captioning sponsoprd by newshouuctions, llc >> woodruff: good evening. i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight: nounces new sanctions againstmu russia, while aneously proposing new tariffs on chinese imports. then, inside isi rew the islamic state group financed its brutan over vast areas of the middle easri plus, it's fday. mark shields and reihan salam ennsider escalating trade tensions, the press decision to send troops to the border, and much more. eand, singer harry belafo remembers his friend, dr. martin luther king, jr., 50 years after the assasnation of the civil rights icon. >> if he were alive today, that means the course of history that has led us to where we are today would not be the history we would be having.

if dr. king had lived, there would be no today as we know it. >> woodruff: all that and more, on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine thaconnects us. >> consumer cellular understands

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>> this program was made possible bthe corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs u.ation from viewers like thank you. >> woodruff: president trump's agenda faces new challenges tonight, from china, to russia, to his own cabinet. on tde, the president, overnight, ordered the u.s. trade representative to consider $100 billion in new tariffs on chinese goods. that is on top of recent levies on steel and aluminum, and another $50 billion in proposed penalties. still, white house economic advisor larry kudlow counseled calm today in remarks to reporters. >> now, we're norunning a trade war. if you read this thing, it's just a proposed idea, which will be vetted by the u.s. trade representative and then open for public comment.

so nothing's happened. nothing's been executed. i read about it. there's no "there" there yet. but, there will >> woodruff: separately, treasury secretary s mnuchin acknowledged a trade war is possible, but he added, "we're absolutely willing toat nego" the uncertainty sent major stock indexes down more than 2%. the dow jones industrial averago lost 572 pointlose at 23,932. the nasdaq fell 161 points, and the s&p 500 sank 58. on another front, the trump administration annous ed new sancti punish russia. the targets are 24 russian government officials and tycoons. the white house blamed what it called rusa's "malign activity" around the world. all this, as the president is ndering the fate of e.p. administrator scott pruitt, tonight. he is under fire over a low-cost condo rental, big pay raises for

his aides and pric travel. today, mr. trump tweeted that pruitt is "doing a great job but is totally under siege." later, white house press secretary sarah sanders echoed the pport, but said an ethic review is ongoing. >> the president feels that the administrator ne a good job at e.p.a. he's restored it back to itsal origurpose of protecting the environment. he's gotten unnecessary regulations out of the way. we're continuing to review any of the concerns that we have. and i'll keep you posted on if there's anything--( reporters crosstalk ) --if there's anything further on that front. >> woodruff: this was also h.r. mcmaster's last day as natnal security adviser. the president removed him, over policy and personality differences. hundreds of staffers auded mcmaster today, as he left the white house with his wife. former u.n. ambassador john bolt replaces him on monday.

and now to put the president's week in coext, our white house correspondent yamiche alcindor is here with me. anmiche, so first scott pruitt. where do things with him? the president continues to defend him is. that right? >> that is rite. currently scott pruitt is still in his job, but the trump whites has shown that things can change really quickly. that said, president trump has said he's doing fantastic job. the associated press reportso today the n met. scott pruitt met to lay out why he should keep his j. part of the reason why he and president trump say that he's doing a good job at the e.p.a. is because he's getting regulations, taking away regulation, he's changing environmental policy, and he's seen as someone who is successful in his job. that said, the white house tside of president trump has been a little bit less laudatory. sarah sanders said today there is still an investigation into scott pruitt's behavior, and chief of staff john kelly according to several reports has

told president trump that he should fire scott pruitt, but the president is not taking his advice right now.dr >> wf: in fact, that's been reported prominently and a lot of comment on thr , about whete relationship between the president and his chief of staff. o yamiche, there were several other things goitoday we reported. the administration annsances these netions against russn oligarch. why are they doing this now? what is the overall stance they have toward russia? >> wel the overall stance they have toward russia today is an all-out messaging platform. they wanted to really hammer home the point that thnk that russia has been engaged in troublg behavior. the day started with an 8:00 a.m. phone call with senior administration officials telling me and other reporters that these sanctions against 24 russian officials were becausect of a number ofities, including undermining western democracies, but also carrying out cyber attacks. they then released a white house

