PBS NewsHour full episode August 17, 2017

HARI SREENIVASAN: Good evening.
I'm Hari Sreenivasan.
Judy Woodruff is away.
On the "NewsHour" tonight: terror in Barcelona.
A van plows through a busy tourist area in Spain, leaving more than a dozen people dead
and 100 injured.
Also ahead: As the nation reels from Charlottesville, city officials across the country grapple
with what to do about Confederate monuments now under renewed scrutiny.
Plus: the future of retail.
While more brick-and-mortar stores close down, can e-commerce make up for the loss of jobs?
MICHAEL MANDEL, Chief Economic Strategist, Progressive Policy Institute: The rise of
the fulfillment center jobs is having the effect of reducing inequality, because what
you're doing is you're talking about raising the wages for people with a high school education
by 30 percent.
That's significant.
HARI SREENIVASAN: All that and more on tonight's "PBS NewsHour."
(BREAK)
HARI SREENIVASAN: Thirteen killed, scores more hurt, two arrests, grim results of today's
attack in Barcelona, where a speeding vehicle vaulted a sidewalk and drove down its victims.
It follows similar attacks across Europe, and, last weekend, in Charlottesville, Virginia.
For more, we turn to Lorenzo Vidino, who leads the Program on Extremism at George Washington
University.
Spain hasn't been the -- hasn't been the site of these attacks.
We have seen a lot of focus on London and also in France.
LORENZO VIDINO, George Washington University: Yes.
I think the last time Spain was hit was in 2004, when we had the Madrid bombings.
But since the mobilization in Europe has been ISIS-linked, Spain has not been touched by
the same levels of radicalization and mobilization and by attacks as some of the Central, Northern
European countries have.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Why is that?
LORENZO VIDINO: It's for a variety of reasons, but mostly mobilization in Europe for ISIS
has been a second-generation phenomenon.
And the Southern European countries, like Spain, like Italy, do not have a large number
of second-generation Muslims, people who are born and raised in those countries.
So, I'm not saying that Spain has not been touched by the phenomenon of radicalization.
We have problems.
If you are looking at the two enclaves, Spanish enclaves in Moroccan territory, south of Melilla,
where apparently at least one of the attackers came from, those areas have had a lot of problems,
but mainland Spain has not been hit with the same intensity in terms of numbers of people
radicalized, in terms of foreign fighters, as, let's say, France, or U.K., or Germany
or Belgium.
HARI SREENIVASAN: How good are the security systems in place in Spain where the individuals
that might have been behind this, were they on the radar?
Do they have a radar keeping track?
LORENZO VIDINO: Since 2004, Spain has increased its counterterrorism capabilities.
Let's also remember this is a country that has been hit by another form of terrorism,
the Basque national terrorism, ETA, for a long, long time.
So it is a country that has an experience in dealing with terrorism.
Obviously, as any other law enforcement or intelligence throughout Europe or in the United
States as well, they can't intercept everything, they can't monitor everything.
They have disrupted quite a few plots over the last few years.
There have been hundreds of people been arrested, this, again, in a country that has not seen
the levels of mobilization of other European countries.
In Barcelona itself, a plot was thwarted last year, pretty sophisticated one.
Having said that, obviously, it's the experience of everybody from Europe to the United States
that something always falls through the cracks.
I think we will see over the next few hours whether those individuals who carried out
the attack are known to law enforcement, as it is often the case, or not known, what happened,
and I think that's something we will pull have to see.
HARI SREENIVASAN: This particular area is very popular with tourists.
But the method of attack now, using a car, using a van, using anything, it's almost unstoppable.
LORENZO VIDINO: It is.
I think you have seen a lot of European countries have put barriers in pedestrian areas.
To be honest, I'm a bit surprised that the city of Barcelona or Spanish authorities have
not done that in an area that is hugely popular with tourists.
I think Barcelona is one of the top three destinations for tourists.
And Las Ramblas is really the main pedestrian area.
So, any time of the day or night, it is flooded with tourists.
And the fact that a van could go in, I think it's probably something that will need to
be discussed in the aftermath of the attack.
But, obviously, you can't stop everything.
You can't block city centers.
You can't close down places like arenas.
We had an attack in Manchester.
Or any kind of social life.
So, obviously, as any country, and I think we have seen that in the States as well, certain
precautions have been taken, but you cannot stop life.
You cannot militarize our cities.
HARI SREENIVASAN: What about the coordination between Interpol, other European countries?
Are they sharing information fast enough between countries to say, you might have a threat
here, here are three or four people that just crossed our border into yours?
LORENZO VIDINO: It has gotten much better compared to a few years back.
It is not perfect.
Interpol does a good job.
But there are a lot of limitations in what can be done.
And I think you still have political jealousies, diffidence, even in some cases within individual
countries.
I think, to some degree, that would apply to Spain.
I'm not saying this is the case right now, but there are political tensions between Catalonia,
which wants to be an independent country, and it's an autonomous region inside Spain,
and the Spanish central government.
And, sometimes, that's has repercussions also on counterintelligence and intelligence-sharing.
Sharing information in real time is problematic at the European level, at the international
level.
HARI SREENIVASAN: All right, Lorenzo Vidino, who leads the Program on Extremism at George
Washington University, thanks so much.
LORENZO VIDINO: Thank you.
HARI SREENIVASAN: In a series of tweets, President Trump condemned the attack and offered help
to the people of Spain.
He also raised again a claim that the U.S. Army used bullets dipped in pig's blood to
quell Muslim rebels in the Philippines years ago.
The story has been widely debunked.
In the day's other news: Wall Street plunged on news of the Barcelona attack and worries
about President Trump's agenda.
The Dow Jones industrial average lost 274 points to close at 21750.
