Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump held a rally in New Hampshire on Thursday afternoon at the New Hampshire Sportsplex in Bedford, where he also spoke one-on-one with necn's Alison King.

A day after Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson couldn't name a single foreign leader at an MSNBC town hall, Trump was asked to name a world leader he admired and would like to emulate. He chose German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

"Well, I think Merkel is a really great world leader, but I was very disappointed [in] this move with the whole immigration thing," he said. "I think it's a big problem."

He explained that he respected her but strongly disagreed with her view.

"I was always a Merkel person," he said. "But I think she made a very tragic mistake a year and a half ago."

But Trump's praise for the German chancellor comes only nine months after he tweeted that Merkel was "ruining Germany."

I told you @TIME Magazine would never pick me as person of the year despite being the big favorite They picked person who is ruining Germany — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 9, 2015

In his interview with necn, Trump also reiterated his claim that every single web poll called him the winner of Monday's debate with Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

"All of the online polls said that I won the debate," he said.

Trump won a series of unscientific flash polls conducted immediately after the debate, but an NBC News|Surveymonkey poll released yesterday gave Clinton the win by a wide margin.

Trump's visit came one day after Clinton and Bernie Sanders were at the University of New Hampshire in Durham talking about college affordability.

At his rally, Trump referred to the Clinton-Sanders event, telling the crowd that the two Democrats "had very few people at their rally yesterday." He said Sanders "sold out to the devil" by working with Clinton to develop a higher education plan.

[NATL] Highlights From the 2016 Campaign Trail

Sanders "should have just gone away" after losing the party nomination to Clinton, Trump said.

The GOP candidate also continued to connect his plan for U.S.-Mexico border security and the heroin epidemic that's devastating many parts of the country, including New Hampshire.

"We're going to build that wall, and we're going to stop that heroin from coming in," he said. "Stop the poison from coming in and destroying our youth and plenty of other people."

Trump sought to link Clinton to her husband's scandal-marked presidency, telling the crowd to "remember" that the House in 1998 impeached then-President Bill Clinton on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. Bill Clinton was acquitted by the Senate.

Trump has made several visits to the Granite State since locking up his party's nomination. New Hampshire is seen as a key swing state in this year's presidential election.

His running mate, Mike Pence, was just in New Hampshire on Monday.