PBS NewsHour full episode Aug. 28, 2017

MILES O'BRIEN: Good evening.
I'm Miles O'Brien.
Judy Woodruff is away.
On the "NewsHour" tonight: Houston underwater.
Harvey brings historic floods, forcing tens of thousands of residents to flee, many by
boat or helicopter, with a cruel forecast of much more rain for days.
LT.
CMDR MICHAEL ATTANASIO, U.S. Coast Guard: To have to make some very tough decisions
as to which people to rescue and which people they come back to later.
And that is something that weighs on all of us here.
MILES O'BRIEN: Then: pardon power.
President Trump's controversial move to absolve former Sheriff Joe Arpaio raises questions
about respect for federal law.
And it's Politics Monday.
We explore how recent statements from the secretaries of state and defense highlight
a growing gap between Mr. Trump and key members of his administration.
All that and more on tonight's "PBS NewsHour."
(BREAK)
MILES O'BRIEN: Houston, the nation's fourth largest city, is virtually paralyzed tonight.
Huge swathes are underwater in the wake of Hurricane, now Tropical Storm Harvey.
At least eight people are dead, thousands rescued, untold numbers stranded.
About 30 inches of rain has fallen already, with 20 more inches possible.
Special correspondent Christopher Booker reports from Houston.
CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Hour by hour, the water keeps rising and rescuers keep going with
whatever is at hand.
MAN: It's just going to get worse.
And if they don't get out today, they're going to have to get out tomorrow or the day after
anyway.
Power is not going to come back, so might as well get out and try to ride it out outside
at a shelter.
CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Whole communities have already been inundated, and officials opened
two reservoirs today to ease pressure on dams and protect the city's business core.
It could also mean flooding thousands more homes may flood.
That's lent new urgency to the round-the-clock rescue efforts.
All over the city, impromptu rescue operations are under way.
In this apartment complex, neighbors are going door-to-door encouraging people to leave.
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner:
SYLVESTER TURNER, Mayor of Houston, Texas: The rescues, because that's our number one
priority is getting to people in the city of Houston who may remain their homes in stressful
situations.
And we want to get to them today.
That's our goal, is to try to reach everyone today.
CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Harvey made landfall near Corpus Christi late Friday night, then stalled,
all the while dumping rain measured in feet.
Now the storm is expected to dip back into the Gulf of Mexico, then hit Houston for a
second time by Wednesday.
Today, Governor Greg Abbott activated all 12,000 members of the Texas National Guard
for search-and-rescue missions.
But it's still not enough, and civilians, from Texas and beyond, have volunteered boats
and trucks to help overwhelmed first-responders.
CLINT WINGAR, Rescue Volunteer: You have just got to look out for everybody.
It's overwhelming, the amount of rain.
It's too much for the first-responders.
They need help.
CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Over the weekend, some people were airlifted from roofs by Coast
Guard helicopters, others ferried off on boats.
MARIE SILVA, Rescued: Thigh-deep water.
Current was strong.
And they helped us up to the military truck that evacuated us over here to the library.
So we're just happy to be OK.
CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: For rescuers and rescued alike, it's risky business.
As you're walking through the water, the water is actually moving pretty rapidly past you,
and the other danger is you take each step, you're not exactly sure what you're going
to step on, or how deep it is or how shallow it is.
You're constantly getting jostled back and forth.
Many of Houston's main roadways are still impassable today.
This map shows where high water has made travel all but impossible, except by boat.
For those forced from their homes, the scope of what's been lost is sinking in.
MAN: I have three feet of water in my house.
Three feet in my bed, in my hospital bed in my house, because I'm bed-ridden.
There's water in all of the beds in the house.
We have lost every strip of furniture, every couch, everything.
CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Houston's George R. Brown Convention Center housed thousands of New
Orleans victims during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Now the city's own residents are taking shelter there.
City officials are defending their decision not to order evacuations.
Francisco Sanchez, a spokesperson for the Harris County Office of Homeland Security,
says it would have been worse if they evacuated everyone at once
FRANCISCO SANCHEZ, Harris County Office of Homeland Security: Some of those questions
and criticisms, where you're actually looking at where those are coming from, aren't people
from Texas and they aren't people from Harris County.
Our community here understands hurricanes.
CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Some coastal Texas counties did evacuate Friday night, but the sheer destruction
will take months, if not years, to clean up.
WOMAN: We don't have any electricity.
There's no water.
So, basically, we're just -- we're still breathing, but it humbled us.
It really did.
If nobody's humbled by this, something's wrong.
CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Volunteers arrived in Rockport, Texas, to hand out water bottles.
President Trump monitored the situation from the White House, promising full federal support
for the victims.
DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: I think that you're going to see very rapid
action from Congress, certainly from the president and you're going to get your funding.
CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: The president and Mrs. Trump plan travel to Corpus Christi themselves
tomorrow, then to San Antonio.
Mr. Trump has also declared a separate emergency in Louisiana.
MILES O'BRIEN: That was from special correspondent Christopher Booker, who joins me with more
now.
Christopher, where are you and what are you seeing right now there in Houston?
CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: We're just west of downtown Houston and we're really seeing what is being
seen all over city.
Scenes like this are playing out everywhere.
We drove a little bit around today.
Everywhere we went, the streets just like this.
And of the many, many amazing things is that all the people that are coming out and forming
these impromptu rescue units, just as we have been standing here, just a moment ago, a family
walked past with a young child, and the woman was very, very pregnant.
It's just unbelievable.
MILES O'BRIEN: Chris, you get the sense that people are banding together and relying on
each other as much they can, not necessarily waiting for the authorities to come rescue
them.
Is that what you're seeing?
CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: We spent some time earlier this afternoon with a group of neighbors who
had formed an impromptu rescue chain, where people were going into this apartment complex
with boats, getting -- encouraging people to leave their homes.
And once the people got out of their homes, they then went to the next node of this chain
where the people were directing them to shelters or to hotels.
And this was all organized on the scene in the moment.
MILES O'BRIEN: What does surprise me as I see this scene there with the driving rain
and a lot of water behind you is there is still quite a bit of put activity.
What is going on there right now?
What are people doing?
CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: This scene is just like many of the other scenes throughout the city.
People are coming up.
We have seen number of people launch their boats.
And they have been taking the boats down through the flooded waters.
That truck that just passed me is actually from the Ohio task force, so people are dispatching
clearly from all over to go to different places.
Just down the way, I'm not sure if you can actually see it here, but there's an 18-wheeler
that has been stuck in the water, and there's a group of people walking toward it.
Also, people seem to be coming out from the right here as they're basically making their
way towards higher ground.
And just beyond my view, there's a higher spot where people who have walked out of the
water are kind of walking up to what seems to be rides that have been arranged to pick
them up.
MILES O'BRIEN: Special correspondent Christopher Booker in Houston.
Christopher, you and your team, please be safe.
CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Thank you.
MILES O'BRIEN: For another view on the soggy ground in Texas, I spoke a short time ago
to Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, a Democrat.
She has represented downtown Houston for more than two decades.
The congresswoman has not been able to access her own home due to flooding in the area.
She joins us from the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston.
Thanks very much for being with us, Congresswoman.
I know you have been in your district for the day, and I know you are personally affected
by this.
If you can just paint the scene for me, what are you seeing among your constituents right
now?
REP.
SHEILA JACKSON LEE (D), Texas: Well, I'm seeing a lot.
I just came back in from the northeast part of high district, rescuing about 50 people,
including elderly that were frail, babies and moms and others that were disabled, but
these were resilient people who are waiting and really said, we will wait it out.
We will stay here in this place with no real food and no real resources.
They had taken cover, if you will, in a place in the neighborhood.
A lot of people are doing that.
They are seeking their own refuge, but a lot of people are volunteering and being the good
samaritans.
At the same time, we're working closely with local governments, the mayor and county judge.
And I'm here on the federal resources.
FEMA at this center we have, this very, very popular center, if you will, the George R.
Brown Convention Center, the shelter that is here, we just got FEMA coming in to work
with people on their losses.
We have got a full medical center established.
And we're trying to restore people's lives.
But we do need and will need federal resources.
And I'm looking for a bipartisan approach to making sure we get those monies to restore
the lives of Houstonians and those in South Texas and all over the state that have been
impacted and still being impacted by Hurricane Harvey.
MILES O'BRIEN: What will you be asking for from Washington and from your fellow members
of Congress?
REP.
SHEILA JACKSON LEE: We're planning on introducing an aid package that we hope will be joined
by Republicans and Democrats that will comprehensively look at the housing.
We believe that there will be a major impact on people who will be able to go back to their
housing at this time.
We realize that there are homes that are now sitting with water.
This is the most catastrophic event that we have had in Houston, in Harris County, bar
none, bar Alicia and Allison.
The water is pounding.
So, we're going to have to restore a lot of housing.
Our infrastructure has to be restored, our water retention.
All of that will be part of an aid package.
And I hope that we will not only have the leadership of the Congress, but the White
House will understand that a large economic piece of the nation has been severely impacted.
I heard someone from FEMA say this will take months for restoration and maybe even years.
MILES O'BRIEN: Of course, the politics here in Washington is the possibility maybe of
a government shutdown.
In the context of what's happening in Houston, what do you say to that?
REP.
SHEILA JACKSON LEE: Well, this is a busy place.
And I'm trying to get people rescued.
But I intend to send a letter to the president of the United States and emphasize to him
that this is the worst time that a government shutdown could occur.
I'm not for a government shutdown.
I understand the speaker of the House is not for a government shutdown, the majority leader
is not for a government shutdown.
Those of us in the other party, Democratic Party, our leadership wants to be able to
help working people get a better deal.
We do not want to have a shutdown.
So my message to the president is if you're coming here tomorrow, come here with a message
of unity, come here with a message of strength and come here with a message that we are America
first and that we want to help the people of America, we're going to help Houston, Texas,
and we're going to help the first-responders, the police and firefighters who were out there
with me just an hour ago bringing these 60 people in.
I watched them carefully lift up the elderly and the sick and the frail and young mothers
and families.
That's what I needed the president to do.
He should come here with a message unity and a message of thanks for all of these people
who have sacrificed, who are out there with their own boats helping.
And he should come with a message of a dollar sign, that he's going to go back, keep the
government open, and help us get back on our feet.
MILES O'BRIEN: Is there a sense of desperation in your district?
REP.
SHEILA JACKSON LEE: I will say to you that this is beyond our even appreciation or understanding.
We're in an ocean.
So, people, rightly so, are mourning and concerned about their lives.
They have been disrupted.
But they're welcoming of help.
And I don't think despair has set in at this point, but I think they're looking for those
who are going to be held accountable and get us back on our feet.
Despair comes when you think no one is out caring about you.
MILES O'BRIEN: Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, thank you very much.
We will let you get back to it.
REP.
SHEILA JACKSON LEE: I thank you so very much.
And I thank all the volunteers who have come in, some across the nation.
And we need help, so please send us help.
A lot of items here, whatever you have, bring them down to the George R. Brown Convention
Center in Houston, Texas.
Thank you so very much.
MILES O'BRIEN: The U.S. Coast Guard is on the front line of the rescue efforts, using
an armada of boats and helicopters to get residents to safety.
Lieutenant Commander Michael Attanasio is helping lead those operations.
We spoke earlier about the challenges they are facing.