The Nasdaq fell 123 points and the S&P 500 slid 38.
The top U.S. diplomat insisted today that a potential U.S. military response to North
Korea is still on the table, that after the president's chief strategist, Steve Bannon,
had said there is no military solution to the problem.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson responded after he and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis
met with their Japanese counterparts in Washington.
REX TILLERSON, U.S. Secretary of State: A threat of proportions that none of us like
to contemplate has to be backed by strong military consequences if North Korea chooses
wrongly.
And I think that is the message that the president has wanted to send to the leadership of North
Korea.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Meanwhile, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph
Dunford, said it would be unimaginable to let North Korea have nuclear-tipped ballistic
missiles.
In Hong Kong, three young activists were sent to prison for leading pro-democracy protests
in 2014.
A court sentenced Joshua Wong, Nathan Law, and Alex Chow up to eight months.
They helped start the so-called umbrella movement against Chinese curbs on elections.
The three appeared outside the court before the sentencing and rallied supporters with
a show of defiance.
JOSHUA WONG, Activist: Even though Nathan, Alex and I will be the ones who may get sent
to prison immediately for half to one year, but what we believe is people united will
never be defeated.
Our courage and determination to fight for free elections and democracy will continue
in this long-term battle.
HARI SREENIVASAN: The activists originally received much lighter sentences, but the court
overturned those and imposed harsher penalties.
New warnings today about the refugee crisis in South Sudan.
The U.N. says one million people have fled to Uganda, with 1,800 more arriving every
day to escape civil war.
Video from the charity World Vision shows the largest refugee camp in the world, and
officials say Uganda is struggling to meet their needs.
And back in this country, drug maker Mylan will pay $465 million to settle federal allegations
of price-gouging for the EpiPen.
The device can stop allergic reactions in emergencies.
The Justice Department says Mylan overbilled Medicaid by more than a billion dollars over
a decade.
Still to come on the "NewsHour": we talk to leaders of two cities about the controversy
of removing Confederate monuments; what White House strategist Steve Bannon's recent statements
reveal about the Trump agenda; Making Sense of the retail industry's transformation; and
much more.
Now to the fallout from Charlottesville and the spotlight it cast on Confederate monuments.
The president spoke out in their defense today, even as the campaign to clear them from public
spaces intensified.
Statues of Confederate leaders in Baltimore removed in the night.
A monument to Confederate soldiers, in Durham, North Carolina, torn down by protesters Monday.
Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe joined in on CBS this morning.
GOV.
TERRY MCAULIFFE (D), Virginia: It's time for these monuments to come down.
It's time for us to move together after what happened in Charlottesville.
HARI SREENIVASAN: On Twitter, President Trump lamented the loss of Confederate monuments.
"Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the
removal of our beautiful statues and monuments, "he said.
And he went on: "Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson.
Who's next, Washington, Jefferson?
So foolish."
But in Durham, demonstrators turned out today to show support for the people arrested in
Monday's incident.
And elsewhere:
MAN (through translator): The reality is that it never should have been there.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Protesters rallied in Tampa, Florida, after the local government said residents
will have to raise money on their own to remove a Confederate monument there.
The cries for action echoed in Congress, with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi saying
in a statement: "The Confederate statues in the halls of Congress have always been reprehensible."
A spokesman for Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan said it's up to each state to decide
whose statues will represent it in the Capitol.
Back in Charlottesville, hundreds gathered for a vigil last night at the University of
Virginia.
Plans for the march were spread by word of mouth.
The crowd walked the same route the white supremacists had taken.
JERRY CONNOR, Vigil Attendee: We're here to take back the lawn for this student generation,
but all the previous and all the future generations of students who have walked the lawn.
The lawn stands for liberty, equality, justice and freedom.
HARI SREENIVASAN: But Governor McAuliffe suggested President Trump should stay away from Charlottesville.
GOV.
TERRY MCAULIFFE: I do not want the president to come here to continue on with the speeches
he's given the last couple of days.
HARI SREENIVASAN: The president, in turn, denied equating white nationalists with counterprotesters,
and he tweeted that the news media -- quote -- "totally misrepresent what I say about
hate, bigotry, et cetera."
He also dismissed Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina as publicity-seeking
after Graham accused him of stoking tensions.
But Republican Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee went further today.
He charged the president has not demonstrated the stability and competence needed for the
White House.
Late today, President Trump decided to abandon a planned council of advisers on infrastructure.
We turn now for a closer look at the challenges cities have faced when trying to deal not
only with controversial statues, but also the backlash that can bring protesters into
the streets.
We spoke to two people who deal directly with these issues.
Jim Gray is mayor of Lexington, Kentucky.
Tonight, the ®MDNM¯City Council there is debating how to handle their Confederate monuments.
We spoke to the mayor before the council meeting began.
And Lieutenant Ryan Lee is the executive officer of the Police Bureau Rapid Response Team of
Portland, Oregon, where violent protests erupted earlier this summer.
Gentlemen, welcome to you both.
Mayor Jim Gray, this is something that your city may be facing sometime soon.
It's not exactly the same parallel, but there are Confederate monuments that you have wanted
to move and relocate, and there's some tension about that.
JIM GRAY, Mayor of Lexington, Kentucky: Yes, that's right, Hari.
And for more than a year now, we have examined this issue.
And on Saturday, with the regrettable and tragic events in Charlottesville, I made the
decision to accelerate the putting before the City Council a resolution to relocate
these monuments.
And that's because it was the right thing to do.
It is the right thing to do.
These monuments today stand on really sacred -- what amounts to sacred ground, ground where
slaves were once auctioned, were sold into slavery, men, women and children were sold
into slavery.
