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tv   PBS News Hour  PBS  October 24, 2016 3:00pm-4:00pm PDT

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captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening, i'm judy woodruff. gwen ifill is away. on the newshour tonight, it's the final fifteen days: donald trump turns up the heat in florida, while hillary clinton expands her focus to senate races. then, an update on one man's life since we met him four years ago as an outspoken political leader in a crumbling syrian town. >> we are being butchered under the eye of the international community. >> woodruff: and, for two sets of victory-starved fans, the chicago cubs and the cleveland indians get set to compete in a world series for the ages. all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour.
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>> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> lincoln financial-- committed to helping you take charge of your financial future.
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>> and the william and flora hewlett foundation, helping people build immeasurably better lives. >> supported by the rockefeller foundation. promoting the well-being of humanity around the world by building resilience and inclusive economies. more at rockefellerfoundation.org >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: and individuals. >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: the finish line
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draws closer, and one presidential hopeful is trying to catch up, while the other is working to bring friends along with her. lisa desjardins reports on the events of this campaign day. >> reporter: donald trump right now is focused on one word: florida, florida, florida. >> how are you feeling about florida, mr. trump? >> very good. feel very good. >> reporter: he's in the middle of a three-day, five-rally swing through the critical sunshine state, where early in-person voting started today. he maintained that his outlook is bright, and that polls showing him falling behind are flawed. >> they are phony polls put out by phony media. and i'll tell you what, all of us are affected by this stuff. and what they do is try and suppress the vote. this way, people don't go out and vote. >> reporter: it's a different story for hillary clinton. with increasingly strong polling numbers, she's pushing to win democratic control of congress. today it was a new hampshire rally push for senate candidate maggie hassan.
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>> that's why we need leaders like maggie. and unlike her opponent, never been afraid to stand up to donald trump. >> reporter: over the this weekend, clinton was aiming at races in pennsylvania: >> i hope you will do everything you can to elect katie mcginty your next senator. >> reporter: ...and north carolina: >> i am also hoping you're going to send deborah ross to the united states senate! >> reporter: and, it's not just clinton. running mate tim kaine joined in from florida today, targeting incumbent republican senator marco rubio. quote marco rubio. he called donald trump dangerous, and he called donald trump a con artist, but he's supporting donald trump. i don't get how you could call somebody a dangerous con artist and support him. >> reporter: meanwhile, a new story related to the f.b.i.'s clinton e-mail investigation. it's a "wall street journal" report centering on andrew
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mccabe, who became deputy f.b.i. director this year, and as a result gained an oversight role in the email probe. the story says his wife jill ran for virginia state senate last year and received campaign funding thanks to clinton ally and virginia governor terry mcauliffe. she lost. months later, her husband became involved with the clinton investigation. the journal reports the f.b.i. did not see a conflict because mccabe's wife's campaign was over and there was no direct connection to clinton. it still opened the door to an attack from team trump, which said in a statement today that the whole situation "shows either negligent behavior by the f.b.i... or a level of corruption." two weeks to go and it is both a race to get votes, and to block votes from the other side. for the pbs newshour, i'm lisa desjardins. >> woodruff: in the day's other news, the obama administration has confirmed premium costs will jump next year, under the affordable care act.
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a mid-level plan will rise an average of 25% in states served by the federal online marketplace. and, 20% of consumers will have just one company to choose from. sign-up starts november 1. a.t&t said today it's confident its deal to buy the time-warner media empire will pass muster with congress and federal regulators. the telecom giant announced plans on saturday to take over the parent of hbo, cnn and the warner brothers studio, for more than $85 billion. officials in france today began clearing the makeshift migrant camp known as "the jungle." the operation in calais means moving some 6,500 people-- many of them, trying to reach britain. martin geissler of independent television news reports. >> it's okay, you can go, it's okay. >> reporter: with a friendly word and a hand on the shoulder, they were ushered towards their
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buses. the authorities doing what they could to reassure these people everything's going to be alright. >> we've been talking with them many times, convincing them to stay in france, so they're rather happy that we can do that today. >> reporter: the exodus was mostly orderly and impressive in its scale. and at times the authorities seemed almost overwhelmed. these people queued in their hundreds to be processed then dispatched to centers right across france. there were maps to explain where they were going, but no promises as to what the future might hold. this group of afghan men told me they will stay in northern france and keep trying to cross the channel. i asked bakhram why he came here. he lifted his jacket and showed me an apalling abdominal wound. a taliban bomb did this, he said. whatever the future holds can't be as bad as his past. >> again i am come back. >> you're going to still come back? >> yeah, i still come back.
