surprising new economic news. depressing new healthcare news. a big week in politics and gay rights. "washington week" gwen: a topsy-turvy economy. are up but so is the jobless rate. but spending is down. what is the problem? needs to stop throwing up obstacles in the way economic growth. gwen: on healthcare, even a ocrats are searching for fix. >> why keep limping along? just shut it down and put it together the way it

together.put >> there is no words to describe the frustration we all have. am sorry that they are finding themselves in this ituation base on assurances they got from me. gwen: will apologies be enough? races governors delivered different messages. for virginia. night. a great >> for new jersey. and for 2016. know that if we can do this n trenton, new jersey, maybe the folks in washington, d.c. should tune in their tv's right done.d see how it is gwen: the senate moves to ban againste discrimination homosexuals. >> it is about opportunity, about whether every american dream the same dream, chase the same ambitions, and the same shot at success. itn: but will the house stop in its tracks? covering the week, david wessel

"wall street journal," christi parsons of tribune newspapers. slate magazineof and cbs news and ed o'keefe of ."e "washington post". >> award winning reporting and covering history as it happe happens. capital, our nation's this is "washington week" with gwen ifill. corporate funding for "washington week" is provided by - >> at northrup grumman we know evolving.e always at first we were protecting networks. then we were protecting the of data. today it is evolved to infrastructure. finance. missions.ry we are constantly innovating to advance the front lane in the battle wherever it takes us. that is the value of

performance. grumman. washington n from gwen: assessing the state of the conomy has become a puzzling task. today we heard good news that employers added more than the 00 jobs in october but jobless rate went up from 7.2% 7.3%. end s is the very day it ended.

gwen: i don't know about you but whenever i'm puzzled i get to to david wessel to sort things out. is the president right? not really. i think what you heard from most of washington was a giant sigh relief. creating 200,000 jobs amid the good news, it tells itshile washington is doing thing the shutdown showdown department stop businesses from hiring. the unemployment rate going up is never good but the numbers how did they nd count government workers and what week did they take the survey. it doesn't mean we are in a glad place. the thing that is frustrating is a good report and the president is right, it seems like every time something gets

on the brakes. he was at the international and paul krugman described the united states as lost halfway through a decade. it is really disturbing because to a never going to get good place. the other thing the president has a point on it feels like the economy is a boat and the one waysector is rowing and the government another. almost 100,000 federal jobs gone report for the third quarter the federal government was a minus in part because of the shutdown. you are beginning to hear people say maybe congress is too focused on the deficit and not enough -- gwen: suffice it to say that the shutdown didn't cause the slowdown but you said maybe the in the stkpwft rowing wrong direction. >> i don't think it was the

shutdown. the economy was worse going in the shutdown than we feared. make it thatdidn't much worse. >> there is a chronic government problem. going to that chronic government problem, what can they do? is there anything achievable now that might be able to help? >> that is a good question. thing that might happen is a little the belt out on the sequester. is a budget deal, the one that would be good for the economy is to have a little more in the near temple and trade it for -- near term and the long term in borrows the economy can't take too much of this austerity. the other thing that the optimists think is maybe the could nt and republicans agree on some kind of infrastructures program. traditionally republicans are allergic to infrastructure. we have a problem but i find it hard to believe. wen: if the economy is not

doing so well now do you explain what is going on in the marketis? tonight.questions the stock market is up 20% even been in e economy has the -- lining. i think there are a couple of reasons. great and rofits are the stock market is kind of ooked on free money from the federal reserve. the federal reserve has zero interest rates, buying bonds and people into the stock market and every time it gets a little better the stock market because they shaky are afraid that the fed is going juice.e away some of the >> is there any reason to believe the unemployment rate 7% again?drop below >> yes. magical number? >> the unemployment rate was yeart the beginning of the and now 7.3 so it is coming down. there is no magic about 7%. ben bernanke said today that the unemployment rate kind of is not

the best indicator at the moment. the unemployment rate makes the look better than it is. gwen: one thing i find wall street bout whenever there is good economic news they put on the brakes means the y say this fed will stop the stimulus and that is good. that is counterintuitive. is -- well, it is because a lot of people in wall street policy from the fed because of cheap money and so economic e recent policy has turned on what the fed does that they are overly on that. gwen: that is why i turn to wessel. half ts have dropped by but the administration is busy digging itself out of a new hole explaining and re-explaining what happened to its shiny new healthcare roll out. part of the explanation the president offered yesterday.

