captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening, i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight, hurricane florence slows as it bears down on the carolinas, bringing dangerous winds and potentially historic rainfall. then, we take a look at the border crisis as the number ofde ined migrant children reaches a record level. plst, i sit down with journa bob woodward to discuss "fear," his new book on the inner rmoil of the trump white house. >> i've done rorting for 47 years, never heard anything like this where there was battle between the president and all his key advisers. >> woodruff: plus, a new project explores why tropical forests have become a source of carbon

emissions and the effect they have in the fight against climate change. all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour. di >> major funng for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> and by the alfred p. sloan founngtion. supporcience, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. >> carnegie corporation of new york. supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, and the advancemenal of internatieace and security. at carnegie.org.

>> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: and individuals. >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: it's still a huge hurricane, but not as powerful as it once was. "florence" dropped back today to a category 2, with sustained ldnds at 100 miles an hour. but that may be omfort for those directly in its path. p.j. tobia reports from wilmington, north carolina.

>> reporter: by this morning, the outer bands of florence reached north carolina's coast. along the outer banks, waves crashed on to empty beaches at kitty hawk. south of cape fear, a howling wind shredded an american flag, at an offshore lighthouse. federal emergency officials warned there much worse to come, even if the hurricane has lost some of its punch. >> this is a very dangerous storm. we call them disasters because they break thing the infrastructure is going to break. the poweis going to go out. so, not only that bu of you who have evacuated from the carolina coast lines are going to be displaced for a while, >> reporter: "florence" is setting up to be a slow-motion disaster. the center could make landfallh along the norolina-south carolina border by tomorrow,r then loiday before plowing inland. storm surges may reach nine to 13 feet, and the system's huge size and slow movement could mean up to 40 inches of rain in places. north carolina governor roy cooper made a final plea today,

to the last to leave: >> if you're in an evacuation area, there is still time to get out. don't risk your life riding out a monster storm >> reporter: a mandatory evacuation order went out last night on wrightsville beac north carolina, near wilmington. dan house is the police chief there. >> this is salething that's ys very difficult because you know just like them i had to leave my home. and i know how hard it is so we really appreciate the cooperation in that ma rer. orter: shelters have been set up as far inland as raleigh, and beyond, for the evacuees. in fayetteville, north carolina, 100 miles from the coast, people raced today to finish boarding up houses, piling sandbags around buildings and stocking up on supplies. many in the city remember the yestruction left by another hurricane, just tws ago. >> it's got me nervous. i can't sleep. i've been through storm before i lost everything i had. >> reporter: when hurricanefa "matthew" hitteville in 2016, the cape fear river rose nearly 60 feet, reaching the bottom othe train trestle behind me.

enrecasters say hurricane florence has the pal to dump even more rain on this area.n meanwhile,uth carolina, more than 400,000 people have left coastal areas, under evacuation orders. >> the only thing that really scares me is that if we get a flood, other than that, i'm okay. i'm not really afraid ofe he hurric the wind or anything but like i said, just only the water becomes a flood. >> reporter: as evacuees seek shelter, emergency crews and the military are making ready. hundreds of national gua troops are on alert in the carolinas and virginia. the pentagon says it has a response plan ready, after the storm passes. but for a few, at ast, this was a day to head to the water, and ride the big waves and wind beore the worst of the storm arves. and the outer bands of the storm have arrived here in wilmington, north carolina, as darkness kerls and most residents h down for the worst of the storm that's yet to come. judy?f: >> woodrso p.j., we can see the rain coming down.

tell us what you're seeing right now. there's gusting winds, pelting rain, really in just the last hou5:here in the00 hour, things really picked up. and almost minute by minutit got much worse. then there were some lulls. then it gets worse than it was before. there'n water pooling on streets very quickly. it's only been raining for a few hours. even some debris already on the streets, which are largely empty. folks have heeded official warnings and stayed home.f: >> woodr.j., i know you spent time today with the first responders. tell us wngat they are doiere at this late hour to get ready. >> well, of course, they've been prping all week for this event, and the folks we spent some time with this morning were doing final check-downs on their preparation list. they have inflatable zodiacs, filling up the gas on those engines so they're ready for tin evidentable water rescues, making sure the communicati

equipment is checked out. there are also line crews from as far away as oklahoma. orese are folks that will come in after the stand repair the electrical grid, any of the downed lines, all of th stuff that's very, very likely to happen in this wind that's picking up now. they're stationed out 100 miles west of here indy fayetteville ro come in after the tomorrow dies down. >> woodruff: finally, p.j., you were -- you referred to the story of flooding in the area. tell us how that is expected to affect everything. >> the eastern part onorth rolina and south carolina, honeycombed with rivered and streams, tributaries, even small bodies of water. when this rain happens, they start to swell. and all of them run out to the ocean, whichs just tour east, a few miles that way. when the storm surge hppens, the flow to the ocean meets the flow from the storm surge, and that's when these rivers and streams burst their banks, begin to flood roads, highways, people's houses, even entire

