PBS NewsHour full episode Sept. 27, 2017

JUDY WOODRUFF: Good evening.
I'm Judy Woodruff.
On the "NewsHour" tonight: desperate for the basics.
Puerto Rico in critical need of power, gas, and increasingly, drinking water.
Then,: President Trump pushes a Republican tax plan, after the candidate he backed in
the closely watched Alabama Senate primary is defeated.
Plus: extremism and social media -- how white supremacists use the same tools as ISIS to
spread their hateful ideology.
CHRISTIAN PICCIOLINI, Co-Founder, Life After Hate: I think it's tough for us as a country
to hold a mirror up to ourselves, to address a problem that's inherent in our own population
and our own citizens.
JUDY WOODRUFF: All that and more on tonight's "PBS NewsHour."
(BREAK)
JUDY WOODRUFF: New appeals today to do more for Puerto Rico.
The island is still reeling from its worst storm in a century, and there are calls to
cut red tape and get more relief on the ground quickly.
John Yang has the story.
JOHN YANG: A full week after Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, patience, like so many other
things, is in short supply, especially over federal disaster aid.
LAURA VASQUEZ, Puerto Rico (through translator): He, President Trump, has the power.
If he could show his power in Puerto Rico, things would be different, very different.
Many people don't trust him.
JOHN YANG: For a second straight day, President Trump defended his administration's response,
saying the government is doing everything it can.
DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: Massive amounts of food, water and supplies,
by the way, are being delivered on an hourly basis.
It's something that nobody has ever seen before from this country.
JOHN YANG: Today, Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello said the U.S. territory needs a sweeping
aid package.
GOV.
RICARDO ROSSELLO, Puerto Rico: The proud U.S. citizens that live in Puerto Rico want to
work.
They want to deal with the emergency.
Our ask is that we treat Puerto Rico equally, that we attend to the devastation.
And if we do that, we can avoid a humanitarian crisis in the United States.
JOHN YANG: At a Senate hearing, acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke said efforts
are hampered by the condition of the Puerto Rican government.
ELAINE DUKE, Acting Homeland Security Secretary: The capacity of the Puerto Rican government
is severely diminished, both because of Hurricane Irma, their prior existing financial situation,
and the devastating wracked by the direct hit of Maria.
We're using the DOD to now help with distribution.
That generally is something that the commonwealth would do itself.
JOHN YANG: Senators of both parties pushed Duke to waive longstanding shipping restrictions,
known as the Jones Act, to help get supplies to the island.
REP.
JAMES LANKFORD (R), Oklahoma: That waiver was given to Houston, was given to Florida.
It's a week to be able to get even a vessel to them.
So, the longer it takes to be able to get that waiver done, then vessels can't even
start getting there.
JOHN YANG: Much of the aid that has reached the island has not made it much farther than
San Juan.
MAN (through translator): They have not evaluated the real level of damage, and they are doing
what they can, however they can.
But since there isn't communication, people don't know what to do or how to do it.
JOHN YANG: With help like a U.S. Navy hospital ship the Comfort still days away, states and
municipalities have sent help on their own.
Even individuals like NBA player J.J.
Barea are pitching in.
He borrowed the Dallas Mavericks' team plane to fly aid into his native Puerto Rico earlier
this week.
For many on the island, it remains a do-it-yourself recovery, with a patchwork of desperate fixes.
We will take a closer look now at the situation on the ground in Puerto Rico.
For that, I spoke a short time ago with Camila Domonoske of NPR.
She joined me via Skype from the capital, San Juan.
Camila, I know you're in San Juan now, but I understand you have been out into some of
the areas around, especially into the mountains.
What have you found there?
What are conditions like there?
CAMILA DOMONOSKE, NPR: People have absolutely no power.
Most people don't have any running water.
The water situation, in particular, is quite dire.
Where there is bottled water available in grocery stores, the lines are incredibly long.
So, when we were up in the mountains near Cayey, near Aibonito, near Coamo, we saw people
gathering water from mountain streams to drink, to cook with, to clean with, waiting in line
for non-potable water that had been sitting stagnant in municipal tanks for days, and
going to rivers to take baths and wash laundry.
Many of these people, their homes were completely destroyed or partially damaged in the storm.
And a lot of people say they haven't seen any aid whatsoever reaching their communities.
The mayor of Coamo, I spoke with him this morning.
And he said that the sum total of aid that his municipality received was five pallets
of water, which is nothing compared to the need.
JOHN YANG: You say people out in the hinterlands, as it were, are seeing very little aid.
How does that compare with San Juan?
CAMILA DOMONOSKE: San Juan is somewhat better off.
It's still difficult for people to find resources, even here.
The lines for ATMs for cash are very long.
The lines for gas are very long.
I have talked to people who have driven all over the city looking for generators.
I talked to a family whose generator was actually destroyed in the storm.
And there is simply none to be found.
But the food availability and the water availability here in the city is better off.
People can buy things when they need them, which is not the case in some of these more
isolated communities.
JOHN YANG: So, is it the case that the aid is getting aid into the city, but they can't
get it out beyond it?
Is that the situation?
CAMILA DOMONOSKE: That's the frustration that I was hearing from people in these communities
and even from the mayors who I spoke with this morning here in San Juan who are coming
to petition to ask for more help, to say that they need more resources in their communities.
That said, the government of Puerto Rico will tell you the resources are getting out.
It's just very difficult, very dangerous and slow.
So, conflicting reports of how much of the aid is actually being distributed out of the
ports here.
But there are certainly people who say they haven't seen any FEMA trucks, that they haven't
seen any drop-offs or that the only help they have seen has been coming from their own local
communities, neighbors helping each other and mayors serving their communities.
JOHN YANG: Do you get any sense of why that is?
Is that roads are blocked, that there are no drivers, there are no trucks?
