house this morning. savannah, thank you very much. it's 7 after the hour. meredith? >> the new nbc wall street news poll shows a surprising surge for one republican canned dated, and it is a name you will recognize. donald trump is in a tie for second along with mike huckabee and mitt romney. mitt romney leads. on monday we sat down with him for an exclusive interview, and i began by asking trump about his potential run. >> this is very serious. i always take things seriously, but i've never taken it seriously like this. this is a very serious time in my life. i hate what's happening to the country. i wish i didn't have to do it. i wish this country was running so great, and i wish obama was the greatest president since abraham lincoln, and i wish this was the greatest place in the world. what we're doing is

unbelievable. if you look at what's going on where our jobs are disappearing to foreign countries, where the oil -- you're going to be paying 7 or $8 a gallon for your oil very soon. >> do you blame all of this on barack obama? >> i blame all of it. it's been a terrible presidency. look at libya. we go in, we don'tme want to remove gadhafi, but we want to fight, we want to do this. now nobody knows what's happening. gadhafi is going to beat the united states? >> would you say, let's get aggressive. let's put boots on the ground if we have to. >> i'm only interested in libya if we keep the oil. if we don't keep the oil, i'm not interested. they make the rebels some romantic novel. i hear the rebels are al-qaeda. i hear they're iran-backed and iran influenced. where are they getting those weapons? from iran? gadhafi went around saying he won the war against this country. i'm only interested in libya if we get the oil. >> so everybody wornds what tnde

obama doctrine is. >> he doesn't have a doctrine. >> what would your doctrine be? >> with respect to what? >> foreign affairs. >> foreign affairs is we take care of ourselves first. we don't build schools in afghanistan. we go to afghanistan, we build a road, we build a school. two days later, they blow up the road, they blow up the school, we start building the road and the school again. in the meantime, we can't build schools in alabama, in new orleans, in texas, in new york -- in my place we're always fighting to get school money -- we're spending trillions and trillions of dollars. my thing and my doctrine would be build, build, build. >> some positive news for you, this new poll -- nbc news wall street journal poll shows you surging to second place for potential candidates for 2012. why do you think you're connecting with voters? >> i think i connect with people because i happen to be smart, i happen to have a lot of common

sense, i happen to know what i'm doing, i built a great company, and by the way, if i run, i look so forward to filing a declarati declaration, because it's a great company. i built a great company. and i'll make that decision sometime prior to june. >> what are you waiting for? what are you waiting for? >> well, i hate to say it, i have the number one show in nbc. "the apprentice" is doing great, "the celebrity apprentice." >> what does that have to do with it? >> it sounds so trivial, and i hate to bring it up, but you're not allowed to have a show on and be a declared candidate. it's a great show, and it's got phenomenal ratings, and until that show is over, i can't declare, because otherwise nbc would have to take the show off the air, and i think that would be very unfair to nbc. >> recently, you spent a lot of time talking about president obama's birth certificate or lack thereof.

you don't seem convinced that he has one. >> no, i'm not convinced he has one. i've had smart people say, donald, stay on the china issue, stay on the other issues, get off the birth certificate issue. >> why don't you? >> because three weeks ago when i started, i thought he was probably born in this country, and now i have a much bigger doubt than i had before. his grandmother in kenya said he was born in kenya, and she was there and witnessed the birth, okay? he doesn't have a birth as the result or he hasn't shown it. he has what's called a certificate of live birth. that is something that's easy to get. when you want a birth certificate, it very hard to get. >> but in the state of hawaii, they said they have seen this document, it's evident he was born in the united states, that's good enough for them. >> a birth certificate is not even close. a certificate of live birth is not even signed by anybody. i read it very carefully.

it doesn't have a serial number, it doesn't have a signature. >> you believe he's lying? do you believe he's lying, donald? just answer. >> meredith, he spent $2 million in legal fees trying to get away from this issue, and if he weren't lying, why wouldn't he just solve it? i wish he would, because if he doesn' doesn't, it's one of the greatest scams in history, period. you're not allowed to be president if you're not born in this country. three weeks ago, i thought he was born in this country. i have some real doubts. i have people studying it, and they can't believe what they're finding. >> you have people searching in hawaii? >> absolutely, and thi can't believe what they're finding. i would like him to show his birth certificate. to be honest with you, i hope he can. if he can't, and he wasn't born in this country -- which is a real possibility. i'm saying it's a real possibility, much greater than i thought two or three weeks ago,

then he has pulled one of the greatest cons in the history of politics. and beyond politics. >> do you consider yourself a tea partier? >> i think so. i'm very proud of some of the ideas they put forth, and the big idea is they want to stop this ridiculous absolutely killer spending going on. what's going on in this country, the way we're spending money like drunken sailors, we are absolutely just -- ultimately beer going to destroy our own freedom. >> but they want to stop it even at the cost of shutting down the government. that's a possibility. are you in favor of that? >> excuse me, it's not really shutting down the government, it's cutting costs. the kind of money you're talking about is peanuts. and i think the tea party has done an amazing service to this country because people now, even very liberal democrats, are starting to think for the first time, well, maybe we can't just keep giving everything away. so i think they performed a great service.

>> so if there was a partial shutdown of the government come friday, that would be okay with you? >> i hear the democrats are going to be blamed and the republicans are going to be blamed. i actually think the president would be blamed. if there is a shutdown, and it's not going to be a horrible shutdown, because as you know, things will keep going. >> a partial shutdown, fine. >> if there is a shutdown, i think it would be a tremendously negative mark on the president of the united states. he's the one that has to get people together. i've done hundreds of deals and transactions. he's never done deals before. how do you expect a man who is not a deal man, never did a deal -- other than becoming president of the united states -- how is he going to corral all these people? >> how would you do it? >> i would get all the people together and -- >> they already have all the people together. >> but they don't have a leader. the president of the united states needs to get this done. and i think he probably will.

i don't say he, but i think he and the group probably will get it done, but it's pretty sad because the whole world is looking at us and laughing at us. >> you've criticized obama quite a bit in this interview and in the past. what do you think he has done well? >> get elected. i think i think obama care is a total disaster. i think the thing that he did best, best of all is get elected. he got elected. he ran an unbelievable campaign. i want him to do well. if i had my choice of having obama do great as a president and do a really great job for this country and not running as opposed to running, i'd prefer that he did a great job. i love this country. but this country is going to hell. i would run a great, great country. this country will be great again. it is not great right now.

we have huge deficits, huge unemployment, huge problem, and we're not respected. we're not respected in the world. the world laughs at us. they won't be laughing if i'm president. >> he's certainly not a shrinking violet. >> how much tape did you have because there's more. but wait, there's more. and that's coming up later, right? >> there's a little bit more, yeah. he's -- you know, i think he is serious. now, he's got a couple of months to think about this, ponder this a little more, but i think he's taking it very seriously. >> and he's serious about having people down in hawaii right now. >> that's what he claims. he claims there are people there that are investigating it, and it will be interesting to see what they come up with. i used the word detective. he didn't discount the word so i would assume that's who they are. what we would love to see is donald come back and show the evidence. >> exactly right. i wonder if he's going to declare for president. >> he said he was going to