Gwen the differences and the similarities. At home, six Million People have signed up for the federal health care exchanges. But the government is giving them even more time. Last night brought us yet another delay of obamacare. Another deadline made meanless. Gwen but the white house says its good news. And at the high court, the fight over abortion rights is back. We believe that americans dont lose their religious freedom when they open a family business. Religious freedom gives us our right to belief but it doesnt give us our rights to impose them on others. Gwen peter baker of the new york times. Doyle mcmanus of the los angeles times. Alex wayne of bloomberg news. And Joan Biskupic of reuters. Award winning reporting and analysis. Covering history as it happens. Live from our Nations Capital this is Washington Week with gwen ifill. Corporate funding for Washington Week is provided by its one of the most Amazing Things we build. And it doesnt even fly. We build it in classrooms and exhibit halls. Mentoring tomorrows innovators. We build it raising roofs, preserving habitat and serving americas veterans. Every day, thousands of boeing volunteers help make their communities the best they can be. Building Something Better for all of us. Additional Corporate Funding for Washington Week is provided by prudential. Brigham and womens hospital. Additional funding is provided by the annenberg foundation, the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to pbs stations from viewers like you. Thank you. Once again, live from washington, moderator gwen ifill. Gwen good evening. It feels like we are on the brink of something with russia. The unyielding standoff over the anextation of crimea has become a critical new test for the Obama Administration foreign policy. The president addressed the issue almost every day this week as he traveled through europe. There is still a way for russia to work with ukraine and the International Community to deescalate the situation through diplomacy. Thats the only way that the issue will be resolved. If russia continues on its current course, however, the isolation will deepen. Gwen but so far the threat of isolation has done little to change russias calculus. Why is that, peter . Well, the sanctions so far havent been the kind of measures that have actually bitten very hard into the russian economy. President obama has tried to say, look, this is what were doing. Just for starters. We could do a lot worse. There was kind a little bit of a momentary possible breakthrough this afternoon. Nobody knows quite what to make of it in which president putin called president obama, hes hasnt been doing that very much and the other way around when they talked. These ideas that carry secretary kerry and foreign minister lavrov have been talking about, maybe we should talk about them. Gwen what was interesting about that phone call or the accounts that the white house and then the kremlin put out about the phone calls is that the president said were about to pursue diplomacy again. And i didnt get that reading the statement. It didnt sound like the same phone call if you watched the two statements. The white house emphasized the possible Movement Toward diplomacy. The kremlin statement talked about how putin railed against the extremists or in ukraine and basically justifying his actions in effect. But if you look at the kremlin statement there was a sentence and as a result of that the president proposed some diplomatic conversation. So the question is, is the president of russia trying to back down but covering it through inflammatory language to make it look like hes still strong which in some ways he is . Or is he just using this as a y to get leverage over president obama . That raises the question of what is president putins game plan here . Yeah. He might not want to be backing down but what if he is not only not backing down but Going Forward somewhere else . What do you think is happening . He might be f anybody in American Government tells you they know what putin is up to theyre not really telling the truth here. Nobody really knows. He has these troops on the border with ukraine and is he going to go in . Some intelligence reports say maybe he is likely to. In the statement today, where he talks about diplomatic possibilities, he mentions transnatia. A breakaway prorussian area of moldova, a country youve never heard of on the border of ukraine. He throws that in the mix seems more escalation. You guys in ukraine are blocking and not fair to them and we might have to come to their rescue. There are 1,000 soldiers in transnatia which may be in russia if you held an election so it could transpire many different ways. When the sanctions started we learned two things. One jay carney, white house spokesman, you will see if these are affect being the ruble and the stock market. My first question is how does the stock market look like in moscow . The second was but its not going to bite unless the germans and the europeans get in whole hog. So whats the statutes of the sanctions . The sanctions havent had any enough effect foff a genuine impact on president s Decision Making at least nobody thinks so. The ruble is not as good as it once was. The economy obviously isnt as good as it once was. The markets have some ups and downs. And you see some russians beginning to pull back on their money. Abroad. In fear of worse sanctions to come. Its not these sanctions that will make the difference. Its if they go to the next step. Do you have more banks, do you go after the arms industry which president obama has threatened . Do you go after whole sectors of the economy . And what the president said in europe this week was, we wont do this in effect. If you dont do anything further. Hes holding back any further sanctions. In case of