captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> yang: good evening, i'm john yang. gwen ifill and judy woodruff are away. on the newshour tonight: ( trumpet plays "taps" ) in a memorial day tradition, president obama lays a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier to honor fallen service members. then, the iraqi army, backed by the u.s., battle islamic state forces in the key city of fallujah, trying to take back the iraqi city seized by the terror group two years ago. also ahead, following the twists and turns of the campaign trail, our politics monday team breaks down the most recent developments in the presidential election. plus, pulitzer prize-winning poet peter balakian grapples with his family's dark past as survivors of the armenian genocide.

>> one of the reasons for my writing "black dog of fate" was to try to make sense of growing up in a family in which a traumatic history was really repressed. >> the poem in it's unique form >> yang: all that and more 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.

>> fathom travel. carnival corporation's small ship line. offering seven day cruises to three cities in cuba. exploring the culture, cuisine and historic sites through its people. more at fathom.org. >> you were born with two stories. one you write every day, and one you inherited that's written in your d.n.a. 23andme.com is a genetic service that provides personalized reports about traits, health and ancestry. learn more at www.23andme.com. >> lincoln financial-- committed to helping you take charge of your financial future. >> and the william and flora hewlett foundation, helping people build immeasurably better lives.

>> supported by the rockefeller foundation. promoting the well-being of humanity around the world by building resilience and inclusive economies. more at rockefellerfoundation.org >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: and individuals. >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> yang: the battle to recapture the islamic state's last major stronghold in western iraq has been joined in earnest. government troops began pushing into fallujah today, after seizing most of the outskirts in

the last week. an iraqi commander says the fighting was fierce. we'll have a full report on the battle, after the news summary. in the day's other news, officials in afghanistan reported more than 50 police killed in a string of taliban attacks, the first since the group named a new leader last week. the militants hit checkpoints in eastern helmand province, killing 33 officers on sunday, and up to 24 others today. residents in the provincial capital said artillery and machine gun fire could be heard close to the city. on this memorial day, president obama made special mention of the americans who died in the past year in iraq and afghanistan. it was the last time this commander-in-chief would lead the nation's observances on a day of time-honored traditions. william brangham has our report. >> every day there are american families who pray for the sound of a familiar voice when the phone rings. instead a car pulled up to the house and there was a knock on the front door and the sound of

taps floated through a cemetery's trees. ( trumpet plays "taps" ) >> brangham: thousands of headstones bore mute witness at arlington national cemetery today, as the president first laid a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier, and then spoke of the sacrifice they represent. >> if you look closely at the white markers that grace these hills, one thing you'll notice is that so many of years, dates of birth and dates of death, are so close together. they belong to young americans, those who never lived to be honored as veterans for their service. men who battled their own brothers in civil war, fought as a band of brothers an ocean away. men and women who redefined heroism for a new generation. >> brangham: more than two dozen american service members have died in iraq and afghanistan

since last memorial day. the president today singled out three of them: all special forces troops killed by islamic state fighters in iraq: navy seal charles keating the fourth, marine staff sergeant louis cardin, and army master sergeant joshua wheeler. president obama also said americans, and the government, must do more for those who do return home. >> we have to make sure our veterans get everything that they have earned from good healthcare to a good job and we have to do better. our work is never done. we have to be there not only when we need them but when they need us. >> brangham: amid the ceremonies in washington, police locked down parts of the white house complex for a time, when someone threw a suspicious package over a fence. a woman was later taken into custody. elsewhere, annual parades and tributes played out across the country. in new castle, delaware, vice president biden took part in ceremonies naming the state national guard headquarters for his son, beau biden, who died last year of brain cancer.

and memorial day also brought thousands of travelers to airports. there were still long security lines in some places, but for the most part, delays appeared shorter than before. >> yang: about 320 rescued migrants and refugees arrived at a port in sicily today. that's after more than 700 died trying to sail from libya in recent days, putting the year's death toll at more than 2,000. the newly rescued were brought in on an italian coast guard vessel. among them was a suspected smuggler, who was led away, while others were checked and given medical attention. >> since last monday more than 80 rescue operations took place. that means 80 rescue requests and more than 13,000 people were red cued with the coordination of the italian coast guard, there for it was particular intense week in terms of rescues.

