wow, you get to watch all your favorite stuff. it's to die for. now you won't miss a thing. this is the way. the xfinity 10g network. made for streaming. geoff: good evening. i'm geoff bennett. amna: and i'm amna nawaz. on "the newshour" tonight -- nikki haley ends her presidential run after former president donald trump dominates super tuesday, setting up a rematch between trump and president biden. geoff: on the eve of president biden's third state of the union

address, we speak to white house press secretary, karine jean-pierre. amna: and residents of texas towns destroyed in historic wildfires struggle with the loss and the long road to recovery. >> i've never seen anything like this. and we've had wildfires before and pretty devastating ones. but the extent of the damage here is profound, it looks apocalyptic to me. ♪ >> major funding for "the pbs newshour" has been provided by -- >> consumer cellular, this is sam, how may i help you? this is a pocket dial. well, somebody's pocket, with consumer cellular you get nationwide coverage with no contract. that is kind of our thing. have a nice day. >> a successful business owner

sells his company and restores a historic jazz club with his fund. a raymondjames gets to know you. life, well-planned. >> the walton family foundation, working for solutions to protect water during climate change, so people and nature can thrive together. supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org. and with the ongoing support of these institutions -- ♪ this program was made possible by the corporation for public

broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. geoff: welcome to "the newshour." nikki haley's bid for the white house is over. amna: the former south carolina governor suspended her campaign today, setting up a rematch between president biden and former president trump. speaking in charleston this morning, haley did not promise to back her party's likely nominee. ms. haley: it is now up to donald trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did not support him. and i hope he does that. at its best politics is about bringing people into your cause, not turning them away. and our conservative cause badly needs more people. this is now his time for choosing. amna: to discuss what comes next in the race for the white house, i'm joined now by republican strategist kevin madden, who worked on mitt romney's presidential bids.

good to see you again. let's start with nikki haley's announcement today, what do you make of this? kevin: i think the math became obvious and nikki haley realized and her campaign realized she did not have a path to the nomination. it is pretty startling if you look at trump's numbers and how dominant he was in the public and presidential primary. 64% of the overall vote, 24 contests versus nikki haley who won two, and 90% of the delegates good there is a voice for nikki haley and candidates like her and the party, but it is clear that right now it is a donald trump party fueled by a maga base. the haley campaign came to that realization based on the numbers i saw yesterday. amna: to. saw outgoing senate majority leader mitch mcconnell endorse this or trump officially even after previous criticism. here's part of what he said. sen. mcconnell: i said on

february 25 of 2021, shortly after the attack on the capitol, that i would support president trump if he was the nominee of our party, and he's obviously going to the nominee of our party. amna: haley has not endorsed mr. trump, do you think she will? kevin: i think she wl ultimately but it will be an endorsement that will feel like an extraction over a long period of time. clearly first of all the open wounds of a presidential primary will take some time to heal. but i think if she's looking to still have a voice in the party and still play a role in the direction of the party, and ultimately playing a role in unifying the party, which has its divisions, would be in her best political interests. amna: where to her supporters

go? she had a number of people backing her although her delegate counted not compared mr. trump's. she ended up with 89 delegates compared to his 1031. where does the money she raised and her backers go? kevin: i think backers and voters are not a monolithic block for nikki haley. she's made an incredible impression on a lot of republican voters but she's not yet a movement candidate. i don't think these voters are calcified around nikki haley and waiting for a signal from nikki haley. i think they are up for grabs for donald trump. he will have to work hard to gain their support and win them back especially if he wants to win. but some of them will go for president joe biden. the profile of the nikki haley voter is the swing voter and they will determine who wins or loses. amna: does former president

trump need them? to hear him today in his online reposed in response to yesterday, it doesn't sound like he's courting them. he said nikki haley got trounced last night, much of her money came from democrats. i hope she stays in the race and fights it out until the end. not exactly an appeal to haley voters. kevin: first of all, we remember the 2020 election, it came down to about 30,000 voters across six states. all of these folks count. you want to get as many of these haley voters as possible to win. but if today was the starting pistol for the general election and you look at how donald trump tried to appeal to the swing voters and how joe biden tried to appeal to them by saying he wants to be a uniting force for republicans, democrats and independents, you have to give the edge to biden toward winning these voters. amna: when you look at where the party is in the fact that mr. trump is the presumptive nominee , he beat out more than a dozen challengers and nikki haley beat out most of them as well, as a woman of color, made history, beating president biden in some hypothetical matchups.

