A rush transcript of "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" airing on Sunday, May 8, 2022 on ABC News is below. This copy may not be in its final form, may be updated and may contain minor transcription errors. For previous show transcripts, visit the "This Week" transcript archive.
MARTHA RADDATZ, ABC HOST: And joining us now is Senator Amy Klobuchar, a member of the Judiciary Committee. Senator Klobuchar, great to see you this morning.
Let’s start right there. Do you believe --
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN): Thanks, Martha.
RADDATZ: Do you believe there should be a litmus test? The Democrats have several candidates who do not support abortion rights.
KLOBUCHAR: Well, first of all, you have people who are personally, personally pro-life, but yet believe that that decision should be a woman’s personal choice, even if they may not agree with them. So I think it’s important to note that we have people in our party that vote to uphold Roe v. Wade that may have personal opinions that are different. That is a really important distinction, Martha.
And also, I think what you see in our party is a party that is clearly pro-choice, that believes that a woman should have a right to make her own reproductive health decisions when it comes to abortion. That is the position of our party and I think you see in primary after primary, that matters to our voters -- certainly now more than ever.
RADDATZ: And Senate Democrats plan to hold the vote this week to codify abortion rights but it’s most certainly going to be blocked, not go through. So if the court does overturn Roe, which seems an almost certainty, what options do abortion rights advocates have at this point -- and Democrats?
KLOBUCHAR: Well, let’s be clear about what’s going on here. With this leaked opinion, the court is looking at reversing 50 years of women’s rights and the fall will be swift. Over 20 states have laws in place already, Martha. And I think the question that voters are going to be asking when 75 percent of people are with us on this, is who should make this decision. Should it be a woman and her doctor or a politician? Should it be Ted Cruz making this decision or a woman and her family? Where are women’s equal rights?
So my answer to you is, if we are not successful in passing this in the Senate, we will do everything to do so -- and I’ll note it’s already passed in the House, where not one Republican voted for it, to codify Roe v. Wade. If we are not successful, then we go to the ballot box. We march straight to the ballot box and the women of this country and the men who stand with them will vote like they’ve never voted before. Because this is 50 years of rights in a leaked opinion where Justice Alito is literally not just taking us back to the 1950s, he’s taking us back to the 1850s.
He actually cites the fact that abortion was criminalized back when the 14th Amendment was adopted.
RADDATZ: Senator, should this --
(CROSSTALK)
KLOBUCHAR: -- thoughts.
RADDATZ: Should this be the principal issue for Democrats at the ballot box, abortion rights?
KLOBUCHAR: It will not be the only issue, Martha. I think you know that people right now are focused on the economy, they’ve seen the leadership of the president when it comes to Ukraine and the importance of preserving our democracy, they’ve seen extremity of what we’re seeing across the country, extreme Republicans who literally have been supporting Donald Trump’s assault on our democracy and refuse to admit that Joe Biden actually won the election. All of this is going to be on the ballot.
But clearly, when you look at, especially, a new generation of women are looking at this and saying, wait a minute, my mom and my grandma are going to have more rights than I’m going to have going forward. I’m going to have to look at patchwork (ph) of state laws with 15 of them already looking to ban medication abortion, which is what people do online and things like that. They’re going to look at this and say, what world do I live in.
And so as you look at these attempts to limit people’s rights, limit people’s voting rights, that’s just not where America is, Martha. So of course --
RADDATZ: But on that point --
(CROSSTALK)
KLOBUCHAR: -- a major issue going into the fall.
RADDATZ: On that point, Senator, public polls show a majority of Americans support the right to an abortion in most cases but in the states that would almost immediately ban abortion if Roe is overturned, a majority of adults believe abortion should be illegal in most or all cases, according to a “New York Times” analysis.
So wouldn’t these laws simply reflect the majority of the people in those states?
