>> gretchen: donald trump, i hope he's ready to go because on mondays, this is his time slot with us on the phone. good morning to you, donald. >> good morning. >> gretchen: so we got a lot to talk about. >> a lot. >> gretchen: because just the other day, you did an interview where you said, hey, i'm friendly with all the other gop guys and gals out there who may run for president. and then you sort of took a swipe at mitt romney. let's listen. >> mitt romney is a basically small business guy. if you really think about it. i mean, my net worth is many, many, many times mitt romney. and i don't know mitt romney. i really don't know him, so i'm not saying good or bad. i know some of the other candidates. i don't know mitt romney. >> gretchen: small business owner, donald? >> i don't think it was a swipe. the question was in terms of business. i'm a much bigger business person. i'm worth a lot of money, many, many, many billions of dollars. i have employed hundreds of thousands of people over the years and really jobs that i

created and mitt was involved with a fund and i think it's great. i'm not saying anything bad about that. i think it's wonderful. but the question was really how do you compare in terms of size? and i think i'm much more important business person. >> gretchen: all right. are you changing your tactic because most of the polls have shown that romney is in the lead? >> no, i think it's just the opposite. i'm so surprised at that question. public polling came out that had me 11 points up on romney. i'm surprised by that question actually. i think that a lot of people actually, governor huckabee was ahead of romney. i think one of the problems, you're going to get to karl rove probably because he's one of your roving people, but one of the problems that rove has is that he's devastated, i understand, that romney is doing so badly. and he took a shot at me the other day, which was disgraceful, but he is devastated by the fact that romney is doing so poorly. >> brian: here is karl rove on your candidacy which has you up in front with the public poll poll has you in a comfortable

first place lead. let's listen. >> i'm shocked. the guy is smarter than this and the idea that president obama was not born in hawaii, making that the centerpiece of this campaign means that now he's a joke candidate. let him announce for election on the apprentice. the american people are not going to be hiring him and certainly the republicans are not going to be hiring him in the primary. >> brian: he was upset by the birther stuff and he was upset by -- i don't know. i guess that when you were saying that. >> i think he's upset by the fact that his candidate is doing so poorly. but also the birth certificate is a big deal to people. i made a speech this weekend, i mentioned birth certificate, they went wild! there is a big question as to where he was born, there is a big question about the birth certificate. and frankly, karl rove got more publicity from this than he has on anything for a while. but really probably what bothers

karl and i understand this and i can fully understand this, i am very upset with bush because bush had a really bad period of time and he gave us obama. and karl rove was bush. i mean, you know, a lot of people say karl rove was bush. so he can't love me. i don't expect that he's going to love me. but bush gave us obama. in all fairness to john mccain and sarah palin, nobody could have won. they could have brought back abraham lincoln, he couldn't have beaten obama because of what karl and bush had done. >> gretchen: this whole birther thing, i'm trying to fast forward, let's say the people you have investigating, are they still investigating? >> i don't want to comment on that, but i can tell you there are a lot of problems with this. he does not have, he has not given a birth certificate. you know what? i wish he would. i'll give you an example. this weekend -- >> steve: he could end it, just show it to us. >> just show us birth

certificate! thank you very much, steve, i appreciate that. just show us birth certificate. is he trying to torture the american public? just show us. this weekend i was in an airplane. the pilot came back to see me. he said, mr. trump, could i speak to you? yes. my friends and myself want to thank you for bringing up this whole birth certificate, sir. we really appreciate it. please don't give it up. please don't give it up. then karl rove takes a cheap shot at me? that's ridiculous. >> gretchen: the thing is, when you run for president, these are issues that are getting a lot of attention now with the voters. but you're also going to have to have a plan and part of it's going to have to to be some good news in policy. here is what dana perino said. she was giving you some advice. >> donald trump is serious about running, one of the things he's going to have to do is start to pivot because people want to know what the positive agenda would be for america. and you can't always be giving somebody a reason to vote against somebody else. you have to give them a reason to want to vote for you. >> steve: all right. >> first of all, i know dana are

are -- dana perino dane and think she's great. it's a headline grabber and folks like rove grab it for themselves. but it's the least. i talk about china, how they're ripping us off. i talk about opec. you're going to have 7-dollar oil, $8 gasoline. prices are going in terms of this country, $150 a barrel very soon and the country cannot just soon there. >> brian: for example, that is absolutely relevant. here is something else. we have the president of the united states come forward and say the fortunate, the rich should pay more. i want to know how you feel about that. >> you can't take away incentive because the rich can leave and they will leave and lots of other things could happen. you have to create incentives for jobs and people are understanding it and i was actually surprised to see one of your polls where the public, the general public feels 50/50 on

this issue. i was actually surprised at people to understand it. you need to create incentives to create jobs. very important. but in terms of centerpiece, my centerpiece is to bring jobs back to this country and this is what i'm the best at. i've employed hundreds of thousands of people and created hundreds of thousands of jobs over the years and created tremendous wealth for people and for families and health care and education for these families and something i'm really good at. that's really the centerpiece of what i'm talking about. but also i don't want and it will never happen if i run and if i win, it will never happen where the world is ripping off our country. >> gretchen: all right, donald. you're more fired up than usual this morning. that's why you're a great guest and why you join us every monday. wel