LT.
CMDR MICHAEL ATTANASIO, U.S. Coast Guard: We're getting calls for rescues continuously,
and that's been nonstop since the incident began.
We have multiple aircraft, multiple small boats, states, multiple counties, city and
multiple federal resources all in the water, all in the air at the same time, and their
rescues are nonstop.
MILES O'BRIEN: Give us an idea of the kinds of scenarios you're running into.
LT.
CMDR MICHAEL ATTANASIO: Say that there's a shelter or say there's a specific home taking
water, rising floodwater.
We will immediately dispatch a helicopter and we will try to prioritize those as best
we can to the most urgent case.
But as our helicopter is en route, that helicopter may then encounter another person in distress
that we may not have realized was in distress, that they weren't able to make an emergency
call.
So, we will really have to trust the on-scene initiatives, the on-scene experience of our
pilots and our boat crews to have to make some very tough decisions as to which people
they do rescue and which people they come back to later.
And that is an extremely difficult thing and that is something that all of us -- that weighs
on all of us here.
MILES O'BRIEN: Tell me a little bit about the resources you have there at your disposal,
how many aircraft exactly, how many crews.
Do you need more help?
LT.
CMDR MICHAEL ATTANASIO: This morning, when we started, when we deployed for operations,
I had over 21 Coast Guard small boat teams, our small boat punt teams and our airboat
ice rescue teams from District 9.
These are our shallow water flood experts.
I had access to 21 of those boats, and in excess of 50 to 60 personnel specifically
trained for these types of operations.
I had access to them this morning.
I was able to get them out in the field very early.
Get them to areas where we were receiving the most calls and immediately have them start
rescues, in some cases, immediately just getting people from danger to high ground.
The aircraft, I'm just going to speak in excess of 20 Coast Guard helicopters, and that includes
other aircraft we have of state aircraft.
We have other DHS aircraft.
We have DOD aircraft.
And they're continuing to muster and continuing to assemble.
MILES O'BRIEN: A little bit unusual in this situation is, the crews are flying through
ongoing hazardous weather.
How much is that hampering efforts and how much are you concerned about the safety of
these crews?
LT.
CMDR MICHAEL ATTANASIO: I think you hit it right on the head.
I think that the unique challenge of this particular storm, of this particular weather
event is extremely complicated rescue operations and rescue coordination for the air crews
that are having to fight through some hazardous weather, but the fact that the rain and the
continual floodwaters has made transportation, has made coordination extremely difficult.
MILES O'BRIEN: Lieutenant Commander Michael Attanasio with the United States Coast Guard,
keep up the good work.
Thank you for your time.
LT.
CMDR MICHAEL ATTANASIO: Thanks, sir.
MILES O'BRIEN: Those rescue efforts might be the most immediate, but they are just part
of how Houston is grappling with Harvey.
Police Chief Art Acevedo describes the magnitude of the situation.
ART ACEVEDO, Houston Police Chief: Our priority is saving lives.
We're getting so many calls for people requiring rescue from rising floodwaters.
And, unfortunately, so far, we have more calls than we have capacity.
Our response teams from the state and other cities are having a hard time actually accessing
the area of operation and our O.R.
And it just seems that every time we think we're going to get a break, the weather keeps
getting worse and the rain just will not stop and the flooding is just getting worse.
MILES O'BRIEN: I have read that at one point in the midst of this, an individual 911 operator
had as many as 250 calls on hold.
Where do you stand on that right now and how are you getting help to people who need it?
ART ACEVEDO: We are -- the Houston Police Department has responded to over 60,000 calls
for service.
We have rescued over 2,000 of our fellow Houstonians.
Fortunately, the backlog was down on the hold at one point last night to just 10, but now
the rain and the flooding is starting to spread to places that historically haven't even flooded.
And so it's going to start getting worse again.
And the bottom line is, a lot of folks are even using social media and we're actually
monitoring it to get help to folks.
So, it's been all hands on deck.
And it just seems that there's no end in sight to the tragedies that our community is facing.
MILES O'BRIEN: Of course, Houston is renowned for its medical center.
One of the hospitals there, the Ben Taub Hospital, was of great concern.
I know evacuating patients from there was a big priority.
Bring us up to date on that.
ART ACEVEDO: Well, we had to evacuate that hospital.
There are other hospitals that are here in Houston that are at a level where that may
become an issue.
I even heard recently that even a hospital down in Pasadena, which is a city near us,
their hospital is not functioning normally.
So, this a -- to say this is the perfect storm is an understatement.
This is a storm of historical proportions.
And when we're done, they will talking about it for many generations to come.
MILES O'BRIEN: Chief, what do you need right now the most?
ART ACEVEDO: We absolutely need more rescue boats.
We need more rescue boats in our O.R.
We need more aircraft.
But, again, the problem with aircraft is that the Coast Guard has been heroic in their efforts,
but not -- they can't operate 24/7 because of the weather conditions.
And the relief boats that are coming from DPS and the National Guard are still having
difficulty trying to get into the O.R. because of flooded freeways.
And, unfortunately, it's not just flooded freeways in and around Houston.
We have been having that issue throughout the state.
There's big debate about whether you should -- should the city have been evacuated, not
evacuated?
Well, people are forgetting that this entire state has been deluged, but the one place
where it has not stopped is the city of Houston and the Houston region.
MILES O'BRIEN: Looking back on that decision about evacuations, do you feel you made the
right call?
ART ACEVEDO: Well, listen, if you know anything about the state of Texas, our highways are
prone and our rural community and the entire state is prone to flash floods.
Just yesterday, which was three days into this event, we, DPS, our Department of Public
Safety troopers, 500 troopers could not get past the city of Bastrop, the town of Bastrop,
on the way to Houston.
