>> ifill: we remember those who fought, served and died for our country on this memorial day... good evening... i'm gwen ifill. raising fears that country could be pulled into the civil war in neighboring syria. margaret warner is on the ground in beirut with the latest. >> brown: we have a report from bangladesh. the workers are demanding better factory conditions after last month's building collapse that killed more than a thousand people. >> ifill: in the third in our series about immigration reform, ray suarez explores the role

low-skilled workers play in the economy. >> brown: we look at honor flights. the tradition that suarez explores the role low skilled workers play in the economy... >> brown: we look at "honor flights," a tradition that brings world war two veterans to washington, d.c. and offers them a hero's welcome. >> i was speechless. they didn't promise us this before we came forever ever i'll be grateful. it is something really something. snen we examine the evolving role of president as consoler in chief traveling beyond the oval office to comfort communities struck by disaster and tragedy. >> brown: judy wood rough talks to journalist and author robert kaiser about his account for the fight over financial reform and what it says about congressional gridlock. >> ifill: that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> more than two years ago, the people of b.p. made a commitment

to the gulf. and everyday since, we've worked hard to keep it. today, the beaches and gulf are open for everyone to enjoy. we shared what we've learned so that we can all produce energy more safely. b.p. is also committed to america. we support nearly 250,000 jobs and invest more here than anywhere else. we're working to fuel america for generations to come. our commitment has never been stronger. >> from broadband, to web hosting, to mobile apps, small business solutions from a.t.&t. can help get you there. we can show you how a.t.&t. solutions can help your business today.

>> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> ifill: the tradition of memorial day played out today. it was a day to remember that some americans still venture into harm's way and end up making the greatest sacrifice. >> present! ifill: it was a day for time-honored observance beginning at arlington national cemetery where the president laid a wreath at the tomb of the unknowns amid somber silence.

the hush of the ceremony gave way to tributes to those who have served and died. defense secretary chuck hagel. >> the memories of america's heroes laid to rest here at arlington and american cemeteries around the world are kept alive by families and communities across our great land. this memorial day we honor those families who are heroes left behind. we honor them in an appreciation for the sacrifices they have enduredded. >> ifill: president obama cautioned that the nation is still at war, but he said it has become harder... >> today most americans are not directly touched by war. as a consequence, not all americans may always see or fully grasp the depth of

sacrifice. the profound costs that are made in our name. right now as we speak, every day our troops and our military families understand this and they mention to me their concern about whether the country fully appreciates what's happening. >> ifill: the president and mrs. obama also toured arlington's section 60 where troops killed in iraq and afghanistan are buried. they met with family members. overseas u.s. troops serving in the horn of africa remembered their fallen comrades with a 12-hour overnight relay race in djibouti. it ended with a flag-raising at the camp's morning revele. elsewhere, americans gathered for their own memorial day remembrances from a parade in arlington heights, illinois, to

this ceremony in raleigh, north carolina. >> i really think memorial day is for those who fought and di died, and also the one who came back. they didn't give it all but they gave a lot. >> ifill: still others spent the holiday with family and friends. including many who trekked to the jersey shore, now back in business after last year's pounding from hurricane sandy. >> brown: still to come on the newshour, margaret warner on the ground in beirut. the fight for better working conditions in bangladesh. inside the immigration debate, honor flights for world war ii vets, the president as consoler in chief. and behind the scenes of financial reform. but first the other news of the day. here's hari sreenivasan. >> car bombings swept through baghdad killing at least 66 people in iraq's latest wave of sectarian violence. more than 350 people have died in the past two weeks.

today it least 11 explosions tore apart busy markets and shopping areas in the capital city. the targets were mostly in shiite neighborhoods. in britain police arrested a 10th suspect in the murder of a british soldier in loaned and as tensions over the killings continued to grow. we have a report from andy davies of independent television news. >> reporter: outside the barracks this afternoon in south london, riding in yet another group here to leave their imprint on the growing bank of flags and flowers which border street where re lig bee died five days ago. from a group calling themselves africans for heroes to a motorcycling riders association, the public you'll gees come one after another. >> let's hear it for lee rigby. (cheering). >> reporter: on a bank holiday monday it is striking just how many people have been coming

here to leave flowers, read messages and take photographs. the mood, as you would expect quiet and respectful and what a contrast to what's been going on ten miles away in the center of london. >> a soldier has been murdered. that's why i'm here. >> so declared kevin carol as he and more than 700 supporters of the english defense league lined up against several hundred counterdemonstrators. today's arena: downing street. a new stage for an old story. the fallout from last wednesday's killing has not been confined to london. this mosque has reported two attacks in the last five days. the latest involving suspected arson.

