captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening, i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight, president trump unveils his latest vision for spen that discards balancing the budget, adding new plans to fix roads, bridges and airports. then, opposing putin: we talk with a candidate running against russia's psident in next month's election. plus, dispatches from the border. a former patrol agent grapples with the complthity of life on line between the u.s. and mexico. >> at the end of the dm putting you in a cell and i'm sending you back to this place thatou quite literally are risking your life to flee. >> woodruff: all that and more on tonight's p newshour.

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>>uff: president trump has rolled out his $4 trillion budget proposal, with a big boost for systems that serve planes, trains and automobiles. it's for the fiscal year that begins in october. the president met today with state and local officials to discuss his ideas on aging roads and bridges and transit systems. >> we're going to make our infrastructure modernized, and we're really way behind schedule. we're way behind other countries. we always led the way for many, many years. then a number of decades ago it laslowed down, and over th eight years, and 15 years, to be hone, it's come to a halt. >> woodruff: the plan spending cuts are mtly negated by last week's deal that includes huge spending hikes f this year and next. but democrats, including senate miority leader chuck schumer, took aim at the riesident's pres, and the projected

deficit of roughly $1 trillion. >> just six weeks after slashing taxes on the wgglthiest and t corporations, after creating a massive deficit, who does the president ask to pay for this? middle class anr americans. he slashes education, environmental protection, and medicare and medicaid. >> woodruff: we'll take a closer look at the president's ideas on infrastructure, right after the news summary. in the day's other news, wall street followed up friday's rally and regained more of last week's losses. the dow jones industrial average was up 410 points to close at 24,601. the nasdaq rose 107 points, and the 0 added 36. all three indexes are still dowh roughly 7% frohighs they reached just last month. the u.s. senatis beginning a rare, open-ended debate on

immigration this eveni president trump's plan includes a thway to citizenship for those brought to the u.s. illegally as children. it would also restrict legal immigration and fund a border wall. democrats say the plan is a non- starter. in russia, investhgators combed ugh wreckage for clues today, after sunday's plane crash near moscow. all 71 people on board were killed. the russian jetliner went down in a field shortly after taking off. officials say they've red two black boxes that could shed light on what happened. >> ( translated ): both flight data recorders were o und and sentbe decoded by the interstate aviation committee.th committee will publish the decoded transcript on its official website later on. we have already found over 700 fragments, you have seen that we have already sent away a plane carrying the first load of 453 fragments of the victims.

>> woodruff: investigators say they don't yet know the cause, but they have ruled out a terror attack. there's word that south africa's ling party is demanding president jacob zuma resign within 48 hour that's according to the state- run south african broadcasting corporatio zuma faces a bevy corruption allegations, but he's deni. all wrongdoi an executive committee of the ruling african national congress met today to decide zuma's fate. power has been restored to parto of puerto rihat lost it sunday night. an explosion and fire at an electric substation caused the outage. officials said the northern part of the island was affected, and crews worked through the night.. th territory is still struggling to restore power everywhere, five monthafter hurricne "maria." the national portrait gallery unveiled two new works today: formal images of forme president barack obama and first lady michelle obama.

the obamas were there for the ceremony in washington, alongside their painters, kehinde wiley and amy sherald. mrs. obama said she hopes the portraits will speakfuture generations. >> i'm also thinking oall the young people, particularly girls and girls of color, who in yrs ead will come to this place and they will look up and they will see an image of someone who looks like them. t i kn kind of impact that will have on their lives, because i was one of those girls. ra>> woodruff: wiley and s are the first black artists to receive a presidential portrait commission from the national gallery. and, finally, highlights from day three at the winter olympics in south korea. more gold on slopes an, and a bit of history. mirai nagasu became e first american woman to land a triple axel in olympic figure skating.a the ans took the gold in

the team figure skating event, while the u.s. won bronze. and american jamch anderson cl gold in slope-style snowboarding. te also won at sochi in 2014. still to come onhe newshour: what it will take to fix the nation's infrastructure. the russian tv personality challenging vladimir putin for president, and much more. >> woodruff: as we reported earlier, president trump today unveiled hisong-awaited infrastructure plan and spending priorities. both were overshadowed by internal struggles at the white house, and questions of how top staff handled domestic violence allegations against two aides. it was a major focus of today's white house briefing with press secretary sarah sanders.si

