NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. -- He’s not exactly hired.

Donald Trump, the New York real estate mogul who flirted with a 2012 presidential bid, spoke largely off the cuff to a respectful, but somewhat bewildered crowd here at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

On the one hand, Trump spouted what could be seen as fairly liberal views, chiding the GOP and conservatives for wanting to cut entitlements and for becoming too conservative.

“Our country is in very, very serious trouble,” Trump said, adding, “Likewise the Republican Party is in serious trouble.” He said if the party wants to “change substantially” Medidcare, Social Security, and Medicaid, “and you think you’re going to win elections, it just really is not going to happen.”

But on the other hand, he also said the party should not jump too quickly on immigration reform because the 11 million undocumented immigrants would vote Democratic.

“Every one of those 11 million” illegal immigrants “will be voting Democratic and you have to be very, very careful. Odds are, it’s not looking so great for Republicans. … You’re on a suicide mission – you’re just not going to get that vote." 

At the same time, he said Europeans who want to immigrate to the U.S. and who have children who do well at American universities should be allowed to stay.

Trump also had praise for Mitt Romney, who will speak later. But had one critique.

“If Mitt Romney made one mistake,” Trump said, “he didn’t talk enough about his success. The Republicans and Mitt didn’t speak enough about the great things he did.”

After his speech, Trump held an unannounced news conference, but it was only open initially to select - and mostly conservative - media outlets. NBC was eventually allowed in after protesting.

LAS VEGAS, Nev. -- In a whirlwind half-day visit to Sin City, Mitt Romney is enlisting a powerful new financial backer, rallying the troops with the state's governor and is set to collect millions at a high-dollar fundraiser with the ever-controversial Donald Trump, all before the sun sets in the desert tonight.

No sooner had Romney's campaign parked the chartered 737 plane (right next to Donald Trump's black and gold emblazoned jet), the candidate was off to meet with billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, who almost singlehandedly kept Newt Gingrich's campaign afloat with millions of dollars in donations to Gingrich's super PAC, but signaled months ago he would support the Republican nominee.

Aides said the meeting lasted nearly an hour at the Venetian Las Vegas Casino, Hotel and Resort, but there was no word of a formal endorsement or gift to the pro-Romney super PAC.

Romney next visted a Somers Furniture warehouse, but not for a new ottoman. The former Massachusetts governor campaigned for the first time with Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval, a rising star in the Republican party who originally backed Texas Governor Rick Perry early in the primary campaign.

Romney took aim at President Barack Obama's 2009 comments not to "blow a bunch of cash in Vegas," by pledging his love for the city, which helped deliver a major caucus win for the all-but-certain Republican nominee back in February.

"I'm counting on you guys to go out and make sure that you elect a president who tells people to come to Las Vegas, not to stay away from Las Vegas. Who gets us on the track to have a strong and vibrant economy again," Romney said.

As Romney continued to attack the president as "hostile" to business, he veered into new territory, passing along the story of a restaurant owner he met with in a closed-door roundtable who suggested adding a new provision to the constitutional requirements of the presidency: time in business.

"I’d like to have a provision in the Constitution that in addition to the age of the president and the citizenship of the president and the birthplace of the president being set by the Constitution, I’d like it also to say that the president has to spend at least three years working in business before he could become President of the United States," Romney quoted the restauranteur as saying. "You see then he or she would understand that the policies they’re putting in place have to encourage small business, make it easier for business to grow."

And perhaps no man is more embroiled over the constitutional requirements of the presidency than Romney's host at his final Vegas event of the day, Donald Trump, who today doubled-down on his controversial beliefs that President Obama's birth certificate may be fraudulent, telling CNN that "a lot of people don't agree with that birth certificate," a charge host Wolf Blitzer labeled "ridiculous."

Trump hosted the fundraiser for Romney tonight at the Trump International Hotel just off the Las Vegas strip with a top asking price of $50,000. Trump spokesman Michael Cohen said the event tonight could raise "millions" for Romney campaign's victory fund.

Among the guests was Newt Gingrich who said, “We believe this is an American-born, job-killing president.”

Answering a question about Trump, he continued: “Others believe he was born elsewhere and kills jobs. But Obama is a jobs-killing president. He was born in Hawaii. That doesn’t affect that he is killing jobs.”

Is Mitt Romney playing with fire in his dealings with Donald Trump?

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee will appear with Trump, the pugnacious real estate mogul and reality television star, at a fundraiser Tuesday in Las Vegas. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a nemesis of Romney's throughout the Republican presidential primary, will round out the group.