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>> reporter: there was some disorder here last night. the authorities are preparing for more in the hours ahead. the people of calais want britain's help to ensure this kind of crisis doesn't arise again. >> woodruff: work on demolishing the camp is to begin later this week. in iraq, government forces pushed into two more villages today as their offensive to retake mosul entered its second week. special forces blasted away at islamic state fighters, driving them out of their positions. elsewhere, iraqi federal police handed out water and other aid to civilians. and, in syria, government troops have captured a key hilltop in the city of aleppo. heavy fighting resumed there after a cease-fire expired over the weekend. few rebels or civilians left the city during the lull. there's word that greenhouse gases passed a grim milestone in 2015. the u.n.'s weather organization
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says carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reached 400 parts per million last year-- for the first time on record. the agency says that's 44% more c.o.-2 than before the industrial revolution. >> its lifetime is very long and there have been some scientific studies estimating that the return back to pre-industrial levels may take tens of thousands of years. >> woodruff: the u.n. report mainly blames the burning of fossil fuels. but a powerful "el niño" weather pattern contributed as well. wall street got the week off to a good start. the dow jones industrial average gained 77 points to close at 18,223. the nasdaq rose 52 points, and the s&p 500 added 10. and, two deaths of note, tonight. first, tom hayden passed away sunday after suffering a stroke last year. he was a leader of the anti- vietnam war movement who became a major name in california
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politics. tom hayden's political activism began in 1960, at the university of michigan. he helped form students for a democratic society, or s.d.s., a leader of radical opposition to the vietnam war. in 1968, hayden organized anti- war protests outside chicago's tumultuous democratic national convention. for that, he was convicted of inciting riots as one of the so- called "chicago 7," but the verdicts were later overturned. hayden stayed at the forefront of the anti-war movement, and with actress jane fonda, traveled to north vietnam in 1972: >> they insisted that there was no peace with honor possible through the bombing of their capital, that it was not possible for them to be bombed into any compromise of their fundamental position regarding what they define as their national rights.
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>> woodruff: hayden and fonda were married 17 years, before divorcing in 1990. along the way, he entered california politics and served as a state lawmaker for nearly two decades. he also ran unsuccessfully for governor of california and then, mayor of los angeles. in later years, hayden was a vocal opponent of the wars in iraq and afghanistan. tom hayden died sunday in santa monica, california. he was 76 years old. and, bobby vee passed away today in minneapolis, of advanced alzheimer's. the pop singer gained notice at the age of 15, filling in at a 1959 concert, after buddy holly died in a plane crash. vee went on to record 38, top 100 hits in all, including "take good care of my baby" and "the night has a thousand eyes." bobby vee was 73 years old. still to come on the newshour,
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the push to register latino voters ahead of election day. rising tensions in the protest to block the dakota oil pipeline. why a syrian activist says the u.s. has let him down, and much more. >> woodruff: with just over two weeks until election day, we turn now to our politics monday duo. tamara keith of npr, and amy walter of the "cook political report," who joins us from dallas. 15 days, but who's counting? >> we are. certainly are. >> woodruff: so donald trump today, amy, is out saying all the polls which mainly show hillary clinton ahead are phoney. he's talking about phony media, don't pay any attention to it. what are we to believe? is it possible most of these polls are wrong? >> well, judy, you can believe a lot of things.