>> yang: attempted sailings from libya have increased dramatically as the weather in the mediterranean approves. the remnants of tropical storm bonnie drenched memorial day weekend celebrations along the south carolina coast, but today the rain finally let up. the worst flooding came sunday, as eight inches of rain shut down part of interstate 95 near the georgia border for most of the day. in north carolina, roaring waves pulled several swimmers out to sea on saturday evening. one is still missing, and a search continues. the director of the cincinnati zoo is standing by a decision to shoot and kill a gorilla after a four-year-old boy fell into its enclosure on saturday. he says the agitated animal was dragging the child around, and a tranquilizer would not have worked fast enough. but, dozens of animal rights activists held a vigil at the zoo today, in remembrance of the gorilla, a member of an endangered species. the incident also sparked outrage online. and, something has happened in sweden that had not happened since they started keeping

records in 1749: the country now has more men than women. the swedish government's new count is a rare exception among western countries where women are nearly always in the majority. swedish researchers point to an influx of young male migrants, and an increase in men's life expectancy. still to come on the newshour: iraqi forces advance on the isis-held city of fallujah. our politics monday duo breaks down the state of the presidential race. a tech mogul's fight against gawker generates a fierce debate over a free press, and much more. >> yang: the iraqi government with u.s. support stepped up the pace to retake the city of fallujah. iraqi military forces stormed the southern edge of the city which has been controlled by isis since january 2014.

iraqi tanks rolled down a main road leading into fallujah, spearheading the all-out push to recapture the city. the offensive to rout isis militants began last week, with government forces advancing slowly to try to minimize civilian casualties. government officials and aid groups estimate at least 50,000 people are trapped in the besieged city. >> ( translated ): our advice to our troops is to treat families gently and kindly, and to respect them. our advice to fighters is to protect and guard public and private properties. >> yang: fallujah, about 40 miles west of baghdad, is one of the islamic state's last major strongholds in the region. isis has controlled it since 2014. ramadi, farther to the west, was liberated at the end of last year. it was a major victory for iraqi forces, but at great cost: much of ramadi was leveled in the process.

fallujah may now face a similar fate, it's being bombarded by iraqi forces on the ground, and the u.s.-led coalition from the air. the city is no stranger to destruction: it was largely ruined back in 2004, after the u.s. invasion and subsequent battles with insurgents. mahar chmaytelli is the reuters bureau chief in baghdad: >> the population of fallujah is a conservative population, islamic sunni, conservative, has a sunni conservative background. historically, let's say since 2003, when saddam was toppled, fallujah was very much a bastion of the insurgency, first against the u.s. occupation of iraq and later against the shia government that were put in place after the removal of saddam. >> yang: thousands have been displaced by the years of fighting, and some have been living in camps for two years. they say conditions in the city are desperate.

>> ( translated ): those who are inside cannot leave and those who are outside cannot help them. i mean, there is no food at all. a sack of flour costs more than $800. and you can't even get it. now my relatives who are still there have paid 683 u.s. dollars for 20 kilograms of rice and 44 pounds of flour. >> yang: there have been calls for the government to open a safe corridor for the injured, elderly and children to leave. meanwhile, as islamic state forces are pressed in fallujah, they are striking back in baghdad. mangled wreckage was all that was left of a suicide bomber's car that detonated near a commercial area today, killing eight civilians and three soldiers. >> ( translated ): by launching such attacks, the militants aimed to thwart our determination and resolution to go forward with our victories in fallujah and garma. despite the casualties that we have suffered, we are ready to proceed with our battles and military gains. >> yang: the targets in the

iraqi capital have been largely shiites, and the shiite dominated government is feeling the heat. >> shia politicians have been pressuring the government to take action against fallujah after the series of bombings that we've seen, especially after the last two weeks as soon as the iraqi president announced the offensive on fallujah, we've seen more or less the shiite community rally around him, participating in the battles. >> yang: iraqi officials say they have to take fallujah before moving on to mosul, the country's second largest city. >> yang: the presidential candidates had a relatively low- key memorial day: hillary clinton, who's closing in on the democratic nomination, went back to the town she now calls home: chappaqua, new york, to march in a local memorial day parade. bernie sanders spent today in california, the big prize of next tuesday's primaries, and, possibly, sanders' last stand.