memo saying russia's behavior was both destabilizing and malicious. and then sarah sanders went to the white house press briefing today, and she said that russia really needs the change its behavior. all this is happeng as president trump continues to be criticized about how he talks about vladimir putin. but it's really important to point out the people that are being sanctioned are really close to vladimir putin. there are actual things that are going on. there are some teeth behind this.>> oodruff: so in many ways a contrast with what we've seen before from the administrationll fi yamiche, these tough e.words toward china on tr noe president late last night at the white house cing we are thinking about imposing new taxes on china in addition to what they've already announced. what is going on there, and how do you understand what theni adration's posture is in >> the administration's posture that they want to get into this war of words with china, and neither country is backing down. as a result, as you pointed out,

the mark some of the places that were really hurt today were tech companies d banks, seeing their stocks fall. the other thing that's important here is that president trump ran on this idea that he wanted to be tough and he wanted to have these kind of trade conversations, but he's laid out that he also thinks that americans might feel a little pain. while steve mnuchin has said there might be a trade war and larry cud low is saying we don't really want, that today at the white house he already laid out this slogan. i'm imagining white house officials might use, whichs blame china, not trump. you can already kind of see that on t-shirts. you can already see that in messagg. this is a white house that's gearing up for what might be explaining to americans on why they're paying more money. >> woodruff: meantime,et financial marattleled because of mixed signals. >> there are a lot of mixeds signing on, but the thing that is pretty clear is that president trump seems to be very serious about the fact that hent

to have these tariffs. china is saying, if you do, that we're not going to back down. we're going to essentially have things against you, and we're going to pass our own sorts of policies to hurt americans, and it's key to point out that some of the people that would be, hu course, as we've laid out on this show, are farmers and soybean farmers and people who really backed trump and really had this idea that he was going to,er in this new wave of america that was going to be prosperous. and what we're seeing now is it could beeally destabilizing. >> woodruff: both economically and politically. yamiche alcindor, thanks very much. >> thanks. >> woodruff: in the day's other news, u.s. job growth slowed in rch, due in part to late winter storms. the labor department reported that employers added a net of 103,000 jobs, that's down sharply from february. the unemployment rate for march held steady at 4.1%, where it's been for six months.de l reserve chair jerome powell gave an upbeat appraisal of the economy today. he said the fed will continue gradually raising interest

rates. the governor of arizona announced this evening that he's sending 150 national guard members to the u.s.-mexico border next week. that is in response to president trump's proclamation this week, involving california, arizona, new mexico and texas. the president says that he wants a total of 2,000 to 4,000 guard members to deploy. to the middle east, where fresh violence broke out along ther gaza borday, and israeli troops shot dead nine palestiniansff gazan healthials said over 1,000 others werended.sm thoke billowed as palestinians burned tires to obstruct the view of israeli snipers. the troops esponded with live fire and water cannons. in all, at least 29 palestinians have bn killed in the last week. the militant group hamas is orgazing the protests. in south africa, former president jacob zuma made his first court appearance on corruption charges, and insisted

that theare politically motivated. he is accused of fraud, racketeering and money laundering in an arms deal from the 1990s. the 75-year-old arrived at the packed courtroom in durban for a brief hearing. afterward, he rallied with supporters and proclaimed his innocence. >> ( translated ): it has now appeared to me that those that are in charge of the law, and politicians as well, and just as everyone has rights, i'm singled out as not having any human rights. about me whatever way. truth be told, they are lucky that people are no longer beaten. w druff: zuma served as president for nearly nine years, and resigned under pressure in february. trial has been adjourned until june. south park geun-hye was sentenced today to 24 years in prison, in a corruption scandal. thjudge in seoul ruled tha 66-year-old park was guilty of charges ranging from bribery to extortion. he also fined her more than

$16 million. park w driven from office a year ago. dozens of other top government and business leaders have been convicted in the same scandal. back in this country, facebookat has announced eople who run "issue" ads on the site will now haveo confirm their identity and location. c.e.o. mark zuckerberg also endorsed legislation to make social media identify those who place adfor political candidates. zuckerberg is set to testify before congress next week, about recent disclosures of massive privacy breaches. republican congressman blake farenthold of texas resigned suddenly today. it followed revelations that he used taxpayer money to settle a sexual harassment claim. farenthold had already said he would not run for re-election. in a statement today, he said, "i know in my heart, it's time for me to move along." and, former democratic u.s. senator daniel akaka of hawaii died today.