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you can also believe maybe that a meteor is going to come crashing to earth in the next 15 days, but it's hard to believe of the 31 polls we've seen over the last month, all but three have shown hillary clinton leading are all wrong. in fact, the big major polling operations out there, cnn, abc news, fox, all have clinton ahead, between 5 and 11 points. a margin of error? absolutely, but the reality is all polls, whether national, state polls, are showing an unmistakable pattern, and that is a movement to hillary clinton, and it's increased inenthusiasm from democrats. interestingly, we talked about this last weeks judy, but the attention that donald trump has been giving on the trail about vote rigging and about the media and about dishonesty may actually be depressing his own voters. democrats, at least in the most recent polls, were seeming much
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more thesiastic about supporting hillary clinton and coming out to vote. remember, early voting started in a lot of these states. so many of these states, more than half of their votes come through early voting. >> woodruff: so, tam, you're talking to people in the campaigns all the time. >> yes. >> woodruff: is there any undercurrent of suspicion out there that maybe there is something wrong with the polls this year? >> there is suspicion coming from the trump campaign but not the clinton campaign. their internal polls from time to time have hatched the public polls or showed them in a better position than the public polls. they do their internal polling differently. they match it up with voters files, so they feel very confident about where they stand. trump actually, today, pointed to an email released by wikileaks, a john podesta email, saying they're oversampling certain voters. that was an email from 2008. donald trump wasn't running for president in 2008. you know, this is a case of a
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candidate who has built his campaign on winning, and now he's trying to deal with evidence on the ground that indicates that, at this moment and probably going forward, winning is not something that is apparent in any of the public polls, really. >> woodruff: so, amy, you have been looking at polls for a number of elections, you have been doing this for a while, so how far ahead is hillary clinton? what can she count on at this point, if anything? >> judy, thanks for that. yes, i'm very old. i have been doing this for a long time. >> woodruff: not around as long as some of us, let's put it that way. >> if you look at what i like to do is take an average of polls rather than taking one poll and spending too much time on that. so a number of these web sites now aggregate polls, they put their own trend lines together and what they're showing is hillary clinton up between 5 and 6 points nationally. that's going to translate
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differently in different states. but just to give you an idea of what 5 or 6 points looks like at the electoral college level. remember, barack obama won by about 4 points in 2012, easily carried the electoral college. he won by more than 10 million votes in 2008, by about 6, 7 points, he had at 323 electoral votes -- i'm sorry, 365 electoral votes in 2008. so a 6-point national average translates to a pretty big electoral margin. maybe not as big as barack obama's in 2008. the one challenge that hillary clinton has is she's still strug clingling in two places that obama carried, iowa and ohio, but she's obviously doing better in arizona and georgia. >> woodruff: so, tam, what we see is the clinton camp is expanding the focus. yes, they're campaigning for her but she's talking about the senate candidates. we heard that in lisees piece a
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few minutes ago. how comfortable do they feel spending time and resources on that? >> clearly. and also the super pac allied with hillary clinton is also shifting some of its focus to the senate. so the clinton campaign at this point is very confident that they can get to 270 electoral votes, and they are now running a campaign that is very much also about -- conveniently many to have the competitive senate races also happen to be in the swing states, but they are running a campaign that is about trying to make sure she has a democratic senate to work with, supreme court nominees and other nominees. initially, her campaign focus, they treated donald trump as an outlier. they said, you know, he's not a republican. they were trying to win over moderate republicans. now they're saying all these republican senate candidates, they stuck by him, they enabled him, they didn't disavow him enough, and they're trying to sort of hang donald trump on them, even though -- yeah.
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>> woodruff: well, we know what you mean. tam, one other thing i do want to ask you about. >> yeah. >> woodruff: you have been reporting lately on this growing sense out there on the campaign trail or commentary that is a treatment or women, attitude toward women and you wrote about it just the other day. >> yeah, basically, that story says it was inevitable sexism would have a presence in a campaign with a woman running to be president of the united states, be the first female president of the united states. it was inevitable with hillary clinton, especially, that there's been negativity about her from the republican side as long as she's been in the public eye. she's a disruptive figure. what wasn't inevitable was her opponent would actively cede and fuel the sexism like the woman card. i talk to republican political operatives who say if this was a
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different candidate, this probably wouldn't have been as overt, certainly not from the lectern of the person running for president, and they believe that that is going to contribute to what is likely the largest gender gap in history with women overwhelmingly favoring hillary clinton and that "nasty woman"% comment became a crystallizing moment for a lot of voters. >> woodruff: a lieutenant of people are looking at the gender gap. >> the gender gap. again, one piece, of course, being hillary clinton, who she is, and the other, of course, donald trump and the comments he's made throughout the campaign and the judgments that he's made, and that's going to be a big piece of this. >> woodruff: all right, aim where walter, who's only been covering politics for a very short time, and tamera keith. >> woodruff: reliably red arizona is one of the latest states that is feeling the effects of a democratic push. just last week, michelle obama visited phoenix and polls show the presidential race
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tightening. hoping to boost voter turnout, a group called "arizona one" is making sure latinos who are eligible, actually register and vote. by the recent state deadline, "arizona one" helped register 150,000 latino voters. the story comes from university of california berkeley journalism students. it's produced by angelica casas and jennifer cain, who narrates. >> reporter: abril gallardo is working overtime. >> we can start off and do some role play. hi my name is abril. nice to meet you. >> reporter: the college student is a part of a coalition called one arizona. the group's effort, to register new latino voters, could alter the political makeup of the state. >> we are going to get you registered to vote. are you a u.s. citizen and older than 18? >> reporter: roughly 400,000 latinos are eligible to vote but are unregistered. one arizona registered 150,000 latino voters this year. latinos tend to vote democrat. their efforts could swing the state blue for the first time in decades.
