“Having a two-party race gives us a much better chance of beating Hillary and bringing our country back than having a third-party candidate,” Trump said.

At that point, I asked Trump about Ross Perot’s 1992 third-party run for president. Perot won 19 percent of the popular vote in the year that Bill Clinton defeated George H.W. Bush with just 43 percent. Did Trump believe Perot was a spoiler in that race?

“Totally,” Trump said. And then:

I think — I don’t believe a word of the critics that say that [Perot] got 50-50 vote. I think every single vote that went to Ross Perot came from Bush, from the Bush camp. And I think frankly, that it was amazing to me that they didn’t convince Ross Perot not to run. But Ross Perot, I believe that virtually every one of his 19 percentage points came from the Republicans … I believe that if Ross Perot didn’t run, you would have never heard of Bill Clinton. And I have no question in my mind about that.