Trump: Don't know why I'm meeting Ted Cruz

Donald Trump is meeting with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in Manhattan on Wednesday, though he claimed in an interview on MSNBC that he does not know why.

“Ted Cruz called me. And I don’t know why I’m meeting him, to be honest, but I do have respect for him,” Trump said on “Morning Joe” in a wide-ranging interview in which the Republican presidential contender commented on issues foreign, domestic and everything in between.


“I respect the fact that along with a couple of others, he came out and he came out very strongly and agreed with what I said on illegal immigration. And he came out very strongly and he came out early, and I respect that. I like him,” he added.

Speaking with reporters later Wednesday at the Capitol, Cruz called himself a “big fan of Donald Trump’s.”

“I’ve spent a lot of time meeting with all sorts of friends of mine. You know, I’ve sat down and visited with Donald multiple times before he was a candidate for president,” the Texas senator said. “I’m happy to sit down and visit with him now after he’s a candidate for president and we’ve gotten together with quite a few of the 2016 presidential candidates who are friends of mine and I intend to continue to do so.”

Asked about Tuesday’s announcement of a nuclear agreement with Iran, Trump said, “It’s a ridiculous deal” and “a disgrace.” The United States, he said, “should have doubled up the sanctions.”

“Well, they didn’t read ‘The Art of the Deal.’ Most people did; they didn’t,” he said. “I have seen the deal. I’ve seen it broken down in every newspaper you can imagine, and I think I know the deal quite well,” he added, when pressed about whether he had read the deal himself.

Trump also had harsh words for the political media discussing his first month on the campaign trail.

One thing he has learned is “how dishonest … some of the political media” is, in contrast to the financial journalists with whom he normally interacts.

“They don’t want to print the truth. They don’t want to say what you said. They don’t want to say what you mean. They know what you said, they know what you mean, and they put it in totally different words. It’s like you didn’t say it, it’s incredible to me,” Trump said, noting that he has become “more careful” in dealing with some people in the media as a result.

One such media distortion, Trump said, stemmed from the reaction to reports of his remarks about undocumented immigrants coming to the U.S. illegally from Mexico. Trump cited “five different sources” at the border telling him that Mexico is sending its worst. “They’re almost crying,” he said.

Pressed to provide the sources by Bloomberg Politics’ Mark Halperin, Trump demurred.

“I’ll reveal my sources, Mark, when you reveal your sources,” he countered.

He also took the opportunity to slam Republican rival Jeb Bush on jobs and once again claim that he would win the Hispanic vote.

“The Hispanics love me,” Trump said, adding that he would open up more jobs for everyone in the economy. “Jeb Bush wouldn’t know where to go to create a job,” he said, telling host Joe Scarborough that Bush “only can follow you or a pollster. I can only go with what’s right.”

Trump, who came out on top in a recent Suffolk University/USA Today poll of GOP contenders, also trailed former secretary of state Hillary Clinton badly in a head-to-head matchup.

“I think that the person that she doesn’t want to run against is me,” he said.

Seung Min Kim contributed reporting.