JUDY WOODRUFF: Good
evening. I'm Judy Woodruff.
On the "NewsHour" tonight: stalemate.
President Biden's agenda stalls
in Congress amid disagreements
among Democrats over his
$3.5 trillion spending plan.
Then: the end of an era.
Angela Merkel's 16 years as
chancellor draws to a close, with
German voters uncertain
about the country's future.
MAN: Angela Merkel was -- I
think she did a good job overall,
but we need to do something
different.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And it's Friday.
JIM LEHRER, Co-Founder and
Former Anchor, "PBS NewsHour":
The official debut of Shields
and Brooks.
JUDY WOODRUFF: We celebrate
David Brooks' 20 years on the
program, as he and Jonathan
Capehart consider the divide
among Democrats and the
looming debt ceiling deadline.
All that and more on
tonight's "PBS NewsHour."
(BREAK)
JUDY WOODRUFF: Major pieces
of President Biden's ambitious
domestic agenda are at risk tonight,
amid infighting among members
of his own Democratic Party.
Hanging in the balance, the
bipartisan infrastructure bill and
his $3.5 trillion spending package
to address health care, child care,
the environment, and more. The
president spoke about the status
of negotiations earlier today.
JOE BIDEN, President of the United States:
We're at this stalemate at the moment. And
we're going to have to get
these two pieces of legislation
passed. Both need to be passed.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And Amna
Nawaz joins me now.
So, Amna, what -- tell us more about the
stalemate the president is referring to.
AMNA NAWAZ: Judy, it's a big
acknowledge, but he's sort
of been building his language
towards this.
And it is very descriptive
and indicative of where they
are right now. You're talking
about two major bills, both
central to the president's
economic agenda, that $1 trillion
bipartisan infrastructure
bill, the larger $3.5 trillion
reconciliation bill. They are
locked up in an intra-Democratic
Party battle right now.
So, we know, of course, centrists
want that bipartisan bill to
move forward through, first
alone. It's already passed the
Senate. They have some sticker
shock when it comes to the
reconciliation bill. And
progressives want both tracked,
moving through together. They
have even threatened to tank
the infrastructure bill if they
don't move through together.
So, look, President Biden, we
know this week has been working
to unite both sides, figure
out where the common ground
is. His language today is very
reflective of where they are
right now. He ended with that
little bit of hope and optimism.
They both need to be passed.
It's not clear where the common ground is
moving forward.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, given all
that, where does it go from here?
AMNA NAWAZ: So here's where
we are today. You have got the
leader of the House Congressional
- - the Congressional Progressive
Caucus, Pramila Jayapal, basically
doubling down and saying,
we are not going to leave
behind the things that we fought
so hard for, child care and
education and climate and so on, the human
infrastructure bill.
And she had some tough words for
those moderate centrists, for
Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema,
saying, you drafted the
infrastructure bill without input
from us. We have drafted the
reconciliation bill. You now need to come
along.
Now, Senator Manchin has said
this week that President Biden
asked him for a number. He
said, tell me what you would support. What
would it take to get your support on this
bill? Please just continue
to work on this. That's where
we could see some agreement,
if they can come to some kind
of compromise on the number.
But the House, meanwhile, it's
going to continue to work through
the weekend. Speaker Pelosi's
office today told us the Budget
Committee is going to continue
to mark up that reconciliation
bill tomorrow. It then goes to
the Rules Committee. A source
in her office says they are very
much moving forward.
But in her latest letter to
her Democratic colleagues, she
did have some careful language.
She said: "As negotiations
continue, there may be changes,"
so maybe bracing some members
of her caucus that some of the details or
the contours of the bill could change.
It does end with a plan, though.
Speaker Pelosi announced she
does plan to move forward next
week with two bills, both
infrastructure and reconciliation.
And we should say she pledged
to bring the infrastructure
bill to a vote on Monday, when,
by the way, Judy, the Senate
is also likely voting on
continuing government funding
and raising the debt ceiling.
So, just all of the things
happening on Monday.
JUDY WOODRUFF: All of it's
happening all at one time. And
we will see what happens. It
is going to be a full weekend.
AMNA NAWAZ: We will see.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Amna
Nawaz, thanks very much.
AMNA NAWAZ: Thanks, Judy.
JUDY WOODRUFF: In the day's other
news: Millions of Americans who
got Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine
are now eligible to receive a
booster shot. That's after the
CDC's director, Dr. Rochelle
Walensky, signed off on
her agency's advisory panel
recommendations for extra doses for
older and high-risk Americans.
She also overruled her advisers to expand
eligibility to include front-line workers,
to side with the FDA's recommendation.
President Biden praised the
decision and pleaded with Americans
who have yet to receive their
first dose.
JOE BIDEN, President of the United
States: Listen to the voices
of the unvaccinated Americans
who are lying in hospital beds,
taking their final breaths,
saying -- and, literally, we
have seen this on television -- "If only I
had gotten vaccinated."
Please don't let this become
your tragedy. Get vaccinated.
It can save your live -- your
life. It can save the
lives of those around you.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Vice President
Harris had her own COVID scare
today, just moments before
an interview with ABC's "The
View." Two of the show's hosts,
Sunny Hostin and Ana Navarro,
tested positive for COVID.
They were pulled from the set
in front of a live audience.
The vice president, who was
later interviewed remotely from
another room, did not have any
contact with them.
A migrant encampment in Del
Rio, Texas, where thousands of
Haitian migrants had converged
this week has now been cleared.
Homeland Security Secretary
Alejandro Mayorkas said some 12,
400 were allowed into the U.S.
to seek asylum. He also
expressed outrage over scenes
of Border Patrol agents whipping
at migrants.
ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS, U.S.