So this is the right thing to do to remove and to relocate these statues in a place where
the full context and the full story of the tragedy of the Civil war could be shared and
-- shared and taught.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Mayor Gray, staying with you for a second, how is your police department
preparing for the possibility that people who want to tear the statue down want to make
Lexington another example?
JIM GRAY: Well, our police department is disciplined and prepared, but let me tell you about the
requirements, the legal requirements.
The law in Kentucky requires that these statues, any movement of these statues first be put
before what's called the Kentucky Military Heritage Commission.
So, within the law today, we are operating within that law.
Our police are prepared.
We are a peaceful city.
We are a city that's a giving and compassionate city, but we're also disciplined and prepared.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Lieutenant Ryan Lee, your city faced some very difficult protests.
How did you get through them?
LT.
RYAN LEE, Executive Officer, Police Bureau Rapid Response Team, Portland, Oregon: It's
important for us when we're approaching these situations to understand that there is an
exercise, a lawful exercise of First Amendment rights.
And while I may personally find the content of somebody's speech personally reprehensible,
my role as a police officer is to facility that lawful and peaceful expression of somebody's
First Amendment rights, to try and help navigate for those people that wish to express lawfully
their free speech, to try and give them a platform for it, while at the same time weighing
out those governmental interests to keep the peace, to maintain law and order and to meet
the public's expectation of what they want from their police force.
It's not an easy one-solution-fits-all.
For us, it required reaching out to a variety of organizers from all sides of the political
spectrum, trying to get them to self-police, and then developing plans in place to keep
public order if necessary.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Mayor Gray, those are great suggestions that Lieutenant Lee has.
Is that what your police department is doing?
Tell me a little bit about the strategy on you're planning these things through.
JIM GRAY: Sure.
Well, our police chief has reached out to Charlottesville, to those who are responsible
in Charlottesville to try to gain lessons learned there.
Our police department is often set up as one of the finest in the country, an example in
the country for its discipline, for its preparedness, dealing with crises, dealing with demands
routinely.
So, we're prepared.
So, we're reaching out to state and federal, also, of course, local jurisdictions who may
provide help.
And they're doing a commendable job today of preparing.
But as the lieutenant said, this country founded -- one of its, of course, founding principles
is the right to free speech.
But that -- when it extends over into hatred and violence and those expressions in a violent
way, of course, then that's when we need to be prepared.
And we are.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Mayor Gray, where is that threshold for you?
One of the most striking images from Charlottesville were the police standing back and there were
people fighting right in front of those officers.
Do you have instructions to your police department that say, get involved when X happens or Y
happens?
JIM GRAY: You know, that's the responsibility of our police chief, our command unit of our
police.
The lieutenant knows those protocols well.
We expect to deal with these issues, should they emerge.
We expect and we will deal with them responsibly, but we will deal with them effectively and
in a disciplined way.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Lieutenant Lee, looking back at what happened in Charlottesville,
I'm not asking you to armchair quarterback, but if this happened in your city, what are
the guidelines?
What is the strategy that you say?
I realize there are case-by-case decisions that the officers have to make, but there
seem to be very different approaches the departments take to try to cordon people off into different
physical spaces, so that they can't clash as easily, maybe use other tools like bicycles
and so forth.
What do you do?
LT.
RYAN LEE: Well, as you mentioned, we do try and cordon people off as appropriate.
We can put place reasonable time, place and manner restrictions upon free speech, if necessary.
We have to allow for some alternative form of expression.
So, the ability to set particularly opposing groups apart, whether it's through fencing,
whether it's through physically locating officers between them, that's an option.
It's a possibility.
What is legally possible from state to state and city to city changes, so some of the things
that may be both legally acceptable here in the city of Portland and socially acceptable,
with the expectations of the public, may vary from place to place.
So the options that were on the table for Charlottesville may not be the same for us.
When we look at these groups, there's often sort of a mistake, where people see -- they
just see it as a dichotomy.
They look and they see what they think are homogeneous groups.
This group represents one side, and another group represents another.
But what, from dealing with crowds, we have learned over the years is that there are a
variety of like-minded clusters that sort of form out a plot point for a spectrum of
opinion.
And so it's recognizing those people in those groups that plot as wanting to carry out a
lawful expression of their First Amendment rights, trying to communicate and coordinate
with them, and trying to get them to sort of outgroup or excise those that really are
just seeking a violent confrontation, so if the police can address the conduct there and
keep it safe for all parties to express their free speech.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Lieutenant Lee, is it more complicated when it is groups of protesters
attacking each other vs. when you know there is one specific group that's out there?
LT.
RYAN LEE: It makes the equation more complicated, but, ultimately, when we're dealing with these
violent protests, these violent confrontations, we're really looking at conduct, not content.
It does change the equation, that, sometimes, we will have events where the animosity is
focused towards the police.
And now we have to be concerned with sort of a third party in multiple different groups
who are really -- again, when we're talking about the conduct, there are those people
in those groups that are seeking violence.
And, unfortunately, there are times that that violence can be directed towards somebody
of an opposing political view or simply directed towards the police.
It makes it a more complex equation to work through, but, ultimately, we're dealing with
conduct.
HARI SREENIVASAN: All right, Lieutenant Ryan lee of Portland, Oregon, and Mayor Jim Gray
of Lexington, Kentucky, thank you both for joining us tonight.
LT.
RYAN LEE: Thank you.
JIM GRAY: Thank you.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Now to a man often at the center of controversy in the Trump White House,
whose outsized influence is often discussed, yet he is rarely heard from.
Our John Yang is here to help fill in the picture.
JOHN YANG: Hari, earlier today, I spoke with a journalist who got an unexpected phone call
from Stephen Bannon, President Trump's embattled chief strategist.
Robert Kuttner is the co-founder and co-editor of "The American Prospect," a liberal magazine.
He's also a professor of social policy at Brandeis University.
