captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> yang: good evening. i'm joh.n ya judy woodruff is on vacation. on the newshour tonight: >> rudy knowsh it's a wint. he started yesterday. he'll get his facts straight. >> yang: president trump's new lawyer, rudy giuliani, tries to clear up contradictory statements around hush money given to adult film star stephanie clifford. also ahead, growing russian influence and a surge in nationalism spark tensions in bosnia. why many fear the country could be sliding back towards war. >> it's not far when we will have a military police instead of a civil police. so that's the prefix to war. >> yang: a, it's friday. mark shields and david brooks are here. we discuss rudy giuliani's bombshell-edfilleek, and the shakeup in the president's legal team.

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thank you. pr >> yang:esident trump spent much of today trying to tamp down a new furor over hush money paid to a porn star. his message: "nothing to see here." the story has not changed, despite what his lawyer said. white house correspondent yamiche alcindor begins our coverage. >> it's actually very simple, but there has been a lot of misinformation. >> reporter: outside the white house this morning, the president made a poin stopping to talk about the storm stirred up by his new personal attorney, rudy giuliani. >> he started yeerday. he will get his facts straight. he's a great guy. >> reporr: at issue: a payment before the 2016 heection from long-time trump attorney michael to the porn star known as "stormy daniels." she claims she had an affair with mr. trump in 2006.

on wednesday night, giuliani disclosed for the first time that the president personall reimbursed cohen. >> that was money that was paid by his lawyer, the way i would do, out of his law firm funds. or whatever funds. it doesn't matter. and the president reimburd that over the period of several months. >> reporter: giuliani insisted mr. trump was aware of the full details of the arrangement until recently. today, the president would not say when he learned the details, or exactly when he reimbursed cohen, who's now under federal investigation. we you're going to find out, you knowe going to give a en said incorrectly.know, and >> reporter: later, giuliani released a statement intended to clarify his earlier comments.s giuliani said aims that the president learned of the diyments recently were based on giuliani's underst, and not that of the president's. but, he did not say when the presidenlearned of the payoff to stormy daniels, or when cohen

was reimbursed. last month, on "air force one," mr. trump denied knowing about the stormy daniels payment, or where cohen got the money. >> no, i don't know. . pr reporter: today, as he boarded the idential plane for dallas, he denied that he had lied. >> we're not changing any stories. all i'm telling you is that this country is, right now, is running so smooth, and to be bringing up that kinrap and to be bringing up witch hunts all the time, that's all you want to talk about. >> reporter: mr. trump also said today his lawyers have advised him against an interview with special counsel robert mueller in the rusa probe. >> no one wants to speak more than me. in fact, against my lawyers, becae most lawyers say never speak about anything. i would love to speak. if i thought it was fair, i would override my lawyer. >> reporter: hours later, oe president d on to gun policy at the national rifle association's annual meeting. >> your second amendment rights

are under siege, but they will never, ever be under sge as long as i am your president. >> reporter: it was mr. trump's fourth consecutive n.r.a. convention, and it followed february's mass shooting that kied 17 people at a high school in parkland, florida. >> we're going to do strong background checks. >> reporter: initially, the president vowed new action on gun laws but he has since pulled back. in that almost hour-long speech, prntiderump made no mention of his past support for some gun law changes. he did not talk about raising the age of purchase for certain firearms. he also didn't mention expanding background checks. john, leavinout these efforts is seen by some as president trump giving into pressure from the n.r.a. >> these were all things he had supported, the n.r.a. had opposed. did any of his opposition toa. n.ositions or differences with the n.r.a. show up if that speech today? >> reporter: not at all. this was a caaign style speech. he spoke a little about guns, a

lot about the midterms. t ked about the fact that republicans need to show out for the electheions. eems concerned about the fact republicans need to win in these states. he also said he did sign a $2 million bill for school funding. he taed a little about th changes that he made inck ound checks but these are things the n.r.a. actually supported. he have not at all trying to pick a fighth the n.r.a. made me think of a exchange with the deputy secretary. i said is the president goingo back candidates if they go up against n.r.a. and want stronger gun refor he said yes the president will cover them. this speech sayses other >> yang: the exchange on the white house plan, he said rudyni giulill get his facts straight. giuliani came out with the clarification. what are people inside of the white house telliu what's going on here? >> my sources tell me the president was notw throing rudy giuliani under the bus per se. he said he was realy trying to

