Transcript: Dr. Scott Gottlieb on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan," Aug. 23, 2026
The following is the transcript of the interview with former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, who is on the boards of Pfizer and UnitedHealthCare, that aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on Aug. 23, 2026.
Updated on: August 23, 2026 / 1:29 PM EDT / CBS News
MARGARET BRENNAN: We turn now to former FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb. He sits on the boards of Pfizer and United Health. Welcome back to Face the Nation. There was some good news this week, and I want to have you weigh in on it. We heard about this experimental mRNA therapeutic cancer vaccine that allows people with high-risk melanoma to live longer. So it- it doesn't prevent cancer. People hear vaccine, they might think that, but rather it's a collaboration between Moderna and Merck that is an effective treatment so far. How do you understand this mRNA breakthrough?
DR. SCOTT GOTTLIEB: Yeah, this can be highly significant. This is something that we've been working on for 30 or 40 years right now, and what's changed is that we have the ability to find proteins on the surface of cancer cells that can be used to try to train the immune system to identify cancer and prevent cancer recurrence. And so, this isn't a vaccine in a traditional sense. This is a form of cancer immunotherapy. We are delivering mRNA to try to train the body on proteins that are found on the surface of cancer cells, so that you can teach the T cells in the body to spot the cancer should it recur. And what the trial demonstrated, and we don't have the full results, we have to wait for the top line results to come out, but what the trial demonstrated was that it prevents cancer recurrence, so that basically, when the body is trained on these specific antigens, the T cells can be- be able to spot the cancer if it should recur in other parts of the body. I lost sound. I apologize.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Oh, it's okay. Can you hear me now, Dr. Gottlieb? Can you hear me now? I think we're trying to fix that. Let me take a quick commercial break, and let's see if we can get this fixed so all of us can hear each other. We'll be right back.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Welcome back to Face the Nation. We have been having some technical issues, but I believe we can now once again hear Dr. Gottlieb, the former FDA commissioner, and that he can hear us. Sorry about those problems there. You can hear us?