tv PBS News Hour PBS March 6, 2017 6:00pm-7:01pm PST
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captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> yang: good evening, i'm john yang. judy woodruff is away. on the newshour tonight... >> this executive order, just as the first executive order, is a lawful and proper exercise of presidential authority. >> yang: the trump administration unveils a revised travel ban after the first was blocked by the courts. then, making sense of president trump's wiretapping claim-- what's behind the charge that president obama was listening in on trump tower. and, jeffrey brown sits down with "get out" diretor jordan peele to talk why the hit horror film about race is striking a chord with audiences. >> for me the social thriller is the thriller in which the fears, the horrors, and the thrills are
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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.
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some of the key changes include ending direct government subsidies for low and middle income americans to buy coverage. instead there will be refundable tax credits. an individual mandate and a phaseout of the expansion of medicaid in 2020 but coverage would continue for a while for those already covered. lisa desjardins just attended a briefing in the house ways and means committee. she joins me from capitol hill. lisa, some of these proposals are not popular among conservative republicans, are they? >> that's right. in particular the tax credits. some republicans say it's another way to have giving subsidies to americans for healthcare. the tax credits are a very key component here.
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the way they work, john, is any individual who makes $75,000 or less would get some amount of money to help them buy healthcare but as a tax credit, does it depend on how old you, are the largest tax credit would go to americans over 60, they would get $4,000 to help to go to the healthcare. on the other side, democrats say this does not do enough to help the populations who can't afford healthcare get to where they need to be. > even some republican governors, will they be happy with the phase out of the medicaid money? >> if you were on the medicaid expansion, those are basically cutting able-bodied workers, people under the poverty threshold, 38% of poverty, people who can't afford healthcare but don't fall into other categories of medicaid might r right you you receive
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healthcare through the affordable care act. you will be able to receive that for the rest of your life. if you are enrolled now, you will be grandfathered in. after 2020, no people in that category allowed to join. basically working-age adults who do not earn much, enroll now. you will not be able to after 2020. >> if it passes at the current form. sean spicer said the target date for signing this bill would be the easter recess. how realistic is that, lisa? >> we can look back at the affordable care act itself. the early summer, the goal date of being passed. when was it actually signed into lawle? next year, 2020. that's an incredibly ambitious goal. we expect committees to start pouring over the details. there are disagreements not just
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from democrats but from republicans about the details. >> yang: lisa desjardins will be busy following the details making their way through capitol hill. lisa, thanks a lot. >> yang: in the day's other lead story, the government is girding tonight for a new legal battle, on its second try at a travel ban. the new order, issued today, again targets a group of mostly muslim nations. but it makes critical changes in a bid to avoid the issues that led courts to block it. jeffrey brown begins our coverage. >> brown: president trump signed the original ban, at the pentagon, after just a week in office. today's signing was done in private, with only a single, still photo released. it fell to cabinet members to make the announcement, starting with secretary of state rex tillerson. >> president trump is exercising his rightful authority to keep our people safe. as threats to our security continue to evolve and change, common sense dictates that we continually reevaluate and
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reassess the systems we rely upon to protect our country. >> brown: unlike the original order, this new one removes iraq from the original list of seven nations whose citizens are barred from entering the u.s., keeps out syrian refugees for 120 days, instead of indefinitely, and drops any explicit exception for christian and other religious minorities in muslim nations. in addition, it's made explicit this time that valid visa holders and foreign nationals with green cards securing their residence in the u.s. are not included in the ban. the first order was effectively halted by federal courts within days of being issued. white house press secretary sean spicer said today in an audio- only session that it's now being revoked. >> we continue to maintain that the order was fully lawful, but there were some legal hurdles that we'd have to potentially cross in terms of enjoyment and things like that. so, it was discussed with the
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president saturday, and he made a decision that this is how he wanted to proceed. among other things, federal judges said the original order cited no evidence of an actual threat. the new directive says the f.b.i. is pursuing 300 terrorism related investigions of individuals admitted as refugees. officials also hope to avoid the chaos at airports when the original order took effect, as people in transit were detained, delayed and expelled without notice. homeland security secretary john kelly: >> we are going to work closely to implement and enforce it humanely, respectfully, and with professionalism, but we will enforce the law. there should be no surprises, whether it's in the media or on capitol hill. >> brown: but opponents showed no sign of backing down. washington state attorney general bob ferguson, who successfully challenged the first order, spoke this afternoon in seattle.
