captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening. i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight: >> i think about syria when i go to bed at night. >> woodruff: i sit down with outgoing u.n. ambassador samantha power to talk the crisis in syria, the threat of russia, and more. then, how cities are helping chronically sick patients cut back on expensive emergency room visits, by getting to the root of america's health issues. >> i think we're in a 20-year arc of re-calibrating and rethinking, what is health and what is healthcare? >> woodruff: and, "the obama years" series continues with a look at race in america under the nation's first black president. all that and more, on tonight's pbs newshour.

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donald trump faces a growing democratic boycott this evening, with his inauguration three days away. congressman john lewis and nearly 50 house democrats say they will not attend. lewis had said it would be the first inauguration he's missed in 30 years. his office corrected that today, but mr. trump tweeted that the congressman's statement is: "wrong, or lie! he boycotted bush 43 also, because he thought it would be hypocritical to attend." trump followed up later, on "fox news": >> i think he just grandstanded, john lewis, and then he got caught in a very bad lie. let's see what happens. as far as other people not going, that's okay, because we need seats so badly. i hope they'll give me their tickets. >> woodruff: mr. trump flew to washington tonight for a dinner honoring tom barrack, a longtime friend who heads the inauguration committee. meanwhile, russian president vladimir putin accused the obama administration of trying to

sabotage the president-elect. putin dismissed reports that the kremlin has compromising information on mr. trump, including using prostitutes in moscow during a "miss universe" pageant. >> ( translated ): i do not know mr. trump, i have never met him. i do not know what he will do on the international scene. so i have no grounds for attacking him, criticizing him for something or protecting him in any way. we won't even appeal to the nobel prize committee if he is awarded with a nobel prize. >> woodruff: the white house rejected putin's criticism, and said, "there is a pretty stark divide here." president obama today commuted the prison sentence of chelsea manning, for passing classified military and diplomatic files to wikileaks. the former u.s. army intelligence analyst is serving a sentence of 35 years. she is one of 209 inmates who received commutations today. another 64 received pardons. charlie savage is covering the

story for "the new york times." charlie savage,ry mind us what chelsea manning was originally charged with. >> hi, yes, thanks for having me on. so when chelsea manning was arrested in 2010 and charged with passing documents to wikileaks, she was charged with numerous accounts of violating the espionage act and also was charged with aiding the enemy, which is essentially the military justice system's version of treason. she was convicted of the espionage act charge, most of them, but was acquitted of aiding the enemy. she was sentenced to 35 years in prison, which is dramatically longer than any other prison sentence ever carried out in the american justice system for a leaked tape. >> woodruff: do we know why the president decided to commute her sentence? >> there was a briefing call with senior white house officials after the commutations and pardons were announced.

a senior white house official, we were not allowed to name them under the ground rules, described the president's thinking about this. he said she admitted that what she had done was wrong and apologized for it, and she expressed remorse and has now been serving nearly seven years in prison for it. and most people who have been convicted of leak case, there have been about a dozen, most in the last eight years, have been sentenced to one, two, or three years, not 35. so part of this was also the equity of making this sentence more in the range of what other people accused of similar conduct havery received. >> woodruff: so the question is what signal does this send? tonight the speaker of the house, paul ryan, has issued a statement saying, "this is just outrageous. chelsea manning's treachery put american lives at risk and exposed some of our nation's

most sensitive secrets and the president leaves in place a dangerous precedent, those who compromise our national security won't be held accountable for their crimes." >> that's one of many statements like that coming out of republicans on the hill. we haven't heard yet from president-elect trump on this, but that statement is reflected by what other people like senator mccain and others have said. i would say as a point of just clarification, none of the documents that chelsea manning leaked were classified above the nearly classified level, meaning none of them are top secret. that was another thing the white house discussed today in comparing her to edward snowden, who president obama declined to pardon. so to say they're some of the most sensitive secrets is an exaggeration. also military prosecutors are at her court-martial did not accuse her of presenting any evidence that anyone was actually killed as a result of her leaks. on the other hand, the government did scramble afterward to move some people

out of potential harm's way who were named in some of the documents as having helped american diplomats or troops in very dangerous countries, lest they come to harm, so the fact that no one was killed didn't mean it didn't put people at risk. she has apologized for having done that. >> woodruff: charlie savage with "the new york times," thank you very much. >> thank you. also tonight, new numbers are out tonight on what's at stake in repealing obamacare. the congressional budget office assessed a 2016 bill that is the starting point for this year's effort. it found some 18 million americans would lose coverage within a year of repeal, if there is no replacement. the number would climb to 32 million by 2026, again assuming nothing replaces it. republicans insisted today that they will have a replacement. the nominee to be secretary of the u.s. interior department says it's "indisputable" that climate change is happening, and

