gwen: sotomayor at the senate. health carereform lurches rward. mixed news on the economy. and keeping secrets from congress. tonight on "wahington week." many senatorhave asked me about m judicialphilosophy. it's sile. fidelity to the law. gwen: sonya otomayor speaks. -- sonia sotomayor speaks. and so do senators, firefighters, suppters and detractors. after four ays of judiciary committeeearings, were any nds changed? >> rmarkable. she gets a 10 fr judicial temperamt.

as judge stomayor tookher

turnn the hot seat both publicans and democts played heir assigned roles. the republicans, skeptica >> y said a wise latina woman would reach a etter conclusin th a male counterpart. judge sotomayormade her now famous remarks about a wise latina woman mang better desions than other judges. i am disappointed that we still have a lt ofmuddled testimony ad lack of clarity. ally a person going o the sreme court shouldbe clearer in my view. gwen: an the democrats in ull embrace. >> y look at sonia sotoyor's story and he noble experimenttoday. >> she's a udge in which all americans can have cnfidence. gwen: in the middleof it all, a nomineewho consisttly sidestped any questions bout aboron or gun rights or campaign nance reform or any other hot btton issue tht might come efore the court.

>> senator,would you want a judge or a nminee who came in re and sai i agree with you this is uconstitutional, before i ha a case beore me, before i had both sides discsing the issue with me? i don't know that tt's a stice that can be. gwen: interesti point. so aft four days of pretty detailed testimoy, where do we stand on this nomination, joa don't surprise me. , really. >> well, there's o question she's going to be cofirmed. but what exactly did w see? we did see se things. there was pnty we didn't see. i'll get to that but what did we se? she presented erself much mre as a modate. very cautious in her approach to the senators and o the law itself. she really kep in check the reputed iensity. andhe is quite a itense person. she's ambitious. shs driven. she's from t bronx.

she's a new yorker. anshe really kept it inheck no matter how prooked she was. we found outhat she likes baseballwhich some of us already knew, especily the yankees she lik perry mason and told funny storie about her mother. so we saw much more of her, more of judge sotoayor's personality. on the law, you name an ise, i catell you how she demreektedhe questioning. - deflected e questioning. sort oin cooperation with the nators as she dflected it. gwen: it seemed ike the democrats an republicans were ther in more interted in criticizing er for her personal belefs or speeche she gave or tgging her wh em and democrats were intested in talking about her personal gooqualities. but very few tked about her jurirudence. >> i thinkthe democrats felt it wasn't in their interes to have president obama first appointeput on the hot seat by anyoner taken down a pat that might ut her in a bo as she rsponded then to republins who would asksome followup questions. you did play the cl about the

wise latina comment that she did say tt in many ofher speechesthat she thought a wise latina wan would come to a better dision than a white male bcause of theexperiences of the wan had. d she said, ook, tht was a comment that iade to my audiencesto try to inspire them to become ke me, to become a jdge and- gwen: she didt say that just once. she sa that 20 times. >>he said it many ties and said iwas many times inthat ve and -- gwen: idon't mean n her speeches but in the aring. she waasked about it overand over aga. >> rht. she was. and then the othe thing she d along those lines, e pulled back fro the president's n references to empathy. she said, wll, that wouldn't be my pproach to judging as many of you ow, president ama had famously said e woulbe looking for someone wi empathy. and e basically said that him, not me. >> a the end of all this, we had pretty big development in theepublican senator, sessions, saidthey're not going to ilibuster. what's the betting ere? so she's going toget confirmed. is igoing to be a big confirmatiovote or a narrw

on >> going into it, ifelt that a lot of republicansdidn't want to give her agood of vot or as poor of a vote as john roberts did when chief jutice, now chief justice john roberts, went before the senat in 2005, the vote was 78-22. and i think ot of republicans el that thatas unfair that he gothat many, 22. because as some of y might remember, in 199 and 994 whn ruth bder ginsburg and stephen breyer came rough as democratic apointees, they got plus votes. that sticks in peple's craw, the republics' craw thathere were 22 democrats against jhn roberts. so i think there'sa chance that so might vote ainst her just tsort of remedy that. but by the end f this hearing, there was a little bt of a love fest thg going on and we'll see probably the eek of august 3, she'll have h vote on the oor. and, ou know, it ouldn't surprise me if man of the reblicans on the mmittee endeup being for her. gwen: threerepublicans announcedoday. >> right. >>oan, as mh as thy -- she

