captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening, i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight... >> the united states will withdraw from the paris climate accord. >> woodruff: ...breaking from nearly all nations in the world, president trump abandons the landmark agreement aimed at combating climate change. then, the latest unraveling in the russia investigation-- vladimir putin admits that russian hackers may have acted independently to influence the u.s. presidential election. and, how urban revival is meeting a crisis of success. a look at why cities are being dragged down by class divides.

>> if the old urban crisis was about the middle class flight from the city to the suburbs, then the new urban crisis is about really the disappearance of middle class neighborhoods from our society. >> woodruff: all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. >> carnegie corporation of new york. supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, and the advancement of international peace and security. at carnegie.org.

>> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: and individuals. >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: from president trump today, a declaration: the united states wants out of the paris accord on climate change, and wants to negotiate better terms. under the existing agreement, the u.s. must cut carbon emissions 26 to 28 percent from 2005 levels, by 2025. but in the white house rose garden, mr. trump said the deal gives other countries an economic edge, and makes america foot the bill.

>> as president, i can put no other consideration before the wellbeing of american citizens. the paris climate accord is simply the latest example of washington entering into an agreement that disadvantages the united states to the exclusive benefit of other countries, leaving american workers, who i love, and taxpayers to absorb the cost in terms of lost jobs, lower wages, shuttered factories and vastly diminished economic production. thus, as of today, the united states will cease all implementation of the non- binding paris accord and the draconian financial and economic burdens the agreement imposes on our country. at what point does america get demeaned?

at what point do they start laughing at us as a country? we want fair treatment for its citizens and we want fair treatment for our taxpayers. we don't want other leaders and other countries laughing at us anymore, and they won't be. they won't be. i was elected to represent the citizens of pittsburgh, not paris. >> woodruff: former president obama said today mr. trump is joining the handful of nations that reject the future. meanwhile, european leaders voiced regret, and said the accord cannot be renegotiated. china, the world's largest carbon emitter, re-affirmed its commitment to the deal. we'll hear from both sides of the issue, after the news summary. in the day's other news, president trump decided against moving the u.s. embassy in israel from tel aviv to jerusalem, at least, for now.

he'd campaigned on a promise to do just that, but the white house said waiting might improve chances of peace between israel and the palestinians. at least 14 trump white house officials have been granted waivers from ethics rules. their names were posted last night, under pressure from the office of government ethics. the officials include, among others: michael catanzaro, a former oil and gas lobbyist who's now a senior energy policy aide. and shahira knight, a former lobbyist for fidelity investments, now working on tax reform. in russia, president vladimir putin acknowledged today that what he called patriotic individuals may have launched cyber-attacks on the u.s. but he insisted again his government had no role in election meddling in the u.s. instead, speaking to international journalists, he blamed "russo-phobic hysteria," and, perhaps, a smear campaign.

>> ( translated ): i can imagine the situation where somebody purposely does the attacks in a way to make it look like the russian federation is the source of those attacks. but what is most important, i'm deeply convinced that any hackers cannot significantly influence an election campaign in another country. >> woodruff: putin also called president trump "a straightforward person, a frank person" with a fresh set of eyes. afghans buried loved ones today, after wednesday's massive truck bombing in kabul. the blast killed at least 90 people. hundreds gathered today for the funeral of a security guard. the bombing was one of the worst attacks since the 2014 draw-down of foreign forces in afghanistan. a gunman caused a scare today at a resort complex in the capital of the philippines. reports of gunshots touched off panic, and in washington, president trump called it a terrorist attack. a short time later, manila police announced it was not terrorism, and no one was hurt.

he said gunman fired in the air, stole gambling chips and set fire to gaming tables. the upcoming election in britain is turning into a free-for all. with the vote just a week away, a new survey shows the ruling conservatives leading the labor party by just three points. that's down sharply since last week's bombing in manchester. prime minister theresa may called the snap election to bolster her government as it negotiates britain's exit from the european union. wall street pushed higher on signs that businesses added more jobs in may. the dow jones industrial average gained 135 points to close at 21,144. the nasdaq rose 48 points, and the s&p 500 added 18 all three were record closes. and, the n.b.a. finals start tonight, with the much- anticipated rematch between the golden state warriors and cleveland cavaliers, the reigning champions.

but it's been partly overshadowed by the racial slur spray-painted outside the los angeles home of lebron james. the cleveland star said wednesday that it shows racism is very much alive. >> no matter how much money you have, no matter how famous you are, no matter how many people admire you at the end of the day being a black man in america is very frightening and it lets us know that we've got so much farther, so much farther to go to be equal in this country. >> woodruff: police are investigating the vandalism as a possible hate crime. still to come on the newshour: california's governor and utah's junior senator weigh in on the paris climate agreement. the head of the u.n. refugee agency on the u.s.'s responsibility to help migrants around the world. as cities grow, inequality follows, addressing what one author calls the new urban crisis, and much more.

