PBS NewsHour full episode January 15, 2018

JUDY WOODRUFF: Good evening.
I'm Judy Woodruff.
On the "NewsHour" tonight: On a day honoring the life of Martin Luther King, the country
continues to grapple with accusations of racism at the highest levels.
Then: the governor of Kentucky, the first state to implement a work requirement for
Medicaid recipients.
GOV.
MATT BEVIN (R), Kentucky: The vast majority of those who can work are already working,
so it doesn't apply to them.
This is for those who are not working and maybe want the opportunity.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And television actor Tracee Ellis Ross on tackling race and identity through
comedy.
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS, Actress: When one's heart is open through laughter, so much more information
can be received.
I think it's like giving people their medicine with a spoonful of sugar.
JUDY WOODRUFF: All that and more on tonight's "PBS NewsHour."
(BREAK)
JUDY WOODRUFF: This is the day that the United States honors Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,
assassinated 50 years ago this spring.
But this year, the remembrances came amid the ongoing furor over words President Trump
has allegedly spoken and the views he holds on race.
All across the nation, Americans marked King Day, with a march in Atlanta, music in Brooklyn,
and acts of service in Washington, where volunteers distributed coats.
DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: It is a dream of a world where people are
judged by who they are.
JUDY WOODRUFF: President Trump released a video commemorating Dr. King.
But the president's derogatory words last week about African and Haitian immigrants
hung heavily in the air.
Martin Luther King III spoke at a Washington breakfast.
MARTIN LUTHER KING III, President & CEO, Realizing the Dream: When a president insists that our
nation needs more citizens from white states like Norway, I don't even think we need to
spend any time even talking about what it says and what it is.
JUDY WOODRUFF: In Florida, demonstrators waved Haitian flags as the president played golf
near his Mar-a-Lago resort at Palm Beach.
Last night, Mr. Trump directly addressed accusations that he is a racist.
DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: No, no, I'm not a racist.
I am the least racist person you have ever interviewed.
That, I can tell you.
JUDY WOODRUFF: He also denied, again, reports that he had asked during a meeting: "Why are
we having all these people from 'blank'-hole countries come here?"
DONALD TRUMP: Did you see what various senators in the room said about my comments?
They weren't made.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Republicans David Perdue of Georgia and Tom Cotton of Arkansas initially
said they didn't recall any such statement.
On Sunday, they stepped up their defense of the president.
SEN.
DAVID PERDUE (R), Georgia: I'm telling you he didn't use that word, George, and I'm telling
you it's a gross misrepresentation.
How many times you want me to say that?
SEN.
TOM COTTON (R), Arkansas: I certainly didn't hear what Senator Durbin has said repeatedly.
Senator Durbin has a history of misrepresenting what happens in White House meetings, though,
so perhaps we shouldn't be surprised by that.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But Illinois Democratic Senator Dick Durbin held his ground today in Chicago.
SEN.
RICHARD DURBIN (D-IL), Minority Whip: What the president said in that meeting was so
awful and so impactful on so many people, that, when he denied saying it, I felt duty-bound
to clarify.
JUDY WOODRUFF: The partisan acrimony now threatens any hope of reaching a deal on DACA, the program
that protects young immigrants from deportation.
The president warned last night that it's not happening.
DONALD TRUMP: Oh, we're ready, willing and able to make a deal on DACA.
The Democrats are the ones that aren't going to make a deal.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Mr. Trump repeated that stance again today on Twitter.
Later, the president tweeted that Senator Durbin had -- quote -- "totally misrepresented"
his comments.
We will return to this after the news summary.
In the day's other news: Two suicide bombers killed at least 38 people in Central Baghdad.
More than 100 others were wounded when the attackers blew themselves up in a town square.
The place was crowded with vendors and day laborers.
It was the deadliest attack since Iraq declared victory over the Islamic State group last
month.
Turkey is condemning U.S. plans to build a Kurdish security force inside Syria.
The U.S. says that 30,000 fighters would guard against any Islamic State resurgence.
But the Turks view the Syrian Kurds as loyal to insurgents inside Turkey.
In Ankara today, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned his military will -- quote -- "drown"
the Kurdish militia, and that U.S. troops better stay out of the way.
RECEP TAYYIP ERDOGAN, Turkish President (through translator): Despite all our objections, all
our warnings, a country we call an ally insists on establishing an army of terror along our
borders.
Don't stand between us and terrorists.
Don't stand between us and a herd of murders.
Otherwise, we will not be responsible for unwanted incidents.
JUDY WOODRUFF: The U.S. has some 2,000 troops inside Syria, working mostly with the Kurds
to fight ISIS.
Officials from North and South Korea met today, for the second time in a week, after months
of tensions over the North's nuclear weapons and missiles.
Negotiators sat down again at a border village along the demilitarized zone.
The North agreed to send an orchestra to the Winter Olympics in the South next month.
There's more fallout from the missile alert false alarm that panicked Hawaii.
State officials say they have reassigned the worker who mistakenly hit the alert button
on Saturday.
From now on, it will take two people to send an alert, and they're making it easier to
cancel a false alarm.
It took nearly 40 minutes on Saturday.
And crews in Southern California will need another week to reopen Highway 101 after last
week's deadly mudslides.
Meanwhile, the 20 people who died in the disaster were remembered last night at a vigil in Santa
Barbara.
Thousands attended the event, lighting candles and leaving flowers.
Still to come on the "NewsHour": the debate surrounding President Trump's rhetoric on
race; the governor of Kentucky on implementing work requirements for Medicaid; undocumented
immigrants seeking sanctuary in churches; and much more.