>> the pnt and the entire administration take domestic violence very seriously andal believallegations need to be investigated thoroughly. above all, the presidentms supports vicf domestic violence and believes everyone should be treated fairly and with due process. >> why haven't we heard the president say exactly what you just said right there, that he takes domestic voulence very sey? >> i spoke with the president, and those are actually directly his words that he gave me earlier today. hy hasn't he said that? he had the opportunity. he's been active on twitter. >> it's my job to speak on behalf of thokpresident. i to him, and he relayed that message directly to me, and i'm relaying it direly to you. >> woodruff: our yamiche alcindor joins me now for more. yamiche, what the white house wanted to talk about today was the budget and something else and we'll get to that in manet, but this lingering story is hanging out there, reporters asking how did the president, how did the white house handle this and why is this still going on? >> this is supposed to be infrastructure week. this is the white house's second try ate infrastructek and

each time it's been overshadowec by thindal. we're talking about it largely because trump tweeted about it over the weekend. he didn't name rob porter, the other aide who resigned because of domestic violencega alons, but said people's lives were being destroyed and they needed due process. because nobody knew who, what is hase white house, th been an issue the white house il continuing to ith. john kelly said as soon as he heard about the allegations, 40 minutes later rob porter was out of the job. sarah sanders said it was actually 24 hours later rob porter resigned or wasrm ated and even that detail is murky. so there is the idea th president trump likely comes to the defense of men who are allegedly domestically violating people. you have the idea sarah sanders said the president dictated a statement to her in support of

domestic violence vic but the president who has no qualms using his twitter account to say what's on his mind hasu not spoken pblicly in support of the women here. >> woodruff: and people were pointing to a series of statements over the last several years where he's spoken out in more sympathy for the people accused of abuse. thyamiche, let's talk abou other things going on at the white house today. the pr sident did rollout they are budget for the coming fiscal year. just give us the highlights. >> some of the h hlights is th a budget that's $4.4 trillion, 10% more thn republicans wanted to spend in 2017. the other thing that's hani here is they're asking for $23 billion in border security m that includney for the wall. of course, that's the wall on the bored of mexico. 28 billion, sorry. then 13 billion for opioid treatment services, a critical ep since president trump declared a public health crisis

on this isue in october. and $200 billion for infrastructure structurein 10 years. $716 billion for military spending. the other thi that's happening here is it eliminates 62 agencies including the corporation for public broadcasting. it eliminates a lot of entitlement programs which is something that republicans wanted to get rid of. they said 64 agncies. sorry about that. then they have $554 billion cut from medicaid. $215 billion cut from medicaid. $214 billion c from the snap program which used to be known as the food stamp program. the other thing tht's being cu is the e.p.a. it's gng to be losing $2.8 billion. that's a lot of money. most of those programs are to eliminate change programs. that's a big deal because a lot of people are saying this is an administration hostile to climate change issues. it adds $984 billion to the

deficit in 2018 -- in 2019, which is a huge, huge change for republicans who have really been wanting to balance the budget. >> woodruff: it's been noted they don't even make a pretense of getting to balan of worrying about deficits. so the last thing, quickly, of course, is infrastructure. this has been long awaited and the white house did nally purr h out their plan.ou >> the white pushed out their plan today and it's an t sue that the white house should be able to me bipartisan support on. the president, when he talked about infrastructure, it s a very popular thing. bernie sanders, when i was on the campaign trail with him, also talked about infrase ucture. but y president trump is talking about the infrastructure plan is essentiallyaying states and local governments are going to be the ones bearing the brunt and paying for the most of it. the federal government would spend something li $200 billion, but that's a small fraction of what they want to spend. today senator chuck schumer came out toey and said there

going to be trump tolls all across the country saying for president trump to get this plan pass it's going to have to turn into tolls and all sorts of fees being passed on to different americans. republicans, on the othehand, some have been saying they praised this program and some of em, of course, have been saying they want more explanation because they're very wary about the fact they're adding to the deficit. woodruff: a lot o discussion still about how this is paid for in very early stages. goinghe alcindor, so much on. thank you. >> thank you. >> woodruff: as yamiche said, the president's broad infrastructure blueprint relies states and local governments to find much of the money that would be needed for a trillion- dollar-plus plan. it also would depend on a major infusion of investment from the private sector.e we get saction to this now from the mayor of los angeles,tt eric gar he's also the chair of a taskje force on the s for the u.s. conference of mayors. mayor garcetti, thank you very much for joining us. let me just start out by asking,

what's your overall reaction? they are talking about leveraging federal dollars to state and local dollars and the rest of it, something like one to five. >> good evening, judy, and any day that washington isalking about infrastructure is music to my ears, but, of course, the devil will be in the details. but we've got a yawning $5.4 trillion gap, and we want to get home to our tam lis quicker, cut traffic, we don't want to be on uns,e bridg and we need the geeks generation of ports and airports to help fuel -- the next generation of ports and airports to fuel prosperity. americans have pas $260 billion in infrastructure, this only proposals $200 billior en years. there is more money in his budget for the wall than for the next ten years for all the cities in america to have transit dollars and to fix their roads, to fix the potholes. so we're doing our part and we want to see federal government do itsupart and notst take

