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. xfinity internet. made for streaming. ♪ geoff: good evening. i'm geoff bennett. amna nawaz is away. on the "newshour" tonight, rudy giuliani is one of a dozen trump allies charged in arizona for their involvement in a fake electors scheme. the defense rests its case after donald trump chooses not to testify in his criminal hush

money trial. and, late night talk show host bill maher reflects on his decades of comedy and commentary and today's political climate. >> we have to learn to live with, sit with, mingle with people who don't think like you. they're not raised like you. they weren't from a part of the country that you're from. and that's okay. ♪ >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by -- ♪ the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions and friends of the newshour including kathy and paul anderson and camilla and george smith. >> cunard is a proud supporter of public television.

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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. the legal fallout for alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election continued in arizona today. rudy giuliani and 11 other allies of former president donald trump pleaded not guilty to charges that include conspiracy, fraud, and forgery. it's connected to the plot to install fake electors to back trump despite president biden winning the state in the 2020 election. following all of this closely is ned foley. he's an election law expert at the ohio state university. thanks so much for being with us. ned: good to be with you. geoff: it is worth noting that arizona prosecutors spent weeks trying to find rudy giuliani. they ultimately located him

based on some of his podcasts and he was served a summons while leaving his 80th birthday party in palm beach, florida. other defendants include former arizona republican party chair kelli ward, former white house chief of staff mark meadows, former trump attorney jenna ellis. remind us of how this worked and what they were trying to accomplish. >> the good news is that it did not work. it was trying to undo the election based on claims that had no factual credibility whatsoever. as many people may remember, there was a lot of litigation over the 2020 presidential election after the networks all declared that biden had won and trump went to court with giuliani as his lawyer and his -- these other defendants were part of that conspiracy really to try to subvert the outcome. and for a while, they used an ordinary legal process to do it even though

they did not have any legitimate claims. the courts rejected that. and then they went beyond normal legal means to concoct this scheme of alternative electors. geoff: arizona is one of seven states trump lost where his allies tried to put forward this slate of fake electors. what stands out about this arizona case? >> the arizona prosecution, a little bit like georgia, is not just focused on the fake electors. that is part of it but it is an allegation of a broad conspiracy which is similar to the federal case that the special prosecutor has brought against trump and i think arizona was wise to do that because part of the -- the heart of the criminality here is this plan that was concocted not really in arizona by itself, but within the trump campaign and some of their advisors. it was a multistate effort in -- and arizona was one of them and i

think arizona is right to identify the broader conspiracy at the heart of the problem. geoff: donald trump is not among those charged in arizona. the details in the indictment suggest he is unindicted co-conspirator number one. what does that suggest about his role in this arizona case in particular? >> that is exactly right. i assume, you know, the prosecutor has not said why he was not indicted along with giuliani and the others. i suspect it was because of the complicated issues involving presidential immunity that have taken up time in the federal case so leaving him out of the indictment makes it easier because none of those other defendants can claim presidential immunity. geoff: was 2020 a dry run to overturn the 2024 -- for the gop effort to overturn the 2024 election should donald trump lose? do election deniers now have a blueprint for the future? ned: i hope not. actually the good news is that

we have a new law in place that should make it very difficult to use the legal system the way giuliani and trump and others tried to do last time. the new law is called the electoral count reform act and the reform was done in congress as a bipartisan effort led by senators manchin and collins and it tightens up the rules for submitting electoral votes to congress. the problem on january 6, 2020 -- 2021 that was so tragic, is that trump and his team tried to exploit the old law that was from the 19th century. they did it incorrectly and without any basis but at least now, we have a better law that should prevent something similar. geoff: net foley, thank you so much for joining us. we appreciate it. from arizona now to new york, where donald trump's defense team rested its case today in the trial brought against the former president by the manhattan district attorney's office. donald trump did not testify.

next week, lawyers from both sides will make their closing statements to the jury, and then deliberations will begin. as william brangham explains, while this case is often referred to as the "hush money" trial, the charges against the former president are more complicated. william? william: donald trump is not being charged with making the 2016 hush-money payment to silence adult film star stormy daniels. his former lawyer, michael cohen, covered that $130,000, and did so, cohen testified, to protect trump's chances of winning the presidency. trump is charged with how he re-paid michael cohen. prosecutors allege trump was responsible for falsifying 34 different business records to hide the true nature of that repayment, calling them legal fees instead, and that trump did so intending to commit or conceal another crime, a violation of state election law. to help wade through these legal

