'This Week' Transcript: Former Obama National Security Adviser Tom Donilon
New York, Dec. 1, 2013 — -- A rush transcript of "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" airing on Sunday morning, December 1, 2013 on ABC News is below. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Good morning and welcome to This Week.
Deadline drama.
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BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The website is continually working better, so check it out.
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STEPHANOPOULOS: Today is the day for the heal care website. Is it mission accomplished? Or is Obamacare beyond repair?
All the breaking details, debate and analysis, plus the political fallout with our powerhouse roundtable.
Then, battle of wills. The U.S. faces new tests with China, Afghanistan and Iran. Can America prevail? How will the president manage these multiple crises? An exclusive look at Obama's strategy from the man who was there from the start.
Plus, it's America's game.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Helmet goes flying.
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STEPHANOPOULOS: But on this Thanksgiving weekend, new questions about the dangers -- should you let your kids play?
And Bono.
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BONO, SINGER: There's a chance to have an AIDS-free generation. We can see it.
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STEPHANOPOULOS: On this 25th World AIDS Day our exclusive interview. All that right here on this Sunday morning.
ANNOUNCER: From ABC News, This Week with George Stephanopoulos starts now.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Good morning. I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. We have a lot to get to this morning starting with that deadline for Obamacare.
Hard to imagine a more shaky launch. We're even learning now that at one point the White House considered scrapping the site and starting all over again.
But in a brand-new report released this morning, the White House now says the website is meeting its goals, working smoothly for the vast majority of users.
ABC's Rebecca Jarvis is tracking the story. She has all the latest right now. Good morning, Rebecca.
REBECCA JARVIS, ABC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Hi, George. Good morning.
And this is the eight-page report. It says that they have now fixed 400 bugs in the system since the launch, 9 percent -- more than 90 percent of the time it's working, it's stable and they believe at any given moment in time, 50,000 users can access the system, that would equate to about 800,000 users a day.
What's still unclear from this report, is what happens if it's a bigger number, if it's 250,000 users at a given moment in time, that's where things stood when the website initially launched and had all of those issues.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But we also learned this week, Rebecca, of another delay in part of the program.
JARVIS: Yes. The delay is on the business side, the small business side. As far as small businesses go, they won't be able to access and get insurance through healthcare.gov for at least another year. And as far as that business mandate goes, for small employers, employee 50 employees or fewer, they will now have their mandate delayed for a year, but that individual mandate remains in place if you sign up for health care through the exchange by December 23rd, you should be covered by January 1st.
STEPHANOPOULOS: White House holding the line on that individual mandate. Also spoke with the White House official yesterday who said that the enrollment numbers for November are going to come in much stronger than October, the question is going to be is it good enough?
