‘This Week’ Transcript: Sen. Bernie Sanders
This is a rush transcript for "This Week" on May 22, 2016
— -- THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT FOR 'THIS WEEK' ON May 22, 2016 and it will be updated.
ABC THIS WEEK
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Starting right now on THIS WEEK with George Stephanopoulos,
Locked and loaded...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: "crooked Hillary Clinton" is the most anti-gun, anti-Second Amendment candidate.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's now an all-out battle, with both sides firing away.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Unlike Donald Trump, I will not pander to the gun lobby.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our brand new poll reveals Trump's surprising strength and Clinton's potential for a big boost ahead.
But is Bernie Sanders still standing in her way?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't want to see the American people voting for the lesser of two evils.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And fear factor -- after that mysterious plane crash overseas, the TSA's tough job just got even tougher.
Will fear of terror tangle U.S. airports?
Plus, Zika threat -- the sudden spike in cases here at home and why it may get much worse.
From ABC News, it's THIS WEEK.
Here now, chief anchor George Stephanopoulos.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC HOST: Good morning.
It seems like nothing in this year's race for the White House has been predictable and our brand new poll from ABC News and "The Washington Post" promises more surprises to come.
Out just this morning, it shows a tight battle between two of the most unlike candidates ever. The top line, Donald Trump has edged ahead of Hillary Clinton, drawing 46 percent of registered voters to her 44.
Now that lead is inside the margin of error, so technologically a dead heat. But take a look at these trend lines.
From September of last year, Clinton has always been out front by a margin 9 point lead. Now that's gone.
You might say the poll shows a race to the bottom. Take a look at this.
Sixty percent of Americans have an unfavorable opinion of Donald Trump, 53 percent for Hillary Clinton, the first time in the history of our polling that a majority of Americans hold a poor opinion of both candidates.
Trump has pulled ahead by bringing Republicans home. Eighty-five percent now support him. And almost half now say he holds the core values of the party.
Now, it's not great, but a big improvement from the primaries. He's also persuading Independents to come his way, turning a 9 point deficit in March to a 13 point lead now.
Meantime, Hillary Clinton is having a hard time sharing up the Democratic base. Fifteen percent of President Obama's voters last time now say they'll vote for Trump,
So will Clinton get a bounce when the primaries are over?
There are some clues in the poll that may happen, but she has to get by Bernie first.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SANDERS: Albuquerque is road for a political revolution.
STEPHANOPOULOS (voice-over): One irony of this campaign, the candidate with worst chance of making it to the White House is also the most popular right now.
(VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHANOPOULOS: Only Bernie Sanders cracks 50 percent.
But the primaries are not simply a popularity contest. It's all about the delegates now, and as "SNL" joked last night...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm not going anywhere.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Sanders all but done there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Senator Sanders, I'm sorry, before the night is over.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. No, it's not over. It's not over until I say it's over.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, hello Bernie. I didn't see you sitting behind me, so far behind me, you can never catch up.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Or, as Hillary Clinton put it...
CLINTON: I will be the nominee for my party, Chris. That is already done, in effect. There is no way that I won't be.
STEPHANOPOULOS: To Sanders' supporters like those of last weekend's Nevada party convention, fighting words.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This meeting is not over!
STEPHANOPOULOS: Their passion still strong. And that worries Democrats looking for a smooth ride to the convention in Philadelphia.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was a scary situation. I was there. I saw it. It was frightening.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Friday night, Sanders full of fight.
SANDERS: Over 400 of these super delegates indicated their support for Secretary Clinton before anyone else was in the race, before the first ballot was cast.
(BOOS)
SANDERS: That is what the anointment process is about and it is a bad idea.
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO TAPE)
STEPHANOPOULOS: And Senator Sanders joins us now.
Senator, thank you for joining us again today.
SANDERS: My pleasure.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Secretary Clinton sounded pretty definitive right now. She says I am going to be the Democratic nominee. There's no way I won't be.
Can you lay out a credible path to stopping her?
SANDERS: Well, I think we might want to talk to the people of Indiana, West Virginia and Oregon who voted very strongly for me in the last three contests, the people of Kentucky, who kind of split the delegates. And I think we're going to do very well in the nine remaining contests.
So I think Secretary Clinton is jumping the gun a little bit here.
Here is the scenario. We understand that we have about 46 percent of the pledged delegates. In order to get 50 percent, we're going to have to do very, very, very well in the remaining nine contests.
I think we have a shot. It's going to be an uphill climb, but I think we have a shot to do that. We're going to fight as hard as we can for every delegate and every vote.
The other point that I would make, George, is that if you look at virtually all of the polls done in the last six, seven weeks, in every one of them, nationally polls and statewide polls, we defeat Donald Trump by larger margins, in some cases, significantly larger margins, than does Secretary Clinton.
You've got a lot of super delegates out there -- 400 of them actually came on board Clinton's campaign before anybody else was in the race.
I ask those super delegates to take a look at which candidate is the stronger candidate to defeat Donald Trump, something that has got to happen, in my view.
I think the objective evidence is our campaign is the strongest candidate -- campaign to beat Trump,
STEPHANOPOULOS: But as you know, the Clinton campaign has pointed out that they've gotten about three million more votes than you have. And when you look at the delegate map, she only needs 90 more pledged delegates to -- to get ahead of you, to win.
She has twice -- her lead right now over you is twice as long as President Obama's in 2008. And to win, you do not only have to do very well, you have to get close to 70 percent of the vote in every remaining state.
SANDERS: Right.
STEPHANOPOULOS: That's really not possible.
SANDERS: Well, I wouldn't say it -- it's -- I would say it's a very steep uphill climb. But, you know, from day one, it has been an uphill climb for us. We started taking on the entire establishment. We've now won 20 states. And between you and me, George, I think we're going to win many of the remaining contests.
Now, one of the points that Clinton makes is that...
STEPHANOPOULOS: But many is not good enough...
SANDERS: (INAUDIBLE) she is now three -- she is not three million votes ahead of us. They have conveniently forgotten the states that have caucuses, where we won overwhelmingly.