>> we became really worried about our children, our families, our people who attend the mosque because of some people who did not understand islam and who did not understand they would not link such a crime which we condemn with islam or with muslims. >> meanwhile the police continue to make arrests as they investigate the murder of rig bee. ten arrests so far. a man from southeast london is held on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder. >> demolition crews in washington state began clearing the remains of a wrecked bridge today. the span cut interstate 5 between seattle and canada. work at the site started before dawn this morning. a crane lifted out mangled pieces of steel. the wreckage has to be removed before repairs can begin. the bridge collapsed after being hit by a truck hauling an oversized load. federal safety regulators now say they want to know if

hundreds of similar bridges might be at risk. those are some of the day's major stories. now back to jeff. >> brown: we return to the bloody civil war in syria. today u.s. senator john mccain became the highest-ranking american official to enter syria since the start of fighting there. he crossed the turkish border, accompanied by a free syrian army general. meanwhile a fierce battle continues in the strategically critical town of qusair with hezbollah sending fighters from its home base in lebanon to support the regime of syrian president assad. yesterday two rockets exploded in an area of beirut controlled by hezbollah. that raised new concerns about the spread of the syrian conflict into the larger region. margaret warner is in beirut and we spoke earlier today. margaret, let's begin with those rocket attacks in southern beirut. how much is known about who might be behind them and why now in these hezbollah-controlled areas? >> well, since this is lebanon, jeff. the land of many conspiracy

theories, there are a lot of conspiracy theories about this. from the forces allied with the sunni rebels in syria who are upset about what the hezbollah leader vowed on saturday that hezbollah is going to fight on the side of syria to the end. that to syrian regime. to, you know, there are other people in the street who will say it's the israelis. one person who has talked to investigators said they are looking hard at a radical sunni faction, a couple of them, in palestinian camps that have been here for very long time. and there are some groups that are thought to be allied with either al qaeda or the front which is the jihady rebel group in syria. it will be very hard to tell, however. i was... diplomatic sources told me today that the 107 millimetre rockets were set on detonators and timers so that the perpetrators could be long gone. they went from an uninhabited

area in the hills but everyone, whatever their theory here, agrees that it was a response to what the man said on saturday and to the presence and growing presence of hezbollah fighters in syria fighting on the side of bashar assad. >> brown: that being lebanon, as you said, with all of its history, what has been the reaction and how much particularly vis-a-vis raising old conflicts, old sectarian tensions? >> warner: exactly, jeff. this is a country divided among sunnies, she as and christianes. they had a bloody bitter civil war for 15 years that ended in 1990. they ended up with a fragile, cobbled-together political system that everyone gets a little share. but the tensions remain. and the new dividing line really is, are you for or against assad? the assad regime. hezbollah and most shias do

support the assad regime. most sunnies support the opposition. the christianes are split. and the fear here is that as people said to me on the street, you know, this could reopen... the tensions are already there, that it could really inflate them, incite them. they have had fighting, of course, in tripoli, as you know, between sunni and alawites and also in the bacah valley. this is the first time there's been any blow-back in the capital beirut. >> brown: now, we've mentioned this speech on saturday by the hezbollah leader nasrallah. in fact, hezbollah's support for the assad government in syria has become ever more important in this conflict, right? >> right, jeff. at first hezbollah leadership kept saying, well, these are just popular committees of

committed shia who don't like what's going on in syria, but saturday nasrallah, we were at this speech which he didn't actually show up. it's a big television screen in some 60,000 people in the bacah valley. he made it clear that it's official hezbollah militia policy that they'll stay in this fight until they feel they are assured that assad is going to hold on to power. it is where... where they're fighting is a very important corridor. it sort of hugs the lebanese border. it's the corridor that links damascus to the coast, and though the coast isn't entirely al owe wide which is assad's shia sect, it is the area that is believed to be sort of assad's plan-b. he's lost control of a lot of country but that's the area where it's believed he would try to consolidate power and then perhaps go back and retake areas. but this corridor all along the lebanese border is very important.

