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. first, to the good news. the oil well in the gulf is capped. for now. and after weeks of vote trading and nose counting, congress this week passed what the white house calls its wall street reform bill. republicans, most of whom voted against it, say it's a disaster. >> i think the financial reform bill is ill-conceived. i think it's going to make credit harder for the american people to get. clearly harder for businesses to get and the fact that it's going to punish every banker in america for the sins of a few on wall street i think is unwise. gwen:democrats, most of whom voted for it, predict it will tame wall street and turn the economy around. >> what members of both parties realize is that we can't allow a financial crisis like this one that we just kent -- went through to happen again. thi

, the annenberg foundation, the corporation for public broadcasting, and by trutions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. once again, live from washington, moderator gwen ifill. gwen: good evening. after 40 years in congress capped by his tenure as chairman of the house ways and means committee, charlie rangel liked to say that having survived the korean war, he'd never had a bad day since. that changed yesterday. the house ethics committee charged the 80-year-old new york democrat with 13 violations, ranging from failure to report income to conflicts of interest. what's more, if no plea deal is cut, the trial on those charges will take place in the heat of an already heated midterm election campaign. how are democrats taking all of this, karen? >> well, it was just about the last thing that they wanted added to their plate on top of everything else that they have to deal with as they go home for the august recess. and then this east coast, as we were getting ready to go to air, cbs put out comments from president obama in an interview that they are going to be broadcast

the ethics in 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, sitting in for gwen ifill this week, gloria borger of cnn. gloria: good evening. if you follow the economic news here in washington this week, then you would know that president obama signed one of his most far-reaching accomplishments. the financial reform bill. and it's designed to prevent another economic meltdown. meanwhile, democrats in congress and a largely partisan vote finally passed an extension of unemployment benefits for nearly 2.5 million people. and the chairman of the federal reserve, ben bernanke, was quite cautious when describing the state of the economy calling it "unusually uncertain." needless to say, republicans and democrats were not silent about their philosophical differences on how to handle this uncertain economy. >> after years of championing policies that turned a record surplus into a massive deficit, the sa