I'm convinced that we would already be talking about hundreds, if not thousands of lives
lost had we put an entire populace, tried to put a region of 6.5 million, because I'm
not sure we would have taken them.
This entire state, it seems like, has been underwater, and now that water is all headed
here.
MILES O'BRIEN: Art Acevedo is the police chief in Houston.
Thank you.
ART ACEVEDO: Thank you.
And if you believe in the good lord above, I don't care what religion, please send prayers
our way.
MILES O'BRIEN: The American Red Cross is also on the scene in Texas to help thousands of
people in need.
I spoke with MaryJane Mudd from the Brown Convention Center in Houston, where they're
providing shelter and aid.
Thank you very much for joining us.
I know you're extremely busy.
Give us an overview of the Red Cross response to Harvey so far.
MARYJANE MUDD, American Red Cross: The response has been astronomical because the storm has
been astronomical.
It hit us a few days ago down in South Texas and it made its way here to Houston.
Last night, we provided shelter for over 1,600 people in 34 shelters up and down the Texas
Gulf Coast.
And now, in this shelter, 2,900 people and currently there are 3,800 people here who
have registered today.
It's just growing and growing and growing.
It is just -- it's just major.
I have lived here 25 years, and I have never seen anything like it.
There's even -- there's water lapping at our front door, my husband informed me, as well.
We live about a half-hour away.
But my heart is broken for those who are here, because they have lost everything.
The Red Cross is all about the response to this sort of thing.
We have been planning for this.
We have had supplies coming in, tractors, emergency response vehicles, enough food and
hygiene products and comfort items for 34,000 people.
This is not a sprint.
This is a marathon.
It is going to go on a long time.
And that's what we're trying to do, is bring some comfort, have those things available,
have the people here to make them feel comfortable when they have lost everything.
MILES O'BRIEN: And it's not over.
We're told, you know, another punch is anticipated a little bit to the east of where you are
right now.
Is the Red Cross able to respond to that?
Or are you strained as it is?
MARYJANE MUDD: Well, this is what the Red Cross prepares for.
We're about three things, preparedness, response and recovery.
And, you know, two weeks ago, we were telling people how to prepare, how they would need
to evacuate, things like that.
But when we saw this was going to happen, working with our partners, our city officials,
and looking at the maps and the models and figuring all of this out, our organization
knew this was going to happen.
Therefore, yes, we brought in those supplies.
We talked to our shelter partners.
And our shelters have been on active standby for a long time.
So, the answer to you is, this shelter will hold up to 5,000 people.
But after this is full, there are other shelters because there are other partners and because
the Red Cross is out ahead of it.
We're ready for it.
It doesn't mean it's easy.
There's a lot of heartbreak here, but there's so much resilience.
And we're ready to help people.
MILES O'BRIEN: MaryJane Mudd is with the American Red Cross of the Texas Gulf Coast.
Thank you for time.
MARYJANE MUDD: Thank you.
MILES O'BRIEN: And if you want to help the victims of Hurricane Harvey, you can give
to a number of organizations aiding in the relief efforts, including the Red Cross and
the Salvation Army.
Donate on their Web sites or by mobile phone.
In the day's other news: North Korea has fired its second missile in three days, and, this
time, the Pentagon says it flew over Japan.
South Korea's military says the missile flew nearly 1,700 miles.
Japanese broadcaster NHK reports it triggered alarms on the island of Hokkaido.
There's no report of any damage.
A top official in the Trump Organization has acknowledged working on a Trump Tower for
Moscow as late as January 2016.
It's widely reported today that Michael Cohen asked President Vladimir Putin's spokesman
to help advance the proposal, but he got no response.
Cohen gave the explanation to a House panel that's investigating possible Russia ties
to the Trump campaign.
The president will allow police departments to resume buying a wide range of surplus military
weapons and equipment.
In the wake of the police shooting and protests in Ferguson, Missouri, President Obama had
limited police access to everything from armored vehicles to grenade launchers to large-caliber
ammunition.
That was in 2015.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the rollback in a speech to the Fraternal Order
of Police meeting in Nashville, Tennessee.
JEFF SESSIONS, U.S. Attorney General: The executive order that the president will sign
today will ensure that you can get the lifesaving gear you need to do your job and send a strong
message that we will not allow criminal activity, violence, and lawlessness to become a new
normal.
And we will save taxpayer money in the process.
MILES O'BRIEN: Police drew criticism in recent years for deploying heavy military gear in
response to mass protests against police killings.
There's more fallout from the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, two weeks ago.
In Berkeley, California, thousands rallied Sunday against hate.
But scores of masked anarchists overran police barricades and attacked several supporters
of President Trump.
Officers arrested 13.
In Charlottesville, hundreds turned out for a special town hall.
They criticized Mayor Mike Signer and others over the violence at a white supremacist rally.
In Northern India, a self-declared guru was sentenced today to 20 years in prison for
raping two followers.
Ahead of the sentencing, thousands of police filled the streets to keep order.
Last week, the religious sect leader's conviction set off riots that killed at least 38 people.
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Iran today of building sites in Syria
and Lebanon to make guided missiles.
And he said they're for use against Israel.
In Jerusalem, Netanyahu told U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that the U.N. is not doing
enough to counter Iranian aggression.
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, Israeli Prime Minister: Iran is busy turning Syria into a base of
military entrenchment, and it wants to use Syria and Lebanon as war fronts against its
declared goal to eradicate Israel.
This is something Israel cannot accept.
This is something the U.N. shouldn't accept.
MILES O'BRIEN: Iran is fighting in Syria to aid President Bashar Assad, aided by the Lebanese
militant group Hezbollah.
Authorities in Germany now say they think a male nurse killed at least 86 people.