and hezbollah fighters are over there. no one knows for sure, but i heard from fighters, rebel fighters on the ground who had come in to lebanon yesterday, that there are thousands of them. >> brown: this includes, margaret, that battle that's ongoing right now and is considered quite a key one in qusair. >> warner: yes. the sound of qusair is key in that corridor. it's on the damascus highway to the city of hoams and to the coast. and what the free syrian army, the sort of moderate resistance has been doing is using areas in lebanon to, say, bring their families to safety if they can get out. we talked to a couple of fighters who had done exactly that yesterday. they said they are... the rebels have held that town for quite a while. but they are being pounded and pounded from the air. it's really hollowed out, but there are still probably tens of thousands of civilians there.

i said to this young man, how are they surviving? he said we've dug shelters under the buildings that remain but this is where assad has turned the tide in the area around qusair. these people are getting are really getting cut off. i did ask how did he know? he said most of the fighters that they do see on ground from the assad forces are hezbollah. i said how do you know? and he said, well, first of all they have uniforms but they have m16 rifles, he said. not even the syrian army has m16s. he said they wear these uniforms, they cover their faces and there's no doubt they're hezbollah. >> brown: margaret warner in beirut, take care. we will look for your reporting in the days to come. thanks so much. >> warner: thanks, jeff. ifill: late did british foreign secretary announced the european union talks on syria failed to reach an agreement effectively lifting the ban on arming the rebels. he says britain has no immediate plans to ship them weapons.

>> brown: and now an update from bang bangladesh where more than a thousand garment workers died when their factory collapsed last month. that tragedy focused attention on dangerous conditions for people who make clothes for western retailers. in the after math some workers are walking off their jobs in protest. jonathan rugman of independent television news reports. >> reporter: beyond the smoke stacks of these brick factories, amid an industrial landscape lost in time, you find a town which is home to scores of clothing factories, serving some of the world's best known high street brands. the police seemed to be expecting a riot. and they are everywhere. patrolling the main highway and guarding every factory gate. against attacks by the workers supposed to be making clothes inside.

mid morning and thousands of workers are working off the job. they make clothes exclusively for h and m the swedish retail giant is bangladesh's biggest clothing buyer. and this is one of more than 20 factory closures in this town because of unrest. it was the collapse of this factory complex in the capital which has left millions in bangladesh's clothing industry angry and afraid. well over a thousand died here last month. it's the biggest industrial disaster of the age. in this town, workers told us enough was enough. "we're not safe," said this man," and that's why we decided to come out." >> we kept the money. not enough. >> the factory itself says it pays above the industry's minimum wage which is around $40

a month, the lowest in the world though the government has pledged to raise it. >> we are working only for h and m. >> reporter: one managers told me his clothes went to h and m in america and 25 countries across europe. he said he had sent his workers home because they were frightened by local unrest. and that he would love to give them a pay raise if only he could. >> our international buyers, they're bargaining with one thing. >> reporter: you're under big pressure. >> our neighbor country india, we already lost so many orders. those orders are going to india. that's why we can't increase our salaries as they expect. >> reporter: afterwards he gave me a tour of his abandoned factory floor. where h and m's clothes were

discarded mid stitch. "our factory is very safe," he said. but when he tried to open the door of a fire escape it was padlocked shut. earlier this month, h and m joined other multinationals in signing up to a new agreement on fire and building safety. in a statement, h and m told us. >> we support the workers in their struggle for higher wages. we have a regular presence that supplies factories. the last full order in the mentioned factory was in april of 2013. from our order protocol we can tell that the factory has followed our code of conduct in regards to wages and fire safety. >> reporter: ten minutes down the road this is what remains of tazrine fashions. much of it was built illegally. the workers say the fire exits were padlocked shut and 112 of them burnt to death during a fire in last november. the workers here are squeezed by factory owners who need to make

a profit and by consumers and high street brands overseas who want cheap, cheap prices. until the rules of this supply chain chain change, nothing for these people is likely to change very much. >> ifill: next a look at some low-skilled workers in this country as we continue our series on the immigration bill now making its way through the u.s. senate. it's part of our ongoing focus "inside immigration reform." ray swawrers has tonight's conversation. >> suarez: the u.s. has used unskilled immigrants throughout its history. they worked in factories, on farms, in hotels and restaurants. and over time those workers could see their opportunities change as their families' life chances improve. for two different views on immigration and the low-skilled labor force in history and moving forward, we turn to may nye, a history and asian-american studies professor at colombia university and carol