towns, judy. >> woodruff: wewelk ertainly hope earn who needed to get out has gotten out and that everyone is staying safe. p.j., thank you. >> woodruff: in the day's other news, the head of the federal emergency management agency, brock long, denied he intentionally misused governmeni es. long acknowledged he's under investigation by the inspector general at the department of homeland secury. but he said, "doing something unethical is not part of my d.n.a." in the philippines, mass evacuations are underway, ahead of the most powerful typhoon to target e untry this year. the storm today had sustained winds of more than 125 miles an hour. it could hit cagayan province on saturday. filipinos living there and in nearby areas boarded up their homes today, before heading to shelters. more than fo million people are at risk. wa roman catholic bishop t virginia resigned today over

allegations that he sexually harassed adults. pope francis accepted michael bransfield's resignation and approved an investigation. bransfield has denied abusing anyone. the news broke as francis met with u.s. cardinals and bishops at the abuse crisis in the church.me for the first myanmar's civilian leader has acknowledged problems with the expulsion of 700,000 rohingya musli the buddhist nation's military is accused of mass rapes, killings and burning rohingya villages lt year. aung san suu kyi spoke today during a conferee in vietnam. she voiced regrets, but also defended her security forces. >> there are of course ways in which we, with hindsight, might think that the situation could have been handled better. but we believe that for the sake

of long-term stability and security we have to be fair t all sides, tle of law must apply to everybody. >> woodruff: suu kyi said myanmar is prepared to take back muslims who fled to neighboringa ladesh. turkey is stepng up efforts to ad off a syrian government offensive, aimed at rebels near the turkish border. activist video today showed a turkish convoy inside northwestern syria's idlib province. it came during a pause in syrian and russian bombing raids. turkey fears new fighting there will send another wave of refugees into its territory. two russians accused of poisoning a former spy in greati br proclaimed their innocence today. itish police say alexand petrov and ruslan boshirov work for russian military intelligence. they were seen in salisbury, england, in sergei skripal's neighborhood, in early march. that's when skripal was poisoned

with a nerve agent. heater recovered. today, on russian tv, the two men claimed they were ju tourists, and were falsely accused. >> ( translated ): every day, two photos full screen, you turn on the radio-- boshirov and petrov, you turn on the tv-- boshirov and petrov. how woulyou live? i'm really scared and frightened. i don't know what comes tomorrow. that's why we came to you. >> woodruff: britain dismissed the interview as "obfuscation and lies." back in this country, the f.b.i. twist in the supreme cou fight over brett kavanaugh. dianne feinstein said she's given the f.b.i. a complaint about kavanaugh from someone who did not wish be named. the "washington post" reported that the f.b.i. declined to investigate apparently due to the age of the information which dates from high school. feinstein is the ranking mocrat on the feinstein is ranking democrat on

the senate judiciary committee. it's set to vote next thursday on the nomination. and, on wall street, a techoa rally led the r market higher. the dow jones industrial average gained 147 points close at 26,145. the nasdaq rose 59 points, and the s&p 500 added 15. still to come on the newshour: president trump casts doubt on the death toll from hurricane maria in puerto rico. why the number of migrant children detained in the u.s. is th a record level. the fight to savamazon rainforest, and much more. >> woodruff: wle the federal government prepares for hurricane florence, presidenttr p is talking about one of last year's big storms. as john yang reports, the president is defending the response to hurricane maria,

which devastated the u.s. territory of puerto rico. >> yang: in the weeks after the storm hit, the puerto rican government said 64 people died on the island. but mounting evidence suggestedl that figure to take full account of the deadly effects of prolonged power failure, blocked roads and interrupted health care. studies estimated the death toll ranged fm 800 to more than 8,000. puerto rico governor ricardo rossello commissioned george washington university's school lic health to look into the question. last month, rossello accepted the study's conclusion that nearly 3,000 people died as a result of the storm's effects. today, president trump sd "3,000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit puerto co. when i left the island, after the storm had hit, they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths..." in fact, when air force one left puerto rico, the death toll stood at 45.

