i didn't want to be insulting. it is his brother. he's loyal to his family. jeb is a very good person. i have to say that. and i've watched him. even last night, they said if trump wins would you vote for him? and would you be with him? he said, yes, i would be with him. i would be with the republican party. i thought it was a very classy answer to be honest with you. so what this all started because jeb made the statement that under my brother, we were safe. well, if he would have qualified by saying after the attack, but he didn't do that. so i said the other day, because somebody brought up that statement. i said in an interview, that you know, how can you say you were safe under his brother when we just had the worst attack in the history of our country. y

you can't say we were safe. you can say we were safe after. we were safe in a sense but we went into iraq, which was a disastrous decision. not afghanistan, because that's probably where we should have gone in the first place. iraq was a disastrous decision. we go into iraq and make a mistake. you can also say is that safe going into iraq while we're losing thousands of solars? that's not safe either, when you get right down to it. he said under my brother we were safe. you can't say that. we had the worst attack in the history of this country, i guess worse than pearl harbor. that would be right up there. we had our worst attack. >> yes. >> i thought it was very obvious. it got a lot of push back. i didn't think it would be controversial when i made it. i was speaking fight innocently, actually. >> most republicans don't say when it comes to a terrorist attack that it was partially george w. bush that didn't keep us safe.

that was -- you definitely broke with convention by saying that. >> that's okay, alisyn. i've been doing that for a long time. if you look at what happened, number one, i would have had much stronger immigration policies. i'm not saying i would have prevented it but i would have had a chance. i'm pretty good at this stuff. >> let me ask you about that. meaning if you were president, you downallow student visas? >> i would have had a much tougher program. the visas are too easy. >> you wouldn't 0 lou those going forward. >> alisyn. >> yes. >> they knew there was an attack coming. the cia director knew in advance there would be an attack. he said so to the president and everybody else that would listen. that came out. the other thing is, the fbi, the nse and the cia were not talking to each other. these are the three main agencies. they weren't talking to each other and they weren't talking because they didn't like each other. and they had a lot of problems. getting along.

that's leadership. you have to, you know, you have to get your three main agencies to talk to each other. they had a lot of information that if it could have been correlated, it would have been very, very helpful. >> yes. >> as president truman said, the buck stops here. whether you like it or not, truman wouldn't have been talking about the after-attack. he would have said the buck stops here. you had the fbi and the cia, nse, all three, they weren't talking to each other. you know, say what you want. but then we went out and attacked the wrong country. we went out and attacked iraq. they had no weapons of mass struck as you know and as we found out. and as we found out. we destabilized the entire middle east. the middle east is a mess right now because of iraq. we totally destabilize. the two powers, iraq and iran, one got decapitated, iran is now taking over the middle east, taking over iraq, taking over the oil. the other one that gets some of the oil is isis.

we fueled and created isis out of this. >> let's talk about afghanistan as you just brought up. because you have said a couple of conflicting things about whether or not you thought was right to gonna afghanistan. ben carson said he thought going to war with afghanistan after 9/11 was a mistake and at times you have said that as well. but at times you've flip-flopped. >> i haven't said it. i haven't said it. afghanistan is a different thing, next to pakistan and pakistan has nuclear weapons. okay? >> so you think it was okay -- the afghanistan war you do support? >> that's a different thing, a whole different kettle. one of the reasons i wouldn't have gone into iraq, the two reasons, number one they are no weapons of mass destruction. bush wanted to do that are his father maybe. actually his father did a good job. he went and knocked the hell out of iraq but didn't get in. he didn't get into the quagmire. the whole middle east is a quagmire. it's not going to change.

it's not going to change with syria either. it's like a quagmire, being in sick sand, you can't get out. in the meantime, we have to to build our own country. afghanistan is next to pakistan. pakistan has nuclear weapons. >> how do you feel about the afghanistan war? do you think it was a mistake going into afghanistan? >> do i love anything about it? no. i like -- i think it's important that we number one keep a presence there and ideally a presence of pretty much what they're talking about. >> but originally? >> we need to do it for a different reason. we have pakistan and pakistan legitimately has nuclear weapons. >> yes. >> that's a real problem. >> originally you don't think -- >> it would be nice to have other people help us like china is taking all the minerals out of afghanistan. you know, while we're fighting all the time, china is on the other side of the ridge with their big equipment with their excavators taking the minerals out. they do nothing. >> i just want to ask you -- >> they do nothing but make money.

>> you do not think it was a mistake to go into afghanistan after 9/11 because you did say on our air, let me read to you what you said on october 6th about afghanistan. you said we made a terrible mistake getting involved there in the first place. >> no, we made a -- no, no. >> we had thinkers who didn't know what the hell they were doing. >> i said that about iraq. >> our question was about afghanistan. >> i never said it. wouldn't matter. afghanistan is eye different kettle. afghanistan is next to pakistan. it's an -- you have to be careful about the nuclear weapons. by the way, without the nukes it's a whole different ball game. it's all about the nuclear weapons. that's going to be -- when bernie sanders gets up and says global warming is our biggest problem, i have news for him. the biggest problem is nuclear weapons, nuclear proliferation. that's the world's great problem right now. believe me. >> jeb bush just talked about that. he said that he would not be

comfortable with you basically having your finger on the button, with you having the nuclear codes. what's your reaction? >> i don't think he said that because i watched him. i don't think he said that. he said by the way, would you vote for trump or clinton or sanders or biden? and he said i'd go with trump or for the republican nominee. i watched him. he's been very nice. look, his brother gets hit on, he's a loyal person, he's loyal to his brother. but his brother made some mistakes. his brother could have made a mistake with the actual hit. they did know it was coming. george tenet, the head of the cia did know it was coming. they did have advanced notice. it wasn't that i was blaming. they said that our country was safe under bush. i said, well, what about the world trade center coming down