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>> chaos it inflicted around our country you all saw it wasn't right and that went to the certainly hope they take way numerous lessons but if they don't they should certainly expect us challenging executive orders. >> brown: for now, pending court action, the new order is set to take effect march 16th. >> yang: in the day's other news, the u.s. supreme court said it won't hear a case on transgender bathroom use in public schools after all. a lower court had ruled in favor of a virginia teenager who wanted access to the boys' bathroom. since then, the trump administration rolled back federal guidelines supporting that stance. today's action sends the case back to the lower court for further review. in a separate case, the high court ruled that ferreting out racial bias can override the sanctity of jury deliberations. the justices ruled 5 to 3 for a man convicted on sex charges in colorado. he argued that a juror's anti- mexican comments tainted h trial.
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he can now seek a re-trial. north korea successfully test launched four more missiles this morning, raising new alarms. they were fired from northwest of pyongyang and flew an average of 620 miles. three landed in japanese waters. japan condemned the launches, as did the south korean foreign ministry. >> ( translated ): this time's provocation clearly reveals north korean regime's reckless willingness to continue its nuclear and missile developments despite unified warnings from the international community. north korea should realize that its frenzied obsession with nuclear and ballistic missile developments will only result in self-isolation and self- destruction. >> yang: the north korean missile tests coincided with joint u.s.- south korean military drills. in yemen, the u.s. kept up a new air campaign against al qaeda militants, over the weekend. witnesses say suspected u.s. drones attacked in two provinces, going after a training camp and other targets. separately, the pentagon confirmed a u.s. strike last
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week in yemen killed a former guantanamo bay detainee. a retired policeman in the philippines testified today that president rodrigo duterte was linked to nearly 200 killings, when he was a mayor. the victims allegedly included political opponents, and were carried out by a death squad. the retired officer appeared as part of a senate investigation into extra-judicial killings in davao city, where duterte was mayor for 22 years. >> ( translated ): i can't make myself take to my grave these dark and evil secrets from my life born out of my obedience to mayor rodrigo duterte's orders, and to his campaign against criminality and illegal drugs. i had blind obedience and loyalty to the point that i was indirectly involved in killing my two brothers. >> yang: duterte brought his anti-drug campaign to the presidency, eight months ago. since then, more than 8,000 people have been killed nationwide. back in this country, two
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the secretary of homeland security, john kelly, says he'd consider separating women and children who cross the mexican border illegally. and the new housing secretary ben carson praised the work ethic of immigrants today. in the process, he told "there were other immigrants who came here in the bottom of slave ships." a spokesman later said carson did not mean to compare immigrants with slaves. the pentagon says it's investigating reports of u.s. marines sharing nude photographs of female marines, veterans and others. some of the images were taken without the women's knowledge. they appeared on a private facebook page-- "marines united" -- with some 30,000 members. and on wall street, stocks were broadly lower, due in part to china trimming its economic growth outlook. the dow jones industrial average lost 51 points to close at 20,954. the nasdaq fell 21 points, and the s&p 500 slipped nearly eight. still to come on the newshour:
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is the revised travel ban constitutional? behind president trump's accusation that president obama wire tapped his phones. and much more. >> yang: as we heard, today's revised travel ban was drafted by the trump administration to stand up in court. but critics still question its constitutionality, amid a broader debate over whether it will really make the country safer. jeffrey brown has our look. >> brown: for that we are joined by neal katyal, a former acting solicitor general under president obama. he also served as a national security adviser for the justice department in the clinton administration. and kansas secretary of state kris kobach. he was a top adviser to president trump during his 2016 campaign and through the transition.