swain professor of political science and law at vanderbilt university. professor nye, let me start with you. >> as we look at the long arc of american immigration law have there ever been attempts to distinguish between high-skilled and low-skilled labor? >> well that's a great question because it's actually a fairly recent phenomenon. in the past we actually had no restrictions on immigration so anybody who wanted to come just came. and they found work and at the turn of the last century 100 years ago most of the immigrants who came actually were in the lower-skilled strata. >> suarez: on balance in your view, as a historian, have they done well and has the country done well for their presence? >> well, the first generation of immigrants then, as now, usually are working in the lower-skilled strata of the work force. over time they tend to move up.

some of them move up. and their children tend to move up. so this is a general pattern i think you could say in american history, yes. >> suarez: professor swain, as we debate how to move forward and whether to rewrite american immigration law, is today different from the way we might have had this conversation during the years of the ellis island generation's coming to the united states? >> it's very different because where we are today we have a huge population of american citizens that are african-american, hispanic and immigrants that are unemployed. they're not doing well. and we don't have the same national growth that we had during the turn of the century. we no longer live in a world where parents can expect their children to do better than they did. and we also are facing the fact that america will soon become majority minority in the not doo distant future. i believe that all changes the

calculus. >> suarez: who benefits and who loses when we allow large numbers of new people to come in as legal residents who are either lowly educated or low skilled? >> i think the group that is most harmed are those americans that have high school educations or less. if you look at the current unemployment levels from the first quarter of this year, young people between the ages of 18 and 35 with a high school diploma or less have unemployment figures as high as 30%. that's for young people and for african-americans it's above 30%. for hispanics that are in that age group. and these are people that are actively looking for jobs. >> suarez: professor nye, when we look back at other periods in our history -- the 1808s, the early years of the 20th century -- there were low-skilled and low-paid workers

who viewed the arrival of yet more with great alarm, weren't there? >> well, that is always the case. the people who got here ten minutes ago are nervous about the people who got here two minutes ago. so this the true. that is a pattern. let me just say that the level of immigration recently is actually in terms of absolute numbers and as percentage of the total population, it's not significantly more than it was 100 years ago. in the decade before world war i, you had a million people come into the united states a year. most of them unskilled workers. immigration today is about a million a year. but we have... >> but... people... excuse me. could i finish. >> suarez: please do. but as a proportion of the population, it's still actually about the same or a little lower. but the other point i want to make is that there is unemployment today. there are many native-born workers and people of immigrant

background who are struggling economically. that's absolutely the case. the cause of that is not immigration though. the cause of that is a restructuring that we've had of the economy, some people call it globalization, a vast increase in the disparity between the very rich and the very poor. those are the causes for economic stress not immigration. >> suarez: professor swain, go ahead. >> i disagree because the individuals that i mentioned that are in that age group from 18 to 35, these are people that are competing in the same labor market as many of the people that are undocumented. certainly there's been some data to suggest that 75% of the estimated 11 to 12 million undocumented persons, they have a high school education or less. they will take jobs and they will be competing for the same jobs as american citizens. it's not just blacks that are

hurting. black men are hurt the most. but hispanics are hurt. poor whites are hurt. i believe that america needs to focus on developing its own human capital under the new immigration being pushed by the gang of eight it would not only legalize the 11 to 12 million and bring them openly into the labor market, but they could also bring in their relatives that are low skilled and so whatever the numbers are coming now legally, there's going to be an explosion. >> suarez: it's like... is it like that if family reunification numbers are counted in with those of the legal immigrants, we're actually looking at an awful lot of people. if you're a low-educated, low-skilled worker it's likely that your family members coming in are not a lot different socioeconomically from what you the immigrant are. >> well, that's true. but i want to address this point

about our own human capital in the united states and, you know, if you look at the numbers in the aggregate you might come to a conclusion like professor swain's but i think you have to look at labor markets in a local way. you have to look at a lot of factors that go into how the labor market is segmented and it often is segmented by race or by ethnicity. for example, you have high unemployment especially among african-americans in parts of the south where you have very, very little immigration. so you can't really say immigrants are competing for jobs with black people in those areas. >> that's not true. you have certain industries... excuse me. i didn't interrupt you. so i would appreciate if you didn't interrupt me, okay. you also have industries where you have very different outcomes in similar industries. for example in the building/cleaning services industry. in los angeles that industry broke the union and started to bring in subcontractors which