mr. trump said the higher estimates were "done by the democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible. if a person died for anyeason, like old age, just add them onto the list." republican response was largely muted. one exception: florida governor rick scott, a candidate for the u.s. senate, who said, "i disagree with the potus. independent study said thousands were lost." we're now joined by philip bump, a "washington post" national correspondent who focuses on the numbers behind politics.ph ip, thanks for being with us. as we heard in the tape, a new higher estimate from george washington university, how is that reached, how is th number reached? >> so the conclusion they reached was that there was a range, and 30 was nose likely central you that they came up. with that range was determined by looking essentially at what the normal level of mortality was on pu tto rico and howat level of mortality had increased in the months after the storm for about six months after the

storm. so say if 100 people died normally in november, if after the storm 150 had died, th would estimate about 50 additional people had died. it was that sort of analy s they did for an extended period after le storm that alowed them to come up with this value. >> yang: george washington university's school ofutublic healthut a statement that said we stand by the science underlying our stude. we are con that the number, 2,975, is the most accurate and unbiased estimater of excess lity to date. so this wasn't a list. they didn't go counting death certificates over this time? >> that's exactly right. that probably wouldn't even have worked. i spoke with researchers of the university of delaware's disaster recovery center last year in anticipation that thi might becoproblem, and the thing that was pointed out the me is that most of these cau of death, if, for example, someone has diabetes and their insulin that needs to be kept, refrigeratey can't keep it refrigerated because they lose

electricity from the storm, the cause of death on their death certificate is not going to that they died because of hurricane maria, it's going to be they died from diabetes all of the causes of death might not necessarily reflect the trus they died at the point they did, which was the aftereffects of the storm.w >> yang: so points coming out of that. number one, when the president said they just added people on to the list, there was no list. >> that's exactly right. that was just politicalic rhet >> yang: secondly, you've written a lot about the complexities of reachi death tolling figuring out death tolls ter natural disasters. talk about that direct effects of people, direct effects and the indirect effects. >> so direct effects of dying from the storm are, for example, during the storm and having a tree hit you in the head, being in your home and having a flooding and drowning as a result of it. we are pretty familiar with e those direects. obviously lamentable and tragic. but at we're really talking about here is that period after

ward. that period of months where much d puerto rico lacked electricity, lactable water, lacked clear roads. the "post" in may told the story of a woman who died in her hom in part because medical workers, cell phones weren't wodking, in part because ambulance got caught in traffic because traffic lights weren't working. these deaths are a direct result of the storm, but they aren't a directtributable to the storm itself, this two-day period. the remarkable thing that thide prt did today is he asked us to focus only on those direct effects from the storm andre ighe preventable deaths that happened in the weeks and months afterward, the preventable deaths thae ultimately the responsibility of the federal and local governments to prevent. >>d ang: and you tweetethis afternoon that when you spoke to researchers last year, they were concerned about how president trump might use this sot of uncertainty about the exact asons. for politicalr >> well, i wouldn't say that they expressed that they themselves were cocerned how trump would do, this but they

did note that it was not uncommon for death tolls from these sorts of disasters to become political footballs. and as part of our conversation, as sopething when i soke with them, they noted that these things are never able to be pinpoint accurate simply because of the way that these deaths occur, and as a result of that, they often become subject to political machinations. it's unusual, however, that we see that in the united states. after katrina, for example, there wasn't much debe ate. ths an accepted figure they will note was calculated in much the same wathat this on was. >> yang: philip bump of the "washington post," thanks so much for being with us. >> of course. >> woodruff: government figures show the number of uccompanied immigrant children in federal custody has been growing in gcent months, and according to

one report, have nwn five- fold over the last year, reaching their highest levels er. amna nawaz has been following the story, and is here with the latest. amna, this "new york times" report saying the number of these immigrant children has skyrocketed. we have done a lot of reporting on these separated children. are these the same children? what are you finding? >> it's important to separate out here. those separated children, they represent a very small sli of all the unaccompanied minors in u.s. government custody.w, he vast majority of these kids, they're older, slightly older. ey usually arrive alone. and they also usually arrive with the intent of uniting with family member inside the u.s. "the new yortimes" report yo mentioned, they say may 2017 there were 2,400 kids inst y. they've seen a fivefold increase. now, that increase is what is most striking. i want to take a closer look at 'me of the numbers ve seen, because we were give an

first-hand look at some government documents. this is over the last three months. total number in july, 11,978. in august 12,350.te and in seer, this is the number we got from the last 24 hours, 12,869 children custody. the government would not give us comment on specific number and they say the numbers change on a daily basis based on arrivals anhow fast they can place kids out. >> woodruff: so what is behind this increase? yesterday the department of homeland security puts out these numbers saying these are the highest family crossings on ndcord for the month of august. is this just a t is that what's going on? >> partly. over the last six years the numbers oomf unanied children have been going up. there was a huge spike after 2012. last year in 2017, they went down. since then people would look at the numbers y they kind of stayed steady. that's largely because the things tha apeoplee fleeing, the kids that things are fleeina in guateel salvador and

honduras, the violence and aven'tainty, those change two other things offer some insight into what's going on here. one is the discharge rate. the documents we saw showed thao has gonen. we're leaving kids out of the system -- moving kids ou system much more slowly. at the same time, the average length of stay has gone up. me other numbers to take a look at. two years ago the average child wastaying in u.s. custody 40 days. now they're saying -- in 2017 it was 51 days. that now has gone up to 59 days in custody. so when i asked government officials what's going on here,t they po trump administration policy. there were two new policies that went into effect. one said, look, anyone who is in the household that wants to get a child back in thir custody, everyone has to submit data and fingerprinting. ong time.take a they also said all this information is going to be going to ice for enforcement purposes. so it had a chilling effect. people are less likely to come forw sd. >> woodruf how is this affecting the system?