weeds, we're joined again by jessica roth. she's a former prosecutor but now teaches law at cardozo school of law. jessica, so nice to see you again. thank you for being here. i want to talk through the different things that the prosecutors have to prove in this case. so during trial, as i mentioned, the prosecutor showed 34 allegedly false invoices, ledgers, checks, and check stubs all relating to payments made to michael cohen. while they were labeled legal fees, prosecutors say these were really a way to masquerade the true repayment to michael cohen. first off, what do prosecutors have to prove as far as donald trump's involvement in how those records were created? jessica: these records are the heart of the charges. as you mentioned, it is 34 counts of falsification of business records with the intent to conceal another crime so to convict donald trump of each of those charges, the prosecutors have to prove beyond a

reasonable doubt that trump was involved in the scheme to falsify these records. they don't have to show that he personally created or maintained or falsified the particulars in these records. his signature does appear on some of the checks, but his signature does not appear on all of them and it doesn't have to be there. what they have to show is he caused others to maintain these false records or assisted others in maintaining them or requested others to maintain or create and maintain false records so that he is part of the scheme even if it was not that they were falsified by his own hand and further that he participated in this scheme, causing others or requesting others to falsify the records or maintain false records with the intent to conceal another crime. william: when michael cohen testified that he and the trump organization top financial officer went into a meeting with donald trump and said here is the scheme. here is how we are going to make

these repayments to michael cohen. it will be to pay the stormy daniels thing back. that might be enough to meet this standard that he then helped set in motion the falsification. jessica: yes, because the prosecution's theory is that michael cohen and allen weisselberg went in to inform trump of the plan to get his sign off on the plan to conceal the payment to michael cohen through the disguise that they were for legal fees as opposed to reimbursement for the payment to stormy daniels and because donald trump signed off on the creation of these records to hide the payment, he caused the records, the false records, to be created and maintained in the files of the trump organization. that is the prosecution's theory of the case. william: the defense washed -- the defense theory of the case is that these were legal fees, and that they were plain and simple, nothing to justify here. they also argue you can't believe anything michael cohen says because he is a liar.

that is separate. if they were to address this particular issue of trump's complicity or not in the falsification, what is their best line of attack? jessica: the best line of attack is to say that there is not sufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that trump was in fact involved in the scheme to falsify the records. there is ample evidence that michael cohen and allen weisselberg concocted this scheme and participated in it. you hear that not only from michael cohen but that is corroborated by the records, and allen weisselberg's handwriting showing exactly how the numbers were worked out so michael cohen would be reimbursed for precisely this amount but allen weisselberg has not testify so in effect, there are really only three people according to the prosecution's theory of the case who have direct knowledge of trump's participation in the falsification of the records scheme and michael cohen is the only one of those three who has testified. his testimony is corroborated circumstantially by other

evidence. for example, by phone records that show that he was in communication with trump around the same time that he said he was or on the dates he said he was about this scheme. there was testimony from trump white house assistant who said cohen came to the white house and had discussions with trump around the same time he says they were talking about this scheme and then there was testimony from employees at the trump organization who said trump was very involved in the nitty-gritty of payments and records at the trump organization which would suggest that generally, it was his pattern to be kept apprised of payments and what they were for. so all of that tends to corroborate what michael cohen is saying substantively about this matter even though there is no other witness with direct knowledge of it. william: these falsification charges are normally misdemeanors but the manhattan d.a. charged these as felonies and they are arguing that if you commit these falsification's in service of or trying to conceal another crime, then they become

a felony. what do prosecutors have to prove in that regard? jessica: this is a really interesting part of the case and i think there is a lot of discussion today at the conference with the jury instructions about exactly what the judge is going to tell the jury about this but in essence, the prosecutors are now arguing primarily that that other crime was a new york state law that makes it a crime to promote a candidate selection through as candidates election through unlawful means. but that of course incorporates by reference other provisions of law because the government has to establish what are those other unlawful means, that there was a conspiracy used to promote the candidate puffs -- the candidate election? so the government has to specify, well, what are the laws that they can say were violated and that were concealed, essentially, through the falsification scheme? and they appear to be leaning primarily on violations of federal election law that placed limits on the amount that an

individual can contribute to a candidate and the theory here is that michael cohen, by fronting the money to stormy daniels, made an unlawful campaign contribution to trump that also was not disclosed. one of the questions that remains to be resolved is whether it has to be a criminal violation of the federal election law to essentially count for purposes of the new york state statute or whether a civil violation of the federal election law, which is less demanding, also would count. >> so grateful that we have you to help us wade through all of this. jessica, thank you so much. always good to see you. jessica: good to see you. ♪ vanessa: i'm vanessa ruiz with newshour west. here are the latest headlines. a five-day mourning period has started in iran for late president ebrahim raisi and other victims of sunday's helicopter crash. early today, thousands of

