Trump on Past Hillary Praise: I Only Said Those Things Because I Bought Her Support

[clip starts]

TRUMP: "Hillary Clinton, I think, is a terrific woman. I mean, I'm a little biased, because I've known her for years. I probably identify more as Democrat. … I've been around for a long time, and it just seems that the economy does better under the Democrats than the Republicans."

[clip ends]

TAPPER: "Want to give you an opportunity to respond to Rand Paul's ad, using your words praising Hillary Clinton talking about -- this is more than ten years ago, but talking about how you identify more as a Democrat. What’s your response?"

TRUMP: "Sure, if you look at Hillary Clinton, I contribute to everybody. I was a businessman -- a world-class businessman, you know, I built a net worth of much more than $10 billion, and deal all over the world and I contributed to everybody. And I let that be known. Frankly, the people in the Tea Party who I love so much and they seem to like me a lot, everybody understands that. Everyone I have to go for whatever it is. If I did not – and I'm not saying this is a good things for the country, Jake, but if I go in for a meeting and I let's say stiff somebody, as the expression goes, when they come up to my office all of a sudden they don't get treatment. So I don't think it's a great thing for the United States. I'm not sure the system should work that way, but as a businessman, I did what other businessmen did, and I contributed to everybody. Everybody like me, everybody took my call and I got what I wanted. If I go back in two years, three years, four years, they remember that. That's important. As far as other elements are concerned of, you know, what you're saying, it's all old stuff, it’s all old hat, and I think that's been very well vetted. You know, you look at the guy like Rand Paul, he is failing in the polls, he's weak on the military, he is pathetic on military. I mean he is a guy called me a year ago, ‘Oh, let's play golf, can we go and play golf?’ I ended up playing golf with him probably seven or eight months ago. I ended up playing golf with him, and he couldn't have been nicer, he was very nice, he wanted my support, he wanted to know if I would contribute to his doctor situation, which is very good, where he helps children with the eyes. I actually think he's a far better doctor than he is a senator, and, you know, it's -- I mean, it's fine, they're trying to do a little bit of a number. The last two people that did it were Lindsey Graham. He came at me really hard and he's right now at zero, and Rick Perry was at 4 percent, and he came at me really hard, and he went down to 2, which was actually great honor. And look Rand's campaign is failing. I think his -- hasn't his whole team been indicted? I’ve been reading where --"

TAPPER: “That is the Super Pac supporting him?”

TRUMP: “Yeah, they've been indicted, so he's a mess, there is no question about it.”