captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening. i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight: >> failing to act now on the most pressing security issue in the world may bring catastrophic consequences. >> woodruff: secretary of state rex tillerson calls for new sanctions on north korea, after president trump warns of a potential "major, major conflict" with the asian nation. then, during his visit to egypt, pope francis calls for an end to religious violence. it's friday. mark shields and david brooks analyze the week's news, and the president's first 100 days in office. and, jeffrey brown visits a workshop in spain that specializes in reproducing exact replicas of art. >> the idea is that you can get someone to understand the

complexity of an object, and you can get them to read it in many ways, through encountering facsimile. >> woodruff: all that and more, on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us.

>> the ford foundation. working with visionaries on the frontlines of social change worldwide. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: and friends of the newshour. >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: there's word tonight that north korea has test-fired another ballistic missile. south korea's military says it happened early saturday, local time. a u.s. government source told reuters that initial indications

suggest the test was a failure. we will return to the north korea story, after the news summary. in the day's other news, congress has gone home for the weekend, and the federal government will go on running for another week. the house and senate today approved a short-term funding bill to prevent a shutdown at midnight. the voting took place after leaders on both sides lamented the need for the stopgap measure. >> the continuing resolution is never anyone's first choice for funding the government. however, this is our best path forward. this c.r. is very short term, very limited scope and will help us complete our important work. >> we shouldn't be in this situation. we shouldn't have allowed partisan politics to once again turn a looming deadline into a political standoff with, really, a manufactured crisis.

>> woodruff: next week, lawmakers aim to finish a package to fund the government through september 30, the end of the federal fiscal year. two u.s. army rangers killed in afghanistan this week may have been victims of friendly fire. they were taking part in a raid on islamic state forces in an eastern province. the pentagon said today it is unclear whether they were fired on by afghan commandos, or other american troops. the national security agency has announced a major shift in surveillance policy. it will no longer collect emails or text messages simply because they mention a foreign intelligence target. instead, only those sent to or from a target will be collected. privacy advocates had pushed for the change. president trump vowed today to defend gun rights, as he addressed the national rifle association in atlanta. his appearance at the group's annual convention was the first

by a sitting president since ronald reagan, 34 years ago. mr. trump painted a stark contrast between his priorities, and those of the obama administration. >> the eight-year assault on your second amendment freedoms has come to a crashing end. you have a true friend and champion in the white house. no longer will federal agencies be coming after law-abiding gun owners. >> woodruff: the n.r.a. is now pushing for federal legislation to make any state's concealed- carry permit valid anywhere in the country. on another issue, the president served notice to south korea today that he wants to re- negotiate or terminate a free trade agreement between the two countries. in an interview with reuters, he called the five-year-old deal "horrible" and "unacceptable." arkansas has wrapped up an accelerated execution schedule, with its fourth lethal injection this month.

kenneth williams was put to death last night for a 1999 murder. a witness said williams convulsed as he was administered the first drug, a sedative. the governor said involuntary motions are a widely-known side effect. former president george h.w. bush is back home tonight, from a houston hospital. he was released after two weeks of treatment for pneumonia and then bronchitis. the 41st president is 92 years old. and on wall street, stocks edged lower after first-quarter growth in the u.s. turned out to be the weakest in three years. the dow jones industrial average lost 40 points to close at 20,940. the nasdaq fell one point, and the s&p 500 slipped four. for the week, all three indexes rose 1.5% to 2%. still to come on the newshour: the secretary of state calls for a global crackdown on north korea. the pope visits egypt, reaching

out to both christians and muslims. laughter in the supreme court, and much more. >> woodruff: the news that north korea has carried out another missile test is sure to add to rising tensions with the u.s. observers also say the country appears to be preparing to conduct a nuclear test. meanwhile, for the past two months, the u.s. and south koreans have been conducting another large scale military exercise. the united nations took up the issue today. >> for too long the international community has been reactive in addressing north korea. those days must come to an end. >> woodruff: the warning from secretary of state rex tillerson came at the u.n. security council. he said it is time for "painful" new sanctions to make north

korea give up its nuclear and missile programs. >> failing to act now on the most pressing security issue in the world may bring catastrophic consequences. >> woodruff: president trump has pressed china to help rein in the north, tweeting just last week, "if they want to solve the north korean problem, they will." and tillerson said yesterday that china may impose its own sanctions. beijing would not confirm that today. instead, foreign minister wang yi urged a return to multi-nation peace talks. >> ( translated ): china is not a focal point of the problem on the peninsula. and the key to solving the nuclear issue there does not lie in the hands of china. >> woodruff: tillerson had said in an interview yesterday that the u.s. would be open to direct talks with north korea, a shift in american policy. today, he clarified the conditions necessary for that to take place: >> north korea must understand north korea must take concrete

