'This Week' Transcript: Gov. Bobby Jindal and Gov. Martin O'Malley

WASHINGTON DC, July 8, 2012— -- (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MORAN (voice-over): Good morning, and welcome to "This Week."

The economic recovery, strong.

ROMNEY: This kick in the gut has got to end.

MORAN: Another bleak jobs report.

OBAMA: We've got to grow the economy even faster, and we've got to put even more people back to work.

MORAN: Refocuses the presidential race on the struggling economy. The big questions: Can President Obama turn the economic tide before November? Can Mr. Romney convince voters he can do better? Two governors debate those questions, potential Romney running mate Bobby Jindal and key Obama ally Martin O'Malley. Jindal versus O'Malley, only on "This Week."

Plus...

ROMNEY: It's a tax. They decided it was constitutional, so it is a tax and it's unconstitutional.

MORAN: More fallout from the Supreme Court's health care decision.

Our third heat wave...

(UNKNOWN): In Philly, 103.

MORAN: ... and a record heat wave have people asking, dog days of summer or evidence of global warming? That, plus all the rest of the week's politics on our powerhouse roundtable with George Will, E.J. Dionne, Gwen Ifill, Mort Zuckerman, and Steve Rattner

ANNOUNCER: From ABC News, "This Week" with George Stephanopoulos. It's your voice, your vote. Reporting from the Newseum in Washington, Terry Moran.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MORAN: Good morning, everyone. George Stephanopoulos has a well-deserved morning off. Hopefully, he's cooling off somewhere.

Big news this week, that depressing jobs report, new evidence of a struggling economy, truly. And that means more questions about whether President Obama or Governor Romney is the best man to fix things. Our guests are ready to continue that debate, so let's get right to it, Louisiana's governor, Republican Governor Bobby Jindal, and Maryland's Democratic governor, Martin O'Malley.

Thank you both for being with us.

O'MALLEY: Thank you, Terry.

MORAN: Governor O'Malley, let me begin with you.

JINDAL: Thank you, Terry.

MORAN: And let's -- let's not mince words. The economy stinks. Let's take a look at the trend. This is not just a one-month blip. Look at these numbers. There is the first part of the year. The second quarter, 80,000, 77,000, 68,000. That's the worst quarter of job creation in two years.

So, Governor O'Malley, how does President Obama, how do his supporters answer a voter who says, "You inherited a terrible mess, granted. We hired you to fix it, you failed. You're fired"?

O'MALLEY: Well, I think what you have to look at is where the president started from. I mean, we faced the biggest job losses since the Great Depression. That's what George W. Bush and his failed policies left to us.

We've now put together as a nation, under President Obama's leadership, 28 months in a row of private-sector job growth. Would we like it to be happening faster? You bet we would. And we also have to I think admit that the Tea Party Republican Congress has done everything in their power to try to stall this jobs recovery and slow it before the election.

And you know what? Perhaps they might succeed. But our direction remains a direction forward. And no one can argue the fact that last year we created more jobs than were created in all eight years of George W. Bush, and that happened in 2010, as well.