mourners crowded around a truck carrying the caskets through tabriz, the closest major city to the crash site. later, the bodies were flown to tehran, where they were met by an honor guard. iranian officials have not provided any cause of the crash, which took place amid dense fog above a mountain range. france, belgium, and slovenia have backed the international criminal court's decision to seek arrest warrants for leaders of israel and hamas for the war in gaza. the court accused israel's prime minister benjamin netanyahu, his defense minister, and three hamas leaders of war crimes and crimes against humanity. secretary of state antony blinken told a senate committee today, the icc's decision was "extremely wrong-headed," but emphasized the u.s. still has concerns about israel's military operations. >> when your close friend is going down a path that you think may be counter to its interests

and potentially our own as well then, of course, we have conversations with them. that's what we're supposed to do. that's the nature of the relationship. vanessa: meantime, israel has ordered that camera equipment be returned to the associated press, after officials moved to block the company's live feed of gaza earlier tuesday. israel had accused the a.p. of violating a new media law by providing video to al jazeera. police broke up a pro-palestinian encampment at the university of michigan today, citing a threat to public safety. before sunrise, protesters on the ann arbor campus came face-to-face with rows of officers dressed in protective riot gear. police cleared about 50 people from the site, and arrested four. tensions had escalated in recent days, after demonstrators placed fake body bags on a school official's lawn. the justice department is suing oklahoma over a law that would make it a crime to live in the

state as an undocumented immigrant. those convicted under the law, set to take effect july 1, could face up to two years in prison. a top doj official said in a statement that oklahoma must adhere to the constitution and congress's framework for regulation of immigration. similar laws in texas and iowa are also facing legal challenges. more than a dozen companies at the forefront of artificial intelligence made renewed pledges today to develop the technology safely. at a virtual summit hosted by south korea, companies like microsoft, x, samsung, and open ai promised public transparency and accountability in their ai innovations. they even offered to shut down their systems if they can't control risks created by the technology. south korea's president welcomed their shared commitment to universal guardrails. >> we must ensure the safety of ai to minimise its potential

negative impacts and protect the well-being and democracy of our society. in this regard, i welcome efforts by leading countries such as the uk and the u.s. to establish ai safety institutes. vanessa: former president trump has taken down a video posted to his social media account that included a reference to a, quote, "unified reich." the term is often associated with nazi germany's third reich. in the 30-second video, the phrase flashes during a montage of hypothetical pro-trump headlines. his campaign said it was not an official campaign video, and blamed a staffer for re-posting it. president biden's campaign called out the incident, writing on social media that "donald trump posting a 'unified reich' video is part of a pattern of his praise for dictators and echoing antisemitic tropes." biden called trump a threat to our democracy, and pleaded for americans to reject him in the upcoming election.

also, the biden administration announced a new effort today to lower gas prices in time for the summer driving season. the energy department is releasing one million barrels of gasoline from a reserve in the northeast. the average price for a gallon of gas nationwide is about $3.60, up six cents from last year. a federal judge dismissed the felony convictions of five u.s. military officers who admitted in court to taking bribes in one of the navy's biggest corruption cases on record. a malaysian contractor known as "fat leonard" previously pleaded guilty to bribing commanders to redirect ships into ports he controlled. today's dismissals comes at the request of the u.s. government, citing prosecution errors. and, elvis presley's granddaugther is fighting an attempt to sell the singer's famous graceland estate. a public auction had been scheduled for thursday, but a judge blocked it after riley keough, presley's granddaughter,

filed a lawsuit to stop the sale. at issue is a lending company's claim that a loan using the presley home as collateral went unpaid. elvis presley enterprises inc., which operates graceland, said the claim is fraudlent. still to come on the "newshour", severe turbulence on a singapore airlines flight from london results in a death and dozens of injuries. taiwan's new president takes office, and calls on china to stop threatening the island. a retiree who lost his home to rising sea waters and storms sues the british government for failing to protect him from climate change. ♪ >> 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: one person is dead, and roughly 70 others injured, after a

singapore airlines flight headed from london to singapore hit severe turbulence yesterday. the boeing flight with 211 passengers and 18 crew on board descended 6000 feet in the span of three minutes over the indian ocean, forcing the plane to make an emergency landing in bangkok, where rescue crews were on the tarmac ready to assist the injured. in a statement today, singapore airlines offered condolences for the deceased, and said, "we deeply apologize for the traumatic experience that our passengers and crew members suffered on this flight." our aviation correspondent miles o'brien joins me now. pilots in air traffic control can often detect and avoid turbulence. what seems to have happened here? miles: in some cases, they can. exactly. if you see some storm systems ahead, towering cumulus clouds which generate thunderstorms and perhaps worse, prudent pilots and air traffic control will change the course of the

aircraft to thread their way around it. it is still unsettled air, however, and so there can be a lot of turbulence in a region, particularly if you are trying to thread your way through those big buildups. but there is another category of turbulence which could be at play here which is called clear air turbulence which really does come quite literally out of the blue and this can occur when you have rivers of air. the jet stream is kind of like a river of air except that it is wind at sometimes hundreds of miles per hour. oftentimes, when the atmosphere is unsettled, as it is more frequently in the world of climate change, you can get sudden changes in the direction of those rivers of air and that is what we call windshear. that changes the lift on the wing dramatically and quickly and that is why you get that sudden upset. that is an almost impossible thing to detect. there is no sensor on the aircraft or ability for weather forecasters or air traffic control to see that.