clarify the timing of this. giuliani's statement if you reao itly, it's about timing and campaign finance lawsru giuliani wants to make sure he backtracks on the idea of when president trump learned about the payment. he said this week that president trump learned about the reimbursement for stormy daniels to michael cohen recently, and now rudy giuliani al essen leaving that open and letting it be vague. i should say that onef the first lines of the clarification statement stood out to me, "there is no campaign violation." that's really important because that assertion has not been made. stormy daniels lawyer says the heesident was trying to influence 016 election with his payment to stormy daniels. that's still uettled. rudy giuliani wants to make sure at least his boss thinks that' clear. >> yang: when the president got to joint base andrews, before he got on to air force one, there was an interesting scene with john kelly. what happened? >> the president walked out. this is the chief of staf,

reports say he called the president an idiot, said he's doing a fantastic job. t.john kelly praised the presid >> well, i would just say it's an absolute privilege to work for a president that has gotten the economy going. we're about to have a breakthrou, i believe, on north korea. the jobs report today. i mean, everything is going phenomenally well. attacking the opioid crisis. t''s nothing less than brilliant, wbeen accomplished in 15 months, i believe. >> reporter: now, this kind of praise is what donald trump likes to see. he loves to hear people talk about how great the country is going. i think this is john kelly y saying i want to keep my job and, mr. president, here's all the great things i can say about you today. >> yang: white house correspondent yamiche alcindor, thank you so much. and in the day's other news, the april jobs report was mostly encouraging. the labor department said employers added 164,000 jobs last month. at the same time, the unemployment rate slipped from

1% to 3.9%, the lowest since december 2000. we'll look at whether the new tax is affecting job creation mary. after the news s president trump says the details are set for his planned meeting with north korean leader kim jong-un. but, he's not saying what they are., he spoke todas he left the white house. >> stay tuned. i think you're going to be seeing very, very good things. and also, the trip is being scheduled. we now have a day, and we have a location. we'll be announcing it soon. >> yang: the president also said withdrawing u.s. troop aluth korea is "not on the table,ough he would like to lower troop levels there "at yme point in the future." the "nk times" had reported that mr. trump asked the pentagon for options on troop reductions.he iniddle east, thousands of palestinians protested again in gaza, along with israel.ence gazan medics said at least 70 people were shot and wounded. protesters threw stone burned tires as israeli soldiers fired live ammunition and tear

gas. the israelis said they targeted rioters trying to breach the fence. since march, 40 palestinians have been k willed in tkly protests. palestinian president mahmoud abbas apologiz speech widely criticized as being anti-semitic. he'd claimed monday thatan euroews were persecuted because of their role in banking. in a statement today, hend ned anti-semitism and said, "i would like ul reiterate myrespect for the jewish faith." nearly 60,000 hondurans whhad sought refuge in the united states now have 18 months to leave. te department of homeland security announcay they are losing the special status they received after a major hurricane twe decades ago. ump administration has already canceled that status for immigrants from five other nations. twaii's kilauea volcano kept spewing laay, burning two homes and filling the air with sulfur gas. the eruption started lat thursday, sending lava into

rests and neighborhoods, while smoke and ash blew high into the sky. some 1,500 residents on the big island were ordered to evacuate. >> since it's right there behind our house, we could hear the lava exploding, right from the house. is the house still gng be there when we go back over there? it might b the lava's floating downhill, we're uphill. but it's going to be changing the scenery, for sure. >> yang: kilauea is one of the most activvolcanoes in the orld. late this afternoon, iowa governor republican kim reynolds signed theation's strictest abortion limits into law. the new statute bans abortions once a fetal heartbeat is tected-- around six weeks of pregnancy. opponents of the bill say they'll sue to blo the measure om taking effect. backers say they hope the case provides a vehicle to ask e supreme court to reconsider roe versus wade. a stunning decision today in the long-running michael skakel

murder case. the connecticut supreme court reversed its own, previous ruling and threw out his 2002 conviction. he'd been found guilty of killin when both were teenagers. skakel is the nephew of ethel kenned widow of senator robert f. kennedy. a sexual abuse scandalhas scuttled plans for this year's nobel pre in literature. the swedish academy announced today that it won't give the award in 2018. ed a scandal that's roil the organization and prompted seven members to quit. one member says that has made it impossible to conduct business as usual. >> ( translated ): we have decided not to award a prize this year. and we did that after long and intense discussions. but we reached the conclusion that the confidence in the academy is so low in the world at the moment, and that is the waciding reason why we now refrain froming the prize. >> yang: this will be the first time since world war ii that the

literature prize is not awarded. instead, the academy will give t two prizes in 2019. and, on wall street, tech stocks fueled a friday rally. the dow jones industrial average gained 332 points to close at 24,262. the nasdaq rose 121 points, and the s&p 500 added 33. still to come on the newshour: the effect the new tax cuts e having on the economy. old wounds from the bosnian war spark new tensions in the region. mark shields and david brooks weigh in on the president's legal troubles. and, much more. >> yang: now, let's dig in a bit onobs, the economy and wha kind of impact tax cuts may be having on all of this. as we told you earlier, the jobless rate is the lowest it's iaen in 17 years, and, as

