captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening, i'm judy woodruff. gwen ifill is away. on the newshour tonight, donald trump responds to a flurry of sexual assault allegations weighing down an already burdened campaign. then, after major losses in iraq and syria, how members of the so-called islamic state are focusing recruitment efforts on european criminals to expand their base. and... ♪ ♪ bob dylan receives the nobel prize in literature, jeffrey brown asks james taylor, how does it feel to have a musician for the first time receive the top literary honor? >> it is literature and it meant a huge amount. i think it was world changing

stuff or at least it chronicled the world as it changed. >> 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

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>> woodruff: republican presidential candidate donald trump today addressed new allegations of sexual misconduct from multiple accusers, a narrative now dominating the campaign. our lisa desjardins reports. >> reporter: it was trump the defiant. trump, perhaps at his most direct yet. >> these claims are all fabricated, they are pure fiction and they are outright lies. these events never happened. >> reporter: in palm beach, florida the republican nominee denied new allegations of sexual misconduct, insisting he is the victim of a smear campaign. >> the clintons are criminals, remember that, they're criminals. these attacks are orchestrated by the clintons and their media allies. >> reporter: this after three new stories charging sexual misconduct appeared last night.

a "people" magazine writer alleged trump pushed her against a wall and forcibly kissed her in 2005, a south florida woman told the palm beach post trump grabbed her from behind in 2003, and two women told the "new york times" about incidents from the '80s to 2005-- one of those women said trump reached up her skirt on an airplane. the women all said they are speaking now because of this moment in the sundays presidential debate: trump was asked if he'd ever touched a woman without her consent. >> i've said things that, frankly, you hear these things i said. and i was embarrassed by it. but i have tremendous respect for women. >> have you ever done those things? >> and women have respect for me. and i will tell you, no, i have not. >> reporter: in florida today, trump insisted he has evidence that his accusers are lying and will release it at "the right time." meanwhile, he expanded his counterattack list, beyond the clintons. >> they have corrupted the director of the f.b.i.

this is a conspiracy against you, the american people, we cannot let this happen or continue >> reporter: in new hampshire, first lady michelle obama delivered an impassioned response to the unprecedented campaign drama: >> the fact is that in this election, we have a candidate for president of the united states, who over the course of his lifetime and course of campaigning, has said things about women so shocking, so demeaning that i simply will not repeat anything today. >> reporter: mrs. obama said trump represents something frightening. >> i can't believe i'm saying that a candidate for president has bragged about sex assaulting women. i can't stop thinking about this.

it has shaken me to my core in way i could not have predicted. >> reporter: hillary clinton did not have public events today as she traveled to california for fundraisers. clinton was in the headlines as wikileaks released another 2,000 e-mails purported to be from the account of her campaign chairman john podesta. the latest batch included words said to be from advisor who wrote that apologies are clinton's achilles heel. with just weeks to go, the presidential race is not a battle over each candidates' strengths, but more than ever an ugly fight over their weaknesses. for the pbs newshour, im lisa desjardins. >> woodruff: in the day's other news, the u.s. carried out retaliatory strikes against rebels in yemen, after they fired at american ships earlier this week. the missiles launched this morning from the destroyer the u.s.s. "nitze" hit three radar sites along yemen's red sea coast. a pentagon spokesman said president obama authorized the strikes.

the u.s. had been backing the saudi-led coalition in yemen's civil war, but had yet to target the houthi rebels directly. >> these strikes were, again, a response to threats to our vessels and to freedom of navigation, which is a core u.s. national security interest. these strikes are not connected to the broader conflict in yemen. those who might threaten u.s. forces should recognize that we will not tolerate threats to our people. we will respond if our forces come under fire. >> woodruff: the rebels' two failed missile attacks, yesterday and sunday, appeared to be in reaction to a saudi-led strike that hit a funeral in the yemeni capital last week. the world's longest-reigning monarch has died. the king of thailand passed away today at the age of 88, after being in poor health. his death plunges the country into a period of uncertainty, because of concerns about the son who will succeed him. jonathan miller of independent television news has our report from bangkok.