avoided sutance and the democratsidn't bother with it, either, there w a couple of sues people cared bout. how di she come t on abortionnd how did she manae e richey ase which was an embarrassment that se got overruled by t supreme court right before herearing? >> il take the easyone firt on abortion because it's not as complicated s ricci. she sai she would follow precent. what does tht mean? the court has ne in two rections. five justices wo say that roe v. wade, the law of the land, vigorous eaffirmation ofthat. then we have anoer set of five jstices with nthony kennedy inhe swing vote allowing me egulation. she essentially said, i would follow both, bt she did say something that plesed abortion rights advocates. because she said that he still thinks it's portant to hav any regulion take acount of the mother's health. so err o the side ofthe mother's health in regulati which isplease the bortion ghts advocates.

in the firefigers case, thi is the onewhere th second circuit panel on whh she st endorsenew haven, connectit's tossing of promotion rests from the firefighters'tests because whites dramaticallyoutscored racial minorities. sheaid we were flowing precedent. we were followingthe precedent in place at he time. thsupreme cort came in and anged the rules whic frankly is true. >> joan, first of all, she gets points fo being a yanee fan. but more substantivy, she's going to be confied. what does this tell s, what do the last few days tl us about the nextime, whenever tha is and e there any paramters that have beenet about the next time in term of the type of judge that president obaa migt pick? and whe might the next one b? >> the nxt one could beas soon as next yar. we do have five justices who are over 70 up here. and it makes easier fo the ne one to not say much. and it makes iharder for senators to sy you must answer because they didnot deman answers this tim around. gwen:thanks for haging in

there all week up n the hill. sotomayor hearings may hav been less consuential in the end than th chaos break being out elsewhere oncapitol hill over hlth care reform. the resident sensing lost ground spoke t at the hite house today i realize that the last few miles of any ra are the haest to run. t i have to say now is not the time to slow dwn. those who are beting against this happening, this year, ae badly mistaken. gwen: can't havetoo many sports meta ors. significant legislion moved througbut big problems rein. most having do with cost. >> elections have consquences. this ia glaring example of that. we have no again, committed anotherct of geerational theft of layng an unsustainablefiscal burdenon future geerations of ericans. gwen: t rest of it had todo with a disnct absence of

bipartisanship. >> unfortunatly, there a only two numbers y need to remember fom the etire markp process. and that's 13 and 1. when it w a republican amenent, it was defeated, 13-10. when itwas a democrat amendment, it was passed. 1313-so. -- 13-0. en: this is very slippery. what to expect? >> thepresident is right. this ifarther than health careeform has ever goten. and certainlythe process is further along than it was n 1993 and 194 whethe clintos tried this. and tere was some big accomishments this week there are five committeesin allon capitol hill w have to act beforehese bills can to the hse and senate floos. three ofhem did this week thhealth committee in the senate, ways and mans in the hou, and the labor ommittee in the house. henry waxmas energy ad commerce ommittee will pass its bill ou next wednesday. but we a still waiting for the senateinance committee.

and this- gwen: we ard -- we wee going to hear frm them and last we, last friday. >> and they will bemeeting ov the weekend and o knows? we may hea from them nxt week again. and some ways, this is the most crucial one t wach. because ty are dealing on the senate sie, which is going to be a harder ace to pass this ll, with all the touchy, tricky questions of h are you going to py for this thing? so ithe middle of all of this as they are geing ready to congratulate temselves on all of th progress, the a.m.a. is onbord the house bil suddenly we have thehead of the conressional budget office step into this. and duri tstimony, he -- douglas elmendorf is his name, thfinal arbiter on the numbers angets up and warns that this bill is n going to do much,not going todo nearly enough to bing down healh care costs which of course is oe of the basicreasons that we are going throh this exercise. he says there is not enouh as

he putit, we do not see the sort fundamental changes that a really going to brin heal care costs under ntrol. th's a big setback. >> was ne. reons president obama spoke on friy to counter tha? he gotut there and it seemd like he wanted toat least say, look, both -- accentuatthe positive, elinate the netive but cunter all the attention that came o that report. >> this waa surprise appearance by e president. he was not scheduled to be making any atements on this. interestingly ough, they canceled the gular white house press briefinwhich uld have been robert gibb being pounded about questions about the setbacks. so this, i think, was ry much of an effort onthe president's part to recapture t momentum and make sure h's got the mssage going into what ould be a pretty citical weekd. >> weheard just now that the president talking abut there will ba bill this yer. d -- but there's o much pressure about gust. about this deadline for ugust. and why is tt? what --why is the pressure coming fro the white house about th? >> well, everyo agrees that

