captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening. i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight: the u.s. economy shows signs of sustained strength, adding 292,000 jobs in december, despite global turmoil. then, nearly six months after escaping a high security prison, the mexican drug lord known as "el chapo" is arrested. plus, miles o'brien unwraps the latest health-related technology from the consumer electronics show. >> can we use all this data we can get from all sorts of different things, not only to keep people healthy once they're in the hospital, but prevent them from getting sick in the first place? >> woodruff: and it's friday: david brooks and david corn are here, to analyze the week's news. all that and more, on tonight's pbs newshour.

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working with visionaries on the frontlines of social change worldwide. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: and friends of the newshour. >> 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 december jobs numbers are in, and they show employers were in a hiring mood. according to the department of labor, monthly surveys found that u.s. businesses added a net of more than 290,000 positions. the unemployment rate was

unchanged at 5%, as more people went looking for work-- and found it. we'll hear from the secretary of labor, thomas perez, after the news summary. president obama has vetoed a republican bill that would have repealed the "affordable care act." he said today it would reverse significant progress in improving health care. this was the first such repeal measure to reach the oval office, but in a video statement, house speaker paul ryan said it may not be the last: >> we have shown now that there is a clear path to repealing obamacare without 60 votes in the senate. so, next year, if we're sending this bill to a republican president, it will get signed into law. >> woodruff: the bill had enough votes in the house to override a veto-- but not in the senate. the president also made moves today on fighting violent extremism. they include a task force to counter the use of social media to radicalize and recruit.

senior administration officials traveled to silicon valley today to get the tech industry's help. an islamic state affiliate in libya has claimed responsibility today for a deadly truck bombing. the explosion rocked a police base outside tripoli on thursday as hundreds of recruits were training. at least 47 people were killed and scores more were wounded. meanwhile, investigators in belgium say they've discovered an apartment where islamic state militants made bombs for the paris attacks last november. a raid in brussels turned up suicide belts and bomb-making gear. the attacks killed 130 people. in syria, relief agencies waited today for the green light to enter a town that is-- literally-- starving to death. the syrian government has now agreed to let relief into madaya, in the northwest, near the border with lebanon. geraint vincent of independent television news filed this report.

and be advised that some of the images may be disturbing. >> reporter: in the desperate neighborhoods of madaya, the people are to be found huddled around two stoves. the old man here take delivery of a small bag of olive leaves. "can you not bring us some rice?" he asks. but the leaves are the nearest thing to food he'll see today. there is at least some water to boil them in. we can't independently verify these pictures, but at the hospital the doctors say the emergency they are trying to cope with is getting worse and worse. this man hasn't eaten for 25 days, we're told, and he's one of hundreds being kept alive with medication and spoonfuls of food. laying siege to towns of civilians is a tactic employed by both sides in syria's war. it is forces loyal to assad which have cut off madaya. his government says it will allow humanitarian access. aid agencies hope to get food in there by sunday.

>> we know that when people are besieged and are cut off from supplies that the situation will be bad. we know that there will be high rates of malnutrition, severe malnutrition, stunting among children, health issues, diseases. we know that usually the children, the women, the elderly will pay a heavy price. >> reporter: aid might get through soon, but the uncertainties of war mean it might not. the time is running out for the people of madaya and so is what passes for food here. >> woodruff: the syrian government wants to wrest back control of madaya to secure supply lines to its hezbollah militia allies in lebanon. south korea fired up its loudspeakers today near the demilitarized zone, and blasted propaganda into north korea. the high-decibel criticism attacked the north korean regime and its leader, kim jong un. one message claimed un and his wife wear clothing that costs thousands of dollars. seoul resumed the broadcasts

after the north carried out a nuclear test, and south koreans near the d.m.z. seemed supportive. >> ( translated ): no wonder the south korean government has started the loudspeaker broadcasts. we cannot tolerate those who conducted a nuclear test which was a violation. don't you think? we should counteract it. >> woodruff: in the past, north korea has branded the broadcasts an act of war. it responded late today with propaganda broadcasts of its own. adolf hitler's political manifesto "mein kampf" went on sale in germany today for the first time since world war ii-- and demand quickly outstripped supply. the initial print run was for 4,000 copies, but 15,000 orders flooded the publisher. the two-volume work includes critical annotations that debunk the nazi leader's claims. >> ( translated ): this edition exposes the false information