>> reporter: on tv stations, all programs were interrupted. the king has died, the spokesman said. he has passed away peacefully. so comes to an end a reign of 70 years. king bhumibol adulyadej, his name means the strength of the land, the incomparable power. a wave of grief spread through the grounds of the hospital where the king died, his bereft subjects we want for his self sacrifice and wisdom. the only king most of thailand has ever known. he's a light. >> the only light for thai

people. >> reporter: he was like a guiding star. >> something like that. >> reporter: king adulyadej will be taken to his royal palace to be ceremonially bathed. he will lie 100 days in state to allow his adoring subjects to come pay their respects. he took the throne as an 18-year-old engineering graduate, the thai monarchy. for decades, he traveled the lengths and breadth of his country, demonstrating his concern for his people. he wielded his power deftly and sparingly. but in the twilight, the looming crisis cast a dark shadow over his realm. this is a man who will be crowned king. it will happen when the time is right thailand's military leader said tonight, but 64-year-old,

the king's only son, is not loved like his father. he is feared. he lacks stature and respect and many consider him reckless. tonight, thailand marks a new milestone and mourns. >> woodruff: in washington, president obama praised the king as a "close friend" and "valued partner of many u.s. presidents." in nigeria, officials say 21 of the so-called chibok girls kidnapped by boko haram extremists two years ago, have been released. a presidential spokesman said the breakthrough came after negotiations with the militant group. all told, 276 school girls were abducted. 200 of them are still missing. we'll have more on the wider, dire situation in nigeria later in the program. in syria, there's been no let-up in the assault on the city of aleppo. shelling and air-strikes in

rebel-held areas left at least 11 people dead overnight. rescue workers say renewed bombing there has killed more than 150 people this week. meanwhile, russian state tv aired footage of syrian government troops conducting operations against the opposition on the northern edge of aleppo. and late today, at least 20 people died in a car bombing near syria's border with turkey. hurricane nicole barreled into bermuda today, with maximum sustained winds of 115 miles per hour. the category 3 storm peeled roofs off homes and knocked out power to more than 26,000 customers across the british island territory. amateur video captured waves pummeling the shores, as winds whipped rain into near white-out conditions. the storm is expected to weaken in the days ahead. back in this country, some progress was made for north carolina residents still reeling from hurricane matthew.

governor pat mccrory says the number of people without power is down to roughly 44,000, from a peak of 900,000. still, many communities remain underwater. the floodwaters were expected to peak in five counties today. meanwhile, the u.s. death toll from matthew grew to at least 22 people. the national transportation safety board says the brakes were working on the commuter train that slammed into new jersey's hoboken terminal. last month's crash killed one person and injured more than a hundred others. in a preliminary report, investigators said they haven't found any mechanical issues with the signal or train control systems. heavy damage to the front of the train is hampering the investigation. there were fresh concerns today about china's economy. chinese exports in september plunged 10% over last year, due to lower demand. imports were also down. that weak economic data pushed stocks lower here.

on wall street, the dow jones industrial average lost 45 points to close under 18,099. the nasdaq fell 25 points, and the s&p 500 slipped six. still to come on the newshour, how new allegations against donald trump could shift the campaign. millions of nigerians displaced by militants face another threat: starvation. a legendary musician wins the nobel prize for literature, and much more. >> woodruff: we return now to politics, and the fallout from the latest allegations of sexual misconduct against donald trump. we get three views, from carolyn ryan, senior editor for politics at the "new york times," david maraniss, associate editor at the "washington post" and a biographer of bill clinton, and presidential historian jon

meacham the author of "destiny of power: the american odyssey of george herbert walker bush." and we welcome all of you to the program. carolyn ryan, let me start with you since the "new york times" has been reporting on this. donald trump today is saying this is all lies. he said he's going to prove that they're lies. he said that the "new york times" is in collusion with the clinton campaign. is the "times" completely confident these women are telling the truth? >> well, a couple of things on that. i mean, as you probably know, the trump campaign sent a -- or a lawyer from mr. trump sent a letter to us asking for an apology and asking to retract the story. our lawyer responded that we would not but also saying we believe that this is an issue of great national concern and that we believe the voices of these women should be heard both by our readers and voters. so, to your broader question of

whether we believe these women, we do believe these women. we reported very extensively on their stories, not just interviewing them, but as you saw from their story, interviewing multiple people in both cases with whom they shared the story over the years. >> woodruff: let me turn to david and jon. jon, i'll start with you. you've spent a number of years looking at american politics, campaigns, presidents. how does this compare, the seriousness of this compare to anything you've seen in an american election? >> it's right up there, without question. this is almost as though richard hoff steader wrote the par more style for american politics but in a jerry springer context. we reached a point where the republican campaign is not commensurate with the challenges and mistakes of the hour. we've had negative campaigning, ferocious campaigning since