As we have been discussing, President Trump reportedly used vulgar language to describe
some immigrants to this country, comments prompting backlash from both the right and
the left.
The comments also raise questions about President Trump's own long history with race and how
that affects the national conversation happening now.
Peter Wehner is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center here in Washington.
And he served in the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations.
He was also a senior adviser to President George W. Bush.
And Jelani Cobb is a professor at Columbia University School of Journalism.
And he's a staff writer for "The New Yorker" magazine, where he covers race, politics and
culture.
And we welcome both of you back to the program.
Pete Wehner, I'm going to start with you.
As a lifelong conservative, how are you interpreting what President Trump said?
First of all, do you believe he used those words that he's alleged to have used, and
what do you take away from it?
PETER WEHNER, Ethics and Public Policy Center: Yes, I do believe that he used the words.
I don't think there is much question about it.
Republicans like Lindsey Graham have confirmed that he used it.
And this is all part of a piece with him.
This is the latest link in a long, malicious chain for Donald Trump, a chain that's connected
by racist sentiments toward Mexicans, toward Muslims and toward African-Americans.
In terms of what it says about him and how I interpret it as a lifelong Republican, it's
extremely painful, it's revealing.
And what it says about Donald Trump and about Trump supporters is that they are racist or
that they find great appeal in racist sentiments and expressions of racial division.
You know, Donald Trump is appealing to the worst instincts of America and, unfortunately,
his supporters are responding to it.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Jelani Cobb, on this Martin Luther King Jr.
Day, how are his words being received, and are we learning something new about him from
this?
JELANI COBB, Columbia University School of Journalism: Yes, I don't think we're learning
anything new.
There seems to be a cycle in which we hear something outrageous, something inflammatory,
something that is undeniably racist, and we say, at this point, it's impossible to avoid
the conclusion that Donald Trump is racist.
And then we move on to another series of outrages, and then maybe a month or two months later,
we come back and say, OK, this definitively establishes that Mr. Trump is racist.
But there are never any consequences to this.
What happened in -- and what he said regarding Haiti and countries in Africa is not revelatory.
We have understood what these sentiments were during Charlottesville.
We understood how he viewed the world when he said that Judge Curiel could not execute
his duties as a judge because he was Mexican.
He is actually Mexican-American.
And we understood this from the comments he made about the Central Park Five.
There's a long list.
And so we haven't learned anything new in regards to this.
As it pertains to Dr. King, it's almost tragically ironic.
I don't think -- there have been a number of people who have raised the question of
his fitness for office.
And we can debate about that, but one thing that I think is clear is he is not fit to
address the legacy of Martin Luther King.
I think the most respectful thing that he could do at this point would be to say nothing.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, in that regard, Pete Wehner, saying nothing or whether he says
something, how much damage is being done to the country, to the American people right
now?
PETER WEHNER: Oh, he's doing tremendous damage . He's doing it to the political and to the
fabric of the country.
He's really trying to get people to go at each other's throats.
And he's also touching on what is the original sin and the besetting sin of America, which
is race.
We have always had a difficult relationship with race, but we have never had a president
who has tried to exacerbate those tensions.
We have had presidents who have imperfectly tried to heal the breach, but here we have
somebody who seems to take great delight and takes great energy in dividing us by race.
And that has huge consequences on our country.
I think a lot of Trump supporters think in terms of checking policy boxes, but politics
is about things much deeper and much more important than that.
And in that area, Donald Trump is worse than we have ever had.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Jelani Cobb, can one person, even if that one person is the president of
the United States, literally set back race relations in this country?
JELANI COBB: Absolutely.
And that's what's happening here, both legislatively and socially and culturally.
It's one thing -- we're talking about Dr. King.
In 1961, John F. Kennedy invited Martin Luther King to attend his inauguration, and Dr. King
declined.
But then, several weeks later, he gave a speech, and in the speech, he talked about what Mr.
Kennedy could do to address matters of race.
And some of them are things that you would expect, the legislative concerns he had about
civil rights and so on, but he then, in this letter, took pains to point out the social
and moral authority of the office of the presidency.
And he said that that could be, you know, difficult to measure, that you couldn't come
up with a kind of easily quantified way to determine what that influence would be, but
it was absolutely important in terms of moving the goal -- moving the country closer to the
goal of equality.
And Mr. Trump has failed tremendously on those scores.
As a matter of fact, he's moved the country in the opposite direction.
To Peter's point, we have seen divisions stoked, we have seen animosity, we have seen hostility.
We have seen the still unfolding crisis in Puerto Rico and the way that he referred to
the inhabitants of the island stereotypically, saying that they -- quote, unquote -- "wanted
everything done for them."
And so I don't know how at this point we can even question the fact that we have had a
very retrograde movement coming out of the White House on these issues.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, Peter Wehner, what can individual Americans do?
I know some elected Republicans today were quoting -- tweeting and quoting Martin Luther
King Jr.
Is tweeting enough, speaking out?
I mean, what should people be doing right now?
PETER WEHNER: Well, Republicans do need to speak out, but they need to do more than this
episodic criticism.
They have to make a comprehensive critique and really a comprehensive assault on Trump
and Trumpism and his racism.
And they just really haven't done it, with a few exceptions.
Former President Bush did it.
John McCain did it.
For the most part, they haven't done it.
Other Americans, look, they have to speak out for what is right and what is true and
what is best about America.
And they have to try and rally people and the better angels of our nature.
Sometimes, viruses create their own antibodies.
And my hope is that Donald Trump, because what he is doing is so ugly and so pernicious
and so malicious, that people, having seen this, will remember some of the characteristics
and virtues that are important to individuals and to a country and recover them.
