Trump: Low Minimum Wage ‘Not a Bad Thing for This Country’
WARREN: “We heard earlier in the show from Jeb Bush saying in his town hall down the street from Merrimack [ph] last night that, you know, Donald Trump doesn't have a conservative record. That their other candidates in this race like himself, like Jeb Bush, who can point to two terms as governor of Florida that actually accomplished a conservative record on policy. What’s your response to that? How can Republican voters know that you're not just telling them what they want to hear, that you actually believe in these conservative policies that you've been espousing for the last several months?”
TRUMP: “Right. And it’s a very fair question. I live in Manhattan and I grew up in Queens, but I lived in Manhattan. I left the business -- my father's business at a pretty young age. I moved in to Manhattan. Everybody in Manhattan is a Democrat. Everybody. You sort of grow up in that atmosphere. And virtually you see races where Republicans don't even run. There’s nobody on the line. If you get -- if you're a Democrat nominee, you automatically win the election, whoever gets that wins the election. So I grew up with that. And if you look at it and if you really think about it, Ronald Reagan was a Democrat. And really a Democrat with a liberal leaning or liberal bent and became a Republican and a pretty conservative Republican. I wouldn't say the most by any stretch but a pretty conservative Republican. And that's where I am. And when I started really getting involved politically was actually, you know, people don't realize it, I think Joe and Mika realize it, but I’ve been involved in politics for a long time. Usually on the other side. I actually got to know Ronald Reagan. I think he liked me. I liked him. But when you get down to it, I am a conservative person. I am by nature a somewhat conservative person. I never looked at putting a label on myself. Because frankly, putting a label on myself, it didn't matter. I wasn't in politics. It didn't matter whether I was a Republican or whether I was -- it was something that absolutely had no bearing on me. But if you look at, you know, my general attitudes in life, I think I would have certainly the more conservative label put on me.”
BRZEZINSKI: “All right. Donald, I want to ask you about the American Dream, your slogan is ‘Make America great again.’ I’m curious on the issue of wages which have been flat for years now. Could you give us some specifics on how you would address that issue and do you think the minimum wage should be raised across the board?”
TRUMP: “So Mika, it’s such a nasty question because the answer has to be nasty. You know, we’re in a global economy now. It used to be companies would leave New York State and companies would leave New York State or leave another state and go to Florida, go to Texas, go to wherever they go because the wages. You know, all sorts of different things. Well now it’s not leaving New York or New Jersey or wherever they may be leaving. Now they’re leaving the United States and they’re going to other countries because they’re competing for low taxes and they’re competing for low wages. They’re competing for all sorts of things. … They’re shopping their companies to different place. We can’t have a situation where our labor is so much more expensive than other countries that we can no longer compete. One of the things I’ll do if I win, I’ll make us competitive as a country. … I want to create jobs so you don’t have to worry about the minimum wage, they’re making much more than the minimum wage -- that they’re doing a great job, that they’re making more than the minimum wage. But I think having a low minimum wage is not a bad thing for this country, Mika.”
