The 2016 Blast The latest POLITICO scoops and coverage of the 2016 elections. Email Sign Up

Tweets from https://twitter.com/politico/lists/team-politico



"And so if Trump is not at the 1,237, or let’s say, more than 100 off of it, he won’t get the nomination," Steve Forbes said Monday of Donald Trump's campaign to secure the GOP nomination. | AP Photo Forbes to Trump: Tone it down or lose nomination

If Donald Trump wants to be the Republican nominee, he needs to lock up the 1,237 necessary delegates before the convention in July, Steve Forbes said Monday.

“I think he wouldn’t get the nomination" if he did not, the billionaire and former presidential candidate suggested on CNN's "New Day."

At this point in the race, he remarked, with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz outmaneuvering Trump with his delegate strategy after the first ballot and a series of missteps by the Manhattan real-estate mogul over the course of the last week, it's a "wake-up call."

"And so if Trump is not at the 1,237, or let’s say, more than 100 off of it, he won’t get the nomination," Forbes said, adding that is why if Trump is to unite the party and attract voters he has failed to grab so far, the candidate must tone down his act.

Trump "has his core voters," Forbes said, "but the people leaning towards him like the idea of somebody going in from the outside, kicking things around, they need to be persuaded. And that's what he's got to do. And it's fluid enough where he could still do it."

"But after this week, I think it would be a wake-up call to him and his campaign," he concluded, "gotta do that or you're not going to get that 1,237."