Secretary of Homeland Security:
The images horrified us in terms
of what they suggest and what
they conjure up, in terms of
not only our nation's history,
but, unfortunately, the fact
that that page of history has
not been turned entirely. And
that means that there is much work to do,
and we are very focused on doing it.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Mayorkas said
about 2,000 migrants have been
flown back to Haiti since Sunday,
and more could be expelled
in the coming days.
The U.N. now says the death toll
from the Syrian civil war is
far higher than it previously
believed. Its human rights office
has documented more than 350,000
civilian and combatant deaths
during the decade-long conflict.
But it acknowledged the true
toll is likely much greater.
MICHELLE BACHELET, U.N. Human
Rights Commissioner: It is not and
should be not seen as a complete
number of conflict-related killings
in Syria during this period.
It indicates a minimum verifiable
number and is certainly an
undercount of the actual number
of killings. Tragically, there
are also many other victims
who left behind no witnesses
or documentation as to their death.
JUDY WOODRUFF: The U.N.'s death
toll numbers are still far
lower than the tally from the
Syrian Observatory of Human
Rights, which estimates more
than 606,000 people have died.
Ex-Minneapolis police officer
Derek Chauvin plans to appeal
his convictions and his 22.5-year
sentence for the murder of
George Floyd. In documents filed
Thursday, he argued the judge
abused his discretion and
erred multiple times during the
trial. Chauvin is representing
himself in the appeals process after
he was denied a public defender.
President Biden will not
invoke executive privilege to
shield former President Trump's
records from the House committee
investigating the January 6
insurrection. White House Press
Secretary Jen Psaki said that
they will cooperate with Congress
to help get to the bottom of
what happened that day.
The GOP audit of 2020 election
results in Arizona's largest
county has confirmed President
Biden won the state. The findings
released today further discredit
former President Trump's
claims of election fraud.
Meanwhile, Texas is launching
its own election audit in four
counties, under pressure from
Mr. Trump.
We will return to Arizona's
audit after the news summary.
The U.S. House of Representatives
approved a bill to protect a
woman's right to an abortion.
It was in response to a highly
restrictive Texas law that
went into effect earlier this
month that has the effect of banning most
abortions.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
celebrated today's vote.
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): This
is about women's right to choose,
yes, but it's about freedom,
freedom of that choice, and
freedom from the vigilantes, the
bounty hunters that the Texas
government has -- legislature
has set in motion.
JUDY WOODRUFF: The bill's
passage in the House is largely
symbolic, since it's not likely
to get the support it needs to advance in
the Senate.
The Senate's oldest Republican,
Chuck Grassley of Iowa,
announced today that he will run
for reelection next year. The
88-year-old has held his seat for
four decades. His announcement
gives Senate Republicans more
hope that they will be able
to hold onto his seat in next
year's midterm elections.
The chief financial officer of
Huawei has reached a deal with
the U.S. Justice Department
to resolve criminal charges
against her and allow her to
return to China. Meng Wanzhou
admitted to misleading a bank
about the Chinese communications
giant's business with Iran.
She's been in Canada since her 2018 arrest
on a U.S. warrant.
And trading was light on Wall
Street today, after a volatile
week. The Dow Jones industrial
average gained 33 points to
close at 34798. The Nasdaq fell
four points, and the S&P 500
added six.
Still to come on the "NewsHour":
a controversial Republican-led
election audit in Arizona confirms
Biden won the state in 2020;
German voters chart a new
future, as the Angela Merkel era
draws to a close; the jury
begins deliberations in the trial
of embattled singer R. Kelly;
and much more.
The widely discredited
election review in Arizona
is over.
But more than 10 months after
the 2020 election, there is
growing alarm about other efforts
launched with no credible
justification to sow doubt about
elections past, present and
future.
William Brangham explains.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: That's right, Judy.
It was Republicans in the Arizona
state Senate who commissioned
this review of ballots in
Maricopa County, even though
election officials in the state
said there was no large-scale
fraud in the 2020 election.
But a partisan group called Cyber
Ninjas undertook a controversial
review of the vote, and they
affirmed that Joe Biden in fact
won Maricopa County and Arizona.
And here with us to look at the
larger context is Nate Persily,
a scholar of election law
at Stanford University Law School.
Nate, great to see you
back on the "NewsHour."
I hesitate to call this an actual
audit, what this organization
did in Arizona. But they
affirmed what we already knew,
that Joe Biden won Maricopa
County and he won Arizona. But
what do you make of this when you look at
this process?
NATE PERSILY, Stanford Law
School: Well, you're right to
hesitate in calling it an audit.
Audits are good things. We know how to do
election audits. Every state should audit
its elections. But that is not
what this was. This really was part
of a coordinated disinformation
campaign to try to undermine
the legitimacy of the election.
And we should not put too
fine a point on it, that the
whole goal here after the fact,
many months after the fact,
now almost a year after the
election, was to cast doubt
on the basic machinery of this
election.
And, as we have seen, even in the sort of
public reception of this draft report, the
fact that Cyber Ninjas did
not find that it affected the
outcome hasn't sort of decreased
speculation or this lack of
confidence that the whole
audit process has generated.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And for people
who haven't been following
this rather circuitous process
they took, I mean, this was a
very bizarre process, the way
they went about this. These
people had no experience in election law.
They spent a period of time
searching for bamboo fibers,
allegedly looking for counterfeit
Chinese ballots. I mean, the
whole process seems -- bizarre
is the official term, I think,
for this.
NATE PERSILY: Well, one of the
problems is that we don't really
know what the basic allegation
was as to why there might have been fraud,
whether in Arizona or elsewhere.
Throughout the last 10, 12
months, what we have seen are
allegations, again, of Chinese
ballots, as you were saying, in
Arizona, of Italian satellites
as having manipulated voting
machines, or of Dominion voting
machines not being secure,
of dead people voting and the
like.