steps to reduce the threat that its illegal weapons programs pose to the u.s. and its allies, before we can even consider talks. >> woodruff: earlier this week, president trump's top advirs said the administration's first course is diplomacy. and, in a reuters interview the president said he'd "love to solve things diplomatically." but, he also said it's very difficult, and added his own warning that: >> there is a chance that we could end up having a major, major conflict with north korea. >> woodruff: the u.s. has already sent an aircraft carrier group to the korean peninsula as a show of force against the north and its leader. and, the pentagon said today that a u.s. missile defense system, known as "thaad," that it recently sent to south korea will be operational soon. china, in turn, said it still objects. >> ( translated ): i want to reiterate china's firm opposition against u.s. deployment of thaad anti-missile

system in the r.o.k. it is a move that seriously undermines the strategic security of china and other countries in the region, and >> woodruff: president trump also suggested in his interview that south korea should pay for the system-- an estimated $1 billion. south korean officials said today, the united states will bear the cost. for more on all of this, we get two views. john merrill had a 27-year career at the state department, where from 2001-2014, he was the chief of the northeast asia division of the bureau of intelligence and research. he's now a visiting fellow at johns hopkins university. and, balbina hwang served in the state department during the george w. bush administration, and is now a visiting professor at georgetown university. and we welcome 3w0e9 of you to the program. we were planning to have this discussion before we learned within the hour about this

latest missile test. why look out for us. what is the state of u.s./innovator korean relation right now? what track are we on. >> i don't think it's nearly as tense as everybody is making it out to be. i understand why president trump is saying there is a potential for major major conflict. we have to remember there's always been the potential since 1953 when the korean war essentially ended arm. >> woodruff: are we overplaying this, john merrill. >> there might be an element to that m meowing meowing, a possie threat to the north koreans that there is a military option. so it's brinkmanship on all

sides. >> woodruff: is that a course to be pursuing. >> i understand why and i believe it's partially brinkmanship and about centralling. what i'm worried about right now is not consequences with north korea, i think there will be trouble with south korea. we have to focus on this and really the solution has got to include and has to have the leadership and input of korean on the resolution of the north korean issue. >> woodruff: how is the relation with the south more of a worry. >> i think part of the brinkmanship is exactly as john said, it is indeed to try to essentially make the north koreans understand that the u.s. is very serious this time as we have been for 20 years. it's also to get china to listen. but china, and i think john, china's reaction to the deemployment inside korea is indicative on this. so i think south korea is stuck in the middle. >> woodruff: given that with south korea stuck in the middle, john merrill, how do you see the

u.s. in the news from here, from this point forward? because the north isn't making provocative statement, the trump administration has been making provocative statements. >> i think people should try to cool the situation to the extent possible. there's going to be a new government, and so i think -- >think -- >> woodruff: the election coming up. >> and a president will be installed immediately. i think it's unseemly to rush a sad battery in the dead of night. and there's serious questions about whether the thing works. certainly the new government would like to probably have a chance to review the system before it commits to it. >> what about that? >> i'm far less concerned about, i don't think it's surreptitious. what concerns me is on the one hand we're trying to send the message to china and to north korea that we're serious. on the other hand at the same

time this is all happening and secretary tillerson and president trump are emphasizing the strength of the alliance as the last defense against a major conneck with north korea. unfortunately president trump also announces that south korea should be responsible for paying up to $1 billion for it. i think that's what sends the mixed signals and that's what worries me. >> woodruff: let me turn to john mayoral what wjohn merrillm tillerson with npr. it appeared what he was saying is this administration is open to direct talks with north korea. but then he went on to say the north would have to have the right policy so to speak. today he hardened that like he was saying there had to be preconditions in place. how important is that discussion about whether there will or won't be direct talks with the u.s.? >> i think if there are direct talks, it's huge. it's a major development. before this, we've always said

we're only going to talk to them in the context of the six parties talk process. if that's really by the board with a period for direct negotiation, that's great. i would like to really suggest -- >> woodruff: why. >> for the reasons you mentioned. >> woodruff: because he said, he sounded more clear that he was open to direct. >> yes, exactly. >> woodruff: to direct talks. what about this. >> i think this whole debate about engagement, not engagement, is it right or wrong do we need pre conditions or no pre conditions is a little bit of a red herring. i think what's actually critical is this. all of the u.s. presidents have at some point understood that they will try to negotiate with north korea. first, negotiations take more than one party just as it takes two to tango, it takes two to negotiate. and north korea, very specifically denied every overture by president obama for eight years to enter any kind of talk, number one.

