captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: a big win for conservatives in great britain, but a re-elected prime minister david cameron faces new challenges to u.k. unity. good evening, i'm judy woodruff. also ahead, from self-driving cars to killer drones, artificial intelligence is closer than ever to outsmarting humans, but what possible roadblocks, technical and ethical, lie ahead? >> i think there's a fundamental moral issue about whether it's right for a machine to decide to kill a person. >> woodruff: and it's friday, david brooks and ruth marcus are here, to analyze the week's news. those are some of the stories

we're covering on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> lincoln financial-- committed to helping you take charge of your life and become you're own chief life officer. >> supporting social entrepreneurs and their solutions to the worlds most pressing problems-- skollfoundation.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions

and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: the u.s. job market showed signs of rebounding last month, after a dismal start to the year. the labor department reported today that employers added 22,000 jobs in april, up from just 85,000 in march. that means the economy averaged 190,000 new jobs a month in the first quarter, well below last year's average. still, the unemployment rate in april fell to 5.4%, the lowest since may of 2008. wall street soared on the jobs report. the dow jones industrial average shot up nearly 270 points to close near 18,200. the nasdaq rose 58, and the s- and-p 500 added 28.

for the week, the dow gained about 1% the s-and-p rose about .5% while the nasdaq lost .5%. president obama took up the call for an asian trade deal again today, in a visit to nike headquarters in oregon. the president said critics of the "trans-pacific partnership," including many of his fellow democrats, are "just wrong." >> if we don't write the rules for trade around the world, guess what? china will. and they'll write those rules in a way that gives chinese workers and chinese businesses the upper hand and locks american-made goods out. that's the choice we face. >> woodruff: nike has been criticized over its labor practices in asia, where most of its shoes are made. it promised today to create 10,000 jobs in the u.s. if the trade deal goes through. thousands of police from across the country turned out today for

the funeral of a new york city officer. 25-year-old brian moore was fatally shot on saturday, and died monday. police lined the road this morning outside a long island church and packed inside for the memorial mass. the display of solidarity came as police across the nation are under intense scrutiny. the justice department announced today it will investigate baltimore's police department in the wake of freddie gray's death. the city's mayor asked for the civil rights review this week. u.s. attorney general loretta lynch said she hopes it will help repair relations between police and minorities. >> it was the clear that recent events including the tragic, in-custody death of mr. freddie gray had given rise to a serious erosion of public trust. this process is meant to ensure that officers are being provided with the tools that they need including training policy guidance and equipment to be

more effective to partner with civilians and strengthen public safety. >> woodruff: the review will look for patterns of racial bias and excessive force. there've been similar federal investigations in ferguson missouri, and in cleveland. the threat level has been raised at u.s. military bases nationwide. that puts security at its highest level in nearly four years. pentagon officials say there's been no specific threat. instead, they cite general concerns since last weekend's attack on an exhibit and contest of mohammad cartoons in texas. saudi arabia announced today it's going ahead with a unilateral cease-fire in yemen starting may 12th. a saudi coalition will halt its bombing campaign for five days, to allow humanitarian assistance into yemen. the foreign minister made the announcement with secretary of state john kerry in paris. but he warned yemen's "houthi" rebels to abide by the truce.

>> it is our hope and our desire that the houthis will come to their senses and realize that the interests of yemen and the yemeni people are to be the top priority for everyone. the cease fire will end should the houthis or their allies not live up to the agreements contained in this issue. >> woodruff: in the meantime, the saudi's resumed bombing a houthi stronghold province in northern yemen after giving civilians until sundown to flee. in pakistan, the philippine and norwegian ambassadors were killed today when their helicopter crashed and burned in the northern part of the country. the wives of the malaysian and indonesian ambassadors and members of the crew also died and wreckage from the crash set a local school ablaze. the taliban claimed they shot down the helicopter, but the

government denied it. and much of europe marked 70 years today since nazi germany's defeat in world war two. wreath-laying ceremonies took place in paris. and in london, where british political leaders joined in a tribute, hours after the country's election. russia holds its own victory parade tomorrow, but many western leaders are boycotting that event, due to moscow's actions in ukraine. still to come on the newshour: what great britain's election results mean for the country, and the rest of the e.u. the ugly side of nice nails in america; are we designing machines to be too smart? harsh evictions for americans who call trailer parks home; brooks and marcus on the week's news; and, paul beatty's new novel confronts the civil rights struggle with irreverent humor. >> woodruff: the united kingdom woke up on this day after national elections to find the