did use immigrants. many of them undocumented. and that did lead to a loss of jobs among african-americans. but in new york city where the building-services -- these are janitors and people who clean office buildings and apartment buildings, where that union remains very strong you have a diverse work force that includes african-americans, hispanics, and immigrants, et cetera. so i think there are a lot of factors that go into why some groups struggle in the labor market and others struggle less so. but i don't think it's too pat an answer to say that immigration is the problem. >> suarez: professor swain, your response and very quickly please because we're almost out of time. but what about professor nye's assertion that these are not workers who are directly competing against each other in a lot of cases. >> what she said is that immigration is not a problem in the south. it's a national problem. it's a problem in georgia. it's a problem in tennessee. south carolina. african-americans have been displaced. there's plenty of data to

suggest that, but it's also poor whites and hispanics. i think that's the issue. with the new immigration bill, there's not enough attention being paid to the populations that are most vulnerable in the u.s. >> suarez: professor swain, professor nye, ladies, thank you both. >> thank you for having us, ray. . brown: now a special effort to honor those who have served in the nation's wars. world war 2 veterans from arizona preparing to take a flight. this is an "honor flight," part of an eight-year-old non- profit program for vets who've never had the chance before to go to washington to see the memorials, particularly the one honoring their service.

upon landing in baltimore, they met a large crowd of well- wishers, offering a hero's welcome. this group-- 30 men in their 80s and 90s-- is one of 370 visiting the nation's capitol this year alone. 85-year-old marvin murphy lives in apache junction, arizona, east of phoenix. >> we had tears. i was speechless. they didn't promise this before we came. i'll be forever, forever grateful. it was really something... >> the next day, at the world war two memorial, the tour-- and the welcome, this time by middle schoolers-- continued. more than 800 veterans of that war die every day. and there's a quiet understanding on these trips that this may well be a first-- and last-- visit.

>> one of the greatest joys is when you look over at the wwii memorial and you see it filled with wwii veterans. that's what this is all about. it's their memorial. they've earned it and they need to see it. >> brown: earl morse is the founder of honor flight. he works as a physician assistant for the v.a. in springfield, ohio. he's also a retired air force captain and private pilot. in 2004 he flew his father, a vietnam veteran, to washington along with several world war two vets he'd been caring for. seeing their reaction, the idea was born. the program began with small private planes ferrying vets and has grown exponentially: on some days four different jets fly in veterans from all over the country. it's funded by donations-- corporate and individual. >> they come here for two reasons: to see how this nation is going to remember their accomplishment.

reason two is they want to know how their buddies are going to be remembered. >> part of the power of the experience, clearly, is sharing it with other vets-- the common bond that exists even when they're meeting for the first time. 87 year-old bill casto-- who enlisted on his 17th birthday-- served in the navy in the northern solomon island campaign and was injured on his p.t. boat. i asked what he remembers most from that time. >> well, a lot of fear for one thing. >> fear? >> most because of the unknown. once you got a little experience you had less fear of certain things but there were times when i was scared to death. i remember i used to have the fear of standing guard duty at night in the jungle because i could just imagine some japanese sneaking up behind me and cutting my throat. >> brown: casto went on to serve in korea, vietnam-- his son served there as well-- and later in the merchant marine during the first gulf war. he thinks few americans understand that members of his

generation-- the so-called "greatest generation"-- often experienced problems associated with later conflicts. >> i was too old to go back to high school so i took high school courses at a vocational school and i got my diploma but i kept having problems what they call now post traumatic stress. we didn't know what it was but i didn't know where i belonged or how i fit in and i was really getting concerned about it. >> brown: it was hard to get back? >> oh yeah, it was hard for me to adjust. >> brown: marvin murphy enlisted days before his 18th birthday. he, too, served in the navy and participated in the atomic bomb tests at the bikini atoll just after the war. >> it was your duty, or it was your country, and you don't let somebody just run all over you if you can stop it. and so we decided to stop it.

>> brown: how do you feel after all these years seeing the memorial? >> awesome. >> on this day, the veterans talked with the young students. and, together, observed a wreath laying in honor of those who gave their lives. when we saw you with the young people here a little earlier, what do you want them to know? >> well, i think not the sacrifice that we made but i think they need to realize that if and when the time comes if they have to do that, it should be their duty to do it. they should want to do it. >> brown: the men also visited other sites, including the naval memorial, arlington national cemetery... >> thank you for your service.