that humans are a big cause. montana representative ryan zinke spoke today at his senate confirmation hearing. vermont senator bernie sanders pressed him on president-elect trump's assertion that climate change is a "hoax." >> i don't believe it's a hoax, no. i believe we should be prudent. to be prudent, that means, i don't know definitively-- >> if climate change is already devastating, should we allow fossil fuel to be drilled on public lands? >> again, we need an economy and jobs, too. >> woodruff: zinke also said he is open to drilling more on public lands, and that he will review president obama's limits on drilling in alaska. in turkey, authorities confirmed they have arrested an uzbek national, and said he confessed to killing 39 people at an istanbul club early on new year's day. the alleged gunman was captured late monday at this apartment in

istanbul's suburbs. the city's governor said fingerprints there matched prints from the crime scene. the search for a malaysian airlines plane has ended after three years, $160 million-- and no answers. ships with high-tech gear covered, in all, nearly 50,000 square miles in the indian ocean, west of australia. today, despite complaints from family members, malaysia, australia and china shut down the official hunt for flight 370 and the 239 people it carried. there has been a new migrant disaster in the mediterranean. the international organization for migration reports almost 180 people apparently drowned when a boat capsized off libya over the weekend. that is based on interviews with a handful of survivors. british prime minister theresa may declared today that her government wants a clean break with the european union. may laid out her thinking, as

britain gets ready to negotiate terms for leaving the e.u. she confirmed it means an end to britain's role in europe's "single market" and to travel without passports, but, she also issued a warning: >> i know there are some voices calling for a punitive deal, that punishes britain and discourages other countries from taking the same path. that would be an act of calamitous self harm for the countries of europe and it would not be the act of a friend. britain would not-- indeed, we could not accept such an approach. >> woodruff: may also promised that parliament will be able to vote on the final deal, likely in 2019. back in this country: big automakers are announcing plans for expansions, under pressure from president-elect trump. hyundai says it will boost its investment in u.s. plants by 50% over the next four years; and general motors will spend an additional $1 billion on its

u.s. factories this year. and on wall street today, the dow jones industrial average lost nearly 59 points to close at 19,826. the nasdaq fell 35, and the s&p 500 slipped six. still to come on the newshour: i sit down with u.n. ambassador samantha power in her last days in office; the choice for secretary of education faces the senate; reducing health care costs by focusing on the sickest patients, and much more. >> woodruff: president-elect trump's nominee to be u.s. ambassador to the u.n., south carolina governor nikki haley, plans to question why we contribute 22% of the u.n.'s budget. in prepared remarks for her confirmation hearing tomorrow,

we also learn that she will criticize the recent vote condemning israeli settlements. earlier today, i sat down with samantha power, the out going u.s. ambassador to the u.n. we spoke at the state department. and i began by asking why, in her final speech, she focused on russia as a major threat to the u.s. >> there is fair amount of competition obviously with isil and the terrorist networks around the world, china also posing a different kind of threat to order, but i thought it was very important before leaving to draw on my eight years, our eight years here in the jobs of privilege that we've had to take note of the pattern that has developed, particularly in the last few years, starting with the decision by president putin to go into ukraine, to lie about it, to take crimea, to try the annex it, then to back a

regime that gasses people and to get militarily involved with that regime, resorting to tactics that were outlawed 100 years ago and systematically in europe, backing these parties whose world view is central to this populist authoritarian, anti-muslim, anti-diversity kind of line that has been pursued in moscow, all of that plus, of course, the most recent and most egregious example that hits close to home for us, which is interfering in our elections through hacking, through fake news, and with the idea to help one candidate win. >> woodruff: so when the president-elect speaks, as he has often, about wanting a better relationship with russia and, in fact, one of his advisers has just said in the last day or so, he said, "the u.s. needs to find a way to get along better with russia." he said we need to focus less on combating communism and more on

rejecting radical islam, how do you react to that? >> well, let me raise my hand and say at no point have i been talking to the u.n. about combating communism. we have an interest in combating states that try to steal another country. we have an interest in combating tactics in war that incite people on the ground and fuel terrorism. and as americans, we have an interest in ensuring that the only people who get to vote for our elected leaders are our citizens and not foreign people who think that they have an interest in skewing our election in one direction or another. the point that we all agree upon is that we have to engage with russia. i have spent, you know, as much time with my russian counterpart as i have probably with anybody else, including close family members over the course of the last fur years. we've done really important work together. at the same time we're at each other on aleppo, on ukraine.