wibrangham tells us, the president says it's a result of his policies. >> brangham: april marsed the 91st ctive month of job growth. that's seven-plus years in a row, and the longest streak on record for the u.s. average job owth this year is around 200,000 new jobs a month. that's up a bit from last yf r's average2,000. e d when president trump was speaking befe n.r.a. today, he said the tax cuts are part of the reason. di>> we are seeing the ince resultss a result of our masse tax cuts. and everybody is benefiting. and everybody is happy. we've created 3.2 million jobs. unheard of. if we would have said that three ycaears ago in thaign, people would have said "what a horrible exaggeration." >> brangham: at the same time, companies reported a very profitable first quarter this year in fact, according to the "wall

street journal," it was the best in seven years-- due in part to pre-tax profits and smaller tax gbills. but wawth remains sluggish, and there are questions about whether these profits are leading to the kind of hiring that was also promised as part of the tax law. jim tankersley covers this for the "new yk times" and joins me now. so under 4% unemployment is a pretty striking milestone, isn't it? >> it's great. there's no question about it. it's a great number. you want the economy to run as hot as it can without too much inflation and we're there right now. maybe we eve t have more roomo run hot, and this is a thing we have not seen since the very beginning of this century. >> brangham: wages, though, have remained a bitlgish and my basic understanding of economics is when unemployment is low and the omy is roaring, there is more competition for the sayers number of worke srs, wagesuld go up. why are there not? >> one theory is there's actually still not as much compeition as you might imagine

based on the unemployment number because there are a 2 million people who could be working but are not looking forn jobs rig and that lack of them in the labor force is keeping wages down. another possible explanation is that workers right now have for long not had bargaining power with companies, they've notad the ability to demand raises and they're having a hard time getting it back for whatever reason.ar companie just not used to paying themmore but they're sl to react to okay we need to do that. >> brangham: so there is the possibity that somewhere down the line we could start to tick up. >> absolutely, if it keeps being a very low unemployment rate i we keep creating jobs at this level, wage growth should, at some point, kick in. at some point you actually exhaust the number of people out of the labor force and should i come ba. until we get there, we might see the subdued wage growth we hav been experiencing. >> brangham: the president, as we heard, is crediting the tax

bill that was signed and says this is the reason we're supercharging the economy and certainly profits have been going up. after the tax bill passed, a lot of compa'res said w giving bonuses but a to have the tax bill. one florida c.e.o. stamped tax cut onhe check for h employees. >> i wanted to do it because i'm excited about the new tax plan from trump and the g.o.p. and i wanted to share the wealth, as they say, and my employees who are mostly generation xeres and millennials are not particularly into politics, it really impacted that. when they got in their hand a check for $1,000 th plainly said, this is why you're getting this check because of the change in the new tax plan. >> bra0ngham: i mean, $1,0 is great, let's not diminish that, but a bonus is not the same as i wage. >> it's not. and it's also not what anybody

g proponents of the law would be the natural outgrowth of the big tax cut. there's no economic theory that says wean you cut taxes people get big bonus checks from employers, it's a thing that happened that snowballed because companies got wise that republicans would amplify look at this great company giving out bonuses based the tax cuts. that ended. workers got the bonus which is fantastic but in this case nuey're not seeing a sustained next year band the wage hikes haven't followed. but the thing again is we wouldn't necessarily expect that right away. you wouldn't think companies, unless they have a union or someone demanding strongly for them, to give wage hikes from a tax cut. you wouldn't expect a company to do it on its own. you would expect them to invest in better equipment, other capital expenditurethat make their company more productive and when their workers get more

productive they have to pay them more because they're producing irre. so in a way, it's a bank shot of wage growth we're looking at and the bank shot is t appearing in the data yet. >> brangham: if they suddenly get big windfall from this tax cut, are they plowing it, or does the record reflect companies are putting that money investmentwise into factories, plants, et cetera. >> there's not an indication the tax relief initiated investment. in the first quarter of the year, investment growth was about the same as a year ago. so, on the other hand, we've en some surge of investment on the large public companies this quarr, and that mayb gives us plus some other survey data some hope that we will see an investment surge in the months and year to come, but, again, we don't have great evidence yet that that's happened. >> brangham: why is that? that was a huge selling point of