>> woodruff: let's zero in now on the big story of this day: the president's decision to withdraw from a global accord aimed at slowing the impact of climate change. we explore the consequences of all this, and how it may play out in coming years in the u.s. and around the world. we begin with california governor jerry brown, a democrat. his state is battling efforts by the trump administration to roll back some emissions regulations. and he's flying to china tomorrow to discuss what more can be done on climate change. i spoke with him a short time ago. governor jerry brown, thank you for joining us. your office put out a statement a short time ago saying this is an insane course of action. do you mean that? >> i certainly do mean that. if anything it's understated.

climate change is an exestem cell -- existential threat to all of the systems on which our whole life depends, not tomorrow but starting very quickly we're seeing changes. california has lost 100 million trees from the drought. sea level is rising. antarctica is seeing ice melting at an ever rapid rate. some say in an irreversible way. this is a profoundly serious problem. the paris agreement was an agreement of nations saying what they could do voluntarily. here's the commitment: president obama did something i thought was doable and reasonable. in fact, california is doing that very thing now, and our economy has grown in terms of g.d.p. 40% faster than the nation as a whole. we've created over two million jobs. so climate action and jobs go together. so that's why i say this move by

trump makes no sense, and it's going to hurt america, and it's going to cost jobs, not the reverse. >> woodruff: as you know, he makes a different argument. he said, "i'm in favor of doing something to help the environment, but he said this accord is going to cost millions of jobs and cost the american people trillions in lost economic output. >> that's just a lie. that's completely unwarranted. yes, jobs are declining all the time, the created destruction of capitalism, but jobs are being created. california has lost jobs, but net we've added 2.4 million jobs in the last eight years. that is a remarkable outcome, and it's consistent, in fact, i'd say driven by the clean tech investments and the climate action strategies that we've embarked upon. so prumple is completely wrong. he's doing this for his own

base, highly ideological, he's wrong on the science, he's wrong on the facts. >> woodruff: well, he also... another argument he makes, governor, he says this puts restrictions on the united states while the united states is reducing its emissions, while it lets other countries like china, that continue to pollute more and more, get away with doing that for years to come with no penalties? >> he really distorts the record. he has a record of that and he's doing it again. china is exceeding its commitment, and it's turning a big machine around to the point where it's stopping the growth of emissions in a few years, and it's the leader in wind and solar power, and yes they're building some coal pants. they have to go faster, they're not perfect, but this is an agreement of the willing that have said in paris, here's what we'll do. it's reasonable what china is doing, reasonable what america is doing.

in fact, i would say both have to do a lot more. so trump is taking this in the exact wrong direction, which will cost us more money. the new york subway is under water or new orleans or president trump's hotel down there in florida are devastated by rising sea level, that will cost hundreds of billions aggregate over decades. we're talking trillions. so the economics is all to the op silt of what president trump is saying. >> woodruff: governor, among other things, as you know, the president is talking to his base, people who voted for him. there's an indication they're going to like what he did today. has your side of this argument missed an opportunity to explain to the american people how protecting the environment can also be good for the economy? >> well, i don't think that message is clear enough. certainly people can be more articulate. california obviously it's clear orange county for the first time in decades voted against a republican, mr. trump, and i

think part of that is our environmental policies working as well as our job creation running at full speed. so, yes, this is a message that has to be made more persuasively, more simply and made more extensively across the country. >> woodruff: you mentioned california, and i think you said in your statement today california can continue to cut its own deals with other countries, continue to move forward with technology. how does that work? i mean, the president said he's willing to renegotiate the paris accord. is that realistic at the same time you're talking about california and other states going forward on their own? >> already european nations have said paris is not negotiable. the president of france said that and others. what's he going to renegotiate? this is a modest commitment on the part of president obama. we have to do more, not less. i'm going to china tomorrow. i'll meet with high officials.

we will agree on standardizing various clean technologies that will make it possible to invest and produce even more. we're going to california and china, we're working with new york and washington, canada and mexico have joined with over 170 states and nations committed to this paris agreement. so the world is not waiting for donald trump. he has given a body blow to the cause of environmental sustainability, but we'll take it and we'll respond and we're on the field of battle, and we're going to overcome. that i can promise you. >> woodruff: governor jerry brown of california, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: now for an opposing view, we turn to senator mike lee of utah. he was one of 22 republican senators who signed a letter to president trump last week urging him to withdraw from the paris agreement. senator lee, welcome to the program. i believe you just heard the