But they have to check him at every point.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Jelani Cobb, what would you add to that?
What is the message, what should the message be today for individual Americans right now?
JELANI COBB: I think that Americans are compelled to think what Dr. King was saying, the fact
that he was talking about moving the country past the ills that we have seen wreak havoc,
wreak havoc in the world during World War II.
And his words are there.
I would encourage us not to go by what our leaders are saying or what the media, even
Pete and I are saying today, but to go to Dr. King's words themselves and to see what
he has to offer in terms of how we address the issues we have in 2018.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, we certainly appreciate both of you speaking to us on this Martin
Luther King Day.
Thank you Jelani Cobb, Pete Wehner.
JELANI COBB: Thank you.
PETER WEHNER: Thanks a lot.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Kentucky will be the first state in the country to require some Medicaid
recipients to work in order to qualify for benefits.
In July, an estimated 350,000 people aged 19 to 64 who don't have disabilities or other
disqualifying circumstances will be required to work at least 20 hours each week.
Work can be a paying job or taking part in a job training program, volunteering, or caring
for the elderly or a family member with a disability.
Pregnant women, full-time students, and the medically frail will be exempted.
Governor Matt Bevin's office estimates the plan will save Kentucky almost $2.5 billion
over five years, and reduce the Medicaid rolls by some 100,000 people.
I spoke with Governor Bevin a short time ago and I asked him how large Kentucky's Medicaid
program is, and what problem this change would fix.
GOV.
MATT BEVIN (R), Kentucky: We currently have nearly one-third of our population -- we're
4.5 million people, and we have just short of about -- we're about 1.5 million of us
right now are on Medicaid.
Now, there was already probably 20 percent of our population, 20 to 25 percent, on traditional
Medicaid, and that is for the medically frail, the aged, the infirm, pregnant women, children,
those for whom the program was originally designed.
Since the expansion of Medicaid to able-bodied people of low financial means, we have seen
that number go from 20, 25, 30 and now fully a third of our population.
So what is it we're looking to change is, we simply want, for those that are able to
be engaged in their own health outcomes, we want them to be, because there's dignity and
self-respect that is offered to people through the ability for people to do for themselves.
JUDY WOODRUFF: How will you determine who is actually physically able to work, people
who don't have a genuine disability that prevents them from working, or people who have a genuine
need to stay home to take care of children?
GOV.
MATT BEVIN: Sure.
This is -- it's important.
And I'm glad you asked that question, because this program is not intended, this expansion
of the requirements, is not intended for those for whom Medicaid was originally designed,
those that we just mentioned.
It's not intended for those who are primary caregivers or those who are students.
And, in fact, if people are already working, then they have met the requirement.
It isn't just a requirement simply to work.
If they are not working, they also could take classes toward certifications and education
that would allow them to find jobs.
They could also volunteer in their community.
The key is to have them engaged in their communities, because it is through that engagement that
people have healthier outcomes.
They have an interaction with people.
They become a part of the fabric of their community.
It's better for them, and their health, and for their children and their families as well.
So, how many of them it will apply to?
A subset of those that are part of what is known as the expanded Medicaid population.
The intent isn't to try to find big numbers or big savings.
It's to create opportunity for people to pursue the American dream.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, that's what I wanted to ask you, because the research that I have
seen, Kaiser Family Foundation, says that of those able-bodied adults right now, or
at least as of 2016, who are on Medicaid, that 60 percent of them are already working.
How much higher do you want that percentage to go?
GOV.
MATT BEVIN: Should it be anybody who's able-bodied and not working and capable of working who's
not working.
Why should anyone in America -- and think about this, Judy?
Why should somebody have to go to work every day and pay taxes to provide something to
someone who could do the same thing, but chooses not to?
That's very un-American.
So, how much higher?
I would love it to be 100 percent for those who could do it, and, if not working, again,
volunteering or providing a way to pursue higher education or training for jobs that
exist.
In Kentucky, we have more than 200,000 jobs right now waiting for somebody to fill them.
I want to get people connected with that.
(CROSSTALK)
JUDY WOODRUFF: I'm sorry to interrupt.
That's another question I have, because in this high employment economic environment
we're in, where the unemployment rate is very low, how do you find jobs for these people?
What do you do if there aren't jobs for them?
GOV.
MATT BEVIN: There's millions of them in America.
And it's important to understand -- and it's probably worth it for another time to have
this conversation -- the unemployment number is irrelevant if the statistics aren't valid.
And if you don't count those people who are capable of working who choose not to in those
numbers, then the numbers are irrelevant.
So, while they're low, again, in Kentucky, 200,000 jobs, millions of them in America,
you can't go into any town in America without seeing a help-wanted sign.
And, again, if there were not a job, people also could volunteer, be involved in community
involvement or education.
There are many different on-ramps to give people a chance not to be dead-ended into
these programs like Medicaid, but to have them be a way station on the way to pursuing
the American dream.
I am such a person.
I grew up in poverty.
I grew up with no access to health care ever.
I had no health care of any kind until I was an active-duty Army officer in my 20s.
I know from personal experience that people like me don't want to be treated, as Seema
Verma has said, with the soft bigotry of low expectations, that we're capable of more than
that.
And while it may only be a small subset, truth be told, think about how transformative it
could be for people like me who are now in that same stage in their lives.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Seema Verma, of course, being the head of the Medicare/Medicaid office.
It sounds as if your underlying assumption is that many, many of these people who are
on Medicaid who are able-bodied are really trying to avoid work.
Is this your belief?