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welcome to both of you. let me start with you, kris kobach. the first attempt failed in the courts. what do you see as the key change that might allow this one to pass? pass? mr. kobach, can you hear me? >> now i can hear you, yeah. >> brown: okay. all right. sorry about the technical problem. my question was that the first order did not pass muster. what's the key change here that you think allows this one is this well, if you look at the two side by side, this one is very different in the way it's packaged and put together. it reads like a legal rather than a traditional executive order. the statute is filled with factual assertions the 9th circuit said it was lacking. it also goes very specifically point by point to the things that the 9th circuit
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hypothesized could cause a due process issue. so it's tailor-made to the 9th circuit's decision. i think if this order were challenged in the 9th circuit which would be the most activists judicial venue for it, i think it will survive. and if it does, it will survive everywhere else. >> brown: neal katyal? it won't survive. i think kris is just about as right as he was on jan 30 when he said trump has rock solid authority, he's wrong then and is now. this reads like a bad legal brief. itig force what congress said in 1965 in the landmark act which says you can't discriminate on the basis of nationality, and to attack the 9th circuit as being activist is the wrong way to go, it echoes what trump said about so-called judges, every time they lose a case, they kiss agree. but these rock solid values
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americans are standing up for. >> brown: one of the challenges was unconstitutional ground. is it still muslim band -- >> there are changes in the new executive order that says we don't intend to celebrate against muslim. they can always say we don't intend to discriminate on basis of religion. you have to go back to look at the history and if it's a pretext of discrimination, as this looks like, it will fall ill on the courts ear for that reason. >> brown: the muslim issue, mr. kobach, and also this new order still distinguishes by nationality? >> well, if you look at the text of the order it's quite clear it has nothing to do with religion. indeed it says special protection in the refugee program is referred to those members in minority religions, including cases where the
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minority religion is the muslim religion. if you look at the selection of six countries, you have goes that are majority muslim countries, not selected for special treatment, and furthermore this new order calls for review of all countries on the planet to see if they should be added to the specialist. to remarked this as a muslim ban is false. it is based on facts about these six countries that make them hot beds of terrorism and the facts are listed in the orr. as -- listed i listed in the or. the code says the president may, if he finds the entry of certain aliens detrimental to the interest of the united states, he may suspend or bar the entry of those aliens, that's exactly what the president did. the statutory grounds for this are very strong. that the why the challenge had to be based on the due process constitutional ground. >> let me make a constitutional
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challenge on this one. >> brown: that goes to this attempt to fill in the security justifications, right? >> there's a later statute passed in 196513 years after the one he read and it says "no person shall receive any preference or priority or be discriminated against in the issuance of an immigrant visa because of that person's nationality." the other part of section 1182, congress later said that in order to ban someone on the basis of terrorism, you have to have reasonable grounds on an individualized basis. that's not what the president did. >> brown: briefly, how much does it come down to how much deference the executive is granted when it comes to national security and immigration? >> i used to stand up and defend the united states on fawrkt ground all the time. this one is a very hard one to defend because there is opportunity evidence that you need this now. indeed the evidence chris is
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referring to that's in the executive order is 1979 to 1984. the idea that you need this magically now is a very hard argument for courts to accept particularly given the history of this particular ban. this has been a muslim ban from the start. >> brown: kris kobach, what's your response? >> well, the description in the executive order is not from 1979 or 183. it talks about conditions on the ground in those six countries now. since 9/11, we've had 53 terrorist from nose six countries either arrested or convicted of terrorism-related crime who have entered using visas from those countries since then. so this is a very present threat right now. again, the statutory grounds are very strong, i think you will have to admit that. the debate is is there a due process violation and the 9th circuit had to bend over backwards and imagine hypothetical cases in which someone might be denied their
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day in court. but this order says, you will get your day. if you're in the united states ill likely, you will get to make your claims before an immigration judge. so it's going to be a much harder lift for the attorneys to challenge this. >> brown: the challenges will come in a word, right? >> and not hard. as president trump says, see you in court. >> brown: neal katyal, kris kobach, thank you both very much. >> thank you. >> yang: now to president trump's shocking series of tweets on saturday and what's behind the unsupported allegations. on today's morning shows, administration officials kellyanne conway and sarah huckabee sanders pressed president trump's case. >> the president firmly believes that the obama administration may have tapped into the phones at trump tower. >> let's get to the bottom of
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it. that is the president's entire point. >> yang: like the president, they offered no evidence, but conway said mr. trump may have "information and intelligence the rest of us do not." in the senate today, democratic leader chuck schumer said the claim added to the need for an independent probe of alleged ties between russia and the trump campaign. >> the events of this weekend which included another troubling baseless tweet from president highlight and in fact strengthen the argument for a special prosecutor to conduct the investigation. >> yang: the president sparked the firestorm with a weekend tweet: "just found out that obama had my wires tapped in trump tower just before the victory." a spokesman for former president obama swiftly denied it, as did his former director of national intelligence, james clapper. >> there was no such wiretap activity mounted against the president-elect at the time or as a candidate or against his campaign. >> yang: mr. trump asked congress to investigate, and
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press secretary sean spicer said there would be no further comment. today, spicer briefed rerpoters off-camera. >> there's no question that something happened. the question is, is it surveillance is it a wire tap or whatever, but there's been enough reporting that strongly suggests that something occurred. >> yang: it appears to trace back to thursday evening and conservative radio host mark levin. >> barack obama and his surrogates, who were supporting hillary clinton and their party, the democrat party, who were using the instrumentalities of the federal government, intelligence activities, to surveil members of the trump campaign. >> yang: that was picked up friday morning by breitbart news, formerly run by trump advisor steve bannon. president trump's tweet came about 24 hours later. f.b.i. director james comey reportedly asked the justice department to refute the claim.