you got to gt this billdone this year or is not going to happen. you can't get sothing like this done in an lection ear. so if these bills are not thugh the house and t senate by theaugust reces these congressmen ansenators willo home and th interest grou are going to pounce. and essentily, you know, there's a ve real danger tha any progss they've made to date are gng to -- it's goig to be lost. if they a allowed to go home in august without havng passed a bill. sohis deadline, a last in the mnds. whithouse, is a ver real one. on e other hand, we'rall of a suen hearing senators up n the hil saying wait aminute. gwen: of both partie >> at's right. >> we aso heard somethi odd today off the ill. and that was speake pelosi who can prety much work h will in her chamber given her majoritysay she maywait and let e senate go first. now, what's tht all abot? >>well, the fear in a lot of house memrs -- fear that a lot of hoe members are going to have is they are goi to

take abig and dangero vot on this gantic halth car bill, one that has a lot o new taxs in it a a controversil government-run health plan as an option. on to see it bagained awa in th more conservative sete. we've seen his happen before. in 199 in washingtonthe wordb.t.u. is a verb because t house got b.t.u.ed forvoting for an unpopular eney tax only to see it b given away n the senate. soancy pelosi is listeni to r members and she realzes they are ve nervous about getting ou there on this bill before they know what the senate is going to beprepared to produce. gwen: ok maybe by in time will be lking about the sa thing. if we a, chances ar -- of getting somethi passed goe down exponentially. the state of the ntion's economy is thebiggest underlying drag on he predent's domestic agena. today we hea new home

construction is up. and four b banks announced big turnound profits and ye there is wory. why, jeann >> well, there are a little bright spotsut there's a whole t of darkness out the still in the ecnomy. if u look at uneployment, 're still shedding ha a million jobs a week. and there's something wrong wi the jobless numbers. something that eveneconomists can't quitfigure out. the unemloyment rateis not having in a way tt they expect. even theederal reserve has been a little uzzled by it. and then you look at foreclosures. gwen: i heard todayhe unemployment re was up to 15% in miigan. >> and double digs in a numbeof states. and nionally, it's goi to go at leastto 10%. and someare now saying maybe even highethan that. despitthe fact thathe white house had ped to -- te stimulus would hold it at 8%. so that number is ecoming a very tough nuer and it scares people. cause it's a number tey understand. then you look t foreclosures.

another thing consurs get. 300,00 a month thsecond quarter o this year broke allrecords nhistory. and so th unempyment and th forecloses are now feeding e another. the foreclosures that we're seeing now are nothe people who are cra and bought the big house they uldn't afford. ese are people who ar losing their jobs, ho ad 30-year xedmortgages. so tt's scaring consumers. so you have consumer confidence down. so they on't shop. so you got this wholcycle is still out tere. and the growthnumbers, the white house had hopedfor, that were pretty ealthy, no it lookas though those numbers en't really going to ome true. gwen: tey look lik pie in the sky always? >> not always. but the are now. >> and thats it. was president oba right to have that confidence -- that rosy set of projections andnow they're undermini some of the credibility and the issu like health care and all at, but werethey valid at the time >> well, wh they issued them

in january, mot of the onomists i talked to cut hem some sck for the timing of when they d to do their forecasts. which was they were eveloping them late last yer, late fall, and in the winter and they issd them in the early part of the yea and they wern't that far off. of what wall street analysts were predicting and wat the cogressional budget fice was predicting. so they were at that lile esier than res -- a - so they were a littl rosier than the rest but in the ballpark. and what's happened i all the other economists he gon back and vised their numbers and e white house is jus getting there. and speaking of areason to pass healt care before the august break,n august is when the white house wil release its new bget forecast. and those nmbers re going to be significantly down. and the defit projections are going to be sigficantly higher. >> gwen menoned another developme this week which is the annuncement of some vestment banks, inluding goldman sachsthat their

profs were just throgh the roof. and goldmanachs also announced that it was goi to go ba to paying gigantic ounts of comnsation to their executives. how does ts -- as peple are out there sufferi, how does this kin of ws afect the white house's politica calculations? >> well, ithink ome peole arstartled by it. especially goldan sachs. because all othe executives both in t bush white house and th obama wite house who have been leading up thes recoveries have been rom goldman shs. and so in terms of a ppulist argument there, pieces there thatsomeone could seize pon. but those are t little bright spots that are out here. les face it. if we're goingo recover, then those guys are going tstart getting bonuses again. bu i still thik from what ecomists tell me, we re on a rollcoaster. anso some of those profits are based on the fat that previsly, they had writn down the value of thir assets because theyexpected the and the recession to drw down