he was the first native hawaiian elected to congress, and served mohe than 30 years, first in house and later in the senate. daniel akaka was 93 years old. still to come on the newshour: the white house targets russian oligarchs with sweeping sanctions. investigating the trump business amid his presidency. inside the intricate bureaucracy of isis. and, much more. >> woodruff: we return to the trump administration's latest sanctions against russia. john yang has that. >> yang: judy, to explain these new sanctions against 17 russian government officials and seven of russia's richest men, we turn to scial correspondent ryan chilcote reporting from london.h ryanks for joining us. what makes these sanctions different from the sanctions

that are already in ple? >> well, these sanctions are very hard-hitting, and in contrast to the sanctions we've seen before, these go after some russian billionaires specifically and exclusively for their ties or at least they appear to exclusively for their ties to president vladimir putin. so in the past the trump administration, the obama administration has sought to thve a link between a specific event, whether it' annexation of crime, yeah whether it was fighting in theer eaukraine, and the individual they were sanctioning. but in this case it's proximityk to tmlin. another change is that verysa early on wwhat they called sectoral sanctions. seconders of the russian economy sswere sanctioned to put pe on those sectors, the oil industry. in this case, very targeted, going after people that at least in washington, d.c., they thinkp

are close sident putin. >> yang: some of these people are close to president putin. tell us about them. what are some of the oames that ju the list at you? >> well, the most interesting of the individuals that has been sanctioned is worth about billion. deripaska is well-known in the united states as having a business relationship with paul manafort. many people in the u.s. suspect that he may have acted as some kind of intermediary between the trump administration and the kremlin. he has denied that. he's definitely interesting. victor vekselber, another interesting choice. he's in the oil industry. he's been behind the drive to diversify the russian economyd away from oil s. he's a huge fan of the united states. he's a big investor in silicon

valley, and he's been trying too kihelp russia with his t money tu corner from being a petro dollar state, if you wing. so intereshat he has been targeted. again, of course, the idea is that he's somehow cl president putin. and finally,he third person i would point out out of the two dozen ishe former son-in-law of vladimir putin. i say former because sirill shamalov was married tomi one of vlaputin's daughters, but he is now divorced. the treasury is saying he effectively benefited from that marriage, and because of tha and the proximity to the russian president, he should be sanctioned. >> woodruff: >> brangham: how likely are these sanctions to succeed in changing vladimir putin's behavior >> i don't think they're likely to succeed in changing his behavior at all. there was an interesting comment

yesterday saying, oligarch sanctions? what oligarchs? we don't have oligarchs in russia. in one sense it's laughable that he's making light to this, but t there is some truth in w's saying. there are no real oligarchs in the sense that there are people that can exercise power or influence on vladimir putin. russian billionaires, russian oligarchs, if you want the call them, that they may joy their alth at the pleasure of president putin, if you will, but they can't fours him to change his behavior. so the idea of putting sanctions on them and they get upset and go to president putin to say, you know, don't do x, i don't think that's going to work.n >> brangham:e one hand you have these new sanctions. on the other you have president trump calling vladimir putin to congratulate him on his election, talking about inviting him to the white hou a summit. what message is this sending the eyssians? >> in the kremlin ecided along time ago that president trump is politically impotent, as the russian primeinister put it once.

they believe all of these actions he's taking against russia are because he has to, because of political pressure that's being exerted on him. and they see that despite their hopes and their confidence in president trump, they see that the relationship is on a downward spiral, and that definitely is not something that they're very happy about. that said, they are hopeful that at some point, you know, politics is a crazy thing, mayb he wve more power and he will be able to if not improve the relationship, stop its deterioration. >> brangham: special correspondent ryan chilcote from london. thanks for joining us. >> pleasure. >> woodruff: next, william brangham examines a reporting project delving into the intersection of business, politics and influence in

president trump's washington. f brangham: this is a fir the united states-- a president who also owns a vast business empire. exploring this duality-- commder in chief and "chief executive"-- is the premise behind a new investigative effort called "trump inc." it's a collaborationving the online investigative site propublica and new yk public radio's wnyc. and, they want your help as well. two of the journalists heading this effort are wnyc's andrea bernstein, who is also one of e hosts of "trump inc.," the podcast, and eric umansky. he helps steerropublica's trump inc. coverage online. welcome to you both. most of our viewers are going to remember, when the president weymouth the president, he said, i'm going to back away if there are any profits m going to put them into the treasury. your entire effort seems to untangle the idea of whether or not that's actually what has happened. tell us about that.

