captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc uf >> woo good evening. i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight: >> when we declare our schools to be gun-free zones, it just puts our students in far more danger. >> woodruff: president trump keeps up the argument for arming teachers, as florida's republican governor breaks with e n.r.a. by calling for raising to 21 the age to buy a gun.th , a guilty plea. a former top trump campaign aide admits to conspiracy and false statements. and it's friday. david brooks and ruth marcus arz here to anthis moment in the gun debate, and the latest in the russia probe. plus, a new drama explores the events leading up to the september 11 attacks, and the lessons we might learn as a

nation today. >> the theme of this season is, reivided we fail," and we divided, and we failed to stop 9/11. but i think the, you know, the country has never been more divided than it is right now. >> woodruff: all that and more, on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ ving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects

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>> 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: the debate over guns, school safety and mass shootings took a turn today, as the president pushed again for arming teachers. but in florida, its republican governor rick scott broke with the president and the n.r.a. over that and some other ures. william brangham has our report. >> it's time to make our schools a much hardetarget for attackers. >> reporter: the president insisted again today that arming teachers would help stop mass shootings. even though many education groups say more guns iols is a bad idea, in his speech before the conservative political action conference, c-pac, president trump

reiterated his support. >> i don't want a person that's never handled a gun, that wouldn't know what a gun looks like, to be armed. the teachers and the coaches and other people in the buding-- the dean, the assistant dean, the principal. they can-- they love their peo-- they want to protect these kids. and i think we're better with that. it's not all of them.bu wu would have a lot. so, this crazy m walked in wouldn't even know who it is that has it. gat's good. it's not bad, thatd. and a teacher would have shot the hell out of him before he knew what happened. >> reporter: the president also repeated his call to strenhen background checks to keep serisly mentally ill people from buying guns. for the record, the president signed a law last year that many say does just the opposite. and the present called out the armed florida deputy stationed at the school who stayed outside

during the attack. >> the deputy who didn't go into the school because he was-- he didn't want to go into the school. okay. he was tested under fire, and that wasn't a good result. >> we're not going to disclose the video at this time. >> reporter: last night, broward county sheriff scott israel said video showed that deputy-- scot peterson, seen here in archival vie o-- rush to the west sid marjory stoneman douglas. peterson heardunshots inside, but instead of entering, he waited outside for at least four minutes as the shooting continued. e attack lasted roughly six minutes. deputy peterson was suspended without pay, and has since resigned. >> what matters is that when we in law enforcement arrive at an acti shooter, we go in and address the target, and that's at should have been done. there are no words.me , these families lost their children.ac

we lost s. i've been to the funerals. i've been to the homes wherea. they sit in sh i've been to the vigils. >> reporter: there were other revelations of missed opportunities overnight. since 08, the sheriff's office had received 23 calls related to the suspected shooter or his brother. among them, a warning about an instagram post ohimself with guns, threatening to shoot up a school. and last year, a caller repowaed the suspeccollecting weapons, and could be "a school shooter in the making." officials also said surveillancs footage of thechool during the shooting was not shown live to other police-- meaning they were watching 20-minute-old video while they were responding, and mistakenly believed thalleged shooter was still inside. for his part, florida's republican governor rick scott announced new proposals for gun control for s state, going further than he has before. they include banninghe sale of

any firearms to those younger than 21.un l now in florida, that only applied to handguns. scott also called for placing one armed, trained officer for every 1,000 students at public schools starting next fall, and he called for banning bump stocks. >> the goal of this plan of action is to make massive changes in protecting schools, provide significantly more resources for mental health, and to do everything we can to keep guns out of these hands of tealing with ontal problems or threatening harm to themselvothers. >> reporter: some of those proposals were a notable break with the n.r.a., and scott said he disagreed with the president when it mes to the idea of arming teachers. meanwhile, pole officers and first responders from the scene gathered today to tell their harrowing stories. sergeant jf heinrcih broke down while recounting how, after he relayed a description of the shooter to police, he located his ow school.n inside the