spread by hitler, his downright lies and his many half-truths, which aimed at a pure propaganda effect. >> woodruff: for decades, the german state of bavaria used its copyright on "mein kampf" to block any new editions, but the copyright expired at the end of 2015. back in this country, police in philadelphia say a man who ambushed and wounded an officer last night, pledged loyalty to the islamic state group. the suspect, edward archer, is in custody. his mother says he'd been hearing voices recently, and his family urged him to get help. surveillance video shows the gunman firing more than a dozen shots at officer jesse hartnett, who was sitting in his cruiser. hartnett shot back and wounded his attacker. reports of sexual assaults have spiked at u.s. military academies. the "associated press" reports they rose more than 50% during just the past school year. it's unclear whether that's mostly because assaults are

actually on the rise, or whether victims are more willing to come forward. wall street slumped again today, amid ongoing worries about china's economy and falling oil prices. the dow jones industrial average lost 167 points to close below 16,350. the nasdaq fell nearly 46 points, and the s&p 500 slipped 21. for the week, the dow and the s&p lost 6%-- the worst since 2011. the nasdaq fell 7%. and finally, there's a new world record: for mass tooth brushing. more than 17,500 children gathered in bangalore, india yesterday to highlight good oral hygiene. that should easily surpass the old mark for most people brushing their teeth, in one place. still to come on the newshour: the u.s. labor secretary on a solid year in job growth; mexico's infamous drug lord,

captured again; outrage over mass sexual assaults in germany, and much more. >> woodruff: the final jobs report for 2015 helped finish the year off with solid growth. overall, the economy added 2.6 million jobs last year. combined with 2014, that led to a two-year gain in jobs that was the best since the late nineties. and yet, wage growth remained slow or modest at best for the year-- around 2.5%. tom perez is the secretary of labor, and he joins me now. welcome back to the program. >> pleasure to be with you and all your viewers. >> woodruff: so this is a strong year of growth. i saw one report that said -- called it a red-hot hiring

spree. what's behind this? what was driving this? >> well, your introduction is really spot on. when you look at the last two years, not simply the last month -- and by the way the best quarter of 2015 was the last quarter of 2015 -- when you look at the last two years, this is the best two-year stretch we've had since the late '90s. you look at auto sales. last year was the hottest year for auto sales in history. you look at the -- you look at the fact that this six-year stretch of auto sales is the best stretch since we've had since the end of world war ii, and you look at not only the quantity but the quality of jobs, judy, because what we've seen over the last two years is not only good numbers but very good quality. you look at, for instance, professional and business services, that's been the biggest growth area over the last two years. these are good jobs. construction had a good year last year. with the infrastructure bill that passed at the end of last year, i expect construction will

continue to do well. healthcare, notwithstanding the truth deniers who say the aca is a job killer, the healthcare has been a recession-proof industry. so quantity and quality has been moving forward, and that's a good thing. >> woodruff: well, much of the underlying data is strong, mr. secretary, but there still are some signs of concern. i want to ask you if it's concern. it looks as if jobs that pay at the higher end, people earning more, are doing better than those in the middle and lower income levels. as we just mentioned, wage growth is stagnant. how do you explain that persistent sub stubbornness in terms of getting wages higher? >> what invariably happens in recovery is the jobs that come back first are the lower-paying jobs, and that's what happened in this recovery. now what you're seeing in recent years, which is a good thing, is more jobs that pay better are coming back. that's what i was mentioning

about the last two years. the challenge of wage stagnation is an undeniable challenge and it predates the great recession. last year's real wage growth of 2.1% was the best we've had since the recovery began. so that's solid but that's not enough. again, this issue dates back to really the late '70s. for decades after world war ii, productivity and real wage growth went hand in hand. americans helped bai -- helped e the pie of prosperity and shared in the benefits. we still have real work to do on wage growth. >> woodruff: it sounds like something you expect to continue, the slow wage. >> last year was the best year we've seen in the recovery. in the end of the clinton administration, the unemployment rate was 4% and, so, one of the things we can do to put upward pressure on wages is to continue to have tight labor markets.

another thing we can do is to raise the minimum-wage. another thing we can do is the regulations the president directed us to do to make sure people who work overtime get paid overtime. investing in skills is a tried and true method of helping people get access to those middle class jobs that are out there in i.t. and other sectors. >> woodruff: broaden this out for us. we know globally china is slowing down. we've done a lot of reporting on what's happening to china's market. that's having global repercussions. then you have the price of oil at record lows. how much do yo do you worry of e effect of things like that on the u.s. economy and u.s. jobs? >> well, the price of oil as it is now for consumers is unmitigated boon. you go to a gas pump and you're paying less than $2 a gallon. the average family last year had $500 to $800 additional money in their pockets. that's good for consumers. what do they do with that money?