There's this very heterogeneous
set of complaints. And so what
Cyber Ninjas was doing was going
on a fishing expedition to
find out if there was anything
that implicated the outcome.
Now, they didn't find that the
results would have been different.
In fact, they had -- from
their results, they suggest that Joe Biden
actually increased his vote totals through
their audit than what was
found on Election Day.
But the fact that it may have
sort of confirmed the result
should not be any solace to those
of us who worry about the lack
of confidence that this type
of process has engendered among
the mass public.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And, as you
say, if this were just Arizona,
that might be one thing.
We might be able to put this
behind us, but this is going
on in multiple other states
now.
NATE PERSILY: That's right.
This is now a playbook for
other states. If you are a sort
of disgruntled politician or
one trying to make a name for
yourself, then, whether it's
in Pennsylvania or Wisconsin
or some other states, Georgia, now that
this is a pathway that they have chosen.
Now, again, recounts and audits
are part of our process. We
want to encourage that in
the month or so after an
election, because we want to
know that the election machinery
is working as intended. But
a year after an election,
right, all this is trying to do
is to undermine confidence in the result.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And it sounds
like, on some level, that
perpetual argument that is made
is having an effect, there
was a Monmouth University poll
out a month or two ago that
showed that a third of Americans
believe that President Biden
was elected only because of
fraud and that Donald Trump should
have properly won the election.
I mean, from an election
administrator standpoint, if a third
of the country thinks that you're
engaged in a widespread fraud,
what does that do to their
ability to run elections safely
and soundly?
NATE PERSILY: Well, this is a
very dangerous period, I think,
for our democracy, that we
have not seen this erosion of
confidence in the basic infrastructure
America, of the elections,
in our history.
We see lots of retirements
among these veteran election
officials. We see that many of them
feel that they're taking
their lives in their own hands
because of death threats and the
like.
And so these are challenges
we have not faced before, and
they're a direct result of the
concerted disinformation campaign
that's trying to undermine
the legitimacy the outcome.
But these folks are heroes.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Nate Persily of Stanford
University Law School, thanks so much for
being here.
NATE PERSILY: Thank you.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Germany is one
of America's most important
allies, and nearly every American
president since George W. Bush
has worked closely with German
Chancellor Angela Merkel.
But for the first time since
2005, she will not be a candidate
when Germans head to the
polls this Sunday to
vote for her successor.
Special correspondent Malcolm
Brabant is in Berlin with a
preview of the upcoming election.
MALCOLM BRABANT: Judy, this is the end of
an era.
Angela Merkel is slipping away
from the political stage with
minimal fanfare, which is entirely
consistent with her modest,
understated style. She's leaving
behind huge shoes to fill, and
there's a very tight race to
replace her as chancellor.
For 16 years, Angela Merkel has
led Germany and been Europe's
most dominant politician.
They call her Mutti, or Mom. Now, as Mutti
is leaving the chancellery, Germany is out
of its comfort zone.
PETER NEUMANN, Christian Democratic
Union: I think she will be
remembered as a very important
statesperson who kept Europe together.
MALCOLM BRABANT: Peter Neumann is a senior
adviser to Merkel's center-right Christian
Democrat Party.
PETER NEUMANN: History will
remember her as a successful
chancellor, as a popular chancellor,
as a chancellor that brought
Germans a great deal of prosperity
MALCOLM BRABANT: President
Biden saluted the shy research
scientist who became the first
East German to assume her nation's highest
office since reunification.
JOE BIDEN, President of the United States:
On behalf of the United States, thank you,
Angela, for your career of
strong, principled leadership.
And I want to thank you for
your continued support for the
longstanding goal of Europe
whole, free and at peace.
MALCOLM BRABANT: In 2010, Merkel saved the
euro currency by coordinating a financial
bailout for Greece when it went
bust. There were fears that
other weak European economies
would collapse and the euro would tank.
ANGELA MERKEL, German Chancellor
(through translator): Europe
fails when the euro fails.
Europe wins when the euro wins.
MALCOLM BRABANT: Merkel's most
controversial unilateral act
was to throw open Germany's
borders to Syrian refugees in
2015. In all, Germany granted
asylum to over a million in
that first year of
Europe's migration crisis.
ANGELA MERKEL (through
translator): And I have to say
quite honestly, if we now start
having to apologize even for
showing a friendly face in
emergency situations, then this is
not my country.
MALCOLM BRABANT: People across
the developing world saw this as
an invitation to enter Europe.
Only Sweden emulated Germany.
Partner nations resented being
pressured. Hungary erected
a border fence, wrecking the E.U.'s
commitment to open internal frontiers.
Six years on, the flow of asylum
seekers into Europe is still strong.
Sonya Sceats runs a London-based
pro refugee nonprofit. She
thinks Merkel was right.
SONYA SCEATS, Chief Executive,
Freedom From Torture: Germany
and Sweden tried to start
a grownup conversation with other European
states, and other European states weren't
willing to step up to the plate.
MALCOLM BRABANT: The influx
caused a backlash at home, and,
as Peter Neumann explains, led
to a resurgence of the
far right in East Germany.
PETER NEUMANN: Significant parts
of the electorate didn't like it
at all and especially the East,
where she's coming from was very aggrieved
about it and still holds it against her. I
think that's the point where she lost the
former East Germany.
MALCOLM BRABANT: Since Merkel
opened Germany's borders in
2015. European right-wingers like
French presidential candidate
Marine Le Pen have secured a
stronger footing with their
anti-immigration rhetoric.
MARINE LE PEN, President,
National Rally Party (through
translator): All of the migrants
who didn't stay in Germany went
off amusing themselves in other
European countries without
asking for our permission. Those
who didn't remain in Germany
went to Sweden, Italy, France,
weighing heavily on our finances,
and creating conditions for conflict.