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we dig in to the president's claims now with: congressman adam schiff, the top democrat on the house intelligence committee. and stewart baker, who was assistant homeland security secretary for policy under president george w. bush. he also was general counsel at the national security agency from 1992 to 1994. gentlemen, thank you for being with us. welcome to you both. mr. schiff, my first question is for you. what's your response to the president's request that the intelligence committee take this question, whether or not there was any potentially politically motivated investigation investigative branch powers were abused, whether that happened, into your investigation between ties with russia and the trump campaign and have you spoken to chairman nunez about this yet? >> i have not sz had a chance to discuss it with the chairman. this whole allegation is president has made is reckless and given it comes without any staniation what --
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substanceiation whatsoever, breathtakingly re reckless. theryes, we can bring him? before nit compl and have him repeat in closed session what he said privately. director comey said the same thing and asked the department of just to push back on this then there is h clear no wire type. the call for this to be investigated is much like the president's call to investigate his claim that millions of undocumented immigrants voted is patently absurd and designed to give some patina respectability to a claim that has none at all. >> yang: breathtakingly reckless, patently absurd? >> i don't understand that. we know from multiple reports
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including "new york times" there were intercepts and orders in connection for russian efforts to influence the campaign and we know from michael flynn's resignation that those intercepts covered conversations that members of the campaign had, and i think it's perfectly reasonable to say let's investigate that. what we've heard from former obama administration officials are very limited non-denial denials -- that is to say, the president says, i didn't order anything, well, of course he doesn't, but the justice department and the fisa court could have. there are other people who could have been targeted that would look political if it was done in bad faith.
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it's fair to ask what are the facts and that's what your committee is for young you say no evidence whatsoever about surveillance that might have captured communications between mr. trump? >> no, it's not what the president tweeted which was that the president wire tapped his campaign. it's entirely possible and i can't when to comment what we have been hearing in the committee. that is part of our foreign intelligence gathering directed at foreign spice that we may have intercepted communications between russian or between russians and americans, but, frankly, if that's the case, then the president has a big problem because why would trump campaign people be talking to the russians if that was the context in which communications were gathered? so i'm not saying that's the case, but if what mr. baker is referring to is our efforts to target russian targets, that's
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something very different than what the president alleged, and i think for the president of the united states to make this kind of an allegation about his predecessor, i think, in the eyes of the rest of the world and our own citizens, brings discredit on himself and on our very democracy. >> yang:, i is there anything fe griewrs about that? >> we had the to do that. if the russias are messing with our elections, web not tolerate that. we need to know and take action against it. at the same time, opening this investigation of one campaign in the middle of an election has enormous political consequences, and it's fair to ask the question will those political consequences -- were those political consequences part of the determination to pursue this, and that is something that
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ought to be looked at alook with -- along with the russian attempt to infliewngs the election. >> yang: is that a legitimate question for the committee? >> if you look at the facts, much of the criticism that i've leveled and the others is that the obama administration did too little during the course of the russian interference in our election, not too much that the obama administration, in fact, was so wary about being perceived of trying to put its hand on the scales or interfere in the election that they wereú reluctant taint to call out russia on what was so plain to the intelligence agencies. feinstein and i had to take a step of doing that ourselves before the intelligence committee was ready or willing to do that soifnlgt quite the contrary, if the obama administration erred here, and i think they did, it was in not calling this this out earlier, not seeking sanctions along with our allies earlier. >> i think you can believe president obama was not sufficiently tough on the
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russians and still believe he was determined to be aggressive with the trump campaign. he does take domestic politics very personally. you know, the fisa system is set up to protect civil liberties in that the decision to use forecast isa is at the highest level of government, all political appointees, and in the context of an election investigation, that's not comforting. i don't think the president will be satisfied to hear, oh, no, president obama didn't war type you, sally yates did. >> yang: stewart baker, adam schiff, touch, we'll be returning to this topic again. >> it was a pleasure.