same political party in charge, but with a message from voters that will take some sorting out. >> woodruff: in the end, it was a trouncing by the tories, as prime minister david cameron and his conservative party won an outright majority in parliament. he'll return to number ten downing street for another five- year term after a bruising campaign. >> we must ensure that we bring our country together. as i said in the small hours of this morning, we will govern as a party of one nation, one united kingdom. >> woodruff: pre-election public polls had forecast a tight race with the labour party. instead, labour, led by ed miliband, was blown out. and nick clegg's liberal democrats took crushing losses dropping 49 seats. both party chiefs resigned their leadership posts this morning. so, in this new parliament, of the 650 seats, conservatives will hold 331, labour 232 seats

the "scottish national party" will have 56, and the liberal democrats just eight. besides the conservatives, the other big winner was the "scottish national party". it swept virtually every race in scotland, all but ending labour's longtime dominance there. >> woodruff: joining me now for more on the outcome is robin niblett, the director of chatham house, an independent policy institute in london. robin niblett, welcome. how do you read these results? >> well, they're remarkable in the sense that no one predicted them coming out quite the way they did. people thought the conservatives might be able to to cobble together a majority but an outright majority was not expected. at some level the british people are cautious certainly in the united kingdom south of scotland where people saw the economy growing, unemployment low and decided they didn't want to gamble the upturn in economy

with an upturn of government and a party. >> woodruff: what are the main challenges coming out of the results for prime minister cameron? >> i think he has two. one is scotland. the remarkable scene of the scottish nationalist party taking 56 out of 59 seats decimating labor party for whom this had been the heartland for some of the best politicians. you have a party in the north in scotland that has a mandate to stop austerity, to stop the cuts. off party in the united kingdom by the conservatives who believe they have a mandate to complete the job so he will have to pull the two sides together perhaps by extension of devolution to the scotts. there will be a referendum held by end of 2017 whether the u.k. stays in or leaves the e.u. and

will be based on negotiations he needs to undertake extremely quickly with other european counterparts. then the final challenge for him is simply the fact that the british economy is not yet fixed. we're still running a 5% deficit to gdp, the highest in europe, so a lot of cuts to come. he has a full plate. >> woodruff: what sort of alliances do you see him making in order to tackle these? how do you see -- for example, you describe a clear difference with the scottish national party over economic decisions. how do you see cameron approaching that? >> he hans outright majority, 331 seats gives him the majority over the left leaning parties close to 30 majority, more like 15, all the other parties included. this is his chance after five years ago of coalition government to follow the plan

that the conservatives saw. so i don't think they're looking for partners. they would like to avoid having partners. the danger is if he ends up in the situation john major was in in 1992, he had a majority, a little more than david cameron has now. pretty soon, he found in the back benches, those without positions in the cabinet, the ministries started to go suicidal on europe. they were absolutely determined to fight european integration. so when the referendum comes up when he thinks he has a majority for domestic agenda he might find a rebellion on his dossier. >> reporter: how does this affect the united states. >> david cameron when he took power in 2010 as coalition government i think made a deliberate effort to try to wean the u.k. off its special relationship of the united states. there was a sense to which the

united states was pivoting or rebalancing toation-pacific. the britts had to be more self-interested. some people described it as coming to an elizabethan foreign policy. get back into relationship with china, india, the gulf states latin america and there's been an effort to push the u.k. into more commercial diplomacy. it's not worked that well, to be frank, and i think we'll see in the second term perhaps a more cautious approach to foreign policy partly because he has a full domestic agenda and to work together with the united states and be supportive on issues like iran, climate change negotiations later on this year and tackling the extremism out of the middle east. so i think a balance to traditional foreign policy. >> woodruff: robin niblett joining us from london. we thank you. >> pleasure, thank you.