It happened over 15 years in two cities.
Niels Hoegel was sentenced to life in prison in 2015 for two murders.
He had admitted to giving overdoses of heart medication because he liked trying to revive
the victims.
Investigators warn the number of victims could go higher still.
In economic news, the effects of Hurricane Harvey sent oil prices tumbling and gas prices
rising.
But stocks had a quiet day.
The Dow Jones industrial average lost five points to close at 21808.
The Nasdaq rose 17 points, and the S&P 500 added a single point.
Still to come on the "NewsHour": what President Trump's pardon of Sheriff Joe Arpaio says
about how the views -- he views the rule of law; we break down the legal challenges to
the president's military transgender ban; a portrait of three African-American young
men growing up in rural North Carolina; and much more.
MILES O'BRIEN: The presidential pardon for a controversial former Arizona sheriff is
illuminating key aspects of President Trump's approach to the rule of law.
John Yang has more.
JOE ARPAIO, Former Maricopa County, Arizona, Sheriff: You a resident?
JOHN YANG: Criticism of President Trump's Friday night pardon for former Maricopa County
Sheriff Joe Arpaio was swift and even came from fellow Republicans.
House Speaker Paul Ryan's said he doesn't agree with this decision.
Arizona Senator John McCain said it undermines Mr. Trump's claim for the respect of the rule
of law.
Ohio Governor John Kasich said Mr. Trump wielded his pardon authority as a political wedge.
GOV.
JOHN KASICH (R), OHIO: The president has that power.
I don't agree with what he did.
JOHN YANG: Arpaio was awaiting sentencing after his July conviction for defying a 2011
court order to stop detaining people solely on the suspicion they were in the country
illegally.
The court said the practice violated the constitutional rights of Latinos.
Today, Mr. Trump defended the pardon.
DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: Sheriff Joe is a patriot.
Sheriff Joe loves our country.
Sheriff Joe protected our borders.
And Sheriff Joe was very unfairly treated by the Obama administration.
JOHN YANG: The 85-year-old former DEA agent has long been a lightning rod for his tough
stand on criminals and undocumented immigrants, which he talked about in a 2012 interview
with the "NewsHour."
JOE ARPAIO: I don't just talk and say I'm going to arrest illegal immigration -- immigrants.
I do it.
JOHN YANG: He housed prisoners in tents beneath the blazing desert sun.
JOE ARPAIO: These guys are all convicted, regardless of critics.
They are doing their time in the tents.
JOHN YANG: He made pink underwear part of inmate's uniforms.
JOE ARPAIO: You know what?
You don't like it?
Don't come to jail.
Very simple.
I'm here to endorse a great patriot.
JOHN YANG: The tough-talking sheriff was an early supporter of the tough-talking presidential
candidate who shared the belief that Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States.
DONALD TRUMP: He's the kind of guy we want on our team.
He's tough, he's strong, and he's smart.
And he's done an amazing job.
JOHN YANG: Last year, Arpaio was defeated in his bid for a sixth term as sheriff.
The same night, Mr. Trump won the White House and the power to give Arpaio a presidential
pardon.
We take a deeper look at this controversial pardon with Brian Kalt.
He's a Michigan State University law professor and the author of "Constitutional Cliffhangers:
A Legal Guide for Presidents and Their Enemies."
Mr. Kalt, thank you so much for joining us.
From your perspective as a constitutional scholar and professor of law, what make this
pardon so noteworthy?
BRIAN KALT, Michigan State University: Well, it's very unusual for a president to make
a pardon this controversial this early in his term.
In recent history, presidents have waited until after the election.
After the Ford pardon of Nixon, which probably cost President Ford the election, presidents
have been very reluctant to use their pardon power.
And, again, when they have, they have waited until there aren't really political ramifications
for it.
JOHN YANG: But aside from the timing, is there anything about the nature of this pardon,
what it was for, what Sheriff Arpaio was convicted of doing, that makes this sort of noteworthy?
BRIAN KALT: Oh, sure.
On the merits of the pardon, it's very unusual for a president to step in and sort of cheer
on someone for defying a court order like this.
JOHN YANG: And at his press conference, the president compared this, was defending this
by noting the pardons from Presidents Clinton and Obama of drug dealers, of members of the
Weather Underground, Puerto Rican separatists.
Are those fair comparisons, in your view?
BRIAN KALT: Well, there are a lot of differences.
Most of the examples that the president gave today were of commutations of sentence, right?
These are people who were convicted.
They were in prison, and they had the president shorten their sentences.
That's very different from a pardon, where the president is not only preventing Joe Arpaio
from going to jail at all, but he's also basically undoing the conviction entirely.
JOHN YANG: And, also, that Sheriff Arpaio's appeals process hadn't even begun yet or hadn't
even ended, for that matter.
Is that unusual for a president to step in at this point?
BRIAN KALT: It is fairly unusual.
I think a more conventional thing to do would have been to wait and see what sort of sentence
came down.
If he had wanted to appeal, let him appeal.
Let the system work its way through.
But presidents have used the pardon power to prevent prosecutions, not wait until the
conviction, until the sentencing is over.
So, that's -- it's not common, but it's not unheard of.
JOHN YANG: But, also, the cases that the President Trump spoke of today, those were cases where
people were convicted of breaking a law.
In this case, this is someone who was convicted of defying a court order trying to protect
constitutional rights.
Does that make a difference?
BRIAN KALT: Well, certainly.
I think it make as difference, because if the president is sort of intervening in an
ongoing case, it's a little different from the president saying, well, this person broke
the law, but the sentence should be reduced or they have done enough time now.
Without saying what this person did was OK, they're saying the punishment needs to be
reduced.
What President Trump did here was, again, basically endorse Joe Arpaio defying a court
order, which is troubling from a separation of powers standpoint.
