"lgbt writes: stop the discrimination." students received $250 for their videos. view all the winning documentaries at ceas c-span.org. next, president obama talks about congressional action to aund a vaccine for the zik virus. after that, a form on the role of libya in the fight against isis. topident obama met with health officials at the white kause to top about the zi virus. the cdc released a report confirming that 150 seven pregnant women in the u.s. have tested positive for the virus. president obama called on andress to fund treatment

the search for a vaccine. this is about 10 minutes. mr. obama: i just had the opportunity to get a full briefing from secretary burwell about the zika situation. i want to give the american people an update on where we are. as has been explained repeatedly, but i want to reemphasize, zika is not like ebola. it is not a human to human transmission, with one exception that we will talk about. it is primarily transmitted through mosquitoes, a particular type of mosquito. what we do know is that if you contract zika, even if you do not appear to have significant symptoms, it is possible for zika to cause significant birth defects, including microcephaly

where the skull casing -- the head of the infant -- is significantly smaller. we think there may be other neurological disorders caused as a consequence of zika. we do not know all of the potential effects. we do know that they are serious. what we have seen is a little over 500 cases of zika in the continental united states. they all appear to be travel-related. not mosquito transmitted. meaning someone from the u.s. went to an area that has zika, got a bite, and came back. we have seen 10 cases in which an individual went to one of the various areas, got infected, and sexually transmitted the good to their partner.

zika to their partner. a more significant and immediate concern is puerto rico, where we know there are over 800 cases that have been diagnosed. however, we suspect that it could be significantly higher. the reason is that for most people you might not have a lot of symptoms when you get zika. if you are not pregnant, or the partner of someone who is pregnant or trying to get pregnant, you may not even know that you end up having zika. that means people are not affirmatively going to the doctor and getting tested on these issues. here is the good news, that because of the good work that has been done by the department

of health and human services by the cdc and in -- and nih, we have a plan over the next several months to begin developing a vaccine and continually improve our diagnostic tests. we are also working with all of the states so they are properly prepared if we start seeing an outbreak in the continental united states during the summer when obviously mosquitoes are more active. what we are also trying to do is develop new tools for vector control. meaning, how do we kill mosquitoes and reduce their populations, particularly this kind of mosquito. that is a tricky business. we have been using insecticides for a long time that have become less and less effective. this strain of mosquitoes has become resistant to the insecticide that we have. the methods we use are not as effective as they used to be. we are investing time, research,

and logistical support to local communities to start improving our ability to control mosquitoes. puerto rico and to some of the territories, and spending time working with the states that they can be better prepared. all of this work costs money. we have put forward a package of that costs $1.9 billion in emergency funding for us to make sure we are doing effective mosquito control. to make sure we are developing effective diagnostic tools, distributing them, and developing vaccines that will prevent some of the tragedies that we have seen for those who have contracted zika and end up having children with significant birth defects. we did not just choose $1.9 billion from the top of our heads. this was based on public health assessment of all of the work that needs to be done.

to the extent that we want to be able to feel safe, secure, and families who are of childbearing years want to feel as though they can have confidence that when they travel, when they want to start a family, that this is not an issue. to the extent that we think that is important, this is a modest investment for us to get those insurances. unfortunately, we have the senate approving a package that would fund a little over half of what has been requested. the house, so far, has approved about one third of the money requested, except that money is taken from the fund we are currently using to continue to monitor and fight against ebola. effectively, there's no new money. all the house has done is say you can rob peter to pay paul. given that i have vivid memories of how concerned people were about ebola, the notion that we would stop monitoring as effectively in dealing with the bolo to deal with zika does not

make a lot of sense. i do not think it will make a lot of sense to the american people. this is something that is solvable. it is not something we have to panic about. it is something we have to take seriously. if we make a modest investment on the front end, this will be a problem we don't have to deal with on the back end. every child that has something with microcephaly, that may cost