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>> yang: stay with us, coming up on the newshour: we talk to jordan peele, the director of a horror film about race. and students compete to have their science experiments sent to space. but first, let's unpack the politics behind president trump's new travel ban, the allegations of wiretapping and the white house's agenda for the week. it's time for politics monday with amy walter of the "cook political report" and tamara keith of npr. tam, you were one of the radio pollers this weekend. you went with trump to mar-a-lago in florida. nice quiet weekend? >> i think we were expecting it to be quiet. there weren't a lot of aides who came with him on air force one, but by the end of the weekend, there were a lot of people at mar-a-lago meeting with president trump all of a sudden. those tweets came out of the darkness of morning and changed the weekend for sure.
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>> yang: what do you make of it? where did it come from you think? >> if you ask the white house, they won't say where it came from. if you put some tots together, looks like it came from a breitbart story that rounded up the mark liven talk show and other reports out there that the white house keeps wanting to report. i started asking 7:00 a.m. saturday and the questions continue where exactly is the president getting this from? he's the president of the united states. it's possible he could be getting intelligence from somewhere but instead we're hearing about reports and his spokespeople are saying if it's true, it would be a huge scandal. that's mighty conditional. >> yang: amy, from the outside, we're with seeing reports the president was angry when he did. this from the outside, seemed like he had a pretty good week. he had the speech tuesday that got great reviews. friday, when attorney general
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sessions recused himself, it seems to me that put the issue to rest. that was a good thing for them. >> he didn't see it as a good thing. >> yang: exactly. this is a president who thinks if you back down on anything you've lost. so the decision by sessions to recuse himself was seen as a big defeat. you know, this is the funny thing, too, about this administration -- and really the president -- it's like we live in bifercated worlds. he gets angry, it goes into a tweet. he defended sessions on twitter, but then sort of accepts, though grudgingly, what the effect is. he was upset michael flynn had to resign, but he accepted that. he's upset about sessions but he accepted it. but he takes it out on twitter. meanwhile, it's the rest of the world that's trying to keep up with what this all means and as we've seen from the panel that was right in front of us, it's not really changing anything on capitol hill. there is no special prosecutor. this is still all within
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congress. they're either going to find something or not. nothing that happened this weekend is going to change that. we're still wrapping around the axle on an issue that we don't have any clarity. though it does give democrats a little more ammunition to ask for an independent investigator, a special prosecutor or whatever it ends up being that they would want to ask for. you know, if it had stopped with jeff sessions recusing himself, it would have been harder for democrats to make the case for an independent investigation, but add this last weekend to it, and they feel like they have a much better case to make, that they're going to keep making. >> and the polls are on their side, too. more americans saying they would like to see that. >> yeah, and last week after the speech on tuesday, the white house thought they had more momentum, push through the agenda. we got a big piece of it today. the house republicans revealing their piece for the replacement of the affordable care act. sean spicer says they want to sign this into law by easter.
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>> that is the goal. this is the most important thing to remember. i have been saying this from the beginning. watch the actions, not just the words. the tweets are important but the actions are much more important. this is a big teal. this is what every single american ran on, repealing obamacare, the president ran on repealing obamacare, this is their chance. two-thirds in the house, 50% of folks the senate who are republicans never had a republican president during their tenure in washington. they don't know about putting legislation together. they know about opposing. they don't know about promoting. this will be a big challenge. speaker paul ryan had challenges within his own party. we've seen those rebel forces push up against him. is he going to be able to corral them? mitch mcconnell, he's very good at politics but he has a very narrow margin, only 52 seats in the senate, so he cannot move have many of his own. this is going to be the test to see despite all we're seeing with the tweets or chaos in the
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white house, if republicans can get through, even if not easter, let's say early summer, they can get obamacare repealed, that is a big success. what the repercussions will be is a whole another story, but politically it will be a big deal because it shows the mishmash of a coalition that has been put together during this trump era actually works. if it doesn't, then we have really big questions, especially to see about taxes, infrastructure and so forth. >> and you already have some republican senators expressing some concern, some skepticism about what house republicans might be proposing because they have medicaid expanded in their states and they are concerned that what is being proposed on the house side might negatively affect their states. >> also i think is this going to be a test to see how president trump is as -- >> as a salesperson. >> yang: exactly. and using his bully pulpit.