1796, the first contested election between adams and jefferson. but adams and jefferson were both plausible presidents. we've reached a point where the republican has largely disqualified himself from being seen in the same frame as secretary clinton. >> woodruff: david marannis, you're the journalist who knows more about bill clinton than anything else. how does this compare to anything you've seen? >> you have to understand first of all there is a vast, vast difference between allegations of marital infidelity and allegations of sexual misconduct or sexual abuse. it's apples and oranges or even more stark than that. starting with the gary hart incident in 1987 when he was seen on a boat with a woman not his wife, everything has changed in american politics in terms of what's public and what's private. certainly the clintons were going through that for many years. bill clinton had a special prosecutor looking at him for

something else, for the whitewater scandal, quote-unquote, and it ended up being a look into his sex life, but there all they found was an incident of consensual sex, had nothing to do with anything in terms of sexual abuse. >> woodruff: carolyn. if i could jump in, david is making an interesting point. one thing we're seeing and i don't know if you're seeing in your news organizations, people are really making this distinction between unwanted sexual advances and putting it in a different category from, say, infidelity and affairs. one thing that seems quite powerful in this moment is we're having a lieutenant of women come forward on our comment section and facebook pages to talk about things that have happened to them as young girls or young women or more recently, and it feels like there's a broader conversation about this

kind of behavior. >> reporter: i d. >> woodruff: in fact, we had a conversation similar to that about that here on the "newshour". jon meacham, what should the standard be for what is important, what's el vanity in a presidential campaign at this point? i mean, clearly, if there are serious allegations of assault, you would say yes, but what rises to that level? >> well, i think the greeks had this right a long time ago and that is that character is destiny, and we can debate policies, you opened your broadcast with two incredibly important stories about which the campaign is not about, in an ungrammatical way -- syria, yemen. we are facing enormous challenges, and we have one of the major party nominees who has brought this kind of tabloid reality tv sensibility into the mainstream of our politics, and, so, all of this is important.

anything is important as we decide whether or not to hire someone to be in charge of the face of our children. so, in that sense, i think all of it is worth discussing. the fact trump is talking about a conspiracy, about a vast media conspiracy, plays into some of the oldest instinct in american life which is there is a conspiracy out there, you are not part of it, but i will make this right, as trump said in the convention -- i alone can fix this. that's his only defense at this point is to try to play to this populous anger, which is quite real. to me, what's already concerning is the day after. if secretary clinton becomes president clinton, what are ewe going to do with 38, 39% of americans who believe somehow or another that the media in collusion managed to take this election away? >> woodruff: and just pick up on that, david marannis, because we are -- i mean, i'm hearing

and seeing everywhere voters -- i was traveling this week reporting in north carolina, last week in georgia -- voters are saying i don't want to hear, this is making me not want to vote, i don't want to know what's going on. how are we thinking about that? >> people are saying it's making them not want to vote but in the early voting, people are voting in record numbers. so it's having that counter effect. but things change in the day after the election as things predict. not that donald trump or his people will go away, but there is a tendency to look toward the future at some point. so i think if mrs. clinton is the president elect, thinks that they will change in some dramatic ways that we can't quite see. >> woodruff: jon meacham was saying there are other things going on in the world, carolyn. as a prominent news

organization, the "new york times," how do you decide what to devote time and resources to? you don't have infinite resources. how do you se side how much to spend on this and where they disagree on the issues. >> we're in the final stretch of the campaign where we have to do it all. one of the things, even in the midst of this craziness and insane part of the election, the thing that remains most popular for us is fact checking, and people still are interested in issues where people are -- where the candidates are right and wrong, where they want to take the country. do i worry a little bit, this week in particular, that everything is being consumed by one story. but i do think, especially with another debate coming up, that there is going to be an opportunity to press these candidates about their vision and about where they would take the country. >> woodruff: jon meacham, in the little bit of time we have left and looking at the sweep of history, how do historians look