Steve Marcus / Reuters

Real estate mogul Donald Trump's ties to presidential candidate Mitt Romney run deeper than most run-of-the-mill supporters of the former Massachusetts governor.

Setting aside Gingrich’s own bombast, it’s Trump who could prove the bigger long-term headache for Romney. The latest example of that came Tuesday morning, when Trump said he’s still unconvinced that President Barack Obama was born in the United States, further linking Romney to that sentiment in a subsequent tweet from his @realDonaldTrump handle:

@BarackObama is practically begging @MittRomney to disavow the place of birth movement, he is afraid of it and for good reason. He keeps using @SenJohnMcCain as an example, however, @SenJohnMcCain lost the election. Don’t let it happen again.

It’s become clear that Trump’s ties to Romney run deeper than most run-of-the-mill supporters of the former Massachusetts governor. Romney and Trump appeared together when the “Apprentice” host made official his endorsement on Feb. 2. Since then, Trump’s become an involved surrogate for Romney, doing radio interviews and robocalls during the height of the GOP primary. He’s also hosted fundraisers for Romney, most notably one on Ann Romney’s birthday that netted the campaign $600,000.

“Donald Trump is playing an extremely important role, which has been acknowledged by both Ann and Mitt Romney, which has been acknowledged by them in election night speeches,” said Michael Cohen, a spokesman for Trump, in an interview.

Romney put some distance between the two men, though, before taking off for Colorado late on Monday night. "You know, I don't agree with all the people who support me and my guess is they don't all agree with everything I believe in. But I need to get 50.1 percent or more and I'm appreciative to have the help of a lot of good people," he told reporters aboard his campaign charter plane.

Romney was burned back in April when conservative rocker (and campaign supporter) Ted Nugent called Obama “evil,” and said if the incumbent were to win re-election, “I will be either be dead or in jail by this time next year.”

FIRST THOUGHTS: Playing the Trump card

Democrats stoked that story in the media, forcing Romney to personally address the Nugent controversy; now, it appears as though they’re hoping for another opportunity to do the same with Trump.

That is, when — not if — Trump goes off-message, Romney will have to answer for the controversy. His campaign won’t have the luxury of shrugging off a figure like Trump, who’s undeniably much closer to the Republican nominee than Nugent.

"It raises a question, that's come up before during this campaign, as to whether Gov. Romney will embrace these extreme voices in his party, or stand up to them," Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt said Friday on MSNBC.

And already, the Obama campaign released a video on Tuesday bracketing the fundraiser this evening, contrasting Romney's relative silence toward Trump with the actions taken by Republican nominee John McCain in 2008 to shun extreme voices in the GOP.

For now, the Romney campaign has emphasized its singular focus on the economy, casting media firestorms around Trump or Romney’s previous work at Bain Capital as nothing less than a distraction.

"In a world of record job loss, record home loss, more people falling into poverty than time since the Depression, I don't think this stuff matters," said a Romney aide. "I would think the last few weeks would be a good lesson in that. From the anniversary of the Osama bin Laden killing to gay marriage, this election is just about one thing: are you happy with the economy and who do you think will do a better job?"

But the irony for Romney is that, for a campaign that prides itself on discipline and focus, its association with Trump threatens at any moment to knock the candidate off-message.

• Consider just a small sampling of the things Trump has recently said:
  May 22: Trump said on CNN that invoking Obama’s association with the controversial Rev. Jeremiah Wright in the campaign, which Romney had disavowed, is fair game. "These tapes are devastating for the president. I mean, Rev. Wright is an angry man. He's extremely angry at the president,” Trump said on CNN. “I see nothing wrong with using it."
  May 22: Also on May 22, Trump stoked the flames of “birtherism,” skepticism of whether the president was born in the U.S., despite Obama having released his long-form birth certificate a year earlier, showing he was, in fact, born in Hawaii. Trump tweeted: “I wonder if @BarackObama ever applied to Occidental, Columbia or Harvard as a foreign student. When can we see his applications? What do they say about his place of birth.”
  May 7: Trump suggested, during the Chen Guangcheng incident, that the United States’ economic tension versus China could translate into an actual war in due time. “It's not a war with bullets, but it's certainly a war,” Trump said of those economic tensions. “Maybe someday, it ends up with bullets because, frankly, they're building a military like you wouldn't believe.”

And there are more politically substantive examples of Trump breaking with Romney and the GOP.

