JUDY WOODRUFF: Good evening.
I'm Judy Woodruff.
On the "NewsHour" tonight: Facebook under fire.
A former employee testifies to Congress the tech giant harms children, weakens democracy and lacks accountability.
Then: high stakes.
President Biden hits the road aiming to sell his trillion-dollar spending bills to moderate Democrats by persuading voters in a key swing state.
And return to campus.
Universities nationwide begin another school year amid the COVID pandemic, facing tough decisions and hoping to avoid major outbreaks.
DR. ROBERT ROBBINS, President, University of Arizona: This year, the difference is, we at least, even though we're walking a tightwire, we have got a safety net, which is the vaccine.
JUDY WOODRUFF: All that and more on tonight's "PBS NewsHour."
(BREAK) JUDY WOODRUFF: A one-time Facebook employee has painted a damning portrait of the social media giant.
At a U.S. Senate hearing today, Frances Haugen charged, the company puts profit before people, harms children and lies about it.
She said nothing will change unless Congress forces action.
We will get the details after the news summary.
The Senate is headed for a new confrontation over raising the federal debt ceiling.
Democrats said today that they are willing to pass it on their own tomorrow to prevent a national default.
But Republicans are insisting on a more complicated process and vow to block anything short of that.
Their leaders spoke outside the Senate chamber.
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): We do not have the luxury of using a drawn-out, convoluted and risky process.
We could prevent a catastrophic default with a simple majority vote tomorrow.
If Republicans would just get out of the damn way, we could get this all done.
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): I implore them one more time not to play Russian roulette with the American economy.
We have been down this path before, when we did not have a divided government, and the party in the majority got the job done.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Meanwhile, President Biden ventured to Michigan to push his infrastructure and social spending bills.
Democratic moderates and progressives remain at odds over the measures.
On the pandemic, Johnson & Johnson asked the FDA today to allow boosters for its single-shot COVID vaccine.
And AstraZeneca requested authorization for a first-of-its-kind antibody treatment.
It's meant to prevent infections in immunocompromised people.
The Coast Guard now says that something dragged a pipeline that spilled oil off Southern California over the weekend.
A section of the line was moved about 100 feet and divers found a 13-inch gash.
They are investigating whether a ship anchor did the damage.
The Coast Guard also confirms that it did not investigate initial reports of an oil sheen on Friday.
Its officials cited lack of evidence and darkness.
In France, an independent commission estimates that 330,000 children were sexually abused in the country's Roman Catholic Church over 70 years.
Today's report said some 3,000 priests and an unknown number of others were involved.
In Paris, the leader of French Catholic bishops said they are appalled at the finding.
ERIC DE MOULINS-BEAUFORT, President, Conference of Bishops of France (through translator): What has been brought to light is frightening, and it has to be completely brought to light.
And so I ask forgiveness with all my heart.
And I am well aware that, to get this forgiveness, we still have to work with regard to the immense number that were implicated.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Leaders of victims groups said the report shows cover-ups that allowed mass crimes.
The Nobel Prize for physics will be shared by three scientists for work related to climate change.
Japan's Syukuro Manabe, based at Princeton University, and Germany's Klaus Hasselmann created models that predict global warming.
Giorgio Parisi of Italy decoded complex behaviors that can help explain forces of nature.
In China, doubts over huge debts in the real estate sector intensified today, when a midsize developer missed a $205 million payment.
Markets were already fearful that real estate giant Evergrande Group could collapse under $310 billion of debt.
Wall Street fought its way back, as tech stocks recouped some of Monday's losses.
Major indexes were up nearly 1 percent or more.
The Dow Jones industrial average gained 311 points to close at 34314.
The Nasdaq rose 178 points.
The S&P 500 added 45.
And a Russian actor and director blasted off today to make the world's first movie while in orbit.
They launched from Kazakstan, along with a Russian cosmonaut.
Later, they docked with the International Space Station, and will spend 12 days aloft.
The movie is about a surgeon who has to save a crew member in space.
Still to come on the "NewsHour": California Governor Gavin Newsom discusses pre-kindergarten, the oil spill, and the president's imperiled agenda; how universities nationwide plan to avoid COVID outbreaks on campus; veterans of Russia's war in Afghanistan reflect on the American withdrawal; plus much more.
As we reported earlier, Facebook is under fire tonight following testimony by a former employee before a U.S. Senate committee.
She alleges the company too frequently turns a blind eye to potential harm for the sake of profit.
Facebook denied that in statements to the "NewsHour," and said it is working to make its platforms safer.
William Brangham has our report.
FRANCES HAUGEN, Former Facebook Product Manager: I'm here today because I believe Facebook's products harm children, stoke division and weaken our democracy.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Armed with a trove of internal company documents, former Facebook employee Frances Haugen implored senators to rein in the social media giant.
FRANCES HAUGEN: The company's leadership knows how to make Facebook and Instagram safer, but won't make the necessary changes, because they have put their astronomical profits before people.
Congressional action is needed.
They won't solve this crisis without your help.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Haugen appeared before the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection.
The hearing centered on how Facebook, and especially its photo-sharing app, Instagram, targets and impacts children, particularly teenagers.
FRANCES HAUGEN: Kids who are bullied on Instagram, the bullying follows them home.
It follows them into their bedrooms.