>> woodruff: it sounds like a story from another era, or at least another place. disadvantaged women working long hours in unhealthy conditions for meager wages. and sometimes, at least to start, no real pay. but a two-part series in the "new york times" found all this is happening today, in the nail salons of new york city and other big cities. among the findings, the women often have to pay shop owners a fee to be hired. and routinely share cramped, run-down living quarters. reporter sarah maslin nir spent a year investigating the story and joins me now. sarah maslin nir, welcome to the "newshour". what got you interested in looking at the plight of these women who work in the nail salon? >> thank you for having me. it was a little bit of a fluke. i was get ago pedicure at one of the odd 24-hour salons in manhattan and i marveled at the

woman doing my toes, i said who works the night shift. she says i work the night shift. she says i work 24 hours a day, six days a week. i live in the ba racks above the salon, they shake me awake to do night treatments and on the seventh day i sleep for 24 hours and come back. >> woodruff: you went beyond her? >> i went beyond her and interviewed over 125 manicurists and found that woman is the extreme, but not that far off from the reality. as you said before, people have to pay for their jobs up to $200, sometimes more and then work for free for weeks or months until an arbitrary time when the owner decides maybe they merit being paid and then their starting salary is $30 a day. >> reporter:day. >> woodruff: and you found a hierarchy in terms of how they're paid depending on the country they may have been from

their family was from? >> that was particularly startling. the industry is 80% korean owned, creating a hire arcing among the nail shops. hispanic woman with viewed as the bottom as unsanitary and chinese are above them and korean women, particularly young beautiful women are paid the most. that governs everything about the salon, not just the pay. i had salon where hispanic workers are not allowed to speak while their korean colleagues can do whatever they want and it's very painful for them. >> woodruff: we have maps which show where nail salons are. you looked at new york city, los angeles san francisco and what you see is women of all economic classes or at least the neighborhoods are patronizing the shops what did you find? >> well, man cures have become this ultimate oxymoron. cheap luxury. there is no such thing.

someone is bearing the cost of your discount and that someone is always the worker, the person least able to afford it. the proliferation of salons in new york city who have the most per capita of any metropolitan city in the u.s., you could call it the manicure capital to have the united states, led to a total decrease of prices, man cures are $10 average here i found. they're $20 across the rest of the nation. why in the most expensive city in america where a latte is $4 is the manicure price so low? judy, that is because the workers are not being paid. >> woodruff: how did you get the women to talk to you? you write about that was not easy. >> it was very challenging. i worked with a team of extraordinarily talented interpreters who worked alongside of me chinese, korean and spanish. there are pickup spots located in flushing where workers get jobs across the tri-state area

and they are shuttled off. every morning the streets are filled with nail salon workers and we spent three months asking these women, tell me your story. this act of a manicure is a very intimate thing. you're holding hands with a woman half an hour you're staring into her eyes and people don't see them, still. when we say to these women, here's a chance to be seen, some brave women took it, though understandably as illegal immigrants working undocumented and without licenses many times many were afraid and i understand had every reason not to tell me their stories but some truly did. >> woodruff: there is much more to this story. you're the second part of the series that ran today has to do with some of the health risks. it's really a remarkable series in the "new york times." is a sarah maslin nir, we thank you. >> thank you so much. >> woodruff: you may not realize it but artificial intelligence

is all around us. we rely on smart machines to scan our checks at a.t.m.'s, to navigate us on road trips and much more. humans still have quite an edge. just today, four of the world's best texas hold-em poker players won an epic two-week tournament against, yes, an advanced computer program. the field is growing and pushing new boundaries. hari sreenivasan has the first in a series of stories about it, and the concerns over where it may lead. it's the latest report in our on-going "breakthroughs" series on invention and innovation. ♪ ♪ >> sreenivasan: artificial intelligence has long captured our imaginations. >> open the pod bay doors, hal. >> i'm sorry, dave. i'm afraid i cannot do that. >> sreenivasan: with robots like hal in "2001: a space odyssey" and now ava from the recently

released "ex-machina," and "chappie" >> a thinking robot could be the end of mankind. >> sreenivasan: the plots thicken when the intelligent machines question the authority of their makers, and begin acting on their own accord. >> do you think i might be switched off? >> it's not up to me. >> why is it up to anyone? >> sreenivasan: make no mistake, these are hollywood fantasies. but they do tap into real-life concerns about artificial intelligence, or a.i. elon musk, founder and ceo of tesla motors & spacex is not exactly a luddite bent on stopping the advance of technology. but he says, a.i. poses a potential threat more dangerous than nuclear weapons. >> i think we should be very careful about artificial intelligence. if i were to guess what our biggest existential threat is, it's probably that. with artificial intelligence, we are summoning the demon. >> sreenivasan: musk recently donated $10 million to the