We were also joined by Joshua Green, a senior national correspondent for Bloomberg Businessweek
and author of the bestselling book "Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the
Storming of the Presidency."
I began by asking Kuttner about how his conversation with Bannon came about.
ROBERT KUTTNER, Co-Founder, "The American Prospect": Well, I got an e-mail from someone
at the White House who says that Mr. Bannon would like me to come into the White House
and meet with him.
So, I double-checked the e-mail address, which looked legit, and I called the guy, and he
seemed legit.
And I said, look, I'm on vacation, but this is kind of a fast-moving story, so I would
be happy to speak with him by phone, if he would like to.
And what had happened was, he had read a column I had written the day before basically making
the point that, because we have been so passive in taking on illegal Chinese trade practices,
that Beijing now has a huge amount of leverage over us, where we want them to help us with
North Korea, but the price for that is we have got to fold our hand in terms of taking
a hard line with them on trade.
So, Bannon apparently read that and felt he had a soul mate, ]and didn't take the precaution
of making clear whether we were on background or on the record, and called me up and sounded
as if we were soul mates and best friends.
And it was like I was part of a private strategy session with Stephen Bannon, which was really
quite bizarre.
And about two or three minutes in, I said to myself, oh, wow, he is not putting this
off the record.
And I'm certainly not going to mention it if he doesn't mention it.
And, of course, the ground rules are that when a government official calls you and doesn't
say whether it's off the record or on the record, the default setting is that it's on
the record.
And so, 25 minutes later, I have this astonishing interview, which I recorded.
JOHN YANG: And this was the first time you had ever talked to him?
ROBERT KUTTNER: Absolutely.
And he made it sound like he'd been reading my stuff for years and thought it was great,
you know, the usual kind of flattery stuff.
JOHN YANG: Josh Green, this is Mr. Kuttner's first time talking to Steve Bannon.
You have been talking to him on and off since 2011, I think.
How does this ring true to you?
Does this ring true to you?
JOSHUA GREEN, Bloomberg Businessweek: Absolutely.
In fact, my introduction to Steve Bannon was much the same as Bob Kuttner's.
I had written an article about Sarah Palin.
And, all of a sudden, one day, out of the blue, I get a phone call from a staffer, saying,
I represent a guy named Steve Bannon, who at the time was a conservative filmmaker infatuated
with Sarah Palin.
He said, Mr. Bannon read your latest article and he would really like to get together and
talk with you.
In this case, it was at a movie screening for Bannon's film.
And I met him.
And he's a very interesting, smart, charismatic guy who had a distinct brand of politics that
I thought was interesting and worth writing about.
And so I got to know him and basically have been interviewing him ever since.
JOHN YANG: Bob, you mentioned two bits that he talked about.
He talked about contradicting the president's strategy on North Korea.
He said, "Until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that 10 million
people in Seoul don't die in the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don't
know what you're talking about.
There's no military solution here.
They got us."
What was your reaction when you heard that?
ROBERT KUTTNER: Well, I thought he was right on the merits, but the first thing I noticed
was that this was not exactly the administration's view, certainly not Donald Trump's view..
So, I said to myself, huh, he's being rather incautious and he shows no felt need to defend
his president, and he's just speaking his mind.
And it certainly is not the president's view.
JOHN YANG: He also talked about what he called ethno-nationalism.
He called them losers.
"It's a fringe element.
I think the media plays it up too much and we have got to help crush it, help crush it
more.
These guys are a collection of clowns."
ROBERT KUTTNER: That was completely disingenuous, because, of course, he, as much as anybody
else in America, is responsible for assembling this collection of clowns as a political force.
And people like Bannon and like Trump, they say what they need to say, and if they contradict
themselves today relative to what they said yesterday, well, that's how you do it.
And if he's trying to ingratiate himself with somebody who's an editor of a liberal magazine,
"The American Prospect," he's going to say what he needs to say to try and persuade me
that he's not such a bad guy.
But you have to take that with a ton of salt.
And I think it's the usual dog-whistle stuff, where the alt-right is not going to think
that Steve Bannon somehow has had a deathbed conversion and he now thinks they're bad guys.
JOHN YANG: Josh, what do you think was going on here when he said those things?
JOSHUA GREEN: I think that he was trying to impress a credentialed journalist and somebody
he admires.
He and I -- Bannon and I had similar conversations in the research for my book.
And I asked him, because he's often charged with anti-Semitism and white nationalism.
I said, well, if you don't believe this stuff, why is it that you make common cause with
these guys?
And his answer was that, while the types of you see marching in Charlottesville are -- he
called them freaks and goobers to me, he called them clowns to Bob -- were individually ridiculous
people, collectively, they represented a political force that he thought he could script into
his larger America-first nationalism, into Trumpian politics, and use them, essentially
manipulate them as tools to carry out his political goals.
(CROSSTALK)
JOHN YANG: Bob, he ended the conversation with you by saying that he was -- wanted to
see you at the White House after Labor Day to continue discussion of China and trade.
Do you think that's going to happen, Bob?
ROBERT KUTTNER: You know, I think, as long as Donald Trump is doubling down on the alliance
with the far right, Bannon's job may be safe, because he needs Bannon to guide him through
that strategy.
So, I am certainly not going to predict whether Bannon's job is safe, but I think the point
is, a lot of other people in the White House may be furious at Bannon, but there's only
one person who counts.
And that's Donald Trump.
JOSHUA GREEN: I agree.
And if you listen to what Donald Trump had said in the wake of the Charlottesville attack,
it has been precisely the sort of thing that Bannon says and believes, even though it's
something that is galling to Republican elected officials, to ordinary Americans, to many
advisers within Trump's own White House who are leaking to reporters their dismay and
disgust, but don't have the courage to come out and say it publicly or do what they ought
to do and resign from their position in the White House, if they don't agree with what
Donald Trump is saying.