geoff: it would appear that the fasten seatbelt sign is more important than many travelers would realize. miles: indeed. it's funny. i think we take for granted that we are in a metal tube that is pressurized five or six miles above the surface of the earth, traveling within 10% of the speed of sound. we are not in our living rooms and when you are watching that movie on the airplane, it is prudent to say the least to stay buckled because these things can and do happen and people should respect what they are doing or at least for a moment consider the fact that there is a certain amount of risk when you are doing this. geoff: indeed. what actually causes severe turbulence? you mentioned climate change. has climate change made it worse? miles: because of the way the temperatures are changing on our planet in different ways and at different paces depending on altitude and latitude, it's upsetting these streams of

air, these jet streams, in a way that is creating more windshear events. researchers at the university of reading looked at transatlantic flights and found a 55% uptick over the last 10 years in severe turbulence events. that is a significant crease. so that is something that needs to be looked at. perhaps there is a technological way to identify these changes at altitude but right now, we don't have a way of doing that. geoff: how should the airlines change their approaches to severe turbulence? miles: like so many things with the airlines, i think we can agree they could be better at communicating to their passengers and making them understand what is going on. it is important for the pilots, when they turn on that seatbelt sign, to communicate why they did it and explained that we have reports of severe turbulence ahead. so-called pilot reports are what

pilots mostly use to identify rough patches. that is fine if you are following another aircraft, if you are the first aircraft in that is something that could be completely unanticipated. let people know the seriousness of it and perhaps mandate that those belts be buckled when they are in their seats. obviously, on a 12 hour flight, you have to get up and take care of whatever mother nature offers up but when you are seated, at least those seatbelts should be belted and the airlines need to reinforce that. the other thing they can do, which i think i have seen the airlines doing more, you have seen it as well as you travel, is encourage their cabin crew to sit down more when they are headed for a rough patch. 80% of the injuries in these cases, not surprisingly, are among the flight attendants because they are up and about with those huge heavy drink carts and getting them to sit down more often when there is that risk i think is a good idea. passengers need to understand this because they get cranky

because they are not getting their meal or their drink. eric, after all, to keep us safe, not service meals. -- serve us meals. geoff: that is our aviation correspondent, miles o'brien. thanks as always. miles: you are welcome. ♪ geoff: today, lawmakers in taiwan scuffled in parliament one day after the island inaugurated a new president. beijing considers taiwan a breakaway province and accused william lai of advocating for taiwanese independence. he promises status quo. nick schifrin examines the tension and the history between beijing and taipei. nick: in downtown taipei, pomp and circumstance, dancing, and an f-16 flyby to tell beijing, back off.

>> i want to call on china to cease their political and military intimidation against taiwan and ensure the world is free from the fear of war. nick: lai ching-te, known as william lai, is the 8th democratically elected president of taiwan, known formally as the republic of china. his inauguration message, taiwanese democracy is here to stay. >> i hope that china will face the reality of the republic of china's existence, and engage in cooperation with the legal government chosen by taiwan's people. nick: but beijing is in no mood to cooperate, and says the only legal government of taiwan, is the communist people's republic of china. >> taiwan independence is a dead end. condoning support for taiwan independence is doomed to failure, and no external forces can stop the historical momentum of china's unification.

nick: has the people's republic of china ever controlled taiwan? >> absolutely not. it has never controlled taiwan. nick: sulmaan khan is an international history and chinese foreign relations professor at tufts university, and the author of "struggle for taiwan: a history of america, china, and the island caught between." in the pre-modern era, taiwan was an independent way-station for maritime travelers. >> let's say you were a pirate or a fisherman or a trader, and you were sailing from southeast asia to east asia. you'd probably stop off at taiwan. nick: in the 1600's, the qing empire conquered the island, in 1895, it's ceded to japan, until world war ii. >> now the communist leader mao zedong is winning one victory after another. nick: in the chinese civil war in the 1940s, mao zedong and his communists defeated nationalist soldiers led by chiang kai-shek. >> escaping by sea from communist china, some remnants of chaing kai shek's nationalist army. nick: in 1949, nationalist