The last thing they see before they go to bed at night is someone being cruel to them, or the first thing they see in the morning is someone being cruel to them.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Haugen said Facebook's own internal research proved that its products have negative impacts on kids, including that, for one in three teenage girls, Instagram makes negative body issues worse.
FRANCES HAUGEN: Facebook knows that they are leading young users to anorexia content.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: In an exchange with Republican Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska, she pointed to the scale of the problem for teens.
SEN. DAN SULLIVAN (R-AK): We're going to look back 20 years from now and all of us are going to be like, what in the hell were we thinking when we recognize the damage that it's done to a generation of kids.
Do you agree with that, Ms. Haugen?
FRANCES HAUGEN: When Facebook made statements - - has made statements in the past about how much benefit Instagram is providing to kids' mental health, like kids are connecting who were once alone, what I am so surprised about that is, if Instagram is such a positive force, have we seen a golden age of teenage mental health in the last 10 years?
No.
We have seen escalating... SEN. DAN SULLIVAN: We have seen the opposite, right?
FRANCES HAUGEN: We have seen escalating rates of suicide and depression amongst teenagers.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: For its part, Facebook has rejected these criticisms, and says its internal research about Instagram has been taken out of context.
Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone said on Twitter today that Frances Haugen did not work on child safety or Instagram or research these issues, and has no direct knowledge of the topic from her work at Facebook.
But, last week, amid criticism in response to some of these revelations, Facebook paused a plan for a new Instagram kids feature for those under the age of 13.
Haugen resigned from Facebook in April, fed up, she said, with the company's inaction.
Today, she laid ultimate responsibility on Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
FRANCES HAUGEN: In the end, the buck stops with Mark.
There is no one currently holding Mark accountable but himself.
We are responsible for the organizations we build.
Mark has built an organization that is very metrics-driven, that is -- it is intended to be flat.
There is no unilateral responsibility.
The metrics make the decision.
Unfortunately, that itself is a decision.
And in the end, if he is the CEO and the chairman of Facebook, he is responsible for those decisions.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Throughout the hearing, Facebook came under bipartisan scrutiny, as the senators found rare common ground criticizing the social media juggernaut.
SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-CT): The damage to self-interest and self-worth inflicted by Facebook today will haunt a generation.
SEN. MARSHA BLACKBURN (R-TN): Facebook is not interested in making significant changes to improve kids' safety on their platforms, at least not when that would result in losing eyeballs on posts or decreasing their ad revenues.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Facebook also rejects the claims that its endangering its users to maximize profit.
In a statement, Facebook's director of policy communications, Lena Pietsch, said: "We have invested heavily in people and technology to keep our platform safe, and have made fighting misinformation and providing authoritative information a priority."
At the hearing, Haugen didn't recommend breaking up Facebook, but called for increased federal oversight.
FRANCES HAUGEN: If you split Facebook and Instagram apart, it's likely that most advertising dollars will go to Instagram, and Facebook will continue to be this Frankenstein that is altering -- like, that is endangering lives around the world.
Only, now there won't be money to fund it.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: In the past, Facebook has repeatedly said that it backs smart regulation of social media companies, and today disputed much of Haugen's testimony, pointing out she was a junior employee.
Facebook's Pietsch said: "We don't agree with her characterization of the many of the issues she testified about.
Despite all this, we agree on one thing.
It's time to begin to create standard rules for the Internet."
While today revealed a clear bipartisan consensus for action, there's no timetable for when that might occur or what shape it might take.
For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm William Brangham.
JUDY WOODRUFF: As we reported, President Biden spoke in Michigan today on the need for his infrastructure and social spending plans, as negotiations over both bills are under way on Capitol Hill.
Yamiche Alcindor talks to two leaders in Michigan about what the state needs and the potential impact of the Biden agenda.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Howell, Michigan, a Detroit suburb is part of a country that President Biden lost in 2020.
Today he made the case there that his agenda would benefit all Americans.
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: These bills are not about left versus right, or moderate versus progressive, or anything that pits Americans against one another.
These bills are about competitiveness versus complacency.
They're about opportunity versus decay.
They're about leading the world or continuing to let the world pass us by which is what is literally happening.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Here to talk about the president's pitch, I'm joined by Nick Proctor.
He's the mayor of Howell, and attended the president's remarks, and Congresswoman Lisa McClain.
She represents the northeastern part of the state.
Thank you so much, both of you, for being here.
Mayor Proctor, I want to start with you.
President Biden only got 38 percent of the vote in the 2020 election, losing badly to former President Trump.
A lot of your residents did not support him.
You yourself said that you did not vote for President Biden, but you do support his infrastructure plans.
Talk to me about how you square, how your residents feel about President Biden with your support for his infrastructure plans.
NICK PROCTOR, Mayor of Howell, Michigan: Well, thanks for having me.
It's -- I kind of view this a little differently.
It's not who we voted for or who we didn't vote for.
The city of Howell and the surrounding communities were excited to have a visit by the president.
He's our president.
He's all of our president.
And we were very happy that he came here to pitch his Build Back Better program.
As the president said in his remarks today, this is not a partisan issue on infrastructure.
I mean, we all use roads.
We all turn on the water and expect our water to be treated.
So, this is not a Republican, Democrat or independent issue.
This is truly an American issue.
So, yes, I do support the Build Back Better program.