on developments like this as they involve our presidents and our country? >> the great question for historians looking back on this is going to be to what extent did the donald trump campaign reflect divisions. household income is stagnant, people don't trust the government. there is a significant gap in what it takes to live the middle class life and what people are making. to what extent did this populous moment tell us about underlying divisions in the country that aren't going away after the election? >> woodruff: david marannis, as someone who's reported on so many presidents and politicians, what are the questions you have at this point about donald trump and this election that you would like to see answered? >> if i could say something self-serving, i think the mainstream media's taken a lot of hits in the last ten years and i think carolyn's newspaper

and "the washington post" and many of the other serious journalists have done a pretty terrific job this year of trying to explain the two candidates in this election. so the questions have pretty much been answered. >> woodruff: you're allowed to use your time in any way you want, david marannis. we thank you, carolyn ryan with the "new york times." jon meacham. thank you, all three of you. >> woodruff: online, we give you the chance to watch and interact with every presidential debate since 1960 at watch the debates dot org.

>> woodruff: as we reported earlier, 21 of nigeria's so- called chibok girls, kidnapped by the militant group boko haram, were released today. but there is a larger and more far-reaching menace lurking in the war-torn reaches of that country: hunger. aid groups warn of a coming famine. john yang has our look. a warning: the story contains some graphic images. >> yang: there is a calamity-in- the making in nigeria's northeastern borno state. that's the territory where government forces have been fighting boko haram for years. caught in the middle: as many as three million nigerians, who, aid groups say, are in danger of starving. it is also where those chibok girls were kidnapped in 2014. "washington post" correspondent kevin sieff just completed a reporting trip there, and joins us from nairobi, kenya. kevin, you write this morning in the post about this growing humanitarian crisis, this

famine. howe widespread is it? >> we're talking about the population of more than 3 million, probably closer to 4 million. 2 million are entirely inaccessible. you have humanitarian actors who just ward to work in this place called northern borno state, but even so, there are 2 million people who are in villages and cities where boko haram still operates with impunity, so humanitarian actors can't deliver food and medicine to 2 million people. the other basically million and a half, have just gotten access to them, so there are food deliveries but not enough food and medicine, so you're seeing massive rates of mall nutrition, dozens of children dying every day. i talked to aide workers who said they'd never seen anything

like. this it's huge. >> yang: you write movingly about coming upon a 6-month-old girl in a clinic. tell us about that. >> yeah. the girl's name is fana ali. she was six months old and looked like she was just born. she was malnourished from birth. she was in a clinic run by doctors without borders in a small city on the border. she had malaria and mall nutrition. the doctors tried really valiantly to save her in this little clinic with no electricity, basically no medicine and almost no resources at all and, ultimately, they had to try to get her out of there, but the place is so dangerous, it's so hard to leave by road, they had to get an escort from the cameroonian military, and that escort didn't come for reasons no one really knows.

just after the escort was rejected, the baby girl died. and, you know, it's a tragedy, and seeing it is horrific for me and for the people who are trying to save her. but ultimately, this is happening hourly in northeastern nigeria now, it's happening all the time. there is not enough assistance and food. there are children starving to death all over that region. and what i find so sad about this is this has been going on for a long time, you know. i mean, these places were liberated from boko haram about a year and a half ago, and children like fana ali starving and dying since then. >> yang: why is it taking so long for this famine to become known? >> i think part of it is it's so

dangerous. it's difficult for aid workers and journalists to get access to these places. so it took a long time for a lot of people, including us, to learn just how dire things really were. that's one reason. i think another reason is there was just a total ifns tuitional -- institutional failure both at the u.n. and other international n.g.o.s that really should have known how bad things were but simply didn't have the resources and nigeria didn't have strong enough teams, warrant trying hard enough to find out what the situation really looked like outside of the capital of the state. as soon as they did get access or kind of tried to leave the capital, these horrific images started coming out. so i think it's a combination of those factors, and those factors continue to playin plague the r.

even in places that are relatively fit like the capital of born o you have severe acute mall nutrition rates that are the highest in the world, you have the return of polio. the first polio hit was in -- in africa in two years. by all measure, this is a crisis as bad as anywhere in sur saharan africa than at anytime. >> yang: thanks for being with us. >> thanks. >> woodruff: turning to iraq, the battle for the isis- controlled city of mosul is now taking shape, and with it, the hopes of the iraqi government that the last major foothold for the terrorist group in that country can be retaken. but what is the overall status of isis? william brangham looks for some answers.