escalation by russia. The ukrainians have these thousands of Russian Troops on their border and they are presumably not defenseless. If putin were to make a move in Eastern Ukraine would they fight . They pretty much are defenseless. They only have 6,000 troops who are armed and ready. And so forth. In Eastern Ukraine who in theory could put up a fight and thats not going to do it. Gwen in an interview it said we will fight. And it sounded patriotic and with one ship left in the navy or something. Exactly. That ship has been swinging around the harbor trying to avoid the russians. Like the plague. A very lopsided situation there. Ukraine has done a remarkable job in being restrained and not buying into the provocations and not giving the russians an excuse to do something further. By fighting back or cutting off electricity and water to crimea by doing anything that would give president putin the predicate to do further. But like you say, if he actually moved into Eastern Ukraine hard to imagine them sitting back and not at least doing something. Gwen you wrote a good piece this week about the fact that Vladimir Putin has managed to bedevil not just this president but three president s. U. S. President s. In a row. Why . How . I think american president s and american officials and journalists probably really wanted to see in putin something he wasnt. They hoped he was post yeltsins successor who would consolidate and bring some order to the democracy and capitalism that yeltsin had brought to the old soviet union. Modernize it perhaps. And he wasnt. He turns out to have been a creature of his upbringing. K. G. B. Officer. And a greatly distressed grievance that animates his actions. He feels that the end. Soviet union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century. Thats what he said. So you have to remember that. As you evaluate his actions. And every american president saw him through american lens rather than through his own lens. Gwen its possible we are running that same danger and interpreting everything that happens through an american lens. Thank you, peter. The standoff with russia may have been in front. Mind for the u. S. President but another interesting tableau unfolded this week as well. The liberal democratic u. S. President met with conservative catholic argentinean pope. And everything seemed cordial enough but one side chose to emphasize what the two had in common while the other focused on areas of difference. Each had its own domestic reasons for that approach. Didnt they, doyle . They did, gwen. We dont often talk about the pope as a political reporter with a domestic constituency but you can make that analogy. Lets start with president obama, though. Hes easier. He needed one thing out of this meeting. He needed a nice picture of himself smiling, next to the pope, the most popular person in the world right now. Not barack obama. The pope. Gwen we got that. He got all the pictures. They were lovely and the president gave his readout of the meeting and it was sweetness and light. It was about the Common Ground on poverty. And the Common Ground on world peace. And the fact they were going to work together. And then a little bit after that, the vatican as it tends to do, put out a very spare statement. That had points of common interest in it. It had all the international stuff as well. That they had talked about. The middle east and so on. But it also had this line saying the two sides also discussed their differences on religious freedom, life, and conscientious objection. And what that is is vatican speak for abortion and the exemptions that catholic institutions in this country want from the Affordable Care act requirement that they cover contraception. Incidentally that weird frasing was also because the vatican did a good cop, bad cop act. The secretary of state was the one who did the tough stuff on abortion. Gwen and also, you talked about the popes domestic constituency the American Bishops, right . Thats right. Its wrong to think of the pope as a politician in a political agenda but he does have a specific political and bureaucratic agenda which is quite far reaching with the vatican and part of that is empowering bishops conferenceness each country. So even though we dont know how much he agrees with the approach the American Bishops have taken, he does want to defer to them. And back them up and thats exactly on that question, though, in terms of what president obama could do possibly with the pope, he made the comments that we just saw about really theres no Practical Partnership that might come out of this. But what about any kind of opportunities for diplomacy . I would think given the personalities weve had. Thats actually there and if you think of it the High Water Mark in a sense in modern times was president reagan and Pope John Paul ii. The polish pope. And they did a whole lot of stuff in eastern europe. Theres probably not as much opportunity here. And in fact the two the vatican and the white house disagree on some issues in syria, for example. But in the middle east the vatican is quite engaged. They can do some work there. It is the vatican is trying to get the Syrian Regime of Bashar Alassad to be more forthcoming in negotiations. Theyre not having any more luck, though, than the russians are. The president gave him, the pope, a gift. The pope gave him a gift back. We always read probably maybe too much into these things. But what can we take from the choice of presents that they gave to each other . Oddly enough im mystified by the president gift because it was some seeds from Michelle Obamas vegetable garden and we dont know if the pope is a gardener. And a handmade seed box and made from the timbers of the first catholic cathedral in the United States. Gwen baltimore. Baltimore. The pope