I think most people would.
The key is how it's going to be paid for.
And I think the president was very clear on his plan and how that would be paid for.
Here in Howell, we have about $45 million in capital and in infrastructure needs.
So the bill is very large.
It's big.
We don't know what would come to the state of Michigan or to Livingston County or to Howell, but, if it passes, we're hoping to be able to apply some of that Build Back Better money to some of our capital needs.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Congresswoman, the mayor is talking about infrastructure being bipartisan.
You, though, have said that you don't support the president's larger infrastructure plans.
The White House says that this plan would help some two million children in Michigan and reduce child poverty by some 44 percent.
Polls also show that Americans largely back and support the president's infrastructure plans.
Why don't you support these infrastructure plans?
REP. LISA MCCLAIN (R-MI): Because, when you talk about infrastructure, it needs to be just that, which is infrastructure.
And when 10 percent of the bill actually deals with infrastructure, roads, bridges, waterways, I would support an infrastructure bill that actually dealt with infrastructure.
Listen, especially here in Michigan, we are in need of infrastructure.
Our roads are crumbling.
Our bridges are crumbling.
We definitely need infrastructure.
But we don't need all the other pork that is in this bill.
And I will give you an example.
It's like me saying to my husband, honey, I'm going to take the car and I'm going to get an oil change, right?
We agree the car needs an oil change, need to continue to maintain the car.
Then I come home with and I come home with a new Ferrari.
That's what this bill is.
So let's just deal with infrastructure, and I would be happy to support an infrastructure bill.
But I'm not happy to support a bill that is going to burden our children and our grandchildren with more debt that we have no idea how to pay for.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: And, Congresswoman, you say this would burden children and has a lot of pork in it.
The White House, though, is pointing out that this plan would provide high-quality pre-school to 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds in Michigan.
They're also saying that it would provide free school meals.
What do you say to the average woman in Michigan, the average mother, family in Michigan that's saying, we are infrastructure, we want human infrastructure and investment into our families, as the White House is pitching this?
REP. LISA MCCLAIN: I would say that is not traditional infrastructure.
And if you want to talk about those bills in an educational form, I'm happy to do so.
But those aren't infrastructure.
So, I think what the American people need is a little truth and transparency and consistency.
So I'm not opposed to talking about those, but let's talk about infrastructure when we're talking about infrastructure, and let's talk about the other things at a later date.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Mayor Proctor, what do you make of what the congresswoman is saying?
NICK PROCTOR: Well, I don't necessarily disagree with her.
She has probably read the bill.
I have not.
I don't know what's in it, and what pork is in it, and what's not truly infrastructure.
The president talked today about two separate issues, and that was the physical infrastructure and then the human investment in that infrastructure.
So I focus on the physical infrastructure.
That's what our community needs.
And, as I said, we certainly have over about $45 million in capital and infrastructure needs here.
So I'm focused on the physical infrastructure, and I'm hoping Congress can move on the physical infrastructure aspect.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: And, Congresswoman, there are folks who would look at the way you're talking about infrastructure and say, yes, that's one way to look at infrastructure, but the president is expanding it and saying, investing in families, investing in health care workers, that should be part of this larger expansion of infrastructure.
Why is that wrong, especially when you look at families who are saying, yes, we want to have help, we want to have child poverty reduced in our state and in our city?
REP. LISA MCCLAIN: Listen, I don't want to make people dependent.
I want to give people an opportunity to work.
I want to give people an opportunity for the American dream.
We have 11 million jobs that aren't filled right now, 11 million.
We have a labor shortage.
Let's get people back to work and back to school and put the power back in the people's hands.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Congresswoman McClain, Mayor Proctor, I appreciate both of you coming on.
REP. LISA MCCLAIN: Thank you for having us.
NICK PROCTOR: Thank you.
JUDY WOODRUFF: A key focus of President Biden's larger spending plan centers on addressing climate change and expanding universal pre-kindergarten.
I spoke with California Governor Gavin Newsom about these issues earlier today, just after he signed a $123 billion bill that would, among other things, expand pre-K and provide an extra year of kindergarten for some children.
Governor Newsom, thank you very much for joining us on the "NewsHour."
You're receiving congratulations right now for defeating this recall, but the challenges don't get any easier.
And let's start with one of them, education.
You're announcing today a major investment in what you're calling transitional kindergarten, similar to pre-kindergarten.
Tell us why it is worth this major investment, billions of dollars.
What are you trying to accomplish?
GOV.
GAVIN NEWSOM (D-CA): I think we appropriately and understandably talk a lot about the achievement gap, but I think we don't talk enough about the readiness gap.
People aren't left behind educationally, as much as they start behind.
And I think that's one of the fundamental things we have to redress as a nation, that, if we're going to address the issue of wealth and income disparities, we have got to begin at the beginning, prenatal care, zero to 3 the power of zero to 3 in particular, but also prepare people as they move towards kindergarten, prepare them with high-quality intervention.
And so we're providing for a brand-new grade this year, T.K.
for all.
It's long overdue in California, but I think it's foundational in terms of our educational capacity and leadership.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Governor, you know even those who like the idea say this is going to be a daunting challenge to find what they're saying is something like 12, 500 new teachers to teach these children, this at a time when, during the pandemic, I read California's lost something like 14,000, mostly women, teaching young children.