he was marking the holiday in san francisco, ahead of two events this evening in oakland. republican donald trump stayed out of the public eye today. but, as of this weekend, he can now count a former republican governor as a third-party rival. gary johnson, who was once new mexico's chief executive, ran for president as a libertarian in 2012, winning just about one percent of the vote. on sunday, the party made him its nominee once again, and picked another former republican governor, william weld of massachusetts, to be his running mate. for more on all this and the week ahead in politics, is amy walter, of the "cook political report," and tamara keith of npr. so, amy, reporters finally got thundershower contested convention this weekend. the libertarian with two. with both donald trump and hillary clinton, the two major party nominees so unpopular can libertarians are hoping this is going fob their big year. amy, what do you think? >> they got a couple of hurdles to overcome. first i don't think a lot of

people know anything about gary johnson or william weld or what they stand for, they will have to figure out what their message is beyond just i'm not donald trump i'm not hillary clinton. they have to figure out how to raise money to get namessage out and get some attention and figure out if they can get the 15%, that's a threshold that you need to hit in major polls leading up to the first presidential debate to be included in those. now, we remember ross perot was included in the debates in 1992. i think that in 1980, anderson was included in one of those. but 15% is still a very high bar. without it, it means that they're not going to get a whole bunch attention in later in the fall. >> yang: can they still make an impact, make a difference. pe will still tell you if they were do wild calculations to say that ralph nader cost al gore the 2000 election. tam, can they really make a difference this year? >> i will say ralph nader

continues to disagree with that assessment. but most people feel the other way. in talking to voters out there, you hear people, you hear republicans saying, i can't vote for donald trump. and maybe libertarians are a landing place because they are fiscally conservative they want government out of your life. then you talk to some democrats, i was talking to democrats in albuquerque who is bernie people f. he's not there rather than write in they might vote for gary johnson they said. libertarian platform is pro-marijuana which has in the past attracted some subset of younger voters who get excited about. that so, they are not as far as we can tell, things have been wild this year, subject to change, they are not getting a huge influkes of voters necessarily. >> yang: you talk about the republicans the never trumpers

they still keep talk be about another candidate this weekend. we had the tantalizing tweet from bill kristol say going to be another candidate. are they still trying to come up with someone, amy? >> there's still a fringe part of the never trump movement. bill chris toll is leading that charge, the publisher of the weekly standard, there could be another candidate, a tweet that over the holiday weekend independent candidate is going to come out, he's going to be amazing, didn't have a gender. this person will be amazing, just wait until you see who this person. we don't have the name that have candidate yet, but they have their own hurdles as an independent candidate. at least they have valid access because of their party status. a third party candidate in order to get on a pallet is a tremendous level of work that you need to do. had one state where the deadline is passed that's texas. north carolina, a week from now, need hundreds of thousands of

signatures, it's not an easy task to overcome. it goes to the bigger point, this is what tam brought up. what do the candidate who feel like neither candidate speaks, if you're a republican who can't vet for donald trump are you going to vote for a libertarian who may not share your values. the platform on social issues is going to be far to the left from any conservative republicans. their plat l form on some fiscal issues maybe too far to the right for some democrats. this is going to be not an easy landing place for a lot of voters. >> yang: like a lot of the dissuggestion about down ballot candidates, congressional candidates, senate candidates, how much is trying to affect the presidential race? how much is trying to give small government conservatives, you were talking about earlier, a reason to go to the polls to vote for other candidates. >> i don't think the libertarians are trying to give them -- a reason but certainly, the never trumps are looking for something to help these down

ballot candidates. really down ballots, senate, house, they are working on it on their own. you hear a lot of members of congress, at least some shared members ever congress saying i support the party's nominee. they don't utter donald trump. they don't want to get the you have favorables to brush off on them. i think there is a lot of scrambling trying to figure out how they deal -- how these candidates deal with top of the ticket that is wildly unpopular with the next six months that are inevitably going to be scorched earth from both trump and clinton. and how you do get people to care, show up, and vote. >> donald trump is obviously not shown much -- i don't know, shall we say not really magnanimous when it comes to people who say that they're not going to support him or have not been full throat in their endorsement as we saw last week