GOV.
MATT BEVIN: No, I think, again, this will be a very small subset.
As you noted, and all statistics show, the vast majority of those who can work are already
working, so it doesn't apply to them.
This is for those who are not working and maybe want the opportunity.
I got an including anecdote from the largest Goodwill in the largest city in our state.
And the head of that organization said that, as this word has come out just in recent days,
a number of their customers, who are people who are on Medicaid, are excited at the idea
that jobs will now not be only made available, but will be made available to them because
the dots will get connected.
And so this woman was surprised and reached out to our office and said many of our Medicaid
customers who don't have jobs are excited at the possibility of the state helping to
facilitate their connection to a job.
Human beings want to be treated with dignity and respect.
They do.
And we're going to give them that opportunity.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Governor Matt Bevin of Kentucky, thank you very much.
GOV.
MATT BEVIN: Thank you.
Stay with us.
Coming up on the "NewsHour": the political stakes of President Trump's disparaging statements;
an Iraqi minority finds a new home in Nebraska; and Race Matters Solutions, using comedy as
a tool to fight racism.
But first: Throughout his campaign for office, President Trump made halting illegal immigration
and building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border a central theme.
Now, nearly a year since he was inaugurated, Immigration and Customs Enforcement says that
arrests are up roughly 40 percent.
But the president's policy has also inspired a renewed resistance.
Special correspondent Duarte Geraldino reports from North Carolina on churches offering sanctuary
to undocumented immigrants.
DUARTE GERALDINO: The doors of Umstead Park Church of Christ are unlocked, but Eliseo
Jimenez is trapped within its walls.
The 39-year-old is an undocumented immigrant with a standing deportation order, meaning
Immigration and Customs Enforcement want him returned to his native Mexico.
But he's not going.
ELISEO JIMENEZ, Undocumented Immigrant: I'm not going to give up on my kids.
I'm not going to take them away from their own country, take them away their rights to
better education, better health care, better life.
DUARTE GERALDINO: Instead, he's chosen sanctuary in this church, relying on an ICE policy that
says federal immigration agents won't apprehend people in so-called sensitive locations.
It's part of a strategy to buy time to reopen his immigration case and to find a legal way
to stay.
Umstead Park United Church of Christ is one of a growing number of churches around the
country that have publicly declared their opposition to existing U.S. immigration law
by offering sanctuary to undocumented people facing deportation.
Reverend Doug Long is the pastor here.
RVR.
DOUG LONG, Umstead Park United Church of Christ: I want to be able to say to my grandchildren
one day, maybe I didn't live during the height of slavery, maybe I didn't live through Nazi
Germany, but when I had the opportunity, when we had the opportunity to offer refuge to
a family in need, to an undocumented immigrant who was being deported, we did our best.
DUARTE GERALDINO: The sanctuary movement has its modern roots in the 1980s, when civil
wars in Central America sent hundreds of thousands of political refugees into the U.S. seeking
asylum.
Church leaders sheltered them and were later prosecuted and convicted, though received
no jail time.
The movement was revived under President Obama, who critics called the deporter-in-chief for
the record-high removals that happened under his watch.
And since President Trump took office, the number of churches that have joined this movement,
saying they're willing to shelter people or help do so, has grown from 400 to around 1,000.
VIRIDIANA MARTINEZ, Founder, Alerta Migratoria: The Trump effect is in new allies coming in,
is in these churches stepping up like never before.
That is the Trump effect.
DUARTE GERALDINO: Viridiana Martinez is the founder of Alerta Migratoria, Migration Alert,
a nonprofit started during 2016, when many recent arrivals from Central America were
detained and deported.
VIRIDIANA MARTINEZ: You know, at this point, it's not just a moral human rights thing.
It's also a Christian duty to uphold Christian values and to be there for the people that
are most vulnerable.
DUARTE GERALDINO: Umstead Park began hosting Jimenez in October 2017, after first undergoing
legal training in to learn how to offer sanctuary.
Pastor Long says both he and his congregation had many questions.
RVR.
DOUG LONG: Is this legal?
And in what ways might it not be legal?
How might we get in trouble with our 501(c)(3) status?
Can we provide enough volunteers to maintain this kind of ministry?
How much does it cost?
DUARTE GERALDINO: After talking to legal counsel and other churches in the area, the congregation
voted overwhelmingly to welcome Jimenez, converting a former office into a studio apartment.
On weekends, his children, Alison and Christopher, stay with him.
They sleep in a tent, a small touch meant to make the ordeal feel like an adventure.
A church volunteer stays on the grounds 24 hours a day, sleeping on a mattress in the
pastor's office, just in case immigration agents show up.
Jimenez attends services and helps out around the church to pass the time, while, back at
his old home in Greensboro, about an hour's drive away, his partner, Gabriela, who's also
undocumented, works 50 hours a week and struggles to take care of their children.
GABRIELA MARTINEZ, Partner of Eliseo Jimenez: They don't really understand what's happening.
But they get frustrated.
They cry like almost every night and every morning.
They ask me why his father is not at home.
What I just tell them is like, he's working in the church.
DUARTE GERALDINO: Jimenez says he first came to the U.S. when he was 17.
In 2007, he was deported back to Mexico, but reentered the United States a month later,
a federal felony.
He did it, he says, to care for his then young children, who are U.S. citizens.
ELISEO JIMENEZ: Give them whatever they need for school, for clothes, or anything they
need.
That's just like I'm doing right now with my kids.
DUARTE GERALDINO: In 2013, he was arrested for auto theft, but he calls the case a misunderstanding.
He borrowed a roommate's car without telling him.