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>> you're not old enough? will you be 18 before november? i want to make a change in my community. i want to impact my community. >> reporter: some of the canvassers can't vote themselves, like abril. for over a decade she was undocumented, now she calls herself dacamented. daca is deferred action for childhood arrivals. it provides temporary legal status to individuals who arrived in the us before 2007 and were under the age of 16. >> i have my own voice and as undocumented and not being able to vote, my power-- my political power is as strong as if i could vote. >> reporter: in 2010, arizona passed state bill 1070. the law required immigrants over the age of 14 to carry documentation of legal status at all times. many families felt targeted by the law and formed one arizona. >> so we would have the vigil on this side and then on this side,
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we would have all of the voter registration tables. >> reporter: at the time sb 1070 passed, alejandra gomez was in college and her father was undocumented. >> we have been going out to every single supermarket, mall. we've been going out to gas stations. it's this whole group of young people that care about what happens to their parents, that care about their future, that care about their education. >> reporter: many of the group's canvassers come from predominantly latino neighborhoods in phoenix, tucson and yuma, where one arizona focuses its efforts. >> there's many people out there that can't vote, but they wish they could vote. because they know how much this affects them. >> reporter: jose osoria, an 18- year-old canvasser, is one of those people who wish they could vote. born in sonora, he immigrated 10 years ago. now, he works full time on voter education and voter protection. >> a lot of people don't know where to go to get registered.
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the majority would be hispanic families that are citizens and are able to vote, but don't know the whole thing. so i take my time. >> gracias a usted. >> jose. >> francisco. >> ( translated ): we need the whole community, right? >> ( translated ): that's true. >> ( translated ): this is the just became a citizen.ing. >> ( translated ): thank you >> i'm going out there and teaching people like me. >> reporter: while efforts to register latinos have helped increase their rolls to more than 600,000, not all will go to the polls. the undocumented community that can't vote, are the ones that have been leading these efforts and saying that, "even though i can't vote, you can be my voice and you can be my vote. >> when i'm registering someone i'm always doing it with a smile. >> voting? i not receive my registration.
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>> reporter: as election day approaches, one arizona will knock on the doors of 105,000 homes, urging people to get to the polls and vote early. >> then you should re-register, because you weren't registered. >> reporter: for the pbs newshour, i'm jennifer cain reporting in phoenix arizona. >> thank you! >> have a good day. >> woodruff: we return to the escalating fight over a major oil pipeline in north dakota. this wkend, more than 120 protestors were arrested, part of a months-long campaign being waged by numerous native american tribes and nations against the "dakota access oil pipeline." for the latest, i'm joined by our william brangham who reported from north dakota last month and has been following the story closely. william, bring us up to date, but, first, remind us what is
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this fight all about? what are the arguments on each side? >> brangham: the fight, as you mentioned, is about this pipeline. it's the "dakota access oil pipeline." it's a 1200-mile pipeline to bring oil from the balkan oil fields to -- to illinois. the bone of contention is at the north dakota-south dakota line and the primary source of drinking water for the reservation is the river and this pipeline will go under the river that. they say if the pipeline leaks, it will destroy their drink water and, two, will desecrate burial grounds and ancestral sites north of the reservation, so they don't want the pipeline there for that reason. energy transfer partners, the company building this, argues they've done all the legal permits and applications and all the bits they're supposed to do but also argue this is pipeline is a far safer way of
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transporting oil than trains or trucks which are more prone to crash. they also argue we live in a carbon-based society. we drove to work today and will tomorrow and until we find a different power source, we will have to deal with this material and they argue the pipeline is the way to go. >> woodruff: so where does the actual construction stand knew with the pipeline? >> the energy company says the pipeline is about 670% built, so you can imagine the pipeline is moving in from -- the 67% built and moving in from th the northd south and at the standing rock reservation. that's where most of the protests and arrests we've seen have been happening where members of different native trains go to the place where is the construction is going on and chain themselves to the trucks, the police arrest them and that's where the conflict has been happening, but the pipeline is largely done, and that's where the fight is going on right now. >> woodruff: so we know there
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is still a couple of restrictions that have to be lifted before they can go ahead and finish with the construction, but, once that happens, what do people expect will take place? >> well, that's a very dodgy question. people don't exactly know what's going to happen. if the army corps agrees to this last permit and says to the company, go ahead and finish, drill into the river, the question is what will all the protesters do? we saw thousands of people out there. it's not clear if they will voluntarily get up and leave or if there will be a fight. who is going to evict them? the jails there are so full, though to bus people they arrest outside of the state. will the nawrgd be involved, a militarized police force step in? nobody snows. >> woodruff: you were saying how unusual it is that you have over 100 different native american tribes that have come together to make up the proest. why over this particular issue?
