'This Week' Transcript: S&P's John Chambers, Governor Martin O'Malley and Senator Jeff Sessions

August 7, 2011— -- (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR (voice-over): This week, will the nightmare on Wall Street kill the recovery?

(UNKNOWN): There goes my 401(k).

AMANPOUR: Stocks plunge and America's credit rating is downgraded for the first time in history, and that comes with a stern warning for Washington to shape up.

OBAMA: Voters may have chosen divided government, but they sure didn't vote for dysfunctional government.

AMANPOUR: We'll ask Standard & Poor's how the U.S. can get its AAA back, and the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee square off with the head of the Democratic Governors Association on how to drag the parties out of their corners.

Then, will the damage done mean longer unemployment lines?

MCCONNELL: The biggest concern the American people have is jobs.

PELOSI: Jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs.

AMANPOUR: The roundtable on the policy and the politics required to turn this country around. Steve Rattner, mastermind of the auto industry bailout; Mellody Hobson, investment fund manager; and Tea Party Congressman Jason Chaffetz join George Will and Cokie Roberts.

Plus, the longest war and the deadliest day yet for Americans in Afghanistan. Thirty U.S. troops perish as the Taliban shoots down a U.S. helicopter.

ANNOUNCER: Live from the Newseum in Washington, "This Week" with Christiane Amanpour starts right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: Welcome to the program. We have lots to get to today. But first, some news since your morning papers.

The Pentagon is starting to paint a fuller picture of what exactly happened in the deadliest attack on American forces since the start of the war in Afghanistan nearly 10 years ago. Thirty Americans and eight Afghans were killed yesterday when the Taliban shot down their Chinook helicopter. Among the dead are 22 elite Navy SEALs.

ABC's senior foreign affairs correspondent Martha Raddatz joins me now with the very latest.

And, Martha, first, what about that community, the forces and their families?

RADDATZ: This is such a small community. There are only 300 SEALs on SEAL Team 6, the most elite of the SEAL teams, so that is such a small group. And when you think about those families and 22 notices going out to those families -- I got an e-mail last night from someone who I said I was so worried about that community. And he said, look, this is a community that will smother one another with love.

AMANPOUR: What do we know about the attack? Any more details coming out?

RADDATZ: There are more details this morning. What actually happened is this SEAL team was going in to help another team that was after Taliban insurgents. Apparently these Taliban insurgents had been implanting IEDs in the area, so this SEAL team was coming in to help the others who had come under fire. And just as they were approaching the area, they got hit by what they believed was a rocket-propelled grenade.

AMANPOUR: And, Martha, this comes while the U.S. is pulling back surge troops and going to be relying much more on these airborne special forces, plus a rash of assassinations of pro-American officials in Kandahar, which America thought it had really secured. What does this say about where it is?