JOHN YANG: Joshua Green, Robert Kuttner, you both have fascinating insights into this guy
Steve Bannon.
Thank you very much for joining us.
JOSHUA GREEN: Thank you.
ROBERT KUTTNER: Thank you.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Stay with us.
Coming up on the "NewsHour": why the U.S. has one of the worst maternal mortality rates
in the developed world; a Brief But Spectacular take on writing compelling stories; and a
World War II veteran returns a Japanese soldier's flag 73 years later.
But first: As more and more shopping is done online, what will become of the 16 million
Americans who work in the retail industry?
Our economics correspondent, Paul Solman, takes a look.
It's part of our series Making Sense, which airs Thursdays on the "NewsHour."
®MDNM¯JENNIFER RICHTER, Business Owner: This is a great, great, great basic black
top.
PAUL SOLMAN: This summer®MDNM¯, Jennifer Richter opened her own clothing boutique online.
®MDNM¯JENNIFER RICHTER: This is just the future of retail.
The brick-and-mortar stores, they're just going to keep trimming the fat and keep eliminating
positions.
PAUL SOLMAN: Richter speaks from experience.
In January, she was one of over 10,000 employees laid off from struggling department store
chain Macy's.
®MDNM¯JENNIFER RICHTER: It just spiraled out of control with traffic down, people not
coming in, online sales going up.
And it just happened really fast.
PAUL SOLMAN: Richter worked at Macy's in Manhattan as one of 14 regional directors for stylists.
Every one of her colleagues was axed.
So, far as you know, 12 out of 14 still looking for work half-a-year later?
®MDNM¯JENNIFER RICHTER: Yes.
And I was with Macy's for two years, and the other 12 are 10 years-plus.
Some of them had been with the company for 30 years.
And when you get to the level we were at, it's harder and harder.
It's scary.
It really is.
PAUL SOLMAN: Unable to find work at another retailer, Richter is going it alone.
®MDNM¯JENNIFER RICHTER: Really just using Instagram, social media to really market myself,
and instead of fighting online, like I did for so many years, I'm just embracing it and
joining them in doing what I feel there's a need in the market for.
PAUL SOLMAN: As you have surely heard by now, the growth of e-commerce is wreaking havoc
on traditional retail and its work force; 5,300 store closings were announced in the
first half of 2017, empty storefronts you have probably seen somewhere near you.
More painful, the 64,000 job cuts said to be in the works.
Mark Cohen runs the retail studies program at Columbia Business School.
MARK COHEN, Columbia Business School: The retail worker is in a world of hurt.
Retail employees, some 10 percent of the employed population of the United States, these are
folks who are often tethered by way of employment to a shopping mall.
There's no pathway from a part-time job in a mall, in a specialty store or department
store to some other form of employment that's local and available.
PAUL SOLMAN: Official statistics show the retail sector shedding only 26,000 or so jobs
in the past 12 months, but Cohen says that may understate the case.
MARK COHEN: I think it's going to be difficult to pinpoint the employment status of the folks
being laid off.
Many of them are part-time employees, so they don't necessarily get captured in the employment
numbers.
PAUL SOLMAN: Malcolm Skoop Hovis worked at old-time retailer Kmart.
MALCOLM SKOOP HOVIS, Retail Worker: Kmart got to compete with Wal-Mart, Target, Walgreens,
with Amazon doing deliveries now, so it's too much competition for Kmart.
PAUL SOLMAN: Hovis was hired as a temp at this Kmart outside Washington months before
it closed.
MALCOLM SKOOP HOVIS: Half the store is empty.
The inventory is getting smaller.
And you can come in here and get little knickknacks.
PAUL SOLMAN: More than 300 Sears and Kmart stores are scheduled to close this year.
Sears Holding Company, which also owns both Sears and Kmart, has shed some 180,000 jobs
in the last seven years.
Mark Cohen was once a Sears executive.
MARK COHEN: I spent seven years at Sears, both here in the United States and in Canada.
They are hanging on by a fingernail, at best.
The genre that was legacy retail is, for the most part, in terrible trouble.
PAUL SOLMAN: The main reason will not surprise you.
One-eighth of all retail sales were transacted online last year, up 16 percent over just
the year before, more folks shopping on computers and phones, fewer driving to the malls, some
of which have literally gone to seed.
There's another threat to retail jobs as well, automation, as in cashier-less convenience
stores, like those being tested in China and closer to home.
So, toll the knell for jobs in retail?
Not just yet.
MICHAEL MANDEL, Chief Economic Strategist, Progressive Policy Institute: Since 2007,
we have seen about 400,000 jobs created in the e-commerce sector.
PAUL SOLMAN: Michael Mandel, chief economic strategist at the Progressive Policy Institute,
thinks online may spawn more jobs than it whacks.
MICHAEL MANDEL: We have had a small decline in brick-and-mortar retail.
We have had a large increase in e-commerce jobs.
A lot of them are jobs in fulfillment centers.
PAUL SOLMAN: Mandel argues that much of the growth in warehouse employment is actually
tied to online retail.
MICHAEL MANDEL: I have been able to track these jobs using government data down to the
county level.
And you can see, when a fulfillment center opens up in the county, you have a big jump
in what the government classifies as warehouse jobs.
PAUL SOLMAN: On a recent morning in hot summer Baltimore, thousands of job-seekers lined
up outside an Amazon fulfillment center for a one-day jobs fair held at a dozen sites
across the country to recruit 50,000 workers to pick, pack, and ship orders.
PAUL SOLMAN: Amazon's Lauren Lynch:
LAUREN LYNCH, Amazon: Here in Baltimore, we're looking to fill 1,200 roles.