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>> that's the fascinating part of this because there have been plenty of instances in the past where you have seen -- where you could have seen tribes coalesce around an issue. the standing rock has been good and getting their message out. every time there's an arrest, a protest, something they want to promote, it's on facebook, twitter, social media, so that's brought people together. i think, also, this wasn't a done deal. so when they put out the call and said, come help us, people felt they could stand in the way of this and, for whatever reason, people all over the country, really all over the world came together and said enough is enough. >> woodruff: i know you will continue to watch it. it's very much an active scene. right now, the protest goes on. william brangham, thank you.
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>> woodruff: secretary of state kerry and russian foreign minister lavrov spoke today by phone about aleppo. after a brief let-up, the heavy fighting and bombing by russian and syrian jets there has resumed, and in the surrounding areas. four years ago chief foreign affairs correspondent margaret warner traveled throughout that area of northwest syria, and she now re-visits a man she first met just outside aleppo. >> warner: it was november, 2012 in a small town in syria, and saleh hawa had hopes. with civil war roiling around him, this father of three, an english literature teacher, was leading demonstrations against the regime of syrian president bashar al assad. hawa also headed a local civic council in his town in rebel- controlled northwest syria, which was working to restore electricity and basic services destroyed by government attacks. he sounded fairly confident then in his country's prospects. a formal syrian opposition coalition had just been created,
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with the encouragement of western and gulf countries. >> i am optimistic because the international community is now cooperating with this council, with this new council and with i think personally that most of the syrian people are with this council. we are looking forward to a better future and we are tired now. we are tired now of war. we are tired of shelling every day. >> warner: we spoke in a walled garden in hawa's hometown of hraytan, just north-west of aleppo. we then traveled to the regional headquarters of the "free syrian army," made up of self-declared moderate rebels. its commander, col. abdul jabbar akidi, told us bluntly how desperately they needed weapons from the u.s. >> ( translated ): the syrian
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people won't forget any country that provided them with support, and won't forgive any country that helped the assad regime. >> warner: but in the four years since then, none of hawa's hopes, but all of his fears, have been realized hraytan has been repeatedly pounded by bombing from russian and syrian jets, dropping not only explosive-packed barrel bombs, but cluster-bombs and the fearsome incendiary, white phosphorous. when we first met hawa, the war had killed 37,000 people. now it's 500,000 dead and nine million displaced. aleppo and the area around it has become ground zero. last week, the russian military announced a temporary cease- fire, a pause to let humanitarian aid into and around aleppo, including hawa's hometown. but hawa, whom we reconnected with via skype, says there are few lives left to save in his town. >> most of the population of
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haritan left the town, because there is no single house which is safe right now. most of the houses were completely or partially destroyed. and they cannot be lived in again. so most of the families you know left the city. there is no electricity, no water, no food. even the bakery was targeted. all hospitals. all medical centers were targeted. >> warner: hawa and wife and children fled haritan to a nearby town. they're all safe, he said, but he's lost many friends, and himself was the target of a car bomb attack in early 2014. he and others are still teaching at a makeshift college they call "the free university of aleppo," but he sounds full of despair, and bitterness. >> we are being butchered. under the eye of the international community. >> warner: it's not just the bombing, he said.
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his town's defenders, already fighting isis and the syrian government, then were confronted with other foes. they'd come from afar to defend the assad regime. >> we came face to face with the shiite militias. and they are mostly afghani, afghanistani, most of them are iranian, and so on. >> warner: so afghanis sponsored by iran? and trained by iran? >> yes, sure. >> warner: are they well- equipped? >> they're well-equipped. >> warner: caught between all these competing forces, hawa says he and his countrymen have been abandoned, even as endless talks go on between the u.s. and russians. and at times members of the syrian opposition coalition. can you foresee a political solution at this point? >> no. i'm so sorry to say no. i see that the horizon is quite blocked in front of us. because america is not doing
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anything. or maybe america won't do anything. it's just that america doesn't have the will to finish our agony, our pains, to finish or sufferings. we were let down. america let us down. and the situation now is that russia has got military bases inside syria. their warplanes are flying in the sky every time they like. >> warner: videos of the syrian people's suffering have spread worldwide, but hawa has no faith that the world will respond. speaking to us now thousands of miles away, he recalled the expectations he had when we met four years ago. >> i hoped at that time that america would, in a way, help us to put an end to that dictator who is now in damascus. i had a hope that there are
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countries who would help us rebuild our country and help those innocent people. now we don't trust anybody. we don't trust any country. we have had many promises that they will not allow bashar al- assad to destroy our cities. but right now you see that the situation is deteriorating. the situation is even worse than before. it's becoming worse and worse. day by day. >> warner: and with each day, new casualties, and faded hopes of a lasting peace. for the pbs newshour, i'm margaret warner in washington. >> woodruff: the tone and rhetoric of this presidential race are markedly different from previous years and have only intensified with two weeks to go to election day.