they spend it. so you see very good numbers on consumer spending in the united states. >> woodruff: unless you're working in the industry. >> and the challenge for those working in the sector, and we've seen that impact in the mining sector where the oil jobs are found and, certainly, the head winds from china, and others in the strong dollar, it's more difficult to manufacture, so the manufacturing numbers in 20 is a weren't as good. but again, we had these head winds in 2015 as well. i did a lot of numbers days interviews where people said the market was volatile over the last two weeks, isn't the job numbers, aren't they going to go down? and you look and see we've had two years in a row of north of 200,000 jobs a month on average. that's solid. >> woodruff: one other thing i want to ask you about mr. secretary is the labor force participation rate. it continues at what i understand to be a four-decade low. what is it, 62% of americans who

want to be or would like to be in the labor force actually have a job. so how do you -- what's the prospect for the future for people who want the to work, either don't have the job they want or don't have any job? >> the labor force participation rate over the last year has been basically the same. it's about 62.6%. and it's been a very narrow band. and the reason it has gone down from, say, ten years ago, 15 years ago, even five years ago, the primary reason it's gone down is because of the aging of the population. economists say roughly 50% of the reduction in labor force participation is atrippettable to demographics. the main thing that we could do to increase labor force participation at a policy level is to enact federal paid leave. the countries that have enacted paid leave laws -- and canada is a great example. in 2000, the female labor force

participation in canada was identical. because of their investment in paid leave, they are 8% ahead of the united states. if we had kept pace, we would have 5.5 million more women in the workplace making silicon valley look for like america and making our social security trust fund more secure. >> woodruff: labor secretary tom perez, thank you very much. >> always a pleasure. >> woodruff: the words from mexico's president enrique pena nieto this afternoon said it all: "mission accomplished. we have him." the "him" is perhaps the world's most-notorious drug lord: joaquin guzman, known as "el chapo," the ringleader of the sinaloa cartel. he was arrested after a fierce gun battle today, nearly six months after his elaborate escape from a high-security prison. we go to hari sreenivasan for more.

>> sreenivasan: i'm joined now by alfredo corchado, director of the borderlands program at the cronkite school of journalism at arizona state univeristy. he has also reported for many years from mexico for the dallas morning news, and is author of "midnight in mexico," a book about his experience covering the brutal drug war. so let's start with the basics. what happened, where was he? how did he get captured? >> well, he was captured this morning right before dawn, intense firefight between the marines and drug traffickers, people close to or guarding el chapo guzman. what we know, since last july, the marines with the help of u.s. intelligence have been tracking him in several mexican states including sinaloa where he was captured this morning, the state of durango and even tabasco. there were two confrontations from what we know. the first a private home and later captured at a hotel. five of his trusted body guards were killed an at least one

marine was wounded. >> sreenivasan: this is the second time the president of mexico has gone on national television and said they've got this guy. i mean, this is an important win. >> this is the second time for president enrique peña nieto and the third time a mexican president has said that. he said, you know, mission accomplished, but i think a lot of people will feel the mission has not been accomplished until el chapo actually chases justice and the best chance of doing that will be on the u.s. side. a lot of debate going on as to whether he will be extradited this time. >> sreenivasan: and let's talk a little bit about that. the united states has asked for extradition. do you think that is a greater possibility now? >> i think the timing is much better than last time. i think the first time he was captured there was a lot of angst and reticence within the

mexican government, the suspicion that you don't want to let the americans come in too close. but after this huge eembarrassment that went worldwise, i think there is a sense this may be good for mexican government, this obviously will be good for the u.s. government. but keep in mind chapo guzman has a vast number of lawyers. last time there was a fight for temporary injunctions to stop extradition. it may happen, but i think it's a long, long ways before this happens. >> sreenivasan: what involvement was there if any by the u.s. in assisting with the capture? >> well, my sources tell me that the u.s. has been helping the mexican marines since the capture with intelligence, but unlike the first time, there were no u.s. agents on the ground assisting the mexican marines and the federal police. so this is primarily a mexican

operation. >> sreenivasan: you know, chopo guzman already had almost folk lower status but that prison break and how elaborate it was just six months ago really sealed it. >> right, and today the premier of the movie chapo is in mexico city. they're expecting at least four other movies this year to talk about a series or there have been books. it will be interesting to see how people in regions in mexico, especially sinaloa, how they will react. will they come out and protest again because of this arrest or let it go. i'm sure there are songs written as we speak about chapo's latest capture. >> sreenivasan: is there some sense this will be a more significant blow to the drug cartels? in some ways his capture is

representative of mexico's ability to win the drug warm. >> and the ability to create rule of law. chapo's main lieutenant was captured so that's a huge blow to the sinaloa cartel. the sinaloa cartel for a long time has been under control of mio sambada, so there might be territorial fights in wha juared chihuahua and other places, but business as usual, as long as you have u.s. demand, i think the drugs will continue to come up north. >> sreenivasan: alfredo corchado, thanks so much for joining us. >> thank you. >> woodruff: stay with us. coming up on the newshour: the newest gadgets to boost your health; and david brooks and david corn on this week's news.

