Trump-Cruz Platform Alliance?

Donald Trump said Thursday that he is open to an alliance with rival Ted Cruz on codifying changes to party orthodoxy on trade and immigration when GOP delegates write the official Republican platform this summer.

Trump made clear on “The Laura Ingraham Show” that he regards the Texas senator as a Johnny-come-lately when it comes to those issues. But he said it might not be a bad idea to force his hand when it comes to the platform. He said the party platform should reflect his proposal to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border and opposition to the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal.

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“I would have no problem with it,” he said. “I would have no problem with either of those things being in the platform, absolutely.”

Trump said he has been fighting against the TPP for months.

“As soon as I heard it,” he said. “You know, it’s 5,000 pages … We probably haven’t even looked at it.”

Trump expressed skepticism about whether Cruz is a true believer on either issue.

“All of a sudden, he’s talking about a wall,” Trump said. “That came out of nowhere.”

The same goes for trade, Trump said. Cruz co-wrote an op-ed expressing support for giving President Obama a free hand in negotiating the trade pact with a group of Pacific Rim nations, before coming out against the agreement itself.

“I will say he was also in favor the TPP, and he came out and he was very much in favor,” Trump said. “The problem with him is he wants, he does not want to have monetary manipulation as part of it. He fought it … And I can’t understand why, other than there’s obviously a group of people that, you know, gives him a lot of campaign contributions.”

Trump noted that he recently heard echoes of himself in a Cruz campaign speech.

“I listened to Cruz’s speech the other day, and it was like a carbon copy of what I’d been saying for five years,” he said. “He finally got it. But he won’t do it, because it’s not really from the heart. You know, he doesn’t really believe it. And he’s just not going to be able to do it.”

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Trump also suggested that Cruz is being disingenuous when he argues that nobody in the GOP race can win the 1,237 delegates needed to secure the nomination by the end of voting in June.

“Well, he’s a liar,” Trump said. “We have a chance to get to, actually, 1,400. But when Cruz says, ‘Oh, no, Trump can’t get there,’ that’s why we call him Lyin’ Ted Cruz. He can lie with the best of them. He’s unbelievable.”

Trump also predicted that he would be able to unify all parts of the Republican Party if he become the nominee. In fact, he said, the thaw already has started.

“I’m getting phone calls right now,” he said. “Even today, I just got one; I just hung up with one, that if you heard who these people are — people on television that you would say, ‘No way they could ever support, they’re committed morally in every way and religiously from never ever even talking to Trump,’ and I’m hanging up with people that want to get on the Trump deal.”

Trump said he told one that he would love to have him but asked how it could happen given all of the terrible things he had said about the real estate tycoon.

“I said, ‘How do you do it?'” he said. “He said, ‘Oh, that’s not a problem.’ You know why? Because they’re politicians. That’s what they do.”

Ingraham suggested that the #NeverTrump forces would come crawling back eventually.

“I hope it’s not crawling,” he said. “I hope they just come back … ’cause we’ll beat Hillary. We’re going to beat Hillary in so many different ways.”