Trump on Bill's Past: 'I Don't Want to Say It's a Threat – It's a Threat!'

GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump confirmed in an interview aired Sunday he is holding out a threat to use former President Bill Clinton's past if Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton continues to attack him as a sexist.

"I don't want to say it's a threat, but it's a threat!" Trump told NBC's Chuck Todd in an interview recorded Saturday in Iowa for "Meet the Press."

"It is a threat?" Todd asked.

"Of course," Trump said. "I can call it a nicer name. She was saying he has tendency towards being sexist. … And I said, wait a minute. She's married to an abuser. A woman claimed rape and all sorts of things, horrible things."

Todd noted that Trump's hits on Bill Clinton's past with women open himself up to similar attacks, including his messy divorce with his first wife, Ivana.

Trump said he isn't concerned — and has said before that his own past is fair game — but added that his case is different because he was a private citizen.

"I wasn't the president of the United States and I wasn't dealing in the Oval Office, all right?" he said. "A big difference."

Besides, he added, both his ex-wives and his current wife, Melania, think "I'm great."

And, he said, the tactic seems to have worked since the Clinton camp has stopped calling him sexist and new polls show him doing well against her.

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