captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening. i'm judy woodruff. gwen ifill is on assignment. on the newshour tonight, donald trump and hillary clinton trade barbs on major foreign policy issues after a town hall centered on what it takes to be commander in chief. then, the republican nominee still refuses to release his income tax returns. we take a deep dive into what they could tell us about donald trump the candidate and the businessman. and, catching a wave in california to learn about china's rise in manufacturing and how that's leaving some american workers out to dry. >> 95% of the boards being sold in the world weren't made by us in california, who started the surfboard industry.

>> woodruff: all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> lincoln financial-- committed to helping you take charge of your financial future. >> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century.

>> supported by the rockefeller foundation. promoting the well-being of humanity around the world by building resilience and inclusive economies. more at rockefellerfoundation.org >> carnegie corporation of new york. supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, and the advancement of international peace and security. at carnegie.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.

>> woodruff: russian leaders, american generals, sensitive emails, and more. all of it, the stuff of the presidential campaign today. john yang has our report. >> yang: this morning, hillary clinton didn't even wait for her first campaign stop of the day-- attacking donald trump before boarding her plane. >> last night was yet another test, and donald trump failed yet again. we saw more evidence that he is temperamentally unfit and totally unqualified to be commander in chief. >> yang: it was in response to the candidates' back-to-back appearances last night on an nbc news military forum. trump was asked about russian president vladimir putin's praise for him. >> if he says great things about me, i'm going to say great things about him. i've already said, he is really very much of a leader. i mean, you can say, oh, isn't that a terrible thing, the man has very strong control over a country. now, it's a very different

system, and i don't happen to like the system. but certainly, in that system, he's been a leader, far more than our president has been a leader. >> yang: today, that brought clinton's strongest rebuke. >> that's not just unpatriotic and insulting for the people of our country as well as to our commander-in-chief, it is scary. >> secretary clinton... >> yang: last night, a former naval officer challenged clinton about her handling of classified material. >> how can you expect those such as myself who were and are entrusted with america's most sensitive information to have any confidence in your leadership as president when you clearly corrupted our national security? is that i was seeing that was designated, marked, and headed as classified.

i communicated about classified material on a wholly separate system. i took it very seriously. >> yang: another big topic at the forum: the fight against isis in iraq and syria. clinton insisted she would never put ground troops into iraq ever again. and trump was asked about his claim that he know more about isis than the generals. >> well, the generals under barack obama and hillary clinton have not been successful. isis... >> do you know more about isis than they do? >> i think under the leadership of barack obama and hillary clinton, the generals have been reduced to rubble. they have been reduced to a point where it's embarrassing for our country. >> yang: half a world away, president obama responded as he closed out his trip to asia. >> i don't think the guy is qualified to be president of the united states. and every time he speaks, that opinion is confirmed. and i think the most important

thing for the public and the press is to just listen to what he says and follow up and ask questions about what appear to be either contradictory or uninformed or outright wacky ideas. >> yang: foreign policy also figured prominently today for libertarian candidate gary johnson, though he may have wished it hadn't. on msnbc's "morning joe" he was asked about a much-discussed war-torn syrian city. >> what would you do, if you were elected, about aleppo? >> about? >> aleppo. >> and what is aleppo? >> you're kidding. >> no. >> aleppo is in syria. it's the-- it's the epicenter of the refugee crisis. >> okay, got it, got it. >> yang: the longshot candidate later said there was "no excuse" for the confusion. for the pbs newshour, i'm john yang. >> woodruff: we'll return to the

issue of relations with russia, and how donald trump and hillary clinton differ on that point, after the news summary. in other news, the president is on his way home tonight from that summit with southeast asian leaders. it was his final planned trip to the region before leaving office, and he rejected criticism that his pivot to asia has fallen short. >> the concern that i've heard is not that what we've done hasn't been important and successful. the concern that i've heard is will it continue, and almost uniformly the question i get from other leaders is, we hope that america's interest and presence and engagement is sustained. >> woodruff: mr. obama also pledged again to do all he can to get the trans-pacific trade pact through congress before leaving office. in afghanistan, taliban fighters pushed deep into a provincial capital before being repulsed. hundreds of militants overran

government checkpoints around the city of tirin kot in uruzgan province. local officials fled as taliban fighters got within a few hundred yards of the governor's compound. finally, reinforcements and allied air strikes pushed them back. russia announced today that israeli and palestinian leaders have agreed in principle to meet in moscow, to re-launch peace talks. but, no date was set. meanwhile, two israeli researchers reported finding documents that show palestinian president mahmoud abbas was a soviet spy in the 1980's. abbas' office denied it. all of this, as israel began work on an underground barrier along the gaza border. it's meant to stop militants from digging tunnels to carry out attacks. lawmakers in britain declared their own parliament building an impending crisis today. a special committee recommended the complex be vacated to allow