future of life institute, which is focused on keeping a.i. research "beneficial to humanity." add his voice to a list of bright minds like physicist stephen hawking, microsoft founder bill gates and several leaders in the field of artificial intelligence. among them, stuart russell, who heads the a.i. lab at the university of california berkeley. what concerns you about how artificial intelligence is already being used, or will be used shortly? >> in the near term, the biggest problem is the development of autonomous weapons. everyone knows about drones. drones are remotely piloted. they're not robots in a real sense. there's a person looking through the camera that's on the aircraft, and deciding when to fire. an autonomous weapon would do all of that itself. it chooses where to go, it decides what the target is, and it decides when to fire. >> sreenivasan: he's concerned about weapons like the british taranis. it's featured in this

promotional video, by bae systems, a former newshour underwriter. the taranis is currently operated remotely by humans, but this drone is outfitted with artificial intelligence, and will be capable of operating fully autonomously. russell testified to the united nations, which is considering a ban on such weapons, that can target and kill humans without requiring a person to pull the trigger. >> i think there's a fundamental moral issue about whether it's right for a machine to decide to kill a person. it's bad enough that people are deciding to kill people, but at least they have perhaps some moral argument, that they're doing it to ultimately defend their families or prevent some greater evil >> sreenivasan: while the defense industry is one use case of artificial intelligence, how close are we to building robots like the ones in the movies that are truly autonomous? down the hall from russell, at u.c. berkeley's a.i. lab, pieter abeel and his students are training their pr2 robot to

think for itself. >> one of the main things we've been looking at is how can we get a robot to think about situations it's never seen before. an example of that is let's say a robot is supposed to fold laundry or maybe tie a knot in a rope. whenever you're faced with even the same laundry article or the same rope, it'll be in a different shape and so you can't just execute blindly the same set of motions and expect success. >> sreenivasan: abeel's team is painstakingly training the pr2 to compete in an amazon warehouse "picking challenge" in late may. right now, you're just teaching it to grab this stack of soap, that's it? >> yes we just started on this and so right now, the robot is essentially learning how to grab soap bars out of the shelf. but really what we're after is equipping the robot with the capability such that if you come up with a whole new list of let's say, a thousand new items that we can very quickly equip it with the skill to pick any one of those thousand items. >> sreenivasan: on the day we visited, the pr2 was hobbled by a broken arm, and there were

several times the robot failed at the task. no dice. missed it this time. >> missed it. >> sreenivasan: a tiny reminder that training a robot to think is no small task. so you think super intelligence is still pretty far off and we don't need to worry about it today? >> i would say it's still pretty far off, yes. >> sreenivasan: but while training this robot may be tough today, not everyone thinks super intelligence is that far out of our reach. ray kurzweil is director of engineering at google. he spoke to us in his capacity as an independent inventor of devices like the flatbed scanner. among his many awards sits a technical grammy for inventing the first computer based instrument that could realistically play like a piano. kurzweil says machines are on track to be on par with human intelligence in less than fifteen years. >> they will actually read at

human levels and understand language and be able to communicate at human levels, but then do so at a vast scale. the primary implication is going to be that we're going to combine our intelligence with computers. we're going to make ourselves smarter. by the 2030's they'll literally go inside our bodies, and inside our brains. >> sreenivasan: he calculates, that with exponential growth in computing and bio-technology, we will reach what he calls "singularity" within 25 years. that's when machine intelligence exceeds human intellectual capacity. >> these technologies expand exponentially. they double in power roughly every year, so look at the genome project. it's a 15-year project. half way through the project 7.5 years into it, 1% had been completed, so some people looked down and say, "well 1%, we've just barely started." i looked at it and said, "1% well, we're halfway through." because 1%'s only seven doublings from 100%, and it doubled every year, seven years later was finished. from one perspective, we're in

the early stage in artificial intelligence, but exponentials start out slowly and then they take off. >> sreenivasan: one such technology is the self-driving car. in the 1990's kurzweil predicted it would happen despite a chorus of experts who declared it impossible. today, self driving cars have been test driven, without incident, hundreds of thousands of miles, but are not quite ready for consumers. >> yes, we have prototype cars that can drive by themselves. but without smart vision, they cannot really tell the difference between a crumpled paper bag which could be run over, and a rock that size which should be avoided. >> sreenivasan: fei fei li explains in a recent ted talk. >> our smartest machines are still blind. >> sreenivasan: li is director of stanford university's artificial intelligence lab.