>> the message was he wasn't going to be involved but that he was not going to separate himself. i think that's sort of theof essence hat the problem is here. because his message was so confusing.he aid, i could run my company and run the country at the same time.ve i no-conflict situation. and his torney created the impression there was going to be e'wall between the two. but, in fact, as been reporting in the podcast, there are so many ways in which there are interchanges between the presidency and the trump organization, and therivis masense of confusion in what we're trying to do isort out what is happening in the relationship. >> and another thing we're trying to do is look at how many unanswered questions there are, how many things we simply n't know the answer to because the trump organization and the white house hasn't disclosed them. ti who is the trump organi

borrowing money from? who is the trump organizatio making money from? you can go on and on. who are their partners? these are fundamental questions about who quite literally has an interest in the trump organization or vice versa. >> just to give an example why this is so confusing. we have campaign finance laws. people know about that and understand, you should look to see who is contributing to a campaign to find out who is trying to influence somebody. well, right now thpresident has, for example, five active projects in india. and people are buying condos in india, and because in indians w, we don't know who those people are. o mathem paid $40,000. the advertising was if they put down that money, they could havt dinnerthe president's son, who is also named donald trump. many people did that. we don't knowho they are. people literally around the world are giving sizeable sumshe

toresident's company at the same time he's making foreign policy and other decisions that not only affect the worl but also could affect his businesses around the world. >> brangham: let'salk about ntspecific feature, the megacasino in at city, the former trump taj mahal. it is not shuttered,ot operating information. why was that of interest to you? >> we're always hearing these questions about money laundering and the mueller investigation and so forth. well, the trump taj mahal is a case where there wasn't just allegations, there were record fines given by the federal government for lack of control about money laundering, not oncebut twice. in fact, at the trump taj mahal. they were warned and they were warned and they were warned.ey ventually got hit with a $10 million fine. ou something not just about the trump taj mahal

itself, but really about the trump businesses and how they have worked and how they, you know, when they have been scrutinized often have been able to, yes, they got a record fine, and then they kept on operatingb ngham: another one of the episodes you deal with touches on lot of people have had, which is why does the president seem so reluctant to criticizea for his entire year in office thus far. anuas you drill into this, ngplore something known as "alternative finanas one possible answer. can you explain what that is? >> so this is ththeory that was articulated by glen simpson, who is the founder of fusion g.p.s. they investigated trump's blbusinesses, first for rean rival and then for the democratic rival of trump during the campaign. >> brangham: this is the genesis of theamous dossier. >> exactly. we didn't look at the dossier. we looked at the fact-findingat ed up to it and the theory that is articulated is that what

the president was doing th russia was notes inly building o r in moscow, because we know that never happened, but he was being financed by russians in other ways that helped his business. so, for example, in panama there were a number of russian buyers who bought condos early on and that enabled the trump organization to get a bond so they could build it. if you looked at a number of his projround the world in new york and elsewhere, this was a big way that he got financing. so it's sort of a clue as to what mueller might be looking for and a clue to the kinds of business dealings thsident trump may have had with the russians when he was licensing his name to build real estate around the world. >> we also know the trump organition began to spend a lot of money on things where it's far from clear where the money came feam. it doesn'tit came from

nefarious places, but we don't know. they had an enormous infusion of cash around their golf coueses, golf coun scotland and elsewhere. where did that money come from? we don't know. >> bngham: lastly, one of your more recent episodes, you gave somhomework to your audience out there. you're asking them to help youve unpack i belt's 2,700 records you have about the political appointees who areruow within the administration. what are you looking for, ? what are you interested in? >>o propublica for the pas year has been putting together and gathering and requesting records about all of the appointees that trump has made. and by the way, some of it is as basic as who are the appointees? these are many more than senate-confirmed appointees. do they own companies? what chance are they involved in? have they previously been lobbyists? are there disclosures around that? it's an enormous amount of information. we want people to help us.

we have put what we called a reporting recipe online, how yo can -- any vie listener can go, dig into the documents themselves, and it's not magic. it's n that hard. can be enormously helpful. >> brangham: we can find all of that on trump inc. on propublica. eric umansky, d andrea bernstein, thank youing for beig here. >> thank you for having us. >> woodruff: stay with us. coming up on the newshour: mark shields and reihan salam take on this week's news. and, harry belafte remembers his friend, martin luther king, jr. and now, we'd like to introduce a new correspondent here at the newshour, amna nawaz. amna, welcome.nk

>> tou so much, judy. it is great to be here. >> woodruff: we have so glad to have you. tonight you have a story about a recently discovered trove of documents that give us new insight to what life was like under isis. control back in 2014. now,y late01nt6,hof sefi isitisl bombing campaign, and block-by- block battles.t ey left behind evidence of how they controlled the city and their would-be caliphate. this came in the form of thousands of documents, detailing everything from how residents were punished, to how the story comes tos from rukmini callimachi, a reporter with the "new york tes." and i asked her earlier what these documents reveal about hos controlled so much land, and so many people, for so long. >> i think the biggest revelation you see in these documents is it helps us answer e tiquthf ones othe grsr long.

