captioning sponsored by wnet >> thompson: on this edition for sunday, february 4: the g.o.p. house intelligence memo is ill the talk ofin waon, d.c., but are there other big stories being overlooked? in our signature segment, inside the nafta provision that has the trump administraties and progressn the same side. and, reconsidering american unhistory through a musicake any other. next on pbs newshour weekend. >> "pbs newshour weekend" is made possible by: bernard and irene schwartz. the cheryl and philip milstein family. sue and edgar wachenheim, iii. dr. p. roy vagos and diana t. vagelos. the j.p.b. foundation. the anderson family fund. rosalind p. walter, in memory

barbara ho zuckerberg. corporate funding is provided aby mutual of amer designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we're your retirement company. >> additional support has been oed by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs statio fthank you.s like you. from the tisch wnet studios at wlincoln center in rk, megan thompson. >> thompson: good evening and thank you for joining us. e house intelligence committee could vote tomorrow on declassifying a democratic mem o thnters the so-called nunes memo alleging f.b.i.of abe urveillance power during the 2016 campaign. last night, president trump continued his attacks on the f.b.i. for the use of opposition research in the fisa application to surveil former trump campaign

the research was partially funded by democrats. he quoted excerpts of a "wall street journal" editorialng sain part, "the f.b.i. failed to inform the fisa court that t clinton campaign had funded the dossier" and "the f.b.i. became a tool of anti- trump political actors." the ranking democrat on the house intelligence comeemi adam schiff said the fisa court was aware that the dossier s funded by a "political actor." he also said that the republicans vhioted dow motion to bring f.b.i. officials before the committee. >> when you do oversight, you haul them in, under oath. you say why was this included, why wasn't that included? the interest wasn't oversight. the interest was a political hit job on the f.b.i. in the service of the predent. >> thompson: a fellow democrat on the committee, representative jim himes, says at the counter memo highlights what is missing from the republican memo. >> what we will learn is that it is not true that this fisa warrant s awarded solely on the basis of the steele dossier. >> thompson: while the release

of the g.o.p. house intelligence committee memo was the focus in washington last week other, significant political and economic issues worth paying attention to.g join from santa barbara, california, to discuss them is newshour weekend special correspondent jeff greenfield. r beingou as always here so you have said that watching this russia story unfold is to you like watching the film groundhog day, where t main character keeps visiting the same day over and over again. why? >> because for nine months there's been one cenral reality, and that is, where's the power? and the four lies with the republican we talked a lot about watergate. well imagine watergate, they ran the investigations. imagine the republican party was united behind president nixon and whoever was accusing him of misconduct in his campaign wasgu ty of treason.

which is a term we've heard and altenatively cable news network was hammering that news home don't believe the news media that was the central message nine months ago, six monthsgo, today. whatever mueller might find oute don't belit. as long as the be reels retain control of the congress, trurchl is i believe -- trump is invulnerable. have mengt tell us about the story we might have missed. >> the treasury department termi wants about $440 billion more in borrowing power to cover next year's deficit which couldt be somewhereeen three quarters of a trillion and a trillion dollars. i'm old enough to remember that deficit spending was a big deal, republicans who warned us

deficit was a big deal. it's almost like emily nutella who has told never mind. >> thompson: you says thea re's blic health story that's not getting enough attention. >> this is one i think should set alarm bells off. centers for disease control has operations in over 35 countries to ward off possible epidemics. they're running out of money. and if they run out of money, they're going to have to l roll back these efforts, be ebola, china where there was a bird flu problem and i'd hate to be down road in a while with people telling us why didn't you tell ws, where why didn't we kno about pandemics breaking out because we didn't have the resources to stop them? it is a focus, i understand the russia sry very important but

there are other stories and we really can't be this the posion of where the media is obsessed with just one. >> thoson: all right, jeff greenfield, great to talk to you. thank you. >> thank you me ann. megan. >> thompson: at least 40 women and girls report that disgraced gymnastics doctor larry nassar abused them after the f.b.i. first began investigating him, in the 14 months between the s me the f.b.i. opened its case and the "indianapoar" report that exposed his abuses. that's according to the "new york times," which also reports some of nassar's youngest victims were abused during this period. the f.b.i. declined to answer detailed questions from the times, but released a brief statement sayin"the safety and well-being of our youth is a top priority for the f.b.i." and pointed out that the nassar allegations "transcended jurisdictions." more than 260 women have stepped forward as nassar's victims with allegations dating back decades.