But I think the reason that we are going to do well in the remaining states -- and the case we make to the super delegates is the Democratic Party has got to open up its doors in a way it hasn't to working people, to young people, to low income people who are sick and tired of establishment politics and establishment economics.
We need a campaign, an election coming up, which does not have two candidates who are really very, very strongly disliked. I don't want to see the American people voting for the lesser of two evils.
I want the American people to be voting for a vision of economic justice, of social justice, of environmental justice, of racial justice. That is the campaign we are running and that's why we are getting the support we are.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Is that how you would describe Hillary Clinton against Donald Trump, the lesser of two evils?
SANDERS: Well, if you look at -- no, I wouldn't describe it, but that's what the American people are saying. If you look at the favorability ratings of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, both of them have very, very high unfavorables. You're not going to disagree with me on that...
STEPHANOPOULOS: There's no question about that.
SANDERS: -- will you?
STEPHANOPOULOS: Absolutely.
Let me just go on, though, because that poll also does show -- it does show that, for sure, our brand new poll.
It also shows -- it has some evidence that your contest is creating some challenges that could hurt the Democrats in November. Secretary Clinton is only running even with Donald Trump among 18 to 29 year olds. That's a big drop for her.
And 20 percent of your supporters now say they'd vote for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton. That's a big jump since March.
If this nomination fight doesn’t turn out as you hope, are you confident you're going to be able to convince your supporters to choose Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump.
SANDERS: You know, well, two things.
Number one, it is the function of every candidate -- Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump -- to reach out to the American people and make the case why they should be supported. And I have every confidence that if Hillary Clinton is prepared to stand up to the greed of corporate America and Wall Street, is prepared to be really strong on the issue of climate change, support, as I do, attacks on carbon, is prepared to say that the United States of America should join the rest of the industrialized world and guarantee health care to all people, paid family and medical leave, is prepared to say that the grotesque level of income and wealth inequality today in America where almost all new income and wealth is going to the top 1 percent, if she is strong on those issues, yes. I think she will win and win by a large vote.
But if she is not, she's going to have her problems. I think the reason we are doing so well is that the American people know that if elected president, Bernie Sanders will stand up, fight for working people and take on the greed of Wall Street and --
STEPHANOPOULOS: Are you going to push for all those positions in the Democratic platform?
SANDERS: We are going to push for the most progressive agenda that we can with stands with the working people of this country.
George, I know the media doesn’t talk about it too much. But the middle class of this country has been in decline for 30-plus years and the gap between the very, very rich and everybody else is getting wider. We have a corrupt campaign finance system which allows billionaires to buy elections.
We are going to fight for an agenda in the Democratic platform that recognizes that reality, that makes the Democratic Party the party that stands for working families, not for Wall Street, not for corporate America.
STEPHANOPOULOS: A lot of Democrats saying it's just about those protests in Nevada State Convention last week and a number of your supporters are now filing permits to protest in Philadelphia as well.
Are you encouraging that?
And are you confident you can keep the situation in Philadelphia under control?
SANDERS: Well, one of the things that bothers me about media coverage of Nevada, I saw a story on "The New York Times," "Chairs being thrown."
Did you see any chairs being thrown?
There weren't any.
They had a bunch of police officers there; to the best of my knowledge, George, I wasn't there. Nobody was touched. What happened is there was no violence. What happened is people were rude. That's not good. They were booing. That's not good.
They behaved in some ways that were a little bit boorish; not good. But let's not talk about that as violence.
Do people in Philadelphia, going to Philadelphia or any place else in America have the right to demonstrate, have the right to express their concerns?
I thought that that was what the First Amendment of the Constitution was about, freedom of expression, freedom of speech.
So, no, we're not encouraging anybody -- in fact, I read about this in the newspaper the other day. But of course people have the right to peaceably assemble and make their views heard.
And let me just say this, essentially what's going on in the Democratic Party has got to recognize this, our supporters do not go to fancy high-priced fundraising dinners. That's not who they are. They're working two or three jobs; they're worried about the future of their children, whether their kids are going to get a college education. Those are the people who are coming in to our movement. And I hope the Democratic leadership is smart enough to say come on in. We want you in. Your views are the views of majority of the American people. Let's work together.
That's what I hope the convention is about and obviously I hope that I win the nomination.
STEPHANOPOULOS: If you don't, sir, and this is my final question.
Are you hoping to be considered if Secretary Clinton's running mate?
SANDERS: It's a little bit early to talk about that. Right now, our function is to do everything I can, George. And you're going to see me running all over California; we're in New Mexico now. We're going to do everything that we can to get every vote and every delegate that we can and go into that convention with as much momentum as is possible.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Didn't hear a no. Senator, we'll be talking to you soon. Take care.
SANDERS: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
STEPHANOPOULOS: Let's talk about this now on our roundtable. Joined by Matthew Dowd, Cokie Roberts, Bill Kristol, editor of "The Weekly Standard," just out with it's 1,000th issue.
Congratulations.
BILL KRISTOL, "THE WEEKLY STANDARD": Thank you, George.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And Democratic strategist Donna Brazile.
And let's begin with this poll, Matthew Dowd, shows basically a dead heat right now. NBC/"Wall Street Journal" have another poll out this morning, 46 Clinton, 43 Trump; also a dead heat. This is going to be a tight race.
MATTHEW DOWD, ABC NEWS SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: Oh, I think this race is going to be incredibly volatile through the course of this thing, through October, I think. I think primarily driven by the fact that we have two candidates, as you showed in the beginning of this thing, who are incredibly unpopular with the vast majority of the American public, Donald Trump slightly more unpopular than Hillary Clinton but both very unpopular and both distrusted.
It's almost as if to me it's like the 1927 Yankees playing the 1998 Yankees, two great teams but the rest of the country's left out of the conversation --
(CROSSTALK)
STEPHANOPOULOS: -- unfavorable. I want to get to some other things as well. But let me follow up with you here first, Matt.