“I just think it’s very dangerous,” he said of Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget proposals this March on FOX. “Already, the Democrats are just starting to write their campaign literature based on this plan. I think it’s very dangerous for the Republicans.”

Cohen said that Trump didn’t presume to speak for Romney.

“Donald Trump is his own individual, and he will make statements that he feels are accurate, are on the minds of other Americans and are significant in showing the voters who the real Barack Obama is,” he said. “Whatever questions will be posed to Gov. Romney and the Romney camp, they are certainly entitled to answer as they see fit. The current president and vice president don’t agree on all topics. Not all Republicans agree with all Republicans, and not all Democrats agree with all Democrats. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion.”

And to Trump’s credit, he’s never been known as a shrinking violet. His views have certainly been publicly aired at this point, and voters may be able to better distinguish between his headline-grabbing comments and the more staid sentiments of Romney.

But in a campaign cycle driven by grievance politics (“When will Mitt Romney/Barack Obama apologize for…?”), it’s difficult to imagine Romney not having to answer for some outburst of Trump’s between now and November.

“He’ll stand up next to Donald Trump, and he’ll talk about why he wants to be president, and why he believes the economy needs to be turned around,” Romney adviser Kevin Madden said Friday on MSNBC of the way Romney would relate to Trump. “Anytime that something goes off of that – or something where Gov. Romney would disagree – he’s going to make that very clear, just as he has in the past, and he’ll do it in the present, and he’ll do it in the future.”

NBC’s Garrett Haake contributed to this report.

Fact check from AP’s education writer: “When Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney decried President Barack Obama as beholden to the nation's teachers' unions and unable to stand up for reform, he glossed over four years of a relationship that has been anything but cozy. Obama has promoted initiatives that encourage districts to tie teacher evaluations to student performance and to expand the number of charter schools -- actions the teacher unions have long been against, and which Romney himself promoted Wednesday in a speech in Washington outlining his education platform.”

NPR’s Claudio Sanchez: “Romney's argument that President Obama's beholden to teachers unions will be a stretch, in large part because unions are no fans of the administration's support for charter school, merit pay, and evaluation schemes that tie teachers' performance to students' test results. Still, Mr. Romney's plan for K through 12 education is different than the president's plan in a basic way, says Andy Rotherham, a former advisor to the Obama administration.”

The L.A. Times’ Paul West makes the point that Romney’s rare trip to the inner city “probably had more to do with outreach to suburban moderates than to African Americans, who are strongly behind President Obama.”

Here’s the Philadelphia Inquirer’s first-hand take.

“A day after Mitt Romney addressed the Latino Coalition , the presumptive Republican nominee released a second Spanish-language ad outlining the agenda for his first day in office,” the Boston Globe writes. “But Romney’s attempts to court Latino voters -- with whom he is unpopular -- appear half-hearted, according to some observers. The ads indicate Romney’s early to-do list does not include immigration reform, a subject he also ignored Wednesday when speaking to Latino business owners at the US Chamber of Commerce in Washington.”

Similarly, National Journal’s Beth Reinhard writes, “The stage is set for an epic battle over the Hispanic vote in the presidential election, but so far, President Obama is crushing the competition… While Obama’s ads are specifically targeted at a Hispanic audience, Romney’s Spanish-language ads are exactly the same as his ads in English, only translated into Spanish.” One Democrat described Romney’s strategy as “watering the desert.”

Peggy Noonan interviewed Romney. Note that Romney is keeping notes on his presidential campaign, writing every two or three days. Sounds like a memoir coming. He also claims: “[V]ictory is still a thrill, but I don't feel agony in loss."

Romney notes that he gets upset with himself for verbal mistakes, like saying, “I like to be able to fire people." And then he goes on to criticize the media: “‘I have to think not only about what I say in a full sentence but what I say in a phrase.’ In the current media environment, ‘you will be taken out of context, you'll be clipped, and you'll be battered with things you said.’ He says it is interesting that ‘the media always says, 'Gosh, we just want you to be spontaneous,' but at the same time if you say anything in the wrong order, you're gonna be sorry!’”

And he claimed: “If Barack Obama is re-elected, ‘it will be very difficult to get off that path. If I'm elected, I will usher in a period of economic vitality,’ that will leave the world ‘surprised.’ Not only the world: ‘America is going to see a vitality we had not expected.’”

He raised money last night in Boston at the home of a former Bain employee.