JOHN YANG: Brian Kalt from Michigan State University, thanks for joining us.
BRIAN KALT: Thank you.
MILES O'BRIEN: We stay with the politics of the Arpaio pardon, plus the growing public
rift between President Trump and key members of his administration with our regulars, Amy
Walter of The Cook Political Report and Tamara Keith of NPR.
Thanks very much for being with us.
Tamara, let's begin with you.
Hurricane Harvey is President Trump's first natural disaster test.
These are important for presidents.
Go back to Katrina, 2005, and how that affected President George W. Bush at the time.
How would you score him so far?
TAMARA KEITH, National Public Radio: I think it's too soon.
This is an ongoing natural disaster.
It is still raining as we speak in Houston.
And so it's really hard to know exactly how this is all going to play out, since it's
ongoing.
He's planning to go tomorrow to Texas.
He's planning, we think, to stay outside of the main, most heavily impacted areas.
And it's an interesting choice.
A lot of presidents have waited longer, not wanting to take resources away from the ongoing
disaster recovery and rescue efforts.
President Trump is making a calculation that being there on the ground is important.
And this is a president who has shown that he is easily moved by the stories of individual
people.
So if he goes to Texas and he meets individual people and he sort of feels these stories
this early, it may change the way he talks about the disaster.
MILES O'BRIEN: Well, you mentioned the way he talks about it, or, in his case, more likely
tweets about it.
Amy, we will put up a screen with some of the tweets that occurred from Friday until
now from the president.
There are a couple addressing the storm itself.
But they're oddly, in a strange way, upbeat, talking about teammate and -- teamwork, I
should say, and things going along.
And then there's stuff about NAFTA, then the wall at the border to Mexico, and then a recommendation
of a book by David Clarke, the Milwaukee County sheriff, another very controversial sheriff.
Amy, were those the right tweets, do you think?
AMY WALTER, The Cook Political Report: Listen, I think the attention right now, for the first
time in a long time, is not on Donald Trump.
It's on the rescuers and the people who are being rescued in Houston.
And it's on another politician.
And that's Governor Abbott of Texas, who is the person who's the point person there now
on the ground.
The president is going to get a lot of attention as he goes to Texas this week.
But I think that the focus, as Tam pointed out, is going to be the long-running success
of the state government and of the federal government.
But right now, I think what people are seeing is the story, which is that neighbors are
coming out and helping neighbors, the Coast Guard, that things are actually at this point
working.
The tragedy with Katrina was that from the very outset, everything collapsed.
The levies collapsed.
Government, state, local and federal collapsed.
That's not what we're seeing here.
MILES O'BRIEN: So, here in Washington, before Friday, Tamara, there was a lot of talk about
a possible showdown, a government shutdown over this issue of whether to build the wall
or not.
Does this disaster change that appreciably?
TAMARA KEITH: It should.
I think it does.
And the president was asked about it today in his press conference, and he said this
is not related to the disaster and we're going to get the funding that's needed to deal with
Harvey.
It seems quite likely that, given everything that is going on with Harvey, Congress will
find a way to probably do what they do best, which is kick the can, or any other number
of analogies, to push this off, to get it to December, to mess up the holidays, but
to get out from under the shadow of this disaster that doesn't need a government shutdown to
compound things.
MILES O'BRIEN: All right, let's shift gears.
Do you have something you want to add?
AMY WALTER: No.
MILES O'BRIEN: All right, let's shift gears and talk about the continuing backlash on
Charlottesville and the president's statement subsequent to that.
Very interesting to see yesterday the secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, on "FOX News Sunday"
addressing who's speaking for whom here.
Let's roll the tape for a moment.
REX TILLERSON, U.S. Secretary of State: I don't believe anyone doubts the American people's
values or the commitment of the American government or the government's agencies to advancing
those values and defending those values.
CHRIS WALLACE, Host, "FOX News Sunday": And the president's values?
REX TILLERSON: The president speaks for himself, Chris.
MILES O'BRIEN: And then there was another little piece of tape from the secretary of
defense, General Mattis, with some troops offering sort of similar sentiments.
Amy, is there a real rift here between the president and the people at the top of his
Cabinet?
AMY WALTER: And there's another person that you didn't mention was Gary Cohn, who's his
top economic adviser, who in an interview with F.T. said that he was getting pressured
to resign over comments that the president had made about Charlottesville.
And, in fact, there was reporting in The New York Times that he actually had penned his
own resignation letter.
But the bottom line is, yes, there are risks obviously about the president's response to
Charlottesville.
But they are staying in his administration.
Nobody has quit.
Nobody has actually resigned.
And this is what you're seeing just in general with the isolation that the president is getting
right now, both with his own Cabinet and with his own party in Congress.
So much of it is over style and the tweeting and the behavior.
It's not necessarily over substance.
That's usually where you see parties break part.
Right.
We thought we were going to see this with the president on some of the substantive issues
in which he disagreed with his party, whether it was on taxes or on trade or on some of
the social programs.
Today, we're not seeing it on the policy, as much as we're seeing it on the behavior.
MILES O'BRIEN: Tamara, he's also aimed an awful lot of criticism at members of his own
party.
And I think Ronald Reagan described that as the 11th commandment.
You never criticize members of your own party.
What's the strategy there?
Could you see what it might be?
TAMARA KEITH: President Trump is a brand.
President Trump is more popular than Republicans in Congress among Republicans.
And President Trump sees this as working for him.
And you hear from people who say, you know, I love President Trump, and Congress and the
swamp need to figure this out.
You know, they need to move along and go along with what the president is saying.
What is remarkable, though, is also Republicans and members of his own Cabinet who no longer
seem afraid of the president.
It's sort of a remarkable thing.