we're authorizing peacekeeping missions, putting sanctions in place on north korea for its nuclear tests, we need to find means for cooperation. i think the potential is different, the issue that is going to need to be adjudicated is on what terms are we going to bring his for cal amnesia pretend as though history is just starting on january 21st, or are we going the take into account egregious violations of the rules of the road that may in the first instance have predated the administration, but that are inevitably going to continue if russia believes that there are no costs to its actions. all it has to do is wait out the united states and then eventually we'll soften our positions and forget about what happened. >> woodruff: it sounds like you're worried the next administration may be prepared for that. >> i think the signals are very mixed. i think that the only time we will really know what then-president trump is going to do about the set of challenges

that cob front him is after he has sat down with his advisers as the commander-in-chief when he's looking at the threats and the intelligence of the standpoint of being the number-one decider. when he's hearing from the secretary of defense, his chairman, who was the same chairman president obama had, chairman joe dunford is outstanding public servant who led our anti-isil effort, on which we're making great progress. and the president, when he is the president, will be also developing close relations with a series of other world leaders, so he'll be hearing from some of our closest european friends and partners about just how real the threat feels to them. >> woodruff: you use as one of your examples of russian aggression the fact that they stood by as syria repeatedly used... the syrian regime repeatedly used chemical weapons in the civil war. if that's the case, then how does that square with the decision by the obama

administration in 2013 not to have a military response, the red line, when president obama was seriously considering doing so and then didn't? >> well, the regime... when chemical weapons were used in 2013, russia was absolutely backing the syrian regime at that time, and we were denouncing the course, the gassing of more than 1,000 innocent civilians, and we denounced russia's support for that regime. when president obama came out and said he was going to use military force, that, as you know, was what brought russia forward to say, hey, hey, rate, maybe not that quite... why don't we try something else, maybe we can work together, maybe we can take advantage of the fact we're in effect the ben factor of the sponsor of this regime, where if you don't use military force, we'll work with you to destroy the chemical weapons program. now, interestingly, to this day, even though russia took away the chemical weapons program, declared chemical weapons

program by the regime, russia to this day denies that it was the regime that used chemical weapons. it just shows you again how loose they are with the truth and how absurd sometimes their argument can be. but i mentioned the sequence specifically because i think there is a misconception as we look back at that moment and the red line, you know, i know people have very strong views about it, but it was not the case that we had the set of targets that would have eliminated the chemical weapons program. we had to stay miles away when we struck from the chemical weapons storage for fear of causing terrible collateral damage to civilians and so forth. so i think reasonable people, you know, can look back and say, look, if we bombed, maybe things would have turned and the opposition would have started to make gains on the ground, but you could say they would have useed their chemical weapons and the weapon themselves was not obama was in a position to do much about. >> woodruff: syria is such a big question. >> a big mess, yes. >> woodruff: still a big mess.

the president, the vice president and others have been talking about it in the last few days. in the book that you wrote before coming into the administration, you talked about how the u.s. historically lacked the will to intervene the stop mass atrocities. often because of political expediency. some people are certainly looking at what the obama administration didn't do in the early days of the syrian situation to stop the killing of civilians. how do you square those two things. well, first, i can tell you that in syria, the president did everything he could short of intervening militarily. and so people say, oh, he should create a safe haven. i think those are reasonable arguments, and historians will debate it. but there is a very real question about taking out the syrian air force because they're bombing civilians. what would then have unfolded in there are thousands of armed groups on the ground.

there's a sectarian, you know, heterogenaity that's very hard for us to track from outside. can we say with any confidence that that would have turned the tide or even protected the people that we would have set out to protect? so again, i think people can argue that that is a tool we could have employed that we didn't employ, but i don't think that you can argue with any certainty that we would be in a different place in syria right now had we done that. >> woodruff: as you walk away from serving in government, is that the toughest thing? >> by far. i think about syria when i go to bed at night, when i wake up in the middle of the night, when i hear one of my kids coughing or crying, i think about syria. thinking about it a lot and ending the war are not the same thing. >> woodruff: the united states ambassador to the u.n. >> for three mre days. >> woodruff: three more days. samantha power, thank you very much. >> thank you.