two people were killed in a morning train crash inouth carolina today, both of whom were amtrak employees. of the 116 others who were taken to the hospital, one is in critical condition, two were in serious condition and the rest suffered minor injuries. the accident caused 5,000 gallons of fuel to leak, along with severe damage to both trains. this is the third fatal amtrak accident secember. italian police say the man accused of shootinand injuring six african immigrants is showing no remorse for his action. they describe luca traini as d,quote "lucid and determi aware of what he had done." the 28-year-old is facing multiple counts of atterempted muith the aggravating circumstance of "racial hatred" for the rampage in the city of macherata. earlier today, authorities confiscad white supremacist materials from traini's home. a decades-old dispute over the

name macedonia is at a itiling point,hundreds of thousands of greeks protesting in the streets of athens today. the protesters argue that the nation of macedonia's name implies a claim over greece's macedonia region and they oppose a greek government plan to resolve the issue. e country of macedonia gined independence from yugoslavia in 1991 and continues to seek membership in nato and the e.u. read more about the protests in greece on our website, pbs.org/newshour. >> thompson: there are less than eight weeks left in the current scheiole of negotiat between the united states, canada, and mexico over nafta, the north american free trade agreement.d esident trump may soon have to decide whether to extend, suspend, or pullut of the talks altogether, and begin the process of withdrawing from the trade agreement. newshour weekend special correspondent patricia sga has our second story on the impact of nafta.

she reports on a littl clause that has the trump administration and progressives on the same page. >> the era of economic surrender is over. from now on, we expect trading b relationships fair and to be reciprocal. >> reporter: on the campaign trail, upon taking office, right up to his recent state of the union speech, president trumpbe ha consistent about what he calls america's "bad trade deals." and that includes the northad american free e agreement, nafta. the 1994 pact allows goods and services to move more freely among and between america, canada and mexico. ntt critics say it also threatens each c's national sovereignty, its ability to govern and enforce its own laws. there's a provision in nafta and thousands of trade agreements called investor state dispute settlement, or i.s.d.s.

it allows foreign investors to sue governments for passing laws or regulations that could harm the value of their invts. geoffrey gertz is an i.s.d.s. scholar with the brookings institution. f says i.s.d.s. was created in the 1960s to proteeign investors from governments taking control of their asts. >> if we can think back to original i.s.d.s., the kinds of disputes they often had was, you know, a nationalist government's coming in and saying, you know, "foreign investors, we are taking over this mine, you know, it is ours. we're kicking you out country. we might be throwing you in jail." >> reporter: today, a growing chorus of criticsay companies are often using i.s.d.s. for a very differe one of them is an oil and gas company called lone pine resources. it had plans to begin fracking in quebec, canada. seven years ago citizens turned out by the thousands in montreal to demand an end to all fracking in quebec for at least legeneration.

lone pine, meanwhad obtained permits to begin drilling beneath the st. lawrenceiv. the protests culminated in montreal following a march n of more t0 miles from small town to small town to garner support. and get the attention of the canadian government. the march was organized by this man: grassroots activi philippe duhamel. >> they had plans to drill 12 thousand wells around this area, the st lawrence valley in quebec. i ut my savings to organize it. because there was this urgency d no time to fundraise. >> reporter: so you spent your own money to organize this citizen's march? >> yeah, yeah and a few other people including my father. when we got to montreal. faces are pure light. pure delight. feel thatgain you ca history's on your side and you're winning. >> reporter: as the protesters nverged on downtown montreal, the activists did win a partial victory.

the quebec government adopted and later passed a bill that temporarily banned fracking beneath the st. lawre river. to the protesters, it may have seemed like their victory was sealed. but it marked the beginning of a much bigger fight. that's because oil and gas firm lone pine resources lost its permits to frack beneath the st lawrence. so it decided to use nafta's investor state dispute settlement provision to fight back. it could do that because though it's based in canada, lone pine is incorporated in delaware which technically makes it a foreign investor and under i.s.d., foreign investors can sue national governments for damages.ne so lone ued canada. lone pine had received no compensation for the money it had spent obtaining its permits, s for the potential prof hoped to reap. so in 2012, the company filed a

evlawsuit claiming the acted its permits was "a clear olation of canada's obligations under nafta." six years on, the case is still pending and the company is seeking roughly $90 million in damages. but these investor state disputes don't play out openly in a domestic court. they're arbitrated behind closed doors by a tribunal of corporate lawyers, and whatever they decide is final. in a statement to newshour ekend, lone pine's legal counsel said, "lone pine's argument is that theian government acted for political expediency rather than environmental protecl on." duha outraged by the suit, which he says impinges on canada's right to protect its environment, by allowing a foreign investor to potentially undermine the government's ability to determinets own laws. >> this investor has rights that are supranational. when did that happen? when did we renege the power,