he told -- made some very unflattering statements about the governor of new mexico and other republicans who haven't come on board. trying to figure out how do i not endorse him but stay with him, he's clearly shown you that he's not going to take that lightly. if you don't she show up to ab event as elected official in the town he's in that you represent, he's probably going to call you out. >> yang: he says, i don't need them. >> i don't need them but i would like to attack them nonetheless. >> yang: the democrats, bank is we shown holly all in in california. looks like he's not going to leave the state. before the primary. why, why is he doing this? why is he making this last stand there? >> i believe bottom line is because he can. mathematically, we've talked about this for months, about how important the markings of delegates, hillary clinton is on track to win the nomination. she has a pledged delegate support, remember the candidates

that you win by winning states, 54% of the pledge delegates. she's gotten 60% of the total super plus pledge delegates. a lead in the overall op pew lar vote. bernie sanders would need to win 91% of the pledged and superdelegates. that's not going to happen. but what he's been table to do, i think for all the talk about all the disruptions in this campaign this thing, this smartphone has been one of the biggest disruptors, normally in the old days, candidate like bernie sanders was mathematically eliminated who lost lot of big states would run out of money. he would have had to have left the campaign trail. now, he's able to raise all of it online, small donations, also able to organize his volunteers and his supporters with this tool, with blogs and all of the rest rest. that has been the thing that has kept bernie sanders in the race. >> yang: tamara you were out in california, what does it look like on the ground out there? >> certainly both candidates are competing very hard. bernie sanders, this weekend,

went to visalia, california, which s not a big city. i think it is down on the list of the size of cities in the california central valley which is not the most populous part of california. hillary clinton is also going -- was there, she's going back, she spending a lot of time there. this is not for hillary clinton or bernie sanders really about winning the nomination. this is about that taste that is left in people's mouths at the very end of the primary process. for hillary clinton, if she were to lose california at the very end she is likely to have clinched already in new jersey or even before that. but it just leaves us sort of like, okay, it sucks the wind out, takes the momentum away" r. far bernie sanders is he's going to make an argue. that they are completely wrong and they shouldn't be supporting hillary clinton, the only thing he can do, look at the most

populous blue state, i one that state. that's what he is fighting for right now i don't think just like hollywood, california, it's all about image and perception. >> indeed. i don't think great. amy, tamara, thanks for being with us. >> you're welcome. >> yang: stay with us, coming up on the newshour: why latinos say their economic and voting power is underestimated. the do's and don't's of creating political narratives. and the armenian genocide in poetry. but first, a most unusual legal case about media ethics, responsibility and a billionaire's power. it started with former wrestler hulk hogan suing gawker media for publishing a video of him having sex with a friend's wife. a jury awarded him $140 million for invasion of privacy. last week, we learned hogan's

suit was by peter thiel, one of the co-founders of paypal and a major silicon valley player. thiel himself was outed as a gay man by gawker media nearly a decade ago. that triggered a critical public letter from gawker's co-founder, nick denton. he challenged thiel to a public debate, calling him a "thin-skinned billionaire" with "a vindictive decade-long campaign quite out of proportion to the hurt you claim." the case and the revelations have sparked big questions. hari sreenivasan recently spoke with jason tanz, the editor-at- large of "wired." >> so, let's go over just basics of what happened in this case. most people aren't following hulk hoe began began's sex tape saga too closely. >> sure. so, if a foo years ago gawker published an article that included a video of sex tape that hulk hogan had made,

actually was made without his knowledge, they declared it was in the public interest because hulk hogan was a public figure and he had gone on record talking about how he had not had sex with this woman. they had proof that he had. so they published it. somewhat gleefully which has always been gawker's kind of stock and trade. they have been very forward in their -- in what they declare to be in the public interest. they thought this was. hulk hogan didn't see things that way, he brought a lawsuit against them. found against gawker to the tune of $140 million which was shocking about. gawker has appealed the case they're waiting to see how that plays out. >> how does peter thiel get involved in this? there's no love lost between founder of gawker, nick den ton, and peter thiel. >> nick had sus sicked there was somebody funding hulk hogan's lawsuit because the way hogan was prosecuting the suit, he was making decisions that if he were