number two, the six party talk is actually very critical. that's christopher you know who led the talk. his point was it established that multilateral negotiations are the key, and that every regional player has to be involved and most importantly south korea. and i think now what's happening is, this idea of direct talk basically precludes the role of south korea. >> woodruff: so john merrill, are we talking about a solution here that could lead to the north eventually getting rid of their nuclear weapons which is what the administration said is their goal. >> that is going a very difficult hill to claim. for the moment, i think the most we can hope for is perhaps a freeze on testing, freeze on deployment of new systems. i would just remind balbina that 69 united states is responsible for this whole issue. at some time we had the 700 or so tactical nuclear weapons up

along the dnz. so the chickens are coming home to roost now. >> woodruff: it's certainly gotten all of our attention. >> that's for sure. >> woodruff: i thank both of you comingth and we'll continue to report on it and you'll continue to watch it. john merrill and balance be know wong. thank you -- balbina wong. >> thank you, judy. >> woodruff: it is the first papal trip to egypt since pope john paul ii in 2000. pope francis' visit to cairo today comes at a time when egypt's christians are under attack, and the so-called islamic state is emboldened. hari sreenivasan has our story. >> sreenivasan: pope francis received a red carpet welcome, but security was on high alert across the egyptian capital. still, he insisted on driving to the presidential palace in a simple, unarmored blue fiat.

>> he is trying to prove to the world that egypt is still safe, no matter what terrorism is trying to do in our country. >> sreenivasan: just three weeks ago, 45 people died when the islamic state bombed christian churches in two egyptian cities on palm sunday. and in december, an isis suicide bomber killed 25 people at cairo's main coptic christian cathedral. in a video message before his arrival, francis called for unity and tolerance. >> ( translated ): i hope that this visit will be an embrace of consolation and of encouragement to all christians in the middle east. a message of fraternity and reconciliation to all children of abraham, particularly in the islamic world. >> sreenivasan: the pontiff's first stop was a meeting with egyptian president abdel fattah al-sisi. the former general came to power after a 2013 coup that ousted mohamed morsi and banned the muslim brotherhood. francis also took part in a peace conference to bring muslims and christians together. >> ( translated ): to counter effectively the barbarity of those who foment hatred and

violence, we need to accompany young people, respond to the incendiary logic of evil by patiently working for the growth of goodness. >> sreenivasan: the day concluded with a meeting with the leader of egypt's coptic christians. for more on what these leaders hope to achieve together, i'm joined by tarek masood, a professor at harvard's kennedy school of government. now, mr. masood, let's start with the violence. is this something new or something the christians had to deal with forever. >> hi, hu hari. i think it's the latter that's really played christian community in e just a minute for a very long time under mubarak, 9 president overthrown in 2011 and when the military took over in 2011, there was violence against the christians, when the brotherhood was in charge, there was violence against christians and that violence against

christians in egypt continue today under assissi. >> what's the understandinassis. >> sreenivasan: what's is understanding of christians in society or does it matter. >> it matters a great deep. most egyptian c christians are called coptic christians and the word cop has the rule as much as egypt. cop is the world's old else church and. coptic are indigits to e jips. i'm a muslim but i'm clearly descended from people who convert from christianity around the 11th century. so christians are really an inextrickable part of the fabric of egyptian life. particularly since the 1970's, society has become increasingly islamized that christians have been seen as the other and there have been a lot of attempts to delegitimize them, discriminate against them and now we're seeing acts of violence against

them. >> sreenivasan: what's the strategic violence for them to kerrcarry out the marion. >> the fact we don't know how much of the population there are is in itself a problem. what isis wants to do by attacking christian and christian churches are due things. first they want to delegitimize the egyptian reseem. the king came to power promising stability so these kinds of spec tack ter acts of violence underscore his ability to provide that stability. the other thing they want to do is payment the government as some -- paint the government as anti-islammic, they attack christians and the government as it should does thing to defend the christian community such as putting armed guards around the churches or the president making estimate there should be no discrimination against cops and no violence against cause. it makes it possible for islamic

