Donald Trump on Monday engaged in a testy radio interview with Charlie Sykes, a prominent Wisconsin radio host who has spent months criticizing Trump and saying he would not support him as the GOP nominee.
But Trump didn’t know that.
“Mr. Trump, before you called into my show, did you know that I’m a #NeverTrump guy?” Sykes asked the GOP front-runner on Monday morning.
“That I didn’t know,” Trump replied.
Sykes last week endorsed Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Trump’s closest rival, and Sykes has been widely quoted in the press on his disdain for Trump.
“Because I thought it was interesting, and people were wondering, does Donald Trump know what Charlie Sykes has said about him in the past?” Sykes said. “And I give you credit either way for it.”
Trump, too, tried to turn the mix-up into a positive, saying he still hoped Sykes would treat him fairly given the host’s intellect.
“No, I didn’t know that, but I also assume you’re an intelligent guy, I know you’re an intelligent guy, and you understand what’s going on,” he told the host.
Many of Wisconsin’s leading conservative talkers have been critical of Trump, in contrast to talk radio nationally, which on the whole has been friendly terrain for the New Yorker.