the tax bill that this will supercharge companies doing this exact kind of investment. why haven't we seen it or is it just natural will take this long. >> i plenty of economists think these things ha lags, in particular the tax law was more mplicated than a corporate tax cut, so it takes time to figure out things and where to employ your sources as a best response. the fact that there instability in the economy in chilling trade and that might be chilling the investment. and it's also true, companies, the first thing they've done in a lot of cases wi this money is to buy back their own stock and to pass on to shareholders through dividends or other ways. >> brangham: we've seen a lot of companies doing buybacks. ,or those who don't know exactly what it hat is a stock buyback and who does it benefit? e a company ddes it is going to repurchase shares of its stock out on public markesots. t goes out, spends money to

nty its own shares. now it cols more of its own shares, and that puts money in the hands of pple who did own the stock and decide to sell it and also increases the value of stock held by existinrs shareholecause the price goes up when there's a big demand surge for the stock. now, the hope is that, by conservative economists, is that eventually, the money that gets into the hands of the investors who sold will findt is way into the economy through other investments. they will take ye mofund startups or buy other stocks and find a way to seed new companies. but for now, in the initial phase, it just turns into a bump for mostly rich people. thn rich i america control most stock. they're the predominantsh eholders, so that is who is benefiting now. again the hope is it will ping its way through and benefit the whole economy. >> brangham: jim tankersley of the "new york times," thanks for helping us wade through the weeds. >> my pleasure.

yang: tonight, we bring you the first of two reports on the messy state of affairs in the balkans. in the 1990s, former yugoslavia was ripped apart by bloody wars. first up: how rising nationalism d russian influence are exposing old fault-lines in herzegovina, which was wracked by a three-way ethnic conflict. now, some fear it's on the brink of conict again. special correspondent malcolm brabant covered the bosnia war a quarter century ago; with the support of the pulcenter on crisis reporting, he returned to examine the rising tensions. >> reporter: in the past, the bosnian serb capital banja luka might have expected a visit from the bolshoi ballet or moscow .tate circus ouese days, russia sends the nightwolves-- withtheir motorcycles-- when it's snowing. >> they are bad news. i mean, them appearing somewhere

means there's something in the making. they spread a hateful ideology. it is an anti-civilisation, nihilistic gangster view of the world. >> reporter: reubajrovic has just published a report for the foreign policy research institute on russian meddling in the balks. >> in reality, they are an extremist paramilitary group. e.ey are a mechanism of the russian stat people who followed the seizure of crimea, the aggression against ukraine, know very wells that this gr a signal by the russian state of its intent. me reporter: the nightwolves clthey were on a pilgrimage to reinforce russia's nturies-old historical, cultural, and christian orthodox spirituaties with the serb half of bosnia. "god bless you heroes," said the serb orthodox priest dragan vidovic, who seemed unconcerned that two of the nightwolves leaders had been barred from entering bosnia for security reasons.

>> ( translated ): look, you know what, if abikersre bad guys, it only comes from american films. actually, i don't judge people for what they are doing. we judge them if we hear about good or bad deeds. i don't know these guys personally, but i know of the things they have done, and in the past, they brought humanitarian aid to kosovo and republika srbska. >> reporter: the russian bikers said that they didn't want to talk to us. there are some balkan experts who believe at this visit was nothing more than a publicity stunt. if you believe the serbs, it was not evidence of russian meddling in the balkans. but according to critics, what this visit has done is to stoke up nationalism, and in this current nervous clime, that is unhelpful, to say the least. >> now, everything is rhetorics, you know, hate eech. but hate speech is just a step epfore war. >>ter: in the war-scarred campus of sarajevo university, security studies lecturer goran kovacevic embodies bosnia's ethnic complexities. he has an orthodox serb father, a catholic croat mother, and is

married to a muslim. he's also a former intelligence agent for the sarajevo government. >> if we continue build these national tensions, we could end up in a dreadful war again. that's my opinion. ♪ ♪ >> reporter: you are listening to a radio recording i made in sarajevo in 1992, as a cellist murned friends killed when a ortar struck a line of people queuing for bread. 10,000 sarajevans were killed by snipers and shells during the three-year-long iege by serb forces. ( gunfire a,e serbs hated the concept of a multi-ethnic bos and conducted a campaign of murderex and pulsion of muslims and croats. nsthis so-called ethnic clg culminated in 1995 with the massacre of 9,000 muslim men and boys asrebrenica. the war crime triggered an american-led bombing campaign

against the serbs, and a u.s.- brokered peace deal called the dayton accord. dayton froze the conflict lines and effectively created two mini-states within a country. sre is called the republika ka. the other is a federation between the catholic croats, and the muslims, who now call themselves bosniaks. this is the man widely perceived as bosnia's most provocative politician, milorad dodik, the ader of the bosnian serbs. as this recent television interview shows, dodik raises the spectre of republika srbskai brg away from bosnia once and for all. dodis critics fear secession could lead to war, but he argues ould be done peacefully, after a referendum. >> ( translated ): if there is no agreement on the state level bosnia, our main intention is more independence and autonomy for us. i don't know ithose in bosnia and herzegovina will be smart enough to accept this principle or not, to accept our autonomy in a way that is acceptabl.for

