Molly Ball: Why did you disinvite Trump?

Erick Erickson: I would have liked to have had Trump here. I mean, I don’t agree with some of the really bombastic things he’s said, but I know he resonates with a segment of the base, a lot of whom are here. But I just don’t want somebody onstage who would make a comment like he made about Megyn Kelly last night and then—the campaign didn’t even want to admit that he had made it.

Ball: You thought the implication, that he was referring to menstruation, was unmistakable?

Erickson: Oh, yeah. I did. And I don’t know anybody who didn’t think that, other than the Trump people. Now they’re saying he meant “bleeding out of her nose.” Okay, but it took you 12 hours to come up with that. I don’t want somebody onstage who would stay something like that, that doesn’t have the little voice in their head saying, “Maybe that’s not such a good idea.”

Ball: Trump previously insulted veterans and disparaged Christianity. Wasn’t that offensive? Why was this the thing that pushed you over the line?

Erickson: Because when you take tough questions from a journalist and your very first reaction is, “She must be hormonal”—he’s said a lot of things that I don’t necessarily agree with, but when that’s your immediate first reaction about another human being—I said last night on Twitter it was a bridge too far, but it was really more like the straw that broke the camel’s back.

There’s been the accumulated weight of things. When you get to this point, it becomes more of a distraction. I’ve got nine other presidential candidates here, and now they all are going to get asked by people in the media what they think of Donald Trump. I’d rather not bring the distraction onstage.

Ball: Critics note that you also have a history of nasty and misogynistic comments. Do you really have any standing to judge Trump?

Erickson: You know, I’ve said some pretty stupid shit in the past, and I’ve apologized for it. I didn’t deny that I ever said it, I didn’t claim that my Twitter account was hacked. I apologized, said I was wrong, and had to deal with it. Trump’s reaction is, “I said whatever, not wherever.” No, he didn’t. I listened to the tape twice. I played it for the audience; they got the full context of it.

I think had he come out and apologized for it, which I asked the campaign to do—they were very adamant they weren’t going to—I probably would have let him come and we could’ve dealt with it in the Q and A [session].

But he didn’t want to apologize for it, and he didn’t want to clarify other than “He said whatever, not wherever,” when he didn’t. That wasn’t a clarification. It was a lie.

Ball: You’ve told me before about your fear of becoming an element of the Republican establishment you’ve always opposed. That's what Trump is accusing you of now. Is there truth to the accusation?