Donald Trump explains being a 'counter-puncher'
Presumptive GOP nominee talks his temperament on the campaign trail
This is a rush transcript from "The Kelly File," May 26, 2016. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
MEGYN KELLY, HOST: Breaking tonight, Donald Trump and yours truly, an exclusive right here.
Good evening and welcome to "The Kelly File," everyone. I'm Megyn Kelly. Tonight, an in-depth look as the most unpredictable presidential campaign in U.S. history. As we bring you the rest of our interview with Donald Trump. He made up the rules as he went along. Against all odds he is the last man standing. He took down 17 rivals and even went off certain members of the press, some of whom you know very well. How did he get here and how far can he go?
We put those questions to fur of the most accomplished men in politics today. Men who have their finger on the pulse of presidential politics and have for the last 40 years. We showed them the key parts of our sit-down with Trump and tonight we'll show you that as well, including new footage and get reaction from our panel. But first, a look at Trump's rise, including the reasons his sit-down with yours truly got so much attention.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KELLY: America has never seen anything like the political juggernaut called Donald Trump. A businessman and reality TV star with no political experience bursts on to the scene and electrifies voters with big threats - -
DONALD TRUMP, R-PRESUMPTIVE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: We're going to knock the hell out of ISIS.
KELLY: And big promises.
TRUMP: We are going to win in every aspect of our lives.
KELLY: While explaining the art of the deal --
TRUMP: We're going to make great trade deals --
KELLY: He perfected the art of the insults.
TRUMP: It's Rubio!
KELLY: Against rivals --
TRUMP: Little Marco. Little Marco. Lying Ted. Lying Ted.
KELLY: Detractors.
TRUMP: He's a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren't captured.
KELLY: And the press.
TRUMP: I would never kill them but I do hate them.
KELLY: Including yours truly beginning with the very first Republican debate.
Mr. Trump, one of the things people love about you is you speak your mind and you don't use a politician's filter. You've called women you don't like fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals. Your Twitter account --
TRUMP: Only Rosie O'Donnell.
KELLY: Mr. Trump did not like the question. At all. For the record, it was well beyond Rosie O'Donnell.
TRUMP: Yes, I'm sure it was.
KELLY: Does that sound to you like the temperament of a man we should elect as president --
TRUMP: What I say is what I say. Honestly Megyn if you don't like it, I'm sorry. I've been very nice to you although I could be maybe not be based on the way you've treated me but I would not do that.
KELLY: And he sent out a tweet that night.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Wow! @MegynKelly really bombed tonight.
KELLY: And a re-tweet.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fox News gives low mark to bimbo Megyn Kelly.
KELLY: Then he made this remark.
TRUMP: She gets out and she starts asking me all sorts of ridiculous questions and you know you could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.
KELLY: And he explained it this way.
TRUMP: I was going to say nose and or ears. Because that's a very common statement. Blood flowing out of somebody's nose. It's a statement showing anger.
KELLY: That set off a firestorm.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is a candidate who's had a history of some misogynistic statements.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We've seen Donald Trump do this over and over again.
KELLY: The pundits said his attacks were political suicide.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: More fallout from the latest Republican debate. I don't know how he thinks he's going to win an election.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This unfavorability with women is --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This weekend surely signals the end of Trump's campaign.
KELLY: The pundits were wrong.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: NBC News/Survey Monkey poll shows Trump with 23 percent.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A new poll number show that Donald Trump is surging.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The more Trump speaks, the more he spikes.
KELLY: It didn't matter what he said or how he said it.
TRUMP: Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States. When Mexico sends it people, they're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime, their rapists.
KELLY: Voters were angry and they liked that he was angry too. In January he skipped the next FOX News debate.
TRUMP: Megyn Kelly is really biased against me. Do you really think she can be fair at a debate?
KELLY: Which set-off a new torrent of tweets.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Eighty thousand tweets directed towards Megyn Kelly. Broke it down to see what the most popular words.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Crazy Megyn Kelly.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Crazy, overrated.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bimbo.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bimbo Megyn Kelly.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hooker.
KELLY: Days later he lost the Iowa caucuses. But Trump went on to win and win some more.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Another big win for Donald Trump.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A huge win for Donald Trump.
KELLY: And then a new debate.
TRUMP: Nice to be with you Megyn.
KELLY: Great to have you here.
TRUMP: You're looking well. You're looking well.
KELLY: As you.
Followed by more fallout. And a call to boycott "The Kelly File."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can't watch crazy Megyn anymore.
KELLY: Finally in April, a meeting at Trump Tower. The meeting was at my request and Mr. Trump was gracious enough to agree to it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Donald Trump and his arch nemesis Megyn Kelly are making peace.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The sign of a truth this morning between Trump --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Their feud apparently diffused.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You met with Megyn Kelly today. How did that go?
KELLY: Seventeen candidates down and Trump is the last man standing. The presumptive Republican nominee.
Have you made any mistakes in this campaign? You had said publicly, you thought the re-tweet about Heidi Cruz was a mistake.
TRUMP: Well, I said, I could have done without it to be exact. I could have done without it.
KELLY: You said a mistake. Are you walking that back?
TRUMP: No, no. I'm not walking it back but I actually didn't say it that way I said. I could have done without it. I mean --
KELLY: You shouldn't have done that, right?
TRUMP: I wish I didn't do it. Although, you know, I guess you could say she's fair game because she's very much involved with the campaign.
KELLY: But that tweet was about her looks.
TRUMP: You know what, I have millions of followers @realDonaldTrump. I have millions of followers. I have millions of Facebook --
KELLY: I'm familiar.
TRUMP: Yes. You are. The thing that gets me in trouble is re-tweets. The re-tweeters is really more of a killer than the tweets. The tweets I seem to do pretty well with. KELLY: So that is one, the Heidi Cruz thing, let me just give you a list of a couple -- TRUMP: Sure. KELLY: -- and tell me if you have any regrets on it. The comment about John McCain, you prefer people who were not captured. The comment about Carly Fiorina's face. But do you regret any of those comments? TRUMP: Yes, I guess so, but you have to go forward. You make a mistake and you have to go forward. And, you know, you can correct a mistake, but to look back and say, "Gee whiz I wish I didn't this or that," I don't think that is good, and I don't think in a certain way that is healthy.
KELLY: Uh-hm. And one of your advisers recently told Republican Party leaders down in Florida that you have been playing a part and that we're going to see a different Donald Trump. So, which is the real you? You know, the sort of brash tell it like it is guy we've seen on the campaign trail or the more humble possibly boring presidential you?