What's the problem?
CAMILA DOMONOSKE: I have certainly heard reports that the problem is that there are not enough
drivers.
I have heard that from a man who runs a logistic company, says that people aren't available
for work.
I have heard that there isn't enough diesel.
And the lines for fuel are hours and hours long.
Again, the officials with the Puerto Rican government will tell you that distribution
is happening, that there's not a gas shortage and that resources are getting out there.
But, on the ground, it's certainly not visible.
JOHN YANG: Camila Domonoske of NPR, thanks so much for your on-the-ground reporting.
CAMILA DOMONOSKE: Yes, thank you for having me.
JOHN YANG: The Pentagon said today it's shifting its response to a provide long-term support
to FEMA in Puerto Rico.
But critics say the military could have done a lot more a lot earlier.
To examine that question, we are joined by Phillip Carter.
He is a former Army officer who was a deputy assistant secretary of defense in the Obama
administration.
He's now a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and adjunct professor
of law at Georgetown University.
Mr. Carter, welcome.
We just had an interview with a reporter on the scene in Puerto Rico.
She said that, as the Trump administration has been talking about how much aid has been
delivered to Puerto Rico, she says a lot of that is not getting out of San Juan, it's
having trouble getting out into other parts of the island, because they can't have -- they
can't find truck drivers.
Is that something the military could have helped with?
PHILLIP CARTER, Senior Fellow, Center for a New American Security: Absolutely.
So, Puerto Rico is a fairly large island.
It's about 100 miles wide, and 40 miles deep.
It's got mountains on it that are almost 5,000 feet high, and the population is not just
in San Juan, but it's all over the island.
And so it's one thing to even get the supplies there.
It's another to get it throughout the island to people who need it.
And that's something that military units have a unique capability to do that because they're
used to pushing supplies in very arduous terrain, whether it's Puerto Rico, Korea or Afghanistan.
JOHN YANG: What else could the military or the Pentagon be doing in Puerto Rico?
PHILLIP CARTER: So, Puerto Rico is unique.
It's an island, in the sense that you can't rely on adjacent states or counties for mutual
aid when disaster strikes.
The military got this unique deployable logistics capability.
They can pick up and move by air or sea to anywhere in the world.
And that's the kind of capability Puerto Rico needs now.
It needs power, clean water, food, medical care, and the types of support the military
provides its own troops in combat can be lifesaving in a place like Puerto Rico after a disaster
like Maria.
JOHN YANG: You talked about medical care.
The Pentagon announced this morning that the Comfort -- the hospital ship the Comfort has
been requested to get under way, but it's not leaving until -- getting under way until
Friday, and will take five days to get to Puerto Rico.
PHILLIP CARTER: That's right.
And in the interim, there are ground units and others that can plug that gap and also
do things so that Puerto Rico's existing infrastructure can continue to function.
The Pentagon said today that roughly 50 of 70 hospitals are still operating, but they
need fuel for their generators, medical supplies, clean water and other supplies.
And those are things the military can help with, too.
JOHN YANG: Should the Pentagon have been asked to do more earlier in response to the hurricane?
PHILLIP CARTER: That's a hard judgment call.
FEMA and the Defense Department were stretched already by Harvey and Irma.
And for them to have leaned forward into the Maria response might have been too much.
That said, they certainly underdid it, and now we're seeing the effects of that judgment
call.
JOHN YANG: And we have heard about the military being stretched between Afghanistan and Iraq
and overseas.
But are they stretched in terms of the domestic response to things like this?
PHILLIP CARTER: Yes.
And part of the problem is that a lot of the logistic units necessary for the Puerto Rico
mission come from reserve components.
And it's harder to call them up and deploy them than simply snap your fingers and send
the Marines or the 82nd Airborne Division down to Puerto Rico.
Those units take days or weeks to mobilize and deploy.
And pulling them off of where they're training or deployment cycles they're on can be also
be taxing to the Pentagon.
JOHN YANG: Phillip Carter of the Center for a New American Security, thank you very much.
PHILLIP CARTER: Thanks, John.
JUDY WOODRUFF: In the day's other news: The storm that devastated Puerto Rico returned
to hurricane strength today off the Outer Banks of North Carolina.
Maria's sustained winds of 75 miles an hour pushed water into dunes and eroded large sections
of beach.
The surge also flooded the only road through Hatteras and Ocracoke Islands.
More than 10,000 vacationers were forced to evacuate earlier this week.
President Trump and congressional Republicans proposed a sweeping tax reform plan today
that could total $5 trillion.
It would lower the top tax rate for corporations, double the standard personal deduction, and
reduce the number of personal income tax brackets from seven to three.
We will explore the plan in detail after the news summary.
Senate Republicans have put aside their effort to replace Obamacare, but the president insisted
today that they will be back.
Party leaders acknowledge they can't meet Friday's deadline to use the so-called reconciliation
process.
It would allow a bill pass with just 51 votes.
Still, during his tax speech today, Mr. Trump said it's not over.
DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: We have the votes on Graham-Cassidy, but with
the rules of reconciliation, we're up against a deadline of Friday, two days.
But, early next year, when reconciliation kicks back in, in any event, long before the
November election, we're going to have a vote.
And we're going to be able to get that through.
JUDY WOODRUFF: The president also said that he's willing to negotiate with Democrats on
the health issue.
On another subject, the president said today he is not happy with reports that Health Department
Secretary Tom Price billed the government for expensive charter flights.
Mr. Trump said today that he let Price know he is disappointed.
As to whether Price's job is in jeopardy, he said, "We will see."
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis' arrival in Afghanistan today was followed by a barrage of Taliban
rockets.
The militants fired on Kabul's airport hours after Mattis arrived, and they claimed they
targeted his plane.
He had already gone to a meeting with President Ashraf Ghani, where he urged the Taliban to
stop fighting.