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he can do two things, one to sell it to the public, but also to get recalcitrant republicans on board. h he's still popular among the republican base, if he tweets out about congressman so and so not on the board. there are still refundable tax credits by means it's still going to cost money. for many members of congress, they see this as an entitlement which they want to fight against. >> yang: amy walter, you've got the last word. amy walter, tamera keith. thank you very much. >> you're welcome >> yang: now, the director behind the breakout horror flick, "get out," a movie praised by critics that exceeded most commercial expectations, and has a lot more on its mind than the traditional scary film. jeff went to los angeles to meet filmmaker jordan peele, who's well known for his work on biting racial satire.
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>> do they know i'm black? >> brown: a trip to meet the parents, in the heart of safe, well-heeled, white suburban america: what could possibly go wrong? the new film "get out", is a horror film about race, and part of the horror is just how close to normal it feels. for first-time director jordan peele it's a major hit, and an unlikely one. >> i was sure that, at some point, someone would come and go, "guess what? we can't release the movie. it's done. we've gotten word from on high, this is too controversial. we'll get in trouble." >> brown: the 38-year-old peele is best known as part of the sketch comedy team, "key and peele," which had a five-season run on comedy central. there were racist zombies and plenty of social commentary on that show, addressed with gut-
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splitting humor. >> what is that? they seriously wouldn't let her eat. >> isn't this great? the zam bys are leaving us alen. >> we've got to go. >> brown: get out, the humor gives way to horror. >> we don't know. rose! kind of maybe in the heart of it. live, don't do coldy, trust me, trust me. ettes going to be good. i ask people to trust >> brown: we watch as chris, played by daniel kaluuya, begins to realize that all is not right at the home of girlfriend rose, actress allison williams. the oh-so-liberal parents are a little too friendly.
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and there's something very strange about the black servants. horror, says peele, has always been his true passion. he modeled his film on classics like "the stepford wives" that take a big societal issue and blow up the discomfort level-- what he calls a ¡social thriller.' >> for me, the social thriller is the thriller in which the fears, the horrors, and the thrills are coming from society. they're coming from the way humans interact. >> brown: and why do you think horror becomes a good way into that? >> i think that human beings are the most awful monster we've ever seen. >> brown: wait a minute. i mean, that's true, they're the most beautiful monster and the most horrible monster. >> that's right. i don't think that humans are, in our nature, we're evil or anything like that.
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i do think there's a demon in our d.n.a., in our tribal subconscious that affects the way we work and we operate as a group. >> brown: after seeing your film i was thinking about the key to the psychological horror film, at least for me, is how close it is to reality, right? >> i love it because it feels grounded. it feels real. my whole thing is ¡ground it, ground it.' if it's comedy and you taken an absurd comedic notion and you apply it to reality. if it's horror, if it's thriller, you do the same thing. >> brown: you're using the tropes and the ticks of white liberals. the father meets the black boyfriend and show him a picture of jesse owens, like ¡oh, are you black? i didn't even realize' kind of thing. >> well, part of it is that's a lot of my experience.