How do you find these people, and how do you pay them what would be considered a decent salary?
GOV.
GAVIN NEWSOM: No, it's the right question, and it's a challenge all across the United States.
And this is a challenge, preexisting challenge, before this pandemic, of course, highlighted as a consequence of the pandemic.
So, that's why we put in our budget this year quite literally $2.9 billion, almost $3 billion, to answer that question, to focus on retention and bonuses for hard-to-teach subjects and low-performing school districts, as well as recruitment strategies and professional development.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But you do have, as I mentioned, thousands of women leaving the work force, including teachers.
This has now become a national issue.
As you know, President Biden has universal pre-K as part of his big social spending measure that is facing a rough waters at this moment in Congress, for some of the same reasons.
Even -- I mean, Republicans are against it, even some Democrats, who say it's going to cost too much right now.
What's at stake here?
GOV.
GAVIN NEWSOM: I mean, it's foundational.
Look, I will say this, as someone that is a very strong supporter of what's going on in Washington, D.C., and the president's package.
We're not waiting around for it.
Every core principle that they're trying to advance in the $3.5 trillion package, California has already advanced, from free community college, to preschool for all.
We're expanding by close to a quarter-million new child care slots.
And we're focused with a $15 billion package on climate change.
That said, even a state, the fifth largest economy in the world, as large as California, can't do it alone.
And so all those investments are foundational and fundamental, again, to our competitiveness in the future.
JUDY WOODRUFF: You mentioned climate, Governor.
Of course, California is dealing with this massive oil spill right now off the coast of Southern California.
And I know there's an investigation into -- under way into what happened, whether a ship dropped anchor in the wrong place.
But while we're waiting for that, what do you know about the extent of the damage?
GOV.
GAVIN NEWSOM: I just know that it's time - - time to move beyond fossil fuels.
I mean, the future is here.
It's now.
California has five times more green-collar, green energy jobs, five times.
As one as one of the largest oil-producing states, we have five times more green energy jobs than we do fossil fuel jobs.
If there's a foreign policy in California, it's clean energy, it's low-carbon green growth.
And I'm proud of our leadership, but it's not good enough.
And it's only been punctuated by this punctured pipeline that is spewing toxic oil, killing birds and fish, impacting our economy, our public health, all at the same time.
And so all this does is resolve for all of us to do more and do better to extend our nation-leading efforts to transition once and for all away from fossil fuels.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And I want to ask you more about the national climate picture, Governor, but, right now, as you know, there are environmental and consumer watchdogs in your state who are saying, you bear some of the responsibility for what's going on with this oil spill and others.
They point out that you have approved over 100 permits for oil drilling off the coast.
They say you haven't done enough to clean up -- to get these companies to clean up the pipelines that are already out there.
How do you answer them?
GOV.
GAVIN NEWSOM: Well, look, we're very proud.
I was the first governor, the first state in America to require all vehicles that are purchased in the state of California by 2035 to be alternative fuel vehicles.
I was the first governor to call for the rejection and banning of fracking in the state of California.
That hadn't been done before.
We are a large oil-producing state.
That said, we haven't approved an offshore oil license in half-a-century.
And we're committed, absolutely resolved and committed to working with the Biden administration to do more and do better to accelerate our transition.
But, look, at the end of the day, we all have to acknowledge our culpability, all of us, in terms of our behavior, the fact that I drove here to a school in the Central Valley.
I will be flying to Southern California to see the oil spill.
All of that, I think, has to be reconciled.
The fact is, our behavior needs to change, we need to change, not just our leaders.
And we are resolved and committed to continue our nation-leading efforts.
But those critics are right.
We don't have time to spare, and we have to do more and better.
And I can assure you, having just faced down this recall where they wanted to increase offshore oil drilling, the folks on the other side of this recall, that you ain't seen nothing yet in terms of California's leadership and resolve to address this issue.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But just to wrap this up, and on back on the national picture, as you know, part of the president's, President Biden's plan, the so-called social spending measure, there's money in there for climate change, to address it.
But there are Democrats -- and there are certainly Republicans, but also some Democrats who say this money is better spent elsewhere, we don't want to rush to get rid of fossil fuels in this country.
How concerned are you that the president's effort could end up being killed by those who oppose it?
GOV.
GAVIN NEWSOM: Well, I'm very -- look, I'm very concerned about it.
I have four kids.
My kids are likely to live in a world with eight-degree temperatures, on average, hotter than they are today.
And so I don't know what more people need to see or experience.
If that doesn't wake us up, I don't know what the hell does.
And forgive me for using that language, but, at the end of the day, all of us are accountable.
We are accountable to doing more and being better.
We owe it not only to ourselves, but the future of our nation and the world we're trying to live in.
And I will close on this.
The economic costs of negligent are jaw-dropping.
What is it about our country that we don't score tax cuts, and we don't score the cost of disasters?
We happily pay for those, but how dare and damn we discuss the cost, the direct cost, of being smart enough to get a return on our investments by investing in prevention and resilience?
We want to future-proof this country.
The Biden administration wants to future-proof America.
I'm proud of his leadership.
I'm not proud of members of Congress right now.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Governor Gavin Newsom of California, thank you very much for joining us.
We appreciate it.
GOV.
GAVIN NEWSOM: Good to be with you.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Millions of students returned to campus this fall for the in person college experience, as the Delta variant continues to affect parts of the U.S.