how hard is it to get a computer to see something and understand what it is? >> it's actually really, really hard. think about it, a camera takes pictures. we have millions of pixels, but these are just numbers they don't really have meaning in themselves. the task for artificial intelligence and computer vision algorithm is to take these numbers and convert them into meaningful objects. >> sreenivasan: how to infer meaning is not easy to teach a machine, even for this highly advanced dog robot. humans have had thousands of years of evolution. computers, li cautions, are a ways off. >> we are very, very far from an intelligent system, not only the sensory intelligence, but cognition, reasoning, emotion, compassion, empathy. the whole full spectrum, we're nowhere near that. >> sreenivasan: a bit like stanford's robot, which might be on proverbial training wheels today. but he's part of the steady

march toward super intelligent machines. sreenivasan in palo alto, for the pbs newshour, i'm hari sreenivasan in palo alto, california. >> woodruff: time for a look at some interesting reporting that's #nottrending, as we say. in this case, it's a housing story that rarely gets close attention, but is the subject of new battles and growing interest. gwen has the story. >> ifill: #nottrending this month, a small part of the housing market where 20 million people live, trailer parks. mobile home residents often stay for decades and make up a significant percentage of housing in some regions of the southeastern united states. but in some parts to have the country the land the homes are on is becoming more valuable leading to evictions with as little as five days notice. that's part of the series of families on the brink in louisiana and the woman who is trying to help. >> this is fourth of the older

communities that's closed in the last two years. >> here in the pine haven trailer park, 35 families are in crisis. kathy's help is in high demand. >> heart breaking to see the parks close because the people have no place to go. >> i'm going to try to get trucks in there now. >> what about the grey one? the owner over the park sold the land and the community is being dismantled, in a hurry. >> collected the ent up to the 15th of january. >> 15 days to get out. >> ifill: carlos watson is the founder and editor of ozzy and joins me now. why did you west coast, silicon valley web site decide to go inside the worlds of mobile homes? >> we're always interested in what's #nottrending and such an important part of the economy, one out of 50 americans are

living in these homes. you pointed out lake charles louisiana, but even in silicon valley. even the most prosperous parts of the countries, people are facing threats of eviction, lacking the ability to prevent against high wages and prices and it's difficult for a huge if you remember of people. >> ifill: here's what i didn't know before i watched your series, is how many people who actually call, for generations these mobile homes trailer parks, whatever you call them, home, and why. >> very much so. cheaper is the short answer, often than living elsewhere. people buy these from $3,000 to 100 thowrksd cheaper than buying a home in many other places, a chance to have the american dream. sometimes these get passed on from generation to generation and many families living in one place. why do they not move elsewhere? you and i know there is a rental

crisis in the united states and buying, the housing crisis it's gotten tougher because people want more down. >> ifill: one thing most people don't realize is though you own the trailer home you may not own the land under it. >> quite a contradiction. supreme court justice sandra day o'connor said mobile homes aren't mobile in many cases because you don't own the land underneath so you're scared to move and often can't move unless you're evicted and if you are, even you have been there only for decades you don't get much notice. some places are 60 days but in some places like louisiana only five days. if somebody told you you have five days to move, very difficult, and in louisiana some places are having economic booms such as fracking it's starting to happen quickly. the woman in the story said this is the fourth eviction happening in the last year.

>> ifill: if you found another place to go, $5,000 to move it. >> right, and some people are saying i can't afford it so leaving the homes to be bulldozed and finding themselves moving to section 8 housing or other places. an interesting thing about this, gwen, while that part of the story is both a struggle story and in some ways may feel familiar to people, there are a couple of elements looking at the trailer parks across the country, who's there. low income families, seniors, immigrants from vietnamese to mexican-americans across the countries, and millennials who don't want to move back home with mom and dad. >> ifill: you have a photograph in the slide show of google bikes, google employees can ride on their bikes who live in a trailer home and that's cheaper. >> he gets to work at the ten most valuable corporations in

the world that way. not exactly who you'd expect to be there. another interesting turn in the story, hipsters because hipsters create a lot of things, they're taking over old school buses, they're buying the old yellow buses and turning them into their own mobile homes, in many cases park alongside classic mobile homes and even what people call tiny homes and you have a mixed housing stock in some of these markets. >> ifill: it's #nottrending but it's a trend. >> well said. i was with the secretary of housing and urban development earlier today who faces the same issues in san antonio and said the reality of the law has not caught up with the reality that there are 21 people living there, don't own the land underneath it so there needs to be more change and if not you could get more hipsters and others coming in and colder folks pushed out. >> ifill: won't be the first