radicals to point to the government and say look at these guys they're on the side of christians, they care more about christians than they do about the average muz loom egyptian. >> sreenivasan: part of a larger strategy for isis in the region. >> it may be. clearly everywhere that isis operates they try to polarize societies, secretary tailor and religious dissension. another thing to note though again the problem against violence with cops and egypt far predates isis and predates the government of el-sisi. it's the function of egyptian society sreenivasan va. >> sreenivasan: i want to talk about the image of the pope embraipsing eyeman there joy --man there in egypt. images like that travel as far and as fast. >> one really hopes so. one thing that's really been remarkable about pope francis is

that he really isn't just a pope of the world's catholics, he really seems to be the pope of all peoples, particularly the world downtrodden and disadvantaged. i think one thing that's worth noting is that in his statement the pope called on the egyptian government to do more to respect human rights. he wasn't just talking about the human rights of egypt's christians but talking about the human rights of all egyptians. one homes that those kinds of messages will diffuse throughout the muslim world. >> sreenivasan: tarek masood from harvard school. thank you very much. >> woodruff: stay with us. coming up on the newshour: mark shields and david brooks analyze the first 100 days of the trump administration. preserving culture and history using exact replicas. "self-made" myth-- a millionaire reflects on the help he got that goes unacknowledged.

but first, the supreme court's final case this term was expected to be a highly technical argument on immigration law, but it wound up pulling back the curtain on the justices' personalities, and how they interact. john yang has the details of listening in on court arguments. >> yang: here to walk us through some of the key moments during wednesday's oral arguments is robert barnes. he has covered the supreme court for the "washington post" for more than a decade. and he also had the misfortune of being my editor. charles, thanks for coming in. >> it's good to be here. >> yang: in a nutshell, bob, what was this case about. >> this is a case about a woman from bosnia who claimed persecution, was admitted to this country, became a naturalized citizen. and then it turned out she had lied on some of her applications. specifically she had said that her hubs bund was trying to

avoid military service. it turns out he had been in the becausbosnian that dealt with wr crimes. >> yang: she was the percent in this case. how did that go. >> the real thought is does it matter something you lie about on your application is material to the fact that you got citizenship. and 9 law i the law is not specc about that. it doesn't say it has to be relevant. it says you can't lie. so the government had taken the position that any lie would be reason for it to move against someone to take away their citizenship if they want. and the lower courts agreed, said that no, the federal government doesn't have to prove that it was relevant to her getting it, just that she had lied. and so the question for the court was, is that the right thing or not. is that the right standard. >> yang: then as you wrote in "the washington post" things got really interested when they

turned to the government's attorney, robert parker. chief justice john roberts made a personal confession. >> sometime ago outside the statute of limitations, i drove 60 miles an hour in a 55 mile an hour zone. [laughter] i was not, i was not arrested. now, you say if i answer that question no, 20 years after i was naturalized as a citizen, you can knock on my door and say guess what, you're not an american citizen after all. >> the chief just taste wasn't comparing speeding to a war crime, but what he was saying is what's the logical extension of this. if the government says that someone can lose their citizenship for lying about anything, then how far does that go. does it go to even something as mundane as speeding, which you didn't fess up to januar.

>> yang: he didn't say anything about the woman's attorney. >> if you're a lawyer getting up you need to be worried because it may mean he does agree with that side and ready to mowns on you and that's pretty much what the chief justice did to this poor government lawyer. >> yang: then on that point what's relevant and what's not relevant, there was an exchange involving justice elena kagan. let's look at that. >> you could lie about your weight, let's say. you're embarrassed you weigh 1170, let's claim you weighed 150. this is a lie under oath after you've sworn to tell the truth and you're deliberately lying about something. that is very important in naturalization process. >> i'm sorry, go ahead. >> you'll be glad to know i don't have another of these questions for you. i am a little bit horrified to know every time i lie about my

weight ... [laughter] >> only under oath. >> yeah. >> should point out that parker was not referring specifically to justice kagan. >> that's right, exactly right. again, it was the same point. do you know what justices like to do, they keep spinning these ideas out. what about this, what about this, what about this. and if it's the lawyer in a position where they've got to defend something. we should point out too, this is a long held government view. it's not one that has come up just recently, but one that has come up a long time ago. it's just that this case got to the court now. >> later in the arguments justice anthony kennedy pressed parker about the meaning of citizenship. >> all i can say is i don't think that the statute says anything that would necessarily prevent denaturalization from occurring. but there are a number -- >> your argument is demeaning