interested in making money, game theory would have subtle suggested something differently. taken a $10 million settle the. he also withdrew a part of the lawsuit that would have required a pay out from gawker's insurance. they actually just withdraw that so that gawker would be on the hook and not the insurance company. so, that indicated maybe there was something else going on. in 2007, gawker had -- specifically a site had outed peter thiel as a gay man. thiel at the time swore his revenge. and now nine years later he is getting it. he had a team of lawyers who were looking for various plaintiffs, who could file suits that they could fund, they found more than one. supposedly a dumb couple other suits out there that he's prepared to bring against gawker. >> nothing peter thiel is doing is illegal, there are no laws that say you can't fund or aid someone else ales legal pursuit, right? there's a kind of a bigger

question here of this is a billionaire using a tremendous amount of influence, he's ardent lynn tearian who does speak up on behalf of free speech, here he is crush an institution that sets r said something that he was sec ticked off about. >> yeah, i mean, the tricky thing about this is, thiel feels wronged but he is not suing gawker based on the statement that he feels wronged him. he's not suing them for outing him. he's suing them for hogan and based on his actions and based on hogan's actions it doesn't seem what is motivating him is justice for hogan. what is motivating him is crushing gawker through the court system. there are a lot of people, lot of people in the press in particular who see that get very, very scared. because the point isn't necessarily to win the suit. he can continue to litigate against gawker and rack up huge legal fees and destroy them even if he never wins a suit.

>> what did the tech community in silicon valley, how do they feel about this? on the one hand the journalism question, the other hand is peter thiel is a smart guy and visionary in this community. >> yeah, there's been a lot of defense of thiel in the tech community. gawker is an easy media property to hate. and value wag is an easy prop to hate. they were glib, cruel, callous they had somewhat say pretty bad editorial judgment. lot a first amendment cases, larry flynt or gawk are it's hard to defend the specifics of this particular case. a lot of people within silicon valley are saying, this isn't any different from the aclu or greenpeace funding suits that they think are going to end up having a greater social good. this case greater special good is punishing and deterring people from publishing the stuff that gawker does. the corn, of course, is who is to determine what should be punished.

and iep if we all agree. i'm not saying that we do. if we agree what gawker published shouldn't have been publickished you could say i don't like the way they're talking about theranos i think that has b unfair and untoward. there for i'm going to punish the "wall street journal" for publishing that. one of those slippery slope arguments that you get in to. >> jason tanz from "wired." >> thanks for having me. >> yang: much of the focus on latinos throughout this election cycle has centered on the divisive and often heated questions about immigration and its effects. but a bipartisan non-profit group is trying to change that. the latino donor collective, as it's known, wants to emphasize the growing economic power of latinos and the potential force they can become. i spoke with its co- founders,

democrat henry cisneros and republican businessman, sal trujillo. cisneros is a former housing secretary for the clinton administration. gentlemen, thanks for being with us. mr. cisneros, the two of you wrote an essay for the "wall street journal," you said that you've been watching this presidential campaign unfold at first with disappointment then with concern and now with real alarm. what is alarming you? >> well, what alarms me is that the rhetoric about latinos seems to be giving people permission to denigrate this population, to diminish its place in american life. that's just wrong. this is a population of 55 million people, growing to 100 million people. it is essential to the american future. it is already making a major contribution in many areas of american life from religion to pop particulars to entrepreneurship and to

corporate business and as consumers, one of the most important areas is in its contribution to the american economy. what sol has come to call the mainstream economy, the mainstream american economy. next american economy. and it's just wrong to categorize people somehow as using phrases, related to rapists and murderers and free loaders, et cetera. to characterize an entire population. and someone needs to stand up and say, let's talk about the truth of this population. and it's role in american life. >> yang: what are the politicians missing this? >> no one talking how we grief growth. how we're creating jobs, what's creating jobs, what is our upside in terms of the economy and? is where today we have a new mainstream economy driven predominantly by latinos. let me give you some quick statistics.