time that hams. >> genderfication in mobile parks. >> carlos watson, thank you. always good to be with you. >> woodruff: and to the analysis of brooks and marcus. that's new york times columnist david brooks and washington post columnist ruth marcus, mark shields is away. welcome to both of you. lead story tonight, the british elections, wig bin for the -- big win for the conservatives, david cameron. how do you think about this implications for the u.s.? >> we've had a long debate on how to react to the financial crisis. there are two countries who didn't do the big stimulus packages and did do fiscal discipline and those were generally in the u.k. we've had a debate, which is the right policy, austerity or bigger stimulus and spending. the two in europe the austerity

countries. one of the things the cameron victory is about, it's about what's happening in scotland and a lot of things. within england, voters had a chance to reject the policy and the conservative party has a bigger majority than before so it has to be some sort of indication for the basic fiscal package that david cameron and chancellor championed. >> woodruff: what about that? we pointed out the public polls weren't right, at least the public polls were a little misleading. >> i don't think the internal polls were any clearer from the folks i've talked to. i think everybody was shocked by the outcome. i think i'm a little bit reluctant to draw at least u.s. parallels to the implications of the british election for the reason that you allude to, david. first of all, it's not at all clear to me that this was a referendum on austerity but a

lot of the austerity has passed but second of all a more important, austerity in the united kingdom is a lot different than what we think about when we think about austerity here. they ran a budget deficit of 5.7% last year, 4.5% this year, those are big, big deficits in u.s. terms. cameron has to pledge and pledged his absolute devotion to the national health system so this sort of ability to translate that austerity back home and make it work back here seems to be a little bit open to question. >> i would say all that is true obviously. >> woodruff: obviously! (laughter) >> it had to be true. but he did do significant spending cuts against a lot of opposition and second, i think british and american politics rhyme. they go in cycles, thatcher-reagan and blair-clinton cycles. now british party looks the way the republican would look if it

was the sort of party in california and the northeast and california and oregon. it's socially pretty moderate. at best it has strong environmental wing, so i would say for republicans, if you ever want to compete along america's coastline and affluent america, what david cameron is doing, more communitiarian it's a good model and works for him. >> woodruff: do you think the g.o.p. could take lessons from across the pond? >> naked but i think they won't because of the internal political geography. we're segregated by congressional districts and gerrymandering and residential segregation so there is not a lot of incentive for that kind of moderation in a lot of places even though it would be smart in

presidential campaigns. i think the bigger implications of the u.k. elections are parochial u.k. and europe implications, first of all the astonishing result of the scottish marshal party we thought that issue was settled and now seems to be bubbling up again and it's related to the referendum coming that david cameron promised on the the e.u. membership. he had a fantastic night and woke up to two big headaches he'll have to deal with in the next year. >> i don't think that's only parochial. the scottish and e.u. referendum are social movement with big and paranational institutions and that's the disillusionment we see here why a lot of power is flowing back to states and cities and there is disillusionment around the world with the big ernest tuitions and federalization going on. >> woodruff: we have an election coming up riewm harris it next year. we had three candidates, almost

a candidate a day jump in this week, david. let's talk about these three and how you size them up. start with ben carson, the pediatric neurosurgeon. >> i think they'll all have their moment. ben carson is a neurosurgeon brilliant, charismatic, great story to tell. i think they're all in the wrong year. if you look at polling and you can look at the results hillary clinton just had in her polling where she survived these scandals wonderfully even stronger than before people want experienced political leadership. i think the reaction to having a very young president is we want somebody who's been there before and these counties if they were running four years ago or eight years ago i think they would have a much bigger upside as mike huckabee did eight years ago. but their upside is limited because none have significant governing experience. huckabee has some but it's dated.

fiorina and carson have none. >> woodruff: how do you see them? >> i would differentiate between carly fiorina and ben carson on the one hand and mike huckabee on the other because the first two i think, just to be very blunt, this is not their year to be candidates but i'm not sure they would be selling, credible candidates in any year. carly fiorina had a failed business career and then failed at her previous bid for political office and was ousted. ben carson is a brain surgeon but turns out you don't have to be a brain surgeon to be president but helps to have political experience. neither has it. i don't think either one of them would get to be a nominee in the most anti-experienced politician year. mike huckabee is a candidate of a different sort.

he really does have governing experience. >> woodruff: former governor of arkansas. >> former governor of arkansas. i think his moment passed. i think he was a much more attractive candidate in 2008 than this time around. he's a little bit more brittle, more angry. he's -- >> woodruff: hmm... i think his biggest selling point is both his experience the fact that he has proven -- he won iowa in 2008, he has an attraction. i think there is a diminished interested in the electorate this year in social conservatives and that has passed. i think one another one of his big selling points is he really pulled himself up from his boot straps talks about showering with lava soap. didn't realize he could take a uh show we are with soap that didn't hurt till he was older. >> woodruff: you don't see mike huckabee in a different place than the others?