but the party said we are going with the guy who lost to biden and is facing criminal charges, twice impeached. what does it say to you? kevin: a lot of those general election polls they showed nikki haley winning. they were not necessarily reflecting a primary electorate. primary electorates are much less interested in bringing people together and finding common ground. primary electorates are much more interested in trying to find a candidate that will fight the perceived opposition on the others. that i think is why donald trump won this primary so resoundingly, which is he spoke to those voters in said he will be a fighter for them. i think it tells you that donald trump has a firm grip on the party, yet he has not done the work needed yet to really build out an appeal to the broader big middle of the american electorate. that big middle is caught

between what i would say is the 47 yard lines of american politics, they will decide who wins or loses the election. amna: kevin, always great to talk to you. geoff: after president biden's strong showing in last night's contests, one of his long shot challengers, dean phillips, suspended his campaign today. now with super tuesday in the rear view, the president's focus turns to tomorrow's state of the union address. i spoke earlier today with white house press secretary karine jean-pierre about what to expect from president biden's high-profile and high stakes speech. karine jean-pierre, welcome back to "the newshour." sec. jean-pierre: thank you, geoff, so much for having me. appreciate the opportunity. geoff: so tomorrow night marks president biden's third state of the union address. but you could argue that this one is freighted with significance because it's essentially the hard launch of his reelection campaign. and this is a president who is facing sinking poll numbers,

concerns about his age, a progressive base that's been splintered over the humanitarian crisis in gaza. how is the president aiming to use this speech to address those concerns, while also conveying his vision for the future? sec. jean-pierre: so look, the president, as you just stated, third state of the union address, he sees this as an important moment to talk directly to the american people. just think about it. he'll be talking to americans who will be sitting on their couch, sitting in their kitchen table. having that direct conversation, millions of americans are going to be tuning in. and he understands this moment, how critical it is, how important it is.

he's going to talk about the last three years. we have seen some historic achievements from this administration of the last two years. if you think about it, the infrastructure bill, a bipartisan bill in the last administration, it was a punch line. now we're going to see infrastructure over a decade. you think about the pact act that's going to help veterans and their families. that was actually done in a bipartisan way as well. but you think about the american rescue plan was only passed by democrats, which got the economy back on its feet because when he walked in, it was a tailspin that was happening. and so the americans, the president is going to really speak to the american people. they're going to hear from this president, and he's going to talk about the progress that he wants to continue to make. the president is an optimistic person. he's going to talk about the future. he's going to give his vision. we got to continue to grow on that, lower cost for the american people. give them a little bit of breathing room that's so important. we see how women's reproductive health is under relentless attack by republicans elected officials. so he's going to talk about that. our democracy is under attack. yes. we are at an inflection point here. our democracy. we got to continue to fight for that. making sure corporations, the wealthiest among us, are paying their fair share. he always puts the middle class first. he understands how important it

is to deliver for the middle class. so there are a lot of issues here that he wants to lean into. geoff: i've spoken with democratic supporters of his, who make the case that in some ways, what matters more than what the president says is how he says it. does he appear energetic? does he appear to be vigorous? given the fact that poll after poll shows that majorities of americans have serious concerns about his age. how attuned is the white house to that? sec. jean-pierre: i mean, look, here's what i would say to that. this is a president talking , about the achievements he's made in the first three years he's done more in the first , three years than presidents have done in in two terms, in their two terms. i mean, that is just a fact. and what we've seen in the data, what he's been able to accomplish, that's what this president has, has been able to do. and why has that happened? because it takes experience. it does. it takes someone who has been in the senate for 36 years, been vice president for eight years, and you see that experience because he's been able to deliver for the american people. geoff: and yet there is this persistent disconnect between the president's objectively popular policies like student debt relief, reducing prescription drug costs, capping junk fees, etc., and his underwater approval ratings. what's the white house's theory

of the case as to why that is? sec. jean-pierre: so look, here is what i will say. you just said it -- every issue that the president is working on is popular. whether it's student loans, whether it is making sure that we are dealing with gun violence in a way that really helps to save and protect communities, save our young people's lives. he was able to get a bipartisan deal on a gun prevention deal , that we hadn't seen in 30 years. that's also important. don't want to forget that. beating big pharma. in that inflation reduction act, he was able to put forth a piece of legislation that obviously is a law now that really fights back big pharma, and make sure that medicare is able to negotiate for itself. and that's something that americans care about. look, we understand what americans have gone through this past three years. it is incredibly complicated. and we get it. we get that it's going to take a little bit of time for americans to see what this president has done. geoff: hasn't the president been saying that for the better part of three years, that once the american people start to feel the impact of these policies,

