Donald Trump discusses the reasons he's running for president

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Wednesday, June 17, 2015
Donald Trump discusses the reasons he's running for president
Shortly after announcing he's joining the 2016 presidential race, Donald Trump sat down with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos to talk politics and strategy.

Shortly after announcing he's joining the 2016 presidential race, Donald Trump sat down with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos to talk about why he thinks he's the best candidate and why he chose this year to run.

"I love America so much, George," he said. "I see what's going on with regulation. I see what's going on with the hatred that everybody has for each other. You look at Baltimore, you look at Cleveland, you look at all of the places just exploding. We have an African American president and we've never had it so bad."

Trump said that he has a fool-proof plan for defeating ISIS, but he wouldn't go into details.

"I hate to tell people because, if I win, I don't want ISIS to know," he said, adding that he would begin by destroying oil fields.

As for his competition, Trump said he is not fazed by the crowded Republican field, speculating that some of his competition wouldn't be there if they'd known he would run.

"A lot of people are in those numbers because they said I'm not running," he said.

He called Jeb Bush a "stiff" and said Marco Rubio is overrated.

"They say he's a young Ronald Reagan. I said, 'I don't think he's a young Ronald Reagan,'" Trump said. "And besides that, I have far better hair."

As for potential Democratic opponents, Trump said he thinks Hillary Clinton's emails about the Sept. 2012 terrorist attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, will be a stain on her campaign.

"What Hillary's got with the emails is, to me, scandalous," he said. "What she did is totally illegal. I don't know how she gets away with it."

Finally, Trump clarified that his trademarked campaign slogan, "Make America Great Again," is different from the phrase "Let's Make America Great Again" that Ronald Reagan used in his 1980 campaign.