Court records show most of the charges were dropped, but he pled guilty to driving with
a revoked license and failing to notify the DMV of an address change.
He paid a fine.
And under the Obama administration, he wasn't considered a priority for deportation.
He obtained a work permit, paid taxes and was checking in with ICE officials each year.
That all changed in 2017, when President Trump signed an executive order broadening ICE criteria
to include anyone convicted or charged with any crime, and generally giving ICE agents
far more discretion in whom they target for removal.
VIRIDIANA MARTINEZ: People are checking in as they had been in previous years, and they're
being told, you have to pack up your bags and go.
DUARTE GERALDINO: That rising demand and Trump's election appear to be fueling this growing
sanctuary movement.
And yet it still represents only a tiny fraction of the broader Christian community.
REV.
RUSS REAVES, Former Pastor: We are to be people of the law, Romans 13, be in submission to
governing authorities, because we recognize that God has allowed those authorities to
be there, and therefore are good.
DUARTE GERALDINO: Russ Reaves is the former pastor at this church in Greensboro.
REV.
RUSS REAVES: Biblical justice.
Perfect justice.
DUARTE GERALDINO: He says he's worked hard to welcome immigrants into his congregation.
But providing sanctuary, he says, is a step too far.
A number of years ago, he was asked to do so, but refused.
REV.
RUSS REAVES: I would say that a church has every right, and should, reach out to see
that, are there felt needs there that we can meet?
Is there some way that we can help them gain access to the system that would perhaps make
them able to stay?
DUARTE GERALDINO: Everything but actually offering them sanctuary.
REV.
RUSS REAVES: Essentially, yes.
The most important thing we can do is to share our faith with them and to ground them in
their relationship with God, so that, worst-case scenario, they do get deported, they go back
to where they're from with a sense of divine purpose for their life.
DUARTE GERALDINO: With more people like Eliseo facing deportation, and the demand for sanctuary
growing, more churches will likely wrestle with this debate.
Remember Viridiana Martinez?
She came to the U.S. when she was 7.
She received Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA.
And unless Congress acts, she too faces possible deportation in early 2018.
What about people like you?
VIRIDIANA MARTINEZ: I don't know.
That's a good question to ask the American people.
If this administration is really going to going to put their foot down and say, no,
we're going to round all of you up, then I hope that we can have the support of churches,
saying, we're going to open our doors to all of you.
DUARTE GERALDINO: More doors may be opening, but how long Eliseo Jimenez and others are
willing to stay to avoid deportation is another matter.
For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Duarte Geraldino in Raleigh, North Carolina.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Now it's time for Politics Monday.
"NewsHour" correspondent John Yang has more on the fallout of President Trump's reported
incendiary comments.
JOHN YANG: Judy, we're joined by Amy Walter, national editor of The Cook Political Report,
and by Margaret Talev, senior White House correspondent for Bloomberg News.
Thanks.
Welcome to you both.
Margaret, welcome to Politics Monday.
Let me start with you.
We have got the Martin Luther King Jr.
Day weekend.
We're beginning a week that could end with a government showdown, and the president has
spent this weekend talking about whether he's a racist, talking about -- there is a division
within -- a debate within the White House about what he said or might not have said
in the Oval Office last week.
What do you make of all this?
MARGARET TALEV, Bloomberg News: Remember, a week ago, "Fire and Fury," the new book,
was the big distraction that had completely engulfed the White House and raised questions
about the president's fitness to lead or raised the fact that there were questions even inside
the White House about this.
And now the focus has changed completely away from that and to this, but not without repercussions.
Obviously, it makes the idea of trust between Democrats and the White House and certain
Republicans, the ones who deny what was said or some version of what was said was said,
makes it that much more difficult, if there needs to be a leap of faith, to get that leap
of faith between now and the end of the week.
And it has set off a series of foreign policy consequences involving U.S. ambassadors, leaders
from other countries, relations with those other countries.
And, you know, there's domestic and international fallout, and that's how we start the week.
AMY WALTER, The Cook Political Report: Yes, it's chaos once again.
Chaos really rules Washington, and a lot of it is driven not by policy, but by personalities.
The fact is, nobody should be surprised that these deadlines are coming.
We have known for a long time that government is going to run out of money at the end of
the week.
We have known that the DACA fix needs to happen before March.
These are all solvable problems.
But what we get into time and time again is a debate about policy that ends up then being
a debate about Donald Trump, whether it's about his temperament, whether it's about
his behavior, and now clearly about what he said or didn't say.
The Trump instinct always is to double and triple down on what he did and what he said
and to focus on what his base wants, instead of saying, let's move beyond this and let's
work to create, you know, a bigger, broader coalition.
It is now we have gone from -- what day was it when they had last week, Tuesday or Thursday?
It all blends together -- Tuesday or -- having the president saying he wanted to see a beautiful
deal.
MARGARET TALEV: This close to a deal.
AMY WALTER: This close to a deal, to today saying that the senator Dickey Durbin is wrong,
he's misquoted me, and Democrats want to totally tank a deal.
JOHN YANG: Margaret, is this going to tank a deal?
MARGARET TALEV: Well, look, there are a couple of options.
There are two deadlines to look at.
One is the shutdown deadline, which is Friday, unless they move it.
And the other is the DACA deadline, which is March.
And so the question becomes, really, for Democrats at this point, do they agree to separate those
two, come up with another patch for yet another month -- who thought we would be in this situation,
but here we are -- and sort of fight the immigration fight then?
Or do they say, you know what, President Trump, you put us here.
That's fine.
Either do a deal now, or we're not signing off on the budget.
