Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump addresses the crowd during a rally at the Milwaukee Theatre Monday, April 4. | AP Photo Trump blasts delegate fight as ‘crooked deal' 'What kind of a system is this?' the Republican front-runner says after being bested by Cruz in Colorado.

Donald Trump vented Monday over the delegate fight on which his campaign has been repeatedly outfoxed, slamming the situation in Colorado as a "crooked deal."

“Well it really started with Colorado, and the people out there are going crazy — in the Denver area and Colorado itself — and they’re going absolutely crazy because they weren’t given a vote, this was given by politicians. It’s a crooked deal, and I see it," the Republican front-runner said in a telephone interview on "Fox & Friends," referring to his defeat over the weekend in the state where Texas Sen. Ted Cruz won all 34 delegates at play at the state's Republican convention.


Referring to a comment from co-host Pete Hegseth explaining that the rules are the rules, Trump remarked, "Well that shouldn’t be the way it is. This was changed in the summer to help a guy like Cruz, and it’s not right now."

Colorado Republicans voted last August to cancel their traditional presidential preference poll after the Republican National Committee changed its rules to require states' delegates to support whoever wins the caucus.

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus denied in a radio interview with conservative host Mike Gallagher that Trump was being cheated, but also said the party must ensure that whoever loses does not fall "because of some rules committee change or something like that, that happens."

"It has to be only because I didn't get the votes I needed on the floor. If we can get this thing all about who has the votes to make this happen, either before Cleveland or at Cleveland, we're gonna be in a much better place," Priebus said.

Later in the same interview, addressing Trump's specific complaints about the Colorado GOP convention, Priebus said there was "nothing bizarre" about the situation.

"Colorado is using a convention system to choose its delegates and that's perfectly OK," Priebus said.

But Trump's recent losses in the back-stage scramble for delegates extend well beyond Colorado.

He's also suffered delegate setbacks in Georgia (where one county that went for Trump by 12 points will be represented by 90 percent Cruz backers), Indiana (where Trump appears virtually assured of being shut out), Iowa (where all but one of the state's 12 delegates is committed to Cruz on a second ballot), Louisiana (where Trump lost 10 delegates and filed a complaint with the RNC), North Carolina (where Trump had fewer congressional level delegates than John Kasich), North Dakota (where Cruz's delegates won 18 of 25 slots earlier this month), South Carolina (where on Saturday he picked up just one delegate out of six on the ballot), South Dakota (where support for Cruz among delegates would appear higher) and Tennessee (where the Trump campaign also threatened to sue after a heated convention) — mostly at the hands of Cruz.

"You know, as an example, I won South Carolina," Trump noted. "I won it by a landslide, like a massive landslide, and now they’re trying to pick off those delegates one by one. That’s not the way democracy is supposed to work. And you know, they offer ‘em trips, they offer ‘em all sorts of things. And you’re allowed to do that, and you’re allowed to offer trips and you can buy all these votes. What kind of a system is this? Now, I’m an outsider and I came into the system, and I’m winning the votes by millions of votes. But the system is rigged, it’s crooked."

The "crooked" nature also extends to the Democratic side of the race, Trump suggested.

"And I see it, honestly, I see it with Bernie [Sanders], too. You know, I got millions more votes, millions, not just a couple — millions of more votes than Cruz," Trump explained. "And I’ve gotten hundreds of delegates more. And we keep fighting, fighting, fighting and then you have a Colorado where they frankly, where they just get all of these delegates, and it’s not a system. There was no voting. I didn’t go out there to make a speech or anything. There’s no voting."

He went on to lament Sanders’ situation even more. "When you look, even at Bernie — I’m not a fan of Bernie, but every time I turn on your show, [it's] Bernie wins, Bernie wins, Bernie wins. And yet he’s not winning," Trump said, alluding to Sanders' recent string of victories in primaries and caucuses that have done little to move the needle in terms of his delegate deficiency against Hillary Clinton. "I mean, it’s a rigged system. It’s a rigged system," he repeated.

Trump’s vent session comes after the Republican front-runner remained relatively quiet over the weekend. In a rare move, he didn’t call into any of the Sunday shows, opting instead to keep a low profile as Cruz racked up more delegate wins.

But by Monday, Trump was ready to fight back, rejecting the notion that his defeats in Colorado and elsewhere suggests that Cruz's team is out-hustling and out-organizing his campaign.

“No, because I’ve got millions more votes. I mean, you could say he’s out-organized because I have millions of more votes, and I happen to have more delegates than he does, by a lot. But when you go into Colorado, where the people of Colorado are complaining that they’re not allowed to vote, that’s the best of all because they’re not even allowed to vote," he said, going on to invoke his victory in the popular vote in the Louisiana primary and subsequent delegate flop.

"Hey, I’m somebody coming in to make America great again. I’m coming in to do something positive. I’m an outsider. The system’s rigged," he said, again invoking the term. "This was a political hack deal like so much of our country. This is what our country’s all about, I guess.”

Trump, whose name graces 17 golf courses around the world, also commented on Jordan Spieth, whose epic collapse on the back nine Sunday at the Masters denied the 22-year-old golfer a chance to repeat as the tournament champion.

"He's had a very life-altering experience. It looked like he was just going to sail right through," Trump said, not drawing any comparison to his own presidential run. "That's golf. It's a tough sport. That's life. That's golf. That's sports. That's everything. I mean, it can happen."

Nolan D. McCaskill contributed.