TRUMP: I think it's both, I'll be honest. But, I mean, I change for different settings. If I'm in a boardroom, I'm not going to be shouting and ranting and raving, and doing it the same that way, you know, I would do if I'm speaking to 12 people than if I'm speaking to 25,000 people in a major arena some place. So, I think actually, I'm, you know, I'm probably two or three different personalities.
KELLY: Let me ask you about that. Because most American parents try to raise their kids to not bully, to not name call, to not tease, not taunt. How can they effectively bring that message when the front-runner for the Republican nomination does all of those things?
TRUMP: Well, I do it, really -- you know, I've been saying during this whole campaign, that I'm a counter-puncher. You understand that. I'm responding. Now, I then respond times, maybe, 10. I don't know. I mean, I respond pretty strongly. But in just about all cases, I've been responding to what they did to me. So it's not a one-way street.
KELLY: Let's talk about us.
TRUMP: Okay.
KELLY: We were always friendly.
TRUMP: Right. Good relationship.
KELLY: Right? And then came the August 6,2015 debate and I asked you a tough question about women using only the words that you had used. I thought it was a fair question. Why didn't you?
TRUMP: I thought it was unfair. First of all, I didn't think it was really a question. I thought it was more of a statement.
KELLY: Afterwards you said that you didn't feel that the moderators had been nice. But do you think it's the journalist's role to be nice to presidential candidates at a debate?
TRUMP: Fair. I don't care if they're nice.
KELLY: You used the word nice.
TRUMP: Well, okay, no, I don't think so. I mean, I might have said they weren't nice but that doesn't mean they have to be nice.
KELLY: You know, it's not a cocktail party.
TRUMP: I mean, in a certain way what you did might have been a favor. Because I felt so good about having gotten through -- I said if I can get through this debate with those questions, you can get through anything.
KELLY: You're no longer just Donald Trump, businessman or Donald Trump host of "Celebrity Apprentice." Now you're steps away from the presidency. Have you given any thought in this position to the power that your messaging has on the lives of the people you target and on the millions of people who take their cue from you?
TRUMP: I have. I have. And I see suffering. I mean I see tremendous suffering. And I understand. I have a very big heart. A lot of people don't understand that. But people that know me do. And we have to take care of our country. And I do feel America first. I mean, America has been fourth and fifth and ninth.
KELLY: But you know what I'm saying.
TRUMP: I do.
KELLY: When Donald Trump targets somebody and says, this person is bad, that person is bad, it creates a firestorm in those people's lives. And many of these people are so-called civilians who haven't put themselves out there as public figures.
TRUMP: But it's in response to something that they did.
KELLY: But they're listening to you. And they're taking their cue from you. So that's the question, is whether now so close to the Oval Office, whether you will take that responsibility seriously and change your tone to try to be more unifying and less divisive.
TRUMP: I do take it very seriously. And I understand what's going on. And when I see 25,000 people that have seats and not one person during an hour speech will sit down. I say sit down, everybody, sit down. And they won't sit down. They refuse to sit down. I mean, that's a great compliment. But I do understand the power of the message. There's no question about it.
KELLY: I want to talk for a minute about the tweeting. You'll pick up your iPhone and tweet yourself?
TRUMP: Yes. Usually about 7:00 or 8:00 at night I'll do it myself. But during the day when I'm in the office, I have a number of people that I just call out a tweet to. It's always my right. When you and I were having a little difficulty, you probably had some pretty nasty tweets sent your way out. I don't want to say but I've heard that. I don't want that to happen. But fans, they really love -- we have an unbelievable bond. We have an unbelievable --
KELLY: You re-tweet some of those, not just the fans.
TRUMP: Yes. But not the more nasty ones. You would be amazed at the ones don't re-tweet.
KELLY: Bimbo?
TRUMP: Well, that was a re-tweet. Yes. Did I say that?
KELLY: Many times.
TRUMP: Oh! Okay. Excuse me.
KELLY: What do you think of, I mean --
TRUMP: Not the most horrible thing. You know, again politically but not the most -- over your life Megyn, you've been called a lot worse, is that right? Wouldn't you say? You know, you've had a life that's not been that easy and --
KELLY: It's not about me. It's not about me. It's the messaging to young girls and to women.
TRUMP: It's a certain amount of fighting back. You know, it's a modern day form of fighting back.
KELLY: So let's talk about what we just saw with Trump and basically the theme of that interview was temperament and his anger, his ability to control himself. He calls it counter punching. You know in my push to him was, you know, query whether that's true when you're talking about members of the media or so-called civilians who just have a disagreement with you. Which will happen as president. Something will come after you. Somebody will disagree with you. Ed, your thoughts.
ED ROLLINS, FOUNDER OF GREAT AMERICAN PAC SUPPORTING TRUMP: This was a very good piece for him. This was very deliberate. He was very calm. Reassuring. None of the anger or the angst was there. And I was saying after seeing it that, you know, this is the kind of -- this is the temperament you want to show the public. We haven't seen that up to this point.
KELLY: Intentional? Was that intentional on his part?
ROLLINS: Sure. Sure. I mean, obviously his wife and daughter and everybody else told him, be cool in this interview. It's a very important interview and you've got to do it well.
KELLY: Uh-hm. Mark?
MARK MCKINNON, CHIEF MEDIA STRATEGIST, BUSH CAMPAIGN 2000/2004: Well, I definitely saw some evolution there. You know, there's always those competing factions particularly with Trump when you have advisers and friends saying, you got here by letting Trump be Trump. So, don't change a thing. But in order to be president you've got to change a lot. George W. Bush did, Ronald Reagan did. I mean, the stress and the pressure of the White House, I mean, you can't just be a counter puncher all of the time in the White House. There's a lot of times we have to wait, rope a dope and you got to be get a lot of votes --
KELLY: Or you can't punch it off.
MCKINNON: You're right.
KELLY: Annoying members in the media who say things about you that may or may not be true. But you can't come after them for a year in every case.
MCKINNON: That's right. But I think a lot of people will have seen that interview and will be somewhat reassured that there was a less combative Donald Trump there, and you know, a step more presidential.
KELLY: Uh-hm. What do you think Stuart?