>> woodruff: now, president- elect trump's pick for secretary of education: betsy devos. she is a non-traditional choice, and a power player in republican circles. her supporters applaud a woman they see as a disrupter focused on children. her critics worry she will erode crucial funds for public schools, and that she has not been forthright in her own financial disclosures. she is on capitol hill as we speak for her confirmation hearing, and it is the focus of our weekly segment, "making the grade." william brangham is our guide. >> brangham: shortly after betsy devos's confirmation hearing began this evening, she made one thing clear: she plans to push for expanded school choice around the country, much as she did during her two decades as a major political force in her home state of michigan. >> parents no longer believe that a one-size-fits-all model of learning meets the needs of every child, and they know other options exist, whether magnet, virtual, charter, home,

religious, or any combination thereof. yet, too many parents are denied access to the full range of options. >> brangham: devos has neither taught, nor worked as an educator or supervisor in a school system, but she and her family, whose net worth tops $5 billion, have used that wealth and influence as advocates and political donors to create more charter schools in michigan, and to try legalizing school vouchers. vouchers let parents spend public money on private or parochial schools. she lost the voucher battle in michigan, but still champions their use. democrats are worried that devos will undermine public education across the country. >> we focus on strenghtening public schools for all schools and certaiinly not to diverting money to vouchers. i have major concerns with how

you spent your career fighting to privitize. >> brangham: devos' philosophy fits right in with president- elect trump's, who pledged during the campaign to provide $20 billion in federal support for charter schools and vouchers. her support for charters, which are publicly-funded schools but which operate independently, is the subject of particular scrutiny. the "detroit free press" found that 75% of schools in michigan performed better than charters did, and they had some of the weakest oversight in the country. supporters point to better gains by african american and latino students in those schools. today, devos tried to assure senators that she is not an enemy of public schools. >> the vast majority of students in this country will continue to attend public schools. if confirmed, i will be a strong advocate for great public schools. >> brangham: as the hearing continued this evening, educators are also watching closely for devos' stance on civil rights, college

affordability and for-profit colleges. for more on betsy devos and what she means for education in america, i'm joined by two people with divergent views about her. randi weingarten is the president of the american federation of teachers, one of biggest teacher's unions in the country, and one that opposes her nomination; and rick hess, who's written several books about teachers and education, and is with the conservative think tank, the american enterprise institute, where betsy devos is a board member. welcome to you both. randi weingarten, i would like the start to you. >> and rick andry good friends, by the way. >> brangham: you two are good friends. that's good to get out there. randi, you heard betsy devos. she said she's not an enemy of public schools, so what concerns you? >> well, that is clearly contradictory to the 30 years of evidence where she has called public schools dead ends, where she has said they should be retired, where she ran a campaign against republicans and democrats alike in detroit where

her #end dps, end detroit public schools. i'm assuming she's saying that because democrats, republicans alike, 90% of the kids in america attend public schools. but her record speaks volumes, and what we're concerned about is that record, because in michigan, as you said, for the last 25 years, she has worked to dismantle, destabilize and defund public schools at the very same time as she's worked to shield for-profit charters from any kind of accountability. and those schools have done very badly. and the public schools particularly for black and brown children have been very destabilized in places like flint, detroit and other places. >> brangham: rick hess, you've heard these criticisms before. you believe her record indicates that she ought to be the secretary of education.

what do you like about her? >> you know, i think she's a smart woman. she's a thoughtful woman. she's spent three decades as an educational advocate. now, it's true that advocateing to serve all children well is very different. betsy works on a different premise. the premise is that these dollars do not belong to systems. they do not belong to bureaucracies. they do not belong to state and local education agencies. these are... you spend $650, $700 billion a year to educate our nation's children, 50 million odd kids. if those families think those children are better served in a traditional district school or a charter school or a private option, betsy's philosophy is that we ought to regard it as an opportunity to make sure that each of these families and each of these kids is better served. i don't understand why anybody would necessarily view any of that as anti-education or anti-public education. >> brangham: randi, you heard. this what do you make of that

argument? >> at the end of the day, what rick is ignoring is that 23 states have actually reduced their investment in public education since 2008. and what has happened here is that what devos advocates is take the money from public schools. so what's happened in detroit? kids have huge class sizes. the buildings are decrepit, the books that they use are from the '60s or the '70s. so what happens is that they don't have a real viable experience, and at the same time, what has happened is that there's been private money that's gone into charters and gone into vouchers to actually overpromise parents things that they ultimately don't get. the place that has the choice are the schools, not the parents. and the point i'm trying to make is that look at the record. the record in terms of vouchers, we've had vouchers for 25 years, they don't do very well for

kids, and the record in terms of the for-profit charters is that the for-profits have made a lot of money, but kids have suffered. why are we in the midst of destabilize, destabilize, destabilizing as opposed to rolling up our sleeves and doing what works. we have to help every child have a safe, welcoming neighborhood public school. parents want other option, that's their right, but we have a responsibility to help kids have qualified, high-quality neighborhood public schools. >> brangham: rick, one of the arguments that's often made here is there is a tension between autonomy and accountability. everyone wants autonomy so the schools can innovate and do what they want to do, but there should also be accountability, so if teachers not doing a good job, somehow we can hold them accountability. devos has been strong on autonomy, but her record indicates she's much less interested in holding those schools accountable. >> i think she's mixed on