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that's the focus of the latest addition to the newshour bookshelf. jeffrey brown is in charge. >> brown: had enough of debates, ads, speeches? a new book argues that "the crisis in our politics is a crisis of political language, as it explores the arts and science of rhetoric through the ages ." it's called "enough said: what's gone wrong with the language of politics." author mark thompson is viewing this from a very influential perch as president and c.e.o. of the "new york times" company. welcome to you. the problem is our language or our poll licks? you're making the case it's one in the same. >> we have been brought up to think the political language is superficial and below that is ideology and policy. my argument is it's all tangled up. particular idea are expressed in language, argued in language, communicated from one human to another in language and political language is everywhere, and it's because of
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changes in political language i saw as i wrote this book. >> brown: i'll go a bod brush here and say, in hillary clinton, i think many people see a kind of political rhetoric that comes off as phony. is that fair? >> i think it is. she is almost the epitome of a certain kind of modern technocratic, very rational, very carefully argued political language which many find convincing, but a growing number of people, in many western countries, are finding that kind of political language distant, alienating and unfeeling and maybe even not believable. >> brown: not believable and, well, it leads us to donald trump, right? >> when you get a breakdown in the conventions of political rhetoric and when you get a large number of people who are looking for something different, it opens up a vacuum into which populous can come, and this is very fertile ground for a
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populist who says he wants to be much simply, i want to speak and be an ordinary person like you. i that you will it authentickism, a politician who aims to appear authentic. >> brown: the media is part of your book, part of the worsening of the political culture? >> dwrawrks media has gone under great changes and come under lossive political pressure. it's reduced thinking time because the new psych is continuous now. the edge to go for the boldest quotes, the strongest possible version of the story means like the politicians, the risk you get into a bias exaggeration and high drama instead of calm, dispassionate discussion, you tend to get these very abrupt, you know, and dramatic developments in the story. >> the institution you represent
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in particular, though, is not just any player, it is a major player in all of this. it becomes part of the news itself. >> the two institutions i would be most involved with, the times and the bbc, because i think they try incredibly hard not to get swept away by these trends and try and still report things dispassionately and fairly. >> brown: to the extent the "times" is a target for those seen as wielding its power for a particular bias, is that a dangerous place for a media institution to be or where you want to be? >> i think if you believe in the first amendment for journalists and newspapers and tv companies, you've got to believe in it for their critics as well. everyone's got a right to raise any criticism they want about our journalism, and we should take that seriously. what you don't have the right to do is threaten people into silence and we have been in receipt of a letter threatening
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a live action from -- a libel action from donald trump's lawyers. we said there wasn't anything about donald trump's reputation that he hadn't built himself before we printed the testimony of a couple of women who said they had been abused by him and secondly reminding donald trump's lawyers about the first amendment and our right to cover matters of public importance. >> brown: how do you call for a less combative stance from the media, more analytically explain to people while at the same time being in combat. >> the issue is whether there are simple rules of engagement. if i allow you to make your case and keep quiet and don't interrupt you, and then you let me make my case, we can let the people hear us and decide who's got the better case. if we're talking over each other and arguing and complaining, it
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begins to jumble the discourse. it's the things politicians say about each other, the abandonment of the presumption of good faith, the calling of other politiciansly jars, they should be in jail, so forth, this doesn't really help politics and i don't think the public like it. >> brown: what would it take to change it? >> you can read history pessimistically or optimistically. >> brown: where are you today? ei want to be optimistic. i think the stakes are very high and i would say, right now, freedom of speech, clarity of political discourse, simply the tone and the credibility of the political process is under grave challenge, crucially not just in the u.s., but in my country in the u.k. and pretty much in every country in the western world. >> brown: book is "enough said," mark thompson. thank you very much. >> thank you.