This is all before the general election campaign begins --
(CROSSTALK)
STEPHANOPOULOS: -- it's actually hard to imagine that either one of those candidates is going to get above 50 percent favorability.
DOWD: I think this is their high point of favorability in the course of this. Unfortunately, because I think what you're going to see, it's going to be unpopularity contests over the next five months in this.
COKIE ROBERTS, ABC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: But some of that depends on the conventions.
DOWD: They'll get -- each get a bump out of the convention. But --
(CROSSTALK)
DOWD: -- you look at the polls, you look at one of the things in the poll, it's 50 percent of each of the candidates' voters aren't voting for the candidate. They're voting against the other person.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right. And look, Donald Trump has considered the Republican Party --
STEPHANOPOULOS: Pretty remarkably fast.
DONNA BRAZILE, VICE CHAIRWOMAN, DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE: You know what? Just as fast as another tweet that he'll probably send out within the hour.
He's considered. Democrats, we're still in a contentious primary. There's no question that Hillary Clinton has the lead in pledge delegates. That matters. Super delegates, that also matters. Where are votes, total votes. But we still have a candidate, Bernie Sanders -- and you just heard him -- say that he's going to continue to contest this campaign until June 14th, when the District of Columbia votes --
ROBERTS: And it's having a huge impact, if you look in this poll. Not only are young people off of Hillary Clinton completely, but people like Bill Kristol who said, you know, find somebody as an alternative to Trump, the voters aren't saying that. More Romney supporters are for Trump than Obama supporters are for --
STEPHANOPOULOS: Yes, and I want to bring that to Bill Kristol, because obviously you've been -- made no secret that you're against Donald Trump; you're part of the Never Trump movement, trying to get a third-party candidate into this race. But that whole movement seems to be dwindling right now.
KRISTOL: No, I don't think so. I think the Republican National Committee and the Trump and Clinton campaigns are trying to sort of strangle it in its infancy because they're scared of this. I mean, look at that poll. When you throw Mitt Romney and someone who hasn’t run in four years, probably isn't the ideal, in a way, third-party candidate that would impressive man and I think would be a good alternative to vote to Clinton and Trump, he right is a 20-20 --
(CROSSTALK)
KRISTOL: -- 37, 35, 22, he hasn't -- I mean, he hasn't done anything. In other polls, the independent generic independent candidates are around 20-21. And those other -- Cokie was saying it; Matthew, too -- I mean, half of the Clinton voters and half of the Trump voters don't want to be for Clinton or Trump. They're against the other person -- they have no third -- the way the country -- the way the country is really set up, a quarter of the country's for Trump; a quarter of the country's for Clinton. And half the country is open to an alternative. The ABC poll shows half -- basically half, 45 percent saying we'd like to have a third choice. So I think the --
(CROSSTALK)
KRISTOL: -- the ground is there for it --
(CROSSTALK)
BRAZILE: -- passengers and fuel. But there's no real apparatus --
(LAUGHTER)
DOWD: -- apparatus. There just needs to be a driver. And the problem is there's a missing driver in the -- in the car right now.
I think this is a perfect opportunity for the rise of some third party or fourth party in the...
(CROSSTALK)
STEPHANOPOULOS: -- you've got the Libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right.
(CROSSTALK)
DOWD: Which we...
(CROSSTALK)
DOWD: -- ABC -- which we didn't -- which we didn't poll and -- put in this poll. I think he's probably at 8 or 10 percent in the course of this. It doesn't -- to me, it's not about winning the election and winning the Electoral College. It's representing a much -- a vast part of the country, as Bill says, a vast part of the country in this electorate does not feel represented by either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton as reflected in the fact they don't trust them and they don't like them.
And so I think even if somebody was to run, I actually think then you should run to represent a voice in the country that feels totally unrepresented by these two major party candidates.
ROBERTS: Well, it clearly looks like, in this poll, that white men feel very much represented by Donald Trump. One of the things that's striking is how much they're for him. I mean by huge margins.
But also, that the Republican registration is up. And that really tells you something.
So that's not just anti...
(CROSSTALK)
ROBERTS: -- that's people getting in because they want to...
STEPHANOPOULOS: (INAUDIBLE).
ROBERTS: -- vote for him.
STEPHANOPOULOS: He also has some room to grow if he can bring down those big personal negatives on the people who have questions about what he has the temperament...
ROBERTS: Right.
STEPHANOPOULOS: -- to be president, whether he's qualified to be president.
DOWD: Well, he -- he loses to...
(CROSSTALK)
DOWD: He loses almost every...
(CROSSTALK)
DOWD: -- and is ahead in the polls.
ROBERTS: Right.
DOWD: Which basically means the greatest vulnerability I think Hillary Clinton has is the fact that she is an establishment insider candidate...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right.
DOWD: -- and he is an outsider candidate.
(CROSSTALK)
ROBERTS: -- interviews what I've heard is that when people say I don't like him, I don't like his -- his statements on Muslims and -- and Mexicans, all that, but I'm voting for him.
Why?
Because voting for her is more of the same. And that's exactly what they don't want.
KRISTOL: Which means that if an Independent candidate could run as a genuine outsider, a fresh face, a new voice with the message of (INAUDIBLE)...
ROBERTS: Well, that's not Mitt Romney...
KRISTOL: -- he -- no, it isn't Mitt Romney, but it is Ben Sasse or someone like that. And that person, I think, could take a lot of -- some of the -- some chunk of the Trump -- Trump vote. He'll have a quarter of the electorate no matter what. But there is a chunk there that wants anti-Washington and doesn't want Hillary Clinton, but is not committed to Donald Trump.
BRAZILE: Well, here's the thing, George. I mean she is still fighting a two-front battle. She's fighting...
ROBERTS: Right.
BRAZILE: -- a consolidated Republican Party...
ROBERTS: Right.
BRAZILE: -- that has vilified Hillary Clinton from the -- the time she got out of college. And -- and she's also dealing with a Democratic Party that is still, in my judgment, coming to grips with the fact that we have a very liberal, loud, progressive base.