>> brown: where they observed the changing of the guard... and the iwo jima memorial... it was also clear that an important part of this experience was for family members of the aging veterans like trudy miller. >> we'll never forget this trip, will we? very special. >> brown:and then there was a smiling sarah kersh, who happened upon another group of honor flight veterans at the airport and sought us out to talk about her grandfather, major george elbert douglas, who'd made the trip in 2012. >> i have the tags of my grandfather's honor flight on my suitcase and he went on the honor flight and went home and died three days later. he loved his experience and he said it was the happiest time of his life. he loved his wwii buddies but didn't talk about the war at all

when i was a child until i started asking him questions. and by the time i was a young adult, he had collected a whole bunch of memorabilia and books and wanted the world to know what they had lived through and what they had done. >> to date, "honor flight" has brought some 100,000 veterans to washington-- the oldest was 108. top priority goes to world war ii veterans and terminally-ill vets of any conflict. but demand is great; some 20,000 men and women are on a waiting list. >> when you tell a veteran, "i'm sorry, we don't have the funds right now but we should get you next year," the response is usually, "i hope i'm still alive next year." >> brown: as of now, 41 states have honor flight groups. the hope is that number-- and the number of visits-- will continue to grow. online you can watch an extended interview with 85-year-old marvin murphy about his

experience in world war ii. >> ifill: now a look at the time-honored but seemingly more frequedentntos consoler-in-chief. >> america today is on bended knee in prayer for the people whose lives were lost here. >> ifill: they are the increasingly familiar moments of seering loss when presidents give voice to the nation's grief. >> i can hear you. the rest of the world hears you. and the people... [ cheers and applause ] and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon. [ cheers and applause ] >> ifill: three days after 9/11 president george w. bush stood on the rubble at ground zero in new york. six years earlier in april 1995, president clinton comforted

mourners in oklahoma city after 186 people died in the bombing of the alfred p. murrow federal building. >> we pledge to do all we can to help you heal the injured, to rebuild this city, and to bring to justice those who did this evil. >> ifill: the presidents act as stand-ins for a nation's and distinguish. in january 1986 hours after the destruction of space shuttle challenger, it fell to president reagan to remember the seven astronauts killed that day. >> we will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them: this morning as they prepared for their journey and waved good-bye. and slipped the surly bonds of earth to such the face of god. >> ifill: and five days after president kennedy was assassinated in november 1963, the newly elevated president lyndon johnson went before a shaken congress and country. >> no words are strong enough to

express our determination to continue the forward thrust of america that he began. ( applause ) >> ifill: yesterday president obama returned to the task. traveling to moore, oklahoma, where 24 people died a week ago in a massive tornado. >> we know moore is going to come back stronger from this tragedy. i want folks affected throughout oklahoma to know that we're going to be with you every step of the way. >> ifill: for mr. obama, it was only the latest in a series of somber occasions that have taken him from colorado to arizona to new jersey to boston. so what can presidential words of comfort mean to victims of disaster, accidents and terrorism? for that they turn to presidential historian and newshour regular michael beschloss and alexis

simendinger. welcome to you both. michael, is this now part of the job description to be consoler in chief? >> i think it is. it sure wasn't in the constitution. it's pretty recent because for most of american history we didn't have air travel so it was hard for a president to get to a scene of a disaster. the federal government didn't do that much for emergencies like this. you really didn't have t.v. so this is really a creation of recent times >> ifill: alexis, the president doesn't have much choice but to show up at this point. >> we are seeing that most presidents feel that they are not just wanting to be there but they're almost compelled to be there. there's an expectation by the american people that he's the manager. he's the uniter. he is representative of the federal government and all the help that is supposed to be coming from washington in a world that expects to be almost risk free now that there's more been anies, there's lots more infratruck steur inside the government at the department of homeland security, for instance, for natural disasters and catastrophes. there's an expectation in every community that the president and

