Roberts to Trump: ‘Are You Proud’ White Kids Use Your Name to Taunt Minorities?

SCARBOROUGH: “Here’s Cokie Roberts, she has a question. Cokie.”
ROBERTS: “Mr. Trump, there’ve been incidents —“
TRUMP: “Hi Cokie.”
ROBERTS: “Hi Mr. Trump. There’ve been incidents of children, of white children, pointing to their darker-skinned classmates and saying ‘You’ll be deported when Donald Trump is president.’ There have been incidents of white kids at basketball games holding up signs to teams which have Hispanic kids on them saying ‘We’re going to build a wall to keep you out.’ Are you proud of that? Is that something you’ve done in American political and social discourse that you’re proud of?” 
TRUMP: “Well, I think your question is a very nasty question. And I’m not proud of it because I didn’t even hear of it, OK? And I certainly do not like it at all when I hear about it. You’re the first one that’s told me about that.” [crosstalk]
ROBERTS: “It’s been reported in many newspapers.” 
TRUMP: “But I would not be proud of that at all, and that’s what not the purpose of it is. We want to make America great again. We want to bring back our industry, we want to bring back our jobs from China and Japan and by the way Mexico —“ [crosstalk]
ROBERTS: “But, but, but, but isn’t it, but when you talk about —“
TRUMP: “— which have taken so many of our jobs, and that’s what it’s about. I have not heard about these instances.”
ROBERTS: “When you talk about deporting people and you talk about building a wall and you talk about banning Muslims.” [crosstalk]
TRUMP: “I talk about deporting people that are here illegally, OK? And I also talk about people coming in, Cokie.” 
ROBERTS: “Doesn’t that have an effect on children, doesn’t that have an effect on their whole discourse?” 
TRUMP: “I talk about deporting people that are here illegally. They’re here illegally.” 
ROBERTS: “Yeah.”
TRUMP: “We either have a country, or we don’t. I talk about deporting people that are here illegally.”
ROBERTS: “But what about the effect on children?” 
TRUMP: “I also talk — Cokie, I also talk about building a wall and oftentimes I’ll say ‘And there’s going to be a big beautiful door in that wall and people are going to come into our country because we want people to come in.’ We want — “ [crosstalk]
ROBERTS: “But what about the children, Mr. Trump?”  
TRUMP: “— people to come into our country, but we want them to come in legally.”
ROBERTS: “What about what the children are hearing from you and how they are responding to it?” 
TRUMP: “Well I think people are responding very positively.”
ROBERTS: “Children, I asked!”
TRUMP: “I think the messages are very positive. You know, ‘Make America great again’ is a very positive message. It’s not a negative message. And that’s why —“
ROBERTS: “Unless you don’t — unless you think America’s great already. And a lot of people think that America —“
TRUMP: “No, I think America is — right now — very, very troubled. I think we’re being laughed at all over the world. I think that if you look at our military, we can’t beat ISIS, General George Patton, General Douglas MacArthur are spinning in their grave right now, Cokie. We can’t beat ISIS, OK? I think that our veterans are not taken care of, they’re treated worse than illegal immigrants, by the way, you want to talk about a problem.”
ROBERTS: “You’ve had a good many veterans against you.” [crosstalk]
TRUMP: “Our educational system is at the bottom of the heap worldwide. We’re doing horribly with education and yet, we’re number one in cost per pupil. I think we have a lot of problems. ObamCare is a disaster, it’s got to be repealed and replaced. It’s a disaster. People are — ObamaCare has not worked. It’s going to die of its own volition but it’s better if it gets terminated and if we come up with something. If you say America is great right now, America is a very troubled, a very, very troubled nation right now, Cokie —“ 
SCARBOROUGH: “All right”
TRUMP: “And we — on top of it all, we owe $19 trillion.”
SCARBOROUGH: “All right. We’re being told that you’ve got to go to a follow-up interview, Cokie Roberts may want to come to your office and interview you more.” [crosstalk]