there's about a trillion and half dollars of spend by latinos in this country today, growing at 80-90 billion dollars per year. on top that have let's talk about job creation and what are drivers of domestic gdp growth. think about housing. think about home purchases. over the last decade, 51% of all new home mortgages taken out in the united states of america have been taken out by latino families. when you look at entrepreneurship, in the last half decade, 86% of all new business formations in the united states based upon a recent study commissioned through the stanford latino entrepreneurship initiative, shows that latinos were creating 86% of all new business formations, without latinos in the mix, we as a nation would have had net negative business formation. that can go on with more data, john.

but as an american, as somebody that cares about our economy which all of us us at the latino donor collaborative do, we want to make sure that this story is understood. rather than mischaracterizations incorrect facts, which will mislead policy decisions that could be very damaging to our economy. >> yang: mr. sis snares, you talked about the economic drivers in the latino community. at the same time there are economic challenges to the latino community. the bls buyer row of labor says that one in five latinos working in minimum wage job, that unemployment among latinos is higher than the national average. are there still challenges among for latinos in the economy? >> absolutely. there are huge challenges innings, many latinos working underemployed situations, undercompensated situations, one of the biggest challenges confronting the latino community is the need to close the gap in

educational levels. we are, we're making progress in terms of lowering the drop out rate, improving the high school graduation rate. improving the college admission. one of the dangerous things about the rhetoric is that if it results in the country failing to recognize that it must invest in latinos, and latinos are ambitious and want to avail themselves of education and providing the means to dona, there's a huge opportunity cost for the united states. this is a population that is large, in fact it's going to be 100 million people by about 2040. 25% of the american population, it's already the largest minority, fastest growing minority. the swing can be a miss, either a large population that is a drag on american society because it is not receiving the proper education and proper investment. or it can be truly one of the absolute drivers, one of the

engines of opportunity for the american future. without a doubt. >> yang: how can you get the political power to match the demographic power and the economic power. in the last presidential election, only 47% of latinos registered to vote. how can you improve that turn out? >> well, john, let's look at results first before we get into what i call misleading statistical analysis. if you look at last election, one of the big conclusions of the republican party was that the reason why they lost was because of the fact that they did not get the latino vote. if you look at the prior election, same conclusion. and the one before that, until you look back at george w. bush and you look at ronald reagan who both were able to get over 40% of the latino vote. guess what, the base of the latino vote, the percentage of

total voters as latinos has only gotten bigger. so, i call it basic elementary math that you have to understand the basic math. we can talk about 47% voter rates or we can talk about 42. talk about those numbers, but the base is just getting bigger. and that's the reality. there's almost a million young latinos turning 18 every year. 93% are native born. and it's dramatic ly changing what we would call the base, the voter base, those who are going to be active in politics and while at the same time other groups are actually in decline as a percentage of total. it's just math. >> yang: trying to change the discussion about latinos in america. thanks for joining us. >> thank you for the opportunity. >> thank you, john. >> yang: the group that they have started is the latino donor corroborative.

>> yang: and next: the latest addition to our "newshour bookshelf." it's a personal narrative on the importance that visuals play in making or breaking a political campaign or a white house event. judy woodruff sat down with author josh king to discuss the significance of imagery in the age of optics. >> woodruff: political stage craft has evolved into a high form of art. but that doesn't mean mishaps don't take place along the campaign trail or on the road with the president. we turn now to josh king, he is the author of "off-script. an advanced man's guide to white house stagecraft, campaign spectacle and political suicide." welcome to the "newshour." >> thanks for having me. >> woodruff: first of all what is an advance man? >> basically a political movie producer. we've roamed america around the

world trying to tell political stories by setting up tabloe, is that connect to president or presidential candidate with the places they are or the people that they're interacting with. >> woodruff: you were there for some of the most memorable moments of the last several democratic political leaders in this country. michael dukakokis, bill clinton, but you make a wonderful point of saying the mistakes are where the people learn. someone in your josh learns. you write beautiful lee about what happened to michael, tell that story. >> he was down in michigan. he was down in summer of 1988 and he had to go and in to a general dynamic land systems plant and ride a tank to try to look like more credible commander in chief. but the tank didn't fit it, it showed that day. in the commercial that was made five week later put on the air on behalf of the bush campaign. >> woodruff: you point out