once the american people start to see these shovel ready infrastructure projects begin, then they'll fully understand the impact of the work that i've been doing. he's been saying that for years. why hasn't that shifted? sec. jean-pierre: i understand that. but i also understand and we also understand that it takes time. you asked me what the president's going to say, what he's going to do tomorrow. he's going to lay that out. he's going to lay out the achievements that he's done in the last three years. it is so important. 20 million americans are probably likely to tune in tomorrow. that is important. that is critical. this is part of messaging, connecting with the american people, being able to say that over and over again, lay that out very, very clear for the american people. and that's what he's going to do. we see this as an important opportunity to talk directly to the american people. the president is certainly, certainly looking forward to that. geoff: that is white house press secretary karine jean-pierre, thanks so much for your time this evening. sec. jean-pierre: thanks, geoff.

appreciate it. ♪ >> the head of the federal reserve again talked about cutting interest rates this year -- but only after more signs that inflation will keep falling. at a house hearing, jerome powell noted that price hikes have definitely slowed from the 40-year highs of 2022. but he said the central bank does not want to act prematurely. chair powell: we think because of the strength in the economy and the strength in the labor market and the progress we've made, we can approach that step carefully and thoughtfully and with greater confidence, and when we reach that confidence -- the expectation is we will do so some time this year -- we can then begin dialing back the restriction on our policy. >> for now, inflation remains slightly above the fed's target of 2 percent, on an annual basis. in haiti, politicians began trying to form a new governing coalition as the caribbean nation remained largely paralyzed by gang violence. the gangs have demanded that

prime minister ariel henry step aside or face a possible civil war. the u.s. state department called today for henry to respond. mr. miller: we are not calling on him, or pushing for him, to resign, but we are urging him to expedite the transition to an empowered and inclusive governance structure that will move with urgency to help the country prepare for a multinational security support mission to address the security situation and pave the way for free and fair elections. >> henry has been abroad, but he flew into puerto rico last night, because haiti's main airport is closed. he was taken through customs, then driven away in a convoy. a missile attack by houthi fighters in yemen killed three crew members on a commercial vessel today and forced the others to abandon ship. they were the first deaths since the iranian-backed group began targeting ships in over the war november in gaza. separately, video from the indian navy showed sailors

fighting a fire on another ship. the owners said it was hit by a houthi missile. the u.n.'s migration agency reports a record number of migrants -- more than 8500 -- died on land and sea routes last year. that was up nearly 20 percent from a year earlier. the biggest increase came in the mediterranean, with people fleeing conflict in the middle east and north africa. back in this country -- police patrolling new york's subway system will soon be joined by the national guard after a series of violent crimes. governor kathy hochul announced today that 750 guard members will conduct bag searches and deter people from bringing weapons into the subway system. gov. hochul: this has to end. new yorkers deserve no less. and to those who are feeling anxious whenever they walk through those turnstiles, we will stop at nothing to keep you

safe. you and your family members. >> overall, crime in new york has dropped since the pandemic, but just last week, a passenger slashed a subway conductor in the neck. prosecutors say she unknowingly brought live ammunition onto the set. the house has a spending package to avert the partial government shutdown friday night. it funds five major apartments for the rest of the physical year. a second package has to pass before march 22. still to come hugh downs civil war has created a hunger crisis.

haulage discusses his booker prize-winning dystopian novel. plus much more. >> this is "the pbs newshour" from weta studios in washington, and in the west from the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. geoff: firefighters are making some progress against the texas wildfires. but the fires are not yet contained. and across the texas panhandle, concerns are mounting about the cost of rebuilding. many of the losses won't be covered by insurance. stephanie sy has our report on the long road ahead. stephanie: the largest wildfire

in the state's history continues to spread across the texas panhandle, leaving behind devastation, crop destruction am a dead livestock, leveled buildings and houses. in fritch, texas -- home to roughly 2,000 residents -- angela and shane grisham lost their house, pets and belongings. they didn't have time to save much of anything except their five kids. shane: we had about 20 minutes to get out of there. as we, as we were packing, doing our thing, just throwing things , what we could get, in the trunk of the car, it just started raining down. just burning ash. and the smoke came across the front yard. so i told my wife, i said, we have to go now. that's it. that's all we can get. stephanie: with only the clothes on their backs, they took shelter in a motel before getting into an airbnb. shane: i want to say it was two days later when they finally let us in because there were still