JAMES MATTIS, U.S. Secretary of Defense: I want to reinforce to the Taliban that the
only path to peace and political legitimacy for them is through a negotiated settlement.
We support Afghan-led reconciliation as the solution to this conflict, and the sooner
the Taliban recognizes they cannot win with bombs, the sooner the killing will end.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Afghan officials say that one woman was killed and 11 other civilians were
wounded in the attack.
In Iraq, the outcome of an independence vote by Kurds is now definite.
The election commission there announced today that more than 92 percent of voters approved
the move in Monday's referendum.
That word came as Iraqi's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ruled out using force to keep the
Kurds from breaking away.
But he insisted that he will enforce Baghdad's authority.
Back in this country, the University of Louisville placed basketball coach Rick Pitino on unpaid
leave.
It came after news that the men's basketball program is part of a federal investigation
into alleged bribery of recruits.
Louisville is already under NCAA sanctions over separate allegations that strippers were
paid to have sex with players and recruits.
And on Wall Street today, the Dow Jones industrial average gained 56 points to close at 22340.
The Nasdaq rose 73, and the S&P 500 added 10.
Still to come on the "NewsHour": Congress prepares to move on from health care to tax
reform; why President Trump's pick for Alabama's Senate seat lost; using social media to fight
hateful extremism online; and much more.
The president launched a major campaign today to pass big tax cuts, and perhaps the most
sweeping overhaul of the tax code in more than three decades.
Many key details are not yet decided.
Whether he can succeed is very much an open question.
But the president and congressional leaders said today they have ambitious plans, which
include cutting the corporate tax rate to 20 percent, reducing the number of individual
tax brackets to just three, with rates -- tax rates of 12 percent, 25 percent and 35 percent,
and doubling the standard deduction for individuals and families.
President Trump told supporters in Indianapolis the tax code is a relic that must be simpler.
DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: Americans waste so much money, billions and
billions of dollars, and many hours each year to comply with our ridiculously complex tax
code.
More than 90 percent of Americans use assistance to prepare their taxes.
Under our framework, the vast majority of families will be able to file their taxes
on a single sheet of paper.
JUDY WOODRUFF: For more on what we know and what we don't know about the Republicans'
tax proposal, we turn to Greg Ip, who writes on economic and financial matters for The
Wall Street Journal.
Greg, welcome back to the program.
So, what is the core idea here?
What are the president and Republicans trying to do?
GREG IP, The Wall Street Journal: There are two core ideas in this proposal.
The first one is lower corporate taxes, so that American businesses will have a higher
incentive to invest.
That raises economic growth and wages for everybody.
And it makes the United States a more competitive place to locate head offices and businesses.
Right now, the U.S. has the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world.
After this reform, it would have one of the lowest.
The second big piece is something that Donald Trump has been very emphatic about from the
campaign trail and now.
That is a big middle-class tax cut.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So then who are the winners and the losers, based on the information they
have provided so far?
GREG IP: Well, right now, first of all, they haven't put out a fully, you know, detailed
document, so it's impossible to say for sure.
But we know that, right now, the business side is very much a winner.
They see the corporate rate drop from 35 percent to 20 percent.
They get to like write off the cost of all their new equipment right away, instead of
taking several years to do it.
We move to a so-called territorial system, which means that instead of taxing them on
their profits no matter where they earn it, we only tax them on their American profits.
On the individual side, it's a little harder to tell.
There are some things that clearly are good for the middle class.
For example, some of the tax rates are lowered.
Instead of seven brackets, we have three.
The standard deduction is doubled.
On the other hand, there's a few things that are negative in there.
For example, some itemized reductions are reduced or eliminated altogether, for example,
for state and local taxes.
And, finally, even though the president is framing this as a middle-class tax cut, there
are provisions which clearly benefit the wealthiest the most, repeal of the estate tax and repeal
of the Alternative Minimum Tax.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, I'm reading the cost of doing all this in the trillion -- a few trillion
dollars.
How do they make up for that, or are they even going to try?
GREG IP: So, one of the drawbacks in today's proposal is there aren't enough details to
fully know how much it will cost.
But some good estimates suggest that, over 10 years, it will be more than $2 trillion
of additional borrowing.
Now, we have already heard Republicans in Congress and the president basically say they're
willing to borrow a lot of money to finance this tax cut, somewhat ironic, considering
they spent eight years bashing Barack Obama and Democrats for the big rise in debts that
they presided over.
Now, there is a budget resolution in the works which will limit the debt impact to $1.5 trillion
over 10 years.
That still leaves a lot more so-called revenue raisers that they need to find.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And just in a few seconds, political prospects better than for health
care reform, which has been a problem for them?
GREG IP: It's still tough.
They will still have the same tensions within the Republican Caucus, for example, blue state
Republicans who don't like taxes being raised on their taxpayers, deficit hawks who don't
like the fact that this might add to the deficit.
But there are some positives.
First of all, because they are essentially paying for it by borrowing from future taxpayers,
you're giving away to people, instead of taking away, as you were with health care.
And perhaps most important, Trump was only peripherally involved and interested in health
care.
He was always leaving the details to Congress.
Here, you have seen a unified effort and the president thus far fully engaged.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Greg Ip of The Wall Street Journal, it's only beginning.
GREG IP: It sure is.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Thank you.
GREG IP: Watch this space.
(LAUGHTER)
JUDY WOODRUFF: Sticking with politics, Alabama Republicans voted yesterday to nominate firebrand
candidate Roy Moore for a U.S. Senate seat, a rebuke to President Trump and the GOP establishment.
William Brangham begins our coverage.
ROY MOORE (R), Alabama Senatorial Candidate: I certainly support President Trump's agenda.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Roy Moore took a cable TV victory lap today.