michael, as served in the military, been in korea, in the u.s. army, but this picture didn't work. how do you know what works for a candidate or for a president? what is a setting that's going to work? >> it has to fit who he is. and as much as dukakis had come out of swarthmor was served in korea. his persona and his executive experience was based much more on his life in massachusetts. competent administrator, a person who could get things done, he wasn't running commander in chief. he would be better in hospital setting or a school where key point to so many things in his record that matched who he was. >> woodruff: were there were other images for bill clinton you shared some images that are in the book, shared with us a picture of bill clinton surrounded by a swarm of gnats, what happened? >> they sent me to leone, france, the g7 summit. so much of that happens indoors

around a big conference table. i wanted to show him in a little more bucolic setting to show that he was enjoying his european trip and, the heat was growing, it was one of the hottest days of the year. and the swarm of gnats was forming around the presidential podium. so i go into a store i buy what i think is insect repellent, i can't really read the french writing but i spray it all over the podium. turns it out it was insect killer. because it was so hot and the movie lights that we trained on the president, even the shadows, were making him sweat. he got his hands on the podium. and the questioning was withering he's starting to rub his eyes. before this news conference is over he's almost poisoned in his eyes. he can hardly open them as he's answering questions about the middle east. it was a disaster for me and for me that day. >> woodruff: one of the other scenes you write about is what happened to president bush when he went out on the aircraft carrier at the end of -- what

people thought were the end of the iraq war. >> right. may 1, 2003, the end of combat operations in iraq. and to declare the end of combat president bush takes s3 viking from san diego to the deck of the uss abraham lincoln in the pacific ocean. when he gets his speech to the nation later on, now dressed in a blue suit, does this beautiful walk out from the tower of the carrier and comes to stage perfectly positioned and behind him is a banner that says "mission accomplished" if you heard the white house original explanation and the ship's, those two words "mission accomplished" were for the crew who had completed longest deployment of any aircraft carrier sense the end of the vietnam war. but the white housefuls the team that put that manner exactly where it was. positioned perfectly for a live national tv shot. and i i declared it was great event in all respects but they didn't need those two words,

because that's what dogged bush for so many years after that event. >> woodruff: how do you explain -- if you are working with a candidate or president, wait a minute, i thought this was all on the level. i thought serving the country was about policy, positions and about substance, you're telling me it's about optics, what do you say? >> to win any particular primary or general election and take home electoral votes with certain states is going go to be covered by local newspapers, local television, by national television. and what they need is imagery to fill their packages and we need to provide the content that you edit in and present as what happened that day in such a boiled down fashion in two minutes. you get bill clinton or donald trump or hillary clinton, can't gets their policy ideas across in two minutes. so we feed the way the system works. >> woodruff: but finally as you know very well what we're dealing with today is a much faster news environment.

pictures are taken all around. president can be photographed in so many more ways or a candidate. how much harder does that make the job? >> i call 2004 the high water mark of the age of optics because after that facebook, twitter, youtube took over. we're flooded with so much, judy, that perhaps there's not staying power of any great picture or any negative pick fur more than a few hours or news cycle or two. what i think is most powerful thing that president obama was able to do last year was that hour-long podcast with mark marren that he calls "wtf" when you remove the visual entirely and you just hear what the president says for "60 minutes," almost have this conversation in your head, let him say in long form what he needs to, a much better appreciation forebay barack obama after that then seven years of televised coverage youth after all this effort to get the picture right, the picture may not matter? >> my epiphany, the words are more important. we need to do better job

listening and creating content and allowing people to have a longer conversation. we don't have all that time on broadcast or commercial television but there are new mediums coming through where we can understand what people have to say a lot better. >> woodruff: josh king, thank you very much. an advanced man's guide to white house stage craft. we appreciate it. >> thank you. >> yang: now, how a writer is coming to terms with his family's own traumatic past, and how his use of poetry's distinct style helps him grapple with history. jeffrey brown has our profile, and we should warn you, some viewers may find some of these images disturbing. >> peter been lack can grew up amid security and post war economic boom of new jersey's suburban american life.