We have to say this about Bernie Sanders. A year ago, he was a -- an error in the polls. I mean he was just an asterisk.
And over the last year, he has built a tremendous movement of -- of supporters across the board -- Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street, fight for 15.
Here's a guy who has branded himself as a populist, as a force for change. He's a cult hero. And I think the Democratic Party will have to come to grips with...
(CROSSTALK)
STEPHANOPOULOS: -- can and will he bring all of his supporters under the tent?
I know that phrase, lesser of two evils...
(CROSSTALK)
STEPHANOPOULOS: -- caught your eye.
BRAZILE: Oh, my God. I said it's a contentious primary. But we Democrats don't call each other evil.
Look, Bernie and Hillary, if you look at their vote...
KRISTOL: If the shoe fits, Donna.
BRAZILE: Well, you know what, Bill?
I'm not...
KRISTOL: (CROSSTALK) How could I resist that?
BRAZILE: Yes, well, the shoe fits on Donald Trump because if Donald Trump wasn't...
(CROSSTALK)
BRAZILE: -- Donald Trump represents change...
(CROSSTALK)
BRAZILE: -- misogyny and bigotry that he has spewed out, then I...
ROBERTS: Right.
(CROSSTALK)
ROBERTS: -- Bernie Sanders is saying that...
(CROSSTALK)
ROBERTS: -- you know, that he would win...
STEPHANOPOULOS: Yes.
ROBERTS: -- is really ridiculous, because what has not happened is no one has said anything against him in this campaign. Hillary Clinton hasn't because she doesn't want to alienate his voters...
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But there is...
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- there is this thing...
ROBERTS: And the Republicans don't because they want him to stay in there and beat him up.
KRISTOL: I -- I think the Democrats -- the Democrats have consolidated, actually. If you look at this politically, they've consolidated as much as the Republicans...
ROBERTS: No, they haven't.
KRISTOL: -- in this poll.
DOWD: No. No, they haven't.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Eighty-five percent...
(CROSSTALK)
DOWD: -- 85 percent of them are for Hillary Clinton. The problem she has is Independent voters.
(CROSSTALK)
DOWD: (INAUDIBLE) she lost, she went from up 9 to down 13 among Independent voters in two months.
The problem she has is the enthusiasm gap. Donald Trump has enthusiastic supporters, a lot of them that you talked about. Bernie Sanders has enthusiastic supporters.
Hillary Clinton does not. And that's what's...
(CROSSTALK)
STEPHANOPOULOS: But let me...
(CROSSTALK)
STEPHANOPOULOS: -- but let me press that point, though.
How much of that change is, though -- you're right about the Democratic Party. But if Bernie Sanders is getting a lot of support from Independents, as well, how much of that changes and how much room to grow does Hillary Clinton have once this primary is over, once President Obama comes back...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
STEPHANOPOULOS: -- comes together...
(CROSSTALK)
DOWD: Well, I think Hillary Clinton...
(CROSSTALK)
DOWD: -- is favored in this election. I think if you've...
(CROSSTALK)
DOWD: -- if you project forward, you take a look at the states, take a look at the demographics, take a look at the country (INAUDIBLE), as you say, Barack Obama hasn't even entered this election, right, and he's at 50 or 51, 52 percent popularity (INAUDIBLE).
I think Donald Trump is still the underdog in the course of this.
But this poll does show, which people underestimated Donald Trump in the GOP primary all along, that he could be elected president...
ROBERTS: Absolutely...
(CROSSTALK)
STEPHANOPOULOS: That's not out of the question.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And a third...
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- and a third of the country...
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- and a third of the country is Independent.
(CROSSTALK)
ROBERTS: Yes, I'd put my money on it. KRISTOL: You can consolidate the Republicans and the Democrats, but if a third of the country is Independents and they each have -- what are their negatives among Independents?
STEPHANOPOULOS: Sixty-five percent.
KRISTOL: Sixty-five, 70 percent, that does provide the...
(CROSSTALK)
STEPHANOPOULOS: But on this point of President Obama...
(CROSSTALK)
STEPHANOPOULOS: -- you know, he gave that commencement. He hasn't entered the race fully yet, but he gave that commencement speech at Rutgers last week. It seems like he's almost itching to be Hillary Clinton's communications director.
(LAUGHTER)
ROBERTS: He's going to get Bernie Sanders out of the way. That's the problem.
BRAZILE: Well, not only -- not only President Obama, but the vice president, Elizabeth Warren, there are so many quote, unquote, undeclared Democrats who are ready to get out here and litigate this conversation with Donald Trump.
What -- I looked at this poll -- and George, I don't like to read polls in the morning without wine...
(CROSSTALK)
BRAZILE: But...
ROBERTS: Even in the morning?
BRAZILE: I'm from Louisiana.
(CROSSTALK)
BRAZILE: I go to church, OK?
(CROSSTALK)
DOWD: No, but you can take a little sip. I take a little sip.
BRAZILE: Well, all right. But look -- look at the attributes. Look at the issues.
She has room to grow. She can...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She does.
BRAZILE: -- she has to continue to consolidate Democrats. She has to really focus like a laser beam on these millennials. She has to work on Independents. She has to work on white males.
At the end of the day...
ROBERTS: It's white women.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But the problem is...
ROBERTS: White women...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- they -- they...
ROBERTS: White women will determine this election.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They were rubbing their hands together...
(CROSSTALK)
DOWD: -- saying give us Donald Trump, give us Donald Trump, give us Donald Trump...
BRAZILE: No, we never said that, Matt.
DOWD: -- but most Democrats were...
BRAZILE: No. No.
DOWD: -- (INAUDIBLE) begging to have Donald Trump.
BRAZILE: No, that's not true.
DOWD: They get into it with Donald Trump and (INAUDIBLE) a slight lead. Again, I think Hillary Clinton...
BRAZILE: No.
ROBERTS: No.
DOWD: I think Hillary Clinton has an advantage in the course of the less -- this election. But it does show how flawed she is as a candidate.