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>> woodruff: after all of these years, it's hard to believe this next sentence, but fans know it's true: the chicago cubs will face off against the cleveland indians starting tomorrow night in the world series. life is about to change in one of these cities, whose fans have long suffered and waited decades for a baseball championship. john yang, who has chicago and cleveland roots of his own, is our guide. (crowd cheering) >> yang: it's a call that hasn't been made in 71 years. the chicago cubs and their long- suffering fans are finally going back to world series. >> oh my gosh, i was crying the whole game. i'm out of tears. i'm out of tears. >> it's unbelievable. like all you think is are they, exactly-- are they really going to do it and am i going to be there. and we were. we watched them win.
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>> yang: cubs fans have seen their share of heartbreak, including losing 101 games just four years ago. the last time the cubs actually won the world series: 1908 the last time they won a pennant, a local tavern owner-- and his goat-- were kicked out of world series game four at wrigley field. ever since, the "curse of the billy goat," and some notorious blunders on-field and off, have kept them on the outside looking in. but the cubs aren't the only team hoping to end a world series drought this year. they're set to face the cleveland indians, who haven't won the fall classic since 1948. they've made it three times since but lost each time, most recently in 1995 and 1997. >> just amazing. they're doing great and i know they're going to bring that world series home we're gonna >> yang: game one is set for tuesday in cleveland, and the excitement in both cities is
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running high. according to tracking site "ticket iq," tickets for tuesday's match-up start at $860. tickets for friday's game in chicago? $2,300. more on this moment, the history and the mood, from a pair of sports reporters long covering these teams. al pawlowski is host of "indians live," the cleveland pre- and post-game shows on fox sports- time ohio. and rick telander is the senior sports columnist for the "chicago sun-times." al, rick, thanks a lot for joining us. rick, let me start with you. your column, you said this morning, it's still hard to conceive of the cubs in the world series after 71 years away. were there ever moments you doubted this or you questioned saturday night that this was actually going to happen? >> oh, absolutely. you doubt everything all the way. i mean, 71 years ago, i wasn't even born, and, so, everybody --
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in the setup piece of, you know, the young women speaking, people weeping openly when the cubs won that game, and when they got the five outs, you know, five outs is the critical amount that they missed in 2003, the notorious game where the player slapped his glove on his leg when he missed the foul ball because fan reached for it. it's hard for people in chicago to believe. this there is no one alive who've seen the crubs win the world series and very few people alive who even saw them get into a world series joh. >> yang: all sorts of attention is given to the cubs and their reputation as loveable losers but a lot of reputation with the indians over years. what does this mean for cleveland? >> similar to chicago.
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the cubs have been around forever. same for the indians. they played professional baseball since the late 18 hunts. the indians have been around since 1901. something the indians bring more than the cavaliers, cleveland's first major sports championship since 19 off4, baseball and the indians connect the generations. i remember any granders talking about larry doll by and lou boudreaux and some of those guys and my parents talking about what they saw as kids in the '54 world series. there hasn't been a winner since '48. i haven't seen the team win a world series. i've seen them in it in a couple of years in the '90s, but that's what this team brings, a sports team that connects is generations over time. >> yang: over the weekend, your cross river rival there, rick, said this series matchup invites the question of who suffered more -- is it deciding
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who is more deserving as if agony is a crit account benefit? talk about the pain over the years. you mentioned the five-out championship a few years back. talk about some of that pain over the years for cubs fans. >> well, it's very similar to cleveland, only i think it's more extreme because it goes back farther. people in chicago don't hate the city of cleveland. cleveland's been through a lot of troubles as a city. chicago has, too. we've got a lot of financial problems. but the thing that connects everybody and the suffering is especially for the cubs because don't forget we have a southside team walled the white sox and they won the world series in 2005. so that appeased a lot of people who are sox fans. but cubs fans, you can go back -- i mean, my grandson -- i go to visit them in columbus and he's being raised, i'm afraid, an indians fan by my son-in-law, mike edmonds, and my daughter who's a die-hard cubs fan. but at any rate, there are fans who go back grandchild, child,
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father, my father and then my grandfather, none of us saw the cubs win the world series. so that bonding and suffering is always there, and you build kind of a hard shell to prevent yourself from suffering more. when the cubs get close, people say, oh, i know they'll blow it and it's going to happen. they just say it because they can't take their heart and rip it again. 1969, the $84 cubs when the ball went through durham's legs and lost to the padres. '89 lost, '98, 2003 was perhaps the biggest heart break of all, and 2007 and 2008, they had outstanding teams and got swept each year in the first round of the playoffs and people are like, what? we have no idea. believe me, you build up the defense system to protect yourself. >> yang: what habit tribe fans, al?