sweeping repairs, estimated to cost the equivalent of $4.7 billion. paul brand of independent television news reports. >> reporter: outside the tourist model at the mother of all parliaments but hidden from sight is the mother of all problems, its walls crumbling with damp, roofs leaking and asbestos somewhere down here. if you look here, you see there's a gas main there and it's immediately next to the danger high voltage. the committee decided it's becoming too dangerous. the risk is, and it's growing year by year and we've taken far too long to address it, the risk is some kind of catastrophic failure. if we want to preserve the building, we have the seize the opportunity now. the renovation could cost up to 4 billion pounds and take up to eight years to complete.

the big question, of course, is where everyone goes while the work is being done, and the answer is here, richmond house, the department of health. doesn't look like much from the outside and no bathroom on the inside but has space for a debating chamber. the lords insist it is a good use of money. >> all of us who live here, we know that we've got to spend money on lots of things that are vital to us, but this is one of those things. i can't say it's more important than something else, but it is equally important. >> reporter: a the decision on parliament's future will be putto parliament itself. m.p.s and lords will have a final vote. >> woodruff: the last time members of parliament had to move out was during world war two, when german bombs set the house of commons on fire. former virginia governor bob mcdonnell received good news today: federal prosecutors

announced they will not re-try him, or his wife, on corruption charges. the mcdonnells were convicted in 2014 of accepting $175,000 in gifts and loans to promote a dietary supplement. but in june, the u.s. supreme court ruled mcdonnell never took any action that violated bribery laws. the u.s. olympic committee has suspended swimmer ryan lochte for 10 months over a drunken incident at the rio olympics. the action today means lochte is ineligible for next year's world swimming championships. he also forfeits $100,000 in olympics bonus money. meanwhile, in rio, the paralympic games got under way with swimming and track and field events. that followed last night's opening ceremonies in maracana stadium. more than 4,300 athletes from some 160 countries are taking part in the games. the russian team is not there. it was banned for state- sponsored doping. on wall street today, the dow

jones industrial average lost 46 points to close near 18,480. the nasdaq fell 24 points, and the s&p 500 gave up nearly five. still to come on the newshour: how the next president can be expected to deal with russia. donald trump's refusal to release his tax returns, put in context. what surfing has to do with business competition from china, and much more. >> woodruff: a major topic throughout this election year surfaced again last night at the presidential candidate forum on national security: russia. and what kind of relations the u.s. should have with vladimir putin. here's some of what donald trump had to say, followed by hillary clinton's response today. >> i think i would have a very,

very good relationship with putin, and i think i would have a very, very good relationship with russia. >> let me ask you about some of things you've said about vladimir putin. you said, i will tell you, in terms of leadership, he's getting an a. our president is not doing so well. >> well, he duds have an 82% approval rating according to the different pollsters. >> he's also a guy who annexed crimea and, according to our intelligence community, probably is the main suspect for the hacking of the d.n.c. computers. >> well, nobody knows that for a fact, but do you want me to start naming some of the things that president obama does? >> but once again, he praised russia's strong man, vladimir putin, even taking the astonishing step of suggesting that he prefers the russian president to our american president. i was just thinking about all of the presidents that would just be looking at one another in total astonishment.

what would ronald reagan say about a republican nominee who attacks america's generals and heaps praise on russia's president? i think we know the answer. >> woodruff: for more on how the candidates view u.s.-russia relations we turn to representatives of both campaigns. philip gordon advises hillary clinton; he was assistant secretary of state for european and eurasian affairs when mrs. clinton was secretary of state. and boris epshteyn advises the trump campaign. he emigrated to the united states from russia in the early 1990s. he's a lawyer specializing in investment banking and finance and worked for john mccain's campaign for president. and we welcome both of you to the "newshour". boris epshteyn, let me start with you. so when donald trump says that vladimir putin has been very much of a lead around has high poll ratings, is he endorsing what putin's action have been -- annexes crimea, backing the

assad regime in syria, cracking down on the press? >> absolutely not. what donald trump said and is saying is that he will make sure that america leads and doesn't lead from behind, and he'll make sure that he works with vladimir putin but in a way that's in the best interest of the united states. he does dig agree with vladimir putin. let's look at the history of u.s.-soviet relations and russia-u.s. relations. the presidents, f.d.r., j.f.k., nixon, ronald reagan, george w. bush, tried to work with russia. the obama is trying to work with russia but is failing in doing so but it's trying. because our government has failed it doesn't mean donald trump won't succeed. he will succeed. >> woodruff: is it possible to praise mr. putin as a leader but to disagree with his policy? >> i don't know. i personally found mr. trump's