he played football and worked as a stock boy in mat hath an, also became a reader and writer of poetry. >> the day comes in strips of yellow glass over trees. when i tell you the day is a poem, i'm only talking to you and only the sky is listening. >> it would lead to encounters with the likes of alan ginsburg and over the years, seven collections, the latest ozone journal, just won the pulitzer prize. but from his grandmother beginning at an early age, he heard occasional hints of a darker family history set in war armenia and he began to explore a past. the expulsion and killing of one and a half millioner meanians by the turks. many members of his family died, others like his grandmother and aunts survived after a horrific flight on foot. he would write about these events in history title

the burning tigris" and in a family memoir, black dog of fate. >> one of the reasons for my writing "black dog of fate" was to try to make sense of growing up in a family in which a traumatic history was really repressed. it wasn't spoken about. it was silenced, yet the leakage, is that i experienced as a kid growing up in affluent suburbia were beguiling and weird and strange, they stayed with me. >> like little hints or stories or things you would over hear? >> things i would over hear, even my grandmother's weird dreams and folk tales which would drift on to me. pick up things and we didn't know where to put them. they would almost dilute. in adult life i came look back at those at those go fromments and encoded messages of a traumatic history. it really drove me in part at least to work on what became a

memoir, a coming of age story. >> how did it work with poetry? were you discover canning poetry at the same time you were discover canning this history? >> poetry came first. it was in an immersion for me as college student in the early 1970s, i began writing poems with a kinds of passion and i never stopped. i was working my way as a young guy in his 20s writing lyric poems. and around mid to late 1970s, for various reasons, the news of history started percolating in me. and i started understanding more of the big picture of my own families historical experience as genocide survivors. the poem in its unique form, it's form of compressed language and particular kinds of probed images i like to call them, or

incisive compressed image language, is capable of going to history and its aftermath in ways this no other literary form can. who drowned waiting in the reeds of the plain. there the sky is chenille, there the chapel windows open to raw umber and twisted goats. there the obsidian glistens and the hawks eat out your eyes. >> many armenians including his grandmother fled into syria. most were killed or starved to death along the way. >> many as 450,000 armenians died here. >> in 2009, just before the civil war began, peter joined a "60 minutes" group on a report on their fate. >> evidence comes in many forms. comes in photographs, comes in

texts and telegrams. also comes alone. extraordinary then to be there, looking back at it now, i feel like it's a dream. but for me it was also exciting to be there because there's a very rich armenian culture and community. and a gorgeous church. all that was a kind of connecting with a culture. when the war began to just destroy all of this, i would look on, on the screens and on the tv images and the computer images with pain and disbelief that just in the little case of armenian culture life the churches that were hundreds of years old were gone. whole communities were disbanded. if that was true just for the smaller armenian population of syria we all knew what was

happening to the broad syrian population. >> peter balakian, congratulations. >> thank you. >> yang: later tonight this memorial day on pbs, a "p.o.v." documentary about post-traumatic stress disorder and its haunting effects on veterans. "of men and war" follows veterans and their families over a nine-year period, focusing on one residential treatment center in california. in this clip, men back from iraq and afghanistan are dealing with the difficulty of adjusting to civilian life, and frequent problems with anger and frustration. >> i'm having trouble waking up like, just completely -- i don't know i don't want to deal with this. stay up for three days and fall asleep on whatever day i drop asleep.

>> i find myself thinking things, i say it out loud and everybody looks at me like i'm just like evil and, like, insensitive. it's like, no, i didn't mean it in an insensitive way. sometimes just racking my nine, no, contemplating things, just wondering everything. i really just don't feel like i fit in anywhere. like at all. >> reality is you definitely need to be in therapy because that's where you're going to be able to bounce things off of somebody and you just got to let other people help you to get there. >> thank you, he's here. >> focus here. you have war-zone related issues and hostage to the war zone.

this is where you finally stop running away. questions?

this is "nightly business report" with tyler mathisen and sue herera. >> good evening, everyone. welcome to a special memorial day edition of "nightly business report." i'm tyler mathisen. sue herera has the evening off. while it is still only may, not much left of it at that, this weekend did mark the unofficial kickoff to summer and while it is normal to be preoccupied with the weather and vacation, this summer could be a very busy one for you and your money. possible interest rate hike to the political conventions and a stock market keeping a wary weather high on everything. and that's where we will begin tonight, wall street, dominic chu looks at the unknowns facing the