STEPHANOPOULOS: OK, we've got to take a quick break.
But I want to come back and take a look at how this Trump v. Clinton battle might play out.
There was an opening salvo this weekend on guns with Donald Trump at the NRA.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Hillary wants them to be defenseless, wants to take away any chance they have of survival. If you take that gun away from them, it's going to be a very unfair situation. And that's why we're going to call her "heartless Hillary."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHANOPOULOS: And Hillary hit back in Florida.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: We know the gun lobby is powerful. I believe it's the most powerful lobby in Washington. And we know that some candidates will say or do anything to keep them happy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHANOPOULOS: And later, the latest on the Egypt air mystery.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I know Russia well; I had a major event in Russia two or three years ago, Miss Universe contest.
CLINTON: I traveled the world capital by capital, leader by leader, twisting arms to help build the global coalition.
TRUMP: We're not going to be led down the tubes by an incompetent person like Hillary Clinton.
Boy, do I look awf -- do I look forward to debating Hillary. Won't that be fun?
(CHEERING)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHANOPOULOS: What should we expect from a Clinton-Trump debate? We're going to take that on with the roundtable.
(COMMRECIAL BREAK)
STEPHANOPOULOS: We are back now with the roundtable and the first big policy battle between Trump and Clinton, guns the subject. Kicked off by Donald Trump on Friday when he got the endorsement of the NRA.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: In trying to overturn the Second Amendment, Hillary Clinton is telling everyone and every women, living in a dangerous community that she doesn’t have the right to defend herself. So you have a woman living in a community, a rough community, a bad community, sorry; you can't defend yourself.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHANOPOULOS: Last night saying that while Trump bans guns in some of his hotels, he wants to put them back in schools.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: Every school, he says. That idea isn't just way out there; it's dangerous. You want to imagine what Trump's America will look like, picture more kids at risk of violence and bigotry. Picture more anger and fear. Ask any of the mothers here tonight if they want to live in that kind of America. Enough is enough.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHANOPOULOS: And we're back now with the roundtable.
And Donna Brazile, I want to begin with you. And actually Trump has tweeted about this overnight as well, since that speech from Hillary Clinton.
He said, "Crooked Hillary said that I want guns brought into the school classroom. Wrong."
She was referring to a speech he gave where he said he wanted to do away with the gun-free zones in schools.
But I want to talk about here is it does seem like Hillary Clinton is not going to shy away from the gun issue. That is something new for Democrats, ever since Al Gore did not become president back in 2000.
BRAZILE: I got to -- I always tell the story when I was managing Al Gore's campaign, my father heard all of these ads, he listened to conservative radio, and he called me and he said, "I hear Al Gore is going to take away guns and I'll shoot you first."
(LAUGHTER)
BRAZILE: And I said, "No, that's a lie."
And the problem is that there's -- the lie's out there. It's always out there, that Hillary is somehow or another is going to take away the guns; Democrats are going to destroy the Second Amendment.
That's not the truth. Donald Trump was, as you well know, for the Clinton assault rifle ban back in the 1990s. He supported the president on Newtown. The problem with Donald Trump is that he's flexible. He'll (INAUDIBLE). He'll continue to --
(CROSSTALK)
BRAZILE: -- but Hillary's not going to change on this issue. And I think the American people are going to be with her on background checks, on making sure that we protect our children. And she has to articulate this.
ROBERTS: This gets right back to white women. That's exactly what this is aimed at. People who are pro-gun are not going to vote for Hillary Clinton. People who are on the fence, particularly white women, are going to maybe look at this and say, you know, she's really right about this.
And here's what her issue is in going up against him. She needs to put back together the Obama coalition. Look, Romney won whites and he won independents. So give them to Trump. But she's got to get young people. And that's what a lot of all this LGBT stuff is about, it sending young people into the Democratic ranks.
And she's got to get more white women than Barack Obama did to make up for the deficits that she'll have from his coalition. And that's what the gun --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To me, this NRA gun discussion represents what we're going to see over the next five months. It's going to be an immense culture war, that on both sides of this, there's a said -- there's one side that says we don't want to change our culture. And I -- listen, I live in Texas. I don't (INAUDIBLE) rifles, right?
I think, like many people, that we should have some common-sense gun regulation and all that. The problem in the course of this gun debate and many of the culture debates is both sides talk about facts that are both myths. One side says if we take away the guns, people will be safer.
The other side says if we give people more guns, people will be safer.
Both are wrong. Both -- there's no facts that support either one of those in the course of this. I think that what's unfortunately going to happen in this course is we're going to fight this culture war over gun. We're going to fight it over marriage. We're going to fight it over a number of things --
STEPHANOPOULOS: -- and I wonder if Trump actually provides a trick you target, Bill Kristol, for Hillary Clinton on the other culture war issues like gay rights, like abortion, where he's been kind of all over the map.
KRISTOL: Right. And even on gun, I think it's unclear what Trump's position is. But if he's saying someone in a school that's presumably appropriately trained and qualified might not be bad to have a gun, a guard or a teacher who's -- that's not a crazy position. There are schools in the United States of America that have guards in front. And some of them probably are armed in dangerous neighborhoods.
So what strikes me about (INAUDIBLE) exchange, she's just brought it to him.
And I don't think particularly effectively. And I say this as someone who is not for either of them. So I think I have some analytical distance on this. And I just think if you want that exchange, you think, I don't know, who knows --
STEPHANOPOULOS: -- this is an issue. He drives the news cycle all the time whether it's with tweets, interviews, call-ins, one of the other things we saw at the end of last week was him bringing up the issue of Bill Clinton, his women issues. He even used the word "rape" when he talked about it.
The Clinton camp is sort of saying she's not going to respond to those, the campaign is. It's not going to work.
BRAZILE: I think they have to do both. I mean, they have to, at some point, figure out how to catch up with somebody who's been able to generate almost $3 billion worth of free media. And at the same time, I mean what's driving the narrative every day is awful. It's a potty mouth. And you know, I find myself talking about things that I don’t even talk about ever.