some stuff burning here and there. and we got back to the house and then, you know, checked on it and we saw the property and completely just leveled. stephanie: in just over a week, wildfires have burned more than 1.3 million acres in the texas panhandle. the smokehouse creek fire -- the largest -- only 37% contained as of this morning. the cause of the fire remains under investigation. but a new lawsuit, filed by a texan who lost her home in the smokehouse fire, alleges a splintered power pole, operated by xcel energy started the blaze. laurie brown is publisher and editor of the canadian record. laurie: we know what caused the pole to drop and all of that is going to be argued about i'm sure, for months, if not years. stephanie: brown has lived in canadian most of her life, a city of roughly 2300 people near the oklahoma state line. laurie: i've never seen anything like this. and we've had wildfires before and pretty devastating ones. but the extent of the damage here is profound, it looks apocalyptic to me. john: we were some of the ones that did not get evacuated out of town. we ended up sitting in the courthouse parking lot and

pretty much watched the world burn down. stephanie: john julian owns a water well business in canadian that services local ranchers and farmers. john: they're reporting over 80 to 100 homes lost in the immediate canadian and surrounding area. the loss of cattle and horses is in the thousands and thousands. you know, it's devastating. something i've never seen in my life. stephanie: with over 85% of texas' cattle population located in the panhandle, the blazes are wreaking havoc on the region's agricultural economy. officials estimate more than 3,600 animals have died to date. chance: we have about a little over a thousand cows here. as you can see behind us, we're picking up deads today. stephanie: in skellytown, texas, ranch operator chance bowers says it will take weeks to know how much he's lost -- chance: this pasture we're standing in, there was, there

was 96 cows in it and there are six left. stephanie: as residents try to cope, volunteers from across texas are trying to see to it that no one goes it alone in the lone star state. rand: our command center is it's a mobile trailer, that has its own wi-fi and on electricity and everything. stephanie: rand jenkins is with texans on mission, a dallas-based christian ministry that specializes in disaster relief. they have dozens of volunteers on the ground. rand: we are with homeowners the last time they will see their house. we sit down next to them and we scoop a bucket of ash, pour it over a screen and just sift through, hoping to find important, memorable items and just sit with them and listen to their story and be a sponge for the pain that they're going

through. stephanie: the grisham family's story is unfolding a day at a time. angela: we're just trying to take it moment by moment. we're trying not to rush the process. just to keep our anxiety levels down and just trying to save up some money so we can be ready when our property's clear of debris and when we can rebuild and maybe get a loan for a new place. stephanie: as crews assault the fire from the air with water and fire retardants, there's hope in coming days, with rain expected in the panhandle later this week. for the pbs newshour, i'm stephanie sy. ♪ amna: today the united nations security council discussed of the 11 month old brutal conflict in sudan, the third largest country in africa. it's killed 14,000 people and displaced 8 million so far. the world food program now says

what began as a power struggle could become the world's largest hunger crisis. in a moment, nick schifrin speaks with the executive director director of the world food program, but first, we hear from the sudanese who are victims of war crimes, catastrophe, and hunger. a caution -- some of the images in this story are disturbing. nick: with every step they take they moved further from home. sudan refugees crowd a united nations boat. too young to walk, old enough to bear the burden of war. everyday hundreds cross into south sudan. children without enough food precariously close to starvation. this 27-year-old takes what she can, u.n. packets of energy for her husband and children who fled the sudanese capital. >> we came by bus and it took us two days to reach here. what we need is food. the immediate support we need is to eat to be able to survive. nick: what they've survived is

civil war that turned residential blocks into battlegrounds. it's a power struggle between the sudanese armed forces, or saf, which the u.s. has accused of war crimes and has bombed residential villages, and on the other, the rsf, accused by the u.s. of crimes against humanity. they kill young men they believe to be supporters of sudan's army. >> you see your loved ones dying in front of your eyes. then people come to rape you. i don't understand what is going on, what is the reason for this? nick: this woman is a sudanese civil rights activist we met in washington. she says the brutality of war on both sides has created a dystopian land of militia warfare and gender-based violence. >> when it happens for this area, the next area people start

feeling it already because they know next it will be them. many cases of killings while running away. many women raped on the way. horrible stories. the women are telling us they are completely traumatized. nick: when the rss caught sudan's second largest city last august, they burned down the city and for structure including the national bank. hundreds of thousands fled their homes, including this dr. from the international humanitarian group care. >> i was so scared, uncertain what would happen to my family and my kids. the airstrikes, the shelling. nick: it was the second time he been forced to take his six children and find a new home. >> i saw thousands of people scared for their lives, using whatever is available to move them out. women were scared they would be attacked and looted.