KLOBUCHAR: I am someone that believes, and I think when your viewers think of this and they talk to their daughters and they talk to their sisters and mothers, I say this, why should a woman in Texas have different rights and a different future and a different ability to make decisions about her body and her reproductive choices than a woman in Minnesota? How can that be in this country, that we’d have a patchwork of laws? And it -- one of the things it isn’t always easy to do is put yourself in someone else’s shoes.
A waitress in the middle of Texas who has to make a decision about she’s going to quit her job to be able to get on a bus and go 250 miles, those are the kinds of things that are going to be happening. It’s especially going to fall on the backs of poor women, women of color. This is just wrong, and that is part of why Justice Blackmun, who is a Republican-appointed Justice, no less, made that thoughtful decision, looked at the Constitution and said, the right to privacy includes the right for women to make a choice like this.
RADDATZ: Okay. We’re going to have to leave it there, but we thank you for your time this morning. Thank you so much, Senator.
KLOBUCHAR: It was great to be on, Martha. Thank you.
RADDATZ: Let's bring in Arkansas' Republican governor, Asa Hutchinson, chair of the National Governor's Association.
Good to be with you this morning, Governor.
If, as expected, Roe is overturned, the bill you signed last year banning abortion in your state would go into effect immediately as soon as your state attorney general signs it. The only exception in that bill is the life of the mother.
What would you tell those women in your state who can't afford to travel to get an abortion, who can't afford to raise a child, or those who have been raped or the victims of incest?
GOV. ASA HUTCHINSON (R-AR): Well, thank you, Martha, and happy Mother's Day to everyone.
And in terms of Arkansas law, our law simply expresses the will of the people of Arkansas. Senator Klobuchar really didn't address that. And the fact is that each state has differing views on the -- where we should have on abortion restrictions. In Arkansas it's a policy of Arkansas that we protect the life of the unborn. And so, yes, if Roe versus Wade is reversed, then we would have the trigger law in place to protect the life of the unborn. This is important to go after and discuss this issue with conviction. And it has divided our country. And that division has been going on for decades and it will continue after whatever decision the Supreme Court renders.
(CROSSTALK)
RADDATZ: Governor, I want to go back to my question about those women, what would you say to those women who seek an abortion, who don't have the money to travel, who don't have the money to raise a child, what would you say to them?
HUTCHINSON: Well, first of all, again, that's where your heart goes out to them. I've had to deal with those very difficult circumstances of rape and incest as governor. And it's difficult. And so you have to understand that. You have to provide services. And I believe that we want to increase the services for maternal health, to increase the services for adoption services as well. And so we want to invest those areas that will help those women with very difficult circumstances of the pregnancy.
But, secondly, I think to your point, the rape and incest exceptions will continue to be a part of the debate. Right now, we do not have rape and incest as exceptions under the Arkansas trigger law, but there's -- I think that will be a part of the debate. I've always...
(CROSSTALK)
RADDATZ: Would you like to see those exceptions?
HUTCHINSON: ... those exceptions are important. Yes, I expressed, whenever I signed the law, that I would prefer the rape and incest exceptions to be in there. And even though we have the trigger law, I expect those exceptions to be a significant part of the debate in the future even though we're going to immediately go to restrict abortions in the exceptions -- with the exception of the life of the mother in danger.
RADDATZ: Why do you support those exceptions?
HUTCHINSON: Well, it has been a -- even though we believe life begins at conception, that we try to save lives, the life of the unborn and to do that and to gain public acceptance, those exceptions are what generally the public has insisted upon as being reasonable exceptions to abortion limitations. And -- and so, you know, there's the principle involved of life begins at conception, in difficult circumstances, but those are accommodations that are made to get public acceptance of the limitations and saving unborn lives. And that's the object of it.
RADDATZ: And, Governor, you tweeted that you hope the court returns authority to the states. Mitch McConnell told USA Today it's possible Republicans will pursue a national ban. Would you oppose that?