>> and by the grace of god, my wife and my son, who were at opposite ends of the school-- my son was out on a bathroom pass, d my wife was in plannin inside the girls' locker room. and they both heard the fire alarm and decided to evacuate. by the grace of d, when they walked down the hallway, they found each other. >> reporter: teachers arrived at marjory stoneman douglas high for the first time since the shooting today. it's slated to officially reopen and resume classes next tuesday. for the pbs newshour, i'm william brangham. >> woodruff: there were new details today about a tipster's call to the f.b.i. a little more than a month before the florida. atta a woman who knew the alleged shooter told the f.b.i. at january 5 e had an arsenal of weapons and she was worried he might be "getting into a school and just shooting the place up." she added, "i know he's going to

explode." the woman also told the f.b.i. that he had threatened his hether with a rifle before later died of other causes. details of the call were report by the "wall street journal" and the "new york times." and we will ha more on mental health issues being debated, right after the news summary. o in the dayer news, the trump administration announced its toughest sanctions yet on rth korea, in its latest effort to crack down on the country's illegal maritime trade. they target one individual, 27 entities and 28 vessels thatt the u.s. says korea is using to evade international law. u.s. treasury secretary steven mnuchin said the economic sanctions will have a serious impact. >> our aions are part of the ongoing maximum economic pressure campaign to cut off sources of revenue that this degime derives from u.s. and u.n. prohibitive to fund its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

>> woodruff: mnuchin said the u.s. has imposed more than 450 sanction half of them in the last year alone. president trump said today that the fate of s son-in-law jared kushner's security clearance is in the hands of his chief of staff, john kelly, and that he has "no doubt" he will make the ght choice. kushner has been working as senior advisor to the president on an interim clearance for er a year. kelly had said that he will decide whether kushner can keep that clearance by today. in syria, a week of regime air strikes on rebel-held suburbs east of daw scus have left more than 460 people dead. rescuers frantically pulled the injured from the rubble, as syrian regime warplanes poundeda the region fixth day. a spokeswoman for the united nations' envoy to syria called s for a ceasefire, as memb the u.n. security council d to agree on the terms. >> the humanitarian situation of

the civilians in eastern ghouta appalling. and, therefore, we are in urgena need feasefire that stops both the horrific heavy bombardment of eastern ghouta, and the indiscriminate mortar shelling on damascus. >> woodruff: the u.n. security council then delayed a vote on the syrian cease-fire until tomorrow afternoon. there is more trouble in myanmar, as human rights groups said the government has razed at least 55 former rohingya villages. these satellite images show some of the bulldozed villages, whicn had et on fire after hundreds of thousands of the rohingya muslim minority werth forced fror homes in august. ryman rights watch warned that myanmar could beg to destroy evidence of atrocities. the u.s. embassy in israel will officially move to jem in may, in a with israel's 70th anniversary. that is earlier than expected

for the move president trump announced last december. israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu lauded the announcement, but a spok leader mahmoud abbas called it tn unacceptable step" that "will be an obstacany effort to create peace in the region." president trump's son did not give the foreign policy speech he was scheduled to de today, while promoting trump- branded properties in india. donald trump jr., who helps run the family's real estate business, had faced a wave of criticism for mixing private business interests with u.s. foreign policy. instead, he participated in a question-and-answer session at a summit in new delhi, and lamented his father's promise that the company won't take on any new deals while he's in office. b >> it is sacrifice, because it's a big part of my life. to say, "hey, i'm going to take eight years"-- i'm 40. let's call it 23% of my and say, "we're not going to do anything"-- we're not-- it is difficult, and it's tough, as ai

nessman. but again, fully understandable. when we're out of politics, you know, i think we'll get some credit for it. we'll be welcomed for that again with open arms. >> woodruff: donald trump jr. insisted that claims that he is using his father's presidency to sell luxury apartments are "nonsense." a woman is in custody, after striking a security barrier near the white house late thisrn afn. the driver rammed the barrier with her white van, but did not breach it. the white house was temporarily put on lockdown. the secret service said she was immediately apprehended.nj noies were reported. in west virginia, all the public schools were closed for a second day, amid a state-wide teachers' strike. thousands of educators joined thpicket lines to demand better pay and benefits for the state's teachers, who are among the lowest paid in the country. they have been demonstrating in all 55 counties since yesterday, even thought teacher strikes are illegal there. >> i have a son who's ine,

coll have a daughter who will be in college next year. and they will not stay in this state. so, it's about our students and staying here, but we have to make sure we have something to offer them. and we don't, right now. >> woodruff: west virginia's repuican governor jim justic approved a 2% pay raise for teachers this year, but teachers insist that's still not enough. ocks soared on wall street today, boosted by gains in the technology and banking sectors. the dow jones industrial average rallied more than 347 points to close at just under 25,310. the nasdaq rose 127 points, and the s&p 500 added 43. for the we, both the dow and the s&p 500 rose a fraction of a percent. the nasdaq gained more than 1%. and, at the winter olympics, russia won its first gold medal of the games. it went to 15-year-old figure skater alinaagitova in the women's free skate.