that is their problem. but if they think tey can force believe in bosnia and ndrzegovina, that cannot happen. >> reporter: the dayton peace treaty, all three ethnicities have to agree on any government issue. each group has its own president. given the nationalist tensions, consensus is difficultdo achieve, lg to deadlock and stagnation. the muslim, or bosniak leader, bakir izetbegov, is disturbed that his serb counterpart is blocking bosnia's membership of nato, at the behestf moscow. >> russia is looking for players,he ones who will be on their side, especially in this slav orthodox world. and populations. and you have them on balkans. med dodik is ready to play that >> reporter: in another wing of the bosnian presidential building, the croat leader, dragan covic, is less concerned about the bosnian serbs rhetorir abouking away and joining serbia proper. ld believes such an act w hurt serbia's chances of joining

the european union. >> ( translated ): in the long run, bosnia and herzegovena has a path towards europe along with serbia, and the very fact that n am mentiserbia suggests clearly that it won't encourage aspirations of territorial divisions. throughout the centuries, bosnia has been multi-ethnic, multinational and multicultural. you see it in every part of the country, and it can only survive in this way.ep >>ter: bosnia's political instability and accompanying economic stagnation haveoped to young of all ethnicities leaving the country in droves. serb zhelko pantelic is thinking of joihem. he left school three years ago, and now, aged 21, has been unemployed f all that time. >> if you finish college or high school, you don't have any opportunity to do any job here. we have like, two sides, and everythi they do, they argue, they don't do anything for young people, for economy, for anything. the politicians upset not just me, but alyoung people,

because we want to work, but we oon't have the opportunity work. >> it doesn't feel like peace. there's so, so many problem this country is so ripped apart, so negative. >> reporter: 200 miles away in sarajevo, 38-year-old lejla karovic also has problems finding work. >> nationalism is getting in th way of prosper this country. >> reporter: after her last job application, she learned she failed because s was the wrong ethnicity, a muslim. >> we don't belong to any political arty. we don't want to belong to any political party we don't believe in. it totally destroying our atbelief. onlynalists are happy in this country. they're good. they're fine they have big salaries. >> reporter: haris silazdic was bosnia's wartime prime minister, and is a critic of the u.s.-brokered peace accord. he wabelieves it ed serb aggression by freezing the lines of conflict. he says amand its allies must help forge a new deal that will end the divisions in the

country. >> what is happening now runs counter to what we know as democracy, because this is a democratic feudalism that we have now. wat we would like to see is something different. a normal citizens democracy. >> repter: prior to the bosni war in 1992, the serbs began stockpiling weaponin the hills above sarajevo. recently, the serb police took delivery of several thousand assault rifles, which they insist are essenti terrorism protection, but former intelligence agent goran kovacevic is concerned that history is repeating itself. ll>> it's not far when we have a military police insteadol of a civile. so that's the prefix to wais and everybodaying "we are ready to use this military potential of the police to defend ourselves." against who? nobody knows. but the serbs are saying the bosniaks wilkl probably att

them. bosniaks are saying maybe the serbs will make the first move. >> reporter: in sarajevo, there is a constant reminder that a small spark can start a global conflagration. this is the spot where, in 1914, a young serb, gavrilo princip, shot dead austia's archdukein fed, unleashing a sequence of events that led to the first world war. in this, the centenary of the end of that wa bosnia's muslim leader says the world must heed the lessons os history. >>a herzegovena is a meeting point of emotions, of nations, emotions that lead to moscow, to the islamic worl that lead to europe, so we s ahouldnin create a whirlpool, that started from sarajevo 100 years ago. so we should take care, we should stop in time. >> reporter: this depiction of a mother and child is part of an evocative memorial to the 1,500

children who were killed during the siege of sarajevo. many bosnians believe there is no appetite for another war. but as sarajevo knows all too well, the unexpected can happen. for the pbs newshour, i'm malcolm brabant in bosnia. >> yang: on monday, malcolm reports from kosovo, a balkan nation still reeling from conflict. us.ang: stay wi coming up on the newshour: the new documentary, "r.b.g.," the life and work of supreme court justice ruth bader ginsburg. but first, aot can happen in a week. the president can again shake up his legal team, and then have a e of those new lawyers contradict him, anred congressional chaplain can get his job back. here to make sse of it all, the analysis of shields and

