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MS. IFILL: There’s another presidential candidate who announced this week, and his name is Donald J. Trump.
MR. BALZ: Donald J. Trump –
MS. IFILL: Yes.
MR. BALZ: – as he was introduced, yes. Donald Trump has flirted with this idea for many years, and this week he said he is an actual candidate. He hasn’t quite yet done all the paperwork necessary to become a real candidate.
MS. IFILL: Oh, paperwork, paperwork.
MR. BALZ: A real candidate, and he has a little time for that, so we’ll see how long he stays in. But right now he’s in, and he’s going to be a disruptive force. I mean, we know what he is like. He’s beyond egocentric. He’s very brash. He’s inflammatory. Some of the things he said on his opening day about illegal immigrants being rapists and drug dealers and killers and worse was, quite frankly, shameful, and Hillary Clinton called him out on it later in the week and said this kind of language ought not to be tolerated. He is right on the edge of qualifying to be in the first presidential debate among the Republicans in August.
MS. IFILL: It’s from name recognition.
MR. BALZ: Well, yes. He’s right there. Fox News has said we will take the top 10 people from the five most recent national polls, and he’s right there – you know, not by a healthy margin, but he could be on that stage. He’s taken very direct shots at Jeb Bush and others in the race, and he’s going to cause them some problems.
MS. IFILL: And him being on the stage means there are people who are governors, there are people who have long track records of public service who would not make that threshold.
MR. BALZ: That’s right. There are – there are people who Republicans would regard as more serious or credible candidates who could be kept out while he’s in. And in some ways it’s the party’s worst nightmare. I mean –
MS. IFILL: Is there anything they’re willing to do about that or is there anything they can do about that?
MR. BALZ: There’s not much they can do. I mean, the rules – the rules, as established by the sponsors of the debates, are such that, you know, he’s likely – he could well be in.
MS. IFILL: Get your popcorn, folks. This is going to be the part of the campaign that people are going to look and go, what are we doing? We’ll see how it goes.