>> i think he was an enormous campaign last night, light hearted, warm. he had a lot of issues that would really move people and not the normal thing. he would talk about childhood obesity and you would see crowds nodding along. >> preventative care. and he does have the working class story to tell. but if you want a working class story you have scott walker or marco rubio. if you want evangelical, you have walker too. so seems there are more plausible candidates with all the things huckabee offers. >> woodruff: we weren't going to talk about hillary clinton but it was clear to me when she talked about immigration this week she was trying to send a signal that her position is much more acceptable to the latino and hispanic community than that of the republicans. >> indeed, she was and it was a very, very clever move that she did because what she said was i am the only candidate in this race who is for a path to legal

citizenship. if you're for something else, you are for second-class status for all of the hispanics, latinos out there. so she's put the candidates who are in the better place on immigration in the republican party, the marco rubios the jeb bush also who are already going to get grief from the right about being for any form of legalization or path to legal status, putting them in a terrible place because it's going to get them in trouble on the right but not the adequate for the left and latino voters very smart move on her part. >> woodruff: you're sort of nodding. >> the jeb bush and marco rubio, the former reformers are living in shades of grey making distinctions nobody else pays attention to. so they're sort of lost. the republicans are dodging. her position is very clear. i wonder emperically whether she'll pay a price. is there any democratic or modern constituentsy who worry

about the immigration problem, too many immigrants have we lost control of the borders. but the national polling is a strong position, puts her on the offensive. good move for her. >> woodruff: the agreement that seems to havevan reached between the administration and the senate over the iran nuclear deal that come to an agreement over what congress' role will be and this is after republicans were raising a storm about not saying the president is not going to do this on his own congress is going to have a say. >> i think the republicans gave in a lot. they get a little say over timing and what goes when and how long the review process is but basically it's very hard -- if a presidential deal is made it's hard for congress to beat it. they would have to get veto-proof majorities and that's not going to happen. i think the republicans gave a lot, they will get to have a

voice. >> i think it is a win for the president because he's got the veto, but it's a win for congress for the institution. it's really important when we have serious agreements to have the legislative branch to have app opportunity and have the opportunity and responsibility to weigh in. kudos to the chairman of the foreign relations comirt, tim kaine the democratic senator from virginia who really pushed this and debits to congress for not being as careful about it's institutional roll when it comes to a new authorization for the use of military force which we need in syria and iraq. they've totally caved on that but i think it's good for congress as an institution to have this iran review. >> woodruff: i keep asking this question, less than 30 seconds, david, is this a model? will we see congress and the president working together? >> we'll get a test with the

patriot act. >> not easily repeated. >> woodruff: okay. ruth marcus, david david brooks. >> thank you. >> woodruff: now to the latest edition of the newshour bookshelf. paul beatty's new novel "the sellout" takes an unflinching, at times comic look at race in america. jeffrey brown recently sat down with him at busboys and poets a local washington bookstore. >> brown: paul beatty, welcome. >> thanks for having me. >> brown: this is a solo skewering. humor of racial politics. what set you off? what are you responding to? >> i'm just kind of responding to myself, i guess. it's not like there is some impetus that i have to write

about that. it's stuff that i have been thinking about for a long time. i have been thinking about segregation for some reason. i think i had read something about somebody saying oh, black people are better off under segregation and i just went, that would be so fun to try to see how segregation would work now in a weird kind of guy. >> brown: so your nameless character, young back man, he tries to resegregate his city in a sense. >> yeah. >> brown: strangely enough. he doesn't know he's doing that and that the city is already segregated. >> brown: it is segregated. in many different ways. >> brown: as is much of our life today. >> exactly. it's interesting in the book how acknowledging that you're being segregated changes your behavior a bit. >> brown: it allows you to look at every black piety, at every liberal piety. it's easy in a way to skewer out

