Donald Trump: Sarah Palin would ‘love to get me back’ in presidential race

Well, you knew, you just knew, that something otherworldly was going to be produced from Tuesday night’s Times Square pizza summit between Sarah Palin and Donald Trump. And this morning, Trump came clean. He said Palin wants him to run for president.

Appearing on “Fox & Friends” Wednesday, Trump said Palin “would love to get me back.”

Palin and her family took a break from their bus tour of America’s historical sites to share some slices with the Donald on his home turf because, according to the Daily Beast, when you go to New York, “you want to say hi to Donald Trump,” Palin said.

Wednesday morning, Trump said “hi” back. As in “Hi, America. Did you miss me?” (We did.) And yes, a presidential run is very much on the table. Thanks for asking.

“I had great poll numbers, but I had really a decision to make,” Trump said. “I had NBC calling me every hour…it’s a very tough decision to make to be honest. If I’m not happy with what I see, I can very easily change my mind. I’m not happy with what I see, and I will make a determination sometime into the future, absolutely. There is no deadline. If I did it as an independent, I could do it very much better.”

Trump had to put a kibosh on his presidential plans when NBC forced him to choose between a campaign and continuing with his hit show “Celebrity Apprentice.”*

Trump offered no insight into what Palin might be thinking about her own future plans as she forces the national press to tail her every move up the Eastern Seaboard in a brightly painted tour bus. Wednesday, among other sites, she is reportedly dragging reporters to the Statue of Liberty.

“She said that she loves this country; she wants to point out some of the great things in the country,” he said. “I asked her frankly ‘Are you going to be running?’ I’m not sure that she knows herself. I am not sure she has made up her mind.”

Trump said the decision to leave the confines of stately Trump Tower in Midtown to head out to tourist-packed Times Square was a spontaneous one (one that produced a full-scale, reality show-style media frenzy, naturally).

“This was something very spur of the moment,” he said. “We were sitting in Trump Tower talking. We had our families there, and we said lets all go out for a piece of pizza. It didn’t take long for the press to figure that out. I guess they followed us or whatever.”

In response to a question, he said they did not discuss “teaming up.”

Trump also had some choice words for the Republican Party, whose voters he had been courting just weeks ago.

“I am looking at the Republicans and I am seeing things – they have a death wish,” Trump said. “Whether it’s the Ryan Plan – which is a death wish…why does he have to come out with a plan. He is a nice guy and all that stuff but that’s irrelevant. The fact is whether you agree with the plan or not, his timing was horrendous. You don’t come out with a plan, have all your friends vote on it and now half of those guys are going to lose their elections.”

* Yes, he got us to name the show again. Genius.

james.oliphant@latimes.com