response of california governor jerry brown, who argues this is a fundamentally wrong decision. he said it's going to set back the cause of fighting climate change. >> yeah, i think he's wrong. i think i disagree with every word, every syllable he uttered, including the words "but," "and" and "the." this was the right thing to do. president obama didn't submit this agreement to the united states senate for ratification as a treaty. he didn't do that because he knew there was absolutely no way he could get the two-thirds supermajority vote necessary in order to get this ratified, in order to make it the law of the land as a governing treaty. he didn't do that. consequently it was entirely foreseeable that when a different president with a different party with a different point of view came along, he would not move forward with it. president trump did that today, because he decided this was not in the interest of the united states of america. he did the right thing. >> woodruff: senator, one of the arguments that we heard

governor brown and others making today is that president trump and those who are pushing this decision today don't understand the way the climate and jobs, the economy interact, that, in fact, when you do less to fight climate change, as what the president is in effect doing, he's missing a chance for the united states to move ahead with clean energy technology. so in other words, what he's done is goingdto cost jobs rather than increase them. >> you know, i would point out quite to the contrary, what has brought down emissions both from stationary sources like power plants and from mobile sources like automobiles is innovation, prove. s in technology that have occurred as a result of free market force, and in the absence, i would add, of anything like a treaty comparing to the paris agreement. this has happened through innovation, through free market forces. i think quite the opposite of what governor brown was saying, that when the government gets

involved, it tends to squelch innovation that. innovation is needed for us to control emissions. >> woodruff: the former e.p.a. administrator, not your predecessor, sorry, the former e.p.a. administrator, gina mccarthy said today, "she said this is an embarrassing day for the united states." she went on to say, "make no mistake, because of this reckless decision, our businesses will lose business opportunity, we will seed technology breakthroughs to countries that will take over our leadership role and the rest of the world will question whether the u.s. can be trusted." >> that's pretty apocalyptic. that's oy apocalyptic to the point of straining credulity. these are smart people, but they are not omniscient. i think their prophesies of doom and gloom are entirely unwanted and inappropriate. again, we have to get back to the fact that this power, the power to enter into binding international agreement, this is a shared power. this is something that was decided, should be a shared

power, at the constitutional convention some 230 years ago. as i explain in my new book that came out this week called "written out of history," these powers that are vested in the fghtd have to be clearly enumerated. they have to be limited. we can't give excessive, unfettered power to a president the act alone to, bind an entire country to a set of principles, a set of rules that the president, him or herself makes. that's what we would be allowing presidents to do if we said any time a president, like president obama, wants to subject an entire country to a new send of rules, that president can do so without submitting that international agreement to the senate floor treaty ratification. >> woodruff: maybe this is alone those lines, but i'm now reading comments even from some politicians who have a problem with this decision, a republican congressman from florida, carlos carbello was interviewed within the hour. he said this is a mistake. i'm already seeing the impact of

climate change on my part of the state. we need to move forward with technology to address it. i want to quickly quote the former republican treasury secretary, henry paulson, who said he's dismayed and disappointed. "by moving ourselves to the sidelines of an evolving global conversation, he said we've left a void for others to fill. regrettably this undermines u.s. credibility, weakens our ability to lead in other areas." >> yeah, look, i completely disagree. the fact that you can point to some people who call themselves politicians who disagree with this decision doesn't change this analysis. and i notice there wasn't a corresponding pushback to the person who preceded me. you didn't push back like this to governor brown. i understand that you might disagree personally with what --. >> woodruff: senator, senator... >> i'm sorry. i'd like to answer your question. that doesn't mean that this was wrong. this was the right thing to do. the president put people before this paris agreement. he put pittsburgh before paris.

he did the right thing. >> woodruff: senator, just to set the record straight, i quoted president trump several times back to governor brown in my interview with him, just as i've quoted some who criticized the president's decision in my interview with you. finally, senator -- >> but i want to be clear, the reason i made that point is you didn't try to identify some democrats who might have supported this. what i'm saying is you are pushing back on me on a way you didn't push back on him. that's fine, that's your right to do that as a reporter. >> woodruff: let me finally ask you, senator. the president said he's open to renegotiation. we're already hearing from european officials. but it's... this is an accord not open for renegotiation. so how do you foresee moving ahead in that direction? >> if they're saying this is not open for renegotiation and this negotiation was itself something that couldn't get through the united states senate, and that's why president obama never submitted it to the senate for

treaty ratification, then we're at an impasse and we will proceed. we will proceed, by the way, i should add, as a global leader in environmental regulation. we are a global leader in the rule of law. we have brought down emissions in this country through our legal system and through technological innovation. we can do this on our own. we don't have to have the permission of countries all over the world to do that. we've done it pretty well. we've done it much better than a lot of our would-be partners in this agreement. >> woodruff: senator mike lee of utah, thank you very much for talking with us. >> thank you. >> woodruff: brutal wars in the middle east, africa and asia have forced the world's populations of refugees and displaced persons to near record highs. meahwile, the trump administration has signaled its intention to change u.s. refugee policy substantially. filippo grandi, the united

