'This Week' Transcript: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell

— -- This is a rush transcript and will be updated. It may contain errors.

ANNOUNCER: Now on ABC's This Week. Breaking news: a daring raid by the elite Delta Force deep inside Syria that just killed a key ISIS leader. Can his captured wife reveal crucial information?

Mystery on the tracks: the FBI now investigating. Did a projectile hit the doomed Amtrak train moment before it crashed?

Sentenced to die: why Dzokhar Tsarnaev spend decades behind bars despite that dramatic death penalty ruling.

Plus, 2016 surprises, Republicans turning on Jeb Bush's Iraq misstep, Democrats piling on President Obama over trade. Senators Mitch McConnell and Diane Feinstein are weighing in.

From ABC News, This Week with George Stephanopoulos begins now.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, HOST: And we have lots to get to this morning. New developments in that Amtrak crash. The FBI on the case. And we're going to be joined by the lead investigator for the NTSB.

But first, that daring Delta Force raid deep inside Syria. They set out to capture Abu Sayyaf, the man in charge of funding ISIS. He was killed in the firefight, but U.S. forces did capture his wife and key intelligence.

ABC's chief foreign correspondent Terry Moran reporting on the raid. And Terry, this was a risky operation.

TERRY MORAN, ABC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: It certainly was. Good morning, George.

It was high risk operation sending these American troops deep into the heart of ISIS controlled territory in Syria. But the president decided the intelligence was good enough, the target valuable enough, and Delta Force troops lethal enough to role the dice here.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MORAN: The daring raid happened overnight Friday: elite Delta Force troops taking off from Iraq aboard Blackhawk helicopters and B-22 Osprey's, headed deep into Syria.

Their mission: capture and interrogate Abu Sayyaf, ISIS's top money man, in charge of their multi-million dollar black market oil and gas sales. Former special forces officer Jim Gavrilis.

JIM GAVRILIS, FRM. U.S. SPECIAL FORCES OFFICER: This is not just another person. Their revenue streams are extremely important for their survival.

MORAN: A counterterrorism official tells ABC News Sayyaf is also believed to be the ISIS leader who had been given American hostage Kayla Mueller, killed in Syria in February, as a forced bride or slave.

The question on many minds after thousands of air strikes on ISIS targets, why risk a dangerous ground operation?

GAVRILIS: We really did want to capture him, there's no question about that. He could have given us a lot of information about their whole financial structure, about all their oil smuggling.

MORAN: But fate would have otherwise. On the ground at Sayyaf's house, a fierce firefight. ISIS fighters defending the building, using women and children as human shields, the Pentagon says.

At times, the combat so close, commandos using their training in hand-to-hand fighting.

GAVRILIS: So it happens in close quarters battles more frequently than you think. They'll even duck under your rifle. And when they duck under your rifle, then you have to get into hand-to-hand combat.

MORAN: Abu Sayyaf killed in the firefight, Sayyaf's wife captured and held for questioning, and an apparent slave freed. All American personnel returned safely after scooping up laptop computers that could prove to be an intelligence windfall.

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MORAN: The raid comes as ISIS has been making gains in recent weeks on the battlefield, especially in the key Iraqi city of Ramadi, but what happened to Abu Sayyaf this weekend, well it sends an unmistakable message to ISIS leaders: U.S. intelligence is improving and they are not safe anywhere -- George.

STEPHANOPOULOS: OK, Terry, thanks.

Let's get more on this now from CIA veteran Michael Morell. Served at the highest levels as both acting director and deputy director. Mr. Morell, thank you for joining us this morning.

And take us inside the decision-making here. Why make the choice for a raid? And is it a success even though Abu Sayyaf killed, not captured?

MICHAEL MORELL, FRM. DEPUTY DIRECTOR CIA: So, George, really important here, the real value here is taking a guy off the battlefield who is incredibly important to the organization, to funding it, to running it very close to senior leadership, to al-Baghdadi, so taking him off the battlefield very important.

It would have been great to have kept him alive and question him, but his wife worked very closely with him, so she's going to be able to tell us a lot, George. And that SSE, those computers, that information we got, it's going to help us understand the organization better, unravel it.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Yeah, I want to talk about that more, because in your new book "The Great War of Our Time," you describe some intelligence files picked up after a 2014 raid deep inside Syria. We learned a lot about the ambitions of ISIS there.

MORELL: Right. So two documents in that cache. One is a document about how effective weapons of mass destruction can be against the enemy, that's us. One of those documents talks about how you actually make Bubonic plague and how you use that against the enemy: that's us. And the other document in there is a document that talks about the religious justification for using weapons of mass destruction.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So we could be learning a lot from these new files as well.

