Donald Trump has been talking softer ahead of Thursday’s first GOP presidential debate, but told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that he will hit back against challengers if necessary.
“I don’t want to attack anybody and maybe I’ll be attacked and maybe not,” Trump said on “Good Morning America” on Wednesday.
“If I’m attacked I have to, you know, do something back, but I’d like it to be very civil,” the real estate mogul continued.
Trump will be center stage at the two-hour debate in Cleveland, flanked with Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush next to him.
On continuing to surge in the polls, Trump pointed to how pleased he was at other candidates’ failures.
“I was very honored to see that two men who really did attack me very viciously actually, and I only attacked back after they started, but they went down very substantially,” Trump said. “In fact, Lindsey Graham went down to zero so the voters were fantastic as far as I’m concerned.”
And when pressed by the ABC News anchor on his changing of positions over the years, Trump didn’t dodge.
“I think everybody on that stage has changed positions on different things,” Trump said. “But I’ve always been very tough on some very important issues.”
Watch the video below.