The Alabama GOP's newly minted Senate nominee celebrated his win from yesterday, and even
promised to support the president, who campaigned against him.
ROY MOORE: Well, I don't think the president knew me.
And I think that when he gets to know me, that he will understand that I do support
a very conservative agenda for this country.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: For his part today, President Trump suggested he was encouraged by the prospect
of a Senator Moore coming to Washington.
DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: Well, we have a man who's going to be a great
senator.
And I'm very happy with that.
I spoke to him last night.
I never met him.
I never spoke to him.
I'm very happy with him.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Last night, Moore prevailed in a primary runoff against Luther Strange,
the incumbent.
Strange had the backing of not just Mr. Trump, but also Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
But Alabama voters had a different idea.
SEN.
LUTHER STRANGE (R), Alabama: I'm telling you, those seas, the political seas, the political
winds in this country right now are very hard to navigate.
They're very hard to understand.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Strange had only been in the seat since February.
He was appointed to replace Jeff Sessions when Sessions was named attorney general.
Moore, meanwhile, is well-known in Alabama as a staunchly conservative Christian evangelical.
He served as the former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, but on two different
occasions was removed from his duties.
The first time was in 2003, when Moore refused to remove a Ten Commandments display from
the lobby of a state courthouse.
And then last year, he was suspended permanently after urging other judges in the state to
defy federal court rulings on same-sex marriage.
Moore also faced criticism earlier this month when he used crude, derogatory terms to describe
certain minority groups.
ROY MOORE: Now we got blacks and whites fighting, reds and yellows fighting, Democrats and Republicans
fighting.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The runoff between Moore and Strange pitted some top Republicans against
one another, each side claiming the mantle of President Trump and his agenda.
Stumping for Moore were former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.
SARAH PALIN (R), Former Alaska Governor: The loudest message to the swamp, are you ready
to tell them, here comes the judge?
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And former chief White House strategist, now Breitbart executive chairman,
Stephen Bannon.
STEVE BANNON, Former White House Chief Strategist: You're going to get an opportunity to tell
them what you think of the elites that run this country.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Stumping for Strange, not just the president, but Vice President Mike
Pence as well.
However, while the president was in Alabama last week for Strange, he admitted in passing
that his endorsement came with some hesitation.
DONALD TRUMP: I might have made a mistake.
And I will be honest.
I might have made a mistake.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: It was a moment one outside group immediately seized on.
DONALD TRUMP: I might have made a mistake.
I don't know him.
I don't know him.
I don't know him.
LUTHER STRANGE: The president supports me.
DONALD TRUMP: But I don't know him.
DOUG JONES (D), Alabama Senatorial Candidate: Please stand with me.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: In the general election, Moore now faces Democrat Doug Jones, a former
federal prosecutor with a strong record on civil rights.
That vote will be held in December.
For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm William Brangham.
JUDY WOODRUFF: We take a closer look now at Roy Moore's win, at the Republican push for
tax reform, and another failure to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and what all of that
means for the future of the GOP, with Tom Davis, a former member of Congress who headed
up the committee in charge of electing more Republicans to the House.
And Matt Schlapp, he's the chairman of the American Conservative Union and the former
White House political director under President George W. Bush.
And, for the record, we note that Matt's wife, Mercedes Schlapp, is a senior communications
adviser to President Trump.
And we welcome both of you back to the "NewsHour."
Tom Davis, I'm going to start with you.
What happened in Alabama?
The candidate the president, the Republican establishment was backing lost to Roy Moore,
who may be the most conservative candidate to run for a Senate seat in this modern era.
TOM DAVIS (R), Former U.S. Congressman: He's certainly an exotic candidate, but there were
some Alabama characteristics to this race, I think, that were peculiar to Alabama.
The way Senator Strange was appointed by a governor who they felt he'd underinvestigated,
I think that blew up on him.
I think, had Luther Strange run basically not as the incumbent and appointed by that
governor, you might have had a different result.
I wouldn't read too much into this election.
JUDY WOODRUFF: What do you mean?
TOM DAVIS: I think this was a very Alabama-centric dynamic in this race that defeated Strange,
who was appointed by a governor who ended up resigning.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Matt Schlapp, do you agree with that, that it may not have a wider meaning?
And what do you think it means for the general election there?
MATT SCHLAPP, Former White House Director of Political Affairs: Well, to continue this
full disclosure, I also have to let you know that Tom Davis' son used to work for me, so
I don't know what's going on here.
(LAUGHTER)
MATT SCHLAPP: But who is a great young man.
But I think that this election in Alabama actually is indicative of a very big trend
that's going on within Republican politics.
I agree with Tom completely that there are reasons why this election went the way it
did, and it did have to do with what was seen as a corrupt bargain about the former governor
and the fact that Strange was an appointed candidate, and that he got so imprinted with
the leadership in the Senate.
None of those things were positive.
I think the big trend we have to understand is that Republicans, it's not that ideological.
It's not really moderate vs. conservative right now.
Republicans out there in the country, they're just so frustrated that, on the big, central
issues, they don't see Republican majorities in the House and the Senate fulfilling the
promises, starting, number one, with Obamacare.
And they have got to get taxes done.
If they stub their toe on that, we are going to be in a very, very bad situation as a party,
because it's going to look like we're not delivering on the promises we have made.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, how big a setback, number one, Tom Davis, is this for the president,
for Mitch McConnell, and what is it potentially going to mean for other Senate races?
TOM DAVIS: Well, it's a shot across the bow at the Republican leadership in both the House
and Senate that they better get their act together, and exercise some teamwork and get
some things passed.
What hasn't been talked about -- and there were a couple of special elections yesterday
in state legislatures.
Republicans lost a state senate seat in Florida, and they lost a statehouse seat in New Hampshire
that was a heavy, strong Republican seat.
