Republican Presidential candidate and billionaire television personality Donald Trump joined Colin Cowherd’s program on FS1 Monday.
The conversation covered a number of topics including Trump’s friendship with Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, how he’ll approach the process of selecting a running mate, owning a sports franchise, and more.
Here are some of the highlights:
On the subject of Trump receiving more news coverage than the other candidates:
“In your business, it’s about ratings. That is one of the reasons you are so good and one of the reasons I happened to see you. In the old days, prior to this cycle, they would have very few people watching these debates and the networks literally didn’t want them. What happens is that it is all about the ratings and I can understand why they ask me more questions, frankly.”
On whether running for President is potentially damaging to his powerful business brand:
“It’s not good for business and it’s not a positive from that standpoint. But I’ve seen so many things go so bad and you look at what’s happening with our country, I just looked at it and I said, ‘I’m going to do it.’ It takes courage to run for President. Believe me, they really come at you 15 different ways, but I really didn’t care, I just wanted to do it.”
On his friendship with Tom Brady:
“I think Tom is one of the great athletes. He is one of those few people who does better under pressure and you’re born with that. They have all sorts of psycho-analysts and everything else, but you’re born with it and I’ve seen it over the years. You don’t see it often, it’s very rare, but you’ll see it with the great champions and Tom is one of them.
On sports gambling and daily fantasy sports:
“I’m OK with it because it’s happening anyway. Whether you have it or you don’t have it, you have it.”
On the perception that the NFL is tone deaf and an opinion on the movement to make the game less physically violent:
“The NFL has handled a lot of situations pretty badly, but it continues on. I hope they don’t soften the game up too much by the way. I was reading yesterday they might not do [kickoffs] anymore and eventually you’re not going to have the same game. Don’t make it too politically correct. It’s a violent game.”
On what if any professional sports teams he would ever be interested in owning:
“I’m from New York and I’d say maybe the Yankees. I think Dallas [Cowboys] and different teams are really well thought up from the standpoint of monetary value, but probably the Yankees.”
On if he would choose any of the competing candidates for the Republican nomination to be his Vice Presidential running mate:
“It’s very early and first I want to win. A lot of people, they talk and they talk too much and they talk about who they are going to choose and in the meantime, they don’t win, so I want to focus on winning. It’s too soon, but there could be a potential couple of people up on that stage that I like, because I do like a few of them a lot. I just want to win it first and then I’ll worry about it, I don’t like people that talk too early.”