Sharyn Jackson

sjackson@dmreg.com

Donald Trump teased the possibility of a 2016 presidential run on a day he came to Iowa to show support for U.S. Rep. Steve King.

The real estate mogul and TV boss spoke to reporters Saturday before a private fundraiser for the Iowa congressman, who is running for re-election in Iowa's 4th Congressional District.

"We'll see what happens," Trump said, regarding a bid for the GOP nomination.

"We'll see who's running, we'll see what happens first of all in the next month, because it's going to be very interesting," Trump said. "And after that, we'll make a decision sometime after the beginning of the year."

If he doesn't run, Trump said, he wants to see a president who is "very smart and very tough ... because we're so far behind the eight-ball, good isn't good enough."

He added: "I want to see someone who is going to make our country great again, which is basically the same thing as Steve."

Trump touted King as a "special guy, a smart person, with really the right views on almost everything."

Their ideologies are so in sync, Trump said, "We don't have to compare notes."

The pair spent most of the news conference going back and forth on hot-button issues like Ebola, the Affordable Care Act and the United States' southern border.

"Ebola: Stop the flights," Trump said, before criticizing President Barack Obama's response to the advancement of the virus in the United States, and Obama's appointee as the new "Ebola czar," Ron Klain, a White House insider.

"It's the wrong person," Trump said. "Do we need more people? Do we need more bureaucracy?"

King called Klain the "Ebola spin czar."

On the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, King said that his health insurance premium has risen $4,400, and that repealing the act fully "has got to be our mission."

Citing rising premiums for some users, Trump said that between Obamacare and Obama's handling of Ebola, "there has never been a president that has told so many lies."

On the border issue, King said immigration across it is a matter of "rule of law," before listing what he sees as threats from the people crossing the border, including drug use, gang recruitment of juveniles, an entry point for Islamic State fighters, and the respiratory illness enterovirus, which he said, "happens to be in the same places that the unaccompanied alien juveniles, the same states they've been sent to."

King and Trump also criticized Obama for playing golf after a news conference on the Islamic State's beheading of American journalist James Foley. Talk of the sport was a segue for a joke King made after listing the principles that he said "build America."

"That's freedom of speech, religion, the press, the right to keep and bear arms, whether it's to pick up a shotgun and shoot a pheasant, or pick up a 7-iron and discipline your husband."

King laughed, and added, "I had to throw that in there — you're all thinking about golf. That wouldn't happen with Donald Trump."

Trump closed his remarks by saying he plans to return to Iowa, "many times in the future."

The Iowa Democratic Party shot back to Trump's appearance on behalf of King. "I don't know who should be more embarrassed — Steve King campaigning with Donald Trump, or Donald Trump campaigning with Steve King," said Christina Freundlich, party spokeswoman.

Trump rates airports

Donald Trump didn't say anything about Des Moines' airport, but he did offer these opinions about flying Saturday while criticizing the federal government: "Even our airports, you fly into La Guardia, you fly into Kennedy, you fly into LAX, they're like third-world airports. And then you fly into Qatar, and you go to Saudi Arabia, and you go all over China, and you see airports the likes of which we've never seen in this country."