STUART STEVENS, CAMPAIGN STRATEGIST, ROMNEY CAMPAIGN 2012: The highlight to me was an extraordinary moment where he did apologize. I mean, here he said these things about you, about others. He should have -- 99 out of 100 people would have said, look, this spun out of control. I didn't want it to be like this. You set it up by saying this is your first question. You know? And he could have said, you know, I really want but I've learned from this. Which is another thing you didn't hear. I've learned from this and I'm sorry, this shouldn't have happened. And he will never do that. And I think it's a -- it's very problematic as a candidate and I think he's even more problematic as a president. Because one thing about presidents is, they all make mistakes and it's your ability to admit it's a mistake and learn from it that often stops you from making a greater mistake.
KELLY: He wouldn't even admit that the Heidi Cruz re-tweet was a mistake.
STEVENS: I know. You know, ultimately, you know, this president has to be very humbling.
MCKINNON: It does. And one of George W. Bush's great mistakes is when asked about his regrets couldn't name one at a particular juncture in his presidency. And people want to hear that. They want to hear that you're a human, you make mistakes, you're vulnerable. I mean, that's authenticity.
KELLY: Uh-hm.
MCKINNON: And that's what voters are hunger for.
KELLY: I think it shows leadership.
ROLLINS: A weakness.
KELLY: Right.
ROLLINS: Mea culpa is never going to come out of this man's mouth. Just never is.
KELLY: So, is that disconcerting do you think to voters or do you think Republican voters are like, yes --
ROLLINS: Not to his voters. His voters applaud his strength. And one of the great thing is he's the decision maker. He can go in there and straighten this mess out in Washington and everybody else is a wimp. Well, I'm not a wimp.
MCKINNON: Yes. And, you know, we looked at this very closely in presidential elections and the interesting thing is that voters don't really vote on issues in presidential elections, they vote on attributes. And the most important attributes are strength, trust and values. And you know, when we were running against Al Gore, were losing on every issue but we're beating him by 20 points on the perception of strength. So, that's really important. And that's where a lot of the support for Donald Trump is coming from.
KELLY: So, do you think that Democrats or Left leaning Independents are going to feel the same?
MO ELLEITHEE, TRAVELLING PRESS SECRETARY CLINTON CAMPAIGN 2008: Look, I think it's -- we now know he knows how to turn the volume down. That's what that interview showed. He can turn the volume down. But the same concerns that Democrats and left leaning Independents have had from the very beginning were only amplified I thought in this. He doesn't know how to apologize. He doesn't know how to be less divisive. He doesn't know how to unite people and bring people together. Every time you gave him an opportunity to do so, he actually pushed away. He doesn't know how to tell the truth. And those aren't things that are going to help him moving forward with those people who weren't already with him.
KELLY: Let's talk about the telling the truth issue. Do you believe he was sincere when he suggested he didn't know whether he had re-tweeted the bimbo tweets?
ELLEITHEE: No. No. For guy who --
KELLY: Do any of you believe that he didn't remember that in.
STEVENS: Of course not.
KELLY: Do you guys believe that?
ROLLINS: I think he has an amazing ability to rationalize. And I think it's part of his persona. I mean, he gets up and what I say today doesn't matter tomorrow. I just keep moving forward.
KELLY: Go ahead, Mo.
ELLEITHEE: I think that's exactly right. For a guy who claims to follow the media as closely as he does and I believe he probably does, for him to not remember or even read the coverage about all of the times he's done it. It's laughable.
MCKINNON: Or rationalizes that it was a re-tweet to somebody else.
KELLY: But it happens at least four times. And, you know, I wasn't going to get into this in the interview because I didn't want to make it about me. I didn't even want to raise them both. But there was so many. I mean, there was crazy, there was sick, there was boycott, there was liar. I mean it went on and on and on. I could have gone down the list. I just didn't want to make it that kind of exchange. Because I've tried to take myself out of this rather than put myself in it. I was trying to get that temperament and accountability for things he, you know, has been mocked for, has been skewed for.
STEVENS: I think Americans, something actually Ed said to me years ago, but Americans are very forgiving. But I think that you have to acknowledge that you want forgiveness for mistakes. You have to go through this process. And that's, I think, the stumbling block that he's going to have, he has 30 percent or less favorables now. To build to somewhere closer to 50, he needs to win an election. You're going to have to try to present a different person to a group of people who are not new to you. They've seen you a lot, they've seen these patterns. And you're going to have to be able to say look, this was a mistake, I can change. But you have to go through this. I mean, it's like --
MCKINNON: He took a step in that direction. He said there were some things he would have done differently. He wasn't specific about it.
(CROSSTALK)
What's your sense of the man who responded to you at the debate, the man you had the meeting with and then the man you did the interview with?
KELLY: Well, I would say, you know?
MCKINNON: Is it the same guy?
KELLY: Yes, I would say all three of those guys are the same guy. Even on the debate stage, there was a veiled threat, you know that I've been very nice to you maybe I wouldn't be, maybe I won't be. But I wouldn't do that. Then of course he did. But he wasn't nasty, he wasn't openly nasty on the debate stage. And certainly in our meeting he was kind and I thought in this setting we were very amiable. I mean, we got along very well. But the truth is behind closed doors and when he's angry, Trump is legitimately angry. I mean, I don't know about his anger management skills. It's not fake. He gets really angry. And he holds a grudge. And I don't -- you tell me whether that is a problem in a president or --
ROLLINS: Yes.
(LAUGHTER)
ROLLINS: -- in the Oval Office, having worked for three different presidents and having spent a substantial period of my time, nobody goes in and argues with the President. They present things to him. They basically let him make the decision. So, I can promise you, what you want to have is a reality check. You want someone on your staff who will come in and tell you the truth but usually that person pays a price. And it's why most members of Congress have a tough time dealing with the President because they're not peers and they're not equal.
KELLY: So, is this to Trump's benefit then because he would say, I'm a businessman, I'm a leader, I make decisions every day?
ROLLINS: When I see the strength of him, I don't doubt that he's going to make tough decisions. I think, I mean, I've studied presidents, I teach a course in the presidents, I've been around a number of presidents. I don't have any doubt that he basically -- I worry about the temperament. I worry about -- one of the things that I see as the most important quality a president can have is be a secure president. If you're insecure, which we've had many presidents who are insecure, you have all of the resources in the world to try to compensate for that.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KELLY: Up next, our panel has an interesting take on what is driving Trump's run for the White House. And we'll ask the candidate about the people he targets.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
The real question about Trump is whether he wants this. You know, Barack Obama made a joke at the White House Correspondents' Dinner that here is a guy who was looking to improve his real estate holdings and now we're wondering whether Cleveland will survive July, right? And there are -- a lot of people have questions about Trump and whether he really wants this or he's doing this as a vanity project. Thoughts on that?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TRUMP: You probably had some pretty nasty tweets sent your way. I don't want to say but I've heard that. I don't want that to happen. But my fans, they really love -- we have an unbelievable bond. We have an unbelievable --
KELLY: You re-tweet some of those, not just the fans.