the priceless value of citizenship. to say oh, just put her to the former status. that's not what citizenship means. i'm arguing for the government of the united states, talking about what citizenship is and ought to mean. >> yang: now you say that's a very characteristic question from justice kennedy. >> yes. it's bad for your side if justice kennedy starts talking about something that the government does as being demeaning or affecting the dignity of an individual, because that's something that's very important to him. and those are words that no lawyer really wants to hear coming from justice kennedy. >> yang: very unusual tone it seemed in this argument. how usual or unusual is that? >> this is a very lively back and forth among the justices. it was very sort of entertaining argument to be at. it was also the last argument of

the term. after this, the justices start writing their opinions in all the cases they've heard since october. and so, in a way, it was sort of the end of the school day for them. and so it was a very interesting and lively conversation. >> yang: talk for taking us behind the skeins a little bit at the supreme -- scenes a little bit at the supreme court. >> my pleasure. >> woodruff: now, to the analysis of shields and brooks. that's syndicated columnist mark shields, and "new york times" columnist david brooks. welcome gentlemen. we're just one day away david from the hundred day mark of the new administration. what are we thinking right now? >> a hundred days is a stupid marker. 9 days i 9 days is much better. it's not a success.

what's striking is we've had obvious failures. i think what's striking makes me remain curious about the next four years is the change. i mean just rapid change, we've never seen a president change this much from being a populist to being a corporatist, a process around him. i'd say there's some improvements. he's never going to be a deep thinker, he's never going to have an overall strategy but the left of flexibility is to me one of the more striking and maybe hopeful. >> woodruff: some improvement, mark. >> there's an old formula in washington. when someone changes in moves in your direction, that person has grown. when he moves in the other direction, of course he's benedict honor. he's a -- arnold. he's a traitor. donald trump has a constituency.

his point is right, he has changed. he's turned his back on that constituency. three in four americans approve of one thing donald trump has done and that is forcing company to keep jobs in the united states. that was the populist theme, this was no other president has won the whitehouse on and he under the pressure of the 100 day deadline which he kept sustaining and genuflecting before and studiously pursuing, donald trump came up with a one page tax plan that turned his back totally on the people who elected him. and his secretary of the treasury could not even tell you what a family making $70,000 a year with two children, whether they would pay more or less in taxes. but i could tell you one thing, that donald trump's cabinet would pay and donald trump would may measurably less. it was a plan designed for the

deserving rich. >> woodruff: you're saying they did put out a plan, a one page plan but it doesn't tell us much more, david, what they really will do. >> there's two things. first which way is he moving. he's not moving toward people like me. i'm not part of the corporate elite. >> woodruff: i know that. >> he's not moving from a version of populism to a version of corporatism. if there was a good version of pawn lizal it would really help the people who vote for him, that would be great. that was not something he was going to be capable of doing. he's got an ethnic populism can which is an ugly version and there's constituenty of pawn lism of the good sort in congress. that was never going to happen. so he moved to helping his friends in big business. there's no question about that. i happen to think that's a less dangerous mode of change. it's more conventional nathan being a populist. if he tried to being an american la gist pen or an american putin that was a dangerous thing and

that part he's rejected. so we avoided a really ugly version of the whitehouse at least right now. the second thing about the tax plan, he's never going to be deep. he's never going to be substantive. he wants the tax plan right away, the treasury department has no plans to put anything together. they gave him a page which will please him which is right it wasn't a tax plan it was a one hundred words off the top of their head. that thing is sure to fail at least in its public form. so he just scratched across the surface not causing any change just a lot of ruffling. >> woodruff: david's point is it's better than what it sounded like during the campaign. >> well, i don't know. he turned his back on the people. what donald trump did that no republican had done since ronald reagan was to break through among blue collar voters, working class voters in this country, democrats kind of assumed the party constituent cy

had taken for gramentd and paid the price of been -- granted and paid the price of globalization, the shrinking of the middle class established once again this week by pew in its research in this country. donald trump said i recognize you, i'm with you. whatever else has happened, i mean donald trump as a canned deed was he says what he means. and it are turns out he didn't mean what he said. judy, you cannot talk about donald trump without talking about the republicans. the tax thing is one thin because that's just a piece of paper. but the healthcare thing is hey, a total philosophical political and krejci failure of the political party as well as the principals. >> woodruff: they talked about it so long. >> they won four elections in a row, judy. let's get one thing straight. the democrats passed bills in

