Donald Trump: 'I don't throw babies out. Believe me. I love babies'

Donald Trump took several minutes at an Iowa rally on Friday to reaffirm his love for babies after ejecting one who was crying at a rally earlier this week.

"At one of the events, a beautiful baby was crying. And I mean crying like you wouldn't believe," Trump explained.

"This baby could have been Pavarotti. In fact, I'm going to find out who that baby is - I'm going to make a deal with the parents because we can take that baby to training school and it'll be the next great Pavarotti."

He continued: "This was a beautiful baby and a beautiful mother. And the baby was crying and I jokingly said 'You know what, that's OK, let the baby cry, we love babies.' You know, something to that effect. We love babies."

Trump explained to the Iowa crowd that he initially told the mother holding the child to stay at the event.

"Then after about two minutes, I said, 'You know what, I'm going to counteract my order. Beautiful baby, if you take her outside, that's not so bad.' That was it. The whole place laughed. We had a good time," Trump said. "The press came out with headlines: 'Trump throws baby out of arena.' So dishonest. I mean these are dishonest people."

He added: "I could give you 20 stories like that. But think of it. Everyone's having fun, we're smiling, I'm waving. Everyone's having fun, but they say Trump throws baby. You know how terrible that is? It's such a lie. And they know it's a lie."

Trump said that he had "heard so much about that beautiful baby."

"I don't throw babies out. Believe me. I love babies. I love my children, I love babies," he insisted. "I don't throw babies out, believe me."