'This Week' Transcript: GOP Presidential Candidate Herman Cain

Oct. 2, 2011— -- (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR (voice-over): This week, he's surging in the polls, and now he's challenging the front-runners.

CAIN: Send Washington a message: They're ready for a problem-solver, not another politician.

AMANPOUR: Our headliner, Herman Cain.

And will he or won't he?

(UNKNOWN): We can't wait another four years.

AMANPOUR: He's listening, but will Governor Chris Christie take the plunge?

Plus, American CEOs...

(UNKNOWN): This is no longer a crisis. It's an emergency.

AMANPOUR: Fed up with political paralysis, they're lashing out at Congress and the president.

OBAMA: Let's make things happen.

AMANPOUR: George Will, Jake Tapper, Republican strategist Nicolle Wallace, and Democratic strategist Mark Penn debate that, plus all the week's politics, on our roundtable.

Then, "This Week" marks 10 years since the start of the Afghan war, America's longest. Martha Raddatz reports from Afghanistan on what's been achieved and at what cost.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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

AMANPOUR: Good morning, and welcome to the program. And we have lots to get to today. But first, some news since your morning papers.

More than 700 demonstrators protesting corporate greed, among other issues, were arrested last night on the Brooklyn bridge in New York City. The grassroots movement has swamped Wall Street for more than two weeks now.

President Obama last night blasted the Republican candidates who didn't react as members of a debate audience booed a gay soldier serving in Iraq. The president spoke at the annual gala of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay rights organization.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: We don't believe in the kind of smallness that says it's OK for a stage full of political leaders, one of whom could end up being the president of the United States, being silent when an America soldier is booed.

(APPLAUSE)

We don't believe in that. We don't believe in standing silent when that happens. You want to be commander-in-chief? You can start by standing up for the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States, even when it's not politically convenient.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: The president's comments capped a frenetic few days on the campaign trail, which saw the actual candidates largely overshadowed by the man on the fence. Here's ABC's senior political correspondent Jon Karl with "This Week in Politics."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(UNKNOWN) (voice-over): My Italian mother, she told me to tell you that you've got to run for president.

(APPLAUSE)

KARL (voice-over): It was the most electrifying event of the campaign so far, and it involved a guy who isn't even running, at least not yet.

(UNKNOWN): We need you. Your country needs you to run for president.

(APPLAUSE)

KARL: It wasn't just that people were begging Chris Christie to run. It was where they were begging, on hallowed ground for Republicans, the Reagan Library.

CHRISTIE: I thank you for what you're saying, and I take it in, and I'm listening to every word of it and feeling it.

KARL: In other words, he may actually do it.

Out on the real campaign trail, it was the potential first ladies who broke through. In Iowa, Anita Perry said, for the next debate, her husband will try harder.

A. PERRY: He's going to be better prepared this time.

KARL: And Ann Romney mused about those who might not support her husband