Romney will be raising money Tuesday with Newt Gingrich and Donald Trump. “For a mere $3 donation to help elect Mitt Romney, donors could find themselves dining with real estate mogul Donald Trump,” USA Today writes. “The fundraising ask, sponsored by Romney Victory Fund, the joint fundraising effort by Romney and the Republican National Committee, features a sketch of Trump pointing, with the words ‘I want you’ and ‘Dine with the Donald’ under the picture. A cursive (+ Mitt) is next to Trump's name.”

Trump yesterday had a suggestion for Romney’s VP – him. "Probably the best choice of all would be Donald Trump," he said, per the New York Daily News.  And, the always-humble Trump apparently wants to speak at the Republican National Convention. He tweeted Tuesday: “Hmmm...can you imagine me speaking at the RNC Convention in Tampa? That's a speech everyone would watch."

The Daily News reports: “Republican insiders have confirmed that Trump’s name has been floated as a possible speaker for the August convention, but no decisions have been made.”

Newt Gingrich will make his first appearance with presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney on May 29 in Las Vegas.

NBC News has learned the former House speaker will attend a fundraiser for Romney at Trump Towers in Las Vegas Tuesday evening. Donald Trump will also attend.

The last time Gingrich and Romney were in Nevada together was in early February, amid a bitter fight for the nomination.

Rumors broke just days before the Feb. 4 Nevada caucuses – and were confirmed by several news outlets -- that Trump himself would endorse Gingrich. Hours later, however, the casino mogul endorsed Romney.

A joint public event with the two former competitors may occur next month.

PITTSBURGH, PA -- High above Fifth Avenue this afternoon, some 400 guests will dine on birthday cake prepared by a celebrity chef and toast the 63rd birthday of Ann Romney at a fundraising event hosted by Donald and Melania Trump.

The party is expected to raise more than $600,000 for Mitt Romney's presidential campaign.

The fundraiser/birthday party will be hosted by Melania Trump, and tickets for the event ranged in price from $1,000 to $2,500. When the 200 person capacity for the Trumps' private home on the 66th floor of Trump Tower was reached within 48 hours of tickets going on sale, the event was broken into two separate shifts to accommodate a total of more than 400 guests across a three-hour event, according to Trump spokesman Michael Cohen.

On the menu at the event, according to Cohen: a special birthday cake prepared by celebrity chef Buddy Valastro, of the TV show "Cake Boss."

The presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney will not attend the Trump fundraiser today, and will instead campaign in Pennsylvania and attend a separate fundraiser in Harrisburg, PA this afternoon.

Both fundraising events are closed to the press.

Mitt Romney is getting his money's worth out of Donald Trump's endorsement.

Beginning today, Michiganders will be hearing from "The Donald" in the form of a Robo-call on Mitt Romney's behalf.

On the call, which was previewed to NBC News this morning, Trump slams Rick Santorum as someone who "doesn't know about creating jobs," and is "completely entrenched in the Washington culture."

"I'm tired of Rick Santorum pretending he's some kind of DC outsider," Trump says at the start of the recording.

Trump spokesman Michael Cohen says the call will go out statewide, beginning today, and will go on for several days.

Trump has been active on Romney's behalf over the last week -- taking part in a New York City fundraising effort and doing radio interviews in Michigan and Ohio in which he has praised the former Massachusetts governor and attacked his rivals, but not ruled out his own third party run should Romney fail to win the nomination.

Santorum and Romney are locked in a close battle for Michigan, Romney's home state.

As First Thoughts noted this morning, Michigan primary voters are being bombarded with robo-calls from both campaigns ahead of Tuesday's contest.

"He will win," Trump says of Romney on the call. "You've got to give him a chance."

Donald Trump formally endorsed Mitt Romney for president on Thursday, describing the former Massachusetts governor as "tough" and "smart" and the best pick in the GOP primary.

Trump and Romney appeared together in Las Vegas to announce the endorsement, which drew heavy media coverage.

"It is a real honor and privilege to endorse Mitt Romney," Trump said in brief remarks. "Mitt is tough, he's smart, he's sharp. He's not going to allow bad things to continue to happen to this country we all love."

Romney said in response: "There are some things that you just can't imagine in your life. This is one of them," adding that it means a "great deal" to have the billionaire's support.

The endorsement follows a bizarre period of time in which several major news outlets -- including the New York Times and Associated Press -- had initially reported that Trump had been planning to endorse Newt Gingrich. The former House speaker had been one of only two candidates to agree appearing at a debate the "Apprentice" host had planned, but which never came to pass. Romney declined attendance.