the entire executive branch with congress will move to respond >> ifill: has this always been true? >> it hasn't. i like to think about 1963 a nuclear submarine sank off cape cod. over or 129 people were killed. president kennedy even though he was in the navy and this was his home state, cape cod, basically issued a statement -- you'd never see something like that nowadays and l.b.j. as we just saw in the taped package 1967 the first apollo crew perished in that horrible fire down at cape canaveral. he didn't see the kind of thing you would see now with the president going down, consoling families. he sure attended the funeral but nothing like you see today >> ifill: what was the turning point. >> really ronald reagan. probably the reason for that is that oftentimes in the history of the presidency he was so good at it. the challenge, we just saw a moment ago. that was the day he was supposed to give a state of the union. he actually was only dimly aware

of the shuttle flight. when he told about it, he asked is that the one with the teacher on it? everyone knew this had a teacher in space. so he gave that speech that was so powerful that evening from the oval office that ever since then presidents are expected to do that. >> ifill: is there a down side to this? is it too close to exploitation. for instance in teuz onwhen the president spoke after the shooting of gabrielle giffords there was a little question about whether he would be doing a rah-rah thing for gun control. >> i think the impression that most presidents get very quickly is it has to either be genuine or it has to sound genuine. and it has to be less about them and much more about the people that they're seeing. as michael was saying, presidents that are good at it get enormous benefits from it and embraced by the american people. presidents who stumble, for instance, doing it, they teach presidents after them lessons. >> especially if it looks too political. >> if it looks too political or it looks too late. we've seen that happen over

time. >> ifill: katrina. katrina is a perfect example. president bush was, as we know, absolutely clobbered by the american people politically in terms of... as management, everything about katrina and rita. congress and the laws changed after that to add a lot more to the whole process of managing crises. >> and also no president is going to make that mistake again. they will err now on the side of going to every disaster conceivable rather than suffer the fate of george bush who looked as if he was a little bit indifferent >> ifill: how much of this is symbolism and how much of is this about bringing cash on the barrel head to the problem? >> the symbolism is important. the founders did say that the president has to be prime minister and chief of state. that's what monarchs do. but if you look through history and try to draw a correlation between like number of hours a president visits the scene of a disaster and amount of help that's effective from the federal government virtually no

correlation. >> ifill: what do you think about that? >> i think there's a mick. for one thing the president doesn't have to be there. it happens now without him. he could be abroad and all of this would happen. >> ifill: all of what? all of the help, all of the infrastructure from feem, federal emergency management administration, all of that would happen without the president even if he were abroad but he signs the declaration and those who have actually been comforted by a president or a first lady after a catastrophe have talked about how much it meant. for local media will listen to the president and say here's where you call if you need help. american red cross here's what you do if you want to help, give money. his bully pulpit is symbolism but also has a practical impact too. >> he could learn from it. president obama has said, for instance, that meeting with those victims taught him a lot, made him feel more passionate about trying to assure gun safety >> ifill: is it also one of those rare cases where government intervention is now welcomed rather than stay out of my business? >> well, in this particular

environment this month, does the president want to talk about how management and government is a good thing? absolutely. after the i.r.s. problems that he's been experiencing, he wants to spread the world that government does good things which is what he's talking about and that management is in the executive branch is top notch at fema. >> ifill: michael. can't disagree with that. you know, lyndon johnson even at the moment of john kennedy's assassination, you would think that would have been the most horrible thing for him to turn into politics but he said no memorial oration could more eloquently honor john kennedy's memory than the earliest possible passage of his civil rights bill. people thought it was very appropriate even if you're chris christie or mary fallon, i'm being crass, talking about the politics, it doesn't necessarily hurt you. >> it doesn't hurt you at all. we're talking about republican governors. they are more than theap to see washington represented by the president of the united states come to their communities. >> ifill: alexis and michael, thank you both so much. >> thank you, gwen ifill: on the can

see more video of mr. obama and other presidents reaching out to communities in times of trouble. >> brown: finally tonight we spend a lot of time chronicling the hits and misses on capitol hill. author and journalist robert kaiser writes about a littleoths reshaped wall street regulations after the 2008 financial crisis. judy wood rough spoke to kaiser about his new book: act of congress, how america's essential institution works and how it doesn't. >> woodruff: bob kaiser, welcome to the newshour. the book, as we say, is act of congress. and you are very critical of congress in this book. you write about the principal preoccupation is politics instead of legislating, that members are skilled at politics but not at enacting laws and yet they were able to pass this big piece of legislation. >> thanks to two very talented