A few years ago, we didn't have 70 fulfillment centers across the country.
Now we have got more than 70, and we need associates to help us fill those orders.
PAUL SOLMAN: OK, maybe every retailer now calls its employees associates these days.
But no matter what they do, more than 382,000 employees work for Amazon worldwide, and the
number is growing.
In January, the company promised to create 100,000 more jobs in the U.S. alone.
CANDACE TAYLOR, Retail Worker: I think Amazon's going to rule the world soon.
(LAUGHTER)
PAUL SOLMAN: Single mom Candace Taylor got a job offer after almost a year of unemployment.
CANDACE TAYLOR: I'm a little older, and for me to have a company that's stable and to
have something that can become a career is exactly what I need.
PAUL SOLMAN: Also, the above-minimum-wage pay and benefits, health insurance, retirement,
are better than at the mall.
DAMION BROWN, Retail Worker: They say they're starting off at $13 an hour.
PAUL SOLMAN: Damion Brown makes $10 an hour at Wal-Mart.
DAMION BROWN: Wal-Mart, it's OK.
It's not -- I wouldn't say it's the best.
You're not getting the pay, right?
You might get the hours.
You are not going get the payout that's great.
You're not going to get paid time off.
PAUL SOLMAN: And Michael Mandel says it's right there in the data.
MICHAEL MANDEL: On average, pay in fulfillment centers is about 30 percent higher than pay
in brick-and-mortar retail in the same area.
Not only that.
Retail jobs tend to be part-time, maybe not paying benefits.
The fulfillment centers have a lot of full-time jobs, have the benefits.
They seem to be better jobs, as far as I can figure out.
PAUL SOLMAN: D'Angelo Bryan, who's been packing shipments at the Baltimore fulfillment center
for a couple months now, even convinced his friends to apply.
D'ANGELO BRYAN, Retail Worker: I got experience in just about a little bit of everything,
and so far, I would definitely say Amazon is the best job that I have had so far.
PAUL SOLMAN: But let's not romanticize here.
The work is grueling.
D'ANGELO BRYAN: We're packing really, really fast because we have shipments nonstop.
The first couple of weeks, it was like, I don't know how people do it.
Being on your feet for 10 hours a shift, 44 hours a week, sometimes 50, you know, after
those first two weeks, it's like, whew.
PAUL SOLMAN: Now, warehouse work is dominated by men, while the retail economy is losing
jobs that are mostly held by women.
And fulfillment center jobs simply may not be feasible for laid-off brick-and-mortar
workers for a host of reasons, among them, says Cohen:
MARK COHEN: These are folks who need flexible scheduling and are not able to commute 50
or 100 miles to an Amazon fulfillment center that's open somewhere in the vicinity.
PAUL SOLMAN: But to Mandel, the net effect is positive, especially given America's ever-widening
inequality gap.
MICHAEL MANDEL: The rise of the fulfillment center jobs is having the effect of reducing
inequality, because what you're doing is you're talking about raising the wages for people
with a high school education by 30 percent.
That's significant.
PAUL SOLMAN: As automation takes over store jobs, though, won't robots eventually displace
the pickers and packers too?
Amazon already uses robots to move goods around.
Not to worry, says Amazon's Lynch: The company will simply keep growing and have to add jobs.
LAUREN LYNCH: Having robots in our fulfillment centers means that we can have more inventory,
which means we need more associates to help us fulfill all that inventory, all those customer
orders.
PAUL SOLMAN: But for how long will Amazon and others rely on humans to pick and pack?
And so we end with Cartman, a robot built to pick and stow items in a warehouse.
It recently won a robotics prize sponsored by Amazon.
For the "PBS NewsHour," this is economics correspondent Paul Solman.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Next week, Paul will look at how retailers both on- and off-line are
responding to shifting consumer habits.
And on our Web site, the co-founder of eyeglass chain Warby Parker gives us his take on the
transformation of retail.
That's at PBS.org/NewsHour.
Now a troubling trend in women's health.
Doctors and nurses have worked hard and successfully to reduce the U.S. infant mortality rate in
recent decades.
What's less known and less understood is the rise in maternal mortality, mothers dying
after pregnancy or from childbirth-related causes.
Renee Montagne of NPR and Nina Martin of ProPublica have teamed up for a series of reports on
the subject.
Their latest installments came out today.
Judy Woodruff recently spoke with them both.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Renee Montagne, Nina Martin, thank you very much for talking with us.
So, Americans think we have the best health care, medical care in the world.
How could it be, Renee Montagne, that we have this problem?
RENEE MONTAGNE, NPR: Well, there are a lot of reasons.
And there are some underlying reasons that most people would recognize.
And that is -- that is people, low-income women, women of color, women in rural settings
have less access to the best possible medical care.
But what we're finding and what the numbers are showing is that there are -- this could
actually happen to just about anyone.
I mean, we're finding women who had -- who had what would have thought to have been the
best of care.
NINA MARTIN, ProPublica: Right.
And that's part of the problem is that a lot of doctors, a lot of nurses, a lot of hospitals
think that maternal mortality is something that happens in other countries; it's a thing
of the past in the U.S.
And so, basically, there are two issues that have arisen.
One is that there's just a lack of recognition, a lack of awareness about what life-threatening
complications look like.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And on the part of doctors, hospitals?
NINA MARTIN: All.
All of the above, nurses as well, and patients a lot of times, because patients are not necessarily
educated.
We don't want to worry the patients.
And so, when an emergency does happen, the next thing that sort of kicks in is that hospitals
and doctors and nurses often are not prepared for the emergency, so there's sort of a denial
and then a delay.
JUDY WOODRUFF: There has been a lot of focus on making sure babies are born healthy.