nations top official leading the response to the refugee crisis is in washington this week for meetings at the white house and pentagon. our william brangham sat down with him earlier this evening. >> brangham: hi, commissioner filippo grandi, welcome. >> thank you. >> brangham: you're here in washington, d.c., to meet with some members of the trump administration. i'm curious, what message are you here to convey to them? >> a message i have already conveyed in previous visits. u.s. leadership in humanitarian matters and specifically in matters concerning responses to refugee cry sis is very important and continues to be very important. and the response i get is quite good. >> brangham: what is that response? what do you hear back from them? >> i think we all watched ambassador haley. >> brangham: nikki haley, yes. >> visit recently a refugee

program in turkey and in georgia, we're talking about syrian refugees, the biggest refugee crisis in the world. and her message was very clear and very strong: united states' generosity and united states support for refugees continues to be strong and constant, and i greatly appreciate this message on her part. >> brangham: i know ambassador haley has said that on several occasions, but we have also seen president trump try to pass through an executive order that in effect says we're not taking any refugees in the u.s., and the president has conflated refugees with the fear of terrorism, saying we can't know who these people are. is this something that you bring up with administration officials? do you talk with them about those concerns that they've shared? >> a great deal. in fact, i don't think there was ever any statement saying that no more refugees should come to

the united states. there were decisions to increase the vetting of those selected to come here and to limit certain nationalities. all this, as you know, is now being discussed in the judicial sphere. so we have to wait for that discussion, which is an american, a u.s. discussion to finish. our message is resettlement programs, this is what we're talking about, are a very important tool to protect the most vulnerable refugees, and vetting is already quite strong for those refugees that enter that program. of course, this is a sovereign decision of the united states, but i think and i hope that after all this is done, after conclusions are made, that program will be preserved. i think it may be reduced to previous higher levels, but i hope that with the passage of time and once this is controlled, i want the administration confident that the controls are there, will we

continue to see robust resettlement to the united states. >> brangham: the reason i ask about this, this is not just a cncern expressed by president trump, but even chancellor angela merkel in germany has seen a good deal of resistance to her very open embrace of refugees. there still is a very strong fear, refugees and terrorism. what do you say to world leaders when they express this, that we don't have the political appetite to take refugees on to our shores? >> the fear of insecurity is a very understandable one, especially in a world in which terrorism has created so much damage and killed so many people. and we are of course with states in saying control checks, vetting, have to be carried out in the most... in the strongest possible way. this is absolutely true. but i also passed on another

message. in fact, it's very rare if ever that refugees coming from situations of war, of violence, of violations of human rights perpetrate crimes of terrorism. it is not they who do that. it is other people. in fact, those people do not bring terror. refugees flee from terror. i think it's very important not to conflate refugees and terrorists in this sense. very important to control, very important to check, but it's also very important to make that distinction, and never forget where these people come from. >> brangham: lastly, a quick question on funding. i know this is obviously an enormous challenge for the u.n. do you have enough money to do the work you need to do? >> certainly not. our budget last year was calculated at $7 billion. we got u.s. $4 billion, so about

55% of our needs were covered. this means we do a lot of prioritization. and we prioritize. with so many refugee crises, with 65 million refugees and displaced people around the world, we have to prioritize lifesaving activities. what suffers? what suffers what is not immediately vital and necessary but which is equally important, like education, livelihood. that's why we're looking at other ways to meet those needs with other sources of funding, because they're equally important in the long run to sustain assistance to millions of refugees. >> woodruff:>> brangham: filipp, thank you very much for being here. >> thank you. >> woodruff: stay with us, coming up on the newshour: new developments in the russia file-- vladimir putin says some patriotic russians might have tried to influence the u.s. election. from russia to climate change--

the politics that still divide the nation. and a brief but spectacular take from two people living with alzheimer's. but first, the double-edged sword of urban revival. even as some cities are becoming ever more popular and desirable, they're also becoming places where the middle-class and lower income residents are getting priced out of the market. economics correspondent paul solman has the story, part of his weekly series, "making sense." >> reporter: looking down on manhattan's old meatpacking district, the high line, a mecca for more than seven million eager tourists a year, astride a once-derelict spur of the new york central. >> this was an old, broken down, abandoned rail line, elevated rail line. >> reporter: a rail line shrouding the buildings beneath. as a result, rents were cheap and the cutting-edge marginalized moved in. >> much of this area of chelsea was historically a gay neighborhood and they were gay