RELATED: The quotable Donald Trump

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum (R) said he didn't think the Trump endorsement matters, but added on KDWN radio that if Trump "wants to endorse the person who's most in line with his thinking with respect to the major issue of this economic problem that we're involved in, he should endorse Rick Santorum."

For their part, Democrats seemed to take a degree of joy in the Trump spectacle.

"It really wouldn't be surprising if Donald Trump endorses Mitt Romney, because they both like firing people, and they both made millions doing it" Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, said on msnbc. "Donald Trump is such a cartoon character, no matter who he chooses, it's like Bugs Bunny endorsing ... It's really kind of a non-news event."

It's reflective of the media whirlwind to have surrounded Trump's game of footsie with Republican politics over the past year.

Trump had initially thought about running for the GOP nomination last spring. He talked publicly about the possibility of running and even visited New Hampshire. The flirtation coincided with the broadcast of last spring's season of "The Apprentice" on NBC. (NBC is a co-owner of mnsbc.com, along with Microsoft.) Trump had initially promised to make clear his intentions in the show's season finale, but ultimately demurred, and made the announcement separately.

Trump had additionally been one of the most prominent figures to voice suspicions that President Obama had not actually been born in the United States, and, thusly, was constitutionally ineligible to be president. Obama eventually relented and released his long-form birth certificate on April 27, 2011, verifying he was born in Hawaii. Obama made light of the situation at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner on May 1, deriding the media for giving voice to “carnival barkers” like Trump, only to announce the next day that Osama bin Laden had been killed in a daring raid in Pakistan -- planning of which had been ongoing during the annual dinner.

But the discussion of "birther" theories over the course of last spring appears to have harmed Trump in the eyes of the public; Trump had a 26 percent favorable rating in a February 2011 NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, and a 29 percent unfavorable rating. By mid-May, the point at which the real estate magnate announced he wouldn't be running, a Suffolk University poll found that Trump had a 70 percent unfavorable rating, while just 18 percent of Americans had a positive opinion of Trump.

It's also not incredibly clear what, if any, impact the Trump endorsement will have on the trajectory of the race, in Nevada's caucuses on Saturday, or beyond. Romney had already led, at 45 percent, in a poll of likely Nevada caucus-goers released Thursday. He's followed by Gingrich at 25 percent, Santorum at 11 percent and Texas Rep. Ron Paul at 9 percent.

Still, the reality television star continued to play an out-sized role throughout the 2012 cycle. All the Republican candidates visited Trump through the course of last summer with the exception of former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman.

"I think his infusing himself into the dialogue really dumbs down and makes less consequential the very important issues that we must be discussing to get this country back on its feet again," Huntsman said on Fox News in December.

One of the most intensely covered media events of 2011 came when former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin went out for pizza with Trump in Manhattan during a stop on her bus tour of the Northeast, a journey meant to stoke speculation about her own presidential aspirations. When Romney visited Trump, he snuck in and out of the billionaire's headquarters without being captured by staked-out cameras.

Donald Trump withdrew Tuesday as the moderator of a debate planned for later this month in Iowa, citing his interest in possibly still running for president as an independent.

Trump pulled out of a debate he had planned to host along with the conservative magazine Newsmax, scheduled for Dec. 27, just days before the Iowa caucuses. All the GOP presidential candidates save for Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum said they would not participate.

"The Republican Party candidates are very concerned that sometime after the final episode of The Apprentice, on May 20th, when the equal time provisions are no longer applicable to me, I will announce my candidacy for President of the United States as an Independent and that, unless I conclusively agree not to run as an Independent, they will not agree to attend or be a part of the Newsmax debate scheduled for December 27, 2011," Trump said in a statement. "It is very important to me that the right Republican candidate be chosen to defeat the failed and very destructive Obama Administration, but if that Republican, in my opinion, is not the right candidate, I am not willing to give up my right to run as an Independent candidate. Therefore, so that there is no conflict of interest within the Republican Party, I have decided not to be the moderator of the Newsmax debate. The American people are embarrassed by the gridlock currently taking place in Washington. I must leave all of my options open because, above all else, we must make America great again!"

It's not clear whether any debate with Newsmax will go forward at all. Trump thanked Gingrich and Santorum for their willingness to participate nonetheless.

"I would like to thank Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum for having the courage, conviction, and confidence to immediately accept being a part of the Newsmax debate. I believe this would not only have been the most watched debate, but also the most substantive and interesting debate!" he said.