her teammate, evgenia dvedeva, took silver., separatesecond russian athlete at the games, a female bobsledder, has now tested positive for doping. still to come on the newshour: we examine some of the proposals to prevent ms shootings. a former trump campaign aide pleads guilty, and plans to cooperate in the russia investigion. david brooks and ruth marcus give theirake on national gun debate. and, much more. >> woodruff: in the aftermath of the school shooting in florida, there has been discussion about a number of ways to prevent a repeat of these tragedies, from arming teachers, to stricter gun laws, and addressing people with mental and emotional problems. but preventing violence by using mental health records is moreth

complicate many realize. or example, posting a disturbing messasocial media does not necessarily mean an individual has a me health concern, and someone trted and diagnosed for a specific illness may never turn up in th check system.round to help lay thisut and look at some of the challenges, i'm joined by dr. jeffrey swanson. he's a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at duke university. professor swanson, thank you for joining us again on th "newshour". just to -- i want to clarify mething going in. you were just reminding us that the vast majority of people who have mental and emotional t challenges donrn out to be violent. is that right? >> that's right, judy. there e probably over 40 million people in the united states who would meet criteria for a diagnoseable mental heah condition, 10 million with a serious disorder such assets friendia, bipolar or major

depression, and the overwhelmin majority are not violent towards other people and never will be. >> woodruff: right now, tell us generally what to the laws say about preventing somebody from banning somebody from getting a guv if they he some kind of mental or emotional priglem. >>. well, the federal law goes back to the 1968 gun control act an, basically, the law identified a couple of categories of people who would be prohibited from purchases or possessing firearms, most importantly people with a felony criminal conviction, but with respect to people with mental health records, it's really about adjudication, so people who have been involuntarily committed to a mental hosplpital, peowho have been found in a court to be incompetent to manage their own affairs and have a mentalpl illness, pwho, on the criminal side, have been found not guilty by reason of insanity or iompetent totand trial.

so there's been a legal determination, a most of those categories have something to do withangerousness and ere's also been some due process which actually is important when you peink about the fact thaople are going to be deprived of a constitutional right. >> woodruff: given that, what has to happen for there to be information in the national criminal background check system on someone? >> so th information in the national background system is reported by states typically, and the ckground check, as regulate by the brady lawas, is onlyood as the information that's there. so sometimes the state courts report the information, metimes it comes from a mental health authority in the state. there are records of involuntary commitment that are submitted, and but a lot of people mightno be reported, even though they have been involuntaril

detained and evaluated during a auseal health crisis bec they're only there for a short period of time, say 72 hours. after thaey may sign into the hospital voluntarily, if they're able to do that willing, or they may besc rged. if it doesn't progress to a gun disqualifying involuntary commitment hearing with a judge and the opportunity for the person to be represented by counsel, then that record is not going toe in the ntional instant check system. i think, as a result, the rerds that are there a kind of spotty and, also, when we look at the criteria, they're probably too narrow and too broad at the same time. there are lots of people who have been invriolun committed who are not violent towards others or themselves, and there are lots of people who actually do pose a risk -- maybe they're just really angry, disturbed people -- and are never going to have a gun-disqualifying involuntary

commitment record or maybe not even a felony conviction. >> woodruff: so is there a better way -- i mean, i know mental health professionals yoie talk about this, look at this, research this all theis time -here a better way, are there things that could be done to catch more of these people who could be potentially dangerous? >> well, i think so. if you wanted focus first on that point of sale that when people come in to purchase a firearm from a federally licensed dealer, we could have better criteria. we could, for example, do as about half the states do and say let's restrict firearms at lea temporarily from people who have been detained in short, involuntary hold. we could say let's prohibit people who have a misdemeanor violent crime conviction because we know violence escalates and today's fist and black eye could become tomorrow's dn andead body, but we could also say look

at all the people out the who already have a number of firearms and don't have a disqualifying record, and, so, what if we put into the hands of police officer the clear legal authority to tervene upstream and remove firearms from people when thereear evidence they impose a risk and, also, allow family members to initiate that process. if they eoow som's at risk, and often they have that information very spet fically abople, give them an avenue to remove the firearms, at least for a period of time, and i think that's a solution that is getting some traction. it's called extreme risk protection orders or gun violence restrning orders. in connecticut, the pioneerin3 state called a risk warrant law, i think that is another solution because it doesn't require the person have this record and its also sole problem that if you just stop someone from buying a new gun and they already have ten or 12 or 15 at home, it might not deter them. >> woodruff: but you are

