JAKE TAPPER (HOST): Bill, the obvious question for you, you once threatened jokingly to start a third party if Trump got the nomination, but there are others out there publicly saying, Republicans, die hard Republicans, saying they are not going to vote for Donald Trump. One of them of course Mark Salter, John McCain's former chief of staff who you know well, tweeting “the GOP is going to nominate for president a guy who reads the National Enquirer and thinks it's on the level. I'm with her,” Using the Hillary Clinton slogan “I'm with her.” What are you going to do?
BILL KRISTOL: I'm not with Trump, but I'm not with her, so I'm looking for an independent candidate. I think there -- Ben Sasse, Senator from Nebraska, very bright, young, promising senator has said he can't support Donald Trump and he doesn't want to support Hillary Clinton. Let Ben Sasse run, he can take Nikki Haley, the governor of South Carolina, who would not accept being Trump's vice-presidential candidate. Maybe she would like to run with Sasse, they can argue about which order to have the ticket in. So, I'm saying right here on CNN, Sasse, Haley, Haley, Sasse, they're both fine with me. No, I would like there to be an independent Republican candidate because I can't support Trump, and I can't support Clinton.
TAPPER: If it comes down to it, and it's Clinton versus Trump, and maybe you have Gary Johnson running on the Libertarian ticket, would you vote for Gary Johnson?
KRISTOL: I will write in someone, you know, appropriate.
TAPPER: But you're never Trump? You're not voting for him?
KRISTOL: No. I just don't think he has the character to be President of the United States. It's beyond any particular issue I disagree with him on, or who he picks as VP or something. The man in the last five days has embraced Mike Tyson, the endorsement of a convicted rapist in Indiana. When it was pointed out to him that he had been convicted of raping a 17 year old girl, he didn't back away, at all. He likes toughness, Donald Trump, that's great, he likes rapists. And then what -- the thing with Ted Cruz's father, he just recycles a National Enquirer story accusing his rival's father being involved in the assassination of John Kennedy.