brooks. that's syndicated chiumnist marklds, and "new york times" columnist david brooks. we should explain, david brooks just back from italy. >> i apparently where you have been studying sir thom ntly.nus, appa >> yang: we've had the scene this week of the president getting a new lawyer, the star of his team rudy giuliani coming out and contradicting him. today the president said he'll get his facts straight, he's neo on the then giuliani issuing this clarification. david, what do you make of all this? >> when one person tells a lie, it's what a tangled web we weave. when you've got 60 or 70 people doing it it's like av unierse of tangled. it's a universe of whoid the payoff know, when did he know. i find it allecondary. the headline here is the mesident of the united states allegedly paid husey to a

porn star. what else do we need for the scandal? that covers it for me. if people are willing to tolerate that in theiren pres whether the money counts as a campaign donation or not which is one of the thigs argued, to me is tertiary or something else. the main fact is we haveme to the point in our country where that seems normal. >> yang: so the little details don't matter. mark, what do you think? >> i welcome david back. i have to disagree in the sense the access hollywood during the campaign showed it wasn't a big factor to at least trump voters at that point. i go back to the cuban missile nsy sis and president kennedy dispatched dean at to debrief president degall in france what theyound, the what soviets placed in the way of missiles in cuba and after the

meeting it was asked of generalw degall, do yt me to show you the secret photos? no, no, said general degall, the word of the presidentis all we need. fast forward, we have a man incapable of telling t truth. less than a month ago, on air force one, asked by the press do you know anything about this payment, the $130,000, no, and, now, of course, he doechs. it r a point where the "wall street journal," the bible of american business which has been sympathetic to president trum especially on s economic policy, said he's compiling a record editorially that increases the likelihood that few will belie him. mr. trump should worry americans will stop believing anything he says. the word of the united states is not something to trifle with and he hastr led wit and he has fractured it. >> yang: david, you were way outside the beltway.

i know you think perhaps we're a little carried away with this focus on stormy daniels an payments and all this sort of thing. what do you mean by that? thinkl, you know, i do the norms he's violated and the way he's degraded public debate 'v the nation are a serious thing. talked about that three years. yet, when you think of the important things that have happened this week, probably the china-u.s. trade talks were al, kory big dehe north korea north korea-souta thing is promising all of a sudden, the economy is going great, so apparently a lot of people made the calculation, he has a bunch of scandal that those in washington care about, but ohen you thin the substantive things, things seem to be going fine, anthat's the calculation a lot of people are making. there are times i think we get a little hyped up over whatever rudy giuliani said this morning and lose sight of things in washington like the chna-u.s. trade talks. i hate to sound like the eanest middle-prow guy but i think that's the callaon people

made. i think the threat to the norms are serious and poisonous to the country yt other people , no, i just care about the this week the substance is pretty good on what the trump administration achieved. >> the lowest unemployment rate since bill clinton istainly impressive and welcomed and no american can be anything othe than happy about it. but the presidency is historically and actually above all else a place of moral leadership and you lose that, and i don't care how big the dow jones is, what the corporate profits are. you know, i'm not quite a as sag gwen at david is. we kow 86% of middle class families will have taxes raised and tax cuts wl go to the 1% when settled.

that's really not unimportant and it certainly affects t way people live but i thought the piece with jim tankersley, we're still seeing where wages are not rising, and, you know, to me, i'm just worried that the presidency itself will be a diminished and tarnished office and we'll have tough time -- >> it will be and it will be devastating for people in politics and society. but can't hide froma the fcts that are in the story. bthe tax cuts are workiter than i thought. the first quarter, capitalit expees up 39% among s&p companies. far high than we taut. stock buybacks, giving t shareholders, only 16%. so the evidence from the first

quarter seems to be what th trump told us is happening is happening, that companies are reinvesting. a lot of things trump said about north korea are terrifying, yet if it has anffect unnerving north koreans so they're more flexible and we don'know if that's the case but there are possible implications, maybe the terrifying tweets had effect. it's important to oppose what's opposable and re reprehensible d weave been doing that thr years but it's also important to see reality, and the more serious opposition will be on disastrous or not disastrous policies. >> it's sort of a mix of the disans and what's going on, sort of the scandal is at play, alson we're to get into next week the question againing of the midterm season earnest as we start this string of primaries next weanek in in ohio, west virginia, north carolina, and we're seeing in the republican primariest

these candidates trying to ghlam on to president trump as much as possible. does at the surprise you, given where we were a year ago and where we seem to be going with the president, that the republican candidates are runng toward him? yeah, and i thought as the scandals magnified people would drift away from donald trumpg includepublicans but he's got 89, 90% support among republicans so that's not happening. then i thought that will snap back and we'll revert to normalcy vilian life. but as i was waching, a guy iest did jail time for a ser of deaths in the coal mines, apparent he decided donald trump isn't vulgar enough. so the add is ce, quasi racialist, you know, making wil accusations about mitch mcconnell and cocaine. there are really zero standards