But this is Donald Trump. And what you have with Donald Trump is somebody who's not going to tell the truth. Fact-checking him is like trying to find the (INAUDIBLE) content of an ocean. And he moves; he switches.
So look, she has to run a campaign for the presidency of the United States not run against Donald Trump because you can't win that campaign. But if she's able to talk about big issues in a way that animates the public and get people to start talking about the economy, I think she can get the --
DOWD: The problem is presidential elections are never fundamentally about issues, are never fundamentally about qualifications. They're fundamentally about values. They're fundamentally about values that people relate to, the American public. And I agree with Bill. Even though, as I said, I think Hillary Clinton is favored in the new coalescing. I think she is likely to win this election in the course of this.
I think right now Donald Trump represents to most people a value conversation that they don't trust Hillary Clinton --
ROBERTS: Which is why it was so important, what he said to you the other day, when he said it was none of your business because the truth is that everything is our business when somebody is running for president for exactly the reason that Matt just said because we don’t vote on issues. We vote on who do we trust more to handle whatever issue is going to come up in the next four years because we as voters know that we're not going to know that the Trump -- that the Twin Towers are going to come down or anything like that. So we need to trust someone to handle any issue. So we need to know --
(CROSSTALK)
KRISTOL: -- and the majority -- and the facts are clear in poll after poll. The majority of Americans don't trust -- I think that's the keyword -- they don't trust either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. And it's just such a --
(CROSSTALK)
KRISTOL: -- astounding fact, the two front-runners --
BRAZILE: -- get over the fact that we won't have a lot of love in this election. But we have to understand that we have to value somebody as a leader who is stable.
KRISTOL: -- honestly, if I were advising the Hillary Clinton campaign, don’t go negative on Trump. It's pointless. All the negatives are out there on Trump.
But does she actually have a vision for America?
Does she have any reason for people to think that she has any fresh ideas left (INAUDIBLE) economic problems or is it better foreign policy than President Obama? That's --
(CROSSTALK)
DOWD: I disaster with that. I mean, I disagree with that. I think she needs to have a vision for America and a platform that she runs on. I think the only way to beat Donald Trump in the course of this is every single day you have to poke. You have to poke him on things that he's vulnerable on.
I don’t understand that what day one, after this thing started when he clinched the nomination, they poked him on Trump University. They poke him on all his stuff, where he will react to it, as we saw in the primaries, he has poked on those things, he reacts to it. I think they need to undercut him. If I were Hillary Clinton's folks, at the business --
(CROSSTALK)
ROBERTS: -- as a business man, where do you put white people out of work.
STEPHANOPOULOS: I want to pick up on that (INAUDIBLE) -- as we go to the debates and we look forward to the debates, two questions I want each of you to answer.
Number one, do you believe we're going to have the traditional three debates between the candidates, more or less?
And, number two, what is the -- what are those debates going to look like?
ROBERTS: Well, I think it'll be likely to have the traditional three debates. But I think that it's going to be very nerve-wracking for the Clinton campaign to go in there and try to figure out what she says if he starts going after Bill Clinton, if he starts going after her, how does she handle that?
DOWD: I think we're going to have the three debates. Under what format I think there's going to be a lot of debate --
ROBERTS: Oh god, right.
DOWD: -- over the debates, especially from Donald Trump. I think they won't be the only ones in the debate either. I think there's likely to be somebody else standing the base and that changes the dynamics. I think it's going to be a fascinating -- how she handles the things he says that the Republicans were unable to handle. His insults. How she handles those --
(CROSSTALK)
ROBERTS: And how viewers react to them.
BRAZILE: But the one thing we know for sure is that she's well prepared and that she knows how to handle herself. What we don't know is the character that is going to be playing the part of a Republican candidate who is somehow or other become a conservative and a champion for values that conservatives have believed in for the last 40, 50 years.
The problem for Democrats is that we're accustomed to running against a conservative.
DOWD: But somebody that represents millions of people.
BRAZILE: Well, of course -- and we're not -- I don't deny that.
KRISTOL: The theory of the independent candidacy is someone has to get 15 percent, which looks doable now in the polls, and that gets you in the debates. And if you have a debate with Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, and let's just say some senator, articulate senator like Ben Sasse, I think all bets are off.
DOWD: Well, you can go into that debate at 20 percent and come out at 35 percent.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Go back to 1992, Ross Perot went two out of three debates.
BRAZILE: That's right.
STEPHANOPOULOS: -- between Bill Clinton and Bush.
BRAZILE: Absolutely.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Thank you all very much.
When we come back, the mystery of EgyptAir 804. Was it brought down by a terrorist or mechanical failure? The latest from two congressman close to the investigation next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: What just happened about 12 hours ago? A plane got blown out of the sky. And if anything, if anybody thinks it wasn't blown out of the sky, you're 100 percent wrong, folks. OK?
You're 100 percent wrong.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
STEPHANOPOULOS: When we come back, the latest on that EgyptAir mystery. At first so many thought it had to be a bomb.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: What just happened about 12 hours ago? A plane got blown out of the sky. And if anything, if anybody thinks it wasn't blown out of the sky, you're 100 percent wrong, folks. OK?
You're 100 percent wrong.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHANOPOULOS: Three days later, no one knows for sure. We're going to get the latest from our reporter on the scene and members of Congress on top of the investigation.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
STEPHANOPOULOS: And let's get the latest now on that mystery over EgyptAir 804. An all-out search now for debris and those all important black boxes that could help answer the question rattling nerves all over the world -- was it terror or some kind of catastrophic error?
ABC's Matt Gutman is on the scene in Cairo -- good morning, Matt.
MATT GUTMAN, ABC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, George, from Cairo Airport.
Behind me is the EgyptAir headquarters. It is the nerve center for this now international search for that plane. And this is unfolding very quickly here, because there is a ticking clock. And that is the life span on those batteries on those black boxes.
Now, they've been submerged for four days now. There is a ship moving into place, into that search area, with sophisticated sonar that is able to scan the seabed to search for that wreckage.