praise for mr. putin troubling or even chilling, frankly. in a room full of military veterans to be effusing about his great leadership and how strong and popular he is, while disrespecting the american president and american generals, i don't know, i think that was not just troubling to me but a lot of listeners and frankly a lot of republican listeners as well. mr. trump says he thinks he can get along very, very well with mr. putin and have very, very good relations are russia. i'm sure he can, if he is willing to turn away from our n.a.t.o. allies and reconsider whether eastern ukraine is really part of the country and do whatever he can to accommodate mr. putin's views, i'm sure that would lead to good relations with mr. putin, but i think that's not what the american people expect from our foreign policy. >> woodruff: boris epshteyn, is that what would be involved under a trump administration, closer ties with russia but likely at the expense of

relationships -- long relationships with europe, with eastern europe? >> absolutely not. again, let's look at some facts here. bill clinton received half a million dollars for a 90-minute speech in moscow. got a personal call from vladimir putin thanking him. there is a photograph of the two of them grinning and being very happy, mr. putin and president clinton. so let's not act like the clintons don't have a long history of palling around with russia and vladimir putin. russia gained control of one-fifth of what's produced in the united states, so the clintons have been way too close with the russians. >> woodruff: what about the point mr. epstein makes that other presidents including secretaries of state including hillary clinton have talked about a reset with russia, for example, tried to mend relations. >> right. look, the debate is not whether we should work with russia.

it's in our interest to do so. secretary clinton for four years was part o >> right. look, the debate is not whether we should work with russia. it's in our interest to do so. secretary clinton for four years was part of a policy of resetting russian relations. >> but she failed. in our interest. and we got a lot of thingsf a fe under -- in that context.ex we got the iran sanctions done. we got an agreement by russia to allow us to use afghanistan to transit supplies for our forces. we got a security council resolution on libya. we got russia into the w.t.o. to bring in a rules-based trading system. all of those things were in our interest. the point is not whether wehe should work with russia.ld the point is whether we should sacrifice other important interests to doic so. and while we -- let me finish, if i could.ul >> woodruff: let limb finish his point and i'll come back. >> while pursuing the relations with russia, which are important, russia is an important country, it is also important to stand by your friends and allies in europe, defend your treaty commitment to n.a.t.o. allies, stand by the sovereignty and territorial

integrity of ukraine, and that seems to be the difference. it's not whether we pursue relations with russia when we need to, but what we're willing to give them in order to have that very, very good relationship in trump seems to be talking about. >> woodruff: borisg epshteyn, w what is it donald trump would be prepared to give, to trade russia, to concede to russia? >> mr. gordon sounded moredo reasonable than his candidate. let's go to the things he mentioned. the iran sanctions. the iran deal has been a disaster for the united states of america.of there are secret causes allowing iran to keep uranium. wto a negative for the united states and a positive for russia. so some of the examples you gave are ways in which hillary clinton was too cozy to russia and did things at the are in russia's favor, not the favor of the u.s. steadfast to the n.a.t.o. alliel as long as they keep to their

agreement of 2% of g.d.p. which is in the original n.a.t.o. agreement.t. >> what's in the agreement is a treaty which says we'll come to their defense if they attack. >> and each country to spend 2% of g.d.p. --of >> woodruff: let's let mr. gordon respond.mr >> i was going to the heart of this matter, which is the issue of whether europeans should contribute more to n.a.t.o. is a matter of consensus.on i think secretary clintonin believes that and a series of u.s. presidents and secretary defense and state have urged our european -- >> what's wrong with mr. trump saying that? >> none. not a single republican or democrat candidate or official has ever said that -- unless they do, our solemn treaty commitment to defend them is open to question, which is an invitation to aggression in europe. that's what's so astonishing about mr. trump's position.'s >> woodruff: boris epshteyn,

let me come back to you. when donald trump clearly says he admires vladimir putin, he v thinks he's a great leader, what is it about him that he had mires? >> there are specific things about vladimir putin that donald trump thinks are strong in terms of leadership, in terms of beating back radical jihadist islamism and terrorism which vladimir putin has done throughout russia, and the fact russia wants to work with theh united states in defeating i.s.i.s. >> woodruff: but let me stop you there because in syria haven't the russian forces gone after the opponents of the assad regime rather than going after i.s.i.s.? >> actually, russia has beenll going after i.s.i.s. and if you look up the history of the united states, we haveta absolutely no policy in syria. we have the red line that was crossed. hillary clinton didn't have a policy forll syria. also didn't have a policy for libya, another thing mr. gordon mentioned. ourn policies called for americn ambassador to be murdered and libya to be run by i.s.i.s.