What has happened is, you're finding the Republican vote being depressed at this point.
Republicans are kind of down on their party and Democrats are really juiced at this point,
have a lot of excitement.
And that can really skew turnout in favor of Democrats, if the Republicans don't do
what Matt Schlapp said they need to do, and that is pass some of these things that Republicans
elected them to do.
JUDY WOODRUFF: How do you see this, Matt?
How big a setback for the establishment, is what I mean?
MATT SCHLAPP: It's big.
And once again, I don't think it's as ideological as some like to portray it.
Yes, Roy Moore is a very conservative guy, and he's a strong Christian conservative,
but really the dynamic in Alabama was, who could be closer to Trump?
Both Luther Strange and Judge Moore, they were running as -- each one was running as
the Trump candidate, even though Trump endorsed Luther Strange.
So, it's really -- that's not really the dynamic here.
The dynamic that's problematic across this country is that if the Republican majority
is seen as failing to deliver, we're going to have more losses.
And I agree with what Tom is saying, which is, I really think this is a critical moment
for the Republican Party.
They assume that all these Republicans across the country are going to stand with them even
when things are tough, but they will not if they see us unable -- think about this, Judy.
On these reconciliation votes, which is what all the health care votes have been so far
and what this tax vote will be, what reconciliation means is, they can do it if they want just
with Republican votes in the Senate.
Even on those votes, they failed to pull together as a conference to get to 50.
That's quite a stunning problem, when you ran for seven-and-a-half years after attacking
the Obama agenda.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, Tom Davis, is the message then to Republicans to keep moving farther
to the right, or is it to think about working with Democrats?
TOM DAVIS: I think Matt just made it clear they need to get things done.
They need to try to solve...
(CROSSTALK)
JUDY WOODRUFF: But how?
By...
TOM DAVIS: Look, I was in the House when we had five- and six-seat margins in the House,
and we were able to pass legislation.
It was almost as polarized as it is today.
But we functioned as a team.
I think right now, some of these outside groups, some of the outside media get involved with
this, and members aren't feeling a part of the Republican team.
But they either hang together or they hang separately.
Republicans have got to pass tax reform, and that is a must, or I think they're doomed.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, and whether it's tax reform or anything else, Matt, is the answer
for Republicans, again, to lean more to the right, to bring in more Roy Moores, or is
it to work across the aisle?
The president said today he's prepared to work with Democrats on tax reform.
MATT SCHLAPP: Well, Judy, I obviously chair a group with conservative in its title.
I am true-blue conservative.
I want to see the Republican Conference in the Senate be conservative.
I also am a strong Republican.
I'm a conservative first, a Republican second.
But I want our Republican Party to be a national party.
I want us to be able to win in red states and in blue states.
And the only way we're going to accomplish that is if we can be competent at having the
majority.
If you really think about it, Republicans do great -- we're the anti-government party.
We do great when we're out of power and we criticize those trying to grow a government
and raise taxes.
We are great at that.
We excel at that.
We prosecuted the case on Obamacare for seven-and-a-half years, and we did a sterling job.
We got our message out.
You know what we weren't so good at?
Coming up with what our alternative was.
And that is the moment we are in now.
We have to talk about our alternatives.
And we have to be able to show that, at least on these Republican votes, that we all stand
together on it.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Well...
MATT SCHLAPP: Think about this.
We actually can't stand together even on replacing Obamacare.
That's quite a stunning statement.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, is the answer, Tom Davis, to elect more Roy Moores to the Senate?
(CROSSTALK)
TOM DAVIS: No, look, the answer is -- the wakeup call for Republicans is they need to
work together as a team to get these passed.
If not, they are going to have to work with Democrats.
And that's going to make some Republicans very unhappy.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But Roy Moore coming in, as somebody who likes to go his own way, is...
TOM DAVIS: I think Roy Moore will part of the team on issues like tax reform.
I don't see him going off the reservation, a problem on those kind of issues.
But the Senate is full of cats.
It's like herding cats, and they just added another cat to the bag to herd.
But I think Roy Moore will be supportive of the president on most of these issues.
MATT SCHLAPP: Yes, I agree, Judy.
I want to answer your question, which is, the fact is, Alabama is a conservative state.
Both Luther Strange and Roy Moore match up with the philosophy of Republican voters in
the state.
And that's what the Republican Party is going to be made up with.
Some are going to be more conservative.
Some are going to be less conservative.
But on the central issues of, are taxes too high and is government playing too big a role
in your life, we should be able to unify on these questions?
And for people like Susan Collins, who have not been there, actually, the politics back
home in her state are getting tougher, because even moderate Republicans back home in these
states, they are antsy over the fact that we're not getting things done.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, the cat herding is under way.
And we will continue to watch it with Matt Schlapp and Tom Davis.
Thank you both.
TOM DAVIS: Thanks, Judy.
MATT SCHLAPP: Thanks, guys.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Stay with us.
Coming up on the "NewsHour": two Americans with differing responses to the Vietnam War
find common ground in healing; and a debut novel receiving rave reviews.
But first: the dangers of domestic terrorism, extremism and efforts to counter its use of
social media.
The attack in Charlottesville underscored just how real this is.
As Miles O'Brien explains, experts who study the psychological and technological underpinnings
of extremism say neo-Nazis and Islamic terrorists are cut from the same bitter cloth.
It is this week's Leading Edge and a co-production with PBS' "NOVA."
HUMERA KHAN, Executive Director, Muflehun: We want to make sure that people can openly
talk.
MILES O'BRIEN: At the University of Illinois-Chicago, on this summer morning, a small group of determined
people gathered in a classroom to figure out what they can do about terrorism.
HUMERA KHAN: My name is Humera Khan.
And your name?
MILES O'BRIEN: Humera Khan was schooled as a nuclear engineer.
She holds four degrees from MIT.