2010. and they had 179 witnesses appear. they had 78 operate hearings in congress. they've had 230 amendments. they accepted 121 of them. it was a two year ordeal. and these people have invested nothing. they can't even come up with a repeal. now all they're trying to pass in the house is their website improvement as a dead fish. they want to get it out of them and on to the center wound wood is that on the president or on the republicans. >> it's on both. the president came in with no plan, no strategy no people. he is just a guy with words and tweets. it's a bid on the congress but also a bid on the pier. there was no plan that could pass with all the republican votes. every time you get the freedom caucus you get the moderate. that's the iron rule. if you want the government mark and i will both filed some favor with, trump comes in and said i'm going to help my people. and i'm going to do first a big

infrastructure spending bill. then maybe a payroll thoracic bill. then some education things. just everything. but to get the thing like that passed, it required breaking down the colorization of our politics. maybe some democrats and some republicans, and that would have been great. but it would have required such legislative skill and experience that was completely beyond the capacity wound wood wha. >> woodruff: what about the style of the president. he tweeted we're going to do well with nasa, i'm going to terminate. within 24 hours i heard from the presidents of mexico and canada, prime minister of canada ask i'm going to negotiate it. we've been talking tonight about north korea. the tough language, the tough rhetoric back and forth about whether we're going to be tough. has this proven effective? how do you see it. >> picky picky picky.

just want to find fault. of course it hadn't, judy. he had no honeymoon. this was short a honeymoon alan liza m maneli. his popular act was proportional in most people's judgment response to the outrage and international sense of the syrian government spraying gas on their own people. the americans inspite of the economic news presented earlier this evening see the economy getting better. and with those things going for him, his own favorable rating fell in the poll. i mean so, no. i mean there's total, there's satisfyity with him he's going to be typhoid mary pligh politiy

going into 2018. >> woodruff: you say he's grown in office. >> this is not fdr we're talking about here. it's a failure but i'm looking for opportunities to grow. like when you have a student oh you got a d minus, so much better. i'm looking on the bright side. if you go from dangerous to fickle, i think that's a good move. and then the final thing, i'm really struck by bob costa, a college did a great piece on his television. and the ap talked about how hard it was to rip himself away from every single tv show about himself. you see a guy transparently struggling certainly with nawrs seizal and -- narcissism and tv. whoever saw him last gets the policy for the day. and will that settle down or will we just sort of get a rein

for the next four years but the first a hundred days is pretty sustainable. he's been crashing every hour and that's calmed down. >> judy, two things about donald trump and donald trump deserves credit for. for the first time since it passed in 2010, the affordable care act, obamacare is now more popular than it's ever been before with the majority of americans. it's more popular than donald trump if you want to do just a comparative. and the other thing is that americans who have been in a tea party with the smaller government now want a government awe, they want to do more in their lives and to be more active. this just goes completely anti-thetical to the republican ideology of a smaller, leaner cheaper government withdrawing. i think there's great change. i don't know where it comes down but it's hard for me to see

whether there's any hand -- >hand -- >> woodruff: we keep saying this in the polls and the reporters going around the country talking to people voting for donald trump, david, they still like what he's doing. >> no, they do. people are solid and mostly driven bipartisanship. they see reality with partisan identity. that will take some time to shake off. i don't think this tax reform is going to go anywhere. how does he react to that. at what point does the economy say what exactly are you doing for me now. but i do think that will be a while. partisan identity right now is so strong that if you ask people how is the economy doing, it doesn't matter how the economy is doing. it's with the guy in power is how they see it. that loyalty will stay there. >> before democrats start pawning the champagne, 67% of americans feel democrats, the democratic party is out of touch with what's going on in their

lives. more than, a lot more than they feel about donald trump. so yes, 96 to the 8% of the people voted for him are with him and would do so again. but i mean the democrats have to be a lot more than just not trump. that is not the answer to their problems. >> woodruff: not yet the makings of a come back. >> no. >> woodruff: mark shields, david brooks. i hope both of you come back. thank you. >> woodruff: every day, cultural objects around the world are threatened by war, looting, the impact of humans and the passage of time. but one organization in spain is taking an innovative approach to understanding and preserving that heritage, by copying it. jeffrey brown has that story, part of our ongoing series, "culture at risk."