It also has equipment that will be able to pick up the signal, those pings from those black boxes.
Now, early Thursday morning, that plane lurching to the left 90 degrees then spinning around 360 degrees. And the evidence of the violence of what happened aboard that plane, we saw in those debris that the Egyptian Navy has scooped up from the sea. The airline seats that seem to be absolutely mangled, that twisted metal, also the cushions that seem to be tattered, a woman's purse perforated, that shoe right there.
Now, all of this seems to confirm those ACARS messages beamed back to Earth that seem to indicate that there was a fire on board and that it essentially disintegrated that plane at altitude within three minutes.
That's why it's so important to get those black boxes.
Another clue overnight, ISIS issuing a 30 minute anti-Western diatribe vowing attacks during Ramadan, but not mentioning Flight 804 -- George.
STEPHANOPOULOS: OK, Matt.
Thanks very much.
And here at home, these new security concerns adding to already brutal lines at our nation's airports. Look at Atlanta's Hartsfield Airport this week, where security lines hit two hours, at times. The TSA ran out of barriers and had to improvise.
And ABC's Mary Bruce has more on that from Reagan National Airport in Washington -- good morning, Mary.
MARY BRUCE, ABC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, George.
Well, until Congress acts, the TSA says these long lines are likely here to stay.
The TSA is dealing with more travelers as we head into those busy summer months, but with fewer agents, leading to massive lines, marathon delays and some seriously frustrated fliers.
Now some airlines are taking matters into their own hands.
American Airlines is using $4 million of its own money to tackle this problem. And fliers are flocking to pre-check. Enrollment in that program is skyrocketing as passengers look for some edge here.
Now Congress has approved $34 million to hire hundreds of new agents, but the TSA says that's a drop in the bucket.
In order to fix this problem for good, they say they need more resources.
But many lawmakers are reluctant. Some Republican leaders in Congress say this isn't about money, but management -- all questions that are likely to come up later this week when the TSA administrator testifies before Congress on Wednesday.
But until then, George, if you're headed to the airport, the best thing you can do for now is simply give yourself some more time and brace yourself for a wait -- George.
STEPHANOPOULOS: A whole lot of time.
OK, Mary Bruce, thanks very much.
Let's talk about this now with the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Ed Royce, and the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff. Congressmen, thank you both for joining us this morning.
Let's begin with the EgyptAir mystery. And Mr. Chairman, you know, there's so much conflicting evidence out there. No heat signal of a big explosion. You have those other signals of some kind of smoke in the cockpit, perhaps a fire on board. And a good two minutes of the plane going down. So it's hard to know if this takes you in the direction of terror or some kind of catastrophic failure.
REP. ED ROYCE (R-CA), CHAIR, HOUSE FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE: But here's what we do know about ISIS's operations in the past against airliners in Egypt. We know that they successfully took down an airline flying from Egypt to Russia. We know that they're working on a bomb that's undetectable. We know from the sensors that, yes, there was smoke in the avionics bay and in the laboratory. We know that a rapidly compounding problem in the computers and windows opening to the sky. Those kinds of circumstances could be explained by a terrorist attack.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So in your view is terrorists still the leading theory?
ROYCE: In my view, it's highly likely because of the amount of effort that ISIS and al Qaeda have put, over the last few years, into trying to develop an undetectable bomb. And this is one of the concerns we've had about allowing ISSI to operate in Raqqa with their facilities to try to develop those -- that type of bomb technology. The same is happening with al Qaeda in the Middle East.
The same is also now happening in North Africa, in Libya, where ISIS is training 6,500 fighters. And ISIS is in Egypt right now fighting inside there.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So we know that ISIS is active and wants to commit acts of terror. Are you convinced that this is the leading theory now?
REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D), CALIFORNIA: I'm not convinced and I think it started out certainly as our main suspicion, particularly in light of that Sharm el-Sheikh attack on the Russian airliner. But here we are, we've examined the overhead images, we've looked at the signals intelligence, we've looked at the manifests. We have not come up with any hard evidence of terrorism as of yet. And it seems very suspicious to me, George, that here we are four days later, no claim of responsibility. ISIS releases a video or audiotape, doesn't claim responsibility.
If it was ISIS -- and it's still very possible -- I think it's more likely to have been a lone actor that wasn't operating with the command and control of Raqqa taking matters into their own hands.
But at this point we really can't confirm either theory. And I think either is now equally plausible.
ROYCE: Now, I think the other odd thing to me is the fact that we did not hear from the pilots. Even though you did have three minutes there, we've got nothing to indicate any communication there as well.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And the idea of the plane moving around could be consistent with some sort of struggle going on.
SCHIFF: It could be a struggle, it could be a colossal failure of the technology on the plane as a result of fire from two wires connecting with each other. We've seen that in the past. So the reality is the evidence can point in either direction, but in all of our intelligence holdings at this point, no clear corroboration of terrorism as of yet.
STEPHANOPOULOS: In the meantime, we do have these security concerns here at home, Congressmen, and we've got the -- you've got these long, long lines at the TSA. The TSA saying they could use more screeners and more money; at the same time, they're not going to sacrifice security to get people through more quickly.
ROYCE: So what we have done is move through legislation that would allow for the hiring of more of these screeners, but also for the payment of overtime. One of the difficulties we've had is with a great deal of turnover over at TSA, and there's certainly management problems at TSA. So with this legislation -- it's also important the administration move in with an overhaul of management at the TSA to make them more effective.
And let me add one --
STEPHANOPOULOS: Replace the administrator?
ROYCE: Well, I think we have to have better results at TSA and I think most of the audits show that there are management problems there.
The other problem I think that we should be focusing on, on this wider picture of this challenge, is that to the extent that we don't have an overarching strategy to take out, now, ISIS with its training camps and its bomb-making equipment -- I'm just back from North Africa. And in Libya right now they're working on the capability to develop bigger explosives, new ways to attack to Egypt, new ways to attack in Tunisia and across North Africa, just as they're doing this in the Middle East. This is going to come into Europe and ultimately it will come here unless we are effective in deploying a strategy to take ISIS out now.
