joining us on the phone this morning is the g.o.p. frontrunner donalddonald, thankg us this morning. >> good morning. >> good morning. >> great to have you here. a few days left, of course, the gloves are off. and chris christie throwing his support behind you yesterday. was that a big shock to you? >> well, i was really honored. everybody wanted chris. everybody was calling him. and i know chris very well. and i didn't feel i should do that. and chris called up out of the blue and he said you are the one that's going to win. we have a movement going. every time i speakw 7,000 people. that's like a small crowd. he sees what's happening. chris was so fantastic. honestly, he is the one endorsement to me that really meant a lot. >> you said, mr. trump,pñ during that announcement yesterday that you get phone calls from other big names that want to endorse you. you chose chris christie. should we expect any big endorsements from you in days to come? >> yes. i think you can. but, you know, frankly,

sometimes they want to have dinner and let's get together for two hours. let's go to a movie together. [ laughter ] >> it's too much work. i'm not sure what endorsements mean. i have never understood it i did think that the chris christie endorsement meant a lot. i think the sarah palin endorsement meant a lot. i think that jerry falwell jr. meant a lot. >> do you think these endorsements move needles for you? you said you don't look for endorsements. you don't care about them. do you think it it helps you on super tuesday in any big way? >> i do. i think jerry falwell jr. really helped me a lot with evangelicals. liberty university. i'm leading with evangelicals all over the country. i.ç won in south carolina. that was supposed to be really a strong hold for ted cruz. he was supposed to win that he was expected to win that for a long time. i won it and i won evangelicals. i won it by tremendous margins, too. incredible landslide. so i think certain people do

really help. there is no question about it. >> mr. trump, obviously the endorsement from chris christie didn't come out of the blue. it was timed, in some ways what some saw as momentum from senator rubio. there has been a lot of back and forth between the two of you in the last 24 hours. we will play a clip of that back and forth and get to you respond. >> okay. >> we're not going to lose the conservative movement to a con man. we are not going to let that happen. [cheers and applause] and the reason why is because this election is too important. in this election is a referendum, and you have to decide what kind of country will america be in the 21st sen industry. here we believe everyone has a right to go as far as their talent and work will take them. that was not an accident. you know why that happens? because the people who came before us did what needed to be done. i know there are beam out there that are are perhaps intrigued by one of the other candidates. maybe they like their style or whatever they are doing. let me tell you something, friends do not let friends vote for a con artist. >> con artist, he said he called you a clown.

he said iñá are going to take the mask off. he said you are sticking it to the little guy. what say to you marco rubio. >> he is desperate. is he doing very badly. they hate him in florida. i'm up 20 points in florida. they hate him there. didn't show up to vote. he couldn't get elected dog catch everywhere in florida. what happens is a very insulting thing. built a great company. did i not take in from my father. i loved my father. he was such a great guy. he did not give me $200 million. i wish he did. >> where are they getting thatnq$áujt >> you know what? he got it from an article that was written in the failing "new york times" by a terrible writer that had no idea what he was writing. i wish he gave me $200 million. i would be worth $10 trillion right now. i borrowed a million dollars. i paid it back. and i built a company that's worth over $10 billion, which is a pretty good return. very few people have ever done that before. that, i can tell you. now he adds the 1 billion in. he added that when was

wrong. me that kind of money. i brothers and sisters. one of the first calls i got my brother and sister called me that's not true, dad never gave you that it's sort of interesting. he goes around saying it. he is a bad guy. very insulting guy. i built a great company. had a -- you know, one of one of the top shows on television. wrote the art a of the deal, number one best seller. many tremendous best sellers. and then i have to listen to this total light weight. he is he is a light weight. calling me a con man. what a disgraceful thing that he is allowed to do it. >> you made comments the other day that raised eyebrows in the press. and you brought up the "new york times." that was one of the things that you mentioned when you are out on the campaign trail, you mentioned the libel laws and that when you are president you would like to see a greater ability to sue publications who write things about individuals like the "new york times" or others. >> right. >> if they write what you call hit pieces. critics would say that's an affront to the free press in the united states. what do you say to that?