And I think we will start to really understand how this is taking shape in the next couple
of days.
AMY WALTER: Yes, I think that's very fair, and to see where Democrats are.
It's not just Republicans who are in a -- or the president in a tough bind.
You have Democrats who are up in 2018, this year, who sit in red states, who do not relish
the idea of having to go into an election year defending a government showdown.
And, more fundamentally, Democrats, just in terms of their DNA, they like government,
right?
That's the whole point.
So the idea that they'd shut down government, which provides services to people, goes against
really everything that they stand for.
MARGARET TALEV: But then the question becomes, do they have more leverage a month from now
to get this deal that affects not adult immigrants without documentation who got here, but people
who came here as parents, who were brought here by parents, and now participate in society,
participate in the military, go to college, who are considered not just by liberal Democrats,
but by the center of America and many Republicans, to be Americans, to be American citizens,
de facto?
JOHN YANG: Immigration has always been a divisive issue among Republicans.
And now, this weekend, you had the spectacle of Senators Cotton and Perdue saying the president
didn't say what others people say he said, and then Lindsey Graham, who hasn't quite
said well, yes, he did, but he did say that his memory has not evolved, as Senator Perdue
and Senator Cotton.
What's this doing to the Republicans?
AMY WALTER: Well, I think the Republicans, you're right, they have been divided for some
time, although you did get 14 Republicans to sign on to and vote for an immigration
reform bill in 2013 that addressed a lot of these issues of chain/family migration, of
the -- they didn't call it a border wall, but border security, the diversity lottery.
All of those were addressed there.
And 14 Republicans that supported it.
But, of course, what we saw was that that couldn't get through a more conservative House.
And it is the conservatives, Perdue and Cotton, who are driving the latest deal, that, you
know, they want to see that as the final package, not the deal that's bipartisan between Lindsey
Graham and Dick Durbin.
So, that divide is still there, and they believe they have a president now that can push this
through.
MARGARET TALEV: But there remains this question inside the Republican Party both in the House
and the Senate, which is when President Trump says something that individual lawmakers disagree
with, that they either find offensive or politically dangerous or wrong, whatever, do they push
back every time?
Do they speak out and say, that's not right, we don't agree with that?
Or do they say as little as possible and try to manage him into a corner where they have
can a meeting of the minds on policy?
When you look at the polling, a lot of Republican voters in this country are very happy with
the results of the first year of the Trump administration, conservative judicial nominees
who are getting confirmed, deregulation of many areas, and the stock market.
And so the question is, do they stick with that, or do they draw a line for political
reasons, as well as for personal reasons?
And you see here that split, I think, with Cotton and Perdue, vs. Graham, who has been
traveling on Air Force One, playing golf with the president.
Why is Senator Graham so close to President Trump?
Well, now you see why.
He was banking on trying to make some progress on DACA.
And now this is all in jeopardy.
JOHN YANG: Amy, very quickly, you look beyond the Beltway a lot.
This weekend, you had two new governors take office with new legislatures.
What are you looking for out of those states, New Jersey and Virginia, to tell us about
governing in the age of Trump?
AMY WALTER: Right.
Yes.
You had the governor of Virginia, a Democrat, come in.
He was inaugurated this weekend, really talking about the spirit of cooperation.
He has a very closely divided legislature that Republicans can control, wanting to work
with them, talking about no more chaos.
You have a Democratic governor in New Jersey who's sworn in tomorrow who really is talking
about being much more of an aggressive liberal force.
And so I think we're going to see a lot of those challenges for Democrats in the upcoming
year, which one to be.
JOHN YANG: Amy Walter, Margaret Talev, thanks for joining us.
AMY WALTER: You're welcome.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Many refugees driven from their homeland in Northern Iraq by ISIS have found
a new home in a place you might not expect: Nebraska.
Almost 3,000 Yazidis, a small non-Muslim religious and ethnic minority mostly from the Sinjar
region of Iraq, now call the state's capital, Lincoln, home.
From PBS station NET in Nebraska, Jack Williams reports.
JACK WILLIAMS: Lincoln, Nebraska, is a long way from the refugee camps in Syria, where
Hasan Khalil grew up, his family forced to flee Northern Iraq's multiple genocides.
He spent 11 years living in tents.
Like many other Yazidis driven from home after decades of religious and ethnic persecution,
he eventually ended up here, in America's heartland.
HASAN KHALIL, Yazidi Barber (through translator): It's kind of like back home.
It's smaller.
You know, we lived in farms back in Syria.
It looked, like, really safe.
And that's what attracted me the most, besides the Yazidi community that we knew from back
home.
JACK WILLIAMS: Khalil opened his own barbershop a few years ago and has done his best to learn
a new culture.
The transition has been easier because of the familiar faces around him, other Yazidis
who were forced to leave family members behind and settled here.
Thousands of Yazidis were killed in an ISIS genocide in 2014.
HASAN KHALIL: Most every family have probably lost a loved one from the is attack.
There are still most families that have uncles or mother or daughter or brother still either
captured by ISIS or they might be somewhere in a refugee camp.
So, there are a lot of concerns, where people are kind of worried.
JOLENE MCCULLEY, Director, Yazidi Cultural Center: This is our English and citizenship
classroom.
JACK WILLIAMS: Lincoln has become such a popular destination for Yazidis, that they have established
a cultural center, a place for refugees to learn the language, how to manage money, and
even how to drive.
Director Jolene McCulley says they are also getting over what they left behind.
JOLENE MCCULLEY: With this Yazidi population coming recently, vs. the ones that have come
many years back, there's a lot more barriers to integration.
