CNN's Anderson Cooper Speaks With Donald Trump

Here are some early soundbites from Anderson Cooper’s latest conversation with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. Their interview took place early Wenesday afternoon at the Trump Tower in Manhattan.

The full interview will Wednesday evening on Anderson Cooper 360º at 8pm ET on CNN.

Anderson Cooper: Lets talk polls, first of all Washington post poll on Monday great news for you, huge lead in the Republican party, Quinnipiac poll came out, not so good news for you, in the general election, general election voters, Colorado, Iowa Virginia, you have the worst favorability of anyone, Republican or Democrat. Hillary Clinton also did badly.

Donald Trump: I haven’t seen it. I haven’t seen it

Cooper: Do negative favorability ratings worry you?

Trump: I don’t think so. I mean, I turned a lot of them around and as you know in North Carolina it was negative and now it’s like, tremendously positive and when people hear what I said about the Vets, and how strong my commitment is to the vets that have been they’ve been treated so badly and to the border, which is just horrible, I mean every time people listen to me, all of a sudden it becomes very favorable. A good example of North Carolina where it’s so positive. I haven’t seen that but I think generally speaking we’re doing very well, and certainly we’re doing well in the ABC/Washington Post poll and very other poll I’ve seen in the last couple of weeks.

Cooper: So you think you can turn around, because a lot of people say look those kind of unfavorable ratings, that does not bode well for you.

Trump: I don’t know, I mean who knows? I’m doing this for the good of the country. Somebody’s got to do it. The politicians are never going to turn this country around, our country is a mess, the politicians are destroying this country, they are weak and ineffective.

On Lindsay Graham -

Trump: I get called all these horrible names by Lindsay Graham who I don’t even know, I didn’t start it with Lindsey Graham, I couldn’t care less about Lindsey Graham. He’s registered at I think 0 in the polls.

By Rick Perry from Texas, who was up in my office a few years ago, I just posted a picture of him shaking my hand, looking for money and looking for support. And he was up, you know people were saying, I call it hypocrite. But they’re saying horrible things like I don’t even know these people and they’re saying these, now, am I supposed to just, you know, it’s okay for them to say, one guy, I guess it was Lindsey Graham, called me a “jackass,” so am I supposed to say, “oh, it’s OK if I’m called a jackass, I’m called a jackass!” You have to fight back.

The country has to fight back. Everyone’s pushing our country around. We can’t allow that, Anderson.

Cooper: Is it presidential, though?

Trump: Uh, I think it’s presidential –

Cooper: To give out somebody’s phone, to give out a personal phone number of an opponent?

Trump: No, that was a long story. I mean, you have to see the whole story the way it morphed. Ok? That was a whole story where he wanted to get on Fox and Friends and he called me up out of the blue, I never met the guy, then he wanted to come in for campaign contributions, he gave me his cell, and then he starts hitting me years later and I happened to have this crazy phone number and I held it up, and I said, this guy was over here, and actually...As you probably know, the room was packed, it was standing room only, in fact they had –

Cooper: over flow

Trump: Other theaters, there was overflow crowds, they had all sorts of closed circuit television into other rooms, the place went wild. We all had a good time.

Cooper: But is that presidential?

Trump: I think so.

Cooper: Is that something you as president, when you’re opposed by somebody in Congress, you would give out their personal phone number?

Trump: I was hit by somebody unfairly, I was called names by somebody, so he was up, the somebody that’s hitting me saying what a bad guy I am –

Cooper: So –

Trump: Was up in my office asking for money and asking if I can get him on television –

Cooper: But when you, if you’re President of the United States, you’re gonna be hit by half the country, by –

Trump: That’s true.

Cooper: Not gonna like you, are you gonna call them dumb and stupid? (crosstalk; DT: no, no)

Trump: It’s a little bit different. Right now, I’m trying to do something to make the country great again.

Cooper: So as president –

Trump: Politicians will never make this country great again. Now –

Cooper: As President, you would change your tone?

Trump: Oh, I think so,

On Sandra Bland

Cooper: Sandra Bland is an African American woman who was pulled over in Texas.

Trump: I saw that, its terrible. Yea

Cooper: I’m not asking you specifics, because you can't be expected to look at everything. But pulled over for allegedly changing signals. Dash cam video has now been released, a lot of African Americans, a lot of people are very upset about that. To African Americans in this country, and there’s a lot of people who believe that they are treated differently by police, do you believe that there is a problem with that?

Trump: I hope not but I will tell you I saw in the clip. On your show, by the way. I thought it was terrible, I thought he was so aggressive, it was a traffic signal as I understand it. And you know who gets out of a car for a traffic signal. I haven't been pulled over in a while actually but seriously who- you know he just looked very aggressive. I didn’t like his demeanor, I thought it was terrible to be honest with you. I’m a huge fan of the police, I think the police have to be given back power, but this guy was overly aggressive. Terribly aggressive.

Cooper: Do you think that happens to African Americans more than it does to you or I?

Trump: I hope it doesn’t but it might. And you know I have a great relationship with Africans Americans, as you possibly have heard. I just have great respect for them and they like me, I like them. The answer is it possibly does, it shouldn’t, and it’s very sad if the case is. I will say though, in this case I watched that so closely, I watched it a few times, he was-he was terrible.