i think our listeners have thryab hf ly othrde market oil sales. black market oil sales were a rt of isis' spreadsheet, but the documents i recovered showed that they relied overwhelmingly on things that could not be bombed. u the peoper their control who were being taxed, the wmmerce that those people generated, which also taxed, and the dirt under their feet. agriculture was actually anmo enly important source of financing for isis. the spread sheets that i recovered included the daily gross revenue sheets for the islami that weeks and weeks after the start of the military operationk toback mosul, the group was making literally millions off of things like the sale of flour, the sale of barley and wheat, sheep's milk, the most boring things possible, whh are of course the very things that you cannot bomb. there's no clear way tbomb a barley field or a flock of sheep without mpletely ruining the

landscape of northern iraq. >> reporter: you spent over a year searcng for these cuments. tell me a little bit more about how and where you found them. >> we found the first big batch of documents in december 2016, and i did a total of five ulips to m we ended up finding records in 11 cities, towns, and villages. and the thing that we learned early on was that we were essentially in competition with intelligence agencies who were also trying to find these records. so we didn't have almost any luck searching the major isis headquarters, the headquarters of the military bases or ofma their offices. we learned to stay off the beaten track, and, for example, the first batch of documents that we got was in a tiny village called omar khan located sutheast of mosul. it's a place wheurity forces had gone through very rapidly. so i think they hadn'trly searched it. we went to a building that villagers had iden tfied as one opinion industries of isis.

inside the actual building we found nothing. on t way out i stopped at wh i thought was an out house before we werellowed to get into the car. it was in this out house, which was not an out house, at we found hundreds and hundreds of documents. >> i want to ask you about one specific story you highlight in. there it's the story of a man who is an agricultple department ee. there he basically signed off on isis orders to seize land from targeted groups. i'm curious what you heard on the ground there about why people in mosul decided to stay and basically help facilitate the isis regime. >> so isis, as you know, is a sunni group. they are 100% sunni.s soon as they took over the area, christians, shias, yezidis fled immediately. at the people told me is that they stayed for a host of reasons. they wanted to protect their families. they wanted to protect their home, which they knew would be

seized if they left. and it wasn't immediately clear to what extent they would become collaborators with the islamic state. what isis did is soon after taking the city of mosul, they announced on the loudspeakers of mosques that civil servants needed to go back the work, and as a result, basically the entire public servant core went back to work. as they kept the city goin they would have if they were workg for the iraqi government. isis used the know-how of the iraqi governmentn o build its ate. it built its state on the back of the one that ca before. >> reporter: from the people you spoke with there, is there any concern that after the city has been leveled and all the fighting, the seeds of discontent has been sewn, are they concerned that isis could come back? >> absolutely. you are seeing this even in the very first ds of the liberation. is cells remain in this area. you hear of suicide bombings routinely or people being

kidnapped or altercations. and deadly clashes with police. the same grievances that allowed this group the take ld in the first place are still very much present. people complain of the corruption, of the iraqi state, of not being given a fair shake plless they have what is called connections to pin power. so all of that remains. and the thing that was actually the most frightening i thi to read in these documents and to see through interviews that ith did wi people is how good isis was at governing. we don't often talk about. this but the streets were cleaner under isis than under the iraqi government. wers were less likely to overflow. this is what people told us. and the fact that the iraqi state cannot take care of those basic things is the kind ofg that festers. and it causes people to show sympathy for this group. >> reporter: rukmini callimachi, thank you for your time.

>> thank you. >> woodruff: from calling for a national guard presence at the u.s.-mexican border, to floating the withdrawal of u.s. troops from syria, the president's announcements this week raised more questions than answers. that brings us to the analysis of shields and salam. at is syndicated columnist mark shields, and "national review" executive editor, reihan salam. reihan, welcome to the program. and, mark, you are re than indicated, you're syndicated. >> thank you. partf the syndicate. woodruff: so let's start, ming from the top of thesht, and administration over trade. the president putting out thewo . the white house late last night saying they were looking seriously at more taxes, moreta ffs on china. and then the president's chief economic adviser larryow saying today, well,, no, no