suggesting clearly a numb of these methods have been tried and they're not passing, they don't gain te support they need in so many states. >> well, that's right. for one thing, the number of states that have enacted a risk warrant law is very sma and, until recently, just a couple of states. but also, as with any public health law or policy, uh you oed to do mre than just passing the law. there has to be a very systematic effort to implement it and to make sure that the people who are in a position to use it, thactors around it, actually know about it, whether it's law enforcement or others, and, so, ithink that's an important part of the message as well. >> woodruff: and do i hear you saying, jeffery swanson, that what is need is the action at the federal level that it really isn'soenough to have me states pass these kinds of regulations? atei think the federal and s laws can work together. for example, there are a lot of

state-level measures that would work better if w had comprehensive background checks required at the federal level, so that, you know, if you stop someone with a goostate law, they can't just go next door to a neighboring state with weakerm gun laws anybe doesn't have a requirement for a background check. so, you know, i thie answer is both, but even federalen measures oave to be implemented at the state level, and the restriction with respect to involuntary commitment is a good example, that's federal oaw, but commitment statutes and practices vary a from state to state, as some states use it a greadeal and others don't. so the chance that the same person with the same mentalis health c will be prohibited may derend on what state the living in. so i think we need to have aso comprehensivtion but also an on the ground state level implementation. druff: no question this is complicated but it is also clear progress has been made and

there's some impetus now toake more progress as we go forward. professor jeffery swanson of duke university, thank you so much. >> thank you so much. >> woodruff: special counsel robert mueller investigation into russian meddling in the 2016 election has, again, swept up a former member of the trump campaign. reenivasan lays out the latest.fo >> sreenivasr rick gates, this day in court was different. he was in washington, enteringe test guilty plea-- the fifth so far-- in the investigation led by special counsel robert mueller. gates is a former trump campaign aide, and a long-time associate of paul manafort, the former trump campaign chairman.ea today's pls the result of a deal gates cut with mueller's office. as part of the agreement, he admitted that he lied to investigators earlier this month, and that he conspired

with others to conceal, ong other things, his and manafort's unregistered foreign lobbying. legal pressure on the two has been mounting of late. dites and manafort were incted last october on 12 total counts, including a count related to money laundering. but just yesterday, a federal grand jury in virginia piled on a separate indictment againstth two, listing 32 total counts, including charges relating to false income tax returns and bank fraud. that said, none of the crges against gates or manafort, so far, explicitly deal with russia's meddling in the 2016 election. in a statement this afternoon, s manafod that, even with gates' plea, "i continue to maintain my innocence." meanwhile, at the white dause president trump did not address news of the plea. mueller did secure an indictment related to russia's interference lest friday, against a russian organization cal"the internet research agency," based

in saint petersburg. and, he secud two other guilty pleas in the past week, rnincluding one from an atey, alex van der zwaan, who admitted to lying to investigators. former trump national security adviser miael flynn and former trump reign policy adviser george papadopoulos entered guilty pleas of their own last year. we explore what today's pleaem agt means for the special counsel's investigation, with our own lisa desjardin and carrie johnson, justice correspondent for npr. lisa, paul manafort continues to maintain he is iinocent and is to defend himself. why did rick gates plead guilty? >> talking to those closest to the investigation, gates is a father of four, this is well known, and essentially felt with the new charges coming that a trial was going to be too costly and his chances of success weree not there were a tremendous amount of very serious charges with what seemed to beof a lo evidence and the latest indictments against gates. what's more, hari, a source

close to the investigation tells me that gates' team is hoping for no jail time cause of this deal. that ultimately will be up ton the judge this case but they expect a prosecutor to make that recommendati and now, as a sult, he is offering to be a cooperative witness. that has very importaio implicforce the rest of thisnvestigation. >> sreenivasan: carrie johnson, the prospect of no jail time certainly seems to be a big lure, but what's in the indictments? >> there's a lot of evidence, hari, from paperwork with respect to bank fraud allegations di.r.s. allegations that boast rick ites and paul manafort led to report more than $70 million foreign ince they funneled through offshore accounts. there are allegations that they misled or doctored reports thatt o accountants and other financial professionals. there are e-mails and there are conversations with others allegedly involved in this scheme. so there was a mounting pile of evidence against both of these

men. rick gates faces about eight ars in prison, but prosecutors reserved the right to ask the judge for leniency if hesuper cooperative, and he certainly hopes to be super cooperative against pa manafort and maybe others to come. >> sreenivasan: lisa, th president and the white house have repeatedly said these charges have nothing to do with the campaign, this is maybe money laundering or something that happened before the individuals were involved. >> let's talk about the end game. rie charges against gates, you're absolutelht, have to deal with paul manafort. the charges with manafort only have to do with financial dealings, nothing with the trump campaign. so two possibilities, hari, one, this prosecutor hopes to put pressure on manafort by buiing this case including gates who would be no tter witness against manafort and get him to say somethinagainst the trump