but first, in the german city of cologne, more than 100 women have filed complaints about being sexually molested by men described as being of "north african or arab origin." the attacks have polarized public opinion in germany over its open door policy, which has seen it take in more than a million asylum seekers amid the refugee crisis. from cologne, special correspondent malcolm brabant reports. >> reporter: dominated by its magnificent cathedral, cologne has a reputation for great tolerance. but the city's open mindedness has been stretched to the limit by what happened beneath the spires and near the railway station as the new year fireworks were let off in an aggressive manner by some of those in the crowd. it took several days for the

full extent of the criminal activity to be revealed. this young woman, who asked to remain anonymous was one of more than 100 who were assaulted. >> ( translated ): all of a sudden these men around us began groping us. they touched our behinds and grabbed between our legs. they touched us everywhere. so my girlfriend wanted to get out of the crowd. when i turned around one guy grabbed my bag and ripped it off my body. i thought to myself that if we stay here in this crowd they could kill us, they could rape us and nobody would notice. i thought we simply had to accept it. there was no one around us who helped or was in a position to help. all i wanted was to get out. i was scared that i wouldn't leave this crowd alive. i was scared that if someone showed up with a knife i could be raped in the middle of the street. i have nightmares at night and i can't sleep anymore. i am too scared to go outside on my own and of course i'm now scared to go to big cities. >> reporter: writer alice schwartzer is regarded as one of germany's leading women's rights activists, in the same sphere as gloria steinem and germaine greer.

she believes what happened in cologne marks a line in the sand in the debate over immigration. >> ( translated ): in the last 40 years, we have very successfully fought for our rights as women, for our freedom, or our access to the world, and that we are free to move around in it, and its going to stay that way of course! if someone has to change, then its the men who come from cultures where women are traditionally robbed of their rights, where they are repressed and the victims of violence. these men have been brutalized by the violence and trauma of war. they have problems, and i don't want us to have problems because of that. they have to change and recognize the values and laws of our state, unconditionally. >> reporter: parts of this city have been described as being as no go zones for women, but some have been out on the streets demanding that they should be free to move where they wish without fear of being attacked. they demanded action from chancellor angela merkel, who gave her first reaction to the events in cologne and elsewhere. >> ( translated ): what happened at new year is completely unacceptable. those are despicable, criminal

acts which a state will not accept, including germany. that's why an intensive investigation by the relevant institutions is underway. this investigation must be supported. the feeling women had in this case of being completely defenseless and at mercy is for me personally intolerable and so it is important that ehing that happened must come out into the open. it's right and it's good that there are a lot of police reports being filed. >> reporter: these two young germans, both with immigrant backgrounds, are deeply troubled by what happened. the man with the glasses, mimoun berrissoun, whose parents are from morocco, heads a group dedicated to de-radicalizing young muslims and promoting integration. >> ( translated ): when groups of people from other countries come here, the first thing they have to do is learn the rules. they have to develop a sense of what they can and can't do. its possible they had the idea in their heads that it would be easier to get with european women than it actually is, and

that they had brought this idea with them from home, and tried to make it reality here. but i also believe this is a very small group of people who behaved this way in that moment. >> reporter: talha evran who is of turkish ancestry, is worried about the impact these attacks will have on immigrants who abide by german laws. >> reporter: tonight outside the scene of the new year's eve assaults, the right wing group known as "alternative for germany" were out canvassing for support.

their polling numbers are on the rise. supporter helmut vanichek: >> ( translated ): those guilty of crimes but also those whose asylum applications are rejected must leave the country in accordance with german law. >> reporter: when the scale of the attacks first emerged, german leaders were at pains to separate the criminal activity from the issue of the refugee crisis. but now the authorities say they have identified 18 asylum seekers among 31 suspects linked to the troubles on new years eve. if convicted, some these people could be deported. meanwhile, the perceived loss of control on new years eve has led to cologne's police chief being relieved of his duties by the regional interior minister tonight. but the officers' union believes he's been made a scapegoat, claiming government policies undermined their ability to police properly. for the pbs newshour, i'm malcolm brabant in cologne.