$20 out of our wallet and give it to themselves, give it back to us and say here's your m infrastructuey. we want it to be real money for real jobs and rel infrastructure repair this country so badly needs it was it's important for you and other state and local officials around the country, but, at the same time, the federal government b s to be focused on th deficit. we just heard red ink numbers that are pretty scary. can you expect the federal government to come up with the lion's share of tis money that's needed? >> no, we expect them to do what they have in the past, and think about the erie canal, the work the federal government did to build the highway system or the internet. when we don't take care of our infrastructure we pay trllions and balls bels of dollars in oost competitiveness, millions of hours away the family, companies that don't start in the united states because it's too difficult to get through the red tape. so this is monethat helps

bring more in and we're not expecting them to have the s lionare, but they actually cut existing programs in some cases to pay forthis. we want to work with both anrties. we have democrati republican mayors ready to show how we have been doing and how the federal government can come and lead. we need it to be paid th real dollars, probably the onshoring of overseas profits but we will look for other alternative ways to get in there. >> woodruff: we know this adminiration is also loong for the private sector to come up with some of these dollars. whisn't that a good ida? >> it can be and we're doing that here in los angeles. denver was able to help th privatele sector build a new rail line from downtown to the airport quick around cheaper, but don't expect the private sector to come and to redo water that right now in many cities is polluted or to upgrade our electricity lines to build out our port or airports. tothose are things we havedo with federal help and american

cities have a loud and clear message for washington. we'lwehelp butant federal tax dollars back in our communities, from rural to mot densely populated urban areas to match the dollars and we both can count the dolars if we do it the right way. >> woodruff: mayor gartt another quick point i wanted to ask about is what the president had to say abomlut string, in effect, the permitting process. he said washington will no longer be a road block to progress, washington is now going to be your patner. we know a number of your fellow mayors say it's a good thi they're talking about streamlining, cutting back on some of the federal regulations. what about that?bs >>utely. any day we cut red tape is also music to the ears of america's may -- mayors. that's a great part of proposal. but we need money to match that. we don't wnt projects to take a decade or two to move forward. we've built some ofthe greatest

infrastructure in this country in a war, in a matter of a monther a year or two. we need money tto mach. money moves project forward and we are stepping up with a quarter of a trion from america's cities in the last year and a half. sp need the federal government not theace out 200 billion, which is less than that, over a decade. >> woodruff: mayor garcetti, a question about immigration. the united states senate is beginning a major debate tonighh abou to do with immigration reform. one of the big questions discussed in the congress is what to do about these young people who were brought into the country without doncumentas children and whether they should tizenship. path to c there is something like 700,000 daca recipient right now people are asking, are democrats prepared ifre blicans give on that and keep that path to citizenship for these daca young people, are democrats, in turn, prepared to give on things like the visa

lottery, on what republicans call chain migration, letting more family members in, parts of legal migraon. >> we should hold republicans leaders to their words who have' said th for the dreamers, independent of other things. i'm a son of a dreamer who fled to this country in world war ii and got his citizenship. i've seen the billiance of young men and women. paul ryan, the president sai w tht to do something. do that independent. then immigration, whetherborder protection, or the type of family reunification. but holding the dreamers hostage after people publicly said and 80% of americans support giving them a pathway to legal status needs to get done riht away. i believe old fashioned that people should live to their

word. >>oodruff: we'll watch the debate unfold this week. mayor far sety of los angeles, thank you very much. >> great to be with you, judy. >> woodruff: stay with us, coming up on the newshour, the trump administration scaling onback the consumer protec bureau. are republicans becoming more comfortable with spending deficits?de and a former bpatrol agent's new book. but first, in just over four weeks russian voters will go the polls to elect a preside.nt there is no suspense about the outcome: it is a safe bet that p vladimin will be re- elected to a fourth term, extending his rule into a third decade. as nick schifrin reports, putin has a high profile challenger from his own past who's trying to convert celebrity, into

votes. >> reporter: 36-soar-old ksenia hak is one of russia's most famous women. and now she's exchanng her mission to grab wealth and fame to mission impossible: unseat russian president vladimir putin. why are you qualified to be the president of ssia? h >> becausee no fear in myself, i'm courageous. in russia, which is authoritarian country where someone who is against putin can be put to prison, can be killed, can be suppressed in different ways, the real thing you need now is courageousness is just to ow that you're not afraid. >> reporter: sobchak grew up not having to fear anything. she inhabited the privileged post-soviet elite. she became a reality-tv star, a millionaire entrepreneur with a commercial empire, a socialite with 5.5 million instagram followers.el she traveled wand lived well and voted for putin.