troops fled from the mainland, to the island then known as formosa. >> at government house, generalissimo chiang kai-shek nick: chiang became taiwan's dictator and had his own dream, recapturing the communist mainland. after that, mao would no longer tolerate taiwan's self-determination. >> the goal in the civil war shifts from holding on to mao's little piece of china to the complete extermination of chiang kai shek in a fit of anger, more than anything. and his withdrawal to taiwan means that taiwan has to be a part of china, especially because chiang kai shek is still intent on taking back all of the mainland. there's a religious dimension to this. it's a fanaticism that takes hold in the 1950s, and the quest to liberate taiwan is written into everybody's soul in china, at which point walking away from that plan becomes difficult. nick: he says xi jinping's self-declared dream of chinese reunification is based more on emotion that history. >> if you look at his policies

towards taiwan, they are policies calculated to alienate the people there but they are policies that come from a place of bitter hurt and bitter hurts does not admit a rational negotiation or historical thinking. nick: decades later, today's china has new ammunition to feed the dream. china has increased pressure on taiwan militarily with unprecedented election interference including cyber attacks and disinformation like deepfakes. that's the real lai on the left, manipulated lai on the right. and as beijing has became more aggressive, taiwanese have considered themselves distinct. >> in many ways, china has sharpened the sense of independent identity that was already there in taiwan, but has become more pronounced and more outspoken and more proud of itself than it once was. nick: that pride is now linked to democracy. lai continues the legacy of

fellow democratic progressive party president tsai ing-wen, a quarter century after taiwan's first free and fair presidential election. >> we are a democracy, not a chinese democracy, especially younger people would be quick to point out to you, we're a democracy, period. and that makes us different. as you move through the democratic process and keep building successful power transition upon successful power transition, that sense of pride grows. that sense of we have created something here that's precarious, that's fragile, but that's worth protecting. nick: even if that democracy is messy, as it was today in parliament. lai inherits divided government, but an island increasingly united in not wanting to be part of china. for the pbs newshour, i'm nick schifrin. ♪

geoff: europe's most important court has ruled that protection from climate change is a human right. the judgment will be put to the test in britain by a climate change refugee, who lost his clifftop home to sea erosion. rising sea waters and increasingly violent storms, caused by melting ice and warmer oceans, are a special concern on britain's east coast. special correspondent malcolm brabant reports from the village of hemsby, by the north sea. malcolm: for kevin jordan, this is a painful trip down memory lane. >> it was natural for me to retire to a place like this. i could sit outside on my veranda, gin and tonics in the afternoon, watching the ships go by. malcolm: his dreams were wrecked six months ago by the cruel north sea. >> we had quite an unexpected storm that caught us unawares. actually, my house was demolished because of erosion. i lost everything. there's no compensation for when you lose your house like that. malcolm: these pictures are all that remain. jordan now lives in a social

housing complex, which he finds as depressing as his new status. >> climate change refugee, that's for sure. when you see these poor people trying to seek a better life in another country, it's so similar. my life has been affected very badly. malcolm: this battered coastline belongs to hemsby in the county of norfolk, 140 miles northeast of london. blessed with a long world class sandy beach, it's a magnet for sunseekers when it stops raining. the concrete bathing platform is a benchmark. 50 years ago, it was identifiable as a second world war defensive bunker. now, it's surrendered to the deep. britain's environment agency says that this part of eastern england has one of the fastest eroding coastlines in europe. climate experts predict that within 25 years, a third of all of britain's coastline, that's 1200 miles, will be under threat from rising sea waters. and that would mean that more than half a million homes would be vulnerable.

>> you're getting quite big waves hitting hemsby, where in the past they were probably a little bit smaller. and so you've got this hotspot of erosion. malcolm: professor robert nicolls, who heads the tyndall center for climate change at the university of east anglia, offers little comfort to those on endangered coastlines. >> even if we stabilized climate, this coast would continue to retreat. these problems would become smaller, but they wouldn't go away. so i think you've got to deal with living with erosion regardless of what's happening with climate change. >> i've seen those bungalows oh -- go down in 2013 and 2018. and i'll tell you something. it was heartbreaking to watch. you just have to hope and pray. you know, that it doesn't get any worse. malcolm: carol boyes wants her children to inherit her home, but the widowed former nurse fears it'll be the next cottage to succumb to future monster storms. >> i'm very upset over it because, you know, it could have been stopped. it's very stressful because you