>> woodruff: more than 100,000 people turned out for the annual consumer electronics show in las vegas this week-- the annual showcase for the latest in technology, devices and high-end toys. one of the big themes was the rising interest in health tech. our science correspondent, miles o'brien, was there to explore the potential benefits-- and caveats-- around all of this. his report is part of our breakthrough series on invention and innovation. >> reporter: "wearing your heart on your sleeve" is taking on a whole new meaning. at the 2016 pilgrimage to las vegas for gadget geeks, c.e.s., wearable health tracking devices broke into full stride, winning much more than a bit of flashy floorspace and heated hype. of course for the growing legions of you keeping score at

home on your devices, this is likely old data. >> people are taking more responsibility for health and fitness. they're realizing that health and fitness isn't just popping a pill. it's actually what they do that can really add up to a healthy life. >> reporter: woody scal is the chief business officer at market-leader fitbit, a $4 billion company based in san francisco that began selling glorified pedometers in 2007. >> seven years ago, when you talked about fitness electronics, people thought about products for triathletes. they didn't realize that these products could really address the needs of everyday people. >> reporter: an estimated 500 million people worldwide apparently now feel the need to copiously log their steps, leaps, strokes and spins, while recording their breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, sleep patterns and food intake-- just to name a few. and then, of course, brag about it online. >> i think humans have always been completely narcissistic. that has not changed.

the technology has given us a constant virtual mirror. >> reporter: lindsey turrentine is a sporadic fitness logger and the editor-in-chief of cnet.com, where tracking the technology of fitness tracking has become a big important beat. >> we're always checking on ourselves constantly. we're checking on whether people have responded to us and then we're also checking to see whether our bodies have responded to what we're doing. it's just another way to look at ourselves. >> reporter: but there is more than the psychology of self- obsession driving this sector to grow more than 200% a year-- there's a perfect storm of technological advances as well. sensors are rapidly shrinking, in size and cost; communications between devices has improved; and so has battery life. and of course none of it could happen without the ubiquity of smartphones-- our mobile switchboard for all things technological. it's a ripe convergence for the big players upstairs and the

upstarts in the basement as well; that's where we found peter neilson, c.e.o. of a denver startup called femtoscale. it seems like there's no limit to the amount of data people want to get. would you agree with that? what's going on? >> in wearables? >> reporter: yeah. >> blowing up. that's half of c.e.s. this year. it looks like its wearable, trying to compute everything. >> reporter: neilson's company is developing a portable-- and eventually wearable-- sensor that can provide real time readings of air quality, by weighing airborne particles much too small to see. the scale is just barely visible. i needed a jewelers magnifying glass to see it. >> what we're really trying to do is look at, not just healthcare but wellness. can we use all this data we can get from all sorts of different things, not only to keep people healthy once they're in the hospital, but prevent them from getting sick in the first place? >> reporter: san jose based stratio has shrunk a spectrometer down to palm size. the device shines a bright light on food and medicine to

determine if they are what they purport to be. in this demonstration, c.e.o. jae hyung lee compared counterfeit, generic and genuine viagra to the fingerprint-like spectroscopic pattern of the real mccoy. it was instantly obvious which were the imposters. >> so far people were just interested themselves, but now, they want to know more about themselves. they want to know what they're eating. they want to know what they're buying. they want to know what's going on around them. >> reporter: clearly, exercise and nutrition tracking alone are not enough to satisfy entrepreneurs-- or consumers-- in the health tracking space. kaustubh kale is c.e.o. of a boca raton startup called aventusoft. they are developing a wearable heart monitor and electrocardiogram. >> there's not a pushback anymore. people are already aware of fitbit or any of the other variables so they're already accepting these new technologies. and now, as the technology improves, you can now push it into the medical grid domain. >> reporter: it's an interesting

development. when you think about it, it really is no less than the democratization of medicine, isn't it? >> absolutely. yeah. you're putting the power in the consumer's hands and so they can get the data whenever they need, where they need it and with the accuracy that the doctor needs. >> reporter: this is where the government steps in. in early 2015, the food and drug administration released a document offering guidance to industry-- and its own staff-- on regulating mobile medical applications, declaring it will only regulate apps "...that are medical devices and whose functionality could pose a risk to a patient's safety if the mobile app were to not function as intended." >> so the risk to patients ranges from misdiagnosis, delay in diagnosis or-- when you get into the discussion of false positives and false negatives, then you have therapeutic devices that can actually harm people. >> reporter: bakul patel is associate center director for digital health at f.d.a.

>> there are standards of what an e.k.g. machine, how it should capture, what kind of wave forms, how it should be managing the signals that comes out of your body and display it. those are all standards written for that. if you're going to be in the market as an e.k.g. machine, doctors better rely on them and we ask for those testing to happen. so, they can actually make the same sort of diagnosis and treatment decisions. >> reporter: the pull of diagnostic tools out of the doctor's toolbox and into our pockets, our ears and onto our wrists is a revolution seeded in part by this man: larry smarr. a scientist and professor at the university of california, san diego, he used the video wall at the school's qualcomm institute to illustrate the power of what's called the "quantified self." >> "big data" as it's called. and this is about me. every one of the points on these graphs are a different blood test or a stool test in which i got a data point over a decade.