those assetsvalue petty substantially. it wasn't as bad as they thought. so they revalued th. and so nothing reallychanged. but their umbers ent up. so the wil be little brght spots and maybe this i a sign of wall street comng back. t it may not be, to. it may bejust one bright ment and what is liky to be a mu longer recover >> and o what we're seeing now is a last fall, e heard about was the bas and the banks are going o fail. and now the baks are doin bett. and clearly it's no having -- there's a difrence between wall strt and main street and we're seeing at right now. d so there miht be this sort two tiers o two tracks for quite me time? there could be. there could be an uneven recovery. and there aresome banks that areoing well. but bea in mind tt there are several othebig banks that still aren'tdoing very well. but absolutely the unemployme rate and the pressures on he tail sector and the mai street area of the enomy are

t abating at thi point. gwen: ok well, ther were alsonew questions this wek on exacly what t c.i.a. was an was not telling congre about a secret ogram to assassnate suspected terroris. but that dbate is trning out to be the potential ieberg that cld undercut t obama adnistration's efforts toget past th past. mark? >> for ational security reporters, it ki of feels like the nnth year of the bush ainistration. we're ju continuing to look back. and there'sa few thngs happening. fit of all, thee was the news over th past week tat the c.i.. had the ecret program, that lee --leon panetta, the c..a. director, learned about itnd when he heard abt it went tocapitol hillnd held emergency meetings and said i caneled this program and you hen't been told bout it for eight years. gwen: maybe he sould have reought in retrospect. >> a lot of drama. and that part of it of course adding to the dramawas that at the earl period vice

president cheney advisedhe agency not to notfy congres as it came out, and we'e still tryi to learn the parameters of this program, but i seemed like it was a progm to assassinate senior al qaeda leaders whereve they may be arou the globe. of course, a we know and as i has been reported for years, the agency has been killing al qaed leaders. ty just haven't been dng it with humans. ey've been doing it ith drones flyin over pakistan. there are stll questions about what exaly this program was all about. and it was announcetoday that e house intelligence coittee is going to be examining thisprogram and others sor of -- pening the doora bit for a wider vestigation. and we'll see ow this plas out. becausi think the house srt of tnks we don't know wha we don't know. so we mights well start instigating to find out gwen: it unds like a pandora's bo >> a call to the jern -- to the

attorneyeneral, deciding whether to lauh an investigation to the interrogation progra possibly to bring charges against ome interrogators in the c.i.a. who may have gone beyo what the justice depament allowed them to do in terms of the harsh interrotions. >> mark, a lot othis recalls the earl 1970's when we und out about assssination attempts by e c.i.a. with fidel caro and others. d then the church commite onthe hill really tk a lot hand. fact, some of the legislation that gr out of the church committee now -- ge us up to present terms of prohibiions on assainating foreign leads. are we taking -- when you tlk abt the new hill committee investigations, aree -- tryinnot to get too much ino anything that miht distract decrats from the -- >>there's a lotgoing on. there are some whoould like to seeomething like that. i nterviewed rusholt, a mber of the house intelligence committee an he is looing along those lies. about having some kid of an

investigation like urch and pike that hapened in the 1970's. back then, it was -- there were so any revelation, that people didn't know muc about what had happen. frm the dawn of th c.i.a. an there ha been the slow tricklef revelations so maybe thers not as much to actually come o of one of these committees becauset's been dribbli out for eight years. so i think hey're going to wei that. gwen: asisay, pando's box, you're goi to be busy covering theninth year of the bush administration for some time to come. thanks, everody. we got to go. but the conversatn continues online. we'll ta your questions in our web exclusi washingt weekq&a. jo in by logging in at pborg/washingtonweek. keep up with daily development on the newshour wih jim lehrer on monday jim sits dn with president obaa and on wednesday, the preside holds a prime time news confence. before we go tonght, we want to send our cndolences. we've bee told there are may news reports onight that

legendary bs newsm alter cronkite has passed way. we send ur condolences to those at cbs and tohe con cite famly. we will see you next wee on "washington week." goodight. wnload our weeklypodcast and take us with you. it's the washington week podcast atwashington wee onine atpbs.org. >> "washington week" was produced by weta whic is sole responsible for its content. >> corporate funding for ashington week" is provided by -- >> we kno why we'e here.

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