exxonmobil. the ethics and excellence in journalism foundation. the annenberg foundation. the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. once again, live from washington, moderator gwen ifill. gwen: good evening. it's tough to present bad news as good or to focus on silver linings when the cloud cover just won't break. but that was the task that faced the obama white house this morning when they were presented with these numbers. 131,000 jobs lost in july. 71,000 private sector jobs created which was good except experts had predicted it would be 83,000. add it all up and 14 million people are still looking for work. that made it difficult today for the president to find much good to say. >> there's some good trends out there. that's the good news. but for america's workers, families, and small businesses, progress needs to come faster. gwen: so let's look behind the numbers. are there indeed good trends out there, abc's the president was saying today? >> there really are. the president is in a position wh

. >> funding for "washington week" is also provided by -- exxonmobil, the ethics and excellence in journalism foundation, the annenberg foundation, the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. once again live from washington, moderator gwen ifill. gwen: good evening. this week's primary results show that several things we've come to expect. insiders are struggling, outsiders attractive. but money, it turns out, cannot always buy you love or power. in alaska, republican senator lisa murkowski's career is still up in the air. in arizona, gop senator john mccain spent $20 million to save his. and in florida, which always manages to have the most interesting elections, hospital executive rick scott spent $39 million and won the gop's gubernatorial nod while democratic congressman kendrick meek was able to beat back another outsider's $50 million to win his party's senate nomination. but november brings a brand-new fight. what do we make of all of this? let's start, karen, with alaska. >> well, alaska was a big surprise, probab

. >> additional funding for "washington week" is provided by exxonmobile, the excellence in journalism foundation, the annanburg foundation, the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. once again, from washington, moderator again. gwen: good evening. it is our job to valiantly interpret the meaning what have happens at our nation's ballot boxes. even when there's no single message, no single winner and no single loser. these summertime primaries are telling us how little about a lot. the democrats are facing a host of dire questions, according to the latest polls. has the economy hit bottom? 64% say no. do you approve of the job the president's doing? 48% say no. do you approve of the job congress is doing? 72% say no. ok, so that's good news for the republicans, right? not necessarily. 46% have negative feelings about the gop and even the tea party movement is viewed more negatively than positively. that's the way everybody is feeling right now. so how did all that unhappiness play out in this week's primaries? let