campaign or the prosecutor could with plfort colone colluded russia and the campaign and is a target.no werick gates stayed on with the trump campaign aftere plfortt, he worked in the campaign and inaugurationnd ntinued to visit the white house all last year, so he's someone who had contact witthe white house for one of the longest period of times of those so f involved in the investigation. >> sreenivasan: carrie johnson. >> remember the special counsel secured guilty please from george papadopoulos who admitted to meeting with russi offered dirt about hillary clinton and told them they hacked her email counts or email accounts close to clinton, and remember the special counsel secured a guilty plea from michael flynn the former national security advisor. we don't know yet what these people have told thi prosecution team about contacts with russians but certainly rick

gates was inolved andt with some of these people and other subjects of the ongoi investigation. so he's going to be an important ess for someg wi of the other crob rarities already in robert mueller's stable and could have e-mails or other evidence useful to the special counsel team and they're keeping that close to theest now. >> sreenivasan: reports later this afternoon questioned jared kushner's security clearances. is this a ripple effect of the investigation we're lkin about? >> well, there is a lot of speculation the specol counsel isking closely into kushner's financial dealings as well. we don't know if it's connected eport of "the washingto post" saying two weeks ago th -- sorry -- deputy attorney general rod rosenstein called the white house to let them kno jared kushner's application for security clearance would be dela sd because ofome kind of

further investigation. no specifics in this story. we reatoched out he justice department, hari, they gave us a statemtt back and said tha there were no specifics of investigation concern given to the white house. but that's not a denial of whatt who's is saying, which is there is a delay, for some reason, sominvestigation in kushner's clearances. >>nsreenivasan: carrie jo one of the things the white house says fairly frequently is this investigation will wrp up soon. it doesn't seem to be. >> not at all. fact, if paul manafort continues on his current course, he's headed for a trial in washington, d.c. this fall, maybe around the time of the midterms. and there's ongoing signa that the mueller team is not yet 'tne. they havet been at this task for a year, hari. we have, as you said, charges against 19 people, now five guilty pleas, no sign yet they are losing steam. >> sreenivasan: carrie

johnson, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at duke university, and our lisa desjardins, thank you both. >> woodruff: now, to the analysis of marcus and brooks.w that's "rk times" columnist david brooks, and "washington post" deputy edorial page editor ruth marcus. mark shields is away. thwelcome to both of you o friday night. let's start, pick up where we ft off, david, listening to the last conversation about the mueller investigaon. there have been a flurry of indictments, some guilty pleas. what's it all add up to now? >> i real will have no idea. gates san interesting storya because heaccess to the administration during the crucial period of the transition and dring the campaign, a does he have some witnessing of collusion? i guess that's the million-dollar question. i remain a skeptic about that

just because i think they're too incompetent to have colluded, but it could be. but the other interesting things to mow big this investigation is. 19 people, the charges are on. so do they stay with russia, go to some of the broader financial issues that have been alleged with deutsch bank? to me just the scope of the investigation is interesting because where it could go and for the increasing pressure it puts on the trump psychology because he never seems to be able to get out of feeling that pressure coming down on him. >> woodruff: what do you think of it all? >> truer words wernev spoken about the trump psychology. we saw it emerge over the weekend with the indictments you tre talking about last friday night not centr the trumpai ca but involving the russian interference and he couldn't leave it aone and needed to blame it on his predecessor sayi they showed

no con lunges when they hadn't. this latest set o indictments of guilty pleas with manafort and gates i find extremely asntalizing because i'm not convinced as you on the no collusion front. it sort of depends on the meaning of collusion. at we know from these indictments is these were people working closely with russian interests. at the time they were workinhe withampaign, they felt themselves -- it's incredible to anybody who reads abouthe amount of money they were making, but they were in financial straits. they needed money to support their incredibly hig lifestyles. >> woodruff: manafort and gates. >> manafort and htes. we knowngs happened. we know there were contacts with the russians. we know there were changes inth platform regarding ukraine. so was the collusion that might have fallen short of resident trump? i don't know, bui know that there is, like, the submarine of the mueller investigation that

keeps plowingrward. we don't see where it's going until it decides t surface. >> woodruff: how much, david, is it affecting what the president's able to do? he brings it up, he tweets about it, he brings up obama, blames him for not pursuing this investig iion. hould say i'm not convinced of anything i really don't know, but it's clearly having an intense psychological effect on the administration, as it does even on a norma administration under investigation, you don't know who's about to turn, you don't knowdhich conversation you h months ago is about to get you rsto trouble, you're thinking about hiring law this is an administration that's already not an unhappy place to live and just rtchets up the pressure. this is an administration where the man at the top isat vole in the face of pressure, i think it makes it ext to be there.able >> woodruff: ruth, the story that came out in your newspaper late this afternoon about the