in this add. he's not winning, coming in third in the republican primaries, b if that the the standard to which politics has scended donald trump was just john the bap it's the and we'll see a lot worse. >> polite s is tmost hated of human activities with thex possibleeption of political journalism. i just say when a candidate wins -- i mean, joe mccaray spawnehole generation of imitators and people are still running for state representativ in massachusetts today who say agaiand again because john kennedy said again and again, but it should be no surprise it's a race to the bottom. i mean, it was donald trump who announced that th president of the united states was born in kenya and insisted thatas true. it was donald trump who told lies and paid no price for it and, in fact, was rewarded. so it is imitative and derivative. what's is terestingat the n o other candidates in west virginia, enkins and

congressman patrickss mor, the attorney general, are hitting each other the head with two by fors saying you're not deserving of trump's support, you're not al reaumpian and blankenship, as david's right, spent a year in jai00l, $25 fine for 20 miners dying on his watch and violation of nine safety standards and law, hel as leading unst week. i don't know what's going to happen in the primary. >> you know watts intesng, show, a lot of the fashionable campaigns are so ugly, yet you go to e municipal and gubernatorial campaigns and they're a lot better. i met u gy mike dugan who is the mayor of detroit and he's the guy who said they tried to run usthem tribal politics against them, but he sai going to fix the treat lights and city and let's put that stuff away. he got massive support from the african-american community and people wanted to hire guy who could run the city well. you can depressed at the

national leel, the paradoxes in the state and the city level, politics is working pretty good. >> david makes a good point andn probably the sst challenge to donald trump would be somebody who's a successful mayor or governor who's actually brought ople together, had achievements, worked with the other side. senators are one of a hundred. they don't make history, they make speeches, they cast votes, and ey go on television, and governors and mayors really run something and have a track record and, boy, i think we'll be looking for a track record if 2020. >> we have about a minute and a half left. the other story, the speaker of the house in massachusetts said all politics is local, the current speaker is sort of learning the lesson of that. he tried to fire the chaplain, uproaring his precinct in these house of repatives and now the chaplain's. >> what do you make of this, mark? >> political ineptitude. i've done some reporting on

eculation that speaker ryan was bowing to the interests of some in the freedom caucus who didn't want father conroy there because he was "too libal." olitical is what he's been. his one provocative statement was to ofr a prayer that the tax bill not pick winners and losers bu confer benefits and burdens equally and justly upon us. i mean, the catholic preferential option to the poor is central to it. he getfired, and there was a genuine backlash and amost spontaneous wildfire and prine had to back down. >> apparently jesus christ had a low freedom caucus store. it's rid'siculous. oing what he's supposed to be doing which is to be the consgience. i wilve prine a little credit, at least he backed down. he admitted a mistake and at toast backed down. but the pawas doing what hep was suposed to be doing

>> david brooks, mark shields, thank you so much. >> yang: finally tonight, she is largely known for issuing stinging dissents from the supreme court bench. but a new documentary, out todan elect theaters, provides an intimate and rare look inside the life of justice ruth bader. ginsbu jeffrey brown has that. >> i ask no favor for my sex. all i ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks. >> brown: it is a look at perhaps the most unlikely rock star washington's ever seen. >> i am 84 years old, and everyone wants to take a picture with me. >> brown: the new documentary, "r.b.," follows the life of supreme court justice ruth bader ginsburg: her brooklyn roots; a legal education, then rare for a woman, at harvard and columbia;

her husband, also a prominent attorney, who suppord her rise every step of the way; and, most of all, her early and contuing fight for gender equality. that theme winds throughout the film, including at her 1993 confirmation hearing, after her selection by president bill clinton. >> in my lifetime, i expect to see three, four, perhaps even o more womenthe high court bench. women not from the same mold,fe but of difnt complexions. i surely would not be in this room today without the determined efforts of men and alwomen who kept dreams of citizenship alive. >> brown: and the rest is a history that continues to this day. filmmakers betsy west and julie cohen join me now. welcome to you. >> thank you.o >> brown: make much of this unexpected cultural rock

star. u is that what attracted her in the first place? >> well, julie and i ha both interviewed justice ginsburg for previous projects, so in 205, when we noticed the notorious "rbg" just exploding on the internet, we realized there was an opportunity to tell -- >> brown: a play, of course, on the rapper. >> the rabber, notorious big. >> brown: yeah. ut we knew there was so much more to her story. back in the 1970s as a young lawyer, ruth bader gin argued a series of cases that changed the world for american w women, a thought this was a story and an opportunity that needed to be told. >> people are on the one hand so excited by her but she's got this amazing history that isn't widely known. eceives sort of th legal side of the women's rights battle that gloriasteinem ws fighting out on the streets and yet