>> brangham: at its peak between november of 2014 and may of 2015, i.s.i.s. controlled large parts of iraq and syria, but since then i.s.i.s. has taken serious losses on the battlefield and lost critical territory. to understand what this means for the group's future, i'm joined by two people who studied i.s.i.s. in great detail. petepeter -- how is i.s.i.s. operating and how are they doing? >> they've lost territory in iraq and libya. there is been a significant dip in the output in terms of the propaganda -- propaganda. they're putting out less videos, et cetera. i wouldn't be quick to declare victory. this group has shown itself to

be very nimble. despite their losses on the battlefield, we see attacks in the west are continuing to proliferate in. the last couple of days, german officials were able to displantle a plot in germany that was meant to be against the berlin airport, possibly, and that, according to officials i've spoken, to could have looked as bad as the brussels attack we saw in march of this year. >> brangham: peter, anything you would add as to how i.s.i.s. is doing globally. >> there are still an estimated 10,000 foreign fighters in i.s.i.s. territory. if syria and iraq fall, those 10,000 will have to go somewhere. some will go to turkey, some will return to home countries, others will go to other battlefronts. so the story of i.s.i.s. is not over once i.s.i.s. is defeated in syria and iraq. >> brangham: your center put out a study that showed how

i.s.i.s. is increasingly recruiting individuals who have criminal backgrounds. tell me what is it that you've found? >> so if you speak to european security agencies, they will tell you that, in germany, for example, 66% of i.s.i.s. recruits were known to police. the same picture in norway, the netherlands, belgium, france. a lot of foreign criminals are becoming attracted to i.s.i.s. the head of brussels is talking about i.s.i.s. as the supergang, and it's kind of true because i.s.i.s. offers in many ways what gangs are offering, a strong sense of identity, power, a sense of strength and it kind of recruits in the same areas often very deprived socioeconomically, marginalized areas, the suburbs of paris and brussels. it's a very different type of recruit from the more sort of intellectual types that we saw in al quaida 15 years ago. >> brangham: this seems to fly in the face of what many people

believe that i.s.i.s. is largely an ideologically, religiously-driven organization. >> i don't think that follows, william. i think that peter's excellent report shows that one of the interesting outcomes of this recruitment of people in the criminal underworld is that i.s.i.s. has put a great accent in cloaking their actions in religious language. so, for example, one of the techniques that i.s.i.s. recruits are asked to use when they're trying to travel to syria and need to raise funds for the trip is they're told to basically carry out burglar ris, credit card fraud, everything from that to stealing cars, et cetera. and the word i.s.i.s. uses to describe these stolen goods is canima, an arabic term by means the spoils of war, and a term that appears in islamic scripture to describe what happened during the time of the

prophet muhamad when he and his companions were going into areas that they were invading and taking the spoils of those areas. so basically credit card fraud becomes a religious action in their view. when i was in germany a couple of months ago and i had the chance to interview harry sraka, a jihadist with i.s.i.s.'s special forces, he told me specifically that i.s.i.s. was looking for people with criminal connections for a number of reasons, among them because, in europe, it's not so easy to get guns, to get ammunition, to get weapons, and, so, by uptapping into these criminal underworlds, they are able to then set up the network that they need to be able to carry out attacks. >> brangham: peter, does seeing this connection between the criminal underworld and i.s.i.s. offer law enforcement any obvious anti-i.s.i.s. strategy they're not currently using? >> well, it definitely asks them

to think differently because becoming pious doesn't necessarily mean that you stop being a criminal, and not being pious doesn't necessarily that you're not being radical. also, it means that we have to think, for example, that things like countering terrorism finance in a different way. a lot of the financing of terrorist attacks in europe never entered the international financial system. it doesn't show up on bank accounts. it is being financed through petty crime, through drug dealing, through credit card fraud, counterfit, illicit trade and that needs to be paid attention. counterterrorism and terrorism policing are becoming one in the same thing. >> brangham: one of the things we've heard a great deal of in the u.s., president obama said as i.s.i.s. continues to lose territory in iraq and syria that that is partly why we are seeing these attacks nesticly, and it's them lashing out, in a sense.