n-curity clearance, the president's sonw, he's been in office oer a year and there still is no security clearance for jared kushner. >> he's been in office over ahe year, anas had access throughout that time, according to my newspaper, to the most sensitive information available, the president's daily briefin which would require, you know, the highest level of security clearance. this is another one of those -- it's hard to precisely know from the outside what it is that's holding this up. we do know that he has repeatedly had to amend hi disclosure forms and come up with more meetings that he hadn't remembered previously. but toe, this just underlines the degree to whicha bsically jared kushner and ivanka trump just have no business being in the white hou. it is a bad idea. they brought no special expertise. l they brought to it was their personal relationship with the

president, and no other person -- well, we did have roble porter with his security clearance going on, but it's hard to imagine another individual with thfis level problems and security clearance being allowed to stay there for so long. my guess is his problems with obtain ago security clearance and having to keep that interim status kind of skewed the decision making for others because how canou question others interim status if jared kushner is allowed to keep s? >> woodruff: meantime, what this story was pushed aside by was the terrible tragedy of last ek. david, i's now been, what, over a week since the florida school .hooti emotions are still running high. what do you make, at this point, of the reaction from our political leadership and, frankly, of the students who have been so outspoken? >> so, to me, the question is what kind of pressure leads to change? we've seen from the students much more pressure from the country than any previous shootings. ill the boiling bit of rage

and outrage and passion, will that bowl legislators over and lead to some sort of change? it could be, we're just in uncharted territory.i main skeptical. since sandy hook, more than twoh dozen state passed gun legislation and, in almost every single case, it's been to make access easier and not harder. why is tt? because imposing restrictions is super popular, 70% support soe kind of restriction. that's because most legislators are held by republicans, and the second reason is the issue is not about guns, it's become a problems yanld a culturear, and a lot of people on the gun side feels it's not about the guns, it's the elitists want to crush our culture so they put a wall down and say no compromise at all. so to me te way to move forward is let's depressurize this and say we're not trying to take your guns, we just want a fewou things, socan separate a lot of republicans from the

n.r.a. and get a few concrete things done. instead we're seeing a rising og passion and and a national frenzy on both sides over thi i which makt much less likely we'll get something done. >> woodruff: this passion, this rage is very rel on the part of these students. >> it's very real, it's very powerful, it will be veryg interest see the difference that it could make. i share david's skepticism on that in pacrt beause i remember sitting with the sandy hook moms and thinking that there cod be no powerful story. oreat with them a day bef they failed to get the votes to stop the filibuster of a ver mild measure to close the gun show background check loophole. they were not able to do that. i love these students. i'm so impressed by them. t ose moms couldn't do it and the grieving dads, i'm not sure that these students can. on the other hand, i need to take issue with somethingidou

david, which is i agree with you that turning this into a culture war and letting people yell that we're going to be taking their guns, peoe are trying to take their guns is a bad idea, that is not what has been happening in the gun debate over the last ten ars what's been happening is an effort to do very minor things, like closing the background check loophole, like reinstating the assault weapons ban,reich even these -- like even these bump stocks we weren't able to do after the last lass ve shooting. the thing that's so frustrating and infuriating is that, even in our political system, even thabe ha very difficult to do. >> woodruff: what about that? first of all, there's a lng history in this debate. the n.r.a. did a horrible thing by turning to th aebsolutist position, they started the culture war, and i think there have been a seriesof attacks sometimes unheard by the people making them but deeplyeard certainly on my twitter feed by people who they they're out to get us. take, for example, the cnn town

hall. i was following it on twitter because i didn't have access to a tv. there were two moments when the right side of my twitter fd exploded, the first when marco rubio was accused of being like a mass killer. people thought that was outrageous on thsone side. thcond is rubio said it's not like we want to take away all the guns, and the crowd applauded at that point. one of the values is we don't want to take away all the guns, we jus tdon't want to dohe few practical things. the right side of the twtter feed looked at the applause and said look they're lying, theyu want to takeguns away. you could see the walls shutting down and any chae of reasonable debate shutting down. i don't mean to say the attacksp and over theassion is all on the left, that's certainly not the case, but it has become a very roiling culture war where i don't think will help because 70% of the country is on one