you don't know what's going on down here. you don't know from one day to the next. i do get the impression that nobody's listening to us. yeah, i really do. >> it is a big fight. and the big fight basically is political will. malcolm: simon measures is carol boyes next door neighbour. from here, he runs a web design business as well as the campaign to save hemsby. >> we've spent years and years getting a plan together. so we know what we need. what material we need, where it needs to go. it's all done. malcolm: measures and his fellow activists are exasperated with their elected politicians. >> we don't seem to have any push from the local council and the local councilors in pushing -- aren't pushing our mp, and our mp isn't pushing in parliament, and parliament isn't pushing the environment agency. it's just seems to me that's what's lacking just here. >>'s conservative member of parliament rejects claims of political inertia. lewis insisted he was in touch with the local authority about erosion. 35 miles south is a history

lesson about the north seas voracious appetite. legend has it that during storms, you can hear the bells of churches that lie beneath the waves less than one mile offshore. this is all that remains of medieval dunwich. once a centage -- center of religious patronage. historian sarah peel on dunwich museum's prime exhibit, a model of the lost city. >> that's blackfriars, that's one of our pharaohs. they would have been the benedictine monks. dunwich was once the sixth most important port in england. today, it's a village of about 75 to 100 permanent residents. malcolm: why is dunwich relevant today to the climate crisis? sarah: we're looking at the 1286 storm, where they lost about 30m -- 30 meters in three days. malcolm: that is 100 feet. sarah: we are seeing more of those storms. what were once 50 year storms are now happening once a year, twice a year, and we're looking at seeing 5 or 10 of those every year by 2050, probably.

malcolm: scientists agree that increasingly violent storms are the product of global warming, rising sea levels, caused by melting ice caps, and warmer oceans. kevin jordan accuses the british government of failing to protect him from the effects of climate change. and he's hoping to make legal history by suing the state in a test case. >> my human rights have been challenged because of the fact of the way i was evicted from here. my house was destroyed. no compensation. we are just treated like nothing. malcolm: jordan's lawsuit is due to be heard in london's high court in june. although britain has left the european union, it still is subject to judgements made by the european court of human rights, which may work to jordan's advantage. earlier this year, the european court ruled in favour of swiss women who claimed their government had failed to deliver on its climate change obligations. >> the court holds that under

article eight, states have a duty to adopt and to effectively apply and practice regulations and measures capable of mitigating the existing and potentially irreversible future effects of climate change. malcolm: so could the british authorities be compelled to build defences like these not far from hemsby? the environment agency insists it is trying to find a sustainable solution after spending more than 250 million dollars on flood prevention in the region since 2010. >> it doesn't make sense to think about holding the norfolk coast where it is for the next few hundred years, but i think then the government has to get involved in actually dealing with erosion and actually helping people to live on an eroding coast. malcolm: the hemsby activists fear that ultimately, the government is prepared to sacrifice the local tourist industry with its trailer parks and traditional british seaside attractions.

>> hemsby as a tourist attraction brings in, you know, 88 to 100 million pounds a year. we need 20 million of that to put defenses in for the next 20 years, or 20 years times 90, 100 million. that's 2 billion pounds. and he thinks that makes sense. but we can't get that message across anywhere. malcolm: will that argument prevail? climate change expert robert nicholls has his doubts. >> if we protected the coast, we'd be giving up hospitals, schools there. there are clearly choices that have to be made with the resources that that are available. malcolm: so, the future for simon measures and his neighbours looks bleak as they continue to live on the edge. for the pbs newshour, i'm malcolm brabant in hemsby. ♪ geoff: we now turn to my conversation with comedian and talk show host bill maher. an often controversial figure in the world of politics and

culture, maher is taking stock of his decades of commentary, in this consequential presidential election season. it's part of our arts and culture series, canvas. bill maher's unique blend of comedy and commentary sets him apart in the world of late-night television. over three decades, first with politically incorrect, and now with hbo's real time with bill maher, he's positioned himself as the ultimate truth-teller, who takes equal pleasure in punching at the left. bill: it's not my fault the party of fdr and jfk is turning into the party of lol and wtf. geoff: and the right. bill: when did we start insisting that our presidents be smart? like these --? geoff: while his views have sparked controversy and criticism, maher says he's not afraid to provoke -- bill: i'm going to be late for work.

something you protesters on the bridge seem to have the luxury of not having to worry about. which seems kinda privilege-y. geoff: offend or challenge the status quo. bill: let me go on record and say i'm against breast cancer, but i'm trying to escape for a few hours. can i just watch the game without thinking about cancer? geoff: these commentaries are how he concludes every broadcast of his hbo show, and they're also the basis of his latest book, "what this comedian said will shock you." we spoke at his los angeles tv studio after a recent friday taping about what he discovered after revisiting more than 20 years of editorials for this new compilation. so what did you find when you did that deep dive, what did you find about the ways in which our politics and our culture has changed? bill: well, that's what i was looking for. i wanted to answer the question in my own mind, is it mostly me who's changed, or is it the politics that has changed? because i heard in the last five, six, seven years, people say to me more, you make fun of the left more.

