'This Week' Transcript: Ben Carson and Donald Trump

ByABC News
November 8, 2015, 9:00 AM
Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson speaks during a news conference before attending a Black Republican Caucus of South Florida event benefiting the group's scholarship fund om Nov. 6, 2015, in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.
Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson speaks during a news conference before attending a Black Republican Caucus of South Florida event benefiting the group's scholarship fund om Nov. 6, 2015, in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.
Alan Diaz/AP Photo

— -- THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT FOR 'THIS WEEK' ON NOVEMBER 8, 2015.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

ANNOUNCER (voice-over): Starting right now on ABC, THIS WEEK, live from New York with the GOP debate just days away, the Donald does "SNL."

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Why are you hosting "Saturday Night Live"?

Why?

And the answer is I have really nothing better to do.

ANNOUNCER (voice-over): But can he turn laughs into votes?

Donald Trump is here live.

Front-runner firestorm: Ben Carson now forced to explain himself.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don’t lie.

ANNOUNCER (voice-over): Amid accusations his famous life story just doesn't add up. Dr. Carson is here, answering the tough questions.

Plus stepped-up security: Brian Ross on the new measures to protect your next black (ph). And the first clues from that doomed flight's cockpit voice recorder.

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

(MUSIC PLAYING)

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC HOST: Good morning, one year away from Election Day, another big week on the campaign trail and both Republican front-runners, Donald Trump and Ben Carson, join us live this morning after this report from Jon Karl.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Ladies and gentlemen, Donald Trump.

JONATHAN KARL, ABC NEWS CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Live from New York, Donald Trump took center stage on Saturday night.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Donald!

TRUMP: Enrique!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I brought you the check for the wall.

TRUMP: God, that's so wonderful.

(LAUGHTER)

KARL (voice-over): But on Friday night, it was Trump's chief rival in the polls, Ben Carson, who put on a show.

DR. BEN CARSON (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: What a bunch of garbage.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Where is the exaggeration?

CARSON: That is the most lame investigation I have ever seen.

KARL (voice-over): The usually serene Carson is lashing out after accusations that parts of his life story don't add up.

CARSON: They have been talking to everybody I've ever known, everybody I've ever seen. There's got to be a scandal. There's got to be me some (INAUDIBLE). There's got to be something. They are getting desperate.

KARL (voice-over): The latest questions raised by "The Wall Street Journal" center on a story Carson tells in his 1990 autobiography, "Gifted Hands," that when he was a student at Yale, he was the only one out of 150 students who didn't fall for a professor's hoax in a class called Perceptions 301. He was then named the most honest student in class, his photo taken by the "Yale Daily News."

But Yale tells "The Wall Street Journal" there was no class by that name and no such photo in the Yale newspaper archives.

When asked about "The Wall Street Journal" report, Carson's campaign said there are no allegations and he probably doesn’t remember the name of the class.

Carson has also faced questions about his claim he was offered a scholarship to West Point, and about whether he was violent when he was young, a story he often tells on the campaign trail.

CARSON: At age 14, another teenager angered me and I had a large camping knife and I tried to stab him in the abdomen.

KARL (voice-over): Carson isn't naming that other teenager, now saying it was a relative. But he says that's when he rejected anger and gave his life to God.

Donald Trump isn't buying the transformation.

TRUMP: Do you think that's the right temperament to be president?

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: I don't think so.