i understand that you don't necessarily lie that as a theory. can you explain why? >> sure. i don't buy it because the data doesn't back it up. this is a group that was trying to send fighters from its earliest days and it had the strategy of exporting terror at the same time that it had a strategy of holding ground. now, what i think is partially correct and what the administration is saying is that, as peter pointed out, you have the 10,000 form fighters who are trapped in iraq and syria right now. some are, of course, going to with be killed in airstrikes and are going to be eliminated that way. but as the caliphate is strangled and is erased, people have to go somewhere, and there is, of course, concern that the pace of attacks will increase as mosul falls an and raqqa falls. >> brangham: thank you both

very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: now the first of two perspectives on the presidential campaign from business leaders. tonight, economics correspondent paul solman talks to linked-in co-founder and executive chairman reid hoffman. hoffman is a supporter of and donor to hillary clinton and he is speaking out against donald trump. it's part of our weekly series, "making sense." >> reporter: in silicon valley, donald trump is anathema to many high-tech executives. but billionaire reid hoffman is a rare one who is defying him publicly. so why aren't there others? >> because i think they're fearful of retaliation. trump has shown he will essentially attack individuals, make second amendment jokes, et cetera, and they're worried this will be bad for their

businesses and them. >> reporter: hoffman who made billions foundle linkedin, running paypal and investing early in facebook and airbnb is outspokenly anti-trump and he's putting his money where his mouth is. last month on the web site "crowd pack" he pledged $5 million to veterans charities if donald trump would release his tax returns. he also bank rolled a game, trumped up cards. what's the fastest way to make america great again? >> suing the constitution. >> reporter: suing the constitution? >> not shaming miss universe. >> reporter: it's cards with a snarky trump smith. polish immigrants were paid $5 an hour to destroy what? >> tamper proof i.d. cards. make america great again sombreros. >> reporter: meant to be informative and enable discourse

more than anything else, but it also mocks trump mercilessly, prompting this question from daily show host trevor noah. >> why would you do this? you realize if he becomes. , you're dead. >> actually inspired by your show and -- >> oh, don't involve me! oh, no, no! >> reporter: hoffman gets why others are trump mum and especially why fellow business leaders aren't sharing what they confided to him in private. >> people are almost like a school yard bully, if i step up, am i going to be targeted, too? >> reporter: and so you're taking on the bully? >> yes, unfortunately. i wish i didn't have to. i wish to be focused on the business stuff i'm doing, how to contribute to our economic progress. how do i help create future for american industry, middle class. those things actually really matter to me, but it's so critical now that i'm taking every available hour and making

more hours than i have available in order to get out and speak on this topic. >> reporter: and you yourself when you were at boarding school, had encounters with bullies, right? >> for the first year, i basically tried to reason with them. i tried to say, look, is this really what you want to be doing? don't we aspire to be something more? you know, none of that talk worked. and the next year, i basically said, okay, here's how it's going to play -- anything you do to me, i'm going to do two x back to you. you damage things in my room, i'll trash your room. you threaten me, i'll threaten you. that's the new law of the land. and basically i was so convincing that nothing happened for the rest of the year. i think boarding schools are like miniature versions of "lord of the flies." >> reporter: but don't we all have a savage side and isn't silicon valley a case study in the survival of the fittest? you're in an environment where lots of people believe that the

way we move forward, every person pursues his or her self interest in a libertarian way, a free way, and we're all ult lit better off. >> one of the great strengths of american culture is this empowerment of the individual, is the individual being able to be entrepreneurial and create new things. but you create a whole group of people to make great companies, employees, customers, a society of network of relations key to being successful and we are all linked in and that's how we need to focus on how to give to society, how to participate in society, how to make society a better place because, by the way, it's good for me but also good for all of us in the environment in which we live and work. >> reporter: there is an opposing view in the valley. trump's long time libertarian