>> reporter: the tomb of seti i, ancient egyptian pharaoh. we watched it being milled, printed, and set. but we're not in egypt's "valley of the kings," and certainly not in the 13th century, b.c. this is a workshop called "factum arte," in an eastern suburb of madrid, spain, filled with art and historical works of all kinds, with one unusual thing in common. everything in this large warehouse is a reproduction. a copy. but the work being done here raises profound questions about just what is "real," and what it means to "preserve" an object. the man who leads factum, with evangelical fervor, is british artist adam lowe. >> the state of the art is that we can make something that is identical to the original, under normal viewing conditions. >> reporter: so, is the idea that you're creating something that is, at least for the viewing experience, as real as

the original? >> the idea is that you can get someone to understand the complexity of an object, and you can get them to read it in many ways, through encountering facsimile, yes. >> reporter: facsimile: an exact copy or reproduction. factum calls its work "digital mediation," and it operates as a kind of renaissance workshop of people with different skills: software designers, technicians, conservators, architects, artists, artisans. together, they make "copies with a cause," not to mislead, but to understand and help preserve. one prominent example: this copy of a winged lion from nimrud. it was cast from sculptures now in european museums that were taken from the site in iraq in the 19th century. last year, isis destroyed much of what's left at nimrud itself. >> in that strange twist of fate, everything that was removed in the 19th century is the only evidence that's left. and we would love to be able to send facsimiles, like this,

which is pretty much identical, to take up their place, again on the site, so that you still keep that connection between-- >> reporter: i mean, that would not make up for the destruction? >> nothing makes up for destruction. >> reporter: factum first attracted international attention in 2007 by creating a replica of a huge painting by paolo veronese from 1563, "the wedding at cana." the original painting now hangs in the louvre museum in paris, but it got there as a gift of napoleon, whose forces ripped it from its original home, a church in venice. factum's experts studied, scanned, slowly recreated it, and finally put it-- the copy, that is-- into its old home. >> many people started to question about whether the experience of seeing it in its correct setting, with the correct light, in dialogue with this building that it was painted for, is actually more authentic than the experience of seeing the original in the louvre. >> reporter: lowe had another

major win in his recreation of king tut's tomb, in the valley of the kings, built next to the original site. in madrid, we got a tour of some key parts of the process, which begins far away from this building, with the scanning of the actual objects in the field. that team is led by architect carlos bayod, using a laser scanner developed at factum, known as the lucida. >> we are capable now of recording the surface of a painting, for example, and obtaining data that are very close, that has very close correspondence to reality. >> reporter: very close, how close? >> well, in terms of resolution, we are talking about 100 microns, so one point of information every tenth of a millimeter. >> reporter: the data about the surface-- even of something we think of as being "flat"-- is used to create a detailed relief "map" of the object, without ever touching and potentially harming it, to understand how any intervention or restoration might play out.

>> we believe this information is, or should be very useful for conservators. people who have the duty of taking care of the works of art. >> reporter: to go further and build a facsimile of the work-- in this case the tomb of seti i-- the data is crunched and fed into milling machines, computer numeric code routers, or 3d printers to create the relief. in another room, using a factum-built printer run by rafa rachewsky, the photographed image is etched onto a custom- created surface known as a "skin." >> we call it skin because it has the character of a skin, so it's very thin, as you can see. it stretches enough so you can lay it onto the relief, and then you can place exactly where you want. >> reporter: this would be the >> reporter: rachewsky carefully aligns the printed skin with the relief, and using contact glue: >> you want to be sure that you get everywhere. >> reporter: because you want it to hold for several thousand years, right? >> exactly.

>> reporter: it's then vacuum sealed-- >> as the air is coming out, these two are joining together. >> reporter: so now it's really fusing into one. >> exactly. >> reporter: the result: a test panel of the tomb of seti i, representing less than 1% of what will be a full-scale replica, to eventually go on display next to the original in luxor. and why build a replica of the tomb? because, says adam lowe, mass tourism-- our own need to see the "original," in a place never designed for our biological presence-- has its consequences. >> but what we're really asking the visitors to do is to enter into a new contract for preserving things for the future. because by going to see something that was designed to last for eternity, but never to be visited, you're contributing to its destruction. >> reporter: this is expensive work, developing new tools and techniques to take on whatever challenges the world of

conservation throws at it. to finance it, factum builds custom pieces for contemporary artists, like this piece for saudi arabian artist abdulnasser gharem, which combines the dome of a mosque with a soldier's helmet, and will be installed at the los angeles county museum of art. factum is full of wonders. not the least of which was getting into a contraption built here, called a "veronica scanner:" 12 cameras, taking 96 high resolution photos of all angles of my head, in four seconds. after an hour and a half of 3d printing: my very own small bust. this is weird! as technology advances and laser scans are increasingly replaced by this kind of photogrammetry, it's not hard to envision a world in which anyone can photograph an object and render their own model in 3d. push it a little further, suppose that you record the