accountable. jeb bush, probably the high priest of educational accountability, made an incredibly strong statement on her behalf. she's been on the board of his foundation for educational exlengths. she's supported calls for high standards, but i think you're right. there are mixed feelings. certainly on the conservative side of the spectrum about how much we want to have simple centralized measures determine whether or not a school is good for a kid. it's interesting to hear, you know, randi talking about this because the aft also voiced concerns about overreliance on simple reading maint scores as the end all be all for deciding whether schools are doing a great job. when we talk about educational accountability, because it is so complex to try to hold accountable 100,000 schools, because we have so few kind of good, objective measures, that often that lines up putting more and more weight on reading maint scores. i think for me part of the promise of school choice is that if educators can create a school

that families want to send their kids to, and looking at the test data and looking at other metrics of achievement, families think this school is best for their kids, i guess i'm uncomfortable with the idea that we should wiggle it, that we should religiously try to deny families a school they think will be best for their kids. >> woodruff: all right. randi weingarten, rick hess, thank you both very much. >> woodruff: stay with us. coming up on the newshour: how the first black president changed our views on race in america. but first, how some lesser-known changes to health care might fare, given president-elect trump's vow to repeal the affordable care act. one of those involve so-called "super-utilizers"-- high-cost patients who frequently turn to emergency rooms for problems better handled by primary care

doctors and social workers. special correspondent sarah varney reports. this story was produced in collaboration with our partner, kaiser health news. >> reporter: protective gown; rubber gloves; face mask. dayna gurley is getting dressed for work. she's a social worker charged, not with treating infectious diseases, but with figuring out why her clients all but live in houston's hospitals. >> what's been going on? >> reporter: this patient, who asked not to be identified, has chronic massive ulcers, aids and hears voices. and, at times, spends three weeks out of the month at multiple hospitals around houston. gurley is part of a promising effort in the u.s. health care system, honing in on so-called "super utilizers:" patients with complex problems who frequent emergency rooms and cost public and private insurers dearly. >> super-utilizers make up just 5% of the u.s. population but they account for 50% of health

care spending. as health care costs continue to rise, providers are trying to figure out how to find these patients and get to the root of their problems. >> reporter: an effort to do just that started in new jersey's poorest city, camden. family physician dr. jeffrey brenner was inspired by how police departments were using crime data to detect "hot spots." to find camden's health care hot spots, brenner dug into ambulance records and e.r. data, to show how high-cost patients were shuttling between city hospitals. >> in america, we're medicalizing social problems and we're criminalizing social problems, and we're wasting huge amounts of public resources. >> reporter: to steer super- utilizers away from expensive emergency care, brenner's team, including social workers latonya oliver and bill nice, seek patients out in local neighborhoods. >> there's been a few patients that i've had like that. >> reporter: they work intensively with people like peter bowser. >> hey, pete! what's up? >> come on in! >> thank you, sir! how are you doing? >> reporter: bowser was once homeless, and went to the e.r. 28 times in one year.

>> i was really out of it. >> reporter: but after they helped get a permanent roof over his head, bowser's trips to the e.r. all but stopped. >> i think you'd prefer to spend your time here than in the hospital any day of the week. >> reporter: this high touch, data-driven approach has yielded big savings. e.r. visits for the first group of patients dropped by 40%, cutting monthly hospital bills from $1.2 million, to $500,000. the affordable care act has boosted efforts like this around the country by funding so-called accountable care organizations-- teams of healthcare professionals who team up to improve care, lower costs and reap the savings. and it was brenner's pioneering work in camden that inspired others, including the program in houston, a sprawling city desperate to aid its sickest and most isolated patients. while the more than 100 hospitals here typically know their own super-utilizers, they had no way of knowing the top

users across the entire city. tackling that problem took unprecedented planning among typically disjointed city and county agencies, hospitals and non-profits. >> and you know that guy that you helped me get appointments for the other day? yeah, he apparently had warrants out for his arrest. >> oh, okay. >> reporter: now, many of the hospitals here, including the county hospital ben taub, pull their data and send it to kallol mahata, a former oil industry i.t. engineer with the patient care intervention center, who combines it into one database. >> and we saw that break down by e.m.s. >> reporter: mahata and dr. david buck, the group's founder, help to identify patients at the top of the list. the outliers of the outliers. some of the data comes from the houston fire department's 911 calls. then, teams are dispatched to parks and neighborhoods to find the patients. firefighters and paramedics like thomas pierrel often know these residents from those emergency calls, but this time, their mission is different.