MALCOLM BRABANT: Unlike last
time, when immigration dominated,
climate change is this election's
hot issue. Polls suggest that
Germany is steering to the left.
Most Germans expect Social
Democrat Olaf Scholz to replace
Merkel. As finance minister in
Merkel's coalition government, Scholz is a
known quantity, if a little dull. His main
rival, Armin Laschet, who
replaced Merkel as head of the
center-right Christian Democrats,
is also charisma-challenged.
But that's not a disadvantage
in Germany. The main outsider,
Annalena Baerbock of the
environmentalist Greens, is
predicted to be kingmaker in
the next inevitable coalition.
OLAF SCHOLZ, Social Democratic
Party (through translator):
Many citizens can see me as the
next head of government, the
next chancellor. And I make no
secret that, above all, I would
like to create a government
in alliance with the Greens.
MALCOLM BRABANT: Laschet is
promising Merkel-like stability.
ARMIN LASCHET, Christian Democratic
Union (through translator):
I stand for the cohesion
of Europe in these difficult times,
a climate-neutral industry and
strong economy, and a clear course
for national security.
MALCOLM BRABANT: Baerbock wants to force
the Christian Democrats into opposition.
ANNALENA BAERBOCK, Leader,
German Green Party (through
translator): I stand for no longer
using half-measures to protect
the climate, a policy that
finally brings children and
families to its core and
a human rights-led foreign
policy in the heart of Europe.
MALCOLM BRABANT: Devastating
floods caused by unnaturally
heavy summer rain pushed climate
change onto the election
agenda. The death toll is still
unclear, but could be as high
as 300. Restoration
could cost $30 billion.
Activist Jacob Heinze has gone
without food for three weeks
to highlight climate change.
At the hunger striker'S camp,
spokeswoman Helen Luebbert had
harsh words for the greens.
HELEN LUEBBERT, Climate Change
Activist: They are not the
solution. Even their program is
not enough. And, therefore, I
think it's important that they
are part of the coalition, they
do everything they can within
the political spectrum, within
the Parliament, and then
we definitely need opposition from without
the Parliament.
MALCOLM BRABANT: Facing possible
defeat, center-right parliamentary
candidate Klaus-Dieter Grohler
was trying to woo votes with bratwurst and
beer.
KLAUS-DIETER GROHLER, Christian
Democratic Union (through
translator): People are asking
critical questions, but I'm
not getting the sense that
they are really interested in a
change of government.
MALCOLM BRABANT: That's not
what the polls say. This voter
won't be swayed by a sausage.
MAN: Angela Merkel was -- I
think she did a good job overall,
but we need to do something
different.
MALCOLM BRABANT: As Election
Day approaches, the party of
Angela Merkel is hoping Germans
will avoid change, and play safe, as they
have done so often in the past.
For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm
Malcolm Brabant in Berlin.
JUDY WOODRUFF: A jury began deliberations
today in the of federal trial of singer R.
Kelly. The R&B artist is accused
of kidnapping, bribery, sex
trafficking, and racketeering,
among other charges.
Amna Nawaz is back with
our look at the case.
And a warning for some viewers:
This story deals with explicit
references to sexual assault.
AMNA NAWAZ: Judy, R. Kelly has
faced allegations of sexual
abuse for more than two decades
and has settled multiple cases.
But this is the first criminal
trial he's faced since being
acquitted of child pornography
charges back in 2008. Over this
trial, prosecutors brought 45
witnesses to prove racketeering
charges. They argue that Kelly
oversaw a criminal enterprise,
with associates helping to lure
underage girls, boys, and young women,
whom he sexually assaulted and imprisoned.
Kelly pled not guilty.
Emily Palmer is covering this for The New
York Times. And she joins me now.
Emily, welcome to the "NewsHour."
You have been listening to those
witnesses as they're shared
their testimony, horrifying
details. Tell us a little bit about who we
have heard from and what they have said.
EMILY PALMER, The New York
Times: This case is built on
the stories of six women. Five
of them testified.
And the first woman to take
the stand, the first woman to
ever actually take the stand
and testify against R. Kelly
was a woman named Jerhonda Pace.
She was nine months' pregnant
at the time. And she took the stand.
And, over the course of two days,
she delineated what she says
was a system of abuse that began
upon her first meeting with R. Kelly when
she was just 14 years old and attended his
child pornography trial in
Chicago. Two years later, she
met up with the singer again, and
he began having sex with
her almost from the get-go.
She outlined horrific details
of sexual, as well as physical
abuse. And from there, the
trial just sort of pushed
forward. We heard also from a
woman named Stephanie, Sonya,
a woman who testified under the
name of Jane, and another Faith.
They all came forward, and they
talked about the same thing.
They had testimony that actually
stretched all the way back into the 1990s,
all the way into just a few years ago. And
they were saying the same
story over and over again.
AMNA NAWAZ: And, Emily, as
prosecutors say, it wasn't just
about the predatory actions
of one man, that there was
an entire network of enablers
around him. Tell me a little bit
about how they made that case.
EMILY PALMER: Absolutely.
And that network of enablers is
actually the whole reason that
we're in federal court right
now. The racketeering charge
that they have put against R.
Kelly allows them to go stretch
all the way back into the
1990s and bring these stories
of horrible things that happen
to women like the R&B singer
Aaliyah that would normally be
too old to actually prosecute.
But by charging him with
racketeering, something that's
usually used against mobsters, they
have been able to establish that we're not
talking about a successful music company,
prosecutors say. We're talking
about an enterprise designed
specifically to allow R. Kelly to
switch up his -- sorry.
We are talking about an enterprise
that allows R. Kelly to cash
in his fame and stardom to
have sex with underage
women, girls, and even boys.
AMNA NAWAZ: So, Emily, R. Kelly
has pled not guilty. He's denied
all the accusations against
him. Tell me about his defense team.
