Real estate and entertainment billionaire Donald Trump continued to hint he could run for president in 2016 when he told "Fox & Friends" on Monday they might not continue to have their weekly discussions if he decided to enter the race.
"You (need to) treasure these Mondays, because maybe they won't be happening so much longer," Trump said.
Trump has been a frequent critic of President Barack Obama, and has maintained Republicans needed a strong candidate in 2016 to reverse the problems he said were a result of the president's policies.
In 2010, Trump expressed an interest in running for president, though he later decided against entering the 2012 race. He also suggested he might enter this year's Republican
primary for governor of New York, but did not.
He said if he ran for president he also would have to end the long run of his popular NBC series, "The Apprentice."
"If you have a major television show, you're not allowed to run for office, because otherwise they'd have to put every candidate — NBC would have to give every candidate equal time," he said.
Trump said he was going to "look at" the field of Republican candidates running for president before making a decision, adding that, if elected, he thought he'd be "a great president."
"The United States would not be ripped off anymore. We are being ripped off by everybody. The United States would be back in a position where we'd be respected again," he said. "We have potential to be a truly great country again."
Trump, a longstanding opponent of Obamacare, called the healthcare law a "total fraud," and said MIT professor Jonathan Gruber was "bad news" for saying the passage of the healthcare law depended on the "stupidity of the American voter."
"He's really the dummy," Trump said. "Calling Americans stupid because, essentially, they approved the plan, and Congress approved the plan. He's calling them stupid. He knows the plan is no good."
Trump also criticized Obama for maintaining Gruber, considered an architect of the healthcare law, did not play a key role in developing Obamacare.
"It's typical Obama, tries play down the adviser like he doesn't know him, doesn't know of him. 'Oh, gee, I wonder who he is.' I mean, the lies. So many lies," he said.
Trump said he was "disappointed in Republicans" for not following through with problems in the Obama administration, including Obamacare, the IRS targeting of conservative nonprofit groups, and the 2012 bombing of the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.
"They just don't bring it to the end zone," he said. "I'm disappointed that my Republicans don't follow anything up. They talk. I always say about politicians. Who knows politicians better than I do? They're all talk, no action."
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