men and wanted to do something which celebrated the history of the old gay neighborhood. >> reporter: noted urbanologist richard florida. >> there's one of the old buildings, still with the rainbow flag. >> reporter: a remnant of a past that proved a harbinger of gentrification to come. >> once they built the park it became a draw, not of people but of real estate developers and they never anticipated that. no one anticipated the highline would be a place that luxury towers would grow up around. >> reporter: but have they ever! for nearly a mile and a half, the elevated walkway now winds through towers-full of luxury condos, over-the-top testimony to the urban revitalization that florida famously championed in his 2002 book, ¡the creative class.' >> we're going through i think one of the greatest economic transformations in history, from an old industrially corporate based vertical economy to a new knowledge economy. but the twist i try to add is it's also urban. it's city-based; it's clustered in cities. >> reporter: florida's twist

became gospel. attract members of the creative class, and they, in turn, will create jobs, which will in turn renew and rebuild. and it happened. just look at the highline. but what florida now sees is the double edge of the advice he gave, and that so many followed. >> a bigger, denser city, in general increases the rate of innovation, increases the rate of startup, increases the rate of productivity. at the same time, the bigger, the denser, the more knowledge intensive increases the rate of inequality, increases the rate of economic segregation, makes housing less affordable. so it's a two-sided monster. >> reporter: those unintended consequences of urban revival are the real-world twist florida wrestles with in his latest book, "the new urban crisis." >> people want to park money in real estate, artists, the best art galleries in the world, commercial companies, real estate development firms, financial headquarters, tech companies, start-ups and companies like google. so the second dimension is, i kind of call it a crisis of success.

these places now become terribly unaffordable for anyone who's not either a knowledge worker or a techie or a member of the super-rich. >> reporter: as a result, pressure on most of the city's residents, now facing apartment rents and prices soaring as high as the buildings that house them, many actually unoccupied, because they're assets for foreigners; "parking their money", as florida puts it, in real estate. >> you used to have stocks, you used to have bonds. now, owning real estate in a superstar city becomes another class of asset. >> reporter: rents in this building? roughly $3,500 a month for a one-room studio apartment; $4700 for a one-bedroom; $7,000 for two bedrooms. >> i could not live in a decent manhattan apartment by myself. i might be able to live in queens or outskirts of brooklyn these days, because it's gotten very expensive there, too. >> reporter: sara hochrad, a 31- year-old speech therapist who works nearby, lives across town with roommates, was hoping to

move somewhere close with her boyfriend. how much would you have to earn as a couple to afford a $4700 a month apartment? just a guess. >> 150, 170 maybe. and that's to really cut down into the bare bones of what, how you live. >> reporter: $150,000 a year. it was testimony like this that triggered florida's "ah-ha" moment: the gradual displacement of all but the most successful types he'd long urged cities to attract. >> we did an analysis which looked at the amount of money in these three groups: the knowledge creative class, the working blue collar class and the service workers had left over after paying for housing. the creatives had like 80 or 90 grand left over. the blue collars had 30 and the service workers had like 15. i realized that this urbanism, winner take all urbanism, it was benefiting one group much more disproportionately than the other two. >> reporter: and, with ballooning rents, low-income workers are being squeezed out

entirely, banished to the once- desirable suburbs. >> it's a crisis that's metastasizing of poverty, concentrated poverty, economic distress in our suburbs. >> reporter: it's been happening for decades, of course: the inexorable pinching of the middle, the move towards what's been called an "hourglass" economy with the prosperous in the top half, the less well-off in the bottom, and fewer and fewer americans in between. >> if the old urban crisis was about the middle class flight from the city to the suburbs, then the new urban crisis is about really the disappearance of middle class neighborhoods from our society. what's tragic about that is the middle class neighborhoods were really our launch pads for upward mobility and the american dream. >> reporter: thus florida's first epiphany: the growing divide within cities between the rich and rest, who are being forced out of town. though he also had a second insight: the divide between cities." winner take all urbanism"-- the winners, san francisco, new york.

the losers, cities like detroit, milwaukee, memphis. and even in the stressed citie"" creative class' clustering is beginning to segregate the rich from the rest. but wait a second. the winning cities simply followed florida's own advice, suggesting a pointed question about what he calls the new urban crisis, did he help cause it? >> i really wanted to help cities understand that urban revival, but the urban revival, according to the data we now have, it's 2000 to now where that urban revival goes into full bore and i think i was not only surprised, shocked by the speed of it, and shocked by the way it put pressure on cities. >> reporter: but then, what, if anything, can be done to close the gap? >> this is the last stop on this train. everyone please leave the train. thank you for riding with m.t.a. new york city transit. >> reporter: well, one answer: building public transit to connect the lagging outskirts to

jobs in the booming urban core. and hey, the 34th and hudson yards subway station just opened in 2015. >> it's spectacular, but if you look at most of the subway stops and transit hubs, penn station, they're falling apart. >> reporter: penn station, new york's key commuter hub, is ever more haunted by delays and cancellations, the result of aging infrastructure. but if you really modernize a city's transit system, you run back into the double-edged sword of florida's advice: the better the transit, the denser and more productive the city, the less its lower-end workers will be able to able to afford to live in it, the more of a rich enclave it becomes. well yes, maybe, florida acknowledges, and so, he says that today's cities have to start insisting... >> if you want to build a tower like that, if you want to get the rights to create height and density, we're going to make a trade. and the trade we're going to

make in order for you to go up like that, you're going to make affordable housing. >> reporter: affordable housing: the only real way to try to close the gap, says florida. so why not muscle developers to offer workers in their projects cheap rents, good wages? >> why not have your tenants be the ones who are creating better, higher paying service jobs that are creating a family- supporting job so we can have an inclusionary prosperity and cities can say: we'll trade density for good things that developers will do? in order to get the height they want and the density they want, they've got to build affordable housing and they've got to build a more inclusive community. >> reporter: but if they don't, we're left with the two faces of florida's prescient advice: >> that's the great contradiction of today's urbanized capitalism. you know, if we want to have a productive city, an innovative city, a country that innovates and creates good jobs, we need them, but at the same time, the very thing that is driving our economy forward is creating these divides. >> reporter: for the pbs newshour, this is economics

correspondent paul solman, reporting from, and below, the high line in new york city. >> woodruff: as we reported earlier, russian president vladimir putin seemed to hint today at russian involvement in hacking during last years' presidential campaign, not by government agents, but by "patriotically-minded" individuals. meantime, the fallout from the trump campaign's alleged contacts with russia, and the ongoing tensions between washington and moscow, continue on several fronts. john yang has more. >> yang: late last year, in response to the russian campaign meddling, the obama administration expelled 35 suspected russian intelligence operatives from the united states, and seized two long- held, russian diplomatic compounds-- one on the eastern shore of maryland; the other, on the north shore of long island.

the "washington post" reports that the trump white house is now considering returning those properties, widely considered intelligence gathering hubs. what's more, politico reports that alleged russian spies have been turning up in odd places around the united states, often near parts of the nation's critical telecommunications networks. it's one part of what u.s. intelligence officials see as intensifying russian espionage, and counter-espionage, measures, both here and in russia. with me now for more on these stories are: karen deyoung of the "washington post" and ali watkins, of politico. thank you both. these two stories are different enough, i want to handle them one at a time. so i want the turn first to karen deyoung. karen, walk us through how this is coming about. the obama administration took away these compounds to punish the russians, and now the trump white house is talking about giving them back? >> well, although the russians

charged that they were expropriated, they're still the property of the russian government. what the americans did in the obama administration was to ban the russians from having access to them. they told them they all had the leave in 24 hours and they couldn't come back, and then the f.b.i. and others went in and proved to their own satisfaction that what they thought was happening was actually happening. the trump administration in a meeting between secretary tillerson, secretary of state tillerson and the russian foreign minister sergei lavrov last month said that they would drop what had been a linkage between the two, what the trump administration had said was linkage between letting the russians go back into the buildings and have access to them again and the russians giving up a situation that had been going on for several years in st. petersburg where in response the previous u.s.

sanctions against russia over ukraine, the russians had refused to allow the americans to build a new consulate in st. petersburg. and so the administration had said, well, you give us our consulate, and we'll give you back your building, the russians said, no, you're in the wrong and we're not. this was an illegal exappropriation, and a couple days later when prime minister sergei lavrov was here, the americans said, we won't them anymore, and since then the americans have been working on specific proposals to give the russians about the conditions under which to give them back. the russians said today when moscow said tillerson told them they would said them specific proposals that they haven't gotten anything yet that they're still confident they're going to get their compounds back. >> yang: ali, talking about russian activity, let's turn to

you. your reporting found that u.s. intelligence officials were finding russian diplomats turning up in odd places around the country, right? >> this has been kind of a growing concern of what my understanding is, the f.b.i. over the last year and a half. russian diplomats within the u.s. who were supposed to follow pretty stringent tribal rules. they're supposed to notify the state department when they travel anywhere outside of their posting. the russian diplomats effectively disregarding their travel rules and turning up in places that they shouldn't have been or that they never told the state department they were going. >> yang: what did they think they were up to. >> u.s. intelligence officials were looking at where these guys were turning up. they would turn up where fiber-optics ran underground. it was strange locations when taken as a whole they were on some kind of mission to map the infrastructure, the intel par was the infrastructure mapping of some of the telecommunications networks in

the country. >> yang: was this a change from previous behavior? does it seem like the russians are emboldened somehow? >> you know, there is an element of this that's par for the course. there is natural intelligence gathering, the whole part of espionage is trying to do things that a host country doesn't want you to do, but what's different about this is they've been kind of a burgeoning debate, particularly over the last year where this election operation, of the u.s., particularly under the obama administration, being unwilling to fight back on this, and not cracking down as much as they could when they know that these russian diplomats were presumed intelligence operatives are doing these things, brazenly disregarding these rules that they're supposed to follow. >> yang: ali and karen, let me ask you both, an i'll start with you, ali, earlier today vladimir putin again denied that the russian state was involved in the meddling with the election but suggested it could be patriots in russia.

what do you make of that statement, ali? >> there are a lot of kind of word play going on there. putin is not stupid. he knows what he's saying in that russian intelligence is fundamentally different from u.s. intelligence in that there are a lot more gray zones in the world of russia, and when putin says this could have been private sector patriotic players, but we didn't know anything about it on a state level. from a u.s. perspective, that might make sense. an american intelligence operation isn't necessarily set up to use private sector hackers, but putin is exploiting that gray zone and that disconnect. so it's not surprising that he'd say something like, that but it no doubt comes with a wink-wink. >> yang: karen, what do you think of it? you've been watching the russians for a long time. what do you make of that? >> well, i think that the allegation has always been that the russians work through individuals, non-governmental individuals, in order to do this hacking and that they were

guided by internal information over to russian intelligence. so i think what putin is doing is basically acknowledgeing that they did it in an indirect way, and he's kind of thumbing his nose at the americans and saying, you know, you can't pin this on us, even though i think that he's not really fooling anybody. >> yang: very good. karen deyoung, ali watkins, thanks for being with us. >> you're welcome. >> woodruff: we turn our focus to politics now: from tensions inside the white house to pulling out of the paris accord and break it all down with: matt schlapp, chair of the american conservative union and karine jean-pierre, a senior advisor to moveon.org.

welcome back to both of you. so let's be crassly political here. we talked earlier, matt, in the program about the substance of the president's decision. >> right. >> woodruff: and the pushback on it. what was the political calculus behind it, do you think in. >> you look at all these polls. most polls will tell you that americans support the idea of fighting climate change, but that's not the question. it's digging down deeper. the real question about climate change is: are they willing to pay more to fill their tank with gas? are they willing to pay more for their utility bills? are they willing to take some of this american energy, we're now the world's leading supplier of energy, and take it off line, which has a big impact on u.s. jobs? that's the real question. by the way, it cuts across party lines. most americans think that what they're asking them to pay for for this crusade on climate is simply not worth losing jobs or paying more for energy. >> woodruff: it makes it sound like a winning decision today, karine. >> i think this was a political play.

it wasn't about the economy. it wasn't about the environment. it wasn't about businesses. it was purely about that small shrinking base that he has that he needs to placate with when it comes to every tweet, every action, every message that he puts out. it's all about them. he continues to give them the red meat that he feels that they need, and that's what we saw. and if anything we really saw steve bannon winning the day with that speech, as well. >> woodruff: is there any risk, political risk in what the president did, matt? >> sure. sure. i think if it is about politics, people will see through that. i think it's actually something deeper. it's a campaign promise he made to the working men and women across this country who have not seen their economic prospects improve. you see that in poll after poll. i think it's the number-one reason donald trump is president, and his number-one gauge of his success is if the economy can get chugging and we can make these folks feel and actually know that their economic prospects are improving. if he can't do that, i think he's going to have political

trouble. >> can i just add, judy, there is a poll that shows 70% of americans actually agreed with the paris accord. 55% were republicans. so there were americans -- >> if you dig deeper, the real political question is: are you willing to pay the higher taxes, the credits and all the things that you have to do to make carbon more expensive to take it off the grid, and that's where it gets dicey for your side. >> i think the bigger question our planet and what are we going to leave our children with? you have five kids. i have a kid. and our grandchildren with. if we don't take responsibility for what our country is doing to the climate. >> woodruff: let's talk about what is happening inside the white house. a lot of suspense built up today over what the president would this at a time when there's been a lot of reporting about unsettled... the unsettled nature of how things are going with the staff. >> i haven't read any of that. >> woodruff: well, it's been in a couple of news organizations. let me put it that way.

you talk to people in the white house. is that overblown? >> no. >> woodruff: are people feeling... okay. >> it's not overblown. my belief is that the president is impatient over the fact that there's been some bungling on some of these rollouts and some of these decisions. there's been way too much leaking. there is always leaking in white houses, but this is a journalist's dream come true, because you have 18, 20, 22 people talking for stories. it's out of control. and i think he knows it needs to tighten up. my belief is he's communicated internally he expects it to tighten up. if it doesn't get better, and he has to up his game, too. and if it doesn't get better, i think he's going to make a lot more changes. >> woodruff: is this just all an upside for democrats, if the president continues to have these kinds of issues, or are democrats basically just watching from the sideline? >> i think we just watch on the sideline. i think he's his own worst enemy. look, when it comes to situations like this, you know, you've worked for a president, i've worked for the president,

this was donald trump's responsibility. there is no one else to blame but himself. he's the one that tweets off message, not his staff. he's the one that says things that doesn't make sense that angers a lot of people, including, you know, people who even voted for him are concerned about what he's doing. we see that in focus groups. >> woodruff: when you say he needs to up his game, what did you mean? >> look, there's an independent counsel. there's an investigation going on. he's got to be careful about how he talks about that. my advice to the white house is simply go along with the investigation. do not comment on the investigation. don't do anything that makes it look like you're putting any pressure on the investigation. i understand the president is frustrated because they don't see any there there. but i think they need to do that. i think as far as the staff is concerned, i think it was absurd the russian delegation was able to go into the oval office with recording devices and cameras. the keystone cops part of this must end. with an outsider president and

an investigation going on, this staff has to be twice as good, and they can't afford to make these kind of mistakes. >> woodruff: and karine, no matter what is going on in the white house, donald trump's base, people who voted for him, if they like the basics of what he's doing, whether it's the climate decision or, i don't know, his attempts to set up a travel ban, even though that hasn't happened yet, does it really matter politically whether the white house is "dysfunctional" or not? >> i think it will at some point. 2018 is right around the corner. that's going to hurt republicans what we see donald trump doing, because it's not just republicans. it's not just the small base that got him to the white house. it was also democrats and independents that got him to the white house. >> that's true. and he has a lot of them on his staff at the white house, too. >> here's the thing, you look at the house in some of these suburbs they have to win, the republicans have to win, you need support outside of your republican base. so it is going to hurt them when it comes to 2018. >> woodruff: i have a feeling this may not be the last time we have chance to talk about this.

>> let's hope not. >> woodruff: karine jean-pierre, matt schlapp, thank you both. >> thanks, judy. >> woodruff: now to another in our brief but spectacular series where we ask people to describe their passions. 5.5 million americans are living with alzheimer's disease and another 15 million serve as their unpaid caregivers. tonight, two individuals diagnosed with alzhiemer's, chris hannafan and pam montana, share their experiences. >> i am 66. i was diagnosed when i was 65. >> i was diagnosed initially in november of 2015 and i think i'm getting the dates right. part of my issue is my dates sometimes mush together. >> i know exactly what we're doing. i know you're steve, i know

you're zack, we're here in pine street, finally. >> on july 20th of last year i received the official diagnosis with 17 research physicians and doctors in the room, myself, my husband and my two children with the diagnosis of early onset, early stage alzheimer's. >> you can take a minute or two. >> every time i say it. >> the way i explain it to people is, i am in a new life. my former life no longer exists and it's up to me to create a new life. >> i knew something was wrong. it's not normal to not be able to calculate a tip anymore. it's not normal to not do math in your head and to be able to subtract or add numbers. it's not normal to not remember conversations or to attend a training class and not remember what was taught. >> more and more words are going

away. and there are a number of words that no matter how i remember them, they are not there. i could say, okay now i've got it, and two minutes later i won't have it. >> with alzheimer's you don't have an option. it's just not there. the information is just gone. >> it seems to be particularly difficult for those of us with alzheimer's early onset to have, um, sorry i got a little bit, okay, where was i? >> it feels frustrating, is the word that comes to mind. i am frustrated with the fact that i don't know what 32 minus 7 is without a pen and paper. it frustrates me that i have no idea what today is but i do know it's friday. >> the first thing i lost was my car, so i was no longer able to use my car for various reasons. i got a bicycle and i've had two crashes with that, and i think

part of that is spatial. >> now i have a new job and that job is to be loud and proud about my disease, to share my symptoms with everyone and anyone who will listen to me. >> i'm able to be useful. i'm able to have, just surround myself with a lot of people which is absolutely the most important thing you can do with alzheimer's. >> everyone always tells me i look good. well what does that have to do with anything? i keep saying to people, i'm going to walk around in a bathrobe with a towel on my head, you know, no makeup, just an old hag and then maybe then they'll think i have alzheimer's. but this is what alzheimer's looks like. it looks like me. >> my name is chris hanafin. >> my name is pam montana and this is my brief but spectacular take... >> ...brief but spectacular take... >> ...on living with alzheimer's.

>> woodruff: thank you, chris and pam, for sharing with all of us what you're going through. and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. join us online and again here tomorrow evening with mark shields and david brooks. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you and see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> 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 tonight with a look at the trump administration's climate policy. we talked to amy davidson of "the new yorker" magazine and amy harder of axios. >> the president himself has not indicated that he cares much about the issue. and a lot of his top advisors don't as well including steve bannon and the white house and also the epa administrator. but the white house and thed entire administration is actually pretty divided on the e who supports staying in. you have ivanka trump and jared kushner who have really been pushing even today, and you have most major u.s. companies and foreign companies that want the u.s. to stay in. >> rose: we conclude this evening with a conversation with al franken. es a democratic senator from minnesota. husband new book is called al franken: giant of the senate. >> she did a one minute ad and in it she