how is it affecting the children? >> overall the systems stressed. shelters were not designed to be handling this kind of capacity. the last number we saw showed they're at a 93% occupancy rate. so 93% of all the beds available to them, they are filled. one former official i talked to said in past years when they reached around 90 or 91%, panic would set in. and they would require multiple agency resources to try to comee togend get that number back down to 80% or 85%. that was a swe spot for them. but look, the bigger picture here is it's bad for the children. those there's consensus now that prolonged detention can have trauma, can have deeimpacts on these kids and one official actually said, ok, the longer these kids sit in the shelter, the greater the chainnces somecan go wrong. >> woodruff: you had referred to a previous administration taking whole government approach to this. how is this administration different? >> this government seems to be focusing much more on getting

resources to detenather than getting the kids out. we've seen that with them wanting to give mexico help deport people before they get to the u.s. we've seen them move mllions of dollars from other agencies to ice to support additional resources. it looks like their approach ton childrenetention is really no different. the difference right now th're saying, because governments past have done this with emeeyrgenci, e ramped up emergency beds, double the number of shelter beds available for kidst over the lear. in the past, they say, those were emergencies that came to them.sa this time the it's an emergency of theon administra own making. >> woodruff: well, again, it's such an important story following what's happening with these children and families in the united states. amna nawaz, thank you. >> thanks, judy. >> woodruff: stay with us, coming up on the newshour: bob odword on covering the

trump presidency for his new book, "fear." plus, 10 years after the economic crash, how america and the world have changed. amid news of hurricanes and typhoons; of rising seas and a hotter planet, this week in san francisco, california governor jerry brown is presiding over a global climate action summit. it's designed to bolster the paris climate accord process, an agreement president trump withdrew from last year. a major concern of scientists is the stability of the amazon, the world's largest rainforest, often called "the lungs of the ppanet." tonight, with the t of the pulitzer center, and in iocollaboration with the n magazine and pri's "the world," specl correspondent sam eato takes us to ranhao state, in brazil, to look at the fight to save this vital forest.

>> reporter: it's dusk on gee eastern ed of the amazon rainforest. this is a hotspot for illegal logging and for these guajajara indians patrolling theirce anral lands, the day is far from over. the spotter sees an empty canoe on the riverbank. next it and move quickly up a narrow path into the forest. someone just passed here, the branches showing fresh cuts from a machete. and then, just ahead, we hear their voices coming down the path. the guajajara indians, armed and in full camouflage, crouch down for an ambush. three boys from the settlement across the river, just outside i the caruigenous territory, where the guajajara live. they confess to cutting trees ij the gua's forest to make and sell charcoal, a valuable

trade in this impoverished region of the amazon. (nspeaking foreianguage ) they're taken back to the boat and then up the river ar the guajajs camp for questioning. these vigilante patrols began six years ago as a way to battln the re powerful logging mafia. they call themselves the" guardians of the forest." it's dangerous work. the land they're protecting is part of a mosaic of indigeno territories that hold nearly all of the remaining forest in maranhao state, one of the most violent and lawless regions in the world. erclaudio da silva, the lef the guardians, says he's received dozens of dea threats. >> ( translated ): this struggle for us is war. because it is dangerous, risky. nte invaders don't respect us, they want confroion. we run into armed hunters. the loggers carry arms. the farmers are armed.

it's a war in which we can die at any time. >> reporter: brazil today is the deadliest country in the world for land defenders, a trend that's rising in recent ye s with more than 140 killings since 2015, according to global witness. maranhão, whereuajajara live, is perhaps the most dangerous. r frht here where i'm sitting in the middle of the caru river, which marks the boundary between the indigenouss reserve on oe and rural brazil on the other, the fference between these t communities couldn't be more apparent. u look right over the riverbank here and the forest is completely gone. urces have been used up and taken away. on ts side you have pristine forest. and so the tension between these two communities is cstant. aside from the human toll, it's a war that's also causing untold damage to the world's climate.