but in 2011 she switched sides. she joined massive protests to criticize putin for being corrupt and authoritarian. she posted anti-government and she became a journalist on russia's only opposition tv channel. for her efforts, she was hounded by police. that's her being detained in 2012. cday on the campaign trail, she argues putin had tnce to enrich the country, and instead enriched himself. >> we had so much oil money but they were all disappeared. no roads. no hospitals. but moreover, no new industries. we don't have a single thing we can be proud of, only s for the people who are connected to our president. >> reporter: with all due respect, you have definitely been part of the privileged class. so why would someone in russia think, you know, you can change that?

>> yes i had some privilege to get a good education and to be brought up in this political family but i didn't have any other privileges. no one can say that she has her money from corruption because i'm not into this. >> reporter: sobchak's criticisms of putin are not only domestic. she also attacks the core of his popularity: his muscular foreign policy. >> russia! russia! >> reporter: invading and then annexing crimea. supporting separatists who destablized eastern ukraine. sending the russian air fonde to syria,ublicly allying with syrian president bashar al assad. >> i don't support crimea annexation and i'm saying this out loud and i don't support oun operatioyria.ea i think the cras a huge mistake which will live on with all our generation and will cope with it for years now. >> reporter: she's known putin nar years. sobchak's fatherly was the

mayor of st. petersburg and putin's political patron. tiat anatoly's funeral, pu embraced ksenia's mother.p that relationss led many to call knesia sobchak a kremlin stooge, helping legitimize a preordained election. alina polyakova is a fellow at the brookings institution. they're hoping having a young female dynamic, a socialite in othe election will get e to come to the polls, especially young people, which wil end of the day, legitimize putin once again. >> reporter: that's what alexei navalny argues. he's the country's leading opposition figure, who's been banned from running for president on what he calls trumped up criminal charges. back in 2012, navalny embraced sobchak after they were both released from jail. but today, he criticizes sobchak for ignoring his election boycott, and participating in what he calls a charade. sobchak returns the favor.

>> i see a big double standard because alexei navalny wanted to take part those elections too, as you remember, and he made a really good campaign to take part in the elections.te bu me that, if he would be registered, wouldn't he legitimate putin? >> reporter: for the russian establishment, sobchak is no enreat. her liberal ideas popular. she's polling at 1.5%. she admits she has no chance, and accuses putin of stacking the deck. >> it's a casion where one pelways wins and others lose. >> reporter: so why ev part in a process that as you said yourself will end up in putin's election? the goal is to get the microphone. the goal is to be heard by millions of people who never watched internet, who do not know who is alexei navalny, d who knowe only because i am very, you know, big media figure in russia.

so i want to use my popularity to convince those people that changes are needed. >> she is filling that void. she is giving voice to those people. but again, that voice is only temporary, the elections are not real, and so in many ways, like, she falls potentially into trape of beingby the regime to legitimize herself. >> reporter: that skepticism followed her to washington. she spent all last week holding events and giving interviews,in advocating a the same sanctions the kremlin complains abou in that sense, are you echoing the kremlin's line while you're here in washington?oi >> i'm e my own line as a candidate on presidency. >> reporter: for sobchak, that line has always been t she's elite, but oppositional. widely recognized, but unpopular. she cod bolster the opposition, or help split it. and she ll lose. but by running, she wins new a seat in the real game-- the next presidential election in six years. for the pbs newshour, i'm nick

schifrin in washington. >> woodruff: now to one other story tied to the resident's budget proposals and policy priorities that were released today. the trump administration made it clear it plans to roll back the once-tough approach of the consumer financial ptection bureau. its acting director, mike mulvaney, already has taken several steps to do so and as william brangham reports, mulvaney said today he wants to futher limit its power and budget. >> brangham: the consumer financial protection bureau was born out of the 2008 financial crisis. it was intended to be a federal watchdog of sorts, cracking down on predatory lending and shady financial dealings tt hurt american consumers. from its inception, it has been criticized by republicans and

the financial industry for overstepping its mandate. budget director mike mulvaney,tr who presidenp has appointed to run the bureau, once called it a "sick, sad joke" here's how he described it on face the nation yesterda >> this bureau is unlike any other federal bureaucracy. it's run by one person. right now me it has almost lilimited access to funds. it has no accounta to congress. it is perhaps the most unaccountable bureau or ency there is we want to run that place with a good deal of humility and prudence. we're not being ag we're not pushing the envelope. we're taking a different attitude towards the job. but the priorities have not changed. >> brangham: christopher arnold has been covering e bureau for national public radio and he joins me now. chris, welcome to the "newshour". i wonimr, let's go back in a little bit. 2008, 2009, and thereation of this bureau, what was it was original mandate? why was it born? f >> welst of all, i'm happy to be here.