$10 million over the lifetime of that child in terms of that family providing that child with support they need. besides the pain and sorrow and challenges that they will go through. add that up. it doesn't take a lot of cases for you to get to $1.9 billion. why wouldn't we want to make that investment now? my hope is that we would have a bill i could sign now. part of what we are trying to do is to accelerate and get the process going for vaccines. you do not get a vaccine overnight. you have to test it to make sure any potential vaccine is safe. you have to test to make sure it is effective. you have to conduct trials where you are testing it on a large enough bunch of people that you can make scientific

determinations that it is effective. we have to get moving. what essentially the cdc and nih have been doing is taking money from other things just to get the thing rolling. we have to reimburse the money that has already been depleted, and we have to sustain the work that is going to be done to finish the job. congress needs to get me a bill. it is to get me a bill with significant funds to do the job. they should not be going off on recess before this is done. will certainly, this has to get done over the course of the next several weeks in order for us to be able to provide confidence to the american people that we are handling the zika business. if i am a young family or

someone they came up starting a family, this is a piece of insurance i want to purchase. i think that is true for most americans. understand that this is not something where we can build a wall to prevent mosquitoes to not go through customs. to the extent where we are not handling this on the front end, we will have bigger problems on the back end. for those of you that are listening, tell your members of congress to get on the job on this. that this is something we could handle. many do confidence on our -- we should have confidence in our ability to handle it. we have outstanding scientists and researchers who are in the process of getting this done. they have to have the support from the public in order for us to accomplish our goal. thank you very much.

[captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] >> president obama has met with his top advisers, with nearly 300 pregnant women in the u.s. being infected with the virus. sarah faris joins us. first, if you would, explain the differences between the house and senate versions of the funding that were approved this week. sarah: they are different on all faces, which will make it difficult to combine these packages that need to be done in the near future. the house bill is about half that amount of money as the senate package, and about half the time. there would need to be more action in the future. there are major differences on how the bill would be paid for.

the house does set aside specific ways that the bill would be paid for, mostly using the administration's leftover ebola funding, which is something senate democrats are very opposed to. they want this money to be emergency funding. it wouldn't be paid for. there is a lot they have to resolve still. >> what do you think the chances are we will see a compromise zika funding bill before the recess. sarah: it's going to be very hard for them to do it in the timeline. public health officials are worried that cases could be seen locally starting in early june. the next week is certainly a goal for republican leaders. they would have to agree on a way to get to a bill that can then be led to a conference committee. there are two steps that need to be taken and both of them are going to be very difficult.

president obama has issued a veto threat against the house bill which, again, is a much smaller number, 622 million dollars, compared to the senate package of $1.1 billion. they can't go with the house bill unless they want to face a veto threat. if they go with the senate version, there is no way house republicans will get behind it. so, they are going to have to find something in the middle. but there is a lot of urgency, and not a lot of time. host: the president has asked for 1.9 billion dollars. the senate version is 1.1 billion dollars. would he veto anything less than his request? sarah: the white house has been careful not to draw that line. they are not saying they would rule out the $1.1 billion bill. but there is still a lot of the white house and democrats to say they do want the full amount.

they don't want to come back to congress to ask for more money. they don't want public health experts in states to be scrambling as they are now. so, it's not clear that the white house would reject the $1.1 billion. they are not ruling it out, but it's certainly not what the president wants right now. post: what would the funds cover? sarah: it would be a far-reaching pool that would -- developvaccines vaccines. the nih has said a vaccine could be ready by next september. there is a lot of money to go for that. there is also a lot of money toward mosquito control, trying to help state and local governments put their teams out there to try to make the likelihood of people getting infected from this disease lower

by actually getting rid of the number of mosquitoes in those areas. it's a conflict hated effort that requires a lot of money. there's also fund -- complicated effort that requires a lot of money. there is also funding for research. this is a disease people don't know a lot about. the federal government doesn't know a lot about it already. the outreach and research components are very important. reports on faris research issues for the hell. -- on reports on legislative issues for the hill. thank you for joining us. on the next washington journal, homicide rates are on the rise. and joseph lawler looks at the puerto rico debt relief introduced in the house this week. washington journalist live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span.

>> this sunday night on q&a, a vanity fair columnist talks age, ais new book, "old beginners guide to living with parkinson's disease. guest: what i really meant, obviously, was thinking. is it going to affect my thinking? thinking as how i'm living, so that became pretty important. asked this neurologist, what's going to happen? he was trying to tell me it was not such a big deal. you may lose your ad, as if that was nothing. gee, my edge is