>> ( translated ): this is something we would like the white people on the other si to understand. that what we are protecting orests, it isn't only for the indians, it is for everyone. they would reap the benefits of having the forest preserved as well. >> reporter: it's a message da silva wants spread more widely in brazil deforestation is on the rise again after years of declines. it jumped 29% in 2016 over the previous year, losing an area of forest the size of yellowstone national park. it was also another, grim milestone for the amazon: for the first time widespread drought and fire caused e forest to release more carbontm into thephere than it absorbed through photosynthesis, endangering one of the planet'sl most powerful for buffering the effects of climate change. >> the amazon was buying y i

some time thnot going to buy anymore. >> reporter: that's research scientist carlos quesada, or beto apeople here call him. deep in the amazon forest quesada's team of scientists from brazil's national instute for amazonian research, have been calculating, leaf by leaf, the forest's capacity to absorb co2, a greenhouse gas that causes glo hand.ming on the one but is also food for plants, fueling new tree growth through the process of photosynthesis. and what they've found doesn't bode well for the planet. >> before, the amazon forest as a whole was taking, as iaid, the emissions of all cars on the planet. and now, it will stop. the effects of the increase of co2 in the atmosphere are going to be much higher anco2 will grow in the atmosphere in amu , much higher rate. >> reporter: quesada says that change is haening even in the most pristine forests like this one. by burning fossil fuels, humans have pushed carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere

higher than they've been in more than 800,000 years. these trees can no longer keep up. >> so you have already a fragil system that on the edge, and then you bring on fragmentation, deforestation, cattle ranching, illegal logging, all this pressure over the forest usually also brings on with fires. so you imagine on top of this, a future climate that is dri and hotter. so this uld really be a tipping point in the future of the amazon. >> reporter: a tipping point that could cause more than half of the amazon forest to dien back, permy, if deforestation continues at its current pace. idterrifying runaway climate change scenario ut in the so called "hothouse earth" paper, published last august in proceedings of the natural academy of sciences. scientists say avoiding that outcome means growing more

trees, not cutting them down. but in the halls of power in brasilia, the dominant political coalition, which represents agribusiness and landed elites, is ignoring that warning. they've introduced over a hundred bills to roll back environmental protections and reduce e land rights and autonomy of indigenous people. congressman nilson leitão heads the agribusiness lobby. >> ( translated ): i can say with certainty, brazil's debt anth the indian is not the >> reporter: this view runs counter to multiple scientificst ies that found the best way to defend forests is to empowere the peho inhabit them, granting them land rights and legal standing. but under leitao's leadership,tr they'rng to expand mining and agriculture into the amazon's indigenous lands. brazil's indigenous groups are fighng back. in april, re than 3,000 people from over a 100 different tribes

descended on theapital, brasilia, for a week of protest. claudio da silva and the caru guardians also made the long journey. it was one of the largest mobilizations of indigenous people in brazil's history. sonia guajajara, a vice presidential candidate and head of the articulation of indigenous peoples of brazil, organized the mobilization. >> ( translated ): we have always lived in a war in brazil. the colonization period was marked by many deaths, murders and extermination of peoples, and this hasn't stopped. this war in brazil is ongoing, and requires our constant resistance. >> reporter: back on at the caru nhaogenous territory in ma da silva and his band of guardians rise at dawn for

another patrol. this time the raid is a possible marijuana plantation.he and because ofotential for a shootout with drug traffickers a heavily armed military police unit comes along in a rare show of support. it turns out to be a cassava field, planted by land grabbers after clearing the trees for charcoal. the guardians cut and burn the crops. but the forest will takeerecades to rec raimunda guajajara, one of the female guardians, or "warriors" as they call themselves, says defending the forest is the guajajara's fate. >> ( translated ): if someday i die, there are my children, my grandchildren to keep going. to say: i will do the same work that my grandfather did, that my grandmother did, that my mother nd ather did. >> reporter: we're going to give up, she says.

we'll fight until we die. for the pbs newshour, i'm sam eaton, maranhao, brazil. >> woodruff: it is a stunning look inside the trump icesidency, exposing a cha white house lead by a man who has said he believes the key to power is fear.at s the title of bob woodward's latest book and the veteran editor and reporter for the "washington post" joins me now. welcome back to the newshour. >> thank you. >> woodruff: so congratulations on the book. there is something ja-dropping on virtually every other page. bob woodward, did you come awayv beg that donald trump is not fit to govern? >> see, that's not fo me to judge. that's up to individuals in the political system.