to which i say, yes, i do, because they got funnier. and that's what i wanted to make sure i was right about. and i think mostly that is the case. geoff: in what ways? bill: well, i mean, i guess the general term would be wokeness that we didn't have before. i guess the term was there. and and its original meaning is certainly good. alert to injustice is certainly something everybody should be for, but it migrated to something very different. so there's a host of really bad ideas, i think, that the left has embraced, the far left. i don't think it's the normal democratic voter. but that didn't exist in 2010. i mean, president obama was terrible for comedy, which was great, great for the country, you know, but he didn't do anything crazy. and the democrats basically didn't. i quote him in the introduction, where he says something like "americans don't think we should remake the whole system. they just want to not see crazy

stuff." and i sort of present that as the dilemma that we're facing. the republicans, definitely, who no longer seem to believe in democracy, are the greater threat. but how do you balance that against the crazy doctrine theory? lots of people see, there's a lot of crazy stuff, ideas about race and gender and children and free speech that they just think is crazy. and so, as one guy said to me, what you don't get about trump is we don't like him either, but we will vote for him. geoff: what do you think accounts for the durability of donald trump as a political figure by any objective or rational standard, the challenges facing him, the scandals, the criminal trials, all of that should be disqualifying. and yet he's competitive. bill: competitive? he's winning. geoff: yeah. some polls have him ahead, yeah. bill: most polls do. and in the states that matter. i mean, if i had to bet on this election, well, i wouldn't, but i mean -- i wouldn't. yeah, i wouldn't, because i couldn't bet against him.

certainly as -- it's at least a 50-50 that he's going to beat biden. that's a great question. if only someone would write a book about donald trump. i mean, some of it is just insanity. i truly believe he's insane in the sense that people talk about the malignant narcissism as if it's some sort of quirk. it's more than a quirk. it's a real thing. but as a friend of mine always says, insanity photographs. you can't take your you can't take your eyes off it. there is a certain charisma quality to that. when somebody is just nuts, and he is, he doesn't really ever think about what he's going to say. people give him credit for plotting this -- he doesn't plot. everything is just as it comes out of his mouth. one of the great advantages he has as a political candidate is that no one takes him seriously on policy pronouncements. because he just says anything and always has and always will. so it's like, well, we can't really take it seriously. when he gets into office, he'll probably do the right thing. we like him. he's our kind of guy. that's actually kind of a great

advantage when you are a politician. geoff: why is now the right time for a book like this? bill: well, now because i wrote it now. that's really the answer. geoff: that's the best answer. bill: yeah. i don't know. people have been asking me to write it for a long time. they say for years they've been saying, you know, you should collect these editorials at the end. i think it's a good i think the timing is right, because the theme of it is kind of i'm tired of the hate, you know, there's a lot for both sides to like in this book. i mean, if you just want to read half of it and ignore the half that attacks your side, you can have a great time. i think most people are in the middle. i think i called them the normies. i didn't coin that phrase, but i've heard it and i like it. just normal people who are not part of this extremism of either side and they don't like it. and i don't like it. i don't want to hate half the country and i don't hate half the country. the last chapter is -- it's called divorce, and it's just about how a lot of people talk these days about maybe america

should split up. you know, civil war. let's do this thing. yeah, it sounds fun. i don't want to, you know, and it's never going to work. because half the country, even if they lose an election, they're not going anywhere. they're not self deporting. they're here and they're going to stay here, and you're going to have to learn to live with them. we have to learn to live with, sit with, mingle with people who don't think like you. they're not raised like you. they weren't from a part of the country that you're from. and that's okay. it's not false, it's a fact! geoff: his direct approach and willingness to tackle tough topics over the years have brought backlash. his critics view his outspokenness as intolerance, pointing to what they see as a pattern of offensive comments on a range of issues from gender two religion to race. -- to religion to race. bill: clearly, racism is simply no longer everywhere. it's not in my home. and it probably isn't in yours.

geoff: over the course of your career your critics have said that you are homophobic, transphobic, islamophobic, xenophobic, sexist, fatphobic, ableist. but what do you make of all that? bill: well, i tell the truth as i see it, and i don't pull punches. that's always been the bond with my audience. people are hypersensitive, and, i mean, i could go down that list. i don't think we have time. and i don't think you really want to get into every one of them. but they're all not true. i mean, i like all people. but there are things that have to be said about islam. there are things that have to be said about health in america. there are things that have to be said about gender and what we're teaching children about it that are valid. and i think this is what the normies appreciate in me, is that most people just shy away from even going near those issues because they're third rails. as i say in the book. one of the problems we have is nobody ever gets canceled for being too woke.