But now she is doing something perhaps more complex, and most certainly less predictable,
than splitting atoms.
In sessions she calls viral peace, she tries to find ways to battle extremism online using
social media to counter the narrative.
HUMERA KHAN: The idea is teaching them how to recognize when they are being manipulated,
and then teaching them the skill sets for how to respond, should they respond, when
should they respond, and using social media to come up with their own campaigns.
MILES O'BRIEN: She thinks stories effectively told on social media can motivate people to
turn away from violence.
Participants identify flash point issues and underlying causes of extremism.
The problems are posted, sifted and prioritized.
Then they work on their own campaign.
The winner gets $1,000 to implement the idea.
But this is not just about Islamic terrorism.
It's about all kinds of hate and extremism.
CHRISTIAN PICCIOLINI, Co-Founder, Life After Hate: My name is Christian Picciolini.
I'm the co-founder of Life After Hate.
MILES O'BRIEN: Christian Picciolini is a former white supremacist skinhead, who was the lead
singer in a racist heavy metal rock band.
He ran an organization focused on identifying white supremacists who might be convinced
to walk away, de-radicalization.
CHRISTIAN PICCIOLINI: Big place for people who are involved in hate groups to leave.
I think it's tough for us as a country to hold a mirror up to ourselves, to address
a problem that's inherent in our own population and our own citizens.
PROTESTERS: Jews will not replace us!
MILES O'BRIEN: The ugly scene in Charlottesville made it difficult to avoid that mirror.
DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: Charlottesville is a great place that has
been very badly hurt.
MILES O'BRIEN: President Trump was reluctant to blame white supremacists and neo-Nazis
for the violence, and offered support for their protest march to save a statue of Robert
E. Lee.
DONALD TRUMP: I think there's blame on both sides.
MILES O'BRIEN: Former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke said he was thrilled by what the
president said.
CHRISTIAN PICCIOLINI: What's scary about Donald Trump and what's happening is not that he's
creating racists.
I don't believe that.
I believe that these people existed.
He's created a safe place for them to now vent.
MILES O'BRIEN: And he has retweeted messages from neo-Nazis, giving them a global audience.
J.M. Berger is a fellow with the International Center for Counter-Terrorism.
J.M. BERGER, International Center for Counter-Terrorism: If you are somebody who believes that white
people are being subjected to genocide, and, you know, that desperate measures are required
to preserve the existence of the white race, and you get Donald Trump to retweet your content,
then, suddenly, you have an audience of millions of people that you didn't have before.
MILES O'BRIEN: Berger studies the links between extremism, terrorism and the Internet.
He has carefully tracked the rise of online recruitment and propaganda created by Islamic
terrorists.
J.M. BERGER: Social media has inherent advantages for extremists that mainstream movements don't
have.
And ISIS is only the first group to realize this.
And we're going to see many others.
I think we're in for a decade or more of significant instability that can be attributed to the
interconnectedness of the world.
MILES O'BRIEN: Social media companies have had some success thwarting the online threat
from ISIS, because the message is so extreme and so violent.
J.M. BERGER: It is easier for these companies to step on them.
White nationalists, while they are marginalized in our society, they are still very much embedded
in our society.
And they are currently enjoying a pretty good run of mainstreaming some of their beliefs.
If they are not advocating for violence directly, it's a much harder problem.
CHRISTIAN PICCIOLINI: And until we can classify white extremists as terrorism, it won't have
the same resources, it won't get the same priority, and won't get the same funding to
fight it.
MILES O'BRIEN: The Trump administration has gone in the opposite direction, killing a
$400,000 grant for Christian Picciolini's Life After Hate Group.
PROTESTERS: You will not replace us!
MILES O'BRIEN: It was part of a broader effort to cut federal funding for campaigns against
domestic terrorism.
But should the Trump administration treat white extremism differently?
Not according to University of Maryland psychologist Arie Kruglanski.
ARIE KRUGLANSKI, Social Psychologist, University of Maryland: There's a universal process that
prompts people to the extremes, prompts them to deviate from the mainstream and move to
the fringe.
And the same process applies to neo-Nazis in Germany, Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers, Muslim
extremism, or the militia, the far right in the United States.
MILES O'BRIEN: Kruglanski says extremist groups thrive during times of uncertainty, offering
simple black-and-white answers in a world filled with many shades of gray.
Their messages, transmitted via Twitter, Facebook and the like, offer something they crave,
certainty.
The psychological term is cognitive closure.
ARIE KRUGLANSKI: At the psychological level, it's the very same dynamic that gives us ISIS,
because ISIS also thrives on a very clear-cut ideology that promises the world and promises
order and fame and structure, and that's what Trump promises as well.
MILES O'BRIEN: Terrorism expert J.M. Berger believes the Internet is hastening the polarization
of our society, and he says there is no easy way to stop it.
J.M. BERGER: I don't think that there's a solution is going to come around soon.
I think it's going to take quite a while, and I think that identity-based extremists
are going to get the most benefit out of these technologies.
And I think that we're going to see the things we have seen with ISIS with other groups.
MILES O'BRIEN: But the proliferation of the Internet and social media cuts in both directions.
And that is what has brought these people together in Chicago.
CHRISTIAN PICCIOLINI: While there is a lot of misinformation and a lot of recruitment
to extremism happening online, it also serves as a wonderful platform for counternarratives,
for people to reach others with an alternate message to what the extremists are proposing,
and also to link the facts, so people can do their own homework.
MILES O'BRIEN: Humera Khan strongly believes in promoting a counternarrative, stories that
can motivate people to turn away from violence.
HUMERA KHAN: We are talking about a minuscule, less than a percentage, which means we have
the numbers on our side, if we can actually mobilize them to actually do good, not just
watch, but actually step up and say, OK, I have a role, and I will do it.