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it's fresher, the 1997 world series. talk about some of that pain. >> i still remember where i was the moment the '97 world series was happening, we're watching game seven, make the marlins, heading into the 9th inning 3-2. i still thought they would wain wifn and it would be fine. rick said we have a lot of that in cleaved. they have champions. what if the white sox, the bulls won all those titles. ununtil the cavaliers won, no major cleveland sports franchise had won a championship. so similar to what the cubs go through, indians go through, too. it's the feeling of, boy, is something going to go wrong and happen like in years past. the good news is the big difference, with the cavaliers winning the championship in june, you can see a change in attitude here in the city, and the fans, instead of feeling how will the cubs beat the indians
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in the world series, now it's more like if we saw this in october, how does this be able to team find a way to win? because they always seem to find a way to win. now there is a confidence here that wasn't here in the '90s when the indians played the braves in '95 and the marlins in '97. >> yang: the season opener for the cavaliers, raising the championship banner, this morning in the sun "times," rick wrote, there's a lot of success for cleveland. he wrote dare i say this, cleveland, city of solid midwestern folks, take a knee. al, what do you say to that? >> no way we're taking a knee now because this is the only year cleveland can win multiple sports championships. if cleveland has a chance to win a couple, they will go for it. i understand, hey, it's been a while for the cubs, but to see this town, and you talked about
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it now, i was outside moments ago, all the stages are set up, the networks are mere, they're here to cover the cavaliers and indians. we had the republican national convention in july. same type of deal. suddenly cleveland is the big media center in the world especially when it comes to sports, tuesday night for game one and cavaliers getting ready for the rings when they take on the knicks. if you're a cleveland sports fan, you never thought you would experience this and it's wonderful to be a part of it. >> yang: two great series. thanks for being with us. >> you got it. >> woodruff: now to our "newshour" shares, something that caught our eye that might be of interest to you, too. last week, the smithsonian
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institution asked the public for help in saving dorothy's ruby slippers. the newshour's julia griffin has this update. >> it's too late. there they are and there they'll stay. >> reporter: for more than 30 years, dorothy's ruby slippers from the 1939 classic "the wizard of oz" have stayed at the smithsonian's national museum of american history. entertainment curator ryan lintelman said the display is one of the most popular at the museum. >> i see people's faces light up the first time they see the ruby slippers, and the glimmer of the sequins, and it always puts a smile on my face. and it reminds me of what we do here at the museum which is to connect people to their shared history. everybody loves the ruby slippers. >> reporter: but the slippers, one of several pairs crafted almost 80 years ago by m.g.m.'s prop department, were only meant to last through filming, not the test of time, and the size five shoes have begun to show their age. threads have come loose. the soles' felt, which muffled sound as judy garland danced along the yellow brick road, has degraded. and the famous sequins, once a
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deep red hue, have faded and dulled. preservation services manager richard barden: >> they are really discolored. they've darkened, they've become really opaque. and there is cracking. we want the ruby sequins to always be ruby. we want to save that color. >> reporter: now the museum is now is in a race against time to clean and preserve the shoes before it's too late. as it stands, the federal government covers only 60% of the smithsonian institution's overall budget. so to conserve the slippers, the museum has turned to crowd- funding in hopes that the public will help 'foot the bill.' last week, it launched a campaign on the website 'kickstarter' to cover the estimated $300,000 cost. so many people love the wizard of oz, so we want ot give people the opportunity through this platform to contribute anything from a dollar to ten thousand dollars. everybody feels like they own the wizard of oz in a way, because that's our american fairy tale so now they can help us preserve the ruby slippers. >> reporter: it's the second
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such fund hosted by the smithsonian. a similar campaign by the air and space museum last summer raised more than $700,000 to restore neil armstrong's spacesuit. >> there's no place like home. >> reporter: the ruby slippers will also get a new home: a state-of-the-art display case designed to prevent further degradation. for the pbs newshour, i'm julia griffin in washington, d.c. >> woodruff: and again, to our honor roll of american service personnel killed in iraq and the afghanistan conflict. we add them as their deaths are made official and photographs become available. here, in silence, are two more.
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>> woodruff: and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. join us online and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology,
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and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. >> supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.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 access.wgbh.org
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>> 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, cooling trade winds, and the ys