>> reporter: dr. smarr began his fantastic data voyage back in 2000 with a desire to lose some weight. and so his self prescribed testing began. he never looked back-- and before long he spotted trouble. his self diagnosis: crohn's disease. so he brought the data to his doctor, who said: >> "if you don't have symptoms, why are you here?" i said, "because i got data!" and he said, "well, that's not helpful." and, so, i realized as a lifetime scientist, that the practice of medicine and the practice of science, while they overlap sometimes, are generally different. >> reporter: so he fired that doctor, and found another. indeed, so many people generating so much diagnostic data may sound like a prescription for a lot of bad self diagnoses-- unneeded anxiety or even an epidemic of hypochondria. >> there is such a thing as too

much data if you can't deal with the data. if you don't have software that will help you interpret the data in a smart and reliable way, or if you get overwhelmed and frustrated and you don't know how to pick it out of the big "needle in a haystack" sort of data pile that's building up on your phone, then it's too much data. but it's sort of up to you and how much you can handle. >> reporter: but a giant cloud of real-time data-- really big data-- aggregated, analyzed and compared with artificial intelligence, could lead to stunning breakthroughs in preventive medicine. >> we can figure out, "what does this mean?" and how has the signal been correlated with other things that have happened among a broader set of people. someday, could you get an early alert about an impending heart event? yes, i believe you can. i believe you will. >> reporter: there may be rough spots and silliness along the way-- but there is no stopping the free market experiment to give us all more knowledge and more power managing our own

well-being. miles o'brien, the pbs newshour, las vegas. >> woodruff: it was a rare q&a: the president of the united states face-to-face with concerned citizens, during a cnn town hall thursday night. the topic: gun safety and gun rights. president obama made the case for the executive actions he announced earlier this week, saying his proposals balance the need to prevent gun deaths with the constitution's right to bear arms. >> i respect the second amendment, i respect the right to bear arms. i respect people who want a gun for self-protection, for hunting, for sportsmanship.

but all of us can agree, that it makes sense to do everything we can to keep guns out of the hands of people who would try to do others harm, or to do themselves harm, because every >> woodruff: earlier in the day, house speaker paul ryan wrote off the president as someone who put too much emphasis on limiting access to guns, at the expense of second amendment rights. >> i don't think the president-- i think he's been pretty hostile to the second amendment all along. i don't think the president has a lot of respect for the second amendment. and guess what is one of the most important things that we can do as citizens, collectively, to protect ourselves from some possible terrorist attack? exercising our second amendment rights. >> woodruff: and that brings us to the analysis of brooks and corn. that's "new york times" columnist david brooks; and david corn, washington bureau chief for "mother jones" and an analyst for "msnbc."

mark shields is away this week. we welcome you both. david brooks, who is right? does the president respect the second amendment or doesn't he? >> i've got to side with obama on this one. the second amendment guarantees guns, some possession, does not guarantee all guns. it does not guarantee freedom from background checks. iit doesn't mean you can't regulate them in some way. so i think he's been reasonably respectful toward the second amendment. i personally supported most of what he proposed. do i think it will do a lot of good? probably not. the history of gun control legislation backwards and forwards has been that it can reduce suicides but doesn't seem to have a huge effect on homicide rates. so the effect of what the president proposes is, i think, minimal, but probably a positive small step in the right direction. it boggles the mind to think it would be in violation of the constitution. >> woodruff: david corn, is

ryan right or the president? >> paul ryan was doing the mild version of what the republican conservative line has been which is to be demagogic when stalking about president obama, that he wants to take guns away. earlier in the week marco rubio put out a campaign ad saying the president wants to take your guns, and that's been the line from the n.r.a. over and over again. it's really not true. he can't, and there is nothing he's proposed that would take guns away from people who actually possess them, already. so i think the very interesting thing about the town hall meeting was that the president took that on directly, and he said, there are conspiracy theories out there about me and i want to confront them, and he wondered why the n.r.a. wasn't there last night because they had been invited to come. i think the reason was because he was ready to really call them out on that point, and they don't want to have that honest disagreement with the president. >> woodruff: david brooks, is there any movement on this