Some schools have strict mandates for vaccination, testing, and masking.
In other places, that is not an option.
Hari Sreenivasan begins our latest Rethinking College series at two of America's flagship universities, first in Arizona.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Theater Course 133 at the University of Arizona in Tucson is a workout.
Throw a mask on while shuffling and sliding, and it can be even harder.
But sophomores like Brach Drew and Sophia Scarsi say it's no problem, if it means getting back in the swing of college.
BRACH DREW, College Student: I heard someone say that we're like the second freshmen because this is our first more normal experience of college.
And for some people, it's their first time coming to campus.
HARI SREENIVASAN: And do you feel safe on campus, COVID-wise?
SOPHIA SCARSI, College Student: Definitely.
We still wear masks in my classes, and it's been great.
I mean, anything to be in person, I would do.
HARI SREENIVASAN: For the first time since the pandemic began, college campuses are starting to look and sound once again like college campuses, the football games, the big lectures, the spontaneous hangouts.
It's just as President Robert Robbins imagined it a few months ago, too.
Well, almost.
DR. ROBERT ROBBINS, President, University of Arizona: We thought we were heading into last summer with no problems coming in, and then Delta happened.
So, that's a real concern for us.
But, this year, the difference is, we at least, even though we're walking a tight-wire, we have got a safety net, which is the vaccine.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Robbins estimates that more than 70 percent of the students on his campus are vaccinated.
But he can't be certain.
He cannot require students to tell him.
That's because Arizona Governor Doug Ducey has banned several mandates related to COVID, for higher ed, no mandates for vaccines or testing, technically, no masking mandates either, at least if they're based on vaccination status.
The University of Arizona and other schools are still requiring them indoors if social distancing is not possible.
They say they are not discriminating against the unvaccinated if everyone needs to wear one.
DR. ROBERT ROBBINS: And we have had great compliance.
We have had no issues with that.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Would you like to be able to say, listen, if you're not vaccinated, don't show up here, and don't risk yourself or other people?
DR. ROBERT ROBBINS: Yes, I would like to be able to do that, but I can't.
So we're working around the realities that we have.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Meanwhile, Arizona's COVID-19 case and death counts remain stubbornly high.
As in much of the nation, the Delta variant is fueling sickness and death.
So, Robbins, a medical doctor, is using work-arounds.
For those who vaccinate, there are chances to win game day tickets and free parking, gift cards to encourage testing.
and more underground methods, you could say.
MAN: We know which streams go to which dorms.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Like testing the wastewater of individual dorms to spot an outbreak early.
DR. IAN PEPPER, University of Arizona: Poop doesn't lie.
If the virus is in the wastewater, it emanated from someone.
When the samples get here in this lab, the goal is to process the samples as quickly as possible.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Dr. Ian Pepper leads the center conducting the wastewater testing.
It's helped the university pinpoint COVID-positive students and get them into an isolation dorm while they're still asymptomatic and less contagious.
If the university did not have a system like yours, kind of an early warning and an early detection system, where would it be?
DR. IAN PEPPER: Shut down, losing $100 million.
We need to keep monitoring because, remember, we're not allowed to mandate testing of students, and so the upper administration is really flying blind without the wastewater data.
HARI SREENIVASAN: It's the kind of non-compulsory approach many believe is appropriate at this stage of the pandemic.
Shelley Kais is chairman of the Pima County Republican Party.
She's focused on vaccination and masking requirements, and the university, she says, has already crossed the line on indoor masking.
SHELLEY KAIS, Chair, Pima County Republican Party: Everyone has the right to choose.
If you want to wear a mask, you absolutely should wear a mask, without any feeling like anyone is retaliating against you.
Absolutely, we should honor and respect everybody's decision to wear a mask or not and to vaccinate or not.
When you start telling people what they have to wear, what they have to do, I'm never going to be in favor for that.
HARI SREENIVASAN: The belief is widespread enough that at least 15 states, mostly in the South and West, have barred vaccine or mask mandates at public institutions of higher education.
At the same time, more than 1,000 colleges and universities have vaccine requirements, most in states that voted for President Biden last fall.
On both sides, the rules are being challenged in the courts.
JIM RYAN, President, University of Virginia: Do you know how case numbers are across Virginia?
HARI SREENIVASAN: Jim Ryan is president of University of Virginia, where 238 students were disenrolled for failing to comply with the school's vaccine mandate.
JIM RYAN: If you're going to have a policy that requires people to get vaccinated, you need to be willing to enforce it.
HARI SREENIVASAN: He says it's no different than the other vaccines universities require.
And he feels lucky to be in Virginia, where a tough stance is possible.
Here at UVA, 97 percent of students have shown proof they're fully vaccinated.
The rest have received medical or religious exemptions and submit to mandated weekly testing.
JIM RYAN: If you ask me what is the most important thing to getting back to normal and feeling safe about it, it is the high vaccination rate, bar none.
So, I feel grateful that we have the ability to take the precautions that our medical experts are telling us we should take.
HARI SREENIVASAN: For now, students must be masked inside.
Same goes for professors, unless they're six feet from students and behind Plexiglas.
The clear-cut rules feel reassuring to Sarita Mehta.