sidei >> woodruff: there be the will to get something done? yes, passion will continue.pe these younle are saying we are sticking with this. >> well, i thi the interesting thing has been that the passion in terms of passion translating into political power, which is at the voting booth, the passion on the debate for many years has been on e right, on the pr gun side. the question is whether we are now seeing an emergence and maybe fueled by youer first-time voters of an tuivalent passion on the left, because as much gun control side talks about the economic power of the n.r.a. and urges people to stop taking their donations, it's not the economic power, it's the mobilization power. they need equal mobilization on the other side. maybe this is the time. >> woodruff: and ruth's right, we hen't seen that. the passion mainly has been on the right. >> yeah, i have been talking t students this week and ask them

about how they see their generation and couple of students were trying to define their generation. they say, you know, we're the school shooting generation. and that struck me as interesting. it's become such a large part of their consciousness, maybe it do rise to the level tt people who are on the more ncontrolling side would to vote on it. it has not been the case so far. >> woodruff: is pretty awful to think these young people think they're the school shooters. >> they are and the numbers tell us they're right. i have to seue here, if you don't mind, to president trump's idea to solve the problem by arming teachers. when wayne lapierre of the national rifle association saids this aftdy hook, it was treated as n.r.a. lune si, now wee getting the same, i' sorry, it's a lunatic idea from the pr states.f the united there could not be a worse idea for stopping another generation of the school shooting generation. >> woodruff: a thought on arming teachers? >> totally agree, it's a demented idea. aside from everything else, the

dangers of it. think of how it changes the student-teacher relationshipkio see them p a gun. it's truly demented. a lot of good ideas surced, raising the minimum-wage -- >> age. you said wage. >> i'm so left wing -- (laughter) but a lot of good ideas came up, that's the opposite of one. >> woodruff: they're talking abouit. we'll see. david brooks, ruth marcus, thank you both. >> woodruff: a new tv drama that starts next week takes viewers back to the events that led to the attacks of september 11, 2001. it looks at how u.s. hatelligence services might have stopped them froening, and, as jeffrey brown tells us, the lessons its creators say it offers for the current time. >> brown: "the looming tower"

dramatizes the true story of the hunt for osama bin laden in the years leading up to the attacks on september 11: how the f.b.i. and c.i.a. were each attempting track his movements and plans, and yet, at critical junctures, withheld information fom one other. >> you got a stash of intell that you refuse to share with my agents. >> brown: jeff danls plays john o'neil, the real-life, hard-living f.b.i. agent who,re early ongnized al qaeda's threat but felt stymied by the c.i.a.'s refusal to share what it knew. >> i had the bull in a china shop, you ow. at kind of approach to life, gulping life and all of that. er done that, never been asked to do it. i had to go to work to figure out how to do it, which is what i need now.

>> brown: peter sarsgaard plays his counterpart in the c.i.a., a composite character who fears the f.b.i. will compromise his agency's hard-earned intelligence. what did you feel was the key to you? >> well, you know, fthling like smartest person in the room, you know, feeling like no e can really understand things like you can understand things you know, i'm playing an incredibly intelligent guy, a guy who knows a lot, and is myopic because of it. >> brown: it is astounding and horrifying to watch. i mean, as a citizen, the two of you, and your characters so hating each other,o against each other, so not willing to share, or both thinking they were right. >> yeah, right. yeah, i think that's a lot of it. you know, i'm not moving, neither is he. no.

>> the question was: how do you take such a vast tragedy and make it human? >> brown: the series is based on the 2006 book of the same name, written by lawrence wright, the "new yorker" magazine staff writer, playwright and screenwriter. it earned him the pulitzer prize fonon-fiction. >> the way that i do those kinds of stories is to try to find individual stories, you know. people, i call them donkeys. oge idea is that, it sounds like a, you know, a dory term, but a donkey is a beast of burden, who can carry a lot of information onis back and can ke the reader or the viewer into a world they don't understand. >> brown: the series opens just before al qaeda's attack on the u.s. embassy in kenya in 1998. that's about halfway into wright's book, a fuller history of al qaeda's ideology and key

members. wright interviewed hundreds of people, including ali soufan, then a young lebanese-american f.b.i. agent who, during the hunt, was one of the very few arabic speakers working in the bureau. in the show, he's played by french-algerian actor tahar rahim. >> brown: soufan has since retired from the f.b.i. and worked as a consultant on the thries. >> so, i think whashow is trying to do is say, you know, onn years worth of informa and try to convey in one episode, in one scene, to the audice, to the person who's sitting in their living room watching, to convey the

feelings, toonvey what was going on and how it accumulated over the years. >> brown: but 17 years afterhe attacks-- why revisit this story now? one reason, says wright, is that television has changed, for the better. >> i just felt like this was probably the most precious thing i've ever done. y an know, i was jealous of it and i didn't want it to be handled poorly. buthe other thing that happened in the interim between 9/11 and today is, television changed. >> brown: and there's another reason, say wright a soufan. >> you know, the theme of this season is "divided we fail," and we were divided, and we failed to stop 9/11. but i think the, you know, the country has never been more divided than it is right now.