pal tale, the paypal mafia and a donal spoke for him. >> if you're watching me you understand our economy is broken better than any politician in washington, d.c. i'm not a politician but neither is donald trump. he is a builder, andeth time to rebuild america. (cheers and applause) >> reporter: the appeal of donald trump to people like your friend peter teal, is things in our democracy are broken, grid locked, we need somebody strong to come in, break it up and be the ultimate change agent and that's what donald trump represents? >> what i think he imagines is trump has a policy, has an idea of what to do. i haven't heard any ideas. all i hear is sloganeering, vitriol and personal attacks.

that's not how to solve the problem. how do we return to being a nation of builders, strengthen the education system, inclusion of the middle class. >> reporter: what would happen to the united states' economic and sr's economy, in particular, if donald trump would become president, in your view. >> i think the randomness of his governing, tweeting, slogan sloganeering, attacking, will create great chaos in the market. i think people will have difficulty predicting the fiewvment we've made huge progress by enabling trade and collaboration and learning. when you look at your average 30-year-old today, they're much better off than a 30-year-old 20 or 30 years ago because of progress in technology and healthcare and all the rest of this. >> reporter: but what about all the people who are demonstrably left behind, who are hurt by trade, hurt by globalization, hurt by the progress of technology?

>> so i should think we need to put our energies as entrepreneurs, technology inventors and government to being much more inclusive. i think the key thing is working together. >> reporter: but the argument is we can't go on as we are, and there seem to be a lot of people who think that, right? >> yep. >> reporter: and, so, we have with to blow it up or break it down or do something different than the way things have been done up till now. >> yeah. at a silicon valley, i'm extremely sympathetic to the revolutionary response. i not only agree with it emotionally, i agree with it practically. and the only thing i disagree with is i don't think trump is that. trump is blow it up for no good reason at all. you actually want to go revolution with a target, with the idea of building a new system. >> reporter: aren't there a lot of people in silicon valley who don't believe in democracy at all at this point? >> democracy tends to be a collaborative process, a

committee, a consensus. silicon valley is an individual who greats a group and does something big. democracy creates a society to lets us invest in each other's kids, have public education and have a greater society and individual freedom for creating businesses. there are people who go, this is all broken, you should throw it all out, that's unwise. >> reporter: how does mr. trump plan to restore a sense of dignity to the white house? >> topless horse rides with vladimir putin. >> reporter: or as the tag line of trumped up cards puts it, this is a game, democracy isn't. this is paul solman. >> woodruff: tomorrow, paul will talk to investor tom bearic, one of donald trump's economic advisors.

>> woodruff: it was by far the most unusua nobel award in recent times. bob dylan was given the prize in literature today. he's long been considered a legend for his work and lyrics in folk and rock music. today his work was recognized for its poetry. jeffrey brown has an appreciation and more on that decision. ♪ ♪ >> brown: he led a folk revival in the early '60s, took it into new and epoch-making territory through his use of language and imagery, famously went electric at the newport folk festival in 1965, and for decades since, to

this day, has continued to perform, record, impress and sometimes confound millions of fans worldwide. by any measure, bob dylan is one of the most important and influential popular songwriters of his era, and now he is also a nobel laureate in literature. the announcement came this morning in stockholm. >> the nobel prize in literature for 2016 is awarded to bob dylan for having created new poetic expressions within the great american song tradition. >> brown: though his name had been fancifully raised for the nobel in recent years, the choice still came as a surprise, and his selection ends a long drought for americans-- the last was novelist toni morrison in 1993. dylan was born robert zimmerman in duluth, minnesota in 1941. he changed his name and came to new york's greenwich village in

1961. his debut album came a year later. he gives few interviews and doesn't talk much about his writing. but he did talk in martin scorcese's 2005 documentary, "no direction home." >> words have their own meaning, or different meanings, and then all... and words change their meanings. words that were ... meant something ten years ago don't mean that now, they mean something else. >> brown: and he said this about the life of an artist. >> an artist has got to be careful never really to arrive at a place where he thinks he's at somewhere. you always have to realize that you're constantly in the state of becoming, you know? and, as long as you can stay in that realm, you'll sort of be all right. >> brown: other musicians were listening: >> he felt like a voice from a new world and we were part of it. >> brown: this afternoon, another great songwriter, james taylor, told me via skype of the influence dylan had on him and others.

