'This Week' Transcript: Ron Paul

NEW YORK, Feb. 05, 2012— -- (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS (voice-over): Good morning, and welcome to "This Week."

Romney rolls.

ROMNEY: Another great showing. Thank you, Nevada.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Fresh off another win, the frontrunner looks unbeatable, but this man vows to fight on. Our exclusive headliner, Ron Paul. Then...

OBAMA: Recovery is speeding up.

STEPHANOPOULOS: ... the best jobs report in three years. The highest stock market in four. Is the recovery finally taking off? Or will it stall again? What will that mean for the economy and the election? That debate with the architect of President Obama's plan, Larry Summers, chief economic adviser to Mitt Romney, Glenn Hubbard, and economist Diane Swonk. Plus...

BRINKER: The scurrilous accusations are profoundly hurtful.

STEPHANOPOULOS: ... how did mammograms become a political football? That and the rest of the week's politics and some Super Bowl predictions from our powerhouse roundtable, George Will, Arianna Huffington, Matthew Dowd, and Dana Loesch.

ANNOUNCER: From ABC News, "This Week" with George Stephanopoulos. It's your voice, your vote. Reporting from ABC Election Headquarters, George Stephanopoulos.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Good morning, everyone. This year's race for the White House came into clear focus this week, as President Obama got his best economic news in months and Mitt Romney secured his claim to the nomination with back-to-back landslides, that big win in Florida Tuesday and yesterday in Nevada. With about 70 percent of the caucus vote counted so far, Romney's at 48 percent, Newt Gingrich has 23 percent, and right on his heels, Texas Congressman Ron Paul, and he joins us now.

Congressman Paul, thanks for joining us this morning.

PAUL: Thank you. Good to be with you.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You know, you're in third place right now, fighting for second in Nevada, but you did come in second in 2008. It must be hard not to be disappointed by not having that secure yet.

PAUL: Well, you know, the votes aren't all counted yet, and there seems to be a bit of chaos out there, even though it was a small caucus vote. There was a lot of confusion. So, yes, if you go from second to third, there would be disappointment, but also on the positive side, we will get a bloc of votes. We will still get some delegates. And we still will pursue, you know, our plan to go into the caucus states. And we'll have to wait and see how things go.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But, Congressman, where do you get that first win?

PAUL: Well, you know, it's hard to say exactly when, but we have three or four caucus states that we believe our numbers are doing pretty good, so we have to just wait and see and continue to do exactly what we're doing.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Former Speaker Newt Gingrich is also vowing to stay in this race straight through to the convention. He continued his pretty much scorched-earth campaign against Mitt Romney last night. Take a listen.

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GINGRICH: The vast majority of Republicans across the country are going to want an alternative to a Massachusetts moderate who has in his career been pro-abortion, pro-gun control, pro-tax increase, and who ranked third from the bottom in creating jobs in the four years he was governor.

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