>> we go with you to your doctors, we make appointments, we find specialists, we try to maximize the resources that you have. >> reporter: the results of these intensive interventions can be stunning. timmy williams was dying when dayna gurley found him. >> has your blood pressure been that high in the past three or four weeks? >> it be's high. it be's up there. >> reporter: he was holed up at home and reeling from untreated h.i.v. that had progressed to aids. he couldn't take care of his young son, and cycled through houston's hospitals. >> when we first met timmy, he was very hard to engage. we knew that he probably was not taking any of his medication, and he was very skinny. >> reporter: gurley arranged for a home aide to care for williams seven days a week, got his apartment cleaned and the lights turned back on. now, williams' h.i.v. is undetectable and his health, and life, have been steadied. although these efforts involve many staff members, in the two

years since the patient care intervention center has been up and running, costs for those in the program have gone down 83% and hospital visits by 70%. but it can be difficult to keep these programs moving. often, those savings go straight to insurance companies and government payers. and dr. buck and dayna gurley were once banned from a houston hospital that was afraid of losing money if their high-cost patients stopped showing up. >> nobody wants to take ownership of any of it. the people just want ownership of what they have authority over, and that's really the issue. >> reporter: back in camden, even dr. brenner is less optimistic than he once was. his office now overflows with pillows and kitchenware for clients they're trying to place in housing, and he thinks homelessness and entrenched financial interests in health care are the biggest barriers. >> i think this is going to take a lot longer than i ever imagined. i think we're in a 20-year arc of re-calibrating and

rethinking, what is health and what is healthcare? what's the purpose of our healthcare system? what are we trying to accomplish? >> reporter: but brenner still believes these intensive efforts are the best way to help patients like timmy williams. he's now healthy enough to make his way around the city on his own. he says gurley did more than rescue him from his darkest days. >> i had to put it in my head that no one is gonna do it for me. i have to do it for myself. i have to step out and do it myself. >> read this here. >> this whole thing? >> reporter: at home now with his son, his illness no longer gets in the way of being the father he wants to be. but efforts like these are likely to be undercut if president-elect donald trump and the republican congress follow through on their vow to repeal the affordable care act. and it's unclear what, if anything, would come next. for the pbs newshour and kaiser health news, i'm sarah varney in houston, texas.

>> woodruff: now, to our series, "the obama years." tonight, we look back at the legacy of the nation's first black president. decades before he made history as the first african-american president, barack obama was a man of uncommon circumstances. born to a kenyan father and a white mother from kansas, obama's childhood was split between indonesia and hawaii, where he was raised by his white grandparents. the young obama was largely shielded from the racial injustices of 1960s america, says ta-nehisi coates of "the atlantic" magazine. >> to not go to schools and wonder why your schools are terrible, to not have to deal with the fear of the violence and not really have to deal with the police. so, he was aware of it, but it

wasn't personal. >> woodruff: longtime friend and senior white house advisor valerie jarrett says his upbringing made obama uniquely equipped to navigate what lay ahead. >> he was used to living in a family where white people loved him and cared deeply about him, and so he goes into every situation with the assumption that he is going to be respected and treated well. >> woodruff: after law school, obama moved to chicago. he became a civil rights attorney, a community organizer and eventually, a state senator representing the south side of chicago. obama gained national attention in 2004, when he delivered the keynote address at the democratic national convention. >> there's not a black america and a white america and latino america and asian america; there's the united states of america. >> woodruff: in 2007, obama decided to test america's readiness to accept a black man

as president. for months, he campaigned on a message of hope and change, but it was not until racially- charged sermons by his former minister surfaced that he addressed race head-on. >> the anger is real, it is powerful, and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races. >> woodruff: from the moment he took office, expectations were high. >> i have a little boy. he can, he can do what he wants to do. you know, he don't have to be just a rap star or basketball player, you know? he can do it. the sky is truly the limit now. >> woodruff: but the president had to strike a balance between being a voice for black americans, and president of the entire country, says ta-nehisi

coates of "the atlantic." >> he was always walking this line, and he had to walk the line. you know what i mean? you're president of the united states, it is true that the majority of people who you serve, who you represent, that's not the south side of chicago anymore. >> woodruff: one of the first tests came just months into mr. obama's first term, when a white police officer arrested black harvard professor henry louis gates trying to get into his own home. >> the cambridge police acted stupidly. what i think we know, separate and apart from this incident, is that there is a long history in this country of african americans and latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. >> woodruff: after backlash from the law enforcement community, the president said he had overreacted. he invited gates, and the officer who had arrested him, to the white house for what would

become known as "the beer summit." the president experienced unusual vitriol from his opponents, including an outburst from south carolina representative joe wilson, that members of both parties called disrespectful. >> you lie! >> woodruff: for the remainder of his first term, the president rarely used the bully pulpit to talk about race. he focused instead on broader issues, like the economy and reforming the nation's health care system. but the president's domestic record in his second term would be largely defined by a series of events that spotlighted racial tensions. in 2012, when neighborhood watch volunteer george zimmerman shot and killed trayvon martin, an unarmed black teenager, the president spoke out in a surprisingly personal way. valerie jarrett was with him just beforehand.