the original mandate went back to, you will remember a time, unless you were born very recently, that basically the largest financial institutions in this edcountry wrehe economy. i mean, it was just an unmitigated disaster, th worst recession in 50, 60, 70 years. so, in response to that, congress tid many things. they did dodd-frank. they also set up the consumer financialotection bureau. this was something that was championed, it's true, by democrats. senator elizabet elizabeth warrt a sen tor a the time but crucial in forming. mthis democrats teamed sed to love it. they loved everything mike mulvaney sd are problems with it. they said it allows it to be independent from the white house, it gets its funding from the fed, not congress, so it can go where it needs to go,do what it needs to do to protect the rights of you and me and everybody else who h deal

with banks or lenders or any kind of nadges firm. so that's -- nd of financial firm. so that's where it came from. as we heard earlier, there's a group of publicans who do no like this agency for all the reass mike mulvaney laid ou, and this has been happening for years, republicans didn't like it, democrats didbut now president trump has put mike mulvaney in charge. he's the new boss running this agency and has come out wth this new strategic plan saying here's what we'll do goi forward. >> brangham: chris, is it a fair accusation that, under the obama administration, the c.f.b. did overstep it's authority, it's mandate? >> no, i think ovednll you co say that's a fair accusation. i think that just depends on who is the beolder there. n ok, if you are an extremely conservative pero doesn't like regulation, you might see this bureau is, well, u know, they're doing too much. there's not enough controls in

them, sure. but look, at the end of th day, the consumer financial protection bureau rernu almost $12 billion to consumers by going after companies that were swindling them out of their money. you know, is that overreaching? i don't know if that's up for me to say, but it doesn't sound like suca terrible thing. >> brangham: so when mulvaney says the agency, the bureau under his watch will now operate with humity and moderation, they will enforce the law but not overstep, what does that mean to you? how do you read that? >> i can answer that two ways. one, in all of this, there is also a mention of, you know, we're not only goi to be serving the people who get ns,dit cards and who get loa but those who offer credit cards and who make loans, and thisha agency shoul a job to sort of help banks and financial firms who are strugglingwit regulation get out from under regulation that's too burdensome. so, i men, it's a little

counterintuitive, but here's an agency that's tpposbe policing, enforcing, being a watchdog over the fincial industry, and mike mulvaney is now saying, well, we're going to us this agency to deregulate parts of this industry. it's a little bit of a brain bender. of course, who wouldn't want to get rid of regulations thatare necessary? but i think that's part of wat he's saying. i think the other thing, look, this is sort of generalbations here -- and you can look at what's actually been done so far since mike mulvaney has come on board, there have been things that have happened. a rule to regulate payday lenders more aggressively has been put hold. a payday lender that was beng investigated by the consumer financial protection agency, that investigation s dropped. it's also true that that compan that payday lending company, a high-interest lender,

gave money to mike mulvaney's campaign when he was in congress and, thirdly, the story i dug into, there was a lawsuit against what folks at the bureau, attorneys at the bureau who brought this lawsuit said. there was this illegal online loan shark charging 950% interest rates, tricking people into these long strings of payments that went on and on and onhere you borrow 900 bucks and end up paygin back $3,700 just monthsletter. there was this lawsuit in the works, and mulvaney decided t drop that lawsuit. there was a bit of exchange in my story today on npr abo that. we can talk about it if you want. those are things that clearly have happened sfar that may give us an indication about where things are going net. >> brangham: chris arnold of national public radio. thank you so much for your timeg >> absoluteld to be here.