another place we could be working together with russia --s >> woodruff: let me stop youe there. we only have about 30 seconds and i want to give mr. gordon a final chance to respond.es philip gordon.do >> we're mostly talking aboutou foreign policy, but i want to come back to your question of mr. trump's admiration of putin and his system. >> he never said that.ha >> woodruff: so troubling. one even tries to figure out why he's so admiring of a leader who has cracked down on journalists and is suspected of using even violence, cracked down on civil vote, ruling with an iron fist within russia, to look with admiration on that sort of domestic leadership i think is really inconsistent with -- >> mr. trump never made those comments. you put those words in his mouth, mr. gordon -- >> -- that leads him to say these things. >> you're incorrect, my friend. >> woodruff: we'll leave it

there. thank you both for joining us, boris epshteyn, philip gordon.il >> thank you. >> woodruff: we turn now from foreign policy to an issue that continues to grab headlines in the campaign: donald trump's taxes and his refusal to releas them. hillary clinton says he must be hiding something, while trump has pledged to release them, but only when i.r.s. audits, that can last seven years, are finished. we wanted to get past those headlines; our lisa desjardins helps put it in context. >> reporter: let's start with basic facts: so far donald trump has not made his tax returns or summaries of them public. and he gives a consistentst explanation. >> i am under audit. a routine audit. and when the audit is complete,d i will release my returns. i don't know when this is going to be. m w but when the audit is complete, i release my returns., i have no problem with it. it doesn't matter. >> reporter: but, this is his choice. the i.r.s. confirmed this year that nothing prevents trump, orr any of us, from releasing personal tax returns anytime. now most of us don't have the

1,000-page tower of returns trump tweeted about last year, but that's important. you see, trump's personal taxes are also the taxes of his company. the trump organization, with its 500 associated companies, files as a kind of family business, whose dealings are taxed as trump's personal income. which brings us to the bigger point: what could trump's taxes tell us? a lot. how successful the businessman actually is. what ties does he have abroad, how his companies operate there, if and how much he gives to charity, and whether trump pays any taxes at all. trump likes to bring that up himself.li >> i pay as little as possible. i fight like hell to pay as little as possible for two reasons. number one, i'm a businessman. and that's the way you'rebu supposed to do it. >> reporter: now to perspective, how unusual itrump's refusal to release? in modern politics he is alone. since 1980, every president from ronald reagan to barack obama

has released their returns publicly. and so has each nominee. john mccain released the fewest, two years' of returns. hillary clinton has released the most, 39 years of taxes., but was anyone else under audit? yes, richard nixon. >> people have got to know whether they're president is a'r crook. well i'm not a crook. >> reporter: nixon wasn't talking about watergate there, he was talking about his finances after an i.r.s. audit in 1973 showed he owed more tha $400,000 in back taxes. i nixon eventually released four years of returns, sparking the modern tradition. another option for trump, like fellow billionaire politician michael bloomberg, trump could release a summary, or the first pages of his taxes. or he could he release the taxes with completed audits, those up to 2008. his response? >> the only one that cares is the press, i will tell you. and even the press, i tell you, it's not a big deal.te >> you don't think there are voters out there who--

>> i don't think so. i think people don't care.do >> reporter: but is that true? a recent monmouth universityun poll asked likely voters howik important it is for the candidates to release their tax returns. i 62% thought it was very or for the pbs newshour, i'm lisa desjardins.gh >> woodruff: donald trump's tax returns aren't the only way to gain insight into his financial dealings.gs trump's business record offer another look. william brangham has more. >> brangham: to understand trump's vast and varied business dealings, we're joined now bye two men who've spent a good deal of time looking into those businesses, as well as talking with trump at length about his career. marc fisher is a senior editor at the "washington post" and co- author of the book "trump revealed: an american journey of ambition, ego, money and power." and tim o'brien is executive editor of bloomberg view. his book is called "trump nation: the art of being the donald."

gentlemen, thank you both very much for being her.er marc fisher, i would like to start with you. the trump campaign is predicated in large part on the idea that trump is a magnificent businessman who can bringbr america back to prosperity, andy you've done a long analysis of what his business career is like. is that a fair characterizationh of him in does he deserve that title? >> well, he's certainly had a good deal of success. he's also had some terrible failures. his business career has been a rollercoaster. he's been atro great heights.ht he dominated atlantic city's casino gambling business for a time, but then he overextended himself there and ended up cannibalizing his own business and ended up with six corporate bankruptcies there.he similarly around the world, he's had a number of successes, but he's changed his whole business model in recent years because he took on less debt, less risk, because that had not been going well for him. he retreated and found a new

