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Donald J. Trump appeared to soften his tone in his fight with Pope Francis on Thursday night during a town-hall-style forum hosted by CNN, calling the pope a “wonderful guy” and adding, “I don’t think this is a fight.”

Mr. Trump said again that he believed that the Mexican government had influenced the pope’s thinking when he suggested that Mr. Trump was “not Christian” because of his vow to build a border wall along the southern tier of the United States.

But Mr. Trump also said he suspected that Francis was “misinterpreted,” saying, “I think he said something much softer than was originally reported by the media.”

In a wide-ranging town hall in Columbia, S.C., Mr. Trump declined to repeat his words from the last Republican debate: that he believed the Bush administration had lied in the buildup to the Iraq war in 2003. He was pressed by a man in the audience but declined to repeat what he had said, which many Republicans have criticized as going too far.

Mr. Trump also mused about preferring fast-food restaurants such as Kentucky Fried Chicken because he said they’re cleaner than other restaurants. And he conceded that he had made mistakes as a husband in his first two marriages, saying, as he tries to win voters in a heavily evangelical state, that he was a better father than a husband because he was heavily focused on his work.

At another point, he said that President Obama’s signature health care law “is dead.” But when pushed on what that would mean in terms of the mandate for people to have insurance and for those with pre-existing conditions, Mr. Trump said, “Well, I like the mandate.” He did not elaborate.

Jeb Bush, speaking at the same forum shortly before Mr. Trump, also revealed a lighter side, telling Anderson Cooper of CNN that he was partial to country music. Mr. Bush, the former governor of Florida, said he likes the Zac Brown Band, as well as Florida Georgia Line — though he called the duo “Florida Georgia Band.”

Mr. Cooper asked Mr. Bush how he liked to relax, pointing out that former President George W. Bush, his brother, had taken up painting.

“Yeah, that’s really weird,” Mr. Bush joked.

He said that his brother had not yet painted him — “I’m waiting for the primitive era to be finished,” he said — before adding, “He’s actually pretty good at it.”

The former president, he explained, had called “some poor” art teacher “out of the blue” and said, “This is George Bush. I want to learn how to paint. There’s a Rembrandt inside of me and your job is to bring the Rembrandt out.”

Turning slightly more personal, Mr. Bush also discussed running for president as a self-described introvert.

“You’ll appreciate this,” he said, turning to Mr. Cooper, who had also referred to himself as an introvert, “because introverts set goals and they grind and they just like — they just go at it.”

“Which is a pretty good thing to be when you’re running for president when you’ve been written off over and over and over again,” Mr. Bush continued. “And you’re not deterred by that. In fact, that just makes me more motivated, more energized. So I’ve overcome my introversion, which makes me, I think, better — better than an extrovert.”