as a reporter having done this, this is my thninresident, and the goal is to really understand, you kn what's happening behind the scenes, what's real, what are te motives, who is this person, where is the advice coming from, and ultimately whatdoes it mean for the country, but that's no for me to decide. so i stepped back on that. >> woodruff: you've written well over a dozen boks on washington, on the presidency. in the past there have been protests and criticisms.h but ther never been a torrent of denials, gary cohn, james mattis, rob porter. why the torrent? >> they're not nials, judy. you've been around long enought to knose aren- nial denials. "it does not fully capture my experience in the trump white

house," said one of them. well, the reporting is orrigs and careful. people are not disting something or where they are. it's this kind of survival denial, politically calculated. but that happens.g gock to nixon... >> woodruff: here's anex ple. rob porter's statement says your reporting about a document being stolen off qohn's desk says that misunderstands how the document review process works. b t he didn't say it didn't happen. the book is very clear and show ocument itself that was taken off the president's resolute desk. >> woodruff: national security. there are anumber of disturbing scenes you describe. one is after a meeting at the pentagon. top officials trying to help the president understand, you say, the importance of alltiies, reships between the united

states and foreign governments. you write, "the mecheting was su a disaster the president insulted the entire group, the generals, everybody. you quote a white house official after saying, many of the president's senior advisers, especially those in the national security realm, extremely aticerned with his err nature, his relative ignorance, his inability to learnhaas well asthey consider his dangerous views." >> what happened in that meeting, gary cohen and secretary of defense mattis formed an alliance, this hanot been reported before, and they said, my god, we have to get the president out of the white house where he's not watching television, where he kind of prisoner to the calls that are coming in. so they brought him ovehr toe pentagon. the tank, which is the joint chief's secret meeting room, there are no window, there are

no distaxes. and secretary of defense mattis put up a screen a list an maps showing this triad of support for the united states, trade deals, secret intelligence partnerships, and they're in a very, very important way security alliances, like the one with south korea, like nato. and mattis literally said, "the great gift from theeatest generation, the past, is this rules-based international order." secretary of state tillerson said, "this is what has kept the ndace for 70 years." and trump erupted said, "this is b.s. " he gets i a dispute about all of these issues.

at the end of this meeting, mattis, according to people who were there, just is deflated, because the president doesn't understand e basics. y woodruff: you also describe a time earlier thear when the president wanted to tweet his decision to order all u.s military dependents out of south korea, some thousands of my members of the troops who are serving there. how close did the president come to doing tha and what would that have meant? >> as i understand, he had the tweet prepared. what had happened on december 4th, sung young, a key norf koreancial, he sent through intermediaries the message that if there is withdrawal ofde ndents, it will be a signal to north korea that an attk is imminent. now, the pentagon leapders

went, my god, we have to stop thp . they did s. the tweet was never issued. it w frightening to the people involved in this. >> woodrf: the doestic policy, the economy. oou describe the former economic adviser gary chn talking to the president and having to explain ito hm about interest rates. gary cohn saying they're going to riee, and the prsident reacting and saying, well, we should just go borrow a lot of money right now, hold it, and then sell it and make money and just run the presses, print money. >> right. >> woodruff: and you write about cohn's reaction. >> cohn's reaction is no,no, that's not the way it works, you can't print unlimited amounts of money, because if you do, inrest rates are going to go up, the deficit is going to go up. this is before mp is president, but he's been elected. no, we're going to actually mak,

mond if you go through this... he's obsessed with making money and not spending money on things like defense, which, as the secretary of defense tells the president, he says the best dpllars we send, if it was ten times as expensive, we should do it. >> woodruff: do you have a sense, bob woodward, of what percentage ofthe people of who work for the president right noo are rried about him and his leadership? >> no, and see, that's the ideal in the book, the key officials talkin debating, trying to reach decisions with the president and with the whole administration, and i think one of the bottom lines, in addition to the war on truth, is it's not a team. they don't work together.o we don't kw what's going to

happen. key people in the white house say they spend one-third of their eme prventing bad things yom happening. >> woodruff: and d get that sense that some are staying there because they'rehere to protect the country?>> got to save the country. >> woodruff: just quickly. two things, the president's daughter ivanka, her husband jared kushner in the white house. you write about at one point you say their viewed as a posse of suck -- second guessers. >> by the chief of staff. >> woodruff: the chief of staff, the former chief of staff. on balance are they a chck on the president? are they add adding expertise? >> they represent some points of there eople who say they e view. are a moderating influence on the president. there are others who think ilyause of the fam relationship it gives them too much of a presence, too much

influence, and sometimes people have said to the presidenting you know, it would be beter if they're not here. you know, we'll se. >> woodruff: one point. both the "washington post" and ws"new york times" revof the book say you, bob woodward, have in the past tre eated peoo give you access more gently, that you p're harsher oneople who don't talk to you. how do you answer that? >> look, ts is rigorously reported. i think there are enough people who are unhappy that all of this has come out, but i have jst done this too long to... this is not partisan. somebody called me and ultra centrist recently. and it also isn't personal. it is the best obtainable

version of the truth. >> woodruff: bob woodward, the book "fear: trump in the whitee. ho thank you very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: it was one of the most profound events in generations with huge dsnsequences for on the american economy and househ throughout the country.oi this was the a decade ago when the financial crisis erupted, a crash that most experts didn't foresee. o its effects, athe cession that followed, o income, wealth, disparity and politics are still with us. tonight, our economics correspondent, paul solman, revisits how iall went down, and the impact today of decisions made then.of it's part our weekly series,se "making e."