thousands of people in panic. nick: the war has stolen the smile from his six-year-old daughter. >> what i saw in her drawings, men with machine guns. this was shocking to me. i think it will be hard for my daughter and other kids to forget what happened. nick: the war has crushed already fragile structure and pushed the area into hunger and catastrophe. 25 million is hungry without work. >> you have a huge economic crisis, incredibly difficult to make a leaving at -- a living at the moment in sudan. public services are down. nick: this is the head of

doctors without borders in sudan. >> food used to be produced, and next problem we face is crops doing extremely bad the last year. all the specialist warned that famine is looming for 2024 in sudan. nick: joining me is cindy mccain, executive director of the world food bank. let's talk about south sudan, where you visited, in a minute. i want to ask the overall question first, what is the state of the humanitarian catastrophe the war in sudan has created? cindy: the place i am at today and the surrounding refugee camps have the possibility of

becoming the world's largest hunger crisis soon. people who were there and people returning, suffering unbelievable difficulties. most of all they've had no food. as you know, we had to cut rations. we are this close to famine. children are dying of malnutrition every day. nick: you had to cut rations because you haven't received from the international community the funds you've been asking for. the location you visited today is where 85% of those fleeing sudan across the border. what are the stories you hear from these people? cindy: i sat next to a grandmother who had her grandson on her lap and she lost her entire family. the story she told and the angst -- she is in a terrible situation, as were all of the other women in the room i was talking to. i'm here today to make sure we remind the world this crisis is happening, it is real and we need help.

we cannot forget about sudan. nick: one in five children at the transit center you visited today are malnourished. are they getting what they need? cindy: when they get to the transit center, yes, we can help the seriously malnourished and the infants in pregnant mothers, it is not enough. we can't do it long term. with infants we try to take care of them longer. i can't do it unless the world community pays attention to what is going on in the region. nick: the state department called out both sides of the conflict for the destruction of humanitarian assistance the state department says the sudanese armed forces have been prohibiting cross-border assistance and the rapid support forces are looting homes, markets and humanitarian warehouses. how big of a challenge does that make your job? cindy: it is huge. on the rare occasion we can get a full convoy across, sometimes things are looted, sometimes not, sometimes people are injured and sometimes they are not.

we need keys, access and funding, period. that's what we need. we need it soon. nick: what would it take for you to be able to do the work you need to do? cindy: to give you some idea, we are $300 million short this year. to do the kind of job we need to be doing and make sure not only we are feeding but also caring for the longer term feeding problems with malnutrition, especially children and pregnant mothers, this year the money has not just come. it's every organization i know of, facing the same funding crunch. with that said, there is responsibility to the region and these people. without our help in the world's help and consideration, they will die. nick: this isn't only about sudan. what is the regional risk if the conflict continues the way it has? cindy: the way i described it and i will speak directly to the united states, but we describe it as a national security issue. the lack of food, the lack of

ability to farm, people migrate into other areas and the bad guys are waiting to do just that, they will give them food, they will take their children or families will wind up selling their children for one reason or another just so they can get food. that's what we are up against. nick: cindy mccain, thank you very much. cindy: thank you. ♪ geoff: in all of last year, there were a total of 58

reported cases of measles in this country. but just three months into this year, there have already been 41 cases across 16 states. the outbreak of this highly contagious virus is concerning public health departments. william brangham delves deeper into why it's occurring. william: geoff, thanks to widespread vaccination, measles was declared eliminated back in 2000 in the u.s., so seeing these outbreaks in different states, while they are still small in number of cases, has been disturbing to many. dr. paul offit is a pediatrician at the children's hospital of philadelphia who specializes in virology and immunology. his new book, about where we are in our struggle against covid, is called "tell me when it's over." welcome back. i want to put up this graph that shows the rising number of cases of measles the last few months. it starts on the left in 23 and goes to the present. what is your understanding of what is driving this uptick? dr. offit: a critical percentage