avenue in recent years where he essentially rents out his name and uses his name to allow others to take the risk, foreign investors and others, so they take the risk on projects and he rents out his name and gets a guaranteed income stream from that. >> brangham: tim o'brien, you are one of the few journalistsou in the world who have actually seen some of trump's tax returns, but because of a court order or suit trump brought against you for libel, you are not able to talk too much about them. do they shed lite on his reputation for a tremendous business acumen?cu >> i do think the tax returns are important. i don't think he'll releasele them. i think the reason he won't release them is i think at a will go towards offering substantiation around a bunch of things that trump has made central to his political campaign. his track record as a business

person, how charitable he is as a philanthropist, his operations overseas, and the kinds of business and financial conflicts that potentially come to bear on him should he end up in the oval office, and i do think it does come back to yet another referendum on his business career. i think what's important to remember about him is that the donald trump of the '80s and the '90s was essentially a creature of debt, and the last time he really operated a large business that involved, you know, complex financial and managerial decisions was when he was running the atlantic city casinos, which he essentially ended up running into the ground. he put those through four separate corporate bankruptciesr and almost went personally bankrupt in the early 1990s,19 and the trump who emerged from that is essentially now a human

shingle, as marc said. he oversees a licensing operation where he puts his name on everything from mattresses and men's underwear to vodka and buildings, and then he's got a golf course development operation, and then essentially a self-promotion publicitypu machine that made itself the most visible during the apprentice years. >> brangham: let's talk specifically more about one of the businesses that tim just mentioned, the casino business. as you know, the contributen campaign has been making a lot of hay about trump's time as a casino operator. o they say he enriched himself, left a trail of bankruptcies and ruined a lot of small businesses, that's been a bigs part of their argument against him. how true are those accusations? >> they're quite accurate. he did have some early success in atlantic city, but he had great trouble making thema payments on the finance notesna that he took out in order to

build those casinos. he did have trouble paying and in many cases did not pay some of his vendors and contractors. there was a series of lawsuits about that. we have a number of such vendors and contractors who we quote in the books saying their small businesses were ruined by trump's failure to pay them for work that they did for his casinos. so there's a huge gap between what donald trump was able to db for himself in atlantic city and what he -- the people he ran roughshod over in order to geter there. we asked him about this and he said, look, i was looking out for myself and that other people took risks to come along with him and, if they failed, that's their problem. we asked how does that translate into someone who needs to do something for all the people as president of the united states? he said, look, it's a completell different phase of my life, i was doing this for donald trump and i didn't likely care whatwh was happening to other people.p so there's a large trail of

destruction coming out of the atlantic city experience, and he did at various points manage to make sure that he had a guaranteed income stream, and ha did manage to negotiate with the banks in such a way that he was able to hold on to those properties or at least some portion of them even after they had essentially failed.a >> brangham: tim o'brien, you looked at o this career for a lg time. are there any examples inpl trump's career that do support his contention that he is a strong, smart, successful businessman that might have some bearing on him being commander-in-chief? >> well, i mean, this comes back to how do we want to define success and how do we want to define business. i think he has not been a successful operator of large enterprises. the trump organization now is essentially a boutique operation. at times, when it's mattered the most, he hasn't demonstrated strong financial discipline.di on the campaign trail, already,

we've seen a number of moments in which he's actually been financially unsophisticated when he's spoken about the debt markets, the federal debt, the federal reserve and monetary policy, fiscal policy. there is a large degree of ignorance around someone who is saying that his experience as a business person qualifies him for the oval office. and i think what he has been successful as, as a businessman, isin self-promotion.f- he's a very self-assured, self-promoter, but that's very different from being a great entrepreneur. he is not a john re john rockef, henry ford, steve jobs or mark zuckerberg. he's essentially a p.t. barnum, and there's a real skill and street smart approach he has around keeping himself in the public eye,e keeping a certain perception about who he is front and center with the media, with

his political opponents, and with voters. but the reality is there is -- there is a very wizard of oz truth about a lot of the things surrounding donald trump, that when you just look at the fact pattern around his track recordo as a business person and pull the curtain back, you know, there's a guy there businessly spinning the wheel and myth making. >> brangham: tim o'brien and marc fisher, thank you both very much for being here. >> thank you. >> woodruff: stay with us,dr coming up on the newshour: a poet trying to change the face of scotland. and a boy's struggle to read transformed into a passion for children's picture books. but first, a different take on the fallout from trading, and particularly with china.in

that issue has been, of course, one of the major ones we've heard about throughout thiss election season. our economics correspondent, paul solman, has the third in his series of stories, reported from the waves of the california shore and beyond. all part of "making sense," which airs thursdays. >> reporter: in san clemente, california, brad parks and shad eyeshen, confined to wheelchairs since their teens, about to shred the surf. >> i figured if i'm still alive now, you know, this is the least thing that's going to worry me. >> reporter: okay, sit-down surfing... on a "wave-ski." but plenty of challenge if you're paraplegic. >> i'm having just a blast out here, just meeting new guys and being down here and surfing.rf >> reporter: the man who designed and shaped their wave-s skis is surfing legend steve boehne, who regular viewers might recall complaining about unfair trade here on the newshour three years ago.