>> no, no. the press has to be fair. i love free press. i think it's great. the "new york times" i calling it the failing "new york times." it might not even be in business too much longer. it is so poorly run. every single article they do on me, i could do the greatest thing in the world, every article they do on me is a hit piece. i mean, they are a disgrace every editorial is a hit piece. and i think it's just a disgrace. and frankly it's just also wrong. they know it's wrong. they did an article recently. they actually said to me it's wrong. we're going with it i said why don't you retract it? no we are not going to do that they are a disgrace. what i said we have to open up the libels laws and i'm going to do that. >> mr. trump, let's talk taxes for a minute. because mitt romney sort of opened a can of worms when he said there is potentially a bombshell in your tax returns. you said on the debate stage that you weren't going to release them because you are currently being audited. the irs has now put out a statement saying that nothing prevents individuals from sharing their own tax information, even when they are in audit.

is that going to change your mind and encourage to you release those tax returns since so many are calling for you to do so? >> no, not at all. look, i'm being audited, i have been audited many years. it's very unfair. the irs always audits me. eventually i settle it out and it's very fine. but it'sñh very unfair to me. now, you know, you can ask why they audited me all the time because i have friends that are very rich, they don't even know what i'm talking about. they have never been audited. how's come i'm audited virtually every year. when you are under audited, until the audit is done you don't release your returns because you are releasing something who knows. you want to get them exactly perfect. you don't want to release it. no lawyer would ever allow to you release a tax return while you are being audited. i have been audited for so many years, it's actually a disgrace. and, you know, as soon as is the audit is finished. i have no problem. no bombshell whatsoever. number one, mitt romney was a failed candidate.

a terrible candidate. he wants to get back into the cycle a little bit i guess. it has nothing to do. by the way, nobody released financials like i did. almost 100 pages long. it showed the company is worth over $10 billion. i built an unbelievable company can. and starting with very little, by the way. but i build an unbelievable company. some is of the greatest assets in the world. i say that because that's the kind of person we need at the head of our country with, you know, 19 trillion and going to be $21 trillion in debt. we're a total mess. we don't know what we're doing. we have leadership that doesn't know what it's doing. and that's the kind of leadership weuçñg,y i put in my financials. they were totally disclosed. and that's your only statement of net worth. by the way, you can't learn much from a tax return. you cannot learn -- in fact, you can learn almost nothing about net worth. i put in my net worth statement and that's been filed and, unfortunately, people are very unhappy with it because it's turned out to be so strong and so good that the press is very

unhappy. i just want to -- i made the statement, a lot of people didn't pick tum. i will open up the libel laws so when papers write false information about people, they can bring a lawsuit, and if, in fact, they are right. you are able to sue the papers and you can get damages. >> ted cruz asked from the debate stage why not release the tax returns from the years you are not being audited in. will you do that? >> because everything is interrelated. ted cruz never employed one person. i employ thousandsud of people. over the years i have employed tens of thousands. i have a massive company. you may have seen the pictures where i'm standing with 3 feet of tax returns. everything is interrelated. >> mr. trump, a lot of your supporters are hoping that you will do for the economy that you have done for your businesses and what you say you have done for your businesses. we talked earlier about the g.d.p. number that just came out for the fourth quarter. this country growing at a dismal 1%. it was just reported. are you going -- is a president trump going to be able to improve that? what's the first that i

think that you would do to get this economy going again? >> right. it's such a great question. totally. in fact, everywhere poll says i'm the only one that can do that i mean, i have such an advantage with that we are bringing back jobs from china, from mexico, from japan. we're bringing back our jobs. our jobs have been taken away like we are a bunch of babies. our people have lost so much money. you know, if you are a middle income person, you are making less money now than you made 10 years ago. our economy is a disaster. our unemployment is through the roof. they say it's 5%. it's actually 25%. it's through the roof. if you look for a job, and you give up, they consider you employed. that's how -- that number was put there for politicians to make the politicians, in particular, presidents look better. the 5% number. i will tell you we have a horrible unemployment problem. we have tremendous numbers of part-time jobs which we never had like this before. because obama3t)e is killing our economy. everybody puts it down because they don't want to come under the reign of

obamacare. i mean, our country is a disaster. >> mr. trump, i asked before this segment what question they would ask. do you use hiring preferences for veterans in your companies? >> i do. and a i have hired a lot of vets. and i love the vets. and i have had tremendous support from thehr vets. i won in new hampshire. i won in south n particular thoe two. with the vets. the vet support has been incredible. absolutely incredible. the evangelical support has been incredible. i won every one of my victories. as you know we are running the table. every one of my victories i have had across the board men, women, high income, low income. vets, the military,w4-1ñ evangelicals. we have had unbelievable support. that's why chris christie really wanted to go with us. >> well, just a few days until super tuesday. taking some time out to talk to us this, in. donald trump. mr. trump, always good to