RENEE MONTAGNE: Exactly.
One of the things that we came across in our different -- in recent conversations, Bill
Callaghan of the CDC, who has spent his life studying this, he had an article from 1950
that declared victory over maternal mortality.
Women didn't die in childbirth in great numbers anymore, they said.
And, basically, that was -- you know, that sophisticated journal was the beginning of
an emphasis on saving babies.
And, of course, babies do die in much greater numbers.
They are more vulnerable.
But, basically, everybody turned their sights to the wonderful ways you could save babies,
new technology and focusing -- neonatal units in the next 20 or so years became part of
a good hospital, a good birthing center.
JUDY WOODRUFF: You both have done so much reporting on this.
The series, of course, is running over many months.
We have a clip right now of the husband of a woman.
She was a neonatal nurse, so she worked in health care.
But she ended up with either a lack of diagnosis, the wrong diagnosis.
And this is a clip as I guess she's going into surgery, but where her condition has
severely deteriorated.
Let's listen.
DR.
LARRY BLOOMSTEIN, Widower: So, they took her to the operating room, and the neurosurgeon
operated for, I think, about four hours, and when he came out, he said that she's still
alive.
She's basically on life support, but she's brain-dead.
So, at that point, we decided to withdraw.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So this was Lauren Bloomstein, Nina, who -- as we said, a nurse in New Jersey.
They thought everything was fine.
She delivered the baby, and then things went terribly wrong.
NINA MARTIN: Right.
So, Lauren Bloomstein is an example of the kind of person that everyone assumes doesn't
die in childbirth or pregnancy-related causes in the U.S.
She had great health care.
She was a nurse herself.
Her husband, Larry, who we just heard, was a doctor.
He was with her in the delivery room.
He basically never left her side, except to take the baby up to the nursery.
She came in with a condition called preeclampsia, that is, pregnancy-induced hypertension.
She had not had it.
And she came in and her symptoms were not recognized from the moment she came to the
hospital.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Are there lessons being learned, Renee, by hospitals, by medical care providers
around the country as a result of situations like this?
RENEE MONTAGNE: There is something of a movement, in fact, among concerned medical professionals
to actually address these problems.
But the lessons in the individual situation often come from the mother dying.
And then that hospital may rethink what it's doing.
The doctors may learn a lesson.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, it's a lack of training?
NINA MARTIN: It's a lack of training, and a lack of education and a lack of recognition
in some cases, but it's also a lack of having a set of protocols and standards in place
for where the rare emergency happens, so, a hemorrhage, for example, or, in Lauren's
case, preeclampsia.
There's a very specific set of things that doctors and hospitals and nurses should be
-- start to do immediately as soon as they recognize the symptoms.
But, often, those standards aren't even in place in very good hospitals, until it's too
late and until the next time.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But, again, it just seems stunning.
Again, we think of the United States, Renee, being -- having the most advanced medical
care in the world.
How could it be that the medical team who are working with women giving birth don't
-- aren't prepared to deal with all these circumstances?
RENEE MONTAGNE: Well, when you see these stories, when you hear these stories, you actually
ask that question every time.
They're almost unbelievable.
But the reality is, hospitals have protocols, but they're not necessarily well-practiced.
They're not consistent.
There are not lists for people to follow, when you see one thing, that means the other.
You don't think about it.
It's a very -- I think it's kind of deeply embedded in the American medical system among
obstetricians and even obstetrical nurses.
NINA MARTIN: And smaller and rural hospitals are less likely to have these protocols in
place, because they're smaller.
They have had fewer less deliveries.
And so they are less likely to encounter a life-threatening complication, so that's another
problem.
JUDY WOODRUFF: We started out, I think, also talking about whether there were other factors,
socioeconomic status, whether women of -- whether this was a planned pregnancy or not, whether
the mom took care of herself during the pregnancy.
Renee, are those -- even the race, age of the mother, are those not factors that you
found?
RENEE MONTAGNE: To hear what people say -- that researchers will say is, those are all factors,
and they are all there, and, to some extent, they're recognized in women who have high-risk
pregnancies, and that's recognized.
If you have -- if you're obese or if you have hypertensive -- some kind of hypertensive
disease to begin with, those things are watched if you're in a good hospital.
And, of course, the American medical system is such that there are enough people not in
good hospitals.
So, yes, these are factors, but they're -- as researchers will say, they're not the reason
women die.
Women die from these conditions, these complications.
And there is a CDC Foundation analysis that has it that 60 percent of all these deaths
could be prevented.
NINA MARTIN: The underlying conditions that women die from are not age.
They're not -- it's not being obese or being African-American, although African-American
women do die at two to three times the rate of white women.
It's heart disease, some sort of heart-related condition, or a hemorrhage, or preeclampsia,
or an infection that is not diagnosed.
RENEE MONTAGNE: Or treated well.
NINA MARTIN: Or treated well.
Exactly.
RENEE MONTAGNE: I mean, these are things they're dying of.
They don't in all instances need to die of them.
JUDY WOODRUFF: A wakeup call in so many ways.
Renee Montagne, Nina Martin, thank you very much.
RENEE MONTAGNE: Thank you.
NINA MARTIN: Thank you.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Now to another in our Brief But Spectacular series, where we ask people
to describe their passions.
Tonight, we hear from journalist and novelist Calvin Trillin.
His book "Jackson, 1964: And Other Dispatches from Fifty Years of Reporting on Race in America"
became available in paperback last month.
CALVIN TRILLIN, Author, "Jackson, 1964: And Other Dispatches from Fifty Years of Reporting
on Race in America": I was sort of between projects a little while ago, and I thought,
this would be a good opportunity to re-catalogue my collection of Civil War artifacts.
But I don't have a collection of Civil War artifacts, or any other collections.