hadn't attained that same level of fame. >> brown: i want to show a clip, one of her arguments before the supreme court which is part of her story, she was appearing before e court, and we hear the voice of then chief justice william reh.nqui so let's take a look. >> men and women are persons of equal dignity andy tould count equally before the law. >> you won't settle for putting susan b. anthony on the new dollar, the lara logan. >> when they'd say things like this, how did you respo? >> well, never in anger, as my mother told pe. that would have been self-defeating. always as an opportunity to teach. i did see myself as kind of a kindergarten teacher i those days because the judges didn't think sex discriminationd. exis well, one of the things i tried to plant if their minds was think abut how you would like

the world to be for your daughters and granddaughters. >> brown: a couple of stunning lines in there, right? justice rehnquist talkingutbo susan b. anthony. >> just joking. here she is make ago serious constitutional argument and he's just tossing off this joke., i me found a number of instances of this kind of, youre knowly blatant sexism. you can't believe that the just >> brown: but then justice ginsburg now with this line, i feltike a kindergarten teacher -- wow (laughter) >> what's amazing, even listeneg to her voice back n and we have so much of it in the film is how much this young lawyer is able to keep her composure in a situation that can bete intimidating for a lot of lawyers. now when she's looking back on it she kind of explains why. she was going to use the opportunity not to be ofended and get bristly about it but to educat >> brown: she, of course, is a liberal icon at this point in a court at the has moved more and

more conservativ a famous friendship with antonin scalia, the arch conservative, but the role has become more writing disaccidents, right? >> yes she tells us in the movie she would prefer to write majority opinions. >> brown: any justice would. any justice would to make the law the land t if necessary she will write in dissent and she writes very clear, striking prose, which is one of the reasons people have so attracted to her. >> brown: she got in one public mishap with candidate donald trump which she w criticizch was a little unusual for a jus >> absolutely. a number of court watches were surprised to hear her criticizing then candidate trump at a time when most of the nation didn't expect he would be elected president. conservatives criticized her but liberals criticized heas well and ultimately not long after justice ginsburg said that e

best response from her about donald trump would have been to sa nothing. >> brown: yeah, she realized that. >> yeah. >>: supreme court justices are sort of famously mysterious hidden and not public figures. this is a largely warm look at her with her family. we see the long hors she keeps ch see the physical workouts. i learned she wa the "newshour" while she's working out. so hello justice ginsburg, right? and keep lifting. >> yes, shout out to her. when we inrviewed her children, we were asking her whether or not she's seen the parody of her on "saturday night live." >>ou can't get rid of me yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah... >> they sad, wen't think so, she doesn't really watch television, except pore theen "newshour" whe's working out. >> brown: that's nice. >>e is 85, right? >> yes. rown: you show her being questioned about -- because a lot of people wondered should she have retired, does sheish she had retired when president

obama was still pre >> well, she has answered this that, first of all, president e ama did have an opportunity to nominate a justicd that didn't work out so well, so t she's no guarantee tha would have been replaced by his nominee, and, secondly, she objections to the idea that yo necessarily have to go out with the same party that put you in. she says, look, i will do this job as long as i'm capable &f doing it full steam, and from everything we saw, she still is capable. >> eney level like you wouldn't believe. >> we were chasing her around. we were sometimes exhausted by her travel schedule. s extraordinary >> brown: she's still keeping the long hours you were showi. >> absolutely, works long hours into the night and has a strikerringly short memory for cases even she argued in the '70s. >> brown: the new documentaries "rbg," betsy west, julie cohen, thank you very much. >> tha you.

, jeff. >> yang: on the newshour online right now: by the time stephen hawking died in march, the theoretical physicist had published more than 200 articles on the universe, black holes and quantum mechanics. it turns out he had one more-- this one about the big bang, string theory and holograms. read all about it on our website, www.pbs.org/newshour. and tune in later tonight. robert costa untangles the series of bombshell explanation ntradictions by president trump and his lawyers about a payoff to an adult film stra. plus, a fejudge questions special counsel robert mueller's authority to prosecute trump's former campaign manager. that's later tonig on ewashington week." tomorrow, on pbsour weekend, how nato is preparing nations to fight digital warfare. and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm john yang. have areat weekend.

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today on "kqed newsroom" what does trump know about hush money paid to a porn action? we'll here from congressman adam ule by the court can rshift. disrupt the economy. plus the california gop convention kicks off this week with the focus on firing up voters and a potential endorsement. hello and welcome to kqed newsroom. we begun with politics. this week president trump acknowledges a series of tweets that he repaid his lawyer for $130,000 payment made to storm damages. the twee contradict an