MILES O'BRIEN: Extremists have always been among us, and they have always been small
in number, but, these days, everyone owns a global megaphone.
HUMERA KHAN: Because anyone can have a role in bringing others in to the community.
MILES O'BRIEN: In Chicago, I'm Miles O'Brien for the "PBS NewsHour."
JUDY WOODRUFF: Now: how two men hear and are driven by the echoes of their time in Vietnam,
one a Marine combat veteran, the other a conscientious objector who went to help the people of that
country.
They are bound together now, working to help a new generation terribly affected by a war
that ended before they were born.
Special correspondent Mike Cerre reports.
MIKE CERRE: At the height of the Vietnam War in 1968...
ANNOUNCER: Before the parade, mass draft card burning was urged.
MIKE CERRE: ... and the protests against it that divided the country, two young Americans
made very different decisions that would make Vietnam parts of their lives for the next
50 years.
LARRY VETTER, Vietnam Veteran: After I graduated from Texas A&M, I went to the Marine Corps
basic school.
And then, when I got out of that, in a few months later, we were off to Vietnam.
DICK HUGHES, Conscientious Objector: I was just wrapping up my acting studies at Boston
University, and, at that time I was pretty concerned about the war, upset by the war.
So, I decided to do two things, that I would go down and take my physical in for the draft,
but I would refuse induction.
MIKE CERRE: Larry Vetter, the volunteer, ended up serving two tours of duty in Vietnam as
a Marine infantry and recon officer, much of the time on the front lines.
LARRY VETTER: You believed all that you were being told and what you read, and you were
pretty gung-ho about going over and serving your country.
And that's what we all did.
MAN: If you're concerned about something, you do something out it.
The way I do things is, you go right to the center of the problem and where it's happening.
MIKE CERRE: Dick Hughes, the draft refuser, ended up in Vietnam that summer of '68 as
well by paying his own way to Saigon in search of some kind of alternative service he could
do.
Confronted by bands of street children orphaned by the war on his first day in country, he
helped them find food and safe shelter with money from cashing in his return plane ticket.
Dubbed the Shoeshine Boys Project, it grew into eight safe houses Dick ran in Saigon
and Da Nang until after the war ended.
DICK HUGHES: Are you a Saigon cowboy.
You a Saigon V.C.?
These kids slept in the streets, shined shoes and watched people's motorbikes and things
like that to have money to live.
And I think, over the course of seven years, probably in the area of 2,500 children went
through the project.
LARRY VETTER: A person being a conscientious objector, I think that's perfectly valid.
At that time, I would have said something more like, well, find a way you can serve
your country, and if you don't want to be in the military, maybe you can be in something
else.
MIKE CERRE: Two Americans with very different perspectives on the Vietnam War and a sense
of service in the '60s now find themselves on a common mission, the battle against Agent
Orange, the dangerous legacy left over from the war that continues to plague another generation
of Vietnamese.
LARRY VETTER: I got diagnosed with a cancer that was listed on the VA list as being caused
by Agent Orange.
And so that was one of the reasons why I asked to meet people in Vietnam that had Agent Orange
diseases.
MIKE CERRE: Most American tourists passing through Da Nang don't know it's been one of
Vietnam's most contaminated Agent Orange sites, with dioxin levels in some areas 350 times
international safety standards.
Nor did I when I was flying out of the Da Nang Air Base as a Marine aviator in the '70s.
The Agent Orange defoliant was used during the war originally to make enemy positions
more visible from the air.
While it was stored in Da Nang and other air bases, it leaked into the surrounding areas,
and is believed to have contaminated local water sources, according to a study done by
Canadian scientists.
LARRY VETTER: In this area next to the airport, you have people whose dioxin levels in their
blood are 100 times the safe levels, and you have women whose breast milk is four times
the safe levels.
MIKE CERRE: Originally stationed in Da Nang during the war, Larry moved here in 2012 after
recovering from prostate cancer, one of the many presumed Agent Orange-related illnesses.
Nearly 250,000 American veterans are being compensated for Agent Orange.
He's using his veterans disability benefits to help two Vietnamese brothers severely crippled
by those presumed Agent Orange illnesses.
Toan (ph), age 25, has been in intensive care for the past two years, no longer able to
move or swallow on his own.
LARRY VETTER: By the age of 8, he was seriously showing symptoms, stumbling, not having the
strength to pull himself up.
They saw some American doctors.
The American doctors told them that they thought it was likely a disease caused by Agent Orange.
MIKE CERRE: The family Larry is helping camps outside on the hospital's walkway, because
Vietnamese families are responsible for feeding and bathing their hospitalized relatives.
LARRY VETTER: The mother, Hoa (ph), really works very hard trying to hold the family
together.
Her husband is paraplegic, two boys quadriplegic.
I guess I feel a little bit of national guilt for what we did here in Vietnam to so many
people.
I need to, just in my own little way, try to help.
MIKE CERRE: The Agent Orange problem has also drawn Dick Hughes back to Vietnam, where some
of his former Shoeshine Boys are helping him work with another generation of children still
at risk from the war.
DICK HUGHES: We decided to form a thing called Loose Cannons and try to get some assistance
to people in Vietnam who had been exposed to dioxin and who needed some help.
Most people think Agent Orange was something that happened in the war.
They don't realize that the byproduct of Agent Orange, dioxin, is still in the soil, in the
vegetation and the fish, and that people today are being born with deformities and illnesses.
It's also being passed down in the genes.
The Red Cross estimates there's three million people in Vietnam today suffering with Agent
Orange.
And it wouldn't take so much, really, to help them, but they are a constituency very far
away.
MIKE CERRE: While Larry tries to generate support for his and other Agent Orange families
through his children of war social media campaign, Dick has taken his Loose Cannons advocacy
mission to Washington to persuade legislators to include funding for Agent Orange victims
assistance programs in the Defense Department's budget.
