Donald Trump on Debating Hillary Clinton: “If She Treats Me With Respect, I Will Treat Her With Respect”

Donald Trump joined Bill O’Reilly by satellite on Monday’s The O’Reilly Factor to talk debate strategy and racial profiling, given the weekend’s series of bombings in New York and New Jersey.

Looking ahead to Sept. 26, the night of the first general election presidential debate between Trump and Hillary Clinton, the Fox News host asked the GOP nominee if he would bring up his Democratic rival’s personal marital history with former president Bill Clinton.

“Would you go into the martial arena if she hits you with the women thing?” asked O’Reilly.

“I don’t think I’m looking to do that Bill,” replied Trump, who was in Florida. “I don’t know what I’m going to do exactly. It depends what level she hits you with, if it’s fair, if it’s unfair. But certainly, I’m not looking to do that.”

Does Trump plan to bring up Hillary’s marriage issues in the debates? He tells us tonight on The Factor, PREVIEW: pic.twitter.com/bYBfmZ70Z9

— Bill O’Reilly (@oreillyfactor) September 19, 2016

He continued: “If she treats me with respect, I will treat her with respect,” and later added, “There’s nobody that respects women more than Donald Trump, that I can tell you.”

When talk turned to debate moderator Lester Holt, Trump said he has respect for the NBC anchor, whom he called a professional, but added: “We’ll see what happens.”

He also defended NBC’s Matt Lauer, who was widely criticized for the Sept. 7 Commander In Chief forum.

“They came down on Matt,” said Trump. “Matt was very tough on me and he was tough on her. I thought he was equally tough, maybe even tougher on me. And they really hit him because I won that debate.”

He continued about Holt: “By the way, Lester is a Democrat. It’s a phony system. They are all Democrats. It’s a very unfair system.”

Trump also called out CNN’s Anderson Cooper, saying he treats him unfairly. “I think he’s very unfair on CNN,” he said. “I think CNN – they call it the Clinton News Network that’s why the ratings aren’t doing very well because who’s going to watch that?”

For his “Talking Points” segment at the top of the show, O’Reilly discussed both Trump and Clinton’s responses to the latest terror attacks. Ahmad Rahami, 28, a U.S. citizen who immigrated from Afghanistan, allegedly set off a bomb that injured 29 people in Manhattan and was captured on Monday. Dahir Adan, 22, of Somali descent, allegedly stabbed nine people in a Minnesota shopping mall before being shot dead by police. 

“They’re afraid of doing anything about it because they don’t want to be accused of profiling,” O’Reilly quoted from Trump about the response from local police.

He then quoted Clinton as saying: “We know that Donald Trump’s comments have been used online for recruitment of terrorists. We’ve heard that from former CIA Director Michael Hayden, who made it a very clear point when he said Donald Trump is being used as a recruiting sergeant for the terrorists.”

O’Reilly compared Clinton’s response to that of President Barack Obama’s, and declared Trump as having the advantage on the terror issue because “Americans are pretty much fed up with the jihad and want to see a more aggressive policy to defeat it.”

Trump had this about ISIS: “They’re getting good public relations because it looks like they’re beating the United States or certainly like the United States can’t beat them,” and he used Israel as an example as a country that “successfully” profiles potential terrorists.

“It’s ridiculous what is going on. We want to be so politically correct,” he said. “If we see somebody that we think could be a problem at airports and other places you talk to them and you see what’s going on. We don’t do that. Not much.”

When O’Reilly asked Trump what that will mean for peaceful Muslims, Trump fired back: ” I never said the term Muslim. You said that. I’m saying you’re going to profile people that maybe look suspicious. I didn’t say they were Muslims or not. You said that, Bill.”

The full interview aired at 8 p.m on Fox News Channel.