>> reporter: so this is where in some sense the crisis began. >> yeah, this was the place where people were stumbling out of offices on the 15th of september 2008, the world having ended. >> reporter: the midtown manhattan headquarters of lehman brothers, whose collapseen years ago this week was the signal event of the 2008 financial crisis. >> it started in real estate and it started with subprime and that's the story everybody knows. how does that crisis in the suburbs of america move all the way back to nter of finance in new york. >> reporter: okay. how does it? >> banks are fragile things. classically we think of them as being funded by deposits with households putting their savings into the bank, and then the householders begin to get panicked and take all their money out. reporter: but, says economist and historian adam tooze, authoe ofew book "crashed"... >> banks like lehman don't have deposits.do what thes borrow money from other banks and that money runs faster than any depositor can run. >> reporter: so subprime mortgages begin to default.

lots of people are invested in those mortgages. bnks have a big stake. and so suddenly whks look vulnerable, then they don't lene h other anymore, investors pull back, that's what happened? >> yeah that's the crucial thing. afterwards there was a congressional inquiry that wenta after ths for selling the bad securities to investors who ended up being ripped off. that wasn't in fact the dangerous bit. the real problem were the bad debts, the securities that america's banks kept on their balance sheets. >> reporter: in other words, lehman not only created debt securities-- "bonds"-- backed by hefy subprime mortgages, i on to them. when the debts started going bad, faith ilehman collapsed. no faith, no credit; no credit, no lehman. >> we came as close as we have ever ce in history to a total cardiac arrest not just of the american economy but the entire world economy. >> rorter: meaning everybody is afraid to lend to evebody

else, credit simply freezes, and an economy, a modern economy can't function that way? >> a modern economy can't function without credit, for more than even a couple of hours frankly, sg.onds. , the pillar of american manufacturing, was having a hard time getting short term credit. so was harvard university. wage bills were not being paid. >> reporter: and soon enough, the whole world was watching, and enmeshed. to illustrate your point about how the crisis spread globally i reought we'd go to a food stand. but you said no, no, an irish pub. and lo and behold there's one right across the street from the old lehman. >> yeah because 2008 is all ab and the failure s the irish bain september 2008 is really the moment when the panic spreads to europe in aay that the european states ultimately find almost impossible to handle. >> reporter: because europeanha bank a stake in irish banks? i >> all of eurotied up with the irish banking boom, is using dublin as an offshore financial

center and dublin finds itself in a positioon the 29th of september of having to guarantee the entire balance sheet of the irish baing system. >> reporter: back in the us of a, septeer 29 was also the day congress rejected president bush's bailout bill, and the dow fell a record 777 points. >> this is where the crisis goes from being a banking crisis to a crisis of the american economy as a whole with stock market values crashing in september 2008.or >> rr: we were now in the belly of the beast. >> so here we have wall street with all the global banks. over here the new york stock exchange. >> reporter: which is where we are now >> which is where we are now. and the heart of the crisis fighting effort, the federal reserve bank of new york. g >> reporteund zero 9/29: the new york fed. here is where the system was saved. and what the new york fed decided to do, what the united f stateral reserve system decided was play the classic role it's always intended to play.

to be the lender of last resort to american fincial institutions. >> yeah. there's a lot of emphasis for obvious reasonon the conventional side of fed policy in '08. the bailout, taking equity stakes in banks, quantitative easing, but what really made the difference in the survival of the american and thel banking system in september 2008 was indeed liquidity provision, to take an asset which is very unattractive to sell in the moment of the crisis b its value may be suspect. >> reporter: "assets" like loans backed by failing mortgages, which the fed took off the hands of the banks. >> and to give you in exchange a cash loan that will tide you over for a matter of days, weeks or months. >> reporter: ready cash." liquidity." and this saved the american financial system. >> this didn't just save the american financial system, it saved the financial system of the world. more than half of the liquidity provision to large banks in the united states was to european banks in the united states and then on top of that the fed lent $4.5 trillion to european and