>> woodruff: we turn back now to politics, and to ouregular politics monday pair: amy walter of "the cook political report," and tamara keith of npr. welcome to both of you. so i i think, by my calendar, we are now in daysix following the saga of the departed white house aide, tam, rob porter after allegations of domestic abuse by both his former wives. the white house still apparently strugglit the to explain wha happened, how they handled it. are we any clearer on how thy did handle it? >> not really. g new timelines on a semiregular basis and, today, wrah sanders delivered wh a new timeline that encompassed some of the previous timelines, and the basic message was, within 24 hours of learning the full extent of the acusations,

he was gone. however, the have been, you know, the chief of ff, general kelly has tried to say that he acted within 40 minutes. it's not cleawhat that actually means because, within that 24-hour period and wellr af that 40 minutes, the white house was still on the record praising rob porter and then, of course, you have the president of the united states who, on friday, came out and said that he hoped porter would get a great new job, that he was a valued member of the white house team. so sort ofic contradng the distancing that other white house aides had been trying to . >> woodruff: and the president, amy, tweeted saturday basically sympathy people who were accused in his words wrongly of these kinds of things. >> there are two blanks of this story. one is the narrative we've seenr this eyear which is the

lack of vetting for many of the staffers, e chaos inside the white house, the sloppiness inside the white house, in termt staffing and dealing with -- when there's internal but then the other branch of this is the issue of women, and we are in the middle of what we're in the middle of, a wockoning on discrimination and violence againsen and assault against women, which is taking this in ann etirely different direction. the president, of course, not simply just defending porter as a person and saying good things about him but also going on to say, i don't know, maybe this #metoo movement has gone a little bit too far. bwhy aren't we talkingut the people who have been accused. we spent way too much time on the accusers and taking their word for it. that's very much out of steper at least we know as a society and other industries have gone which is to say we' going to believe the accusers first and then we're going to

staw start talking about these who are accused. >> woodruff: you have sarah sanders saying domestic abuset should tolerated in any form. >> why doesn't he tell us that or tweet it? the one time we know president trump has been asked abt reporters about the #metoo movement, it happened at e same time s also asked about roy moore in november. it's a fascinating 45 seconds a where he wed about the #metoo movement, he says it's great some of thse things are coming to light, women should be heard, and within 30 seconds was also saying roy moore denies it, we should #what h says, we should listen to him -- roy moore beinthe alabama senate candidate who president trump endorsed. so there is the distinction between people president trump likes and knows and has spoken to and abstract others,

democrats, harvey weinstein, or al franken, who president trump has a very eastime criticizing and didn't talk about a rush to >> woodruff: let's talk about, amy, what the white house did t watalk about and that is a release of their 2019 fiscal budget which, as poited out earlier, deficits are not a major feature. every budget statement, whether it going to pass or not, is a statement of political priorities, is it not? >> that's right. a lot of peole talked about republicans at least when obama was in office made debt and deficit election. that was e mitt romney and paul ryan message that this president barack obamaad just been responsible for skyrocketing deficits that are gointo be burdening ou children from here to kingdom come. what's interesting is, ever since 2012, you've seen a decrease in the intensity in which republicans have made this argument about debt and deficit

presidump as a candidate, he talked about i'm going to balance the budget in eight years, b also said i'm not going to cut entitlements. he auto talked ab big spending on infrastructure and the military, so he tid not run as a paul ryan fiscal conservative. he ran as aretrump publican, which is i'm going to talk about some of these issues, but, fundamentally, you're going to be able to -- i'm going to be able to do both of those thingsn >> woodruffof the political questions emerging from this is is there some sort of political price to pay among republican voters? >> that is a very good question, and the answ isn't particularly clear. sort of the ranking among all voters of what is your topsu what is the thing you care about the most, debt andt defive just been falling like a rock interms -- and probably in large part because republican leaders aren't taing about it in the waythey have in the past.

mike mulvaney was asked today, he's the budget director, what happed to mick mulvaney the deficit hawk? he was, like, well, he's still here, but he understands, because the white house budget shows a doficit andesn't balance the budget. he's, like, but mick vaney understands it's up to congress to do these things and when we ask them to they justn't. >> woodruff: we'll have to leave it there. lots more opportuties to talk about deficits in the future. tam, amy, thank you both. >> you're welcome. >> woodruff: people going thout enough nutritious food remains an issue across thistr co and one program in iowa, tries to help solve two a probleonce: a burgeoning deer population and hunger. t from iowa publevision, josh buettner explains how hunters are helping mpty plates.