TRUMP: Yes. But not the more nasty ones. You would be amazed at the ones I don't re-tweet.
KELLY: Bimbo.
TRUMP: That was a re-tweet. Yes. Did I say that?
KELLY: Many times.
TRUMP: Oh! Okay. Excuse me.
KELLY: What do you think with, I mean --
TRUMP: Not the most horrible thing -- over your life, Megyn you've been called a lot worse.
KELLY: Has he effectively neutralized the women issue by raising the way Hillary treated the women who accused Bill of assault or the women who had affairs with Bill. That's where he's going to go, that she assisted him in his alleged abuse of women.
ELLEITHEE: Unlike Donald Trump I'm not going to pretend to speak for women. However I don't think. I mean, what is so jarring about that ad is it's his voice. It's his words. I'm a dad. I got a little girl at home. If anyone talked about my little girl the way he talks about women --
KELLY: Uh-hm.
ELLEITHEE: I mean I would lose my cool.
KELLY: You know what they say. Their line, and what they've been saying a lot lately is, he's an equal opportunity offender. That he makes fun of the men too. He used derogatory terms for everyone.
STEVES: Why -- I mean, if you were teaching a class and you had a kid who said that, you would say no, that's not how you act. You treat people with respect. What you want to be is not an equal opportunity offender, you want to be an equal opportunity respecter.
KELLY: Well, I asked him about this. And said, how are American parents supposed to teach their children not to bully, not to name call, not to taunt, when the Republican nominee does all of those things and his answer was, I'm a counterpuncher. These are all counterpunches.
STEVENS: That's fine if you're running casinos, that's fine if you're putting together real estate deals in Atlantic City, that's fine if you're out there selling steaks. As a quality of the president of the United States, you have a unique role model really in the world.
ELLEITHEE: He is not a victim. And that's the argument he's making, is that he is a victim who is hitting back. He is not a victim and I don't want a president who walks around thinking they're a victim all the time.
KELLY: Do women vote on -- I know women don't vote necessarily on women's issues. Right? The Democrats play that up in pretty much every election. And the Republican women seem to say, I'm not defined by my ovaries, I'm going to vote based on my -- national security. But this is a little different, Ed. Isn't it? This is exactly.
ROLLINS: Fifty three percent on the country are women. So, you can't say that the women's vote, there's all kinds of segments of it and all kinds of -- and anybody that basically tries to generalize usually fails miserably. Obviously the margin here, if you get above 10 percent, just going to the number system, if we lose the gender gap on more than 10 percent, you can't put it together.
KELLY: Just between that, still have to do the math, what do you say?
ROLLINS: If you're getting 55 percent of the men's vote and you're getting less than 45 percent of the women's vote, the likelihood is you're not going to win.
STEVENS: If I just said right now that Mitt Romney have a gender gap, it would be true. But it's really deceptive. Mitt Romney won white women by 14 points. He won younger voters under 30 by seven points if you were white. So, really, it's not gender or sex that's dividing here. It's ethnicity.
ROLLINS: And it's single women.
STEVENS: We do less well with single women.
KELLY: Married women tend to prefer the Republicans. Single women tend to prefer the Democrats.
MCKINNON: Donald Trump has surprised and shocked the political world. But the concept of Donald Trump shouldn't have surprised us. Because I went back in 1992, you ran a guy named Ross Perot. And I look at those fundamentals about the country versus what they are to date. They're like five times worse today than they were back -- there was an opening for an outsider businessman in 1992, there's a giant opening for a guy like Trump. But I thought it would come through an independent candidacy --
(CROSSTALK)
ROLLINS: When we went down to run his campaign, he was at 39 percent in the polls leading both Bill Clinton and Bush. Thirty nine percent -- two months. For two months. And then what happened is he's self-destructed. And the difference between him and basically Donald Trump, the moment the media started treating him like a presidential candidate, he got in a fetal position, crawl under his bed and wouldn't come out.
MCKINNON: It's like it gives him more power.
ROLLINS: It gives him more power.
And the whole idea that he's a counterpuncher -- I was a fighter 50 years ago. I know how to counterpunch. He doesn't just knock you down, he kicks you. He wants that -- that sort of his whole persona now. Is that a good persona? The piece that you did with him, that's the persona I want if I'm involved in this campaign. That's what I want the country to see. And over time that would have erase some of the perception. But you've got to basically ramp up his supporters.
KELLY: But here's the question. There's no question that Trump is a mater, manipulator of the media, nor that he loves to win and real punch anybody who he thinks stands in his way. But the real question about Trump is whether he wants this. You know, Barack Obama made a joke at the White House Correspondents' Dinner that here's a guy who is looking just to improve his real estate holdings and now we're wondering whether Cleveland will survive July, right? And there are a lot of people with questions about Trump on whether he really wants this or he's doing this as a vanity project. Thoughts on that?
ROLLINS: Well it's a tough vanity project. Because at the end of the day he either wins and that he gets all of the vanity that he wants or he gets a very bad defeat and that's not good for your vanity. And how important it is that you go through this process. We've all been around candidates sort of loss. It's tedious, tedious process.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KELLY: Up next, for the first time you will see Donald Trump answer our questions about Hillary Clinton and the general election. And our panel has some thoughts on that matchup.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KELLY: Okay. Let's talk about Hillary Clinton. Most of the polls have her beating you in a head-to-head matchup and you say you haven't started on Hillary Clinton.
TRUMP: I have not started.
KELLY: But she has 99 percent name recognition. And she's been around a long time. So, what could you possibly tell us about her that we don't know?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KELLY: Okay. Let's talk about Hillary Clinton. Most of the polls have her beating you in a head-to-head matchup. And you say you haven't even started on Hillary.
TRUMP: I have not started yet.
KELLY: But she has 99 percent name recognition. And she's been around a long time. So, what could you possibly tell us about her that we don't know?
TRUMP: Well, look, she has had a very corrupt system going. I mean if you look at her career, whether it's Whitewater or whether it's the e-mails or so many other things. And --
KELLY: She's beating you by 30 points in New York right now.