information, you could imagine >> but i can imagine many things, so i can imagine i can take a photograph, as we're doing, and i could recreate something from a photograph. i can imagine other people might do it for less noble reasons or for straightforward commercial reasons, but that's not a reason for not doing it. the reason for recording something is like saying, "if i actually, the recording is critical, because unless you record it, you don't know how it's changing, you don't know what people's presence is going to it. you don't know the effects of time on the surface. >> reporter: while adam lowe is most focused now on pushing conservation techniques, he's also challenging how we think about copies and their relationship to originals, the very idea of "originality." the classical sculptures we know, he points out, are almost all copies of an original, and all those masterpiece paintings we love? >> copying plays an important role in every culture, and unless you can get inside the mental space of the person who made the object that you're copying, you'll never understand it.

every single one of those paintings has a complex history. it's probably been restored once or twice. it's probably had more than that by certain dubious dealers who've tarted it up to sell it. there's a whole history of what happens on a painting that's constantly changing. >> reporter: there's no original when it comes to a work of art, you're suggesting. >> no, i'm suggesting there seldom a very clear notion of conception. will it change the way we see and understand cultural heritage? well, the way we see and understand cultural heritage changes over time. it always has and it always will. the way we value it, the way we look at it, the way we appreciate it, the way we display, the way we collect it, all of these things are constantly subject to change. >> reporter: a change, at factum arte's workshop, happening before our eyes. for the pbs newshour, i'm jeffrey brown in madrid, spain. >> woodruff: one of the core tenets of the american dream is the belief that any individual, regardless of their background,

can make it big. millionaire tech entrepreneur jason ford has done just that, but he believes he, and other successful people, get a lot of help they don't often acknowledge. he explains in tonight's edition of "in my humble opinion." >> everyone loves a good success story. it's the american dream. working your way up from nothing, armed only with your wits and a strong work ethic, and for those who make it, it feels great to think you got there all on your own. i should know: i'm a millionaire. the first in my family. one of those tech entrepreneurs who built a software business and sold it for a fortune. i didn't inherit my wealth. i created it. but, look a little deeper, and it turns out that version of my success story is a lie. yes, my family background is rather humble. both of my parents were teachers. i grew up in hand-me-down clothes from our neighbors. but before i was born, my parents got help from their

parents to buy a house in a safe neighborhood, with good schools. when my grandmother passed, she left each of her grandkids some money. not a fortune, but enough that i made it through college without school debt. my wife's nana was a school teacher as well. her and her husband saved their humble income and bought land decades ago. and, when i started my business, she believed in me enough to sell her land and invest the money in my startup. so we can blow up the myth that i'm a self-made success. sure, i had something to do with it, but i also had some serious help. now, one way to interpret this story is that the generations before me worked hard to provide the best possible future for their kids and grandkids. and that interpretation is true, but it leaves out some harsh realities rooted in history. you see, if my ancestors had not been white, it is almost certain i would not be where i am today. my grandfather would have found it nearly impossible to climb to

the top of the corporate ladder like he did. this was the mid-'70s, when almost every executive in a role like his was a white man. as a result, my parents likely wouldn't have bought the house they did, with the good schools that prepared me for college. and two generations ago, lending discrimination would have made it similarly impossible for nana to buy that land that ended up funding my business. just as not everyone is qualified to be an astronaut, it takes a special kind of person to be an entrepreneur. you need discipline, intelligence, and extreme dedication. but the best astronaut in the world can't fly to the moon unless seone gives them the rocket. it's time for more entrepreneurs like me to stop telling stories about how they climbed their way to the top. to stop taking credit for flying to the moon all by themselves, as if the entire support structure they were born into had nothing to do with it. and, it's time for all of us to

find more ways to empower more of the world's highest-potential entrepreneurs with their own rockets, so they can show us the stars. >> woodruff: and, robert costa is getting ready for "washington week" later this evening. robert, what's on the show? >> judy, with 100 days in the rearview mirror, president trump admits he thought being president would be easier. we will take a closer look at the steady drip of investigations, unpredictable global threats, and the accomplishments that have shaped the president's first months in judy. >> woodruff: that is the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. have a great weekend. thank you, and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> bnsf railway. >> supporting social entrepreneurs and their solutions to the world's most pressing problems-- skollfoundation.org.

>> and the william and flora hewlett foundation, helping people build immeasurably better lives. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and friends of the newshour. >> 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