>> 95% of the boards being sold in the world weren't made by uss in california, who started the surfboard industry. they're being made in other countries.du and so my workers are competing for a job against a guy in another country who's making ain tenth of his wages. >> reporter: this has become a main theme of this year's o presidential campaign. but it turns out steve boehne was ahead of the curve, or at least ahead of most economists, who have argued since adam smith that trade is the key to economic growth by spurring competition and thus lowering prices, and arguing that in our era, technology replaces jobs, not cheap foreign labor. >> but as we went into the 2000s, with the rise of china, the situation changed.t >> reporter: it's what economish gordon hanson learned from a soon-to-be published academic study he co-authored: that chinese imports really did hurt u.s. wages and employment, but selectively. >> what we were surprised by was that those effects were not distributed kind of broadly and

evenly across blue collar workers in the united states, but really concentrated on industries and workers and communities that produce goods that compete in the same arenasi that china does. >> reporter: clothes, furniture, low-end electronics, in blue- collar strongholds and keyco battleground states likett pennsylvania and ohio. >> those workers in those regions are the losers of globalization in the unitedse states. >> reporter: you look as if you're a painting from the 1950 or something, and the floor! >> it's an abstract that's created by accident. >> reporter: and while our surfboard makers are a long wayy from trade's losers in the rust belt, they feel their pain. dave naylor, who coats the boards with fiberglass, told us back in 2013 that he was earning less, in real dollars, than he made 20 years before. today, naylor says he's doing better, but... >> only for the reason that instead of just working one job, i got a little part-time jobrk too.

but i'm still not making a lot more money.m >> reporter: and how much is that? >> i make about 40 a year. i have a tough time living on it. i mean, i have a tough time. >> reporter: what are you doing, david?, >> i'm snapchatting this monumental, historic moment. >> reporter: and while the boss's sassy son dave is doing fine, he's infinity's marketing manager, most of his friends are not.g >> they have jobs now but it's's not nearly as-- what they were making before.ef so the future, i'm not sure. it has seemed to be that way for quite a while. >> reporter: so who did dave boehne favor for president? >> i was a bernie guy.es >> reporter: and that brings us to the second surprise of gordon's hanson's study: >> areas that initially leaned republican, when they were hitre harder by import competition from china, moved hard to the right.po >> because china has our jobs. >> but areas that leaned initially democratic leanedia harder to the left. >> we have lost millions of decent paying jobs.

that has got to end. >> so we're at this complicated moment in american history where economic polarization and political polarization are interacting. >> reporter: meanwhile, your economics correspondent was interacting with a wetsuit, prepping for a surf session with steve boehne-- a moderate republican until the advent of t donald j. trump. >> finally all the politiciansol are talking about the free trade agreements and getting jobs bact in america. and trump was the first guy. so i was pretty gung-ho trump.gu but on his social issues i haves a few problems and so, you know, i voted for someone else in the primary. >> reporter: who did you vote for in the primary? >> i voted for bernie. >> reporter: well, you can't vote for bernie any more. b >> no, so i'm voting for hillary. >> reporter: 70 miles to the southeast, bob grande, founder and c.e.o. of quality controlled manufacturing in santee,

california, remains a trump supporter. >> absolutely. i don't condone all the rhetoric and everything that goes alongng with it, but you know what? i think our country needs a little bit of a wake up to where we can really start marching and being more competitive in the world. fair trade is so important toir being a healthy business nation. >> reporter: one casualty of unfair trade, says grande, is the decline of the american workforce. to find employees for his high- end machine shop, he has to train them, since so few young people have the skills, or even think of manufacturing as a career option. >> to be honest, machining never came to mind. >> reporter: but grande's training academy, six months and then a job starting at $15 an hour, was better than michaelat niemeyer's alternatives. >> before this i was bouncing around minimum wage jobs cookinr food, deliveries, cleaning, maintenance type stuff. >> reporter: james halladay

worked in a rental yard. >> i was working from 7:30 in the morning until 2:00 in them morning. sometimes six days a week. >> reporter: 7:30 a.m. to 2:00 a.m.? how can you live like that? >> you don't. and the problem is that a lot of the people i know are working like that and that's just their day to day life. get up, go to work, go home, go to bed. get up the next morning, do the same thing. >> reporter: grande's machine shop is booming, but only, he says, by making high-end parts-- for airplanes, for example, tha foreign competitors still can't match. >> the reason that we're here now, still in business, is, because we do the most complex machining there is.. and china isn't there yet. >> reporter: same story we heara from the king of custom surfdom, steve boehne. >> we do it by making the latest design. the good surfer, you know, thisd is his sport. he wants the best surfboard he can buy, just like the bestus golfer wants the best golf