of parents are choosing not to vex and i -- vaccinate their children. the rate of immunization among kindergartners is starting to drop and it's not surprising this is the disease you see because this is the most contagious of the vaccine for vegetable diseases. william: the cdc just said that 92% of american kids who received the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, that's a few notches below 95% that gets us to herd immunity. that is enough to make a different? dr. offit: absolutely. to put this in perspective, there is something called the contagiousness index, how many people would you infect assuming you are infected and everybody is susceptible for diseases like covid and influenza --

susceptible. produces like covid and influenza it's three, measles is 18. william: i don't want to date you, but i know you had measles as a child before the vaccine. for people who don't remember, in your mind is how serious of a virus or what talk about? dr. offit: before there was a measles vaccine in 1963, every year in the country there would be three to four cases of measles and 3000 to 4000 people hospitalized and 500 people died, mostly children. they died from severe dehydration, severe pneumonia, or inflammation of the brain. it is a terrible disease and i think what we are suffering right now is not just because we are seeing measles in the manner of before, we don't remember measles. we don't room or how sick the virus can make you. william: one of the things we've also seen is a somewhat confusing and conflicting official guidance. in floor there was an outbreak at a school and the state surgeon general sent a letter to families that seemed to

contradict all of the official guidance. he didn't recommend parents get vaccinated, he didn't recommend unvaccinated children who had been exposed quarantined themselves. how are people supposed to know what to do if they are getting this mixed messaging? dr. offit: the messaging they were getting in florida was erroneous. the two weapons, one is isolation of people infected, they need to isolate for 21 days, and the other is vaccination, and giving a very soft sell for those, he has the potential to do a lot of harm. william: we are talking about this in terms of a larger decline in public faith in public health. this is something you deal with in you knew -- your new book and you talk about missteps that were taken during the covid pandemic.

how do we repair this breach so that when the next outbreak comes, people know where to get good, smart information? dr. offit: i think by mandating covid vaccines, we inadvertently leaned into this libertarian left hook. now you have hundreds of pieces of legislation pushing back against vaccine mandates and masking mandates because it was seen as an issue of bodily autonomy. but it's not a personal choice when you talk about measles because it is a contagious disease. when you make a decision for yourself, you also make a decision for others. there's about 9 million people in the country who cannot be vaccinated because they are getting chemotherapy, or they have had a transplant. they depend on those around them to be protected. do we have any responsibility to

our neighbor? i think we do. william: that was argument made during covid and we are making it again during measles and we are still seeing this pushback both legislatively and personally. this will be an and norma's challenge for the country moving forward. -- an enormous challenge for the country moving forward. dr. offit: yes good and some textures the word vaccine has become -- yes. in some sectors of the word vaccine has become a dirty word. children don't need to suffer, it's the most vulnerable who suffer. william: the new book is called "tell me when it is over." thank you very much. dr. offit: thank you. ♪ amna: it's a story mirroring today's headlines, a country dissolving into political chaos, descending into violence, and one woman watching her family fall apart.

jeffrey brown talks to booker prize-winning novelist paul lynch for our arts and culture series, canvas. jeffrey: a city full of life -- dublin, ireland, for example. its citizens enjoying the benefits of an open and vibrant democracy. until, as democratic norms are stripped away, they don't. the novel aprophet songa captures the impact on one woman, eilish stack, who wakes up to see that now she is living in another country. the author is irish writer paul lynch. paul: we're in an ireland that it seems to be the known ireland, the ireland that i would know, that i live in dublin city. but at the same time it, it's an unknown world. ireland has elected a populist government and things are beginning to slide. and there's a tipping point and nobody sees it. jeffrey: lynch's novel won the booker prize, one of the world's most prestigious literary

awards. i have to assume a booker prize is kind of life changing? paul: well, there an adjustment required. i mean so few are selected. and you don't ever believe that you're going to be one of the few, you know? jeffrey: lynch, 46, and author of four previous novels, met us recently at swift hiberian lounge, one of new york's classic pubs. this is a big story, a big moment in the history of a country. but you tell it through this one family and in particular this one woman. paul: i'm interested in this idea of the personal cost of events. and i think that if you go back through literature, you go to a great book like the iliad. it foregrounds the politics, it foregrounds the heroics and the great characters. but if you take the iliad and you turn it inside out, you arrive at eilish stack. you arrive at the individual

