"It was a horrible statement. I was actually surprised by it," Trump said of his own remarks. | Getty Trump: I never thought Cruz's father had anything to do with JFK assassination

Donald Trump does not believe Ted Cruz's father had anything to do with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

"No, I don't," the presumptive Republican nominee said during an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer aired Wednesday.


Blitzer noted that Trump's past reference to the fact came from a National Enquirer story.

"Of course I don't think that," Trump said, a day after accusing Rafael Cruz in a telephone interview with Fox News of being with Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald handing out pro-Castro pamphlets in New Orleans in 1963.

Blitzer then said that Trump, as the presumptive Republican nominee, should not be trafficking in conspiracy theories.

"No, I wasn't. Not at the time," Trump said about his status when he made the allegations Tuesday morning, despite the fact that the candidate had declared himself the presumptive nominee after his string of victories on April 26.

"Here is what happened. Ted Cruz's father seems like a nice guy, I don't know him, but seems like a nice guy, he made horrible statements about me, you know, pray — praying for bad things to happen to me. Okay, essentially. I said that's horrible. And I was on a show, one of your competitors, and they showed me the clip. I said, wow, that's horrible," Trump said, in reference to the Fox News interview. "It's not just a one-way street, you know, where I do something. It was a horrible statement. I was actually surprised by it."

Blitzer pressed, asking Trump if the presumptive nominee should be held to a higher standard. Trump's response: I wasn't the presumptive nominee at that time.

"First of all, I wasn't at the time. I didn't know if I was going to win Indiana or not, it ended up being a landslide, it was a tremendous victory, much bigger than anybody anticipated including myself. They're incredible people out there. This was in the morning," Trump said. "Now, by the afternoon it looked like I was going to win and then a little bit later it looked like I was going to win big. So I was not a presumptive winner at that time, I was going against them, they were going against me.:

"Bottom line you don't believe in that conspiracy," Blitzer asked.

"Of course I don't believe it," Trump said. "I didn't believe it, but I did say let people read it."