>> i was in the oval office with a couple of other senior staff and he said to us, in an extraordinarily emotional way, i want to talk about this. because you know, if i had a son, he'd look like trayvon. >> when i think about this boy, i think about my own kids. >> woodruff: again, ta-nehisi coates: >> the moment he spoke out, it completely politicized the trial, you know what i mean? and trayvon became a symbol of obama-ism, or something like that. like, it became racial-ized in a sort of way. >> woodruff: in 2014, michael brown, another unarmed black teen, was shot and killed by a ferguson, missouri, police officer. a year later, a black man named freddie gray died in police custody in baltimore. and in charleston, south carolina, a white man massacred nine black parishioners during a bible study.

♪ amazing grace how sweet the sound ♪ >> woodruff: jarrett says these events brought to the surface racial unease that already existed. >> those tensions were there before we had a video camera, we just didn't see them in the news and in the social media the way we are today. and i think a lot of that has encouraged particularly young people to come out and peacefully demonstrate, to get involved with their local government, to hold them more accountable than perhaps they were. >> woodruff: meanwhile, president obama's justice department aggressively prosecuted civil rights abuses. he highlighted racial disparities within the criminal justice system, and mr. obama spearheaded initiatives like "my brother's keeper," a mentorship program for young men of color. but in his farewell speech this month, the president acknowledged there was much left to accomplish. >> race relations are better

than they were 10, or 20, or 30 years ago, no matter what some folks say. but we're not where we need to be, and all of us have more work to do. i sat down yesterday with three individuals who have given a lot of thought to mr. obama's legacy and his impact on black americans. we're joined by james peterson, he's director of africana studies at lehigh university and the host of remix, a podcast dedicated to race and politics. rael nelson james oversees diversity work for the bridgespan group. it's a anyone profit philanthropic advisory firm. and sherrilyn ifill, president of the naacp legal defense fund. we welcome all three of you. james peterson, how do you look at on his presidency overall? >> folks from my parents' generation couldn't imagine being a black president of the united states, so we have to

honor that piece of it, but for progressive folks, the substance of the policies sometimes isn't there. i think as we transition into the next administration, we're going to be kind of queued up to be very, very nostalgic about president obama, but we have to understand there were lots of challenge, not just based on obstructionism, but based on the centrist politics that have dominated democratic party politics for the past couple decades that president obama represented. >> woodruff: sherrilyn ifill, what about that? >> i think we'll need more time to assess the substantive record. i think it's hard to fully assess it at this moment. when you think about health care reform, when you think about one of the president's first acts was signing the lily ledbetter equal pay act for women, when you look at the work in the criminal justice space, which was largely executed through the department of justice but through this president's department of justice with his full support and with his interest and strong desire, you look at the smart on crime

policies, ending solitary confine. for juveniles, you look at his clemency. he's granted clemency to more people than any of the 11 presidents before him combined. now, the federal system, the federal prison system and the federal criminal justice system is a fraction compared to the system in the states, but the purpose was really to set an example, to show what can be done and what should be done around criminal justice. same for voting rights and the effort to really stand against this effort of voter supression of african american voters. >> woodruff: so rael nelson james, we're talking about his overall legacy and what that meant in many instances for black americans, whether it was aimed at specifically black americans or not. >> it's a tightrope walk to be first black person to be in a position, particularly the presidency, and to balance what it means to be the president of the entire united states and what it means to be black community to see the first black person as president and what those expectations were.