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i feel like there's a universality to it and i'd never really seen it portrayed in film. that, to me was a golden opportunity to put this uncomfortable interaction up an allow us to talk and deal with it. >> brown: what is it? is it hypocrisy? is it racism? what are we talking about? >> i think part of why the way we talk about racism is broken is because we think of racism as this unacceptable evil thing that i couldn't possibly have within myself. i look at racism as one of the social demons. in its worst, it's violent and it's a systemic commitment to oppression. at its lightest and most harmless, it is these things that are being called micro- aggressions, right? many times it's an olive branch that someone's trying to say," hey, i know tiger. i know tiger." >> brown: which is something you use in your film, right? >> i used in my film. the ality of it is when those
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interactions add up, i'm having a different experience than that person is having." oh wow, yeah, i am being viewed for my skin as the starting point of the interaction. i don't have the privilege of existing at this party in the same way that this white guy has. >> brown: you're writing this several years ago, right? in the middle of that "are we in a post-racial america?" discussion. >> yeah. it was the original idea with the movie was to point out this very real horror we haven't gotten over. i think what really works about this movie is these interactions you're talking about. i think black people, minorities, recognize these interactions and go, "finally, someone put it up." i think a lot of white peopl
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maybe some recognize it, maybe they don't. >> brown: i was wondering whether you saw there being two audiences for this film whether you even thought about it that way. >> you know, it's a really good question. i did think of it in terms of two audiences, often. >> brown: even in the making, you would think about it? >> in the making, yeah, sometimes i would say to daniel, who plays chris, i'd be like," this part, your ¡blackness' needs to come to the surface a little more. just give me that thing where the black audience member will go like, ¡thank you! thank you! he's black, he's black" you know? >> brown: he knew exactly what that meant, of course. >> "yep, yep. got it." yeah. at the same time i very much did not want to make a movie just for black people. i wanted to make this an experience where everybody's
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chris, when you're in the movie. everybody is black. if you're a white person in the audience you're experiencing a piece of the black experience through this character. >> brown: "get out" had another strong weekend, earning $26 million dollars. that brings the total take to more than $75 million in its first 10 days. for a film that cost just $5 million to make. from los angeles, i'm jeffrey brown for the pbs newshour. >> yang: we'll be back shortly with a look at one group of high school students whose work is headed to space. but first, take a moment to hear from your local pbs station. it's a chance to offer your
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done in the science lab. as sasha-ann simons from pbs station wxxi reports, the students' project was one of a select few chosen to be conducted on the international space station. >> reporter: when east high school chemistry teacher mary courtney submitted three proposals in fall 2016 for the student spaceflight experiments program, she could hardly wait to find out which one would take off-- literally. >> this was a very difficult project. it's probably the most difficult project that our students do their entire time in high school. >> reporter: as part of the program, students from 21 schools across the united states and canada competed for the chance to have their science experiments that test how microgravity affects various organisms, sent to the international space station as students de'aunte johnson, tailor davis and binti mohamed were thrilled that their proposal was the one chosen from east high.
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>> ms. courtney pushed us aside and was like, ¡you won!' and i was like, ¡are you serious?' i started freaking out. >> reorter: the group conducted their research on a group of microscopic organisms called phytoplankton, which live in lakes and oceans. through the process of photosynthesis, the organism produces one half of the oxygen we have on earth. >> the question is, when this goes to space, is there an effect by not having gravity on the production of the chlorophyll? the other variable that happens, is this experiment is going to be kept in a dark container, and so it's not going to be exposed to oxygen. >> reporter: johnson, a senior >> we had a couple different choices, but we picked my idea. >> reporter: the final proposal was a true team effort, though.
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>> there were parts we all had to do. tailor was doing the introduction and de'aunte was doing part three and four. he reviewed it later on and changed stuff that we needed to clarify or get into more detail with. >> as the u.s. and other countries move forward with space exploration, the idea is to eventually establish colonies, either on the moon, or other planets. so, if you're on mars, you've got to be able to produce food. >> reporter: the 21 winning experiments will blast off in a mini-laboratory to the international space station in june. the first order of business for the east high team is to figure out which type of phytoplankton they will use. >> and also which type of mixture we're going to use to make sure they have enough nutrients when they go up into space.
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>> reporter: once the experiment is aboard the space station, astronauts will interact with it, based on guidelines set by the students. as the person who has been watching the entire process, courtney said she couldn't be more proud. >> i want them to think completely differently about everything around them at the end of the year. if i do that, and they think differently about everyday subjects, then i've accomplished my goal. >> yang: and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm john yang. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you and see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:
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>> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, 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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-today, on "america's test kitchen," julia and bridget cook up the ultimate ground beef chili, adam shows bridget his top food processor picks, and erin wows julia with a red lentil soup with north african spices. it's all coming up, right here on "america's test kitchen." "america's test kitchen" is brought to you by the following -- fisher & paykel. since 1934, fisher & paykel has been designing
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