They're dealing with a lot more trauma.
And so right now our goal is to help them overcome the trauma and remember their culture
and carry on their culture, before we focus on integration.
JACK WILLIAMS: Even though many Yazidi refugees are initially resettled in other cities, they
often end up in Lincoln.
Some of the first immigrants arrived several decades ago after working as interpreters
for the U.S. military in Northern Iraq.
JOLENE MCCULLEY: One family comes, talks to another family, and then pretty soon you have
got family and friends telling family and friends, well, my family is there, I want
to be with them, or maybe I can afford a house there or I can get a job there.
And then the community support is a lot better than some of the bigger cities that they have
been resettled in.
JACK WILLIAMS: At Lutheran Family Services in Lincoln, Lacey Studnicka's job is to welcome
refugees, and the majority of them here are Yazidi.
LACEY STUDNICKA, Lutheran Family Services: Nebraska is a flyover state, typically very
conservative.
But Nebraska resettled the most refugees per capita in 2016.
And we have always been at the top of the list for refugee arrivals.
JACK WILLIAMS: So, here we are, 6, 500 miles from Northern Iraq in Lincoln, Nebraska.
What makes this place so welcoming and attractive to Yazidi refugees?
LACEY STUDNICKA: People love Lincoln for the same reason we all love Lincoln.
It's low unemployment, very welcoming, a great place to raise a family.
And they really have found shared values here.
JACK WILLIAMS: Most Yazidis in Lincoln will never go back home because of the unrest that
persists in Northern Iraq.
ISIS has been weakened, but internal strife within the region still makes things unsafe
for Yazidis.
So they're establishing the traditions of their homeland here, including building a
cemetery on the outskirts of town.
Yazidis raised the money to buy 20 acres of land.
KHALAF HESSO, Yazidi Interpreter: Everybody is coming together on this project, and they
are donating their money and their time.
JACK WILLIAMS: Is this the one of the clearest signs that Nebraska and Lincoln are home for
Yazidis now?
KHALAF HESSO: It is, yes.
We have Yazidis from Texas, from California, from other parts of the country moving to
here.
JACK WILLIAMS: Back at Hasan Khalil's barbershop, he sometimes can't believe he's in Nebraska,
thousands of miles from home, but in a safe place where he has opportunity and a future.
HASAN KHALIL: There's always hope.
When I think about those kids in the refugee camps right now that are struggling, I always
feel like I want to give them my voice, tell them that there is hope.
There is always a door that is going to open up.
You just got to never give up and then always have hope, you know?
JACK WILLIAMS: Hope that others might be able to flee the violence and rebuild their lives
successfully.
For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Jack Williams in Lincoln, Nebraska.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Now, as part of our ongoing Race Matters series focusing on solutions
to racism, special correspondent Charlayne Hunter-Gault has a second part of her conversation
with Golden Globe-winning actress Tracee Ellis Ross.
Last week, they talked about the momentum behind the Time's up movement supporting women.
Tonight, Charlayne examines the popular TV series "Black-ish" starring Ellis Ross and
how it handles race.
The daughter of singer Diana Ross, Ellis Ross plays Rainbow Johnson, or just plain Bow.
ACTOR: I joined the Young Republicans club at school.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: "Black-ish" is a comedy, to be sure, but it doesn't shy away from controversial
issues, especially racism, taking on the N-word, biracial Bow, confused about her identity,
and going to extremes to fit in with both black and white friends.
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS, Actress: Those were my friends.
ACTRESS: Were they?
ACTRESS: You should, like, totally audition for the theater this year.
They could really use some strong black actors.
Toodles.
ACTOR: A flying monkey?
Why did you agree to do it?
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS: Admittedly, mistakes were made.
But if you were in that situation, you just -- you overcompensate.
You do what you can to fit in.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Then there was a debate about the lack of justice for African-Americans
in the criminal justice system:
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS: But, you guys, despite its flaws, we still have the best justice
system in the whole world.
We just have to have faith that it's going to work itself out.
ACTOR: Right.
And why should we listen to you again, Bow?
Because you just assured us that these men would be brought to justice.
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS: Because I hoped that they would.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: And "Black-ish" even took head on the racial divisions generated
by the 2016 election.
ACTRESS: So, can someone explain how 53 percent of white women voted for the orange (EXPLETIVE
DELETED) grabber?
ACTOR: I have always said, the American white woman is as fickle as a pinot noir.
ACTRESS: Well, first, white women aren't sisters.
We hate each other.
And, second, if you must know, I voted for Trump.
(SHOUTING)
ACTOR: Pinot noir.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Thank you for joining us now as Tracee Ellis Ross.
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS: Thank you for having me.
I'm happy to switch roles into this person.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Good.
Well, I like both, actually.
(LAUGHTER)
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: I want to take you way back to when "Black-ish" first started.
It's now going into its fourth season.
Was there a conscious decision to take on controversial issues, especially like race
and racism?
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS: Our show is consciously authentic and consciously honest.
And a lot of the subject matter that we courageously dive into does end up coming across that way.
I think that they are topics that are uncomfortable for people.
They are topics that are -- need to be unpacked and discussed, and I think that's why they're
uncomfortable for people.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: I just wonder why they think that these heady issues can be
addressed through comedy.
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS: When one's heart is open through laughter, so much more information
can be received.
I think it's like giving people their medicine with a spoon full of sugar, you know, or giving
your dog its antibiotics in peanut butter, you know?
(LAUGHTER)
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Right.
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS: So, you can think of our show as peanut butter.
It makes things more receivable.
There is an ability to have an open heart while receiving things.