i regret very much that what to do which is to make sure that everybody is better plans because they want them as opposed to into it,hey are forced we were not as clear as we the d to be in terms of changes that needed to take place. wen: not as clear as we needed to be is an understatement. he says he has one more campaign the affordable care act. do we have anything to do with like?hat will be >> not really because he hasn't khapbchance to launch it. he was hoping to run one of those famous obama campaigns and go out and draw crowds and talk up the project. nstead, he is explaining and apologizi apologizing. really, what he has to do now is buy time. hat is what they are trying to do. they are trying -- the white house is trying to stave off

attempts from congress to change the law and maybe reopen the law. what they really are hoping will can hold out s until the end of november when if things go as they planned the website will be up and running, people will be signing up and ou will start to get these testimonials from satisfied customers they hope will help down the problem. gwen: so the apology after the health and human services apologized and now the president. looking at of them him bleeding in the polls and thinking we have to put an end to that? exactly k that is right. they are careful about the they cede to those that would like to change the law. it started low level and worked food chain and finally the president had to say those words, i am sorry. >> why are they so averse to changing this? meeting with our the senate democrats. nobody gets a two-hour meeting

these days.sident was this interview partly democratic quell the fear? >> right. it was a two-hour meeting that -- message event of the day. that is how much he wants people listening.is >> they were not saying we are behind you this is great. >> no, they came out and there beating around the bush, they were very critical of the president. of are very worried all those democrats who were in that room except one are facing re-election. is a couple of things going on. one, if there are changes to the for example you delay the mandate requiring people to enrollment tend the period, that sort of jimmies the that is pool and troublesome for the insurers that it might not work and you following year they have to jack up the premiums to make up for the losses. you don't get healthier people. >> exactly.

they would like to make the care of the cancellation problem with those people who had cancellation, care of d like to take this administratively in-house without going back it congress and reopen being the law. because then it is a feeding frenzy and everyone will have something to change about the and again we will be talking about the problems rather than the ling people in insurance plan. >> is there anything he can do to fix that problem in the where people ket are getting plans canceled? i know he said he will look at hings but what are those things? >> i talked to a lot of people about this trying to figure out the possibilities. law is pretty clear about who can, for example, qualify or a subsidy, maybe if they wanted to spread the subsidies around a different way and help that are complaining about higher premiums. prescribed in the law. grandfather a clause that protects some people. and most people looking in that

if that where see they can do something administratively to protect more people than are currently protected. >> are they going to be able to endthe website fixed by the of november? next week will be some indication. that is what is nerve-racking. we have the single digit reports from some of the states. white house has kind of used really rust dust, they can't go to the well again and people are nervous. baucus say why they delay it? >> another thing that be that the people you are trying to get into this pool, younger people, healthier people, there is no squishy and you are about the deadline, i don't really have to do it by then, maybe they will just not do it the penalty. gwen: those are the same people that tried to get on the first

doing couldn't and not anyway. thank you. tendency to over-read the meaning of off-year elections but that doesn't stop us. we had several truly interesting stories on tuesday night ncluding the rise of urban progressives in the cities that defeated two tea party candidates, one rural, one urban a victory of two men, one a democrat and one a republican define theirlities races. christie.with christi parso he single-handedly jump started the race to replace president obama. soon? >> considering that a number of very powerful republicans tried race in 2012to the a lot of people think it is too late. that he should have been the last time. when you look at his victory the reason people are talking about in addition to the fact he is giving every hint that he is, he won at his success by 22 points but got a third of the democratic voters.

e won with women voters though he was running against a female candidate and got 50% of hispanic vote. can you duplicate that ? he is a special case republican he had the devastating weather event that a year ago a chance to basically play to all of his strengths. there how he built amazing coalition. but when you run up those numbers that is why you get this speculation. gwen: when he looked in the camera election night and said is how we gton, this do it in trenton this was widely to be thrownuntlet down. but he said i plan to stay in ew jersey and stay as long as possible. i'm curious about how serious we have reason to believe he is or thinkinghis is wishful on the part of some moderate republicans who want to take the tea party down and on the part story?orters who want the >> false choice. 22 points o wins by

when there are 700,000 more democrats registered than you will have republicans saying he should run for president. he mentioned new jersey but just ering he was re-elected give he might as well mention his home state before on to the presidency. what was striking about the message when he said we can do trenton they can do it in washington. it is a message to washington republicans saying i have the key to this national argument. e was unspecific but he said basically i can get it done. he didn't say what it was or talk about a second term agenda. he was speaking to a national need. people look at washington saying they can't do their basic job guy is saying he can get it done and that is an attractive mental. >> what are his pros and what are his cons? >> before you are get to the election where he can perhaps appeal to democrats he has to get through the republican primary. question is, is he conservative enough? he cut taxes and fought the

is pro-life. worried ervatives are about is gun control and took the aid money and he has wrong friends. he was with the president during hurricane sandy. him.e in the media like he has a lot of establishment figures in new york who like him. gwen: we like people cursing us out on a regular basis. the grassroots those are b bad. so there is suspicion and it tumble in the nd primary and it will be nteresting to see if his eruptions play well in the country. picture re a broader for the republican party there or virginia? >> virginia is the interesting lossbecause the republican there of ken cuccinelli but the fingers. it the discussion of why he lost discussion about strategy. -- people liceman