HUTCHINSON: I think that's inconsistent what we've been fighting for four decades which is that we wanted the Roe versus Wade reversed and the authority to return to the states. And so as a matter of principle, that's where it should be. If you look at a constitutional or a national standard, that goes against that thrust of the states having prerogative. And secondly, I think there's some constitutional issues of a national standard as well as to what is the authority under the Constitution to enact that.
And, Martha, there's a fundamental point, because everybody describes this as right. If the court reverses Roe versus Wade, they're saying that the Constitution does not provide that, which returns it to the states. And to me that makes sense under the Constitution. And that's where the vigorous debate is going to be. That is where we're going to face a lot of concerns on the compassion side. And states are going to make different determinations of it. But the people are going to express through their representatives exactly the direction they want to go. And to me that makes sense and I think it makes sense under our Constitution.
RADDATZ: OK, thanks so much for joining us this morning, Governor.
RADDATZ: The White House is sounding the alarm about a fall and winter surge.
Here to discuss is the White House Covid-19 response coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha.
Pardon my allergies there, Dr. Jha.
I want to start out by talking about this possible surge. You say as many as 100 million people could be affected.
DR. ASHISH JHA, WHITE HOUSE COVID-19 RESPONSE COORDINATOR: Yes, good morning, Martha. Thanks for having me here.
You know, if you take a step back and look at the last two winters, we've had relatively large surges of infections. What we're -- and we're looking at a range of models, both internal and external models. And what they're predicting is that if we don't get ahead of this thing, we're going to have a lot of waning immunity, this virus continues to evolve and we may see a pretty sizable wave of infections, hospitalizations and deaths this fall and winter.
Whether that happens or not is largely up to us as a country. If we can prepare and if we can act, we can prevent that. But we're going to need Congress' help. And that's one of the key messages here is, we need the resources to fight that battle so we don't have that kind of fall and winter.
RADDATZ: And, of course, this is coming when you're asking for an additional $22.5 billion in emergency aid with Republicans wanting a much lower number, about $10 billion. What difference will that make?
JHA: Yes, it's going to make an enormous difference actually. So, let's talk about what happens if we don't get this. There is a new generation of vaccines that's almost surely coming. The FDA is making final decisions on that. Americans -- we will not have enough of those vaccines for all Americans. We're going to run out of treatments, we're going to run out of testing. So if Congress doesn't step up and fund these, I think, urgent emergent priorities, and they have to do it now. We can't wait until the fall. It will be too late. If -- if Congress does not do that now, we will go into this fall and winter with none of the capabilities that we have developed over the last two years.
RADDATZ: And you talk about hospitalizations and deaths, but -- but do you expect -- if this happens, do you expect it will be much like it is today, those who have been vaccinated and boosted will not get extremely sick or are you waiting for some sort of new variant.
JHA: Yes, all of the models we're looking at assume no new major variant, right? We assume that this virus will continue to evolve, as we have seen it evolve and we're basing it on that. That said, what we know is, for instance, that we've seen a surge of infections here in the northeast. We have not seen a huge spike of deaths because the population is so well vaccinated and boosted. That's not true for the whole country. So we have got to continue plugging away at getting more people vaccinated and boosted. We've got to get more therapeutics in place. If we have the resources to do all of that, I do think we can get through this winter without a lot of suffering and death.
RADDATZ: And right now, only Americans over 50 and those at high risk are approved to get that second booster. Do you see that changing any time soon?
JHA: Yes, well, that decision made by the FDA and CDC was based on the available data. And the available data, largely from Israel, suggests that people over 60 benefit enormously from that second booster, as long they're five months out from their first booster. Fifty to 59, the data is not as clear, and that's why they recommended -- FDA recommended that people who are in higher risk group talk to their doctor and get it. People under 50, we just don't have the data yet. So I think we always want to be driven by evidence. We'll see what the data shows.
RADDATZ: And we will stand by. Thank you so much for joining us this morning, Dr. Jha.