our sovereignty? we've been robbed of our power to create ou.r own la >> reporter: that concern has landed progressives like duhamel on the same page as the trump administration. u.s. trade reprentative robert lighthizer worries that america's right to determine its own laws could be undermined by similar suits. he voi td his concer congress last year. >> i am troubled by the sovereignty issue. i'm troubled by the fact that anyone, anyone can overrule the united states congress and the united states when it's passed a law. at is troubling me. >> reporter: canada and mexico don't appear to be as concerned rump administration and they reportedly want to keep and update nafta i.s.d.s. provision. so do more than 100 u.s. business and industry associations. they sent this letter to the trump administration claiming that investor state dispute settlement has been ghly beneficial to the united states.

linda dempsey is with e national association of manufacturers. >> what i.s.s. does is ensure that the same basic rules that we have in the united states ar available for our manufacturers. let me give you an examplean we had one mufacturer with a paper mill in canada. the province of newfoundland decided to end its contracts, seize some ofheroperty up there, and leave that manufacturer high and dry. the only recourse that company had after all that investment, investment that supports its u.s. workforce, supports its bringing u.s. product into canada; it was g toilose all that without i.s.d.s. and so that's why we need i.s.d.s., as a backstop. and it has been used, i think, very responsibly. >> reporter: as for cases pursued against the united states, dempssey and support of the clause point out that companies have sued the u.s. under nafta fewer times an they've sued canada and mexico and when america has been sued, it has so far never lost a case.

therefore i.s.d.s. is not a threat to the u.s. >> we can't expect to dodge that bullet forer. >> reporter: ben beachy heads the sierra club's trade program, whh has fought against i.s.d.s. for decades. he says the trade clause threatens democracy by placing tribunals-predominantly made up of corporate lawyers-- above governments. >>t may well be possible to use such protections. >> reporter: beachy argues corporations are using the threat of i.s.d.s. lawsuits to pressure governments not to enact regulations in the firstac he showed us this webpage from a law firm which advises multinational corporations. it describes i.s.d.s. as a tool companies can use to exert influence over the regulatorys. proc he also pointed to this study by researchers at toronto's york university. they conducted 51 anonymous interviews with current and

former officials and insiders in canadian environment and trade e ministries. udy's top finding-- government ministries have changed their decision-making to account for trade concerns including i.s.d.s. >> time and again these government officials said yes, and in fact named nafta cases, i.s.d.s. cases as one of the principal sources of litigation that affected their policy >> are they taking into account trade agreements? sure, because-- and we want them to, because those are the same basic rules our own tution requires, and we want to make sure our investors aren't cheated, aren't trated unfairly, aren't-- harmed by foreign governments. >> reporter: both philippe duhamel and the trump administration will be keeping a close eye on i.s.d.s., as the current nafta negotiations continue. >> thompson: we turn now to th story of an artist who wrote and stars in a show that reconsiders

the history of the united states. and, is probably safe to say that its scope and ambition is like no other musical. newshour weekend's ivette feliciano has this profliile of er prize finalist and macarthur genius gnt winner taylor mac. ♪ ♪ >> reporter: in the fall of 2016, an audience of several hundred people gathered at r a thea brooklyn, new york, for 24 hours straight >> today, tonigd ht, antomorrow, >> repor rr: you heardht-- 24 hours. thecshow, called "a 24-de history of popular music," is written and performed by taylor mac. it's the story of american history, told through the songs

of people on the margins of society. >> what was really fun about learning the history this way is that i could dive into it and i could kind of arch for the queer aspect of the story. >> reporter: for this project, mac aimed to create an expansive, alternative history of the united states. i the resua show that breaks that story down into 24 hour-ng ets that each describe a decade. to attenthe show is to relive history through mac's vision of america, from the unding of the country to gay liberion and beyond. >> so it's 1776. the big question is, how do we build ourselves while at the same time we're being torn apart? >> reporter: mac began the project by workshopping one a decadea time at joe's e b, an intimatncert venue in new york city, in 2011. those were followed by performances in other cities,