How do they answer some of these
allegations and handle the witnesses?
EMILY PALMER: His defense,
from opening arguments through
cross-examination of 45 witnesses,
through their own five witnesses
that came and testified earlier
this week, through closing
statements, have kept to
a very specific story.
They say this is a complete
conspiracy to undermine a
successful R&B artist who enjoyed
younger women, but there was
nothing illegal about it, they
say. They say that these sexual
acts were completely -- they say that the
women were happy to indulge R. Kelly, were
fans, even super stalkers at
times, that they wanted into
the relationships, and then they
became jealous and hurt and upset,
and they were coming after his money.
AMNA NAWAZ: Emily, I think a
lot of people will listen to
this and wonder, how? How did
this go on for so long without charges of
this kind being brought?
EMILY PALMER: It's really
important to look at the people
who are accusing R. Kelly.
And most of the people who have taken -- a
majority of the people who have taken the
stand are Black women who have
historically not been heard,
especially in cases like this.
And this is really a huge
moment in the MeToo movement.
We have had other trials. We
have had Bill Cosby. We have
had Harvey Weinstein. But this
is the first big high-profile case where a
majority of the accusers are Black women.
And it's really going to be interesting as
the jury continues to deliberate, because,
for many years, people knew what was going
on. His employees knew. Even, to a certain
extent, the public knew,
and yet nobody did anything.
AMNA NAWAZ: And we will be waiting
and watching for that verdict.
That is Emily Palmer of The New York Times
covering the trial of R. Kelly and joining
us tonight.
Thank you, Emily.
EMILY PALMER: Thank you.
JUDY WOODRUFF: As President
Biden's legislative agenda stalls
in Congress, he has run into
yet another issue, or, we should
say, continues to run into the
issue of turmoil on the Southern
border.
For a look at this busy week
and what it all means, we're
joined by Brooks and Capehart.
That is New York Times columnist
David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart,
columnist for The Washington
Post.
Hello to both of you.
JONATHAN CAPEHART: You too, Judy.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Very good to see you...
JONATHAN CAPEHART: You too.
JUDY WOODRUFF: ... on this Friday.
And there is so much to talk about.
So, David, it does look like
there's real trouble for
President Biden's domestic agenda.
And it's not the Republicans
this time, at least on the part
that he's run into, headwinds
this week. It's his own Democratic
colleagues. What is behind this?
DAVID BROOKS: Yes, it's just
an intellectual difference.
The -- and what strikes me is
how so many people are drawing
red lines. The progressives
are saying, we want $3.5 trillion.
We're not going under. Manchin
and others say $1.5 trillion,
we're not going over.
And so that's a gigantic gap.
They can't even agree on when
to vote on what. And so I think
what they need to do is look
at, what is the key insight
of each side? The progressives
are right that we need something
big. We're a nation in decline.
We're a nation -- because
of disunity. Lots of people have been left
behind by this economy. And they're right
to do something big to try to jolt us back
to unity.
The moderates, in my view, are
right that we're not going to
have a European-style welfare
state. We're just not that
kind of country. We're an
individualistic country. We like
to tie benefits to work and have
a work obligation. We're never
going to give away as much money
in taxes as the Europeans do.
The Norwegians give away about
46 percent of their GDP to
taxes. If this passed, it would get us up
to 19.
We're just not that kind of
country. So, if you take the
scope of the progressives and
the values of the moderates, I
think you can get a deal, but
they're pretty far away from
it right now.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, they both
may have a point, Jonathan,
but the president's -- the
future of his of his term in office could
be in the balance here.
JONATHAN CAPEHART: Well, sure, it could be
in the balance, but we don't know.
And I look at this as being the
storm before the calm. David's
right. A lot of red lines
are being drawn. And they seem to be being
drawn since Wednesday, since they all went
to the White House and had
their respective meetings with
the president. And then they
come out and then they
state their positions again.
But I have been paying close
attention to the language that
they're using. They're being
very firm about what they're for and what
they're not for. But they're not attacking
each other, the way they
were during the summer.
And so I wonder if this is the
usual Washington theatrics of just
doing all of this performance,
and then, at some point, when
we're -- when we least expect
it, breaking news announcement,
here's the deal.
Now, this is a different Washington.
Who knows if that moment is
going to come? I pray that
it does, one, because what
they're arguing over is very
important for the American people.
Two, if they don't come to some
sort of deal, the president's
agenda goes from being stalled
to dead. And then, three, it
means finally that Washington
is completely broken if they
can't come to some agreement here.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, it's a
different -- and then, meantime,
there's another massive headache
the president has. And I don't
know whether it's another
Washington performance, but it's
over the debt limit, David.
And this one is between the
Democrats and the Republicans.
The Republicans are saying
no way.
DAVID BROOKS: Yes.
And when the shoe was on the other
foot, they wanted the Republicans,
when they were controlling
things, to take it. It's -- what's changed
is that, 10 years ago, people really used
to care about debts and deficits.
It was ranked as a major issue
by a lot of Americans. Now,
for whatever reason, some maybe
dubious reasons, nobody cares,
maybe just low interest rates.
So now there's much greater
tolerance among both Republicans
and Democrats to run up the
debt. And so voting to raise
the limit is not as politically
costly as it used to be.
I wish they would just get away with -- do
away with the whole thing.
We have committed to spend.
JUDY WOODRUFF: The debt limit, yes. Yes.
DAVID BROOKS: Yes.
We have committed to spend the money. The
debt limit just says, yes, we're going to
borrow the money to spend the
money we already committed to.
So they should raise it to a
gazillion dollars. And then we
never approach the limit, hopefully.
(LAUGHTER)
DAVID BROOKS: And then they
should move forward. It's a bit
of ballet that we don't need.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Gazillion?
What do you think?
(LAUGHTER)
JONATHAN CAPEHART: Sure.