STEPHANOPOULOS: A two-pronged strategy, one overseas but also, Congressman, here at home. And you've -- you've talked about the repeated TSA failures to actually capture fake weapons during tests.
SCHIFF: Yes, and the good news on that front, George, is that TSA has been improving. TSA has been doing their own internal checks, testing their own employees, and those results are improving. Still I think there's some distance to go and I won't truly believe those results until the independent inspector general does their own test and confirms the improvement.
But I -- I think these long lines at TSA are not necessary to security. And I think there do have to be management changes. It's not just management though; there have to be more resources, there have to be more TSA screeners, if we ant to do away with these long lines.
And as the Chairman pointed out, we're going to have to -- that's not a complete a defense. We're going to have to maintain the offense, and that is going after ISIS, going after this caliphate, shrinking its size. We have seen improvements there as the territory controlled by ISIS in Iraq and Syria diminishes, but nonetheless we see they're continually (INAUDIBLE) not only with attempted attacks on aircraft, but also with these numerous bombings in Baghdad. They are clearly going to move to a more guerrilla insurgency kind of a campaign as their space shrinks in Syria and Iraq.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Congressmen, thank you both very much.
ROYCE: Thank you, George.
SCHIFF: Thanks, George.
STEPHANOPOULOS: When we return, Zika in the U.S. There you see President Obama, he's pushing congress to deal with the emergency and we're going to talk to the top U.S. official dealing with the crisis and our own Dr. Richard Besser. That's next.
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BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This is something that is solvable. It is not something that we have to panic about. But it is something that we have to take seriously. This is not something where we can build a wall to prevent. Mosquitoes don't go through Customs.
To the extent that we're not handling this thing on the front end, we're going to have bigger problems on the back end.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHANOPOULOS: President Obama on Friday, making his case for Congress to pass $1.9 billion in emergency funding to tackle Zika as we head into the summer mosquito season.
The CDC announced this week that there are now 157 pregnant women in the U.S. with signs of Zika infection and they're all related to travel outside the U.S. For more on that now, we're joined by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, and our own chief health expert, Dr. Richard Besser.
Thank you both for joining us.
And, Dr. Fauci, let me begin with you.
Where do things stand with the virus right now?
And what kind of spread are you expecting this summer?
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASE: Well, we certainly have a significant number of travel related cases right now in the continental United States, well over 500. And we have several hundred what we call locally transmitted cases in the Caribbean, in the sense of American territories, particularly Puerto Rico.
So we already have Zika in the United States. But it is travel related. The concern is that we will have local transmission; in other words, people who get infected in the United States, get bitten by a mosquito, but who have never left the continental United States. We fully expect that that will happen as we get to the more robust mosquito season in the next month or so.
The question is we need to be prepared for that and make sure that those local outbreaks don’t become sustained and don’t become disseminated. That's the reason why we need to have a very, very forceful preparation right now before that happens.
STEPHANOPOULOS: I want to get to that and that is the real threat; it starts to spread locally here at home.
So who as we know that pregnant women are at risk.
But what about women who want to become pregnant?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, you know, that's an unanswered question. And it's one of the reasons that they have to do studies so to monitor women. We know with similar viruses, once you're over the infection, it's out of your body. But they've already seen with this virus that in men who've been infected in some of these countries, they've been able to isolate the virus for at least 60 days. And they don't know how long that could be and whether women will have a similar situation.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And, Dr. Fauci, we talk about this bill; we just saw the president arguing for the $1.9 billion in funding he would be willing to accept a little over $1 billion. But the House Republicans are arguing back that there's plenty of money left over from the battle against the Ebola virus.
What is wrong with that argument?
FAUCI: Well, that is a spurious argument because we are not finished with Ebola. I mean, we may not see in the front pages of the newspapers and the major outbreak has certainly not there anymore. But we have the danger of cropping up of Ebola and we've just seen recently over the last several weeks cases that far down the pike from the original infection are transmitted, including by sexual transmission.
We can't take our eye off the ball with Ebola. And that would really be robbing Peter to pay Paul and I think very foolhardy to do that.
STEPHANOPOULOS: I think you're seeing some concern, Dr. Besser, that this threat may be overhyped; people looked at the warnings about Ebola, thought there would be millions of cases. Turned out to be about 25,000 here in the U.S.
What do you say to those who are saying that this Zika threat may also be overhyped?
DR. RICHARD BESSER, ABC NEWS CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, when there's a new outbreak, a new infectious disease, you have to go all in because you don't know in the long run what it's going to look like. It's very easy to get money and resources when you're in the midst of something like Ebola, when it's panicking the entire world.
But preparing for something so that you can try and cut back on that, if you're successful, people say you overhyped the situation. And if you're not, they say, why weren't you predecessor?
STEPHANOPOULOS: And, Dr. Fauci, the long-term solution here on Zika, a vaccine, where are we?
FAUCI: Yes, well, a vaccine certainly is the long-term solution. We're right now very aggressively developing the vaccine. We're going to be scheduled to go into what I call phase I trials to determine the safety of the candidates that ultimately will be tested for efficacy. And we're going to start that by September of 2016, hopefully we'll get enough information to then start a large trial in the beginning of 2017.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And finally, Dr. Besser, you know, we know that there's so much Zika in Brazil. Olympics coming to Rio this summer.
What do you make of those calls to cancel?
BESSER: Well, I don’t think it's going to happen. I don't think they're going to be canceled. So I think it's very important that pregnant women don't go. And if anyone who goes does what they can to prevent their own mosquito bites so that they're not the ones who bring it back here and cause some of those little outbreaks that Dr. Fauci's talking about.
STEPHANOPOULOS: OK, Rich Besser, Dr. Anthony Fauci, thank you both very much.
And we're going to be right back after this from our ABC stations.
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STEPHANOPOULOS: And that is all for us today. Thanks for sharing part of your Sunday with us. Check out "WORLD NEWS TONIGHT" and I'll see you tomorrow on "GMA."