Q&A With George Stephanopoulos on Foley Fallout

Oct. 4, 2006 — -- ABCNEWS.com: The Foley story is putting enormous pressure on House Speaker Dennis Hastert. Do you think he will ultimately resign?

STEPHANOPOULOS: Not before the election. He is really circling the wagons right now. He has firmed up his support across the caucus. There were dangerous signs over the last 48 hours, but he really reached out to his members and most of them now think: One, it would be unfair to make the speaker resign knowing what they know now and, two, that it wouldn't help. They think it would actually hurt their prospects for the November elections. So they won't force him out right now.

One big caveat: That is all based on what we know now. If other members seem to be involved, or if it turns out the speaker did know more, or it's blindingly obvious he should have known more, then all bets off.

I would also add that from what I'm hearing, I think the chances Speaker Hastert will be speaker come January are almost zero. Even if Republicans survive this and hold on to the majority, enough members are disgruntled enough that I believe they will not return him as speaker. And remember there are still other investigations out there, the Ethics, the FBI, that could cause more trouble.

ABCNEWS.com: What about other Republicans? Who is being hurt by the Foley story?

STEPHANOPOULOS: All Republicans are on the defensive now. This has become the No. 1 issue in every race in the country. It hits those in most vulnerable races especially hard.

ABCNEWS.com: How do you expect the Foley story to play out in the election overall? Do you think in the end it will be a decisive issue in the election?

STEPHANOPOULOS: Right now it's huge. It has two big impacts. One, it threatens to drive down the approval rating of Congress, which is already very, very low around 30 percent.

Secondly, we've seen some indications that this could demoralize the conservative base, the social conservative base of the Republican Party, those values voters. If they sit on their hands, if they stay home on Election Day, that could be the difference in the midterms.

I've talked to some Republican and Democratic strategists who believe this has already cost the Republicans 10 or 12 of the closest seats, which gets very close to the 15 the Democrats need. But there are still five weeks to go.

Republicans are searching for ways at least to turn the corner on this story and contain the damage. Most of them believe the speaker still has to do more to show he gets it. To show that he takes responsibility for what happened and is fully investigating any wrongdoing and is taking steps to make sure it never happens again. They're hoping if he can do that, they can at least contain the damage. But they've taken a hit.

ABCNEWS.com: What about the Democrats? How are they playing this? Could they mishandle this and have this story work against them?

STEPHANOPOULOS: They have to be careful. No. 1: Some Republicans are saying they are behind this in the first place and if that turns out to be true, I don't think it will stop the story but would certainly shift some of the blame and give Republicans something to rally around.

They have to try not to overly politicize this. Most voters who hear about this are just disgusted and they will be more disgusted if it is being thrown around for purely political reasons.

But what Democrats are going to do is they're going to move on several fronts. They're going to try to pressure Republicans who took money from Foley to return it. I think, already, about 12 or 13 Republicans have returned those funds. They're going to pressure Republicans in close races to come out and take a stand on Speaker Hastert, either for, or against. They're also putting forward a very compelling spokesperson on this, Democratic congressional candidate Patty Wetterling up in Minnesota, who came to national attention because her son was abducted 16 years ago. She became a national advocate for children who are victims of sexual predators. She's already put an ad on this issue and she'll be giving the Democrats radio address on Saturday.

The Democrats are going to push this but they're going to try to do it in a sensitive way.