'This Week' Transcript: Donald Trump

ByABC News
October 4, 2015, 9:00 AM

— -- THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT

ANNOUNCER: Starting right now on ABC THIS WEEK, one-on-one with Donald Trump. Surprising new revelations from the Republican frontrunner. What would he do about guns in America? How does he respond to critics of his tax plan? And, what would make him quit the race. We're face-to-face with Donald Trump.

Hillary's bad week. Donors, defecting. Her poll numbers, dropping. Can she turn her campaign around?

And, gun debate firestorm. This morning, the clash over how to keep America safe heats up.

From ABC News, THIS WEEK with George Stephanopoulos begins now.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ANCHOR: Good morning. A lot to get to this week. Our roundtable is standing by to reflect on the latest mass shooting in America. In that tragedy, the first topic I address with Donald Trump. Brand new polls out this morning show him still leading the GOP field and we met in his offices high above Central Park Friday afternoon, just hours after a clearly angry President Obama promised to politicize the issue of gun violence.

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BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Somehow this has become routine. The reporting is routine. My response here at this podium ends up being routine. The conversation in the aftermath of it. We've become numb to this.

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DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, he's a great divider and, you know, you have a big issue between the Second Amendment folks and the non-Second Amendment folks. And he is a non-Second Amendment person.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You think he was being a divider?

TRUMP: I think he was. I think he was actually being a divider because, you know, George, no matter how you cut it, you have people that are mentally ill and they have problems and they're going to slip through the cracks. And no matter how you do it, no matter how you try, and if you go back 2,000 years and if you go forward 2 million years, you're going to have problems. And it may not even be politically correct to say -

STEPHANOPOULOS: Yeah, but every country has mentally ill people, not every country has mass shootings as frequently as we do.

TRUMP: But what's interesting is the places, you look at Chicago, it's got the toughest gun laws in the United States, you look at other places where they have gun laws that are very tough, they do generally speaking worse than anybody else. I mean if you look at some of these places, Chicago's a good example, but go to Baltimore, go to various cities where they have very, very tough gun laws, they do terribly.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So what would you do about it? You sound pretty passive.

TRUMP: No, I don't. I'm not passive at all. I can tell you that people say, oh, were going to stop it. It doesn't work that way. This has taken place whether it's this type of crime or other crimes, taken a place forever, from the beginning, and it's going - you go out a million years from now, you're going to have problems. And even if you have a very tough system, you're going to have people that slip through the cracks. And it's a very sad situation and you have to - great vigilance. I mean you have to show great vigilance and watch and be careful and security and everything else. But no matter what you do, you will have problems and that's the way the world goes. You can have -

STEPHANOPOULOS: That's your answer, were going to have problems -