are saying if only enough was spent he might have won. showed a big gap and then closing. gwen: he only lost by 2.5 points. >> but then the sort of establishment republicans say ook, he was seen as too conservative, not necessarily because of his positions but because of his tone and we can't keep running these races in states like virginia which is the bellwether state now that in the national level in virginia have matched the last twonumbers in the presidential elections. so this is a crucial state and establishment folks are saying can't have candidates like this that are a little too trident particularly for women voters. >> i know there's been a lot of talk about establishment versus .ea party cuccinelli loss tell sinus they talk about is obama care. this happening and i

think that is not necessarily in terms of data what shrank the race. what a lot of people believe is for him a good message to have, a better message than the government shutdown which ad caused some issues for him in the polls. gwen: it should be said government workers are in of them. many >> that is a special effect in virginia. ut at the end of the day what this race shows is if you are a member of the tea party you take it, if you ngs from are a member of the establishment you take a lesson and nothing is resolved. democrat maybe you think that terry mcauliffe ken he race instead of cuccinelli losing it. >> you do. live had $-- mcall more but he million is not a great candidate as far as some democrats think. race they always thought would be to be three or

think ints so they don't that in the last few weeks of this discussion of obama care changed anything at all. the race heading in this direction. gwen: we will be watching that as well. the senate voted this week to for e federal workplace and lesbian, bisexual transgender employees in the wake of other moves by the supreme court and state houses legali izize gay marriage. and e great enduring important value for all americans is equality. and this makes a strong stand for greater equality. gwen: that was one of several republics that joined the in easing majority the bill past the 60-vote threshold it needed. died hanged since the act in 2007? >> generally americans now favor

same sex marriage and supportive f advancing gay rights and democrats are saying some polls suggest that a majority of americans already thought this it was illegal to discriminate against somebody based on their sexual preference gender identity in the workplace. gwen: doesn't seem like a startling thing to pass. >> no. roughly 20 states have laws or both ofr of these these but congress hasn't done it. senate ed in 1996 the rejected it then. there have been several attempts but they have never gotten it they did.d this week >> what accounted for this >> this was very quiet. repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" in late 2010 and they got that through it was very steep hill to climb. immediately the gay rights said you repealed the ban on gays and lesbian in pas this. so they have been figuring on

legalize ates to same-sex marriage and got the senate to approve it. they discovered there were who were at icans least thinking about supporting there like orrin hatch and john who voted no in 1996 when a similar version was brought and other republicans a little more socially moderate, deals with to make democrats, they basically put together a large lobbying campaign and got it done. >> some of them, pat toomey is p for re-election in a state that is kind of a democratic state for him. >> that's right. >> but what happens in the house with this? >> that is the sort of big unanswered question. the speaker john boehner has think this is necessary because state protections are already in place. most corporations have policies that basically ban there from happening. here is also concern among republicans this is too broadly written and it will invite new litigation. accountability office report done over the summer helped quell that

riticism by saying in states that have these husband there's een no -- laws there's been no litigation explosion. gwen: wasn't there a religious liberty argument made? there was. that is why you were not able to get pat toomey's support by the the week. there were concerns the way it was written would leave the door religious e organizations, perhaps some nonprofits to take a legal hit. put two amendments on the floor, one to clarify that a tate or local government couldn't retaliate against an organization that might not gay, lesbians or transgender people. another offer from senator toomey didn't pass. he did sign on. he is the most interesting. he is from pennsylvania which at level is very l democratic but still a socially state.vative rob portman has said i'm for same-sex marriage because his gay.is republics that come from places

hat have state laws on the books but toomey it was most notable. >> were you surprised by any of those? >> toomey especially. the others make sense. illinois has been fighting for this since he came to congress. maine a big from champion of gay rights but tsunamsignals that he understands the politics of his running in will be 20 2016. he other though if a conservative, social conservative like pat toomey can the issue perhaps there are others who are seeing the polling and understand it is change. gwen: in the house if their heels are dug in does this make senate vote a show vote? >> to some 10th and it was as midterm cycle was beginning. the gay rights community loyal

give a lot of money and to some it will be seen as a show vote. could be hope it tacked on to something like the defense bill and force it through the house but have generally said they are not for it. gwen: maybe there will be other votes. thank you all. we have to leave you for now but the conversation will continue line where we will be talking about what worked in the obama campaign that doesn't seem to be working in the obama white house. that is on our "washington week" webcast extra streaming live at p.m. and all weekend along. that is where you will find the stories rest of our panelists are reporting. daily developments seven days a week. onor our veterans this weekend and we will see you here next week on "washington week" good night.

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