we're still in negotiation.to what are wake of this? the president clearly wants to send some sort of signal to china. >> no question ad ut it, judy, has. i think it's fair to say. larry kudlow is an interesting case. i first rainto him working on the anti-war campaign of senator jean mccarthy, tn worked for edmund muskee. then he worked for reagan, and now he's whaver donald trump, is and one can't be absolutely sure. i think his time is short because he's been cast at the interpreter of donald trump, and donald trump senses f the world's greatest communicator, and he doesn't need an interpreter. but that having been said, i think it's fair to say that china in the short run, in the long run, they're in tougher shape on this than we are, because we're a bigger share of their market. but in the short run, which is where we all live, especially in a november election and the republican majority hanging by a

thread, i think the pressure will mount on donald trump politically from his own base. these are red states particularly being felt with tho eans and the retaliation by the chinese. hink that's where it is politically.ou i mean, if're a republican up for reelection this year, and at this point, more republicans have retired in 2t year 2018nc than any year 1930, which was the middle of the depression, which tells you something about how ee it, you want to talk about tax cuts. that's what you wa to talk abou you don't want to talk about trade animmigration and borders quite frankly. and i think that's where the president's rerned. >> woodruff: reihan, how do you see the calculus? >> i disagree. mark raises a very good point where he says the chinese have been shrewd.

they are targeting the farm constituents, republican constituents, but there is theha factdonald trump presented himself as a different kind of republican. he's a third >> a party candidate running under the republican banner, and protectionism is ultim popular with many people. when you talk about the negative impacts here, the thing is that sometimes we have a tendency to overstate them, because a lot of the negative impact is borne by companies that have relied on the supply chains, but the thing is overall think back to the soviets. a lot of farmers said this will hurt me, but ultimately i suort the policy. you might have people say, yes, china, they engage in a lot of trade abuses and this is something where they need to clamp down. so that's why i think that, asse opto tax cuts which are a classically orthodox republican thing to do, here donald trumpde left to his owces is trying to do something a bit different that might bepl appealing to pwho other wooz don't vote republican. >> woodruff: you don't see mixed signals coming from the stration or do you?

>> i absolutely see mixed signals. part othis could be the savviness of, this is my opening bid, and i try to get something halfway, but thereixre definitely signals. >> i respectfully disagree ine nse if you want to go back to the grain embargo, you ask democrats who lost their seats at that time under jimmy carter. i do think quite bluntly that donald trump is playing presidential politics, and he's keeping his promise. he's talking about his constituents. that's why he returns to tariffs. that's why he returns to the border and the hoards of rapists descending upon us, quite contrary the fact and reality.n' but i think, judy, that this is helping republicans who are increasingly discouraging situation and condition heading into november 2018. >> woodruff: you mentioned the border. i do want to ask about that,

reihan, because the president, ash the same 24-hour period he awid we want to bring the u.s. troops home righ from syria, he said, we need to send u.s. troops to the border.w at later turned out to be the national guard, but the president is saying 2,000 to in4,000. but weout later when he's making these statement, thon administraasn't prepared. the pentagon wasn't prepared to explain what was going on with the troops in syria. s they say there are no pl far as they know to bring them home immediately. so what is the president trying to accomplish? >> well, oneay to think about it is that every president has a set of ideas and commitments, and then they winding up being pretty frustrated. by the time you get into your administration, you ree the limits of your authority. that can be very difficult.t you lookrack obama, for example. he really ran as an anti-war candidate. he came into office and found, gosh, the national security establishment has a very different position to me, and i'm feeling this incredible pressure, this responsibility that's weighing on me, and then you wind up taking positions

that are not necessarily the ones that are your first instinct. donald ta thidient ctre , heru actho hlly negovetiatinrl . w he may well get these arguments from fol want to take a more restrained, cautious approach, but then when he makes these statements in public, then it actually forces folks into his administration who might want to push against those t tendencialign with him to f e extent possible. and that is kindgotiated with his own administration, happening in public. >> woodruff: so he'sg the move the bureaucracy, mark? what do you think? >> i'm not sure. if he were, i think he would invest time trying to de rather than bombastically make these pronouncements. i'm going to sign the bill, the spending bill. m gognno ii'toint g cyber jeff sessions has gone. jeff sessions is still here. i think that unpredictability