chairmen, barney frank and chris dodd. they really knew how to make the system hum and they did it. but it was upsetting to me as a citizen to realize how few members understood the issues they were dealing with. these are of course extremely complicated financial matters. how banks work, how they're regulated, so on. not everybody can know this but at the end i concluded that you could fit the number of ex-pers in congress on financial issues easily on to the roster of a major league baseball team. that's 25 people. i think that is the max. >> woodruff: is what you write about in the book about the passage of the dodd frank law typical of the way congress works or was this unusual? >> it's unusual in recent times because it was a success. most of the time now we don't get anything. we get dead locked. but i think... my hope is that this is a real window on the

culture of the congress. which shows lots of things about if it will remain relevant regardless of what the bill is. >> woodruff: what is it? clearly so much of the book you focus on the principal sponsors, the former senator chris dodd, former representative barney frank. what was it about them that made this happen? >> well, barny... any member of the house will tell you barny was the smartest member of the house. republicans agreed about that too. he was really sharp. he really mastered most of these issues. in the beginning i thought that was the key fact. ultimately i realized dodd's political skill, his ability to deal creatively with his colleagues, to win the three republican votes which he did get which were crucial in the end to the success of the enter prize was just as important, if not more important than barny's brain power but they were very complementary these two talents

>> woodruff: you also spend a lot of time writing about that part of congress that we don't really see most of the time. that's the staff. and some really key figures on the staff. >> you know, teddy kennedy wrote a good memoir just before he died in which he revealed the following state secret. he said 95% of the nitty-gritty work on legislation is now done by the staff. as kennedy wrote, this represents quite a change in the allocation of responsibilities over the last 30 or 40 years. indeed it does. but this is the point. the staff really does the work. indeed in this case, it seemed to me at the end 95% might understate the amount of the work that the staff did. and particularly two wonderful women: amy friend, the counsel of the senate banking committee and jean who was barny's chief of staff a house financial services, friends of each other.

both very smart lawyers. both long-time hill aides. they made this thing happen as much as anybody. >> woodruff: you write they not only had to know the substance. they had to understand and work with the politics as well. >> absolutely. they really were more influential in the end, i think, i write, than any member of the senate except frank and dodd. >> woodruff: if it was dodd and frank and staff and you write about some other elements that made this legislation possible, what stood in the way? what were the principle obstacles to making this happen? >> well, i think the biggest obstacle is the one we revert to. it's that there are so few experts. there was widespread agreement among experts in all parties outside of congress that something big ought to be done after the catastrophe of 2008. but in congress, the usual political reflexes took over. so that, for example, house

republicans against government regulation on principle, very antsy about the new obama administration, their natural tendency was just to say no we don't want to do this. in the senate, there was more republican interest but as it turned out there too richard shelby the ranking republican i think really wanted to make a deal but ultimately his colleagues wouldn't let him do it. so the idea of a bipartisan enter prize collapsed completely >> woodruff: so it was partisanship, you're saying, as much as lack of expertise. >> partisanship and ideology both, but, yes >> woodruff: just a belief that this was the wrong way to go? you're saying the opposition was genuine. >> well, it was the belief that it was the wrong way to go held by people who didn't understand the situation. i'm not sure whether genuine is a good word to use or not. they're well meaning. they think that they're right. i don't agree that they were right. but this is one of the great problems we have now. you don't really engage on

issues in this congress. what you engage in is political warfare. partisan bashing, one or the result. the result is that serious policy issues as we've seen again and again get very >> woodruff: and your writing about it helps us understand more about how the institution works. bob kaiser, thank you very much. >> thank you. ifill: against the major developments of the day. the traditions of memorial day played out at museums and monuments, parades and picnics and president obama urgedded americans to remember those who still fight and sacrifice all. and car bombing swept through baghdad killing at least 66 people in iraq's latest wave of sectarian violence. >> brown: we have more tips on getting the most out of social security on our website. hari fills us in. >> we clarify the complexities of social security on our making sense page. his latest warns against the perils of collecting your been anies too early.

a former senior advisor to the romney campaign offers his take on a missed opportunity to turn the course of the election find that conversation on the politics page. tonight on most pbs stations, can the motor city rise from its ashes? on independent lens it tells the dramatic story of detroit residents who refused to give up on their hometown. check your local listings for the time. all that and more on our web sight, "newshour dot pbs dot org >> ifill: on tuesday we'll examine the latest forensic science used to piece together blasts like the boston bombings. i'm gwen ifill. >> brown: and i'm geoffrey brown. we'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. thanks for joining us. good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

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