SARITA MEHTA, College Student: I feel way safer in all my interactions in small classrooms, in the stadium that's packed, knowing that, A, I'm a lot safer being vaccinated, but, B, and just as importantly, the people around me are vaccinated and are not at risk either.
And I think that's an important part of it, too.
And that kind of ties back to the larger community as, like, we all can count on each other to be safe.
HARI SREENIVASAN: But the balance seems off to others.
Grad student Tristan Baird was shocked by the national headlines about his school kicking out students.
TRISTAN BAIRD, College Student: The disenrollment, to me, I just -- I don't know.
I think it is -- it's very authoritarian and just severe to me.
I don't like the idea of saying, if you don't agree with this particular health mandate, that you are no longer allowed to come back and finish your degree.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Still, recent national polls show that students overwhelmingly support vaccine and mask mandates, even on campuses that do not have them.
One ominous reason may be that several universities, from Texas to California to Connecticut, have already reverted to virtual learning for parts of this fall, as COVID cases soared.
That's why Brach Drew at University of Arizona is not above asking his fellow students to wear a mask, whether it's required or not.
BRACH DREW: So, I say, like we don't want to go backwards.
This is for the sake of your college experience.
And some girl walked in -- I was like: "Hey, do you have a mask on you?"
And she said: "Oh, yes, you're right, I don't want to go back on Zoom."
And I was like: "You're right.
That's right."
(LAUGHTER) BRACH DREW: "Say it again.
Say it louder.
Spread that."
HARI SREENIVASAN: For now, Drew and his friends are holding their breath that this feeling of a real college experience lasts.
They know what it feels like to lose it.
For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Hari Sreenivasan in Tucson, Arizona.
JUDY WOODRUFF: As the United States continues to manage the fallout from its withdrawal from Afghanistan, in Moscow, there's a sense of deja vu.
The war the Soviet Union fought there lasted for a decade, from 1979 to 1989.
But Russian veterans who were there as the USSR left see some essential differences between the Soviet and the American withdrawals.
Special correspondent Stuart Smith in Moscow reports.
STUART SMITH: Withdrawals from Afghanistan echo throughout history.
Before the U.S., it was the Soviets, who left in 1989, 10 years after they'd invaded on Christmas Eve, 1979.
Officially, they had been invited by the socialist Afghan government to help fight the mujahideen and set up a 16th republic of the Soviet Union, partly because Soviet officials worried Afghanistan's new leaders would start to forge closer ties with the United States.
After a bloody decade and heavy Soviet losses, troops withdrew.
These paintings rendered by those who fought there are on display at Russia's Union of Afghan Veterans.
Here, members work to help fighters of Moscow's old war and pass on what they have learned to young Russians.
ANDREY KUZNETSOV, Russian Army Veteran (through translator): You see the words, glory to the soldiers of the fatherland, glory to the sons of the motherland?
See, this is how we left.
And, today, the Americans just ran away, and that's it.
STUART SMITH: Andrey Kuznetsov fought as a paratrooper for the Soviet Union.
When he compares the recent American withdrawal to the Soviet one, he sees a stark difference.
ANDREY KUZNETSOV (through translator): When, in 1989, the withdrawal operation was being prepared, it was orderly.
And if you watch archive footage of those events, you will see along the whole route of the Soviet army big celebrations.
Soviet soldiers were congratulated.
There was this unity in peace and friendship.
There was rejoicing, and there was no such disgrace that's happening in Afghanistan today.
STUART SMITH: The government Moscow left in place teetered for three years.
Then the country collapsed into a brutal civil war that ended when the Taliban came to power for the first time in 1996.
Kuznetsov has sympathy for the U.S. soldiers who fought over the past two decades, one veteran to another.
ANDREY KUZNETSOV (through translator): Our problems are the same.
Life and chores.
You have been used.
You have gone through all that, and then comes a new step.
STUART SMITH: From 1979 to 1989, 15,000 soldiers died and 35,000 were wounded in Afghanistan.
It's estimated that more than one million Afghans died in that war.
Millions more fled the country.
Snapshots of the decade-long conflict are on display at the Afghan War Museum in Moscow.
Igor Yerin has collected weapons, armor, posters, and books to keep alive the memory of his friends and colleagues often donated by their families.
IGOR YERIN, Veteran (through translator): Parents often don't have much.
Some don't even have photos of their children in military uniforms, only in civilian clothes, because many didn't have the time to get photographed before quickly being sent to Afghanistan, where they were killed in battle.
STUART SMITH: But he believes there's a fundamental difference between the motivations of his comrades and those of U.S. troops.
IGOR YERIN (through translator): Their duty is completely different.
Don't confuse that.
They are mercenaries.
They do it for money.
We did it out of patriotic duty.
STUART SMITH: In the visitor's book, you can read the comments of soldiers who came to the museum to seek answers and compare their experiences in Afghanistan.
Yerin fears the story of Russian involvement in the country is not over yet.
IGOR YERIN (through translator): It's unpleasant for us that this all was happening on the border of the former Soviet Union, because this can grow bigger and spill over, which we wouldn't want.
This would mean more victims, a new war, new refugees again.
America is very far away, and other countries are very close by.
STUART SMITH: For the Kremlin, the change in the balance of power in the Middle East means a change of approach is on the horizon.
Russia has learned painful lessons from Afghanistan, ones which the U.S. is grappling with today.