can be an asset in international relations to keep your adversaries off balance. uncertainty and anety are knotty in any administration, whether it's republican democrat. because what it basically means is that people are uncertain about their own position, their own longevity, and their relationship with each other. and i think it's just pernicious over a period of time.>> oodruff: is there a danger of too much uncertainty? >> i think there is a lot of danger of uncertainty. there is another way to look at it, though. with a lot of presidents you eventually have a divorce with base out of that sense that this person has gone native, let's ery. this person made as of promises and commitment, and donald trump is particularlyer vule to that, because he is the candidate of authenticity.he s the candidate who gained this enormous following because the sense that he was genuine and in the like other conventional politicians.bu conventional politicians are conventional politicians becausk thd of discipline and

careful planning and not letting things blow up in your face works, right? but he senses that vulnerability t d he's speaking to it at a time when there isch of a republican agenda in congress. so then when the deck isre cl and he gets to fill that vacuum with his own instincts. >> there is no republican agenda. that's it. that's one of the problems going firward. what your going tht about is cabinet confirmation, and this is like that. >> woodruff: you brithe cabinet. i want to ask you both about scott pruitt, the environmentanc protection aadministrator. mark, he's in some hot water, some questions about se ethical decisions he's made. the president has said both he's doing a fantastic job, and the press secretary at the white house says they're considering carefully, they're doing an ethical review.g what is go? >> an ethical review could take a while, judy. this is man with illusions if not delusions of grandeur. i mean, gina mccarthy, his

predecessor at e.p.a. got with a driver. he wants a three-car cavalcade wherever he goes. he wants sirens blaring to get through traffic. he got a deal that scott pruitt, oklahoma state official, could not get, and this is a $50 a ght bedroom and total access to the home on capitol hill in a nice town house. only paid $50 when, in fact, you sleep there. not a bad deal for a mortgage if you can get that possibly.hi so i really do that this is man, whether it's looking at $70,000 desks, flying class, checking out $100,000 a month charters for air i think this is man who has gob to the swamp. he's a creaturof the swamp at is point. >> woodruff: reihan, we learned in reporting that the chief of staff at the urite house had the president to fire scott pruitt, but the president so far disagrees. >> well, i'll make two observations about scott pruitt.

the first is that this is someone who really is a selitical talent, and my s is that regardless of the outcome of what happens here, we have not heard the last from him. he's enormously charismatic and he's very effective. with regard to these ethical considerations, the truth is we don't know the whole story yet. we'll find out, but one thing i can say is that many senior officials in the trump administration really have faced security concerns that theav predecessors't. scott pruitt has had to cancel various public events because of security concerns. so some of the concerns about having a cavalcade and what hav you, t stuff that's absolutely embarrassing, but i do want to give him the benefit of the doubt to gauge how much of this reflecteds legitimate concerns. >> the one reference to security i've seen documented wa that somebody shouted out to him on an airplane about his anpolicies. i it was not --

>> there have been events canceled out of security concerns.e this is not nd of thing we necessarily are keen to talk about publicly, but it's the kind othing where i don't know the whole story, so i'm willing to suggest there is something else there. o>> woodruff: i want to e a different note. we've only got about a minute, a little more than a mber. but mark, this week we mark 50 ation ofnce the assass dr. martin luther king. we spent a lot of this week talking about his legacy. if you were here dure civil rights movement, lived through it, watched it, what a you thinking? >> well, 50 years ago this monday, judy, i was in ebenezer baptist church. there's a church where ding c king's funeral was held. richard nixon, robert kennedy, hubert humphrey, jaclyn kennedy, chuck percy, nelson rockefeller, jean mccarthy. but we what struck me most of all is the crowd of 50,000 plus march from there to morehouse college where he was to be laid

to rest on a very hot day, rocked by the city hall of atlanta d the statehouse. the statehouse was less dramatic with harmed guards with rifles and the city hall, the city too busyte. it was draped many black crepe. so i said, what a remarkable mah that he ha reaction and this legacy. >> woodruff: just in a few seconds? >> there are millions of americans, myself among them whose lives wouldn't be nearly as rich and full and complete and full of opportunity as they are without martin luther king, jr., so we all owe him an enormous debt of gratitude. >> no question about it. reihan salam, mark shields, thank you both very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: and finally, as we mark the 50th anniversary of

dr. martin luther ki, jr.'s assassination, special correspondent charlayne hunter- gault sat down with one of hist closiends, artist and activist harry belafonte, in his home. charlayne began by asking mr. belafonte how he first met dr. king, some 65 years ago. >> he was coming to new york to speak to the ecumenical community at the baptist church. as a young black artist on the rise, i began the make a bit of noise on my own terms. i began the violate the codes of racial separation.i derstood the evils of racism i was 26. i listened to hi i was just absolutely struckwh with the way ih he presented his case to the black