As Terry mentioned, though, ISIS taking hold of Ramadi right now. What's your judgment on where the war stands right now? And the most important thing the United States needs to be doing?

MORELL: So, George, a couple of things. One is we have taken back about 25 percent of the territory that ISIS took in Iraq. Still a lot more work to be done, but we are doing well in Iraq.

It's Syria where we need to do better. There aren't troops on the ground in Syria. There's not a way to take back territory in Syria right now. This raid sends a message. But ultimately at the end of the day we're going to have to take back territory in Syria as well as in Iraq.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And what's your greatest fear from ISIS?

MORELL: I think what we just talked about is an attack in the homeland using some sort of weapons of mass destruction, which we're a long way off from, but if they get safe haven, and they get it over the long-term, then those are the kind of things we have to worry about, George.

STEPHANOPOULOS: OK, Michael Morell, thanks very much.

We're going to turn now to that deadly Amtrak crash. The FBI has now joined the investigation as the federal government moves to implement new safety improvements across Amtrak's northeast corridor. Here's ABC's David Kerley with the new development.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID KERLEY, ABC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: What happened in the last moments of Amtrak 188? The train quickly accelerated in its last minute, barreling down the tracks north of Philadelphia at more than twice the speed for a corner ahead, captured on this security footage obtained by our station WPBI. Moments later, a flash as the train careened off the tracks.

And now an account of some kind of projectile hitting the windshield. The story from an assistant conductor listening to her engineer, 32-year-old Brandon Bostian on the radio.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She also believed that she heard her engineer say something about his train being struck by something.

KERLEY: The FBI has been asked to join the investigation to examine the damage to the train's windshield and reports of other trains in that area being struck at about the same time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Unknown object made contact with that train, shattering the windshield.

KERLEY: But even if the Amtrak train was hit by something before derailing, how does that explain the sudden acceleration? Ten minutes out of Philadelphia it's at the speed limit 70 miles an hour, then in the final minute a quick acceleration, 80 miles an hour, then 90, just 16 seconds before derailment more than 100 miles an hour reaching that 50 mile an hour curve, the brakes are applied but it's too late.

The engineer tells investigators he has no memory of the moments before the crash or the crash itself, which killed eight and injured hundreds and shut down part of the busiest rail corridor in the country.

Before reopening, the Federal Railroad Administration is ordering Amtrak to take some immediate safety precautions, requiring all trains be outfitted with onboard speed control technology, and calling for inspections of curved tracks and increase speed limit signage on the northeast corridor.

But this part of the corridor doesn't have the newest technology that can actually stop a speeding train.

CEO Joseph Boardman, now promises that technology.

JOSEPH BOARDMAN, AMTRAK CEO: By the end of this year, we're going to have positive train control in here. It will not happen again.

KERLEY: When you heard that this train was 106 miles an hour in a 50 mile limit, what did you think?

BOARDMAN: There was a sickening in my stomach.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KERLEY: That high tech positive train control system is supposed to be on all American rails and trains by the end of this year, but the railroads and the rail lines say they won't meet that deadline. They're asking for an extension to 2020 -- George.

STEPHANOPOULOS: OK, David, thanks very much.

Let's get more on this now from the NTSB's lead investigator Robert Sumwalt. He joins us right now.

And thank you for joining us, Mr. Sumwalt. What more can you tell us about this idea that projectile might have hit the train and what it might have done?

ROBERT SUMWALT, NTSB LEAD INVESTIGATOR: George, thanks for having us.

And you know this idea of something striking the train, that's one of the many things that we're looking at right now. We interviewed the Amtrak -- let's see, we interviewed the dispatchers, and we listened to the dispatch tape and we heard no communications at all from the Amtrak engineer to the dispatch center to say that something had struck his train.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Nothing at all?

SUMWALT: Nothing at all. Nothing at all that he reported to the dispatch center.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So this is just as you say one theory, nothing reported early on.

You've spoken now with the engineer. He's remembered so little. So are you any closer to figuring out the cause of the crash?

SUMWALT: Well, we're at this stage, George, we're just in the fact finding stage of the investigation. I will say this, that we've called for inward facing video cameras for a long time, and we feel that had we had cameras that would help to help with this investigation significantly.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But have you been able to rule anything out? You know, I spoke with the engineer's lawyer the other day. He said that the engineer was not drinking, no drugs in his system, not texting at the time, his phone was locked away. Have you been able to confirm all that?

SUMWALT: Well, we have conducted drug and alcohol testing in accordance with the federal law. We have also requested the cell phone records, as we do for any transportation accident. So these are the many things that we are doing. And we just slowly start -- we start gathering the information and then slowly start ruling things out.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And what's the most important thing you need to know right now?