did what popes usually do which was he handed over a copy of his last major communication. In this case it was the apostolic letter that got famous because the news lead of it was this was the one where the pope condemned trickle down economics. The president said this is wonderful. When im frustrated in the oval office, ill read this and it will calm me down. Well, mr. President , maybe it will and maybe it wont. Because that document is in the first case most of it is an exhortation to catholics to go out and evangelize more. Be interesting to see the president take that one on. But it does have a pretty full throated defense of Traditional Catholic Church teaching on abortion and these other issues of life. Doyle, you mentioned the Affordable Care act and in controversy over contraception coverage. To the vatican does that issue outweigh any broader moral value of expanding Health Insurance coverage in the United States . That is a terrific question. And probably the theologically sound thing for me to say is that the vatican would not want to say we prefer a over b. That catholic moral theology is a seamless garment. Thats actually the term of art. But it is interesting to note that in other countries, actually, catholic institutions pay taxes that actually cover contraception. In some cases even abortion. It is possible to try and make a guess on this. That the pope might this particular pope might put more emphasis on the coverage than on the contraception issue because hes downplayed and a different emphasis but im way out on a limb. Gwen father mcmanus weighs in. Im going to hear from a number of committees any minute now. Gwen and it wont be good. The rollout of the affordable carry act, Health Insurance exchanges, has encountered several well documented problems. But this week finally good news. More than six Million People will have signed up by mondays deadline and anyone in line gets another couple extra weeks to enroll. But a lot of questions still remain. Whos signing up and whos paying the premiums . And is it too soon for the administration to be running a victory lap . First, last question first, for you, alex. I think they can take a short victory lap. This is a big milestone considering where they started from back in october and november. They had Health Insurance exchanges across the country that didnt work. Nobody could enroll for practically two months. They managed to catch up and in four months to just shy of the original projection for enrollment under this law. But as you noted, there are a lot of outstanding questions. How many of these people, these six million have actually paid their premium to an insurer . And how many of them were uninsured before they went into the exchanges . Gwen tackle one at a time. Start with the first one about premiums. Sure thing. Both of these questions i should say, we dont have very good answers. We know that some fraction of people who signed up for the Affordable Care act through the exchanges didnt pay a premium to an insurer. We dont know why. It could be that they signed up initially in the exchange and then they decided, im just going to deal directly with an insurer. And sign up that way. The uninsured question is a realisticler. The administration hasnt given us any information on that of course. So were trying to glean little hints. For example, in new york today, said that in their exchange, about 70 of the folks who were signing up previously were uninsured. It was sort of a surprising number for new york. Which doesnt have a lot of uninsured people to begin with. What about the white house . The white house really has made this a priority. The president is on a trip. Hes confrontation over the cold war meeting with the pope. But every day theyre tweeting. Theyre talking to sports shows. What are they doing to get people enrolled . Yeah. So this week theyve had officials from the administration dispatched all over the country to do whatever they can do to help, i guess, people get enrolled on site. Gwen and the six million mark was hits, the president made sure he announced it from italy. They put him on a Conference Call with several thousand workers, volunteers and paid workers who were helping to sign people up for this law. And then they proceeded to make r take their victory to take their victory lap. So much disparity in terms of how many people signed up and does so much depend on the machinery of the states and the competence of the states and more politically, the state leaders are buying into it . It does to some extent. But there are some curious things happening around the country. In florida, for example, a lot of people have signed up for this law. Florida is actually, i believe, the third most signed up. Correction, the second most in the country. Despite having a governor and a legislature that oppose the law. Is it an age thing maybe . It might be. Old people . Might be more people prone to support the president honestly. The president won florida in 2012. Let me ask a real nuts and bolts question. What happens to the people who missed the deadline . Really interesting polling that shows gwen which deadline . Any. Theres been some really interesting polling that shows uninsured people often are kind of low news information people. A lot of them didnt know the deadline and an interesting poll in texas. That a lot of people thought that this wasnt available in texas because the texas State Government was so hostile to it. Ok. If they figure out next month that they should have done this, are they out of luck for the year . Do they just have to pay if youre fortunate enough to live in a state thats expanded medicaid, and youre eligible for that program, you can actually sign up year around. Theres no cutoff for that program. But if you need to sign up for privat