including chicago, nashville and ofnneapolis. during the show ann with audience participation, mac re- enacts the stories of everyone from civil rights activists to immigrts to british loyalists during the revolutionary war. sometimes, the show retells events from histy in unexpected ways, like the civil war. >> we're going to have our first battle. i didn't want to bring inam nition into our show with guns and things like t, t. so i thougat is the queer version of ammunition? and i thought, ¡oh, it's probably a ping pong ball.' ♪ ♪ >> reporter: growing up in stockton, california, mac never saw l.g.b.t.q. people represented in the sedry of the untates. what was your understanding of what it meant to be queer? >> when i realized it, ioh thought, ¡i can't tell anyone, for the rest of my life,

i can't tell anyone.' i thought what i was was good, but i knew that other people didn't think that, so i couldn't tell other people that. >> reporter: then, as a young teenager visiting san francisco, mac witnessed a lifeing event. it was 1987, 6 a00 people had gathered for san francisco's first aids walk. >> i had never met an out homosexual before. so the first time i ever saw one it was thous ds of them all at the same time. the reason they were all together was because of the epidemic. so their community was being strengthened because it was being torn apart. i think subconsciously all my theatrical work has been about that. ♪ ♪ >> reporter: performing this show for 24 hours is so rigorous that mac has only done it that ontime in brooklyn. mac trained for that as if it were a marathon, performinge longer and lsets in preparation.

so what did it feel like to perform that last hour when you're alone on stage? >> i felt like, ¡oh, we're going to make it.' there was soabthing peaceful t it. i knew, physically, that i could make the final hour, even ough it was very difficult. i knew i was going to be able to. >> reporter: next month, mac will perform excerpts of the show at the kennedy center in washington, d.c. then, it will be staged at the theatre at ace hotel in los angeles, as a series of four six-hour performances. mac says that with each new audience, the show takes on new meaning. >> the audience for me is almost always the central ccter. by the end of the piece i think people almost click into that, they kind of realize-- it's about all of us in this room and this history that's been on our backs. and what can we do with this history.

>> this is pbs newshour weekend, sunday. >> thompson: a new documentary reom the series "american experience"eres this tuesday on pbs. it explores the tumultuous era that set the stage for modern america. here's an excerpt from "the gilded age." >> the nation's biggest draw was new york. the country's first million-person city. where the population had nearly doubled in a single generation. ♪ ♪ >> the city needed muscle to build new streets. obwers, and water mains. there were running elevated trains, driving omnibuses, raising new wonders like the a brooklyn bridg the statue much liberty. immigrants often worke trades according to their place

of origin. irish as carpenters. italians stone masons, syrians as street merchants. garments, molasses, relying on people willing to work for long hours for minimum wage. employers expected everye to work 12 hours a day, seven days ftweek with few if any breaks. factories weren overheated and lacked ventilation. workers had no escape from harsh chemicals that caused lung fections and respiratory disease. a sense of shared peril bred solidarity.on men formed unis to demand better wages and better working conditions. proudly identified themselves as working class.

♪ ♪ >> thompson: and finally, tonight, the joint north a south korean women's hockey team hit the ice for the first time today losing to sweden, in a joint game. supporters made their voices ard outside the arena. angry that some south korean players lost their places on the team, showing a posters of kim jong-un. th's all for newshour weekend, i'm megan thompson have a good night.

captioning sponsored by wnet captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.or >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: bernard and irene schwartz. the cheryl and philip milstein family. e and edgar wachenheim, iii. dr. p. roy vagelos and diana t. vagelos. the j.p.b. foundation. the anderson family fund. rosalind p. walter, in memory barbara hope zuckerberg. corporate funding is provided by mutual of america-- designing customized individual an.group retirement produc that's why we're your retirement company. additional support has been provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting, and by station from viewers like you. thank you. ed kenney, voice-over: i have always believed

that food and family bring happiness... ha ha ha! ha ha ha! argh! oh! kenney, voice-over: but a trip to hanoproved that these two things we just can't live without. food brings people together and has the power to conjure up cherished memories. jack johnson: ♪ oh, you're such a pretty thing ♪ ♪ i'll e ke you, and i'll maku all mine ♪ kenney: i was born and raised in the hawaiian islands, one of the most diverse communities in the world. johnson: ♪ome will watch you he clouds ♪ ♪ we can't stop it, anyhow ♪ it's not ours kenney: in thi, we'll meet a guest from hawai'i, learn about their favorite dish, trace it back to its origins, and have some fun along the way. johnson: ♪ oh, you're such a pretty thing ♪ ♪l take you, and i'll make you all mine ♪