in the worst attack in history? the statement was our country was safe under his brother. >> yes. >> well, okay, but you have to add in, if you go back a few days, you have to add in a thing called the world trade center and they wouldn't do that. i disagreed with that statement. >> yes. >> and frankly, i've had tremendous support. it's interesting. a lot of people said we never thought of it that way. it's right. and at the debate, i didn't want to say it because honestly i want to be respectful. i didn't want to say it but i always thought it, whatever i heard what a good job bush did from the time after the attack and the job was fine. but what about the attack itself? >> and mr. trump, i want to ask you about your idea for a national security team. more then a month ago you hold hugh hewitt you'd be announcing your national security team very soon. that subjects days or a week. what's the holdup? >> well, i have a group of people that i'm dealing with. i've never even asked them if they want to go public.

if they do, i think it's fine. i know a lot about national security. i've always known a lot about national security. a lot of national security is immigration policy. we get right back down to one of my main themes, a theme i was killed on for two weeks after i announced i was running for president. now everybody agrees with me. when i was tough on illegal immigration, it was brutal for two weeks, then they find out, wow, he's right. then you had kate killed in san francisco and you had -- by an illegal immigrant who came over five times at least, probably much more than that. then you had so many other people killed, horribly killed. you had the women three weeks ago in california raped at 66 years of age by an illegal immigrant. people are saying, he's right. i was given credit for that. in your poll i rated the highest by three times of anybody else. and on the economy and

leadership. fairly important points by the way. >> let's talk about something that you were coy about last time i interviewed you. that was "saturday night live." we do now know you are expected to host on november 7th. there is a group of hispanics who are boycotting or protesting your appearance. they feel that you would not be a good representative to be on "saturday night live" and they are going to try to spike your appearance. do you think they will have luck with that? >> i think they'll have luck in driving up the ratings, because the ratings will be higher than they would have been. this will be the highest rated show in a long tim. i was on "60 minutes," they had the highest rating in over a year just two weeks ago. that was the highest rating. and they had a lousy game in front of it, too. it was a blowout. "saturday night live" will be -- some people think it will be one of the highest rated shows ever. i think they'll only drive up the ratings higher. many of these groups are scam

groups. >> which group is a scam group? >> i have fantastic relationships with the hispanics. i employ thousands of hispanics, tens of thousands over the years i've employed. they're fantastic people. i have great respect for mexico but mexico is just taking advantage of our country. their leaders are much smarter than our leaders and they're taking advantage of us in trade and at the border. ford is moving a massive plan to the mexico. nabisco is move a factory to mexico. too much. every single poll, every single state, i'm leading in south carolina, i'm leading 38 to 12 or something. you lack at some of these polls, in new hampshire, i'm leading 36-10. >> what do you mean they're scams? >> those are very important polls. >> we have talked about the polls. we just talked about them this

morning, the ones showing you in the lead. what group is a scam? >> these are people that go around, look for money from people. i had a group come up to me, supposedly prominent group. the first thing out of their mouths is would you like to join our coalition? it will cost from 25,000 to $2 million to join. give me a break. i get hit with this stuff all the time. a lot of people are scammers, just scammers. they sit home on their ipad laying in bed tapping out things. i know this happens all the time. and then you have weak companies like a macy's will fall for it. i wish they didn't by the way. a lot of people boycotted macy's because of what they did when they cut my line. they were weak and ineffective, frankly. it's been -- i mean, it's been an amazing period of time for me. it's been incredible. the polls have been great. the crowds have been so phenomenal, no matter where i go i have the biggest crowds by

far, that includes bernie sanders by far. we have a big one in florida very soon at doral, at my place. we'll have 10,000 people, i mean, you know, 10,000 people is becoming a small crowd. we had 35,000 people in mobile, alabama. 20,000 in mark cuban's arena in dallas, texas. it's been really amazing, actually. we've had a will the of fun. >> yes. >> i know these spanish grupps, they go around and they only care about themselves. by the way, if you look at the polls, the polls in nevada and other polls say that trump is number one with the hispanics. another one came out yesterday, hispanic poll, where people that -- hispanics in our country legally have trump as number one by far. it's not even close. i do very well with hispanics. i actually think i will win the hispanics. remember marco rubio with his stupid currents about hispanics, he did very, very poorly with

hispanic hispanics. mitt romney did poorly with hispanics. i think i will win with hispa c hispanics. that's a big statement. >> all right, mr. trump, always interesting to get your predictions and to talk to you. thanks so much for being on "new day." >> thank you for the good numbers. always love to hear that. >> we know you do. sounds like you're having fun with all of this. >> i am. >> talk to you soon. >> thanks so much. >> don't look at me. >> you were taking notes half the time. i was wonderi ining to myself, wonder if it has a hypnotic effect? >> the answer is, without question, yes. >> sure, sure. >> please, it's @alisyn camerota, alisyn with a "y." use that on social media. here's what i like. donald trump is very right about very fundamental things about politics. he's do inge them better than

everybody else. >> like what? >> people like to hear their complaints given voice. >> they do. >> absolutely. >> he's doing that very well and in a way that is far more demonstrative than politicians do. why? they have to be held accountable. trump is not getting measured the same way. he's getting scrutiny but not the same kind of scrutiny. also, they love a winner. they love somebody who is optimistic about themselves and about them. >> i'm a winner, i'll get it done. how are you going to round up with 11 million people? with a process. what he's banking on is believe in me because you don't believe in any of these other guys. it's resonating, period.