They're not afraid of a rogue tweet or an angry backlash in the way that six or eight
months ago they might have been afraid of it.
MILES O'BRIEN: So, he seems to be doubling down with the base in a sense.
AMY WALTER: He is.
Tam is exactly right.
There's a piece of him that is really all about protecting his brand.
He doesn't want to get dragged down and he is much more popular than Congress is.
Interestingly enough, there are also some Republicans who don't mind that they're separate,
seen as separate from Donald Trump, especially going into a midterm election.
They say, normally, when the president is unpopular -- right now, he's sitting at somewhere
38, 40 percent approval rating -- he drags the whole party down with him because his
brand is the party brand.
Their hope right now from some Republicans is, our brand is actually different.
We can go and separate ourselves from some of his behavior, even though, you know, we
still all -- we all have an R behind our name.
We're seen as different.
We can project ourselves, present ourselves in a different way than the president.
MILES O'BRIEN: All right, that's Politics Monday.
Amy Walter, Tamara Keith, thank you both for joining us, as always.
AMY WALTER: You're welcome.
TAMARA KEITH: You're welcome.
MILES O'BRIEN: Now to another controversial move announced by the White House late Friday,
this time about transgender people serving in the military.
Today, human rights groups filed two lawsuits against the ban.
William Brangham brings us up to date.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The White House issued memorandum that followed through on President Trump's
unexpected tweets last month where he said that transgender people wouldn't be accepted
or allowed to serve in the U.S. armed forces.
Friday's memo said allowing trans service members could -- quote -- "hinder military
effectiveness and lethality, disrupt unit cohesion, and tax military resources."
The memorandum asked the Defense Department to finalize new rules about what to do with
the estimated several thousand active-duty trans service members.
For more on all this, we turn to Agnes Gereben Schaefer.
She's a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation and was the lead author of
a 2016 study for the Defense Department about transgender people in the military.
Welcome to "NewsHour."
AGNES GEREBEN SCHAEFER, RAND Corporation: Thank you.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: So, you were tasked to do this study back in 2016, when the Obama administration
was trying to figure out what to do with regards to transgender service members.
And what was the overall sort of focus of your study?
AGNES GEREBEN SCHAEFER: So, the Office of the undersecretary of Defense for Personnel
Readiness asked us to conduct a study with a very distinct mandate.
And that included looking at the estimated transgender population in the military, seeing
how many of those transgender service members would be likely to seek gender-transition-related
treatment, what the costs would be of extending health care coverage to the transgender community
in the military, and what the potential readiness implications might be associated with some
of those medical treatments that they may undertake, and, lastly, what lessons could
be learned from foreign militaries that had already allowed transgender individuals to
serve openly.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The president in his tweets cited two main concerns that he had that made
it why he wanted to do this.
Costs was one of the things.
He was -- referred to these as tremendous medical costs.
I know you looked at this in your study.
What are the costs?
AGNES GEREBEN SCHAEFER: So, we estimated that the cost would be about between $2.4 and $8.4
million.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: This is per year?
AGNES GEREBEN SCHAEFER: Per year, exactly.
And that represents four-tenths to one-tenth of a percent of the active component health
care budget for 2014, which are the numbers that -- the base numbers that we used.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: So, a minuscule fraction.
AGNES GEREBEN SCHAEFER: Well, what is driving this is really the -- our estimate of the
total number of transgender individuals in the military.
And they're small numbers, less than 11,000 across the active and reserve component.
And so those small numbers drive small costs.
And the other thing to take into account is that not all transgender service members will
undertake these medical treatments, like surgeries and hormone replacement.
But the surgeries is really what was driving the costs.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The other thing that the president cited as a main driver of why he
wanted to change the policy was disruption to the military services.
What did you find in that regard?
AGNES GEREBEN SCHAEFER: So, we found that the readiness impact of transgender-related
treatments would lead to a loss of less than 1 percent of the total available man or labor
years across the active component.
In fact, the number that we estimate is .0015 percent of those labor years.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Again, pretty small number.
AGNES GEREBEN SCHAEFER: A small -- exactly, because, again, not -- the number of individuals
that we think will use these or take these medical treatments is small.
So, we estimate between 25 and 130 active component members would actually have surgical
treatments.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Lastly, and very quickly, I understand you looked at the experiences
of, I think, 18 other countries?
AGNES GEREBEN SCHAEFER: Yes.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Did any of those other nations have a problem that they felt they needed
to get transgender service members out of their services?
AGNES GEREBEN SCHAEFER: So, we didn't find any readiness or cohesion implications.
There were anecdotal concerns about bullying, but they were able to deal with that through
policy changes.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: All right, Agnes Gereben Schaefer, thank you very much.
AGNES GEREBEN SCHAEFER: Thank you.
MILES O'BRIEN: Finally tonight, an intimate look into an often overlooked community.
The documentary "Raising Bertie" follows three young African-American men coming of age in
rural North Carolina as they struggle with school, society and generational poverty.
Documentarians Margaret Byrne and Ian Kibbe spent six years filming the young men, and
sat down with Jeffrey Brown to discuss what they found.
WOMAN: What in the world going to happen to these boys?
Have we given them the tools to be able to survive without getting into trouble?
JEFFREY BROWN: The
new documentary "Raising Bertie" takes us to a place and a people rarely the focus of
films, television or other media.
Set in rural North Carolina, it centers on three African-American males as they move
from their teenager years into young adulthood, the hardships they endure, the hope they maintain.
Filmmaker Margaret Byrne spent six years on the project.
She and producer Ian Robertson Kibbe join me now.
And welcome to both of you.
MARGARET BYRNE, "Raising Bertie": Thank you.
IAN KIBBE, "Raising Bertie": Thank you.