>> it was the musical form that you could approach and you could try on for yourself and that's sort of what folk music was about. and then he kept changing it up, you know, throwing you a curve. he kept us guessing. and it does engage you on many different levels. there is a sort of deceptive simplicity about it and availability, approachability, and then there is just the depth of the stuff lyrically, which is really what is being acknowledged in this nobel prize. so that's a big deal. it's huge. >> brown: david hajdu, author of the books, "positively fourth street" and the brand new "love for sale: pop music in america," says dylan contains multitudes. >> the history of us music is contained in his music... he

he is also a transformative drew from all traditions, and from poetery and novels, he he laid the ground work for pulled it all together into a stew of >> brown: among many honors: dylan was inducted into the rock and roll hall of fame in 1988, and was awarded the presidential medal of freedom in 2012 >> today everybody from bruce springsteen to u2 owes bob a debt of gratitude. there is not a bigger giant in the history of american music. all these years later, he's still chasing that sound, still searching for a little bit of truth. and i have to say i am a really big fan. >> brown: still, a songwriter as nobel laureate for literature? today, novelist gary shteyngart poked fun, tweeting: "i totally get the nobel committee. reading books is hard." while salman rushdie wrote: "from orpheus to faiz, song &

poetry have been closely linked. dylan is the brilliant inheritor of the bardic tradition. great choice". james taylor had no doubt at all. >> i think it was world changing stuff. or at least it chronicled the world as it changed. it helps you navigate and negotiate the world. and i think so many of his songs were so important that way. i think it's entirely appropriate that he get the nobel prize for literature. >> brown: music writer david hadju adds this. >> in a way the nobel is a validation for a whole kind of literature that is different from words on the page, his singing. his personal vision, the ragtag with beautiful and poetic

lyricism, all came together in art that we can see as literature. >> brown: a nobel prize, and still on the road. bob dylan was silent about the prize today. but tonight he performs in las vegas, continuing a national tour. for the pbs newshour, i'm jeffrey brown. >> woodruff: now to our brief but spectacular series, where we ask interesting people to share their passions. tonight we hear from author rumaan alam. he speaks to us about family as an experiment. alam's latest book is called "rich and pretty."

>> civility does not work for children and anybody who is raising a child is to know your task as a parent is to repeat and repeat and repeat i yoursel, to inculcate in your child the values you want them to hold. ♪ we got married in the parking lot of the santa cruz city hall and it was much more romantic than it sounds. a year or so after we were married legally, we became parents. i've lived within a nuclear family where there are no women. it is incumbent on my husband and i to raise our boys with an understanding of the 50% of the planet who are different than what they are. i am conscious of people looking at our family in a different way and i don't blame them for that. a brownman and a black man with

two white boys will attract looks because they're with the two best looking children on the planet. our family requires a radical honesty. we have no choice but to level because children figure out early a child grows in a pommy's tummy. a choice a parent makes to give up their child for adoption is a very loving choice. i know there will be a time that sometimes my children mourn that and that's okay because that's how life works. while many families look like they adhere to mom and dad, 24 4 kids and a dog, within that structure of a family, there's always something that makes you your own, and if we all recognize that, i think we would be a little better off. a few years ago, i was flying out of florida. i had my oldest son in my arms. the t.s.a. agent says to my baby, oh, it's okay, we just

need to check your daddy's hands for gunpowder. a 2-year-old does not know what gunpowder is. i thought, if i was a red headed potter holding this baby, would he want to check my hands for gunpowder? i am conscious of the fact that i have many, many advantages. we are middle class people, insulated and protect bid those things, but we are different and we still live in a society that is still very suspicious of difference. my name is rumaan alam and this is my "brief but spectacular" take on family. >> woodruff: you can watch more of our breif but spectacular series at pbs.org/newshour/brief. 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 good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

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

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