and out racism. >> yeah. >> brown: you get it in everybody. >> i'm not very pious about everything, fortunately, but i'm skewering myself first. i'm skewering things i care about and things that are important to me and then my own foibles. it's stuff i'm thinking about like the absurdities and the way we talk about race, class, culture, education. >> brown: what absurdities? what do we get wrong. >> there's no right. we think there is this weird utopian end game to life, not just racial politics. for me it's a weird way to try to live life. it's not to say we shouldn't aspire to those things. so the thing i have been hearing about lately is some people always say, oh it's hard to talk about race, we can't have the discussion. i'm, like, what does that really mean? i don't understand what that discussion is and where this

metaphorical table, you know, we have to come to the table. i don't know where the tables are. so i get to set my own table a bit. >> brown: at the same time, though, these are very serious issues. in your book, the narrator's father was shot by police in the area around los angeles and that's very real stuff. >> yeah. >> brown: your approach is completely through humor. >> through humor and my own experience. so the shooting is something that's sort of personal to me. it wasn't like like, oh, people are getting shot, let me write about that. i'm starting from myself not current events or the news or thyme"time magazine" side bar about this stuff. >> brown: are we too squeamish? one of the problems i have in quoting the book is your very liberal use of the "n" word. >> yeah. >> brown: we isn't sit here and read it or quote from it too much are. we too squeamish? are we just not talking -- >> i think it's when i used to

read poetry people would bring me into a high school to read and i would say the "f" word and they would act like they never heard it and they're saying it five minutes later. so there's a line between propriety and how we really speak and think and i'm just trying to have fun with that stuff. you're talking about the word (bleep), and i can't say the "n" word because it's just so ridiculous. there is part of the book where they're talking about mark twain and his books and where the "n" word is throughout. what purpose is that serving to take that out. >> brown: is that satire? i just try to get what's in

my head on the page. that part is hard to do. it takes a long, long time to make it poetic. and i have a little bit bit of an aagenda. that part is hard to pull off. the book is about a big scope. it's about a ton of things. because i see these things as all interrelated and interwoven in a real way. >> brown: where does your love of writing come from? >> i couldn't tell you. i can't say that i love writing but i love the satisfaction that it gives me. it's really basic. i'm glad i found it late in life and i'm glad i found it at all. >> brown: the new novel is book"the sellout." paul beatty, thanks so much. >> thanks for having me. >> woodruff: now to our newshour

shares of the day. something that caught our eye that might be of interest to you, too. dozens of world war two military planes flew over the national mall in washington today, to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of the conflict in europe. thousands of people, including world war two veterans, gathered to watch the vintage aircraft fly in formation through highly restricted airspace. and in another milestone president obama arrived in south dakota today, marking the 50th state he has visited since entering office. a series of images by white house photographer pete souza documents the president's moments across the country. colorado, viewing the remains of they include him playing pool in colorado, viewing the remains of a school in oklahoma after a 2013 tornado getting soaked in a rainstorm while giving a speech in

virginia, greeting high school graduates in tennessee, and trying on a pair of cowboy boots in texas. you can see all of our newshour shares on our website. also on the newshour online, the bleak march labor report gave way to a brighter april. we take a deeper look at last month's numbers on "making sense." all that and more is on our web site, pbs.org/newshour. and a reminder about some upcoming programs from our pbs colleagues. gwen ifill is preparing for "washington week," which airs later this evening. here's a preview: >> ifill: tonight we delve into justice and politics, as n.s.a. practices come under judicial scrutiny; the attorney general launches an investigation into police practices in baltimore; three new faces join the 2016 republican campaign, and hillary clinton goes on policy offense as well as political defense. all that, tonight on washington week. judy? >> woodruff: on pbs newshour weekend saturday, why warren buffett is investing in some of america's poorest communities.

how to turn around areas of concentrated poverty has been a question american cities have long grappled with, but a neighborhood on the east side of atlanta, east lake has become a model for one type of approach, an approach supported by america's second-richest person, investor warren buffett. >> the american dream has been very real for millions and millions of people over the years but there's been an american nightmare that has accompanied that and that's where people have equally tried to get educated, worked hard, had good habits, have found themselves living a life that's been on the edge throughout their entire lives and the same for their children. america can do better than that. >> woodruff: that's tomorrow night on pbs newshour weekend. and we'll be back, right here, on monday. fighting nut allergies by eating nuts, an experimental treatment that appears to be working. that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff, have a great weekend. thank you and good night.

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