TRUMP: Well, I'm doing very well in New York. You have to understand, no other Republican would even come to New York to campaign. But I think I'm going to win Michigan, I think I'm going to win Pennsylvania. I think we're going to do very well. But don't forget, the process is just now starting.
KELLY: Who is more likely to go to war, you or Hillary Clinton?
TRUMP: Well, I think she would be much more likely to go to war. I think that I will be known as a tougher person than her. But I think that people aren't going to mess with me. And I think she would be more likely to be forced perhaps to go to war. I think our country will be much more respected with me as president than with Hillary Clinton as president. And if you look at her votes, I mean, she voted very strongly in favor of the Iraq war, Bernie Sanders has said some horrible things about her for that decision and others, that she doesn't have good judgment. Bernie Sanders said she has --
KELLY: You are on record as having supported that in a radio interview.
TRUMP: Support what?
KELLY: The war in Iraq.
TRUMP: No, no, just the opposite.
KELLY: You did say that on the radio.
TRUMP: No, no, I was speaking to Howard Stern on his show long before the war went, and he asked me a question because I was thinking about it, and I said I don't know. Maybe, maybe, maybe. That was before the war started.
HOWARD STERN, HOST, "THE HOWARD STERN SHOW": Are you for invading Iraq?
TRUMP: Yes, I guess so. You know, I wish it was -- I wish the first time it was done correctly.
And then they have me later on saying shortly thereafter that we shouldn't go in.
KELLY: What's going to happen in the general election? They just showed that...
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That question is very important. There were 16 candidates running against him...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, that's another one.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... and some very significant people.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Much better field.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I thought that since...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Since 1980. If you go back to 1980. A very strong field.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And he basically knocked these guys out left and right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But that's in part because no one else in the field understood the moment we were in. And you do have to give him credit that he understood the moment that we're in, what the electorate is looking for.
He understood that. Even republican primary voters don't want etiology. They want Huckabee.
KELLY: That does that not terrify Hillary Clinton?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He can read a room, he could read the country better than anybody.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, but he has a playbook on it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right. Well, there is and there isn't. You mentioned the word populous, right? He was running as a populous candidate. His supporters hate Wall Street as much as -- as much as Bernie Sanders supporters do.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But this is the point I was trying to get to -- I'm sorry. Go ahead.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look, just to finish the point, what Donald Trump is out there saying is I don't care about etiology, I'm just going to try to level the playing field for you. The rest of the republican field let him run with that. They gave him a wide open field on that, no one challenged him on that point.
Marco Rubio tried once, he had a great moment in that debate when he went after Trump saying...
KELLY: Lions around the states.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right. And talking about Trump U and how you're out there trying to screw the little guy, not helping the little guy. And Trump started to crumble. That was his worse moment in almost any debate.
If that's the democratic attack on him in the fall, I will be very curious to see how he handles it. And it ties these things together. It ties the message and the temperament together.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But my point about the ideology is this. That in 1999, George W. Bush and earlier started articulating a message about compassionate conservatism that attracted conservative democrats and independents like me to become republicans.
And he was -- and he was proactive on immigration, proactive on education reform, things that really, you know, got my interest and millions of others to cross the bridge and support George W. Bush.
If, you know, whatever Trump's ideology is or vision is going to be formulated in this campaign and at the convention speech. And there are lots of things that are, you know, getting attention like, you know, he's sort of to the left of republicans on trade and not typical...
(CROSSTALK)
KELLY: And how about him saying that Hillary is more likely to take us to war than he is.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right. That he did so he could be the left of Hillary on trade, left of Hillary on foreign intervention. So he's going to be the head of the Republican Party. That's where the party is going to be about anyway.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let me go back for a while. There's two arguments you can make. You can make the intellectual argument which you've done beautifully. And I could make an intellectual argument about things that I believe in. And there's an emotional argument.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The emotional argument wins both. And what he is he's like the kid playing football or basketball. Give me the ball, coach, I'm going to score. And that's what he's done since the beginning of this campaign.
Give me the presidency. I'll fix it. I'm a fixer. I'm a fixer. And there's a whole bunch of people out there saying, we elected a republican Congress, they failed miserably, we elected a republican senator, they failed miserably. We've got Obama he's got to do everything he wants for the last seven or eight years. And that's a lot of the frustration in our side.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, and Trump understands the power of storytelling. And he gets this. You did it amazingly with Reagan. The bear at the woods ad was one of the greatest ads ever done.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's a bear in the woods. For some people the bear is easy to see. Others don't see it at all. Some people say the bear is tame. Others say it's vicious and dangerous. Since no one can really be sure who is right, isn't it smart to be as strong as the bear? If there is a bear.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It establishes a threat and opportunity, a victim, a villain, a resolution and a hero. And that's -- but this time it's not the bear in the woods.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I had to fight -- I had to fight Jim Baker for three months. We got to put the bear in the woods. I'm doing the Russian -- when the Russian made the Olympics.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... and Baker didn't get it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But just translate that to this election, and it's not bears in the woods, it's immigrants at the border.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Absolutely. Right.
KELLY: OK. But Trump reverses himself a lot.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
KELLY: So, one of the clips was on Iraq and he wants to claim -- he's going to claim against Hillary that he was against the war and she was for it.
But of course I asked him, you know, you were for it. He said that on Howard Stern. And he tried to sort of make it sound like that was long before the Iraq war. And in fact, it was only like two months.
And he's already softening on the Muslim policy. So, we don't, you know, we don't really know what we're going to get. He's softened his immigration position as well.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So what's interesting about that is Donald Trump is a different kind of candidate. I think voters are different kind of voters today.
And what's happening, I mean, that's a huge surprise to all of us who have done campaign that somebody could evolve and shift their position so much and not pay a consequence. But I think that's partially people are saying, he's not a politician, so.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And by doing that very thing he's not being political by changing his position.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is what you have to remember, 30 percent of the country like him. He's historically high unfavorables.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As Hillary herself.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And Hillary Clinton is a perfect opportunity for the republicans to win because she has historically high. But he is even though running against someone who is historically high, he's managed to come in.
Thirty percent of the country thinks Hillary Clinton is trustworthy. Normally you would think, that's unbelievable. It's done.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can't win.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But only 27 percent think that of Donald Trump.