But with the tides now turned, Moscow sees opportunity in what it views as America's humiliation.
To do that, Russian President Vladimir Putin sees talking to the Taliban as a necessity.
VLADIMIR PUTIN, Russian President (through translator): The quicker the Taliban joins the family of, let's say, civilized nations, the easier it will be to contact, communicate, somehow influence them and ask questions, and if not demand, remind them that civilized relations require obeying civilized rules.
In case of disintegration, there would be nobody to talk to.
That is a threat to our neighbors and allies.
STUART SMITH: The fact that Russia is maintaining dialogue with Taliban representatives has incensed today's opposition Communist Party, the diminished descendant of those in charge 40 years ago.
VALERY RASHKIN, Lawmaker, Communist Party (through translator): This is a disaster.
I cannot imagine how the Taliban organization banned in Russia, banned in Russia, how you can interact with and meet with them.
You guys tell me this organization is prohibited by law.
How can you meet them?
How can you negotiate with them?
They cut off heads.
They shoot.
They cut people like animals.
STUART SMITH: At the museum in Moscow, American Cold War propaganda posters now ring darkly ironic.
To many Russians, the message shown here is now reversed.
And Russians know that conflicts have consequences.
The failure of the Soviet-Afghan war helped bring about the collapse of the USSR.
Afghanistan leaves an imprint on every foreign power that intervenes in it.
For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Stuart Smith in Moscow.
JUDY WOODRUFF: The United States recently passed yet another tragic milestone.
COVID-19 has now claimed the lives of more than 700,000 Americans.
William Brangham is with the author of a new book about the failed U.S. response and how it can do better next time.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: As we near two years since this coronavirus first emerged, plenty of questions still remain as to why the U.S. suffered so badly compared to other nations.
Why did this virus not only kill so many Americans and cause so much emotional and financial ruin, but why did it divide us so badly?
A new book is out that tries to address some of these questions.
It's called "Uncontrolled Spread: Why COVID-19 Crushed Us and How We Can Defeat the Next Pandemic."
And it's by Dr. Scott Gottlieb.
He ran the Food and Drug Administration from 2017 to 2019.
And he joins me now.
Dr. Gottlieb, thank you very much for being here.
There are so many elements that you recap in this book, China's secrecy, our fixation on focusing on the flu, rather than a coronavirus, failures of our stockpile, multiple, myriad mistakes made by different agencies.
But one of the failures that you keep hammering over and over again was our recurrent inability to do widespread testing.
Can you remind us why testing is so important in the middle of a pandemic?
DR. SCOTT GOTTLIEB, Former FDA Commissioner: Well, testing was important, particularly in this pandemic, because you had a virus that had a long incubation period, meaning that people could get exposed to the virus and get sick a long interval after that exposure.
So, there was an opportunity to test them and find that they were incubating the virus and get them isolated.
And, also, people spread the virus when they were asymptomatic, and some people who went on to spread the virus never developed symptoms.
So, testing would be a very important tool in trying to control spread under that circumstance.
The challenge was that we had prepped for a pandemic involving influenza, and influenza has a short incubation period, and, typically, people aren't contagious until they manifest symptoms.
So we just never prepared the capacity or the planning to roll out a diagnostic test at scale.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And, as you also point out, not only did it make it very difficult for us to spot where the virus was initially and give us a chance to stop it, but it also then, when we did impose fairly draconian lockdowns, we imposed them everywhere because we didn't know where the virus was and where it wasn't.
DR. SCOTT GOTTLIEB: Right.
When you look back at the 2005 planning around a pandemic, which is really when we started this sort of modern planning for pandemic preparedness -- and I was a part of that.
I was in the Bush administration at that at that time.
But the planning always envisioned that that mitigation would be carried out on a sort of city-by-city basis, because the presumption was, you would know where the virus was spreading.
But in the early days of this COVID outbreak, not only didn't we know where it was.
We didn't know where it wasn't.
And so we implemented those mitigation steps across the whole country.
But there were clearly parts of the country where this virus hadn't spread to.
But we implemented a full 45-day shutdown of a lot of nonessential businesses, really an extraordinary step.
And what happened was, when the virus eventually spread to the South later that summer, the political support for shutdowns had dissipated.
People down there said, look, you told us to shut down in the spring.
We did it.
We didn't have to.
And we're not doing it again.
And so, without a diagnostic test, we really were blind to the spread and couldn't target the most onerous interventions.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: You lay a lot of the blame in this book on the CDC for botching its initial tests, for how it gathers information, for how it relays that information to the general public.
When you look back at the near two years of this pandemic, does the CDC's response make sense to you?
Does it seem like they should have done differently, or, in fact, this is how the organization was built?
DR. SCOTT GOTTLIEB: It's the way we built the organization.
I mean, the organization really wasn't equipped to respond to a public health crisis of this magnitude.
They're accustomed to taking a lot of time, getting very bespoke data feeds, and doing very careful, rigorous scientific analysis, and surfacing answers sometimes weeks, maybe months after an event.
They're not the Joint Special Operations Command.
They're not accustomed to surfacing real-time information and surfacing partial conclusions to inform current policy-making.
There was a presumption that CDC had the ball, and they didn't have the ball.
Now, the CDC, I don't think, really raised their hand and said, hey: Guys, we don't have this.
We need help.