issue? are we just frozen with each side standing its ground? >> mm-hmm, frozen. you know, it's become a cultural issue. actually, i thought orb is trying to begin to diffuse that, but it is just a fact that a lot of people, especially in rural parts to have the country, think that gun control is a symbol for we don't like your lifestyle, and they feel outsiders are dictating to them their lifestyle. so even nongun owners in rural parts of virginia or wherever perceive it as hostile elitism. i think that's how it's frozen. >> it's interesting because that wasn't always the case. back in 1994, reagan urged banning the making of ak-47s and assault weapons. chris christie said he got into politics in the early '90s because he wanted to do something about guns. even marco rubio when he ran in 2000 was for reasonable restrictions. so there used to be an ability between the democrats and republicans to talk about this stuff but the republican party

has moved so far to the right, i think goad bid the n.r.a., that there really is no room to talk about this without it becoming short of caricatures. >> woodruff: and there is conversation in the democratic party. the president also, david brooks, bro an op-ed piece in your newspaper today in which among other things he made some of the same arguments he did last night in the town hall but he also said, i won't support a candidate even one in my own party who isn't willing to go along with significant gun reform. some people looked at that as a shot at bernie sanders. >> bernie sanders has wiggle room. if sanders is the nominee, i guarantee barack obama will be there for him. if there are any other democrats, they probably come from red states and wouldn't want barack obama campaigning for them anyway. so that was a sentence without much meaning, to me. >> woodruff: in reaction to that, evidently, or at least because of it, david corn, you had hillary clinton's campaign today pointing out some of the

past votes of bernie sanders. what is that all about? >> well, you know, the rap on hillary clinton within the democratic party has always been she's not progressive enough and bernie sanders obviously on issues of the economy, financial reform and foreign policy is to her left and probably more in line with a lot of people who are democratic primary voters. so guns is one place where there is a little distance, there is not a great difference, but there is some distance. you look at some past votes where she is more progressive than bernie sanders, so any chance that the hillary clinton campaign has to make something out of that they did. so they leaped upon the obama opeop-ed today to point out well maybe he won't campaign for her, at least to suggest that, but i don't think that's a possibility. >> woodruff: is that something that makes a difference in iowa or new hampshire which are coming up in a few weeks? >> no. there is only one small group of people who vote on the gun issue

and tats the n.r.a. no one else votes on that issue which is why it's hard to pass gun control legislation. >> woodruff: there is more to talk about about the democrats, but on the republican side, you're saying, yes, you saw this clinton-sanders back and forth, but on the republican side, david brooks, apong the so-called establishment republicans, they're taking more pot shots at one another. you're hearing a lot of back and forth between rubio and cruz, between rubio and christie and stuff, what's going on over there, is anybody making any head way among that group? >> yeah, ted cruz is making headway. you begin to see little signs of liftoff. trump is sort of sealing it out, carson is collapsing and cruz is somehow beginning to get momentum in iowa and elsewhere and, so, people are either mimicking him which rubio is doing a lit bill adopting some of the dark and satanic tones cruz has. >> woodruff: let me just ask, what did you just sai? >> if you watch a cruz speech,

it's like we've got this and that enemy, we're going to stomp on this person, crush that person, destroy that person. it is an ugly world in ted cruz's world, and it's combative and it's angry and apoc and apo. >> if you go to a speech of his dad, a pastor, evangelical. it actually is satanic. he said satan was behind the supreme court decision to legalize gay marriage. sometimes it's literal. >> it's dark and combative and, frankly, hai harsh. he gets jokes in the beginning, but h he says we're in an apocalyptic situatio situation,u need a tough guy to beat that back. that's not marco rubio's personality. he's running an optimism

campaign but he's getting a piece of that. i think it's a mistake. inauthenticity almost never works. so if rubio starts to go like cruz, he just doesn't look like himself and that bothers people. >> i think the interesting dynamic is a few months ago the conventional wisdom which has been wrong at every turn of this campaign was that trump would fade by the beginning to have the voting and there would be a couple of different spots for people to land it. and right now trump hasn't faded, cruz moved up but is not an establishment candidate so that left the so-called establishment candidates whether rubio, kasich, christie, whoever you put in the group, fighting for third place, and i think the desperation level has just really arched up, and i see them all as, like, guys in a pool treading water and trying to splash water in the face of others because they're so desperate not to be cut out. cruz and trump seem to have a lock in iowa in the first two

positions. >> woodruff: in new hampshire seems more room to play. >> yeah. >> woodruff: keep the water analogy rather than the satanic analogy there. (laughter) >> i think so, too. but they kind of all seem to make a decision in december. they had to have some sort of a showing in iowa because there isn't enough room in the train out of manchester at the end. >> woodruff: you mentioned christie, kasich, rubio -- >> jeb bush. >> woodruff: neither one of you mentioned jeb bush. >> there is this guy named jeb bush, yeah. >> woodruff: is any one of them making headway that could last for a few weeks? >> none seem to have a breakout moment. christie is moving up a little bit, only new hampshire. rubio had a little bit of burst and some leveled out. so maybe we'll be surprised the first week in february in new hampshire, but so far i don't see anybody coming out of the pack here. >> yeah, i still think it will be a cruz-rubio thing by the end