clubs. >> reporter: and it's not just 'he', because i'm looking outt there and there are an awful lot of 'shes' out there.g >> that's right, and they're all on boards made overseas. well, in a couple of years, they're going to be getting boards from me, because they're going to want a better board. >> reporter: better boards, and new ones like the waveski, whick work for the disabled, and those of diminishing ability as well. it's not for nothing this stretch of coast is called "old man's beach." but back to business. how long can steve boehne survive if trade deals don't address supposedly unfair advantages, like cheap chinese boards that glide into u.s. ports duty-free, while other countries try to block u.s.-made boards with tariffs? the proposed trans-pacificlo partnership, a giant free-trade deal with pacific rim countries, but not china, would actually kill those tariffs.

but for now, boehne says he's forced to import and sell cheap chinese boards in his shop, and, for export to australia and japan, make infinity boards in vietnam. >> i'm playing the game the way i'm given it, given the rules. >> reporter: so, i put the question to economist gordon hanson. trade barriers, tariffs, against chinese goods would preserve the jobs of american workers, wouldn't it?ul >> that would bring manufacturing production back to the united states. there's no guarantee it woulder bring manufacturing jobs back. as that production came back, it would be much more automated; much more capital intensive.ns >> reporter: so we're not going to get the jobs back, no matter what we do?r: >> realistically, we're not. lower end jobs in manufacturing, jobs that were part of the american middle class in the 1950s, and 1960s and 1970s - 1 those jobs are gone. what we've got to be doing is looking forward. >> reporter: riding the waves, gingerly, from southern california... if you turn me into a surfer

i'll never forgive you. ...paul solman for the pbs newshour.ou >> woodruff: now, a scottish literary talent whose work on identity and belonging, among other themes, has helped propel her to a unique role and a popular writer there. jeffrey brown has our profile. and this is my country, says the fisherwoman from jura. mine, too, sac the child from cana and iona. mine, too, says the bane family. and mine, says the man from the polish dairy. >> brown: jackie kay wrote her poem threshold for the scottish parliament and a special guestgu queen elizabeth. >> outdoors, resolving doors and sliding doors --sl >> brown: in the wake to have the recent brexit vote to leave

the european union, it was a plea to keep doors and the country open to the outside world. as scotland's new national poet made itio personal. >> scotland's changing faces. look at me! m i like the idea of trying to change the face of scotland. but traditionally when somebody thinks of somebody scottish,is they see a white man in a kilt and they don't see me! >> brown: jackie is the adopted daughter of john and helen kay. her birth mother scottish, her father a nigerian student studying in scotland. >> i was a child and picked to be a national poet is something. >> i'll say. >> brown: she grew up in glasgow in a loving home but very unaware of her difference in outside society. she told her story in a best selling memoir red dust road.

>> we just saw negative stories about adoption when i was growing up. i wanted to tryow and tell a positive story about adoption. so i felt a bit like one of my favorite writers. she said she wrote the story she wanted to read, and i did that, too. i wrote the poems ipped to read and the experiences i wanted tot find. >> brown: she began to write as a student at the university of sterling and, over the years, has authored volumes of poetry, novels, children's books and more. often the work speaks directly to her own experience as in the poem "in my country." >> a woman passed by me in a full watchful circle, as if i war superstition or the worst dregs of her imagination. so when she finally spoke, her words spliced into bars of an old wheel, a segment of air -- where do you come from?

here, i said. here. these parts. >> brown: kay now has a major public role in this poetry-loving country and she intends to use ite to expand the voices of scotland. >> because i have a real long, long poem with all those thingsg >> brown: we joined her on a return to sterling where she was working with school students, part of a project called out of bounds, giving a greater voice to black and asian poets. >> a voice to imaging.ma >> brown: kay encouraged students to playag with language in her poems, something she loves to do.. >> i found the balloon in the sparkling gammut june, just as it was coming -- >> brown: her official title is one she loves. she is scotland's makar.