living the ordinary life, and how the individual is caught up within the cogs, the machinations of this enormous thing that's unfolding. i'm really interested in that. jeffrey: you don't tell us much about the specific events. there is an emergency that's happened but we don't know exactly what's happened. there's a new party that's taken control, but we don't even really know much about their ideology or who they are. paul: if i had identified the politics, then the book would become about the politics. and so it would appear that i'm then messaging, i'm then trying to identify a political politics and trying to say something about that. and this book's not doing that. jeffrey: so this is not a political novel, or we shouldn't read it that way? paul: i think that it has a political dimension that, that's inescapably true. but i think that the complexity

of the novel points the reader to more things. i'm really interested in the problem of grief, not grievance. i'm interested in the idea of what is lost. how fragile this work that we're -- this world is that we are in. jeffrey: also, he says, in how loss is always happening somewhere, whether we choose to pay attention or not. he had syria in mind when he began writing. then ukraine happened. now israel and gaza. the rightward shift in western europe and this country. the violence that suddenly flares, including the shocking riot by extremists in dublin in november. paul: people have always said the far right doesn't exist in ireland. i say, the energy is always there, it's a matter of it being directed. and so this kind of, this sense of unraveling is, is, what we've watched it and are watching it on, on a massive scale on the news. but you can feel it that maybe, maybe this thing that we take for granted, this, this idea of the civilized world, it's a thin veneer. it is so fragile and easily lost. jeffrey: as his character, eilish, comes to realize, athe end of the world is always a local event.a paul: she understands, finally, that this idea of armageddon, this biblical idea of the end of

the world being this global catastrophe, this sudden thing -- that it's nonsense. that actually the end of the world is always happening, it's happening again and again and again. it just comes to your city, it comes to your town, and it knocks on your door. jeffrey: a knock on the door, in fact, by the newly formed secret police, is how the novel begins. paul: athe night has come and she has not heard the knocking, standing at the window looking out onto the garden. how the dark gathers without sound the cherry trees. it gathers the last of the leaves and the leaves do not resist the dark but accept the dark in whisper.a jeffrey: and note the writing itself, the density of the pages, the lack of paragraph breaks or quotation marks. words and images piling up. paul: when you sit down to write a novel, every choice you make, everything that goes into the mesh, the form of the novel, must be justified because it must speak back to the meaning of the tale. jeffrey: even how it looks -- paul: the look and feel and that, it's communicating meaning

back to the reader. because we are in something that's very claustrophobic. and elish, elish is imprisoned within this. jeffrey: but you want us as readers -- paul: i want you to feel that, too. jeffrey: you have written about the role of the novel today and i guess a concern about whether it can still be valued, even important. have a place in our society. paul: it goes back to what i call the whisper in the ear. i mean, the novelist can whisper in the reader's ear, and that's a beautiful conversation. there's also a whisper in the ear that you have with yourself. but we live in a time where technology has done something to us. we're no longer, for many of us anyway, unless you cultivate it and shape it, we are not in tune with ourselves, we're not

hearing the voice in the ear, and it's harder to read fiction, too. and i think that a culture that cannot hear itself think is a culture that is in serious trouble. jeffrey: but that means for a novelist, a novelist could throw in, you could say i'm not going to write these anymore. or you could say i'm going to write even more. paul: i'm going to write it even more. i'm going to push deeper and harder in. i like that idea of fiction just being a little bit more dangerous, a little bit more engaging, pushing into the, you know, seeking this hidden charge of things. and giving the reader maybe a little bit more electricity. but doing it respectfully. jeffrey: the book is aprophet songa. paul lynch, congratulations. thanks for talking to us. paul: my pleasure. thank you, jeff. ♪ geoff: we'll be back shortly. but first, take a moment to hear from your local pbs station. amna: it's a chance to offer your support which helps to keep

, programs like this one on the air. ♪ geoff: in the 1980's, roughly 75% of doctors in the u.s. worked for themselves, owning small clinics. today, that same percentage of physicians are employees of hospital systems or large corporate groups. some physicians who worry that trend is taking a heavy personal toll and leading to diminished quality of care are deciding to unionize. fred de sam lazaro has more in this encore report. fred: hours before sunrise, kate martin shepherds her daughter to the ice rink. martin uses the time to seek her own worklife balance. >> currently i have 86 things in my in basket. fred: for this woman, the best time to catch up on backlog work is when her children are in bed. >> whether or not they couple or come down or the baby needs a bottle. fred: for many primary care clinicians, work stretches beyond regular hours. messages from specialists and for some, reaching a breaking

