Real estate tycoon and reality TV star Donald Trump, whose numbers jumped by 5 points in a new
Bloomberg Politics/Saint Anselm New Hampshire poll, said Monday that the problem with his poll numbers is that "nobody thinks I'm running."
"OK, if they thought I was running, [the numbers] would have even been better," Trump, who has not declared his candidacy for 2016, told Fox News' "Fox & Friends" program. "They may very well be surprised in the near future. We'll see what happens."
Trump said he had a "good time" in a weekend summit in South Carolina, where "the crowd was amazing."
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In the Bloomberg poll, Trump netted 8 percent of the voters who said he'd be their first choice and 4 percent of those who said he'd be the second choice, putting him in fifth place, behind, in order, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.
The race is still a toss-up, though, with Paul and Walker tying with 12 percent of the voters' first-choice support each, and Bush and Rubio tied with 11 percent.
While in South Carolina, Trump got a standing ovation when he told the crowd that plans for a nuclear deal with Iran are "a disaster," and that lobbyists will come to see him but he "doesn't give a [bleep] about lobbyists."
Further, he boasted of being the "greatest builder," who "would build the greatest wall you have ever seen" between the United States and Mexico.
"When I made this speech, I got by far the biggest standing ovations and all of these pundits, these political pundits, they hated seeing it," Trump said Monday. "They were watching."
Also on Monday, Trump declared that the killers of
Hattiesburg, Mississippi, police officers Benjamin Deen and Liquori Tate, who were fatally shot during a traffic stop this weekend, deserve the death penalty.
Four suspects were arrested, with two of them, 29-year-old Marvin Banks and 22-year-old Joanie Calloway, charged with two counts of capital murder. Banks' 26-year-old brother, Curtis Banks, was charged with two counts of accessory after the fact of capital murder, and Cornelius Clark, 28, also of Hattiesburg, was charged with obstruction of justice.
"It's the death penalty," Trump told Fox. "These two animals that shot the cops; these are two wonderful young cops."
But what Americans won't see is rioting over the officers' deaths, he said.
"There won't be protests, won't be anything," said Trump. "You won't hear about it, [and in] two days it will be old news. Except for their families and friends, it will be forgotten."
Trump said the death penalty is warranted because Deen and Tate "were ambushed."
He also said he thinks the nation's police are not being treated properly, and is worried that they will fear that doing their jobs will result in their careers coming to an end.
"I can tell you from personal experience, because I have a lot of interaction, I'm a big fan of the police," said Trump. "Sure, you have bad ones, but you have 99.9 percent who are phenomenal people. They're afraid to do their jobs."
In Baltimore, the city was "destroyed" because police were not able to do their job the first night, Trump said, and "now these two people are just gunned down. By these two thugs, and I will say "thugs." And they should get the death penalty."
In New York City, where police officer Brian Moore was killed, "his family is devastated and broken," said Trump, and they'll end up in a court system for years waiting for justice.
Trump also weighed in on New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and the scandal over the team's deflated footballs.
"Leave Tom Brady alone," said Trump. "He's fantastic ... he's an innocent human being. I tweeted it jokingly, but I tweeted Tom Brady was so good if he was throwing a soccer ball he would have won that game."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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