And it makes them digestible in a way that, when you're getting punched in the face, sometimes,
it's not as easy, because you're busy defending yourself and protecting yourself.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: I read somewhere -- I think it was an interview with Kenya Barris
-- he said, "Even when digging deeper means arguing among ourselves, this -- especially
after the 2016 election."
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS: Yes.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: And that was one of the episodes that I thought was so powerful.
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS: "Lemons," yes.
I thought it was a really powerful episode.
And it did what we often do on our show, which I think is a part of the DNA of our show,
in that we don't answer a question.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Exactly.
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS: One of the ways I like to look at it is, I feel like there's a lot
of things that are on the wallpaper of our lives in this country that we don't really
notice anymore, or we are not forced to think about.
And then there's some of those things that we are forced to think about, but they're
on the wallpaper of our lives, to the point that we don't always unpack them.
We just keep it moving.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: It's comedy, and yet it's not always funny, but is that helping
an audience to decide some of these complicated issues, you think?
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS: We all look at these things from very different points of view, but what
we end up with is not division, but connection.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: I also read -- and this was a -- you may not even remember this,
but it was in The New York Times some months ago.
It was a feature on you.
You were in New York, and you talked about how these young white boys come up to you
and...
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS: Yes, and I find it so wonderful.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: And they're such big fans.
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS: You know, I think it's really interesting, because, again, I don't
-- I am not a fan of categorizing race in that way.
But in the specificity of them watching our show, which is unpacking racial identity and
cultural identity for this black family, the Johnsons, and when I think of the subject
matter that we have addressed, both from the N-word, to police brutality, to being biracial,
and then I think of a young white boy who already is immersed in a culture that has
music using the N-word or whatever those different things are, but then to be able to watch our
show and have, for example, the historical context and relevance of the N-word to be
unpacked in a way that I don't think anywhere else in our culture is that something that
is being unpacked.
I'm very intrigued by my character and the expansive way that I am able to breathe my
life into a wife on television, and that...
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: A wife who's a professional.
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS: Yes, I mean, but that's not even what's interesting.
It's she's more than that.
The story is told traditionally the way a sitcom is told.
It's told through the husband's eyes.
But Bow is not wife wallpaper in her husband's world.
I don't think it's current.
I actually think it's timeless.
I think it is about time that television and our industry and our world wake up to the
actual balance that exists.
I mean, for me, one of my experiences is, you know, I have many a black woman and woman
in my life that is the lead in their life, that is living their own life, and doing it
their own way, and who is a doctor and a mother and a wife and a friend and a daughter and
a sister and all a -- of those things, and a co-worker and all of that.
So I don't think that I'm playing something that's new or current.
I actually think it might be new for television, but it's not new for life.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: And what do you hope people who are concerned about race and racism
take away from this show?
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS: The humanity involved is actually what moves the scale, like, actually
being able to see each other as human beings, beyond ideas and concepts.
And I think our show unpacks that really well.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Do you ever encounter negative reactions from people when you're
off the set and out in the public, or is it all positive?
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS: No, I mean, the one -- you know, I have heard, very interestingly, people
say things like, "I had no idea I would like your show."
And I always -- because that's the kind of person I am, I'm always, like, "Why?
Why didn't you think you would like it?"
"Well, you know, the title."
(LAUGHTER)
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS: And I'm, like, "Oh, well, what did the title mean to you, that you wouldn't
like it?"
"Well, I thought it was just going to be just about like black people" or something, like,
that it was unidentifiable.
Or, "I mean, it's so funny.
You guys, I'm so -- my family is so much like yours," you know, as if it's surprising.
And -- but that's the beauty of it.
I think that's the beauty of it.
That is the beauty of comedy.
And people seem to be moved and changed by it, and I love that.
It's a very rewarding thing.
I mean, you can just make entertainment, you can make people laugh, and that, in and of
itself is a gift and a really joyful part of the job that I have.
But to also make people think is also really cool, and to make people talk and have conversations
about things that they wouldn't normally talk about.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Well, Tracee Ellis Ross, thank you so much for joining us.
TRACEE ELLIS ROSS: Thank you for having me.
JUDY WOODRUFF: You can find more stories from our Race Matters Solutions series online at
PBS.org/NewsHour.
And tonight on "Independent Lens": the Oscar-nominated documentary "I Am Not Your Negro."
It weaves together the writing of author James Baldwin, including his reflections on the
assassinations of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.
The program airs tonight on most PBS stations.
Online, you can revisit our conversation with the film's director, Raoul Peck, about how
James Baldwin changed his life.
That and more is on our Web site, PBS.org/NewsHour.
And that's the "NewsHour" for tonight.
On Tuesday: Are our children spending too much time on their mobile screens?
I'm Judy Woodruff.
Join us online and again here tomorrow evening.
For all of us at the "PBS NewsHour," thank you, and we'll see you soon.
PBS NewsHour full episode, January 15, 2018 How Trump’s reported s***hole comments put DACA talks in jeopardy Crime Patrol Dial 100 - Ep 687 - Full Episode - 9th January, 2018 Beyond the Fire & Fury | January 10, 2018 Act 1 | Full Frontal on TBS Shields and Brooks on Trump’s ‘s***hole’ comments, ‘Fire and Fury’ fallout Crime Patrol - Ep 886 - Full Episode - Fragile Lives - 13th January, 2018 Trump fires back at Sen. Durbin over DACA deal The View January 12 2018 - Wendy Williams How to protect yourself when someone in your family has the flu How 'black-ish' unpacks hard topics with humor and nuance

PBS NewsHour full episode January 15, 2018

Latest Posts