SUMWALT: Well, I think what we need to know, we need the traveling public to know that the NTSB is conducting a very thorough investigation and we will get to the bottom of this. And we have to have positive train control implemented soon to keep things like this from happening in the future.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But we just heard it may not happen by the end of the year.

SUMWALT: Well, you're right. And that's very troubling to the NTSB. We have seen countless accidents over the years that could have been prevented had positive train control been implemented.

STEPHANOPOULOS: OK, Mr. Sumwalt, thanks very much for joining us this morning.

Let's get more on this now from Pierre Thomas, who covers the FBI; Dan Abrams, our chief legal analyst.

And, Pierre, let me begin with you.

Describe the FBI's role now in this investigation.

PIERRE THOMAS, ABC NEWS SR. JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, George. There are a number of ways the FBI can help solve the mystery of the cracked glass. FBI forensic scientists will work with their NTSB counterparts to look at the window, to try to determine if the cracks were caused by projectiles or somehow caused by the derailment.

Depending on what the NTSB wants, they could ship the entire windshield down to the FBI's lab in Quantico, Virginia, for more detailed analysis. There they can use high-powered microscopes to peer into the cracks to search for embedded particles that might offer clues to -- as to whether anything hit the glass.

The bureau may also do comparison to the other two trains that were possibly hit that night. In addition, the FBI will canvas the entire area for surveillance videos to see if there was anything suspicious going on, George.

STEPHANOPOULOS: OK, Pierre, thanks. Let me talk to Dan right now.

And, Dan, what are the possible legal implications here?

DAN ABRAMS, ABC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: There's the possible criminal and there's civil. Let's start with criminal, which is could the engineer be charged with a crime? Theoretically, yes, but they would have to have found that he did something specifically wrong, meaning the crash itself doesn't necessarily mean a crime was committed. There has to have been recklessness or intentional conduct or something that he did that would mean that there could be a crime. They're going to look at that.

Number two is civil, which is all these people that were injured are now going to sue. But what's interesting is that in 1997, there was a law passed that basically said there's a cap of $200 million total for every -- for all the victims together in a train accident.

Considering you're talking about hundreds of victims here, $200 million, you could argue, might not even cover all the medical expenses in connection with this case.

So that's going to be something that is going to be under the microscope, that particular law; there are going to be lawyers that are going to try and get around it, et cetera.

STEPHANOPOULOS: They certainly will.

While we have you here, we also had that big news on Friday, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev sentenced to death by that jury.

But this is just the beginning of what could be a very long appeals process.

ABRAMS: It will be a long appeals process. But let's remember, the best thing he could get would be a new trial. No one's going to order an acquittal for him. That's very unlikely that he'll get a new trial. What's interesting is that when you read the verdict for him, three of these jurors actually bought into the defense's argument, which is that he was under the power and the spell of his brother, that he would not have done this had it not been for his brother. And yet despite that, these three jurors, in addition to the nine others, all agreed to sentence him to death.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Is that grounds for an appeal?

ABRAMS: It's not grounds for an appeal in and of itself but expect the defense to focus on those jurors, meaning when they say that there were legal errors in the case and as a result we should get a new trial, they will, I think, highlight the fact that those three jurors seemed willing to accept the heart of the defense.

STEPHANOPOULOS: OK, Dan, thanks very much.

Now I want to address some news you may have seen about me. Over the last several years, I've made substantial donations to dozens of charities, including The Clinton Global Foundation (sic). Those donations were a matter of public record, but I should have made additional disclosures on air when we covered the foundation.

And I now believe that directing personal donations to that foundation was a mistake, even though I made them strictly to support work done to stop the spread of AIDS, help children and protect the environment in poor countries. I should have gone the extra mile to avoid even the appearance of a conflict.

I apologize to all of you for failing to do that.

We'll be right back.

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STEPHANOPOULOS (voice-over): Up next, 2016 infighting: why Democrats and Republicans are turning on themselves. What it means for the race.

Plus is the Senate getting unstuck? Majority Leader Mitch McConnell here live.

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STEPHANOPOULOS: Back now with the race for the White House in a tough week for Jeb Bush, struggling to answer questions about the Iraq War, raising new questions about his readiness for the campaign trail.

ABC's Jonathan Karl reports on how he's recovering from the misstep and wrestling with his brother's legacy.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JONATHAN KARL, ABC NEWS CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On the campaign trail in Iowa yesterday, Jeb Bush took new heat over his brother, George W. Bush's record on Iraq.

JEB BUSH, FORMER GOVERNOR OF FLORIDA: The facts that were there for the president was grounded on faulty intelligence. But the power of hindsight's not given to us.

KARL (voice-over): That response comes after Bush gave five answers in four days to this basic question:

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Knowing what we know now, would you have authorized the invasion?