i felt they weren't always fair in terms of what it truly means to hold that office and the kind of balance that one has to have, and because, as was said, president obama's a political moderate. those who are on the left who are truly progressive i think should have expected that he would fall short of their expectations, this sort of desire that he would seek to or evangelize a sort of black community platform above all else i think was sort of an unfair expectation, though i think we got at times really strong messages, you know, about being black in america. >> woodruff: james peterson, were the expectations unfair in. >> some of the expectations were absolutely unfair, not just from black america, but from white america, and not just from those on the left, but from those on the right. he sort of took on the historic

moment in the sense that the expectations for some kind of post-racial utopian society was on his shoulders, especially early on, and in his first term, i think we were disabused of that notion. if you look at his messaging directed toward african-americans, too often president obama's trust in the discourses that those on the right used in terms of behavioral challenges and lack thereof that sometimes people want to hang structural responsibility around. you now, he's often sort of articulating a narrative of personal responsibility, and there's nothing wrong with personal responsibility, but all of us are also aware of the fact that there are structural challenges in the united states that are sort of part of income inequality, part of racial stratification, and i think it's legitimate for folks to have

expected president barack obama to speak more strongly about those things, even in the environment of obstructionism, even in an environment where there's a rise of racialized hate over the last eight years based on the fact that he is the first black president. >> woodruff: sherrilyn ifill, what about this notion that he, as james peterson just put it, trucked in the language of those on the right. >> i always wanted more from this president. in many meetings around criminal justice reform, around judicial nomination, around any number of issues, i always wanted more, an we'll probably want more from any presidentful so i'm always pushing a president to do more. do i think he could have done more? i always led clearly with the question about what was available to the president to do, and within the context of what he could do, was he will wg to go up to the line? some issues he was doing as much as he possibly could, the headwinds from the right were unbelievable. so what we might have wanted, particularly in the space of legislation, just couldn't happen with this congress.

rhetorically, it's a whole other story. people wanted to hear what they wanted to hear. i think in many ways the president's rhetoric, precisely what he promised it would be on the campaign trail. i think people didn't want to hear it. many of us put all our hopes and dreams and wishes of this first black president into him. he was remarkable consistent in who he said he was and what he believed. for that i was grateful because i felt like i knew who i was dealing with. >> woodruff: president obama said in an interview recently that he thinks race relations in this country are somewhat better, far from perfect, but are better after his presidency. rael nelson james, what do you think? >> i think what we learned from president obama's time in office is that no one person, no one black person or progressive perp in office can change the structural climate of our institutions that really matter to people of color and other marginalized communities, enjoying full and equal rights in our country. >> woodruff: james peterson? >> we've seen a rise in

racialized and racist discourse on line, and we've seen a rise in hate groups in response to the first black president, and i think there are two ways of looking at that. i think some folks would look at that and say, hey, the excavation of the residue of white supremacy in racism is an important piece. we need for those folks to come out of the shadows so people can understand that racism is real and so folks can appreciate the work still left to be done, but we also can't blame president obama because discourses have become more racialized because he's the first black president, right. that's just a reality of change and progress, and so things are not necessarily worse off in terms of racial discourse, but when we look at specific issues, if you look at income inequality, but when you look at black wealth and black resource, some of those things have declined over the last eight years. the challenge is not to blame president obama for that, but to understand that he's a lightning rod for racial issues because he's first black president. >> woodruff: sherrilyn ifill, racial relations? >> i think an issue like

policing reform, are relations better? no. i think it's been contentious. these are tough, hard conversations, but this is an issue that has stayed below the surface, has not been in the mainstream, has not been seen and has not been grappled with in the past in ways that it has been over the past four or five years. >> woodruff: just quickly, does he get credit for bringing those issues out and the fact that there is more conversation around men? >> if i take something like policing reform, there wasn't the president that brought it out, but it was how the president responded once it was brought out. when ferguson happened and he was able to say, you know, we want to make sure that people are not committing crimes, but at the same time, we want to make sure that police are not using excessive force. when he sent eric holder down to ferguson to meet with people, when he engaged the department of justice in doing twice as many pattern and practice investigations of unconstitutional policing as have ever happened before, those are the days he responded to something that was presented. as we approach the new presidency, we might see a very

different response. then we'll know that there really was a difference in having president obama in the white house. >> woodruff: it's impossible to condense eight years into one conversation, but thank you all three of you. sherrilyn ifill, rael nelson james, james peterson, thank you all. >> 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: >> bnsf railway. >> lincoln financial-- committed to helping you take charge of your financial future. >> xq institute. >> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology,

and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. >> 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

>> rose: welcome to the program. we begin this evening with bob costa of "the washington post" reflecting on his interview with donald trump, president-elect, ant his plans to replace obamacare. >> something reflective of the trade throughout the campaign of trump is he's not driven by ide logical passions. he has a political antenna in the airport he knows the democrats are making the case the 20 million people covered under obamacare could lose their insurance if repealed and replaced and trump nose politically republicans have to have an answer for that, and he did say he's been watching what's happening with a failure of consensus among republicans and says he has a plan. >> rose: we continue with a conversation about the new film