>> it's a scottish word that means maker, maker of words.wo >> brown: it's a great word because of this idea "to make."k i don't know if people think about poetry as something that's made. >> we make a poem in the way people might make a table. a poem is a physical thing you make and makar fits. it captures the imagination because people stop me and say, makar, congratulations! for some reason, it's excitedea people, and i think it's because there's not been a black national poet in this country maybe. just as granite, there will be a search in vain, tracking in the

past for as long as you call a stain a stain.ta >> brown: jackie took her infectious love of poetry and country to every corner of scotland. >> come join our brilliant gathering. >> brown: from scotland, jeffrey brown for the pbs "newshour". >> woodruff: next, to another in our brief but spectacular episodes where we ask interesting people to describe their passions. tonight, we hear from illustrator christian robinson,o who works to ensure picture books become more inclusive and empower all children. his new book is "school's first day of school." >> growing up, i actually -- i- didn't have that close of a relationship with books.o

i actually struggled to read. so i was definitely drawn to books with pictures. i just love that, you know, so much could be communicated with just an image. i was raised by my grandmother. we didn't have a lot growing up, but i at least always had a pencil, paper. i couldn't control the circumstances around me, but i could at least decide what i wanted on that piece of paper, what sort of world i wanted to create. early on my drawings were sort of influenced by whatever was around me. like most kids i watched aladdin and drew aladdin. i watched jurassic park and drew a dinosaur eating somebody.so it was a form of escape and a passion of mine. when you look at a picture book, you might think story by the author and illustrations by the

illustrator. the story is actually somethingh that happens when the author and the illustrator come together. it's what happens on the page. in my books, i like to have written by, or words by the author, and pictures by the illustrator. illustrating an entire book cana be overwhelming and scary. what i like to do is start small, tiny doodles, which are a story board, and i do them on tiny post it notes. they help me figure out how i want to tell a story. i figure out what i want the character and the backgrounds to look like. it's important to tell stories that reflect our diverse world. children need to see themselves in the books, their gender, hair color, hair texture, disability, themselves. picture books are like many children's first introduction to the world. seeing yourself is almost like a message. it's saying you matter. you are visible and you're valuable.

my name is christian robinson and this is my brief but spectacular take on tellingel stories with pictures. >> woodruff: you can watchuf additional brief but spectacular episodes on our website,ac pbs.org/newhour/brief. now to our newshour shares, something that caught our eye that might be of interest to you, too. two military veterans stepped down from their duties this summer, but they weren't your typical soldiers. the newshour's julia griffin reports on a pair of army horses that were free to a good home. >> every morning, rain or shine, the caisson horses fall in line at the arlington national cemetery. the horses and human counterparts execute eight choreographed funeral procession a day for deceased service members and officers killed in action. it's a precise job that requires a particular kind of horse.

>> we're looking for behavior. teamwork is a part and beingng able to stay calm with the flags waving around or loud sounds in the background. worry trying to keep them as calm as possible so the processions go smoothly. >> horses typically serve ten years with a caisson unit, butu when one horse kennedy acted out and quincy acquired a painfulul ailment in their hoof, the army decided the two should bee retired from service. >> they've worked extremely hard for this country and honoring its fallen, so we look for the best retirement homes for them where they will be well taken care of after their service. they actually deserve the best home that could be provided for them and i felt my wife and children and myself could do that for them. >> carol, a former platoon sergeant with the caisson unit, was chosen to adopt kennedy from dozens of applicants across the

country. the horse will now live out his golden years at the 85-acre ranch in loganville, texas. >> it's a great honor to know that every day the horse i adopted provided that service to his country, and i could teach my children as they get older what kennedy actually provided for the nation. >> this was a big, big honor for us. >> kristen whit tear and her husband sean subject, a formerme sergeant in the army national guard, were selected to adopt quincy. heated medicals and a training staff akuwait the quarter horseh in a farm south of boston. >> we were lucky to provide medical intervention for him and corrective shoeing.co a responsibility i have to my own horses, give them a quality of life and keep them happy through their elder years. and he'll go to his forever home now. >> two horses who served in the most solemn service, the burial of those killed in war, now

being offered any homes by military veterans. for the pbs "newshour", i'm julia griffin in fort belvar, virginia. >> woodruff: on the newshour online right now, the lionfish was once an alluring pet, and now it's a predatory threat in the coral reefs of the atlantich ocean. you can track their rise, lookac into the belly of the predator and learn how people are tryinge to reverse this human-made dilemma. all that and more is on our web site, pbs.org/newshour. and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. join us online, and again here tomorrow evening with mark shields and david brooks. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you and goodhe night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> lincoln financial-- committed to helping you take charge of your financial futuren

>> the lemelson foundation. committed to improving lives through invention. in the u.s. and developing countries. on the web at lemelson.org. lte >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbn station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.orgne esbh.org

>> this is "bbc world news america." funding of this presentation is made possible by the freeman foundation, newman's own foundation, giving all profits from newman's own to charity and pursuing the common good, kovler foundation, pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs, and aruba tourism authority. >> planning a vacation escape that is relaxing, inviting, and exciting is a lot easier than you think. you can find it here, in aruba. families, couples, and friends can all find their escape on the island with warm, sunny days,