BUSH: I would have.

KARL (voice-over): The next day Bush said he misheard the question.

BUSH: I heard -- I didn't -- whatever I heard, it was translated, knowing what you knew then, what would you do?

KARL (voice-over): While Bush was clarifying, his Republican rivals rushed forward to show they have no problem answering the question.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If we knew then what we know now, and I were the President of the United States, I wouldn't have gone to war.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No way we would have gone to war with Iraq.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think even at the time invading Iraq was a mistake.

KARL (voice-over): Also piling on, "Saturday Night Live."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jeb Bush said in an interview this week that like his brother he would have authorized the invasion of Iraq, though he wouldn't have done it for the same reason George did, to capture the genie from Aladdin.

KARL: By the end of the week, Bush finally came up with his direct answer.

JEB BUSH, FRM. GOVERNOR OF FLORIDA: Knowing what we know now, what would you have done? I would have not engaged -- I would not have gone into Iraq.

KARL: Even before this stumble, Iraq threatened to cast a long shadow over Jeb Bush's campaign. Most unpopular decision of his brother's presidency. Criticizing family, he said this week, is something he has a hard time doing.

BUSH: I'm not going to go out of my way to say that, you know, my brother did this wrong, or my dad did this wrong, it's just not going to happen.

KARL: But this week's Iraq drama raises questions for Bush not just about the war, but also about his readiness for the rough and tumble of a presidential campaign before he's even entered the race.

For This Week, Jonathan Karl, ABC News, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

STEPHANOPOULOS: There were also headaches for Democrats this week: fighting among themselves over President Obama's free trade plan. It is getting bitter and personal with just about everyone choosing sides except Hillary Clinton.

ABC's Cecilia Vega reports on her big hedge.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CECILIA VEGA, ABC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: An embarrassing political defeat handed down by his own party.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The motion is not agreed to.

VEGA: President Obama's 12 country free trade deal initially blocked by Senate Democrats, a resounding setback, some calling it downright open rebellion.

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL, (R) KENTUCKY: What we've just witnessed here is the Democratic Senate shut down the opportunity to debate the top economic priority of the Democratic president of the United States.

VEGA: Two days later, Obama did clear a key legislative hurdle and a Senate vote on the trade deal will now happen this week, though the president is still struggling to gain support in both houses.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The fight is not over.

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN, (D) MASSACHUSETTS: We can't keep pushing through trade deals that benefit multinational companies at the expense of workers.

VEGA: But there is more than Obama's legacy on the line, there is an election with more voices Republicans and Democrats joining the chorus asking where's Hillary Clinton? As the nation's top diplomat, she spearheaded the administration's pivot to Asia and praised the Transpacific Partnership abroad.

HILLARY CLINTON, FRM. SECRETARY OF STATE: The idea is to create a new high standard for multilateral free trade.

The Transpacific Partnership, which will lower trade barriers, raise labor and environmental standards, and drive growth across the region.

VEGA: But so far presidential candidate Hillary Clinton remains noncommittal.

CLINTON: Well, any trade deal has to produce jobs and raise wages and increase prosperity and protect our security.

VEGA: Progressive leaders are hoping for more.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I believe that Hillary Clinton cares about working people. It would be helpful if she were more definitive on the Transpacific Partnership.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VEGA: And it's not just the trade deal, Clinton also coming under fire this week for not taking questions from reporters on the campaign trail. By our count, George, she has answered just nine so far since launching.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Yeah, pressure is building for a press conference.

The campaign did late on Friday release some eye-popping speaking...

VEGA: She did in these campaign finance reports. And we have those numbers for you. She declared that she and her husband Bill Clinton have earned more than $25 million since 2014 delivering more than 100 paid speeches, $5 million more for the former secretary of state in that in book royalties, that puts the Clintons in the top one-tenth of one percent of all Americans, making Hillary Clinton the second wealthiest presidential candidate, George, behind Republican Carly Fiorina.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And you're heading to Iowa with her?

VEGA: Tomorrow.

STEPHANOPOULOS: OK. Cecilia Vega, thanks very much.

Coming up, the president's controversial trade bill in trouble, but the Senate's top Republican is his new ally. Mitch McConnell joins us live along with senior Democrat Dianne Feinstein.

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MCCONNELL: I’d like to thank the president, too. No, you’re not hearing things. President Obama has done his country a service by taking on his base and pushing back on some of the more ridiculous rhetoric we’ve heard.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: And there’s the Senate majority leader this Thursday, Mitch McConnell. He joins us live right now. Mr. Leader, thank you for joining us. This morning, this is the president’s top legislative priority right now, this trade promotion authority. You appear to be his pointman in the Senate. What is it going to take to get it passed and are you confident it will?