geoff: one person who doesn't have to worry about being canceled, maher himself. hbo has picked up two more years of "real time," which will take the long-running show through 2026. bill: i love doing what i do. i'll do it as long as i'm not hard to look at on tv. that could happen at some point. hopefully ai will fix that. and as long as, you know, my brain is still working. i mean, i have a dead worm in there right now, but i seem to be okay. geoff: you could run for president. bill: i could. apparently, you can. geoff: whether it's his own plans or presidential politics, bill maher never loses sight of the punchline. ♪ geoff: in 1904, nearly 1200 filipinos were flown to the u.s. to take part in the world's fair in st. louis.

some worked as guides, but others were put on display. now, more than a century later, a new exhibit explores the impact in st. louis and beyond. communities correspondent gabrielle hays has this report. gabrielle: the 1904 world's fair. 20 million visitors, the newest marvels in art, architecture and technology. a giant ferris wheel, ice cream, and hundreds of human beings on display. >> you know, 120 years later, there's still people who have perceptions of filipinos as primitives. i have gotten questions in the last year asking me if there are buildings in the philippines. gabrielle: ria unson's great grandfather, ramon ochoa, was brought to st. louis in 1904 to be a pensionado at the fair, a sort of ambassador promoting the influence of western culture on their home country.

ria: i happened to google his name, and this image came out with him on the steps of festival hall. having spent 28 years down in saint louis, really familiar with that vista, right? i was like, hey, that looks like the world's fair. gabrielle: ochoa was part of the philippine village, the largest section of the fair, a 47-acre display designed to introduce americans to the then-newly acquired territory. ria: it cost a lot of money to stage that exhibit. it was $1.5 million in 1904. so that's like $35 million today. gabrielle: but it wasn't all about diplomacy. hundreds of filipinos from different ethnic groups and tribes, along with other indigenous people from all over the world were put on display for the amusement of white fairgoers. ria: that was very intentional in the sense that it was to create the optics of basically here the igorots were on here displayed as savages and primitives.

and here were these pensionados who were very western. we were there, you know, showing off our own people. gabrielle: 17 people died in the philippine village during the seven month long fair, from pneumonia, malnutrition, or suicide. unson's voice is one of many at a new exhibit at the missouri history museum in st. louis, on the very grounds where the fair took place. on display are nearly 200 artifacts and a 16 by 25 foot replica of the fairgrounds. it's an attempt to reexamine the complexity of the fair, says adam kloppe, a public historian at the museum. adam: people tend to fall in one of two camps about it when they talk about it. either they want to talk about the wonder of the world fair, the grandeur of the electric lights, the ferris wheel and ice cream cones and all that. or they want to talk about the complexities of the world's fair. in order to understand the true impact of it as an event, you sort of have to wrap your arms

around both of those ideas at the same time. gabrielle: the massive event was not without scandal at the time. civil rights organizations pushed back about the treatment of women and people of color. plans for "negro day" were cancelled. some boycotted the event altogether. fair organizers and a local newspaper described claims of racial discrimination as sensational. linda: there should not have in people that should not -- people on display. if they were. gabrielle: linda nance is the national historian of the national association of colored women's clubs and another voice featured in the exhibit. linda: i can't change what happened in 1904. and it does not make sense for me to lament over what happened in 1904. it does make sense for me to take a look at that and decide that from this point, with my involvement, i can make things better.

gabrielle: for ria unson, it's an opportunity to acknowledge the whole story and for visitors to walk away with a perspective they otherwise wouldn't have. ria: i hope they ask more questions. i hope that they listen to these stories and say, okay, where am i in the context of these stories? just asking the question like, how did their experience shape my life? or how can i place this again in history? gabrielle: for the pbs newshour, i'm gabrielle hays at the missouri history museum in st. louis. ♪ geoff: and there is more online including a look at descendants of people enslaved by saint louis university, who are asking the college's administration to take formal steps toward

acknowledging their history. that's at pbs.org/newshour. and join us again here tomorrow night for a look at social media's role in the rise of violent crime committed by youth in america. and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm geoff bennett. for all of us here at the pbs newshour, thanks for joining us and have a good evening. ♪ >> 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. i thought i would let you know that with consumer cellular, you get nationwide coverage with no contract. that is kind of our thing. have a nice day. ♪

>> moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. ♪ >> carnegie corporation of new york, working to reduce political polarization through philanthropic support for education, democracy, and peace. more information at carnegie.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. ♪ >> this is pbs newshour west from w eta studios in washington

and from our bureau at the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. ♪ >> you are watching pbs. [captioning

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