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse first met Dick in Saigon in 1972 while visiting a Shoeshine
Boys house with his father, who was serving there as the deputy U.S. ambassador to Vietnam.
DICK HUGHES: It is like a circle.
We started off on different sides of it, but now we ended up at the same place.
MAN: I think it's interesting that those who served in Vietnam in different ways have come
together to help in solving the last of the wounds of the Vietnam War.
MIKE CERRE: For the "PBS NewsHour," Mike Cerre, Da Nang, Vietnam.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Now: A first-time author has written a gripping, but disturbing novel.
Jeffrey Brown has this latest addition to the "NewsHour" Bookshelf.
JEFFREY BROWN: A 14-year-old girl nicknamed Turtle lives in the woods of Northern California
with her father.
She knows how to forage for food and hunt, but little about normal social interactions.
Her father is charming, protective, but also a monster who abuses her psychologically and
physically.
The new novel, "My Absolute Darling," is a story of survival, a powerful tale that is
getting enormous attention and acclaim.
And it is the debut novel by author Gabriel Tallent, who joins me now.
And welcome to you.
GABRIEL TALLENT, Author, "My Absolute Darling": I'm glad to be here.
JEFFREY BROWN: I called it a story of survival.
I wonder what you set out to do.
Is that how you came to see it?
GABRIEL TALLENT: I set out to tell the story of a young woman's fight for her own soul
when the odds are murderously against her.
You know, I -- when I'm out with friends talking, the stories that I value most is when they
tell you something that they went through, and they walk you through every strategy,
every thought, sort of each tactic that they employ and how that worked.
I love those stories.
They make me feel less alone in my own thinking about my life, and I love that entrance into
a character.
And so I set out to do that here.
JEFFREY BROWN: Where did this character, Turtle, come from?
Was she fully formed, or was -- she come through as you were writing her?
GABRIEL TALLENT: She was a glimmer.
She was an intuition that was pursued draft after draft, and each draft saying, like,
is this as complex, is this as difficult as a real person?
Am I treating this character with integrity and honesty?
And so, no, she was arrived at through a process of compassion and hard work.
JEFFREY BROWN: But this also means you're writing from a perspective of a teenage girl.
Is that difficult to do?
Were you worried about taking it on?
Were you worried about how others would look at you for taking that on?
GABRIEL TALLENT: Yes, I'm writing across a gap of privilege that must be acknowledged.
And I took it very seriously and tried to engage in those problems with attention and
integrity.
I felt very seriously the responsibility of writing that character.
I will say, like, I think that Turtle is just a girl who is lost and who is searching for
the way forward.
And if you start there, she's not as alien as she seems to some people, right?
I think that, occasionally, we make people in Turtle's situation out to be more difficult
to understand than they really are.
And I think that has more to do with our desire to put them out of mind than it has to do
with the actual limits of our compassion.
JEFFREY BROWN: This goes to some very difficult places.
The father, Martin, who is the one big factor in her life, a kind of survivalist himself,
protector, but also tormenter, including sexual abuse.
Was there a point when you kind of realized what you were writing and perhaps had second
thoughts, or what am I doing here, or where am I taking this?
GABRIEL TALLENT: Yes, so I set out to write about some of these themes, and because I'm
very interested in why we destroy -- like, problems about feminism and environmentalism
seem intricately linked to me.
Like, these seem like human rights issues, like social justice issues.
JEFFREY BROWN: How are they linked?
GABRIEL TALLENT: How are they linked?
They are linked in the fact that we destroy things that matter to us.
Like, they are linked because we are not taking women seriously in culture.
They are linked because we are not taking the environment seriously as something more
than a stage on which we play out our human dramas.
And I think that when we fail to do that, everyone suffers.
Like, this culture of callousness and destruction and hatred of women is common to us all, and
a grievous issue that we need to take on.
And so I was interested in writing about those issues.
JEFFREY BROWN: You know, I mentioned this is your first book, and it came.
And you seem to have appeared out of nowhere for many of us.
But this book came with out-of-the-world praise and blurbs.
Stephen King calls it a masterpiece, compares it to "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "Catch-22."
Now, that's pretty heady stuff, right?
GABRIEL TALLENT: It has been incredible.
I wrote a challenging book, and I was aware writing it that it was a challenging book,
right?
And I sort of knew no other metric, but than to follow what I thought was true.
Like, my ambition was, I thought I had good observations.
I thought I knew some true things about this predicament.
And I wanted to put them in fiction, so that someone might feel less alone.
But I knew that the book was going to be challenging because of that, because of what the project
is.
And I have found allies.
And that has been amazing.
And it has been so incredible that people like Mr. King and Celeste Ng supported the
book, when they have no stake in my career.
It has been profound to witness those sort of acts of literary generosity.
And it has made for an eye-opening entrance into this community.
JEFFREY BROWN: All right, the new novel, "My Absolute Darling."
Gabriel Tallent, thank you very much.
GABRIEL TALLENT: Thank you.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Strong stuff.
And that's the "NewsHour" for tonight.
I'm Judy Woodruff.
For all of us at the "PBS NewsHour," thank you, and good night.
PBS NewsHour full episode, September 27, 2017 PBS NewsHour Weekend full episode Sept. 24, 2017 What the GOP can learn from the Alabama Senate race PBS NewsHour full episode Sept. 11, 2017 PBS NewsHour full episode Sept. 20, 2017 PBS NewsHour full episode Sept. 26, 2017 PBS NewsHour full episode Sept. 12, 2017 PBS NewsHour Weekend full episode September 17, 2017 News Wrap: Hurricane Maria regains strength off North Carolina PBS NewsHour full episode Sept. 6, 2017

PBS NewsHour full episode Sept. 27, 2017

Latest Posts