Gazillion is a great numerator.
But this is sort of a wonky
thing, but it's super important
for the American people to
understand that raising the
debt ceiling is not giving
Washington a blank check. It is
allowing Washington to pay for the things
that they have already bought.
If the government does not raise the debt
ceiling, the Bipartisan Policy Center this
morning put out their charts,
and they have turned me into a
huge debt ceiling nerd. Started
back in 2011, when Jay Powell,
who was with Bipartisan Policy
Center then, put this together.
He is now the Fed chairman.
I just want the American people
to understand this. If the
debt ceiling is not raised and
the government can't borrow any money, it
has to use the cash it has on hand. And I
have this chart here. I don't know if the
camera can get it, but I will just talk it
through, that, on October 15,
which they think might be the
first day that we reach that
X-date, the government will
bring in $27 billion in revenues,
but will have $43 billion in
expenses.
And that's just on that first
day. All that debt that --
all those things that aren't
paid carries over to the next
day. I can't - - we don't --
I don't even have enough time
to tell you the avalanche of
harm that would come to the
American people, to the federal
government and to the global economy
if that debt ceiling isn't raised.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And not to mention
that, government shutdown and
all the all the consequences
of that, David.
DAVID BROOKS: Yes.
And both the topics we have
talked about so far that, the
consequences of failure are
cataclysmic. And so I presume,
in a normal, functioning
democracy, that we don't walk
over those cliffs, but who knows?
JUDY WOODRUFF: I'm just
taking a deep breath here.
(LAUGHTER)
JUDY WOODRUFF: Another, of
course, major issue the president
had to deal with this week,
again, Jonathan, was the Southern border.
In addition to what's already
been happening there, and the
Haitian migrants were starting
to gather, in the past week,
these images of Border Patrol
using reins or other -- whatever,
belts to go after the migrants.
President Biden has come in from enormous
criticism from fellow Democrats over this.
And here's how he commented
this morning on what happened.
JOE BIDEN, President of the
United States: Of course I take
responsibility. I'm President.
But it was horrible what --
to see, as you saw -- to see
people treated like they did,
horses nearly running them over and people
being strapped. It's outrageous.
I promise you, those people will pay. They
will be -- an investigation under way now,
and there will be consequences.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And, today, we
reported there are no Haitian
migrants at that particular
place. We don't know whether more will be
coming.
But, Jonathan, how is the
president handling this? And
how much of a of a political hit
is it for him?
JONATHAN CAPEHART: I will take the
political hit first. It's a huge hit.
And it's a huge hit. One, with
immigration, the president
was already on squishy ground
with the American people. But those images
that came out of the men on horseback and
Black people running, it was just -- is a
little too close to home for a lot of us.
And for a president who campaigned
on a more humane immigration
policy, for a president
who, on election night, said to
African Americans, you brought
me here and I will not forget
it, that's why you had a lot of
Democrats, particularly African
American Democrats, saying
to the president, what is
going on here? You must -- you
must do something about this.
And then, on top of it, what made it even
more inhumane is that the president or the
administration deported Haitians
who had not lived in Haiti
for more than 10 years to a
country that is still dealing
with an earthquake that happened
and a presidential assassination.
JUDY WOODRUFF: How can --
immigration, every president
counting back as far as we can count,
this has been a tough issue. Where do you
see this going?
DAVID BROOKS: Yes.
Well, we had our last successful
immigration bill, comprehensive
one, under Ronald Reagan.
That was a long time ago. And,
so, he's inherited a gigantic mess
that nobody has had the solution
for. I think Biden did make it worse.
And part of the problem was,
they promised, on day one, they
would reverse all the Trump
rules. Reversing the Trump
rules was a good idea. But doing
it all at once, on day one,
people in the transition, in
the White House were warning
about that. They were saying,
we will be overwhelmed. It'll
be a big open door signal. And
we don't have the facilities
to handle what's about to hit us.
And that turned out to be
true. And I think what bothers
me, aside from what Jonathan
was just expressing, was, it seems
to be arbitrary, like who gets
sent where. It seems like it's
just like, who knows who's
being decided? There's no
methodology. There's no procedure
for a lot of people.
And so we're just overwhelmed
right now. And it's disturbing
that we're overwhelmed after
basically 40 years of this mess.
JUDY WOODRUFF: It's hard to
see how this is an issue that
gets resolved any time in the
near term.
So, the last thing we want to
bring up is, it was September
21, 2001, just a week-and-a-half
after the 9/11 attacks, and here
was the beginning of the "NewsHour"
that night with Jim Lehrer.
JIM LEHRER, Co-Founder and
Former Anchor, "PBS NewsHour":
And that brings us to Shields
and Brooks, syndicated columnist
Mark Shields, joined tonight
by his new regular partner,
David Brooks of The Weekly Standard.
Welcome, David.
DAVID BROOKS: Thank you.
JIM LEHRER: Formally, welcome. You
have been here many, many times before.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And that man has not
changed one iota since September...
(LAUGHTER)
DAVID BROOKS: Yes, I wanted to point out I
was 12 at that time.
(LAUGHTER)
DAVID BROOKS: So, I'm -- I don't know how
old I am now.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, David, you joined -- I
mean, you had been on the "NewsHour," but
you joined this program at
a very sobering, difficult
moment for this country.
It was, what, 10 days after
9/11. And you have been through
a lot of ups and downs with
the country ever since.
But just talk a little bit
about what it's meant to you
to be here at this table every
Friday night.
DAVID BROOKS: Yes, I will
tell you what it's been like.
Like, it's the end of the
week. And, often, I'm tired.
Sometimes, I'm under the weather.
Sometimes, I'm stressed. I
come in here a little low. I
walk out of here an hour later
super charged up and super
happy, because I get to work
with the people I have worked
with, and not only the people
on set, but Leah (ph) in the
makeup room. Charlie's back
there, our lighting guy.
