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Donald Trump ended his boycott of Fox News Tuesday, responding to comments on Muslims — and name-calling that isn’t “presidential.”
Trump, appearing with Bill O’Reilly on “The O’Reilly Factor,” first tackled remarks made by CNN foreign policy analyst and “secular Muslim” Rula Jebreal that Trump, along with Ben Carson and Sen. Ted Cruz will have “blood on their hands” if someone attacks a mosque.
“It’s the first time I’ve been, sort of made controversial by not responding to a question,” Trump said, referring to a questioner in New Hampshire earlier this month who said, “We have a problem in this country. It’s called Muslims.”
Moving on to accusations about Trump’s campaign rhetoric, O’Reilly asked, “Am I fair to say that in order for you to win the Republican nomination, that you’re going to have to change your style and be a bit kinder and more mature?”
Trump took issue with the word “mature,” offering his continued high poll numbers as proof. “It’s not a question of nice,” he said. “It’s going to be a question of competence.”
“You have to be kind of presidential,” O’Reilly said, then asked Trump to respond to a clip where he called presidential contender Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., a “clown,” drawing boos from the crowd at the Values Voter Summit last week.
Trump agreed with O’Reilly that it wouldn’t be unfair to say it’s “not presidential” to call Rubio a clown, but said that Rubio had “attacked me quite viciously” earlier and he was just defending himself.
“I’m a counterpuncher,” Trump said.
“That’s fine,” O’Reilly replied. “It’s the ‘clown’ stuff that’s not fine.”
Trump finally backed down, “Well, OK, I can understand that.”
Watch the interview below.
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