'This Week' Transcript: John Brennan, Sens. Cornyn and Menendez

October 31, 2010 — -- AMANPOUR: Welcome to viewers here and around the world. I'm Christiane Amanpour. And at the top of the news this week, a global terror alert.

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PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: A credible terrorist threat against our country.

AMANPOUR: The threat from Yemen, and can the United States defeat Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula? Our guest this morning, the president's top terrorism adviser, John Brennan.

Then, the final days. Countdown to 2010.

OBAMA: This election is not just going to set the stage for the next two years, it's going to set the stage for the next ten.

REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R-OHIO), MINORITY LEADER: Do you have to take it?

CROWD: No!

BOEHNER: Hell no, you don't! That's what elections are for.

AMANPOUR: And the battle for power in the Senate. An exclusive debate between the two top Senate campaign chairs, Democrat Robert Menendez and Republican John Cornyn.

Plus, analysis of our new ABC News poll and the politics of coming together.

JON STEWART, HOST, DAILY SHOW: We work together to get things done every damn day! The only place we don't is here.

AMANPOUR: All on our roundtable. Tea Party organizer and former House Republican Majority Leader Dick Armey joins ABC's George Will, Cokie Roberts, Jonathan Karl, Democratic strategist Donna Brazile and Arianna Huffington from the Huffington Post.

And the Sunday funnies.

JAY LENO, HOST, TONIGHT SHOW: This Sunday, Halloween, the scariest day of the year. Unless you're a Democrat, then that would be next Tuesday. That would be the scariest.

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AMANPOUR: Hello again. A suspect is in custody, and Yemeni police continue to search for more terrorists connected to the bomb plot broken up on Friday. The administration has tied the plot to Al Qaida in Yemen. We'll get the latest developments from the president's top counterterrorism adviser in just a moment. But first, ABC's senior foreign affairs correspondent Martha Raddatz explains how this poor country of 23 million people became the major training ground for Al Qaida.

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RADDATZ (voice-over): Al Qaida first used Yemen to launch attacks against the U.S. in October of 2000, when suicide bombers rammed their speedboat packed with explosives into the USS Cole, killing 17 sailors.

MAJ. GEN. JOHN CUSTER, U.S. ARMY INTELLIGENCE: We've seen movement for many years. Recruiting, proselytization of young warriors, young jihadists.

RADDATZ: U.S. officials say Yemen now surpasses any other country in the world in posing a direct threat to the U.S. And the man they believe is most responsible for carrying out those threats is American-born radical cleric Anwar Awlaki.

The Obama administration has approved the targeted killing of Awlaki, an extraordinary turn of events. Just months after 9/11, Awlaki, who was an imam at a mosque in Falls Church, Virginia, was invited and attended a private meeting at the Pentagon as part of an outreach program to Muslims. But Awlaki knew several of the 9/11 hijackers, had been an e-mail contact with Major Nidal Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused in the Ft. Hood mass shooting, and was directly linked to the failed Christmas Day bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.