point. on this recent morning, martin and her colleagues all employed health system, gathered in an unfamiliar setting, the minneapolis offices of the national labor relations board. here to witness the ballot count in a historic vote to form a union. >> we can't rely on corporations or health care executives to do the right things for our patients. fred: a leading organizer of the drive says primary care providers have borne the brunt of a relentless drive to squeeze profits by increasingly large corporate owners at the expense of patient care. his employer is a $5 billion a year health system with 60 primary and urgent care clinics across the twin cities area and nearby wisconsin communities. often -- hoffman says the problems are hardly unique. >> you can go to any city and find a system like this. we have so much paperwork, so much administrative work really

is not about delivering care to patients the victims about that are the patients we see. it's waiting on hold, not getting to see your normal doctor, having to see someone who doesn't know about you. fred: this pediatrician had enough and took an early retirement to strike out on her own. with a colic, she was just settling into a small clinic above a st. paul stripmall targeted at adolescent patients. >> i can spend the amount of time i needed fred: she began her career in a provider-owned group, which was later bought by allina. with the merger came centralized scheduling and standardization in everything from how much time is spent with each patient, even

the hand sanitizers, she says. >> they were putting them all at waist level. i went out to the fellow doing it and said this is the pediatrics department, how about if we put them up a little bit higher? i could see kids enjoying these. he said no, i've been told they have to be at this level. a week later of course they had to come and move them all. fred: dr. hoffman was among those who protested an even graver policy they took to the , one new york times. allina instructed staff to stop providing care to patients with more than $4500 in overdue bills, going beyond the more common practice of turning such debts over to collection

agencies. did you have personal experiences with patients that you could no longer see? >> absolutely. these are the patients that need the care the most. people that campaign their bills a lot of them are children. fred: allina announced it has since discontinued the policy. the company declined to be interviewed for this story but in a statement said, "while we are disappointed in the decision by some of our providers to be represented by a union, we remain committed to our ongoing work to create a culture where all employees feel supported and valued." when all ballots were tallied the voted two to one in favor of 500 plus providers voted two to one in favor of the union. what do you expect if you get to the bargaining table? >> we need more staff, we need better paid staff to help support us so that we can spend our time in the exam room with patients. we need help with our paperwork , with the administrative tasks so that we can focus on patient care. that's really what we're looking for. >> things have to be pretty bad, i would argue, when physicians

do try to organize because this has never remotely been a part of their professional culture. fred: and, paul clark, a professor of labor and employment relations at penn state, says the doctors' vote is hardly the final chapter. your guess is that we won't see a contract between allina and this group of doctors who just unionized anytime soon? >> if there was, it would be highly unusual. they have sent a signal they will fight this. they've hired one of the top anti-union law firms in the country and paid them a tremendous amount of money. fred: the same law firm has represented starbucks, he notes, where employees at more than 300 outlets have voted to unionize over the past two years. not one has reached a contract. >> the strategy is delay, delay, delay. if you can delay signing a contract for a year, then there's a provision of the law that allows the workers to basically reverse their vote. it's called decertification.

so workers expect a contract that's going to improve things, the hospital delays, a year goes by, the employees there are saying, well, we're not getting what we thought we would get. we're paying dues. and we went to all this trouble. and it's not producing anything, -- anything. fred: on the other hand, he says, physicians have more leverage and less job turnover than baristas. and the vote comes as a recent gallup poll showed a majority of americans, 71%, approve of unions, the highest level since 1965. whether these doctors get a contract and how far, if at all, the allina model spreads, clark says, may become clearer in a couple of years. for the pbs newshour, i'm fred de sam lazaro in minneapolis. amna: tomorrow evening,

president biden will lay out his priorities to congress, the american people and the world during his state of the union address. you can join us right here for live coverage. >> president biden's first term is coming to a close, with issues persisting at home. and abroad. >> history shows us if we allow an aggressor to take land with impunity, they keep going. >> can the president instill a sense of unity among a divided nation? the state of the union address and republican response at 9:00 p.m. eastern on pbs. amna: join us tomorrow night for special coverage online, during the newshour, and live, during the president's address. geoff: that's the newshour for tonight. 'geoff bennett. amna: i'm amna nawaz. on behalf of the entire newshour team, thank you for joining us. >> major funding for "the pbs newshour" has been provided by --

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(man) this program is made possible in part by contributions to your pbs stations from viewers like you. thank you. can you all live the ultimate retirement? you can. (man) from the new world center in miami beach, acclaimed personal finance expert suze orman