community, condemning them to be not more engaged in cial destiny of black people. >> really? >> yeah. >> that must have gone over big. >> it was over very big. >> that was very big. oswhat do you remember the about him? >> his intellect. i didn't quite understand how man just 23 years old already with a ph.d. from the university could put together this view of black life in a way that was most contentious and most rebellious against the system. i would love to meet you. we were in the basement of the baptist church. he sat at the table after he had spoken to religious leaders, and that was the beginning of our

relationship. what he said took almost four hours.>> h, my. what made him such a special y pers think? >> divine intervention.pa i think th he set for himself became m mt antagonist y members of the black church, his father included. daddy king didn't like making all this trouble with white folks. >> reporter: is that right? >> yeah. and martinknowing that that would be somewhat challenging to his father, stepped up anyway ned said, i've got to do this. he was very concthat in choosing him to be the leader the movement, he might be leading people into harm's way. he said, i'm not cut out for this. i don't know what to do. >> so he had his doubts? h

>> ohad doubts as to his qualifications. . was willing to be patie he was willing to take on the responsibility because he had a vision eventlly for what he thought he might be able to hieve. he wasn't too sure about it. it was very much in conflict of what that might lead to. >> reporter: and he also had family at that time. did he have conflicts there about being away from them somu ? >> he did not understand how daunting all of this had become. he really was thinking it would be a year or two to straightenf out this thingding on the bus and segregation laws and that could be dealorwith in shorr if there was enough powebehind his leadership. but when we got into it, it turned outo be much more than

that, because once he got into the idea of endi segregation, he then had to talk about poverty. he then had to talabout housing in the south. martin luther king went down ana established a onship with the garbage worker but thenat found out heir plight was part of a much bigger canvas and he had to take on the plight of alpoor people. >> reporter: black or white or any color.>> lack or white, anybody call up in then just economic system. >> reporter: now in his "to the mountaintop" speech, which was his last -- >> and i've seen the promise land. >> reporter: he spoke then, that was 1968, of how the nation was sick. he said trouble in the land, confusion all around, and yet he remained hopeful because he said at that time, only when it is dark enough can we see the stars. nabled him to stay hopeful t

and yo? >> his mor sense of justice. he really felt that what he was doing was morally correct. >> reporter: what do you thinkld he we working on today? >> the impact if he had lived, his pact on universal order, his impact on the globe, his impact on the world has taken on such a humongous power that we was shaping human history. >> reporter: because he said, you are l wrapped in a single garment of destiny. >> exactly. w there's out of this. you all can do what you want to do, but i'm going to have to wrestle with the fact that you have to deal with it. >> reporter: what do you think it would take today to make his dream of the beloved community a reality? >> until white america decides

to identify a moral course of history, i don't think anything is going to happen. i think america will self-destruct. >> reporter: the civil rights movement was black and white together. >> yeah. >> reporter: that's not the case anymore? >> that's the case, but it's not the fact. the case is that we have to fix it, the fact is that it's notfi ble if white folks don't decide to change their course o. cond is it lynched? , it murdered? as you look arouver before in my9 1 years of hist an american have i ever seen the nation more racially divisive th, it is at this very mome including the days of the kukl klan and the segregation laws of the south. >> reporr: do you have any hope from the young people who have now after the tgedy in florida who have taken to the

streets and taken to the capitaa and arng that they're going to continue, do you get any hope for them? >> yes, i get great hope for them. i get great hope from young people. there are young people in the forefront. 24 is a young person. he's not a kid, but all around him were these young men who were 18 and 19 and 20. >> reporter: so it may be a moment of passing the baton? are you ready for that? >> yes. we've been ready for it.te >> rep well, harry belafonte, thank you for joining us. >> well, what are you going to do with the baton? >> reporter: good question. woodruff: harry belafonte saying he was shaping human history of martin luther kg, jr. and that is the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. odve a great weekend. thank you and go night. >> major funding for the pbs

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>> hinojosa: many know him as the man who spoiled the 2000 presidenti elections, but in the last five decades, he brought us the seatbelt, theag aithe clean air act, and much more-- four-timeti presid candidate, consumer advocate, and author ralph nader. i'm maria hinojosa, this is one on one. ralph nader, it's great to havee you onhow. >> thank you. >> hinojosa: so here's the first question i want to throw out to you, because, you know, you're a conser advocate. as a kid who was growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, you know, lph nader... everybody knew what you were doing. ur but paint a piof what our country would look like if you hadn't existed; ifou hadn't,