KELLY: But when you talk about when we go back to Ed's point about what they really want is a strong leader, he's got her beat on strength. Strength, you know, if that's the number one criteria.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it's going to -- what this -- for Donald Trump to win, Donald Trump is going to have to truly grow. And most good candidates do grow. And they learn. They're self-teachers. They ought to that acts. That point...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because they listen to guys like us.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, they do themselves.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.
KELLY: I mean, this is obviously the biggest question is, OK, we've analyzed Trump. But the question is how does he do against this opponent and how does she do against him.
We heard in the interview he's saying he's maintained all along, he's going to flip states that traditionally go democrat red this go round. New York, which I pointed out she's beating him in 30 points in the last fall we had.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And we've lost it by two million votes from the last two elections.
KELLY: Michigan.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
KELLY: Pennsylvania.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's possible.
KELLY: He believes he can turn red. You believe that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Possible.
KELLY: Now and her camp is saying, you know what, he is going to turn states different colors. He's going to turn Utah from a reliable red to a blue.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That can't happen.
KELLY: Maybe Oregon.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Than can't happen.
KELLY: You don't think so.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I mean, one thing that we do know for sure. Everyone who is Hispanic today is probably going to be Hispanic on election day, and everyone that's African-American and everyone that's white.
There seems to be two groups of voters. Men and women. So, if you just look at it. You know, Ronald Reagan in 1980 got 57 percent of the white vote, and won a sweeping landslide in 44 states. Mitt Romney in 2012 got 59 percent of the white vote and won 24 states.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You also had a third candidate you had John Anderson in (Inaudible).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a different -- I mean, the fact is that...
KELLY: You can't win with just whites.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The political mandate for the Republican Party to do better with nonwhite voters.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can't win -- you can't win with whites if you had all the whites. The problem is you don't get all the whites. I mean, it's just -- there's not enough whites to win an election.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When George W. Bush ran we had a target -- we said in order to win this election we have to get 40 percent of the Hispanic vote. We got 41. Romney got 27?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: twenty seven.
KELLY: I heard it's 29.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Either way.
KELLY: yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: yes. So, I mean, you have, I think that there's a political imperative that's undeniable that republicans have to do better with nonwhite voters. I think there is also a moral imperative though.
Because to govern the country, a country that is changing and that is the essence of our country is always this melting pot, republicans have to do better on this.
KELLY: What is it about Hillary that makes you say that, that she's terrible.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: because she's terrible. You don't have to ask me. Ask any democrat.
KELLY: But what's -- let's get to specifics. What is it?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She's basically is inconsistent in her message. She has a real integrity issue. He may have too. But she really has an integrity issue. People don't believe her. There's all kinds of crap around the whole Clinton family and it has been for 30 years.
And my sense is no one looks at her and says other than the fact that we want to have the first woman president, which many of us do and it's a desirable goal. Many now are saying, but not her. We're tired of her.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you -- if you go back, you know, as the famous memo that the Obama campaign wrote as they entered the primary against Hillary Clinton, New York has published this recently. If you go back and read that it's all still true.
I mean, this is someone who is easily moved by situation to evolve into a different complete political position.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.
KELLY: That sounds familiar.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look at her own trade.
KELLY: That's we were just making that criticism about Trump.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And that is the great danger to me of republicans, that if you have two people who are transactional running, as representative of parties, I think that that is a lost opportunity for republicans to say that we stand for these principles.
And these are how these principles govern and this is why it's good for you. Now the great problem republicans have had is not being able to translate these principles into convincing enough people that it was good for them on the presidential level.
KELLY: What do you tell, I mean, how does Donald Trump get passed this demographics that we were just discussing?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, a very difficult. I mean, you have to bring a different kind of voter out, you have to take voters away from her. Obviously democrats begin with an almost upstage to begin with, to put it away.
But I think this is an unpredictable election. I think there's an angry electorate out there and this election is a changing elections. Reagan was a change election.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Ross Perot movement against daddy Bush. If Perot would have been a different kind of candidate he may have caused the present. That was a change election. And I think this may be a change election.
We've got two terms of a president that basically most republicans are very intensely don't like and equally as important as a lot of other Americans who don't think he's been a very good president and they don't want a third term.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know, and a candid moment Hillary Clinton said that her husband campaign in poetry and she campaigns in probes. But there was an interesting moment that we caught of Bill Clinton that we air on the circus where he says this election is going to come down to who's the best change agent.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, that's the truth.
KELLY: Wow. That's not good for her. Because think about it. If they want change and the voters in the republican primary have said time and time again they want that more than they want electability in their candidate.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's right.
KELLY: Could you think of a worse person to run than Hillary Clinton?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let me just describe two things. I was trying to describe with words. If I say to you at this table Donald Trump is a decision maker, he's been a decision maker all of his life, he's a tough guy who survived the toughest industry in New York. And he survived on the top. He may have learned at the knee of his father.
Hillary is a staffer. Hillary is someone who could do the good policy but you can see her as the chairman or the chairman of the congressional committee or a staffer in a congressional committee. Can you really see her as the commander-in-chief?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I think the biggest problem you asked me before what should democrats be worried about, I think the thing I'm most worried about is the unpredictability of this guy.
He doesn't play by the same rule book that all of us campaign consultant and hacks have played by all of these years. You know, I studied international relations in college. One of the few things I remember was that international diplomacy, there was a thing called the rational actor theory.
Every move you make is based on the notion that your opponent is going to act rationally. It's a chess game. You can game out what they're going to do with every single move that you make.
Then you got a country like North Korea, and they don't act rationally and they're unpredictable and you have no idea what the heck they're going to do. He's like the North Korea of American politics.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's real.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No idea what's he's going to do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KELLY: Still ahead, our panel weighs on what they call one of the most telling moments in the whole interview while Donald Trump talks strategy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I've gotten, they say if I believe Fox, which I do, they say that I've had $2 billion worth of free air time.
KELLY: The free air time comes in some part because of the controversy that you've generated.
TRUMP: Perhaps.
KELLY: Is that why you did it?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KELLY: I want to bring it back to you.
TRUMP: OK. Go ahead?
KELLY: You were born a rich man's son.
TRUMP: OK.
KELLY: And you grew to become even richer. What if you hadn't been born rich. What do you think you would have been?
TRUMP: I was in real estate -- I didn't want to do real estate. I wanted to actually make movies. I wanted to actually go and make movies, and I wanted to be a professional baseball player. I wanted to be, you know, lots of different things. But ultimately, I decided that I just did well with real estate. And maybe I put showbiz in real estate.