JEFFREY BROWN: Well, six years is a long time for a film.
Why did you want to make this?
And did you know what you were getting into?
MARGARET BYRNE: Oh, I had no idea what I was getting into.
I originally went down there with Jon, the director of photography and a producer on
the film, in 2009.
And we -- we intended to just follow the school for a year.
And what happened is, the school, an alternative school for boys called the Hive, they closed
down very on into filming.
And so we had to decide, is this something we abandon, or is there a story here?
And it really became a story about these three young men and their lives.
And it took six years to tell it.
JEFFREY BROWN: Three young men and, as I said in the introduction, a place that we often
do not see.
What did you see in it in the end when you entered the project?
IAN KIBBE: Yes.
Well, like you said, it was a community, and communities like this do not get nearly, I
think, enough attention from the media or from our, you know, educational reform systems.
And for me, as a North Carolinian, I grew up about two hours from Bertie.
And still I had no idea what this area was like or what the people in these communities
lived like.
And so I was really drawn to the project just because, in a lot of ways, I was ashamed not
to have known more about these communities.
JEFFREY BROWN: All right, I want to show you a little clip of -- just to give our audience
a little feel for it.
This introduces two of the young men.
Let's take a look.
YOUNG MAN: Me and my mom been living together for six months without my dad.
I wish I could see my mom and dad get back together.
And I was asked like why he doesn't call him.
It hurt.
YOUNG MAN: My neighborhood, it's fine.
You just be back playing ball full court to the neighbor house over there.
My grandma stayed next door.
Then my cousins stayed the next door right there.
So, yes, we moved right here.
There's one of my boys right here.
Our hood, people scared to come around here.
We just stick together.
JEFFREY BROWN: So, that introduces us to two of the young men, David Perry and Davonte
Harrell, right?
Margaret, these young men express frustration.
There's futility in some scenes, a sense of loss.
We just saw that.
I wonder what you -- were you surprised by what you heard?
And, also, how were you able to capture the kind of intimacy of their lives?
MARGARET BYRNE: Well, I think coming to Bertie as an outsider -- I'm from the city.
I lived in New York at the time.
You know, I'm a white woman making a film in a majority African-American community.
I think what was really important is that when -- you know, especially when we decided
that it's about these young men, and we were trying to really figure out what this film
is and learn about the community, we got an apartment, and we lived there.
And we spent time with the families, developing trust.
And I think those relationships are key in the making of this film.
JEFFREY BROWN: What about the sense of outsiderness?
I was reading your bio, and it said that you are of mixed race.
And I was thinking about the outsiderness of somebody coming in, but also perhaps a
sense of some understanding.
What did it bring to your sense of this project?
IAN KIBBE: Yes.
I think there are a lot of ways that Margaret and myself were outsiders to this community.
As someone who is mixed race, but does -- looks like an Austrian ski instructor, I grew up
in sort of the ultimate skin of male privilege, a white male living in the society.
And so that's something I think about a lot.
And it has shaped my life tremendously.
But, you know, I think there are a lot of ways that we were outsiders, and -- but then
there's also a lot of ways that we connect.
And I think one of the things we want people to get from this film is that this is a community
you may not know, or you may not know someone who lives in, or you may not even be near,
but there are sort of human elements, and these guys have tremendous value in their
lives.
And if we can kind of humanize them and sort of the issues that they're dealing with, I
think that's sort of our main takeaway, is that we want people to connect to them as
people.
JEFFREY BROWN: I want to ask you, just from a filmmaking perspective, when we talk about
something takes six years, you go with one idea in mind, right, to focus on the school.
The school closes.
Things change.
In the meantime, a lot changed in the culture, right?
Black Lives Matters happened.
A lot of things happened.
MARGARET BYRNE: Absolutely.
JEFFREY BROWN: Is that just the nature of your business, making documentaries?
MARGARET BYRNE: Absolutely.
I don't think I have ever worked on a film where it was what it was when it started.
And I think, as a filmmaker, I think if you try to dictate that, then you're straying
away from the truth.
And, also, the real story is Always much more interesting than what you intended to make.
JEFFREY BROWN: Do you end this project with pessimism, hope, or what?
MARGARET BYRNE: I think there's a lot of hope in the end.
There's hope.
And I really believe in them.
And I hope that this is a story that honors them and shows what value there is in the
human capital in our rural communities.
JEFFREY BROWN: The documentary is "Raising Bertie."
Margaret Byrne and Ian Robertson Kibbe, thank you both very much.
MARGARET BYRNE: Thank you.
IAN KIBBE: Thank you.
MILES O'BRIEN: And you can watch the entire film "Raising Bertie."
It premieres later tonight on the PBS documentary series "POV."
On the "NewsHour" online right now, we have more on the federal and local response to
Hurricane Harvey.
And, once again, if you are looking for a way to help the victims of the storm, aid
groups say they are most in need of financial donations.
We will help you with that.
You can find more on our Web site at PBS.org/NewsHour.
And that's the "NewsHour" for tonight.
I'm Miles O'Brien.
For all of us at the "PBS NewsHour," thank you.
We will see you tomorrow.

PBS NewsHour Weekend full episode August 27, 2017 Mueller asking if Trump tried to hide purpose of 2016 meeting What the Arpaio pardon reveals about Trump’s take on the rule of law For Whom Has Trump Made America Great? | The Resistance with Keith Olbermann | GQ News Wrap: North Korea fires missile over Japan WATCH LIVE: President Trump, Finnish president hold press conference Texas rescuers work around the clock in unrelenting rain and flooding Charles felt his marriage to Camilla was a big mistake CNN THE SITUATION ROOM 8/28/2017 How President Trump is navigating Hurricane Harvey

PBS NewsHour full episode Aug. 28, 2017

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