>> as a hunterthat's what we want to see. that's telling us that we have . buck in the ar >> reporter: as a steward of the land, mike nelson implements conservation practice on his farm in central iowa's warren unty.oo however, one wand creature can respond a little too well to such rural accommodations. iowa corn ansoybeans might help feed the world, but those same growing areas provide shelter and nutrition for four- legged drifters which some land owners consider a nuisance. >> they'll just devastate our crops and if we didn't harvest some of those, we'd just get overrun and we'd have way too many deer. >> reporter: but nelson has found a way to decrease numbers in his own backyard and uproot hunger, locally, thanks to a partnership between outdoorsmen, meat lockers, non-profits and state government. as many top 100

scored deer, in the country, as any other state. we've come on strong. we have onee most in- demand, non-resident deer licenses, and we do limit those6 00. but our bow deer tags are probably the most in-demand deet license country. >> reporter: iowa department of natural resources spokesman mick klemesrud says nearly rs ago the n.r. hatched a plan to cut back on a deer population that had become a hazard in urban areas d allow hunters to donate excess harvest to those in need. while roadkill is ineligible, what followed was the statewide h.u.s.h. program, or help u stop hunger.y officials e program's first decade saw over 63,000 deer equaling more than 10 million meals provided to the needy. >> iowa'deer are world-class deer. and, what we've done is, we've structured our seasons so we can make sure that those large- bodied animals can pass their genetics on before the gun seasons start. not a lot of other states do

that, and they don't have the same quality deer herdwe do. >> reporter: the d.n.r. estimates iowa's current deer apulation at roughly half million. and while 2017's numbers await a final spring tally, 2016 saw about 2,800 deer donated, with the largest number coming from milo, iowa. milo locker co-owner darrell goering says that's just shy of 18,000 pounds. >> we are in deer country. south central iowa is a great place to be if you're a deerhu er. and we're just blessed to be here >> reporter: processors receive $75 from the state for each animal. the meat is shredded ando packaged in twund chubs, and given to food banks for distribution. >> real lean. lean red meat. so if you're watchinyour cholesteroings like that, then deer's a real good thing to eat. s >> reporter: goering sayl

parties involved benefit under the agreement, and together erey've streamlined how hu contribute. >> all a hunter needs to do is legally harvest a whitetail deer, properly tag it, field dress it, bring it in. it's really two minutes and the paperwork's filled out, little index card, and he's good to go. and we take over from there. >> reporter: over two dozen lockers participate in the program and work with eight food banks serving those who are food insecure across the state.om danny akright,nications manager with the des moines- based food bank of iowa, says proteins like meatare one of pre most difficult nutritional ucts to come by. in calendar year 2017, his non- profit received nearly 73,000 pounds of venison through h.u.s.h. bld akright points out the huge advantage of beingto take the show on the road. >> one of the misconceptionsat

lot of people have about those who are hungry is that it's an inner city problem, when really, it's an everywhere problem.r and really in ral communities is one of the hardest places to reach them. they may not have aco a traditional food resource like a food pantry or a soup kitchen. sose have to design program like the mobile food pantry to go in and meet those needs in those rural communities. >> oh, i think it's grea i'm not a des moines driver, not even very far, so it is nice to have it come to milo. you know it's really, really helped. >> reporter:kright says feedback from recipients, as well as those canvassing woods and fields, has been overwhelmingly positive. >> one of the things that i love to hear is when hunters tell us that they are active h.u.s.h. hunters. for them, it's a sport of passion. they love to do it. they will hunt and take down a deer and help feed their own family, and when they have the ability, provide that nutritious meat to a family in need, that means something to them. >> reporter: mike nelson agrees.

from tree stand or deer blind, he helps manage an iowa resource with high reproduction rates and few, if any, natural predators. >> one deer for us is plenty. otherwise it'd just go to waste in one of two ways. you'd either have it processed and it would sit in your freezer and you'd never eat it, or you wouldn't harvest the deer to begin with, and then you'd just be overrun with them. >> reporter: for the pbs newshour, i'm josh buettner in des moines, iowa. >> w debates over immigration continue, we get a different view of the border: a firs thand account realities of life there. jeffrey brown takes us to southern arizo, for the latest from our newshour boshelf. >> brown: the landscape is

rugged, mountainous, scorched by the sun. but out there, among the dust, brush and cacti.er s also surveillance cameras, sensors, and people,yo even iu can't see them, in an often deadly standoff with the elementsnd one another. it's like when you look out at the ocean, and you're like, "oh my god, what a vast, unfathomable place, expanse." and so when i think about that vastneu think about trying to find someone in that vastness. people who haven't been here have a really hard time conceiving of that. >> brown: francisco cantu spent four years as a border patrol agent, working in the deserts of arizona, texas and new mexico. he describes the experience in a new book, "the line becomes a river."we et cantu a couple hours south of phoenix, about 30 miles from the border. he grew up not far from thes lands, but felt disconnected from the realities on the ground.