of the first two. but then you go down south and cruz has some natural turf to run there. so he just has a straighter line to the nomination. i think his personality is not ideal for a candidate in likability, but -- i'm trying to compensate for my past crudeness. >> woodruff: you mean cruz. but he's still the guy with the straightest line to run. >> woodruff: you don't see christie, kasich? >> kasich just sits there and has town haul after town hall in new hampshire and like mctain cane he's a genius at formulation, at riffling, so it's working for him. it's coming up and you begin seeing people taking shots at christie but he's not acceptable to all parts of the party. rubio is acceptable to all parts to have the viable which makes him the most viable.

>> not on immigration. that is still a very big liability for rubio. eventually, he has to get votes from the republican base. the republican base hates anything to do with immigration reform and he tried to run away from that. if he gets closer, other people will remind the base where he is. >> the people who stand up at the metings don't tolerate what rubio did a couple years ago. but republican primary voters, the majority favor a path to citizenship. so in the silent voters, there is more flexibility. >> woodruff: you get the sense republican primary voters may be struggling still about what to do. the healthcare reform law, aca, the republicans finally got enough votes, david this, week. the senate already passed repeal, now the house has. they got it to the president's desk.

he's vetoed it. but paul ryan, with we hear him saying this isn't the last you've heard about this. is the aca in real jerpd v jeopy here? >> no. even if a republican wins, it's entrenched. the disruption by simply getting rid of it would be catastrophic for a lot of people doing stuff on the ground. if a republican got in, it will change a lot. but frankly if a democrat gets in, it will change a lot. some of the premium hikes we're seeing from the insurance companies will cause huge problems down the road so even if a democrat gets in, there will have to be some changes. so uprooting it? it's too deeply entrenched. >> woodruff: what do you say? it wasn't even repealed. they repealed the part of the law that requires people to have insurance but they kept in the stuff that's popular which is if you have preexisting conditions, you can get coverage, anyone can get coverage. but the problem is if you take

away the requirement and you just leave the ability of people with preexisting conditions to get coverage, then premiums truly skyrocket. so what they were doing is voting for a way to create a death spiral without replacing it with anything, so they don't want this bill to pass. and if you look in kentucky, a good case study where a tea party candidate, one, saying he would repeal obamacare, and in between new year's eve and christmas he said he wasn't going to get rid of the medicaid expansion he promised to because it's working in kentucky. >> woodruff: you're saying that's a model -- a forerunner of what's happening in washington? >> yeah, listen, they can't get rid of it without tremendous dislocation to real people. they'll pay real political costs and haven't suggested an alternative. so i think it's all showmanship and it was kind of funny paul ryan was saying look what we've accomplished today.

>> woodruff: we'll leave it there with what we've accomplished here. david corn, david brooks, we thank you both. >> thank you. >> woodruff: on the newshour online: film and tv buffs probably have their golden globe picks ready, ahead of sunday's awards ceremony... still don't know who you're rooting for? take our quiz to get acquainted with critics' takes on some of the best television and movies from the past year. that's on our home page, www.pbs.org/newshour. and a reminder about some upcoming programs here on pbs. gwen ifill's preparing for "washington week," which airs later tonight. here's a preview: >> ifill: tears were shed; political gauntlets were thrown; and bombs exploded. and that's just in the first week of 2016. we take you from washington to north korea to cedar rapids, iowa.

all tonight on washington week. judy? >> woodruff: on pbs newshour weekend saturday, the increasing numbers of women who are pregnant and addicted to painkillers: a look at treatments for mothers and their babies at risk. >> when you're an addict, all you can think about is getting that drug, getting that medicine, getting that relief. >> reporter: what began with a legitimate prescription for pain following a car accident quickly slipped into abuse. >> i knew i had crossed the line when i started running out of them a couple days before my prescription was supposed to be gone. then i found ways to get them without a prescription. >> reporter: now, at 32, she's pregnant and attends a clinic for pregnant opioid users. doctor jessica young started it four years ago at vanderbilt university medical center. young estimates two-thirds of

her patients are like april, whose addiction started with a prescription for pain. >> woodruff: that's tomorrow night, on pbs newshour weekend. and we'll be back, right here, on monday. ahead of the college football championship, we look at what concussions do to players. that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. have a great weekend. thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

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