and, you know, we are our own worst enemy. and this business of attacking the intelligence agencies for partisan reasons increases that kind of division and it makes us less effective and less safe. >> and i think as the f.b.i. is being attacked, as the intelligen community is being attacked, we need to-- basically, we need to actually humanize these agencies. they are made for hut ns who are grtriots, who took an oath to defend the country against all enemies, domestic and foreign. and basically, you know, their oath is to the constitution, not to a politician. and that's why they are being attacked. and i hope that the american people realize the sacrifices

that people in the intelligence community and the f.b.i., they do every day, when they watch this show. >> brown: "the looming tower" debuts on hulu february 28. for the pbs newshour, i' jeffrey brown. oo >>uff: you've heard them all: wear your seatbelt. don't smoke. don't drink and drive. these are all advice that we now ve by. but they have become second nature only because of effective public health campaign it takes time and persuasion, to change the paradigm. tonight, pediatrician nadine burke harris shares her "humble opinion" of what se sees as a grreat to many children, one she believes has been misdiagnosed and overlooked. >> ten years ago at my pediatric clinic in san francisco, teachers, social workers and parents wereringing me child after child with concerns of a.d.h.d. as ixamined my patients, i noticed that the highest rate

of behavioral problems w occurring in the kids whose parents had drug addictions or mental illness, or those who were subject to violence at home. when i dug into the science, what i found was that for most of these kids, the problem wasn't run-of-the-mill a.d.h.d. for most of my kids, the real problem is what the american academy of pediatrics recognizes as "toxic stress." ultimately, it all boils down to our flight-or-fight response: what happens in our bodies when we experience something scary. but, when activad too often, like with repeated abuse, neglect or parental addiction, it can change the structure and function of children's developing brains. it can affect hormone immune system, even the way d.n.a. is read and transcribed. and, it dramatically increases the risk of both behavioral and health problems in childhood and

in adulthood. toxic stress affects white kids, black and brown kids, rich, hepoor, urban, rural-- in words, it can affect anyone, and it can happen anywhere. but right now, only 4% of pediatricis in the u.s. are screening for toxic stress. most haven't receid any training on how to identify kids who are at risk. this has to change. too many children with behavior symptoms of toxic stress are being labeled with a.d.h.d. and given stimulantst withy identification of the root cause. and many kids show no behaviora symptomsl. yet they are still more than twice as likely to go on to develop asthma, autoim disease, heart disease and cancer. and their life expectancy can be cut short by decades. more than 34 million american

children have had at least one adverse childhood experience, like abuse or neglect. we need every medical professional in this country to be equipped with the right tools for universal screening. when identified early, doctors, educators and caregivers can help reverse the biological effects of childhood trauma.an algether, weive every child a shot at a y life. >> woodruff: important advice. now, robert costa is preparing for "washington week," which airs lat tonight. robert, what's on tap? >> we'll discuss the uniquely american problem of school shootings, and how the national dialogue about gun violence mayt be sg following the florida rampage. that's later tonight on "washington week," judy.nd >> woodruff:e'll be watching. tomorrow on pbs newshour weekend, some muslim womennd arhe world dare to say,"

me too." >> woodruff: and that's the newshour for tonight. good luck to ed lee. an essential fige behind the camera for "newshour" for 30 years. he begins his retirement after tonight's show. ed, we're going to miss you big time. i'm judy woodruff. have a gr.eat weeke thank you. i'm judy woodruff. >> major funding for the pbsws neur has been provided by: >> babbel. a language app that teaches real-life conversations in a new language. >> bnsf railway. >> consumer cellular. >> supporting social entrepreneurs and their solutions tohe world's most pressing problems-- skollfoundation.org. >> the william and flora hewlett foundation.

fomore than 50 years, advancing ideas and supporting institutions to promote a better world. at www.hewlett.org. >> and with the oning support of these institutions and friends of the newshr. >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you.k thu. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> you're watching pbs.

gwendolyn: this week... she has already been taken into custody by the i. what evidence from thcould this odd disc hold?se it becama cover-up. elyse: is this the holy grail of the wild west? th a photograph of e legendary warrior crazy horse. nobody has ever produced a phngof from world war ii?ot elvis costello: ♪ watchin' the detecves