KELLY: What do you think is the difference between being a businessman and being president?
TRUMP: Well there is a difference. There's a big difference. You have to really have more heart, in my opinion, as president. The decisions are so much bigger. I mean, when you're going to send somebody into war where you know potentially thousands of people are going to be killed, on both sides, not just our side, on both sides, these are massive decisions. These are unbelievable decisions. And I would say the president needs heart.
KELLY: Now, you seem almost unable to let things go when people come after you. You call it counter punching. But as president...
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: How can you possibly say that?
KELLY: But as president you're going to have to let some things go.
TRUMP: No.
KELLY: Why should the voters believe you can do it?
TRUMP: Well I think I can do it. But at the same time I'm going to be very loyal to the voters. I mean, I will fight hard for the voters like I fight for myself.
KELLY: Including when it comes to members of the press?
TRUMP: Well, if you get treated dishonestly by the press -- and I'm not referring to you at all. But there are many people that treat me very dishonestly.
KELLY: But even if that's true.
TRUMP: No, no, but...
(CROSSTALK)
KELLY: Let's say they're corrupt.
TRUMP: They're corrupt.
KELLY: You know, can't we really just go through seven years of a president that most republican said was way too thin skinned when it came to his media coverage?
TRUMP: Well, I can't report on another president. I can only say this. I am -- I have great respect for good writers and not all of the media is dishonest at all. There are some tremendous people in the media.
But much of it is. I've gotten -- they say, if I believe Fox, which I do, they say that I've had $2 billion worth of free air time.
KELLY: Right.
TRUMP: Or whatever they happened to call it. I've had actually an amazing number. I didn't realize it was this bad, 55,000 negative ads have been against me. And despite that, here I am.
KELLY: The free air time comes in part because of the controversy that you've generated.
TRUMP: Perhaps.
KELLY: Is that why you did it?
TRUMP: Well, I guess it might be a little bit. I mean, for some reason I get ratings. I don't know what that is. You'll have to explain that to me because I've, you know, never necessarily understood it.
KELLY: Did Melania or Ivanka ever tell you to stop with the tweets in all the rest of it?
TRUMP: A little bit but at the same time they know that I've taken down many -- I've taken down in respect, Ok. I'm not saying take down. But, you know, I've beaten many people that are very smart. I think Melania would like to see me be a little more presidential. But then after --I don't -- let me say this. I don't think -- if I wanted to act -- and I could act that very easily. That would be so -- that's an act.
KELLY: To be presidential?
TRUMP: Well, I think it is to a certain extent. I think if I used that demeanor, just the demeanor, I probably wouldn't be talking to you, certainly not to be talking to you about this successful race.
KELLY: If you don't become president, will this all have been for nothing? Or will you have changed America?
TRUMP: I will say this. If I don't go all the way and if I don't win, I will consider it to be a total and complete waste of time, energy and money.
KELLY: During the same interview he wanted to produce movies which is actually so interesting, isn't it? He wanted to be in a limelight and he's found a way to be in the limelight his whole life.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, my sense is he started off with more of just a notion, that it would be an entertaining fun thing to do, kind of the biggest ring, the biggest spotlight in the world, I'll go do this, have some fun and if it doesn't work out I'll go back to doing other things that have made me really successful.
But I also think that as this is happening, he was sort of got into like, hey, I can do this.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can do this.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know, I can do this. It's not that big of a deal.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Listen, I'm very old-fashioned about this. I think there is a respect for the presidency that you have to bring to the process. And part of that is just the acquisition of knowledge and learning more about the world and learning what you don't know.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's a coincidence.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's very old-fashioned.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But I think that that is essential in a president. And I think to have someone who doesn't know what the nuclear triad is, a subject taught in the 10th grade ant doesn't seem regretful that he doesn't know, I think is very troubling.
KELLY: He can learn.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But there's no indication that he has.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One of the most...
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To say that South Korea, we'll give them nuclear weapons. Whatever. Japan, we'll give them nuclear weapons. This is funny at the dinner table, it's provocative. It's funny if you call a talk radio show, saying this is John, I'm calling you, we ought to give those guys nukes. That's fine. But the level of seriousness, people actually listen to this. And I think that that words have consequences.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But one of the blessings of this country is we have a checks and balances system. There is not one of us have every dealt with the Congress.
KELLY: What about when it comes to being commander in chief however?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Commander-in-chief you're going to have some great advisers, probably the best military advisers in the world are on our military. And they will give him the options and they will try to advise him in the correct direction.
My sense is that once you see all of those options, the scariest thing in the world is when they hand you that little card and they tell you that you now control the nukes. And I remember President Reagan saying, President saying, well, how much time do I have?
I say, well, Soviets have nine Polaris submarines off the coast. And you have about 10 minutes before they blow up the Oval Office. When you go to these tests and what have you, and you see the stuff you learn a lot more about the world. And you can't learn it until you get there in some cases.
No matter how much you want to read the books and all of the rest of it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Some people are more sophisticated than others. But until Ronald Reagan went through a nuclear game after he was shot and he saw that the U.S. could be blown up in about five minutes.
We had 25,000 missiles aide and 25,000 missiles, we ended up winning the war but the president was killed and basically four minutes, 400 -- 425,000 were fired off and nothing was rubble left in the world. He walked away a changed man.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, let me just make a point. The inability to stop yourself from tweeting, something you shouldn't tweet, is not like a good test that you should have the little card with the nuclear codes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Or the tweeter.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's, you know, when you're asking like, well, is someone going to stop you from tweeting. That's like, I think we better like maybe take the keys away.
It's just, listen, there is something that -- we talk about the gravitas of being president. And what does that really mean? It means someone that you can trust to make the hardest worst decisions imaginable that any person on this planet has to make.
With the consequences that go far, far beyond you. And that to me is why presidents age, the way they age when you see them, why they're always tired. And I think why very few presidents criticize other presidents.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because they know how difficult it is.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was going say, look, we're all campaign guys. We've all won races, we've all lost races and we all play to win. And you should. But maybe one of the most disappointing things that I took away from the interview is when he said if I lose I will have considered this a tremendous waste of time.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And money.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And that tells me that it is all about him in his mind. It is a vanity project.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's interesting.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you lose -- I hate losing. I've lost races and I hate the feeling. But I don't feel bad for having fought the fight. I don't feel bad for having pushed the agenda. Maybe we didn't win that time but we've moved the ball down the field just a little bit. You've mobilized the new voters.
