Q&A With George Stephanopoulos on Foley Fallout

Oct. 6, 2006 — -- The following is a Q&A with ABC News' chief Washington correspondent George Stephanopoulos on the political fallout of the scandal over e-mails former Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., sent to congressional pages.

QUESTION: The media coverage on the Foley story is still high. Will it die down by election day?

STEPHANPOULOS: Boy, it sure has dominated the news here in Washington every single day. It has also dominated the news in every single close congressional race in the country. And there's no question the fall off from this is going to spill out straight through to the November elections. I do think that when Speaker [Dennis] Hastert finally came forward yesterday, did a press conference and announced that he was taking responsibility, that he bought himself some time and it's probably made it much more possible for him to survive until the November elections. But there's no question this story has been a huge hit on the Republicans, and they can't afford it.

QUESTION: Speaker Hastert seemed to be on the ropes until yesterday's news conference. Did he help himself? Did he hit all the right notes?

STEPHANOPOULOS: I think he definitely did, he hit all the right notes. He said he was sorry, he took responsibility, said the famous words, "The buck stops here." He announced an investigation was going to be done by the Ethics Committee, also made it pretty clear that if anyone on his staff was found to have been notified about this and didn't take the proper actions, that they would be dealt with, that they would probably lose their jobs. And I think the fact that he came out yesterday and hit all those notes allowed him to stem these calls from other Republicans for him to leave immediately. He's going to make it through to the election. That said, I think its almost impossible to imagine that Speaker Hastert will be Speaker Hastert next January.

QUESTION: There seems to be a bit of a conflict at the top ranks of the party?

STEPHANOPOULOS: We see [House Majority Leader John] Boehner trying to say that he told the speaker about these issues last spring, and Hastert completely denying it. These guys are of course the No. 1 and No. 2 leaders in the House. You also see similar disputes between the speaker and Tom Reynolds, who is the chairman of the Republican congressional campaign committee. Other Republicans are now supporting the speaker, and there isn't a movement any more, at least in this caucus, to get rid of him now.

QUESTION: So you don't expect Hastert to resign?

STEPHANOPOULOS: I think the judgment made by most Republicans here in Washington, including top Republicans at the White House and the Republican National Committee, is that if Speaker Hastert resigned, it would just open up the floodgates and guarantee that this issue dominates the headlines until the election, and sort of crystallizes in voters' minds that the Republicans mishandled this. That's why they want him to stay in and fight at least for now. And that's also why yesterday President Bush, after the speaker did his press conference, called him to express his support. It was a signal that he wants Republicans to close ranks