asian central banks who indirectly provided dollars to their local banks in europe andp in. >> reporter: and this, says adah tooze, is e key to understanding the crash of ¡08: a global financial crisis because of global financial riinterconnectedness-- a cs that would have been far worse had the u.s. not dispensed glllars worldwide. >> wall street is al banking center. so you have banks from all over the world and the fed is providing them liquidity not out of the goodness of its heart but to stabilize the american financial system, to stabilize the american housing market. >> reporter: and to stabilize the intricately interconnected global financial system, with players like barclay's oon lowhich bought the remains of lehman. >> yes, barclay's got hundreds of billions in liquidity too. >> reporter: so in the end the system worked, right? i mean, we're on wall street, stock market almost double what itas before the crash. >> well it did if you happened to be one ofamhe minority of icans who actually has

stock. most americans don't. large parts of america have not recovered from the crisis. the san francisco fed s estimating that as a result of the lost growth in the u.s. economy, the decade in which america grew below where it might otherwise have been, the recession probably cost the average american about $70,000. >> reporter: $70,000 in lifetime income, that is. >> so that is not something we're ever going to get back, regardless of what happee in ock market. >> reporter: which prompted a final question, about the political ramifications of the crash of ¡08, at a final location. >> this is zuccotti park, just by wel street, the site of th famous encampment in 2011 that spawned occupy and the discourse of the 1% against the 99%. the place where inequality in america today was really put back on the political map. huge rage against bailing out the banks. and the other great political reaction to the crisis came two years earlier in the form of the tea party. the idea that irresponsible

borrowerwho had taken on debts they couldn't afford were now going to be rescued by the federal government. one opens if you like the door to a more radical politics on the right. the other opens the door to a more radical politics on the left. >> reporter: which is, of course, just where we are on t 10th anniversary of the crash ¡' 08. for the pbs newshour, this is economics correspondent paul solman, reporting from new york. >> woodruff: next, we turn to another installment of our weekly brief but spectacular series where we ask people about their passion. tonight, we hear from attorn robin steinberg. she's c.e.o. of "the bail project," a national organization whose mission is to combat mass incarceration by paying bail for tens of thousands of low-income americans at risk of pretrial detention. >> so when i became a public

defender, i had no idea how the bail system operated and it doesn't take long when you're a public defender to stand in the courtroom xt to a client, watch the judge set bail and have the client turn to you and sa "i, i don't have that money," and inevitably, what happens is, the client will turn to you and say, "i'll just plead guilty. they'll let me go home." and, you want to scream and you think to yourself, "nobody should go to a jail cell because they don't he any money but that's what happens every day. so jail is terrifying anits violent and it's dehumanizing, and it can do everything from destroying your mental health to your physical health. you can be sexually victimized. you can be one of the many jail deaths that happen in the first week of il. you can lose your home. you can lose custody of your children. you can be deported. there's a whole cascade of problems that can happen and deuruction that happens to and your family and to your community even if you're there for one day, two days or three days in jail. it's a horrifying place to be. so the bail project is anfo unprecedented to disrupt

the money bail system. the idea is to cate a central bail fund that we will then use to open sites in at least 40 places in america or we can begin to use philanthropic dollars to pay people's bail who don't have enough money to get out of those jail cells. remember, these are people who have not been convicted of anything. these are people that are simply charged with something. by using philanthropic dollars, we actually pay somebody's bail and at the end of a criminal case, because bail money comes back, it will revolve back into the fund. bail was actually created to be a form of release. it wasn't intended to hold people in jail cells and it wasn't intended to create a two- tier system of justice-- one for ode rich, and one for ever else, but that is exactly what it's done. 75% of people in american local jails are there becaey cannot pay bills. these people haven't been convicted a thing. until we grapple with what the reality is and how our country has beenddicted to imprisonment for as long as it has existed, and since slavery to mass incarceration have happened, we're never going to get at the root of the problem and the root of the problem there is structural racism and the root of the problem there is

income inequality anthose are big issues we need to deal with. we also need to really ask ourselves, do we believe in the presumption of innocence or don't we? if we believe in the presumption of innocence, then when somebody is arrested, that presumption should wrap around them. and if we don't believe in it, let's grapple with that but if we believe in it, nobody should be sitting in jail cells who haven't been convicted of anything. my name is robin steinberg, and ulis is my brief but spect take on disrupting the money bail system and turning the tide on mass incarceration in america. >> woodruff: you can find additional brief but spectacular episodes on our website, pbs.org/newshour/brief. and that's the newshour for tonight.m dy woodruff. join us online and again here tomorrow evening with the analysis of ma shields and david brooks. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you and see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

>> kevin. >> kevin! >> kevin. >> advice for life. life well-planned. learn more at raymondjames.com. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions >> this program was made possible by the rporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioni sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

to our new srw "amanp and lcome company" and here is what i coming up. as hurricane florence bears down on the east coast, the climate crisis is near the point of no return. california governor jerry brown is leading to save our environment. then, for years, steve jobs denies he was her father, i speak with lis brennan-jobs. also tonight, who d deserve credit foramerica's booming economy? ten years