This isn't what we typically do.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: So, was that a failure of leadership at the top to recognize that the organizations we had, in the way they were structured, were maybe not up to the task, and we need to, on the fly, admittedly, deploy new tools?
DR. SCOTT GOTTLIEB: Yes, look, I think it was a failure of leadership at the top.
I also think it was a failure of leadership inside the Department of Health and Human Services, the leadership there, because they had more proximity to what these public health agencies were and were not capable of doing.
And the testing is a perfect example.
Someone needed to pick up the phone at some point in January and call the major diagnostic manufacturers and say, hey, guys, this is concerning.
We think this may turn into a global pandemic.
We need you to start scaling the production of diagnostic tests right now, because the lead time on doing that is four to six weeks in a best-case scenario.
That phone call really didn't get made until the end of February.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: When you look at this past almost two years now, do you have a sense as to why we became so politicized?
DR. SCOTT GOTTLIEB: I think that's where political leadership comes in.
You have to galvanize the public behind some collective action to try to get some consistent adherence to these kinds of measures.
And we didn't really have that.
There was a sense in the White House -- and I was in touch with the White House a lot over this time period - - that uncontrolled spread was inevitable, and there wasn't really much we were going to be able to do about it.
And the interventions were going to be costly without much benefit.
And I simply disagree with that.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Your book is full of examples of things that we ought to do better, from better surveillance to how we should treat this as a national security threat, which it so clearly is, lots and lots of good suggestions going forward.
How confident are you, though, that when this crisis passes, we will actually take those lessons on board?
Because, as you well know, and as you write in the book, that history keeps showing us that the lessons of pandemics get forgotten the minute the virus dissipates.
DR. SCOTT GOTTLIEB: Look, I'm hopeful, given the impact that this pandemic had on our public health, the fact that it crowded out all our other national priorities, it has changed the course of history, I'm hopeful that we're going to recognize the devastating costs of SARS-CoV-2 and make -- take steps to make sure this doesn't happen again.
And that really needs to be our goal.
You know, we haven't engaged that discussion yet.
And that's surprising to me.
You know, it could be the fact that we're just in the throes of the current pandemic, so it's hard to reflect on how to prevent the next pandemic.
But I don't think it's too early to begin that discussion.
And you don't see that happening in earnest.
You don't see commissions being created.
You don't see Congress working on legislation.
That needs to start sooner, rather than later, because I think, if we get too far out from this, some of those lessons learned will be lost, and maybe some of the sort of public support that we need will start to dissipate.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: All right.
The book is called "Uncontrolled Spread: Why COVID-19 Crushed Us and How We Can Defeat the Next Pandemic."
Dr. Scott Gottlieb, thank you very much for being here.
DR. SCOTT GOTTLIEB: Thanks a lot.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Priti Krishtel started her career working with low-income communities in India, where she saw her clients suffering, and even dying, because they couldn't afford the lifesaving medicine.
Krishtel is an advocate for a more equitable health care system.
And, tonight, she gives her Brief But Spectacular take on the importance of building a global system that works for all.
PRITI KRISHTEL, Health Justice Lawyer: Thirteen percent of Americans say they have lost a loved one in the last five years because they couldn't afford their medicine.
And that number is twice as high for people of color.
When COVID hit, I think a lot of people were taken by surprise.
And for us in the access to medicines movement, we have been on the front lines of every epidemic and pandemic of the last 30 years.
And we knew what was coming.
We knew that governments were going to invest billions of dollars of taxpayer money on research and development for COVID vaccines.
And, therefore, companies would make exorbitant profit off of taxpayer-funded research, while most of the world would not have access to the vaccine.
We're 18 months in.
Less than 1 percent of low-income country populations have been vaccinated.
And there is no plan.
I grew up with a dad who worked in the pharmaceutical industry as a scientist.
Every time he made a discovery, he would get a patent, and then that patent would get framed and go up on the wall in our house.
Patents are supposed to be a reward given to inventors, and, in return, we, the public, are supposed to benefit from that invention.
But what we're seeing today is that companies hire armies of lawyers to represent their private interests and file hundreds of patents.
The monopolies get longer and longer, and the companies keep hiking the prices, and it's Americans who are crying out for relief.
They can't afford the medicines.
People are rationing.
They're going without.
In many cases, they are dying.
We live in a hierarchy of health.
Some people are going to get medical products first, and some people aren't going to get them at all.
We saw that with COVID when the tests and the treatments first started coming out.
That's how the system essentially works.
A more just and equitable system for pandemics would ensure that, in every region of the world, we could develop, manufacture vaccines and other medical products and get them to every country who needed them as quickly as possible.
And that's what's going to be needed, not just for COVID in the next three years, but for every pandemic that is yet to follow.
We could save twice as many lives if we worked collaboratively, instead of competitively.
And as variants continued to emerge, we are going to start to really be faced with that hard truth that none of us are safe until all of us are safe.
My name is Priti Krishtel, and this is my Brief But Spectacular take on the importance of building a global health system that works for all.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And you can watch all our Brief But Spectacular episodes at PBS.org/NewsHour/Brief.
And that is the "NewsHour" for tonight.
I'm Judy Woodruff.
Join us online and again here tomorrow evening.
For all of us at the "PBS NewsHour," thank you, please stay safe, and we'll see you soon.