(LAUGHTER)
DAVID BROOKS: And so it's just -- you feel
uplifted when you walk out.
And then, when you think about
20 years, I think about the
time and about '04, '05. Mark
and I were on with Jim. And we
showed a Marine funeral just
before our segment. And Jim started
crying. And Mark and I gave like 10 minute
answers, so Jim could compose itself.
And so that -- that was just
like -- that's something
we're going through together.
I think about sitting with Mark
and Jim when Barack Obama gave
his 2004 speech, that first
big speech, which was watching
a star appear, but it was also
about a version of America
that he was describing.
I think about the day Gwen
died. And I go through all the
e-mails that she sent me over
the years, and some were just
about our friendship. But a lot
were tough. Like, Gwen demanded
excellence.
(LAUGHTER)
DAVID BROOKS: And if you didn't
show up, Gwen was like, show up.
(LAUGHTER)
DAVID BROOKS: And then with you,
I mean, you're the hardest-working
woman in show business.
Like, I -- you have not had a
day where you don't completely
show up for this thing.
And so you get a sense of
people who respect their job
and mostly respect the audience.
And out of that derives
a kind of patriotism.
And other networks talk a lot
about patriotism, but I think
we -- we try to serve a certain
kind of America. And we try to
exemplify that service in a way
we do things, in the culture
around here.
And it's just been an honor to
be part of that for 20 years.
And my next 60 years will
be just as good.
(LAUGHTER)
JUDY WOODRUFF: Next 60.
I mean, the "NewsHour" has been
just incredibly fortunate and
honored to have you with us
and, of course, Mark for all those years.
And then Jonathan joined us almost a year
ago.
And, Jonathan, you get to sit
next to David on Friday nights.
It's not exactly like every
other television show.
JONATHAN CAPEHART: No, it's not like every
other television show.
And I knew that this was an
important job to get, succeeding
Mark Shields, the e-mails
that came in from people saying:
Oh, my God, Mark Shields is
gone. I'm so upset. I'm so
sad. We miss him. But
I'm glad you're there.
It was then that I realized how important
this job is, how important it is, what we
do.
But what makes this so much
fun and why it's so wonderful
to celebrate David is, we have
been doing this in other venues
for a few years now. And I
always look forward to being
with David, because you're to
the right of me. I'm to the left
of you, completely different
backgrounds.
And yet, when I sit with David
and talk with David, I feel
like I have learned something.
I'm smarter.
The way David speaks about
all the issues, it's inviting.
And that's what makes Brooks
and Capehart, Shields and Brooks
and all the other iterations
of this so wonderful. We
come to the table to bring
news, educate the audience on
the inside, but then to do it
in a way that invites the audience in.
JUDY WOODRUFF: There's clearly some magic
that happens here.
DAVID BROOKS: Thank you,
Jonathan. Thank you.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And we are grateful to both
of you, to Jonathan Capehart and to David
Brooks.
Congratulations on 20 years.
Twenty years more, 40
years more coming up.
DAVID BROOKS: Shoot me.
(LAUGHTER)
JUDY WOODRUFF: Whether teaching
NYU marketing students or
co-hosting the podcast "Pivot,"
Scott Galloway rarely misses
an opportunity to share his
insight on the effects of big
tech.
Tonight, he shares his Brief
But Spectacular take on this
country's response to the pandemic.
It is also the subject of his latest book,
"Post Corona: From Crisis to Opportunity."
SCOTT GALLOWAY, Author, "Post Corona: From
Crisis to Opportunity": Within seven days
of Pearl Harbor, Chrysler
converted its largest factory to
a factory punching out M1 Bradley
tanks.
What company has totally pivoted
to fighting this virus? If
Walmart stock had been down
30 percent and if Amazon stock
had been down 60 percent,
instead of up 30 percent and up
60 percent, that van with a
smile rolling into my driveway
delivering my espresso pods
would have had someone jump
out and jab me and my family.
This virus has not seen what
America is capable of when it has a
full-throated capitalist response.
The bottom line is, if you're
in the top 1 percent, you are
living your best life. That
is the dirty secret of this
pandemic. This pandemic for
the shareholder class has meant
more time with Netflix, more time with
family, and your wealth has skyrocketed.
And so, for the wealthy, this has
been stop, stop, it hurts so good.
This has disproportionately
impacted people of color who
live in food deserts. This has
been an enormous tragedy across
senior citizens in nursing
homes. What we have is the worst
of both worlds, capitalism on
the way up, socialism on the
way down. That's not capitalism.
That's cronyism.
We need to be more heavy-handed with
corporations and more empathetic
and loving with individuals.
The biggest mistake we made in
this pandemic was, we should
have been protecting people,
not American airlines.
There is a danger here, and that
is the dispersion of headquarters
to our homes. The ugly stepchild
of dispersion is segregation.
When you don't see the homeless
veteran on the on-ramp or
the off-ramp to work, when you
don't see people of different
ethnic groups and different income
classes, you begin to resent them.
So, the enduring feature of
COVID-19, it will be seen as an
accelerant more than a change
agent. Online grocery delivery
accelerated eight years. Work
from home accelerated six
years. Income inequality took an
economy that was dysfunctional
and turned it dystopic.
So, take any trend in your life
personally or professionally,
take it out 10 years, and
there's a decent chance
that we're here, there, now.
I worry that today's youth
doesn't have the connective
tissue that some of our leaders
had in the past. They were Americans first
before they were red or blue. And a way to
get that back might be some sort
of mandatory national service.
It might be building housing
or a corona corps that helps people, where
kids get a chance to meet other kids from
different backgrounds and
feel like they have a shared
experience, such that maybe there's
more cooperation as they
get into positions of power.