>> i had a that stemmed from my time in college, just big, big questions that a lot of us are still talking about with respect to immigration and border policy.i ought that doing this kind of a job, this kind of work, being out on the border day in, day out would ve me answers to ose questions. it's black mountain right here. that windmill over there, that's darby well. >> brown: first he had to learn the lay of the land, drawing his own maps and sketches. and then understanding what he was looking for. >> it's an interesting way to look at the landscape. you're being taught to look at the landscape as people who are crossing would. >> brown: as we walked the rocky terrain, sidestepped saguaros and followed a sandy wash. we found tangible evidence of a crossing attempt. h >>e's a carpet shoe. >> brown: the carpet shoe. >> that was just been carrd down this wash and tangled up in this bush. so, it's a piece of carpet

that's been cut out, shoe size, and then you just strap this over your shoes so that you don't leave like a discernible footprint in the sand, becausefo r the agents it's really easy to spot the grid of your sneakers or anything like that.h >> brown: than a policy chok, cantu has written what he calls "disp"-- giving us the feel of a place few see-- the violence, sadness, and occasional humor of his encounters with those trying to cross. drug smugglers, for sure. but more often, desperate peopla ight for survival in the desert, like a middle-age mother who'd been left behind by he group and was out of water. >> she had like these silver dollar-sized blisters on her feet. i was cleaning her blisters and bandaging her feet. she thanked me. remember her thanking me. she's like, "what you're doing is very humanitarian." i just thought like at the end

of the day, i'm putting you in a cell and i'm sending you back to this place that you quite literally are risking your life to flee. >> brown: he writes of how it became a difficult, often painful balancing act between a sense of shared humanity and the strictures of law enforcement. >> there are days when i feel i am becoming good at what i do. and then i wonder, what does it mean to be good at this? i wonder sometimes how i might explai the sense in what we do when they run from us, scattering to the brush, leaving behind their water jugs and their backpacks full of food and clothes. >> brown: later, we made our way towards the border, traversing organ pipe national monument, with mountain ranges in the distance. you drove these roads so much, right? come back and drive. what do you see now? when i look out on this landscape it still looks very

beautiful to me.t the same time, i'm also like hyper-aware, you know, any time i'm close to the border, of the fact that, yoknow, i'm being watched by border patrol or by scouts up on hilltops. and i'm also hyper-aware of the fact thatth, you knowe's people out here right now. >> brown: at the border in this area: a fence, some 20 feet tall, rusty and patched by sheets of wire mesh, riveted back in place over holes cut by migrants. is this where u're describing e fence being kind of literally lifting up? >> yeah, so underneath is dirt. seese are just panels that sort of slide between two steel barriers and if you can kind ofn ver it a little bit, you just put a tire jack underneath there and you can, and you can pry it up. and people will drive cars underneath these things. they'll lift it up and drive their car under. >> brown: cantu came to believe that no wall will ever keep

people out. in my opinion, it's not that we need to do more of this orve big concrete wall instead of a big, iron mesh wall. to me, i thi wtever big, long barrier you put here, people are gonna find a way around that. they're gonna find a way up, over, under, around. >> brown: cantu left the border patrol in 2012, d now teaches at the university of arizona. he says he wants to continue owing. for no t cantu says he wants show the realities of the border and raise concerns, even without offering policy prescriptions of his own. >> i still have a lot of these same questions that i came into the border patrol with.he i really seeorder as like a microcosm for all of these huge issues that we're grappling with as a nation and as a global society. so i he no urge to look away. >> brown: after a few miles the high fence here becomes nothing more than large metal barriers. and we came to this monument,

once the only kind of marker separating the two countries. for cantu, it's another symbol of what this border has become. >> i became interested in just looking at how the line was sort of drawn across this landscape that is, i don't know, i think autiful, has its own culture, and is just sort of being slowly riven by this line and becoming more surveilled, more pa more militarized.wn >> bwhat's seen, and unseen.ge an who's attention we'd drawn, warned we were also beinm watched frhe other side, by smugglers in mexico, waiting for a chance to move more human cargo across the border. for the pbs newshour, i'm jeffrey brown, in southern arizona. dr >> wf: on the newshour

online, as we mentioned earlier, former president barama and michelle obama were on hand at the national portrait galler today e unveiling of their portraits. you can watch the ceremony and hear their full remarks at our web te, pbs.org/newshour. and that's the newshour for tonight.f. i'm judy woodr join us online and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at th newshour, thank you and see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> babbel. a language app that teaches real-life conversations in a new language. >> and by the alfred p. sloan , undation. supporting scienchnology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century.

>> supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributstns to your pbs ion from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org eduardo: tonight on history detectives:

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