You've gotten people energized and excited and you go back out there the next time. It's not a waste of time. It's democracy. And that really bothered me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, that goes to why having something that you're fighting for other than winning.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It becomes important. Because, you know, if you don't stand for anything but election, you don't stand for anything.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And so, a lot of conservatives, this is very troubling about Donald Trump and I think this probably has been articulated well by Ben Sasses, a senator from Nebraska and by Paul Ryan.
KELLY: I want to ask you before we go, show of hands. How many people at this table think Donald Trump is going to win the presidency?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think he can.
KELLY: We have one.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think he can.
KELLY: But if you have to bet. You're at the Vegas table. You to choose. Red or black.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tough.
KELLY: No prediction?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it's possible. I just don't think it's probable.
KELLY: And you guys?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's very hard for...
KELLY: Hillary? I know you don't want he but...
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's very hard for a republican to win nationally now. So, you have to do something -- take the votes that were in the last election and grow.
You know, Barbara Stahl as she says politics is about addition. And it's very, very difficult. And I don't see the formulation of that coming together to be able to add new people, keep the ones that we had to win the White House.
KELLY: I give you the last word, Mo.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If the democrats run the right race, Hillary Clinton will be the president and win it easily, handily. If democrats run the wrong race, Donald Trump could eke it out. I don't think there's an in between. I think he wins it very narrowly or she wins in a landslide. But we can lose it. Democrats can lose this if we don't take this seriously.
KELLY: Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.
KELLY: So much. Great discussion.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you. Carry on regardless.
KELLY: Amen.
Every big TV event has a back story and you'll see ours next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KELLY: More than 5.2 million people watch our special on the Fox Broadcast Network. One of the top rated programs on Fox for all of 2016. That doesn't happen without some promotions.
Here are some behind-the-scenes look at the day before it aired starting very, very early in the morning.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Here she comes. Early, 5:15. Good morning.
KELLY: Good morning. What a day.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How's everything going so far?
KELLY: Better now that we've had some coffee, right?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. Sure.
KELLY: Now we're on GMA down in the bowels of the studio. I hear what goes on here but it's all very exciting. I have to go up and see George.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, CO-HOST, "GMA": Megyn Kelly of Fox News, welcome back to "GMA."
KELLY: Thank you.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So tell us about this. And you got this interview coming up.
KELLY: It was fun, it was in and out. I can't believe how much energy they have.
We're back at Fox News now. About to get in the elevator go down and do the next hit of the day on "Fox and Friends." This ought to be very fun. It's the home turf. I know how this goes. I'm looking forward to it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bring you into the studio by the couch. I think Brian's going to meet you.
STEVE DOOCY, CO-HOST, "FOX & FRIENDS": It's Megyn Kelly, she's live and she's on the curvy couch next.
AINSLEY EARHARDT, CO-HOST, "FOX & FRIENDS": We're documenting Megyn Kelly's day. She woke up super early to be on with us and we appreciate that. What time did you get up?
KELLY: One?
(LAUGHTER)
My gorgeous husband is here to be "Outnumbered" with me, which is going to be the most fun part of the day.
DOUGLAS BRUNT, MEGYN KELLY'S HUSBAND: I've been one lucky guy my whole life but now it's official.
KELLY: Are you nervous?
BRUNT: A little nervous but it will be fun.
KELLY: You're going to be great. Look who's on the set already. Doug is already beating me with us. This is a true professional. Well, hello! How's it going?
HARRIS FAULKNER, CO-HOST, "OUTNUMBERED": Fabulous.
KELLY: How exciting.
SANDRA SMITH, CO-HOST, "OUTNUMBERED": You had a busy morning.
KELLY: It has been a busy morning. That's why I had to bring my husband to work it's like because we don't get to see each other anymore.
BRUNT: Yes, we didn't see each other at all today.
FAULKER: And thanks to you both for letting us go on date with you.
(CROSSTALK)
FAULKNER: We all held hands, can we hold hands again? I love it.
KELLY: OK. Third outfit of the day. This one is for "Watch What Happens Live." Ready to go there. Had more work to do because I've got more skin. Come on. Here we go.
Now we're over here at "Watch What Happens Live" and it's very pretty. Look what was waiting for us here. You can spot it.
ANDY COHEN, HOST, "WATCH WHAT HAPPENS LIVE": Everybody welcomes Megyn Kelly.
KELLY: All right. We're done with "Watch What Happens Live" and now we're over here about to do the upfronts at the Beacon Theater of the Upper West Side of New York. This is for Fox Broadcasting. Another outfit change. Off we go.
Hello there. Here we are at "Late Show with Stephen Colbert." Very nice greeting. Check out the green room. We've got a lot of kids. What's in here? Chips. Lots of chips right now. Water and this, this is what we need. Look at this beautiful thing. Oh, yes, it looks so good. That's what we need right about now. It's almost 6 p.m.
STEPHEN COLBERT, HOST, "THE LATE SHOW": Please welcome Megyn Kelly.
(APPLAUSE)
KELLY: My goal this past year has been to conduct myself with dignity and like a professional. And I'm not perfect but I think I can check those two boxes.
(APPLAUSE)
COLBERT: Congratulations.
KELLY: Thank you.
COLBERT: Congratulations on the special. Please come again. Lovely to see you.
KELLY: Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Here we are live on "The Kelly File" set. After a long day it's time to do my real job which is actually to deliver the news.
Look at how much hairspray is in here. How am I going to do the news like this? It's 8:57 and we're feeling punch drunk. Now I have to do the news. So, it's time to get down to business.
Here we are at the end of the night. We have finally finished, "The Kelly File" is over. Here is my team. Here's my team debriefing about the show. We want to tell you it's over now. But that's good. Sleep is in my near future as is yours, Emily, she was up with me. And then tomorrow morning it starts all over again at 6 a.m. Good night.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
We'll be right back with some final thoughts.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KELLY: Well, we hope to interview Mr. Trump again here on "The Kelly File" sometime very soon and we hope you'll join us for that. We'd also love to have Mrs. Clinton as well. Any time.
We're here Hillary. Hi. We're here.
Thanks for watching everyone. Share your thoughts with us on facebook.com/kelly file or on Twitter @megynkelly. I am Megyn Kelly. This is "The Kelly File." Good night everybody.
Content and Programming Copyright 2016 Fox News Network, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2016 CQ-Roll Call, Inc. All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of CQ-Roll Call. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox