captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening, i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight, a massive winter storm blasts the east coast with blizzard conditions stretching from virginia to maine. then, i sit down with former vice president joe biden for a wide-ranging conversation on the state of the nation under a trump presidency and if he believes the u.s. is closer to nuclear war than ever before. >> yeah, i do. and that's why i think, what i worry about, and i've worried from the beginning, is about fundamental miscalculations. >> woodruff: and, orchestrating a better business culture-- making sense of what executives can learn about collaboration

from concert musicians. >> you want to find out what are the skills that they use. what can you steal from this orchestra, transplant into your own life, thereby bringing greater success not only to yourself but to all those who work with you. >> woodruff: all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> do you have the papers? >> the white house has been lying about the vietnam war for 30 years! >> what's next? >> you're talking about exposing government secrets. >> is that legal? >> what is it you think we do here for a living, kid? >> if we publish this, we could all go to prison. >> if there's a way to destroy you, nixon will find it! >> i'm asking your advice, not for your permission.

what are you going to do? >> "the post." >> what are you talking about? >> i always wanted to be part of a small rebellion. >> rated pg-13. >> 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: no respite from the deep freeze today. bitter cold, pounding snow and hurricane-force winds powered their way up the eastern seaboard, all part of a huge storm system. the effects were visible everywhere... wind-blown waves crashing over a sea wall in marshfield, massachusetts... ice piling up along the outer banks in north carolina... and cars stopped in their tracks overnight in norfolk, virginia, stuck deep in several inches of snow. >> it's too cold. i go to school up in ithaca and this is cold. >> woodruff: in new york, city officials shuttered schools in the face of bone-chilling cold

and up to eight inches of snowfall. governor andrew cuomo was one of several governors declaring states of emergency. >> this is not our first rodeo. the storms extreme weather is a reality. we're seeing storms of a severity we've never seen before. >> woodruff: forecasters classified it a "bomb cyclone," for its acute drop in atmospheric pressure. the system blew out of the gulf of mexico this week, and blasted the deep south first. flurries landed even on palm trees in florida. >> it's pretty wild. i'd never seen palm trees with snow on it before. >> woodruff: from there, it roared north, hugging the coast, with winds gusting to 70 miles an hour. blizzard warnings were in effect from the mid-atlantic to new england, with parts of massachusetts and most of rhode island bracing for up to 18 inches of snow.

connecticut put nearly 650 plow trucks on the road. >> it is strongly recommended that connecticut motorists stay off the roads unless absolutely necessary, in order to allow the department of transportation crews to clear highways as effectively and safely as possible. >> woodruff: officials warned of power outages that could affect hundreds of thousands of people by the weekend. already, the storm has ruined travel plans for many. more than 3,000 flights have been canceled. and, police report hundreds of wrecks. >> it's just going to get worse as the snow keeps falling. >> woodruff: the snowfall is set to subside in many places tonight, but in its wake, comes numbing cold. temperatures are forecast to be 20 to 40 degrees below normal, possibly bringing the coldest weather yet, in a winter that's just begun. the freeze is taking a toll on people and animals alike. in miami, it dipped below 40

this morning, and cold-blooded iguanas got so numb, they actually fell out of trees. news reports suggest most survive the experience. in the day's other news, wall street blew through another big barrier, driven in part by congress's passage of tax cuts. the dow jones industrial average closed above 25,000 for the first time, after gaining more than 150 points. the nasdaq rose 12 points, and the s&p 500 added nearly 11. two major policy changes from the trump administration today. the interior department announced plans to vastly expand offshore oil and gas drilling, in nearly all u.s. waters. that includes opening federal waters off california to drilling, for the first time since 1984. we'll have an in-depth look at the plan, later in the program. on another front, the justice department rescinded an obama- era policy on marijuana.

now, federal prosecutors will decide how aggressively to enforce federal law that bars all marijuana sales. the old policy generally barred interference with pot sales, in states where it's legal. 27 states and the district of columbia have laws where it's broadly legalized in some form. president trump and top democrats met today to talk about their conditions for an immigration deal. mr. trump has ended the so- called daca program that protects young people brought to the u.s. illegally, and he's given congress until march to find a replacement. toda he met with republican senators at the white house, and laid down his demands. >> any legislation on daca must secure the border with the wall. it must give our immigration officers the resources that they need to stop illegal immigration and also to stop visa overstays and crucially the legislation

must end chain migration. >> woodruff: that "chain migration" reference is what opponents call a program allowing immigrants to sponsor family members. the president said it provides "a gateway for terrorism." democrats in turn said they still oppose a border wall. but senate minority leader chuck schumer left open the door to a deal. >> we have always said that we need strong border and real security. not things that sound good but don't do the job. and we need to help the dreamers. that's what we believe. and we will sit down with our republican colleagues and try to negotiate. >> woodruff: for now, democrats and republicans are at odds over whether there has to be an immigration deal before they can agree on a spending plan to keep the government funded. in iran, fewer reports of protests today, after a week of unrest. instead, state tv again showed thousands marching in pro- government rallies.

and, security forces rolled into towns across central iran. meanwhile, vice president mike pence, writing in "the washington post," charged president obama failed to support iranian protesters in 2009. and, he wrote: "this time, we will not be silent." meanwhile, the u.s. today sanctioned five iranian companies involved in ballistic missile development. the u.s. also formally suspended security aid to pakistan's military, as president trump had threatened. the state department announced the freeze will last until pakistan takes "decisive action" against terrorists. but, it said there maysome exceptions. back in this country, a republican in virginia won a drawing to break a tie in a house of delegates race. that, in turn, let republicans keep their majority, by a razor- thin margin. it all came down to election officials pulling a film

canister out of a bowl, with the name of incumbent david yancey. democrat shelly simonds did not rule out seeking another recount. >> do i think it's fair? you know, it was a long, hard election season and it does seem like a sudden end to a story to have to end on a game of chance. but at the same time i did feel during the election that it was going to be really close. >> woodruff: most states break election ties with a coin toss. some have their state legislatures decide the winner. president trump dissolved his voter fraud commission last night, but he's not letting the issue go. he claimed on twitter today, that mostly democratic states refused to hand over data because "they know that many people are voting illegally. system is rigged."

mr. trump has repeatedly alleged, without evidence, that more than three million people illegally voted in the 2016 election. and, the white house has fired more broadsides at former chief strategist steve bannon. yesterday, president trump said bannon had "lost his mind" after reports that he made scathing allegations in a new book. today, the president's press secretary said the book is full of mistakes and falsehoods. his attorney has sent cease-and- desist letters to bannon and the publisher. still to come on the newshour: i sit down with former vice president joe biden. the trump administration proposes opening large swaths of ocean to offshore drilling. business leaders get a lesson on teamwork through music, and much more.

>> woodruff: former vice president joe biden has written a book about the death of his son beau two and a half years ago from brain cancer. in it, he writes about struggling with his son's illness and loss, about his own work in the obama administration and his decision not to run for president in 2016. i sat down with biden today to talk about the book and the administration that came after his. former vice president joe biden, thank you very much for joining us. the book, "promise me dad: my year of hope, hardship and purpose." it came out a short time ago. it had to be hard to write, opening up about the loss of your son. has it been cathartic? >> it wasn't initially. it was very hard to write. i wrote it for two reasons, selfish reasons. the first one was -- it's going to sound strange -- i wanted my

grandchildren, my great grandchildren, all the progeny to know what an incredible guy and document what an incredible guy bo was. i also selfishly wanted people to know what a remarkable man he was. >> woodruff: you wrote throughout the book about how he bucked you up and kept you strong. >> he did. >> woodruff: has losing him changed you in? >> no, because i have my son hunter, and we were a team, and sounds strange, judy, but i think most people who have known me all these years know my sons helped raise me. they were in an accident and almost lost their mother and sister. they were, you're okay, dad. hunter walks over and gives me a kiss and says, dad, you got enough coffee? bo is the guy who barack, the president said in his eulogy, bo

was 2.0. he had -- whatever few qualities i ehad -- i had, he didn't make them liabilities. bo would always say, look at me, dad. look at me. dad, remember home base. remember what you value. this job ain't worth much. you can say what you think, dad. remember. so he was always in that sense bucking me up as well. >> woodruff: there is so much in this book and i want to come back to it but i want to ask you what the country is going through now because there's a connection. you've opposed a number of republican presidents, richard nixon, ronald reagan, george w. bush. is it the same now with president trump or is it different? >> it's a lot different. david brooks writes about this invisible moral fabric that holds up society and requires decent citizens to make it work and function notwithstanding what the constitution says is

needed for buoyancy. the dysfunction of this government, the crassness, the way in which public discourse takes place, the diminishing and relentless attacks on the only two groups wearing striped shirts, the referees, you the press and the courts, is demoralizing. the best example of that is charlottesville. you know, i was a good boy. i was keeping my -- barack and i were -- like what happened to us, give us a year to get settled and move. but i couldn't remain silent because the idea of a president of the united states equating guys coming out of fields with torches carrying swastikas, using the same anti-semitic bile, the same bile that was used in the streets of nazi

germany and then comparing them, saying they're equal responsibility with those who are protesting, you know, it does more than dumb down the system. it erodes those invisible elements of citizenship that are the buoyancy for what makes this nation so special. so it's really different. it's less his policies than the way he conducts -- how unpresidentle he is. by the way, it's dangerous internationally because it's not being presidential formal, it's being presidential under certain minimal requirements, the rest of the world looks to a consistency. we went from jimmy carter to ronald reagan, ideologically gigantic change, but there was a continuity in the way the rest of the world looked at us.

they are not at all certain of who we are right now. >> woodruff: but i ask because there are sometimes comparisons to richard nixon, the problems his administration had, the investigations. how do you compare this? >> well, i think the only parallel is the secretiveness of the nixon administration and how nixon personalized -- i got here when he was reelected in '72, i was a senator, and in that sense it's the sam-sex marriages but it wasn't d -- in that sense, it's the same. but there was still continuity in terms of american policy. there wasn't this phony populism and this dangers nationalism -- this dangerous nationalism of us against them. there was an intellectual gravamin to what he was doing. some i agreed and disagreed

with, but the personality in terms of constantly being put upon, personalizing things, feeling that he could color outside the lines, that's similar. >> woodruff: you told me -- i interviewed you about a year ago, as you were just about to leave office, and you said and everyone was asking you about one of the president's tweets at that point, and you said he should grow up. it's been a year. is he fit to be president? >> the american people decided he should be president, so, therefore, he's president, but i think he's -- he so undermines the office, the credibility of the office and our place in the world that -- for example, comparing i've got a bigger button than you do, talking to the north korean president, leader, kim? i mean, my god, what a -- you know, the only war that's worse

than one that's intended is one that's unintended. when we were president, when we were in office, we had the dangerous situation, the iranian navy picked up and arrested and took on board american sailors, okay. i was with john kerry. john kerry immediately got on his cell phone and called zarif. four calls later -- >> woodruff: the iranian foreign minister. >> the iranian foreign minister. he had a relationship with him. it was settled diplomatically. imagine this today, if god forbid we're on this program and there's a report iranian ships have taken on board a dozen american hostages, who would call? he's totally discredited the secretary of state, he's totally discredited the people around him, he has given comfort to autocrats. who picks up the phone? or do you pick up the phone?

or does he pick up the phone and say go? i mean, it has profound consequences. >> woodruff: well, there are those ready to take other steps. the billionaire businessman tom steyer is running nonstop television ads, 58 in the house, some democrats, say it's time to start impeachment proceedings. would that be the thing to do now? >> i don't think so. i have great confidence in mueller. he's republican. he's republican in the other administration. let him finish his investigation and determine what he has to present, whether impeachable offenses or not. >> woodruff: democrats criticize this president, say it's a terrible economic policy, but look at the financial markets now, booming, going through the roof, setting records almost every day. you now have c.e.o.s saying

we're going to grow, we're going to raise wages, and they are saying we're so glad not to have new regulations added on the way they were during the obama-biden administration. did your administration go too far? >> no, not at all. we tried to clean the air. we said coal is bad, the sulfur coming out of the smoke stacks ruins people's lungs, we said -- anyway. but here's the deal, it seems to me the same c.e.o.s and the much larger and deeper poll that was done also have grave doubt about his judgment, also have grave doubt about his personal behavior, also have grave doubt about stability. so i'm not even talking about policy. one of the things the democrats have to do more of, in my view -- and i know i have been sort of a lone wolf on this a long time, and i did 83 major campaign events for hillary, we have to start talking to our base again, the middle class,

the working class people. they have reason to be concerned. you know, the world's changing, and, for example, i ran into a guy in delaware, a truck driver, and i said, how you doing? he said i'm not driving any more, joey. he said as a public official, you can keep going but i can stop driving. my son's driving but i'm worried. these guys make between $80,000 and $100,000 a year busting their neck. he says, joey, i don't think he's going to have a job, all these automated trucks, what's going to happen? people are uneasy about their future even if they have a job. we've got to listen to them. we don't listen enough. >> woodruff: let me ask you about that because there is a debate among democrats right now about who they ought to be focusing on. should they go after that traditional base, people of color, women, others? or should they focus on the white working class americans who feel like -- who many are

saying the democrat -- >> you don't have to choose between your heart and your soul. i don't have to choose between my progressive values and work class people. they're not inconsistent. working class people want to hear do we understand what they're going through. we don't have to change our policy on immigration. i have been leading this effort on violence against women. we don't have to talk about -- stop talking about the concerns. we have to talk about, in addition, guess what? i know the job you have, you haven't had a raise in five years. i know the job you have may be obsolete. i know you're really worried about the fact that you, in fact, are not able to pay for your kids' education. i know that. i know that. i'm listening. >> woodruff: you clearly are

somebody who thinks a lot still every day about public service, and there's a lot of speculation about whether you're going to run. you were ready to run in 2015 for the 2016 race. do you have to decide this year whether you're going to make the race in 2020? >> even if pi have to, i can't. look, i've not decided to run or not run. my focus is for real electing a democratic congress. if the lord almighty came down and said, joe, the nomination is yours right now, you've got to accept it right now, i'd say no. but that doesn't mean i won't run. i'm a great respecter of fate. a great respecter of fate. and as my family's being put back together again emotionally, as we are gathering about what we're going to do, i'm running two institutes, i am -- you know, i'm not saying i won't run but i won't have any concrete

plan to run. >> woodruff: is age a factor? sure. >> woodruff: you would be 78 if you ran and won. >> it's a totally legitimate factor. >> woodruff: po howard dean said the old people in the party need to get out of the way. >> tell howard dean i can take him physically. you will be running against a man who's 75 or 76 years old at the time, whatever his age is. i suggest people go see the new churchill movie. you know, look, it would be a totally legitimate thing for people to say let's look at biden, he will be the oldest guy to ever be president, see what kind of shape he's many mentally, physically and the rest, and it may be that i develop some problem and i'm not capable of doing that. but that is not -- i think it's probably the least consequential of any election because of who

you're running against in all probability. >> woodruff: president trump's foreign policy, you've alluded to this during the conversation, the tweets, the rhetoric on north korea. you've said it yesterday and again now, it's dangerous, the former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff mike mullin said over the weekend the united states has never been as close as it is now to nuclear war. do you agree with him? >> yeah. i do. and that's why eng that what i worry about and i've worried from the beginning is about fundamental missicle -- fundamental miscalculations. this is not a business deal or who builds the next skyscraper, there is not about me telling my subs i'm not going to pay them. this is a totally different dynamic. we know that he inherited, as we

did, an incredibly difficult problem in north korea, one of the two things we spent most time briefing the new incoming administration about. there are no easy answers. but we also know that there is no answer in a nuclear exchange which, god forbid, could happen if they attack the united states or allies, but we also know that the answer lies somewhere in cabining the capacity and inclination of the north working with china, russia, south korea and japan. when we engage in activities like let's compare the button, they all, for different reasons and different motivations, lose confidence in us. they wonder do we know what the hell we're doing. i'm worried they then decide

they're going to try separate ways to figure out how to do this. this can't be done in a way that doesn't have all the players in the game on the same page. and i just think that -- and the other thing is, you know, you draw these lines and you don't respond, you diminish your credibility, and it's just dangerous. >> woodruff: speaking from experience. >> yeah. >> woodruff: iran, the president very critical of the regime there saying they're corrupt this week when we're seeing these nationwide demonstrations in iran. the president is saying the money that president obama turned over to the iran government at the time of the nuclear deal, 2015, is money that's gone to terrorism, that terrorist activities on the part of iran, not to the iranian people.

today vice president pence is writing that the obama-biden administration didn't step up and support the protesters during the green revolution. was that a mistake? >> no, we did support the protesters during the green revolution. let's look at this policy. first of all, we have needed a little humility about how this revolution is the same or different than the last one. a lot of rural people involved if this. there seems to be some of it is generated by the fact that rouhani leaked word that a lot of it was going to go to the i.r.g.c., the military arm of the government and not to the needs of the people. there's also some pieces about electoral fraud that are in there, that's part of it, et cetera. but think of it this way -- we know the regime is corrupt, we know the regime is dangerous. imagine what it would be if it had nuclear weapons right now, which it would be able to have by now if there wasn't a deal

cut, and we also know that the people protesting, what did trump do? he put an absolute ban on any of them being able to come to the sthaits. >> woodruff: if president trump abrogates the nuclear deal with iran which there is a lot of speculation he will, what will that mean especially in terms of these current protests? >> i think, number one, the rest of the other four nations aren't going to stop the deal. their part of the deal, the nuclear deal. britain, russia, china said they're not going to walk away, number one. so the substantive relationship as it relates to dollars and trade is not going to change in a substantive way, number one. number two, we're going to become the pariah. we're going to be the nation on the outside while they continue to work with them. number three, it means that depending on what the iranians think is the best path for them,

they will be in a position to move to acquisition of a nuclear weapon very rapidly. >> woodruff: two other areas i want to touch on before we end. one is sexual harassment. we've hatched this incredible #metoo movement. in connection with that, you've said that you owe anita hill an apology about what happened back in 1991, the clarence thomas episode. have you contacted her, number one? and, number two, do you think, this time, it's different? that we are seeing with the #metoo movement something that is truly going to lead to change for women is this. >> look, at its root, this is all about thea buses of power. it's all about the abuse of power, whether it's harvey weinstein, or the plumber who has a secretary he harasses. it's all about the abuse of power, number one. number two, women should be

believed. i believed anita hill. i said i believed anita hill. i evoted against clarence thomas. when she decided she was willing to come forward, what i feel badly about is the inability to be able to silence the republican critics on the committee. what people wanted me to do was to gavel down other senators who were harassing her, who were harassing her. and i wish i had had the power or a way to communicate. but you may remember i got in shouting matches with witnesses who were attacking her. i got criticized at shouting at witnesses who were making these statements. but she deserves credit because it took enormous courage for her to come forward. the good thing about what's happening now and why i'm keeping up this college promise tour i'm doing, i go out and it's on us, i go to campus after

campus, we're changing the culture. we have to get men involved. the biggest thing that will come from this is from men to stop thinking they can engage in loose talk about women and it not be damaging and be willing to step up and step in when they see it happening and not be silent. >> woodruff: have you contacted anita hill? >> no, i have not contacted anita hill. >> woodruff: do you plan to? i hadn't planned on it. i'm always happy to see her. but, you know, i wish i could have protected her from the attacks that came at her, but i didn't know any way to do that. >> woodruff: finally, back to the book, the cancer moon shot, president obama put you in charge of this all-out effort. you ended up raising a couple of billion of dollars over a number of years to find a cure for cancer. it's been a couple of years. has there been progress? >> yeah, there's been real

movement. one of the things that happened was that we realized when we learned from dealing with bo that we were at an i flexionponent where science had begun to catch up with the disease but we were operating the same old way. there was not a means to share data so you didn't have major hospitals or researchers sharing their data but now the culture is beginning to change. we have nine countries now sharing all their data with us that i was able to get signed. would you have much more data available. we have capacity now to -- we now do a million, billion calculations per second. if you were able to aggregate all of the cancer genomes that have been sequenced and put them in one place, you could do more in 10 seconds than 12 nobel laureates could have about cancer. so there are real movements and breakthroughs occurring and reason for hope. >> woodruff: former vice president joe biden, the book "promise me dad."

thank you very much. >> thank you, judy, for having me. appreciate it. >> woodruff: tomorrow, we will have more of my conversation with vice president joe biden where we discuss his views on the democratic party. >> woodruff: the trump administration said today it would allow energy companies to drill for oil in nearly all the waters surrounding the continental united states. as william brangham reports, it's a big shift to roll back even further the obama administration environmental policies and increase energy production. >> brangham: the announcement today made by interior secretary ryan zinke will now open up roughly 100 million acres of offshore waters to oil exploration. these areas had been protected at the very tail end of the obama administration, and they covered regions in the pacific, the atlantic and the gulf of mexico. this move, which was hailed by the energy industry, also comes on the heels of another push to

rollback some of the safety regulations put in place after the deepwater horizon spill seven years ago. amy harder covers energy and the environment for axios. and you're here to help us wade through some of this. so for people who don't follow this that closely, how big of a deal is this? >> well, it's a really beg deal for the amount of offshore waters that they're proposing to possibly allow that oil and gas industry to lease. it's about 90% of the offshore waters the federal government owns and that's more than any administration since ronald reagan. so that's a very big deal. that said, it's also important to remember and to understand the bureaucratic process that goes into something like this. this is what i would call the opening wager of a very long process. >> brangham: meaning rigs won't pop up tomorrow? >> no, talking to the industry about this, it could be at least a decade before drilling is

actually put in place. the process works as a funnel. the first phase is the widest, and then over public comment period, it gets narrower. athletes that's how the law states it. so this is the opening wager. it will take a year or so to go through public comment and i anticipate some of the leases will be taken off the table. >> brangham: we know some states love oil drilling, some states hate oil drilling. does a state have anything to say about what happens in the waters off their particular shores? >> that's what the public comment period is for. states like texas and louisiana are big fans of it. they get a cut of the revenue, which is helpful. but other states such as florida which is run by governor rick scott, a republican who just four days ago dined with the president in florida. he tweeted out that he's opposed to this and wants to talk to the interior secretary. >> brangham: there is bipartisan disagreement on this?

>> right. this is one of the few energy areas that is splitting the republican party which we don't see on most energy issues. you saw senator marco rubio also opposed to drilling off the coast of florida. so i certainly think of the leases that the administration would be open to taking off the table, again, in this funnel-like process, florida is a top candidate. you also have the democratic governors up and down the west coast -- california, oregon, washington -- who are also very opposed to this. so i think it will be very difficult, even if technically and legally the administration can move forward, they still need the buy-in and cooperation of these state governors. >> brangham: this, as we mentioned earlier, is part of a lot of chipping away at different environmental regulations of the obama administration. the deep horizon regulars, they opened up the national wildlife refuge, is this just part of the process the trump administration is going to do? people pointed out the obama administration did a lot of these things in a

non-legislative way and now the trump administration can undo them in the same fashion. >> right. i mean, that's the plus and minus of doing work by executive action. we saw this across the board on the energy and climate change agenda. i spend most of my time talking to agencies and less of my time talking to congress. we saw it also play out in the paris climate deal. obama went around congress because congress wouldn't have approved a global treaty on climate change given the makeup of congress, so he went around and agreed to it by executive action and, so, that opened up the door for trump to reverse course relatively easily. so i think this is the latest one. offshore drilling is a little bit more substantive and, you know, i think people relate to it because it's right in your backyard. it's the classic saying not in my backyard. >> brangham: they love the energy, don't want it done right by them. >> right and you're seeing it in

governor scott and rubio coming out, as the republican who will be leading this charge. >> brangham: amy harder of axios, thank you so much. >> thanks for having me. >> woodruff: stay with us, coming up on the newshour: a tech flaw that leaves almost all computers vulnerable. but first, a most unusual lesson for corporate executives: how a classical music conductor is teaching business leadership. economics correspondent paul solman visits a program where clients learn about the top by visiting the pits-- the orchestra pit, that is. paul has the story as part of our weekly series making sense. ♪ ♪ >> reporter: a couple dozen freelance musicians. many had never worked together before. some had never even met. they gathered, rehearsed about

an hour, and performed haydn's symphony number 44. ♪ ♪ flawlessly. ♪ ♪ but how can a pop-up organization such as this function like a perfectly-tuned machine, when so many organizations, including maybe yours, seem dysfunctional? >> and it makes you wonder. is there any way to use this to bring about collaboration? >> reporter: it made conductor roger nierenberg wonder if there weren't a lot musicians can teach business people. and so for over 20 years, he's run the music paradigm, seating executives in an orchestra. >> step up here onto the podium, and i'll get you a companion. >> reporter: even inviting them to join him on the podium. >> you want to find out what are the skills that they use. what can you steal from this orchestra, transplant into your own life, thereby bringing greater success not only to

yourself but to all those who work with you. >> reporter: at the ritzy mohonk mountain house resort in the catskill mountains, new york presbyterian hospital's superstar chief residents were the target audience. >> these are the most talented young physicians in the country. we've tended to say, "well, they're going to do their own thing and then we'll deal with all the other people in the hospital." it's a big mistake. >> reporter: because, says c.e.o. steve corwin, they're key executives in a $5.2 billion a year business, who may not always appreciate the supporting cast, says chief operating officer laura forese. >> i don't care how good a surgeon. you cannot do it on your own. ♪ ♪ >> reporter: consider surgeon steven lee-kong's wonder, and envy, at the tacit teamwork. >> they sounded like one instrument. if i'm doing an operation and it's a team i've never worked with before, it's invariably chaos. >> so you know what the orchestra did the first thing? they tuned up. if they start playing before they tuned up, they're going to

be unhappy. >> reporter: or as the c.e.o. suggested saying to the surgical team: >> team, this is our first voyage together. >> reporter: yeah. >> let's talk about how we're going to do this operation. let's just go through this for 10 or 15 minutes before we start the operation. right? >> reporter: teamwork. and if not? >> so, i hate to do this to you, but would you mind giving an a which is just about a quarter of a tone low for the horns and the oboes and the bassoon. ♪ but what happens when you have one silo on its own standard and you have another silo on a different standard? so strings, you play on your own pitch the last note, we're playing just one note, and we'll all play together. ♪ do you recognize the sound of a high school orchestra? (laughter) the problem is with the fact that these silos are not communicating across to one

another. >> reporter: elizabeth stephens is chief resident in that loftiest of silos, cardiothoracic surgery. snooty, nose in the air because you're at the top of the, of the pyramid. right? fair? >> i will say that this specialty as a whole has been known for that. >> reporter: a specialty in which lack of teamwork actually kills people. >> i can do a great operation and send the patient to the i.c.u. and if the i.c.u. is not on the same page as me, we can have some very disastrous outcomes. >> reporter: even though both sides, the i.c.u.'s doing a great job. >> right. >> reporter: you did a great job, but... >> but if i don't communicate something that i did differently in the or, such that, you know that certain patient needs to be managed differently, then we can have disastrous outcomes. >> so let's play the last note. make the whole orchestra sound like an organ. one instrument. ♪

>> reporter: but wait a second, objected anesthesiologist leila mei pang. >> yes, yes, please. >> your situation is a little bit different than our situation. >> i'll bet it is. >> you've started with people in your orchestra who are basically at the same level. we have an organization where we have people at multiple levels. how do you get all of these levels to work together? >> i know that there are strong players in the orchestra, i know that there are weak players in the orchestra. so what i try to do is i try to get those people to collaborate. >> reporter: but one of the lessons: how the leader can overdo it. >> they will play it beautifully because i will make them play it beautifully. >> reporter: by micromanaging, for example. ♪ ♪

>> how'd the orchestra sound? >> sorry guys, not very good. a little stale. >> okay, what was wrong? i heard, i heard all the right notes. >> well, i hate to put the blame on you. but i think, i think maybe you were really paying attention to detail but not communicating anything helpful to us. >> reporter: or just not paying attention to those under you. ♪ ♪ >> your eyes were kind of just roving around and your conducting just seemed a little bit disconnected from anything we were doing musically. >> and i actually saw over here some people looking really nervous and some jittery legs. >> reporter: but one leadership mistake in particular really got to the docs. >> if i said, "now make it really beautiful." they have no idea what i'm asking for. a lot of times, we leaders are sloppy about that. >> reporter: or vague, dr. julia iyasere admitted, when she instructs her hospital staff on patient care. >> take care of the patient well

or do a good job. >> reporter: play beautifully. >> play beautifully. instead of saying "do you understand how we're going to treat this person's x? do you understand the diagnosis?" >> reporter: how many of you think after this that you have fallen short in communicating with people who are on your teams, how many? literally everybody? even though they do have techniques in place, says ophthalmology director royce chen. >> we're always talking about huddles and things like that. i think i tend to resist huddles because sometimes they're just another thing you have to do. >> reporter: what are you going to do, or might you do differently in the huddle now? >> so first i would say that i will commit to having a huddle, which is i think the first step. okay? >> reporter: that's a big concession? >> that is a big concession because i think, often time we just think it's an extra thing to do on the list of a thousand things to do.

>> we tend to manage top down. >> reporter: again, the chief executives. >> so the residents get the messages, hospital says you got to do the huddles. oh god! what is this about? what do they know? >> so when one of our doctors today said, "i'm going to do that huddle," because that huddle now is going to include everyone in that clinic. that was gold. >> reporter: and gold for roger nierenberg. that's because, it turns out, his original business motivation was to help save the dying industry to which he's devoted his life. >> i saw that the big problem for classical music in america is that we don't have enough audience. i have found a way to enroll people, to get people to feel classical music, in a powerful way, in an artistic way. what really matters to me is the extent to which the music has gotten through to them. >> reporter: and sticks.

sticks as well as the hospital hopes his business lessons will. for the pbs newshour, this is economics correspondent, reporting from mohonk mountain, new york. >> woodruff: now, the discovery of a cybersecurity risk that could potentially cripple computers, smartphones and the cloud system that people rely on. fixes are on the way, but they present their own problems. hari sreenivasan gets the latest on what's prompting these worries and what technology companies are doing to stop potential hacks. >> sreenivasan: the risks, as it turns out, have been there for some time, but were first discovered last year, then published earlier this week on the web. it involves design flaws in

computer processors, including those made by intel, that could allow hackers to potentially access servers and crack secret passwords. all kind of computers could be at risk, including companies like amazon who use cloud computing for customer services. there are fixes in some cases, better known as patches, but they may slow the systems down. with us to explain all this is dmitri alperovitch. he is the founder of the cyber security firm crowdstrike. dmitri, help us understand the flaws. there's more than just one. >> there were three discovered by google last year and are insidious. they're design flaws in the processors that take advantage of the optimizations that the processors rolled out 20 years ago to help run your code faster on these computers and, of course, the processors are the brains of these computing devices, responsible for the computations that take place, inside your phone, laptops and

servers. what the researchers found out is you can take advantage of the operations of the processors to get access to the data you're not supposed to have when you're running your code. so it mostly impacts computers where you have shared users. >> sreenivasan: you're in the risk assessment business. what's our exposure as average customers or businesses? >> the important thing to understand is this could have been much worse. google first discovered this and started notifying vendors that have been working on the patches over six months ago. if this had been released and made public six months ago we would have had a massive problem because all the cloud services whether cooing goole, amazon would have been more vulnerable because of the data we store on that. the apple phones store data, android stores data on the "cloud" and owlle that data would have been vulnerable. in the last six months, quietly, vendors work together to

mitigate the problem. even though the patch got released a little early, the coordination erelease was supposed to happen january 9, had to be accelerated. most vendors were prepared and over the last 24 hours were patching their system so by now most of the "cloud" providers are already safe. >> sreenivasan: this seems like a large ecosystem to coordinate. you have people that sell you phones and computers, people that sell you software, people that sell you "cloud" services. all have to be on the same page and protect themselves at the same time. >> this particularly set of vulnerabilities is the nightmare scenario. it also impacts vendors like microsoft, apple, lennox. it impacts the browsers. it impacts virtualization providers. the very complex ecosystem had to work together in the six months to release a patch and do so quietly because no one wanted the criminals to get ahold of this before the patches are ready. >> sreenivasan: you're saying

it might not affect end consumers on your laptops so much but are describing a nightmare scenario for "cloud" service providers. how should we parse in? >> you should ask whoever stores your data whether they're fully patched for vulnerability because if they're not the data is at extreme risk for somebody to steal it. >> sreenivasan: how long will the patches take? you're talking about physical hardware sitting inside millions of devices. >> to actually fix this vulnerability you need to replace the hardware. those processors will probably take years to deliver to consumers. but the patches are available, are essentially mitigating the impact of this vulnerability. unfortunately, some of them are actually disabling the performance optimizations released by the processors over 20 years ago and there is some performance companies and individuals will see as a result

of applying this patch. in most cases, for the modern systems that were bought in the last five years, the impact should not be more than 5% degradation. but if you have older hardware, you may see a much more drastic impact. >> sreenivasan: dmitri alperovitch of crowdstrike, thank you so much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: readers from across the country are joining "now read this," the brand new book club from pbs newshour and the "new york times." this month's book is "sing, unburied, sing" by jesmyn ward. be part of the conversation by visiting pbs.org/newshour or joining "the now read" this book club on facebook. 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: >> funding provided in part by 20th century fox. "the post," in theaters everywhere january 12. >> babbel. 6a language app that teaches real-life conversations in a new language. >> 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

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elyse: we're the history detectives, and we're going to investigate some untold stories from america's past. wes: this week, could this drawing have once been part of america's super secret plans to fuel the atomic bomb? elyse: did a piece of spanish galleon treasure wash up on an oregon beach in the form of beeswax? ciety in antebellum new orleans? this was considered to be the sort of document that could lead to slave revolts.