Some of the greatest periods
of prosperity have come out of
crisis. And that's the opportunity
here. So, ask yourself three
questions. One, is this an
opportunity for you to become a
caretaker for someone? Do you
have the relationship with your
siblings that you want, if you were
forced to say goodbye to
someone over FaceTime?
Have you made the requisite
investments in friendships to
ensure that you maintain those
relationships? Are you willing
to show the type of grace,
and courage, and forgiveness,
such that you can cement and
repair the most important thing
in respect to our happiness?
And that is your relationships.
This is either going to be the
best year in the history of
America, or it could be the
worst. It's up to us.
My name is Scott Galloway, and this is my
Brief But Spectacular take on post-corona,
from crisis to opportunity.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Now an artist
straddling worlds and using her
art to examine how we see the
past and present, East and West.
Jeffrey Brown has the story from New York
for our arts and culture series, Canvas.
JEFFREY BROWN: Dancing women
from a South Asian painting
tradition, a headless Western-style
Venus, and what's a
fighter jet doing there?
Ask the woman with the ornate ram's horns,
the artist herself,
Shahzia Sikander.
SHAHZIA SIKANDER, Artist: I
see myself as somebody who's
interested, like a detective,
to look at the -- how to connect the dots,
how to find where the material is, and to
also examine my own relationship with it,
but also how some of the stories. What are
the archetypal stories
within the medium itself?
JEFFREY BROWN: Sikander, born
in Pakistan and living in
the U.S. since 1993, is known
for examining and breaking down
familiar archetypes and stereotypes
of art history, and questioning
the assigned roles of women and simplistic
notions of an East-West divide.
She began in art school in
Lahore, studying the refined
tradition of Persian and Indian
manuscript, or miniature,
painting, dating to the 16th
century, and then began to play
with it and make it her own, adding
the image of a friend, for example.
SHAHZIA SIKANDER: This took me almost two
years.
JEFFREY BROWN: Oh, really?
SHAHZIA SIKANDER: Yes.
JEFFREY BROWN: In her most renowned early
work, called The Scroll, she captured her
own life within this history. That's her,
a ghostlike presence throughout the scene,
which can be read left to right.
SHAHZIA SIKANDER: At the end you also see
her. She's painting herself, but you never
really get to see her face. So
there's always this level of mystery.
JEFFREY BROWN: In fact, the
entire exhibition, titled
Extraordinary Realities and starting
at the Morgan Library and
Museum in New York, is a kind
of portrait of the young artist,
mostly paintings from Sikander's
first two decades of work in
the 1990s and early 2000s,
a chance for us and her, now 52, to look
back, but also see continuing connections.
SHAHZIA SIKANDER: I was interested
in examining some of those
projections. Like, what is tradition?
How do we define tradition? How
is tradition performed? And those
ideas captured my imagination
as a young artist that who
dictated when and what in time
is old, and what is avant garde?
And the more I examined it, the
more I felt like there was room
to reexamine, to reimagine.
JEFFREY BROWN: She began to
layer image upon image, sometimes
adding fantastical creatures
and abstraction over refined details. She
packed different kinds of information into
small paintings, often using
humor and wit angels, American
flags for wings, in a reference
to U.S. military interventions
in the Muslim world.
In 1999, she did a painting
titled The Faces of Islam for
"The New York Times Magazine."
What is the role of art that you
see for addressing or responding
to those kind of stereotypes?
SHAHZIA SIKANDER: The work was
always resisting that type of
fetishization, especially about
the Muslim woman as needing to
be saved, especially in how it
gets played up in Hollywood, in
media, in TV, in this.
And it has a deeper history of
the representation of the veil
in European colonial imperial
history. And it counters it
with other types of narratives,
where the joyousness of the
feminine, the inherent female
agency, autonomy, ability to be
creative, where its inner beauty,
its inner strength is very present.
JEFFREY BROWN: That shows itself
especially in Sikander's first
sculpture, two women intertwined,
a classical Venus and Hindu devata, both,
she says, in a position of power.
In recent years, Sikander has
worked in new forms and larger
formats, including massive
billboard projections in Times
Square and a 66-foot glass and
ceramic scroll for Princeton
University.
SHAHZIA SIKANDER: So, I made this
here. I basically took elements
from some of the paintings.
JEFFREY BROWN: She created
a new installation for this
exhibition, long strips of paper
that bring her small painting and imagery
to three-dimensional life and draw in the
viewer.
Regularly defined herself as
South Asian, Pakistani, Muslim,
and more, she's been determined
to break out of the boxes.
SHAHZIA SIKANDER: The more
categories, the merrier. If the work
can speak to Asian American-ness,
fine, Muslim American-ness, fine,
female artist, fine, artist, great.
All those categories and boxes
are fine, as long as one is not
restricted to operate within
one or two. And I think, when we
talk about that, we are talking
about the agency of imagination,
and that's the best part of being an
artist, is that you can really soar.
JEFFREY BROWN: Shahzia Sikander's
exhibition, Extraordinary
Realities, moves next to the
Rhode Island School of Design
Museum in providence, and then to
the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm
Jeffrey Brown at the Morgan
Library and Museum in New York.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Some soaring art there.
And a new app to help people
overcome fear of spiders, the
plan to train to cows to protect
the environment and an invasive
bug threatening America's
trees, those are among the five
stories you may have missed
this week we are highlighting
online. You can find all that
and more on our Web site
at PBS.org/NewsHour.
And be sure to join my colleague
moderator Yamiche Alcindor
tonight on "Washington Week."
She will get insight and analysis
of the week's big stories from
an all-star panel including
Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, authors of
the bestselling book "Peril."
And that is the "NewsHour" for
tonight. I'm Judy Woodruff.
Join us online and again
here on Monday evening.
For all of us at the "PBS
NewsHour," thank you, please stay
safe, and have a good weekend.