This is time to put that harpsichord kit together.
I don't have a harpsichord kit.
I don't have a golf game to polish.
So, I suppose it's just writing or sitting quietly in a dark room.
For 15 years, I did a piece every three weeks for "The New Yorker" that was about 3,000
words.
"The New Yorker" didn't require what newspaper people sometimes call the nut graph, which
is the paragraph that tells you why this story is important.
The billboard paragraph in some of my stories would have to say something like, all over
the country, disreputable people in small towns are killing each other, something like
that.
I mean, I didn't have one of those.
So, I was only interested in whether it was an interesting story.
I didn't know much about "The New Yorker" when I was a kid.
I had one cousin who took "The New Yorker," and she was considered rather strange.
I definitely backed into journalism.
I think most people of my era backed into journalism because they didn't want to go
to law school or they were trying to write a novel and couldn't figure out how to do
it.
I knew I wasn't going to do anything that required manual dexterity or mathematics skills.
I have always said that mathematics was my worst subject.
I was never able to persuade the teacher that many of my answers were meant ironically.
I took a writing course in college that had those usual mottoes, like -- like show, don't
tell and all that sort of thing.
And one of them was, individualize by specific detail.
I thought that was the most useful one, particularly in attempts at humor.
Humor is sort of indefensible.
If the woman in the second row doesn't laugh, it isn't funny.
That's one reason there's no way to sort of try to imagine your audience when you're writing.
I think you could only satisfy yourself.
My wife, Alice, who died in 2001 was the person I showed rough drafts to, I think the only
person.
What all writers want to hear if they show somebody something is, brilliant, don't change
a word, even if you know it's sort of rough.
Obviously, she wasn't going to say that.
When Alice died, I was going over the galleys of a novel about parking in New York, a subject
so silly that I think I would've hesitated to submit the book to a publisher, if she
hadn't, somewhat to her surprise, liked it.
When the novel was published, the dedication said, "I wrote this for Alice.
Actually, I wrote everything for Alice."
My name is Calvin Trillin, and this is my Brief But Spectacular take on my life and
writing.
HARI SREENIVASAN: You can watch more Brief But Spectacular videos online at http://ift.tt/2b4iCt4.
Now to our "NewsHour" Shares, something that caught our eye that may be of interest to
you, too.
A 93-year-old World War II veteran traveled more than 5,000 miles from his Montana home
this month to return a treasured keepsake to a grateful Japanese family.
The "NewsHour"'s Julia Griffin explains.
JULIA GRIFFIN: Warm temperatures and rainy skies greeted Marvin Strombo as he returned
to Japan this week for the first time in 73 years.
During the war, Strombo served as an elite sniper scouter with the 2nd Marine Division.
Alone on the Japanese line during the 1944 invasion of Saipan, he came across the body
of a dead Japanese soldier.
MARVIN STROMBO, World War II Veteran: I saw a Japanese soldier laying there.
And I knew he was an officer because he had a sword on.
JULIA GRIFFIN: But Strombo also noticed something else, a customary flag the soldier carried,
known as a yosegaki hinomaru, that bore 180 signatures of his family and village members.
Strombo knew such flags were given to departing soldiers as a symbol of good luck and support.
MARVIN STROMBO: I finally realized, if I didn't take it, somebody else would have, and it
would be lost forever.
So, the only way I could do that, as I reached out to take the flag, I made a promise to
him that, someday, I would try to return it.
JULIA GRIFFIN: For decades, the soldier's identity remained unknown, until five years
ago, when Strombo reached out to the Obon Society, a nonprofit that coordinates the
return of battlefield souvenirs.
The group identified the soldier as Sadao Yasue, of Higashishirakawa, Japan.
And on Tuesday, Strombo made good on his promise to return the ancestral heirloom, during an
emotional ceremony with Yasue's surviving brother and two sisters.
MARVIN STROMBO: It was a very emotional moment, really.
I saw that the older sister -- her holding that flag about broke my heart.
And I have fulfilled a promise, which I'm happy about.
I could see that it made them quite happy.
So, I guess that's the main thing.
JULIA GRIFFIN: The poignant event between one-time enemies and now friends coincided
with the Japanese Obon holiday, when families return to their hometowns to remember departed
loved ones.
For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Julia Griffin.
HARI SREENIVASAN: On the "NewsHour" online right now: A total solar eclipse will sweep
across the entire continental United States on Monday, and anticipation couldn't be higher.
If you plan to watch, wherever you are, we give you five things you need to remember.
Also, today, on Martha's Vineyard, Harvard University's Hutchins Center hosted a forum
examining race and racism in the age of Trump.
Coming after events in Charlottesville and the reactions to it, Republican political
commentator Armstrong Williams challenged the president.
ARMSTRONG WILLIAMS, Republican Political Commentator: When you see what happened in Charlottesville,
and clearly someone with arming and guns and batons there, and you know the history of
the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacy, it's just common sense for any American, that you
would come together and condemn that in the harshest of terms, and give no indication
that whatever they're doing has any righteousness to it, any moral turpitude to it.
And for the president to have taken three days -- I speak as a human being, not as a
conservative and not as a liberal -- it was embarrassing, it wasn't leadership, and the
president should give no energy, no second thought to the fact that these neo-Nazis and
these white supremacists have any place in American society, and what they represented,
and what it represented for our history, whether you're African-American, whether you're Jewish,
just plain common sense.
The president needs to grow up and lead.
HARI SREENIVASAN: You can view the entire forum on our Web site, PBS.org/NewsHour.
And that's the "NewsHour" for tonight.
I'm Hari Sreenivasan.
Join us online and again here tomorrow evening.
For all of us at the "PBS NewsHour," thank you, and good night.

PBS NewsHour full episode August 17, 2017

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