ca inewshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening, i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight,hu icane florence slows as it bears down on the carolinas, bringing dangerous winds and potentially historic rainfall. then, we take a look at the ldrder crisis as the number of detained migrant cn reaches a record level. plus, i sit down with journalist bob woodward to discuss "fear," his new book on the inner turmoil of the trump white house. >> i've done reporting for 47rd years, never hnything like this where there was a 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. >> majorunding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial .teracy in the 21st centu >> carnegie corporation of new york. supporng innovations in education, democratic engagement, and the advancement of international peace 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 contributio 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 winds at 100 miles an hour. but that may be cold comfort for those directly in its path. p.j. tobia reports fromon wilminnorth carolina. >> reporter: by this morning,

nae outer bands of florence reached north caro 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 othffshore lise. federal emergency officials warned there's much worse toe come, even if rricane has lost some of its punch.is >> thi very dangerous storm. we call them disasters because they break things. the infrastructure is going to break. the power is going to go out so, not only that but many 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 landfall along th carolina border by tomorrow, thenoiter for a day 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 beach, north carolina, near wilmington. dan house is the police chief there. >> this is something that's always very difficult because you know just like them i had to leave my home. wd i know how hard it is really appreciate the cooperation in that matter. >> reporter: 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 sandbagsou buildings and stocking up on supplies. many in the city remember th struction left by another hurricane, just two years ago. >> it's got me nervous. i can't sleep. i've been through a storm before. i lost everything i had. >> reporte when hurricane "matthew" hit fayetteville in 2016, the cape fear river rose nearly 60 feet, reaching the bottom of the train trestle behind me. forecasters say hurricane

florence hashe potential to mp even more rain on this area. ile, in south 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 of the huicane or 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 nationoo guard are on alert in the carolinas and virginia. the penton says it has a response plan ready, after the storm passes. but for a few, at least, this was a day to head to the water, and ride the big waves and wind beore the worst of the storm arrives. and the outer bands of the storm have arrived here no wilmington, h carolina, as darkness falls and most residents hunker down for the worst of the storm that's yet to come. judy? >>oodruff: so p.j., wecan see the rain coming down. tell us what you're seeing right 'sw.

>> thegusting winds, pelting rain, really in just the last hour here in the 5:00 hour, things really picked up. and almost minute by minute it got much worse. then there were some lulls. then igets worse than itas before. there's been 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. >>oodruff: p.j., i knoyou spent time today with the first responders. tell us what they are dong here at this late hour to get ready. >> welthl, of course,'ve been prepping all week for this event, and the folks we spee nt sme with this morning were doing final check-downs on theip ation list. they have inflatable zodiacs, filling up the gas on those t engines y're ready for tin evidentable water rescues, cation sure their commu equipment is checked out. there are also line crews from

lahoma.away as o these are folks that will come in after the storm and repair the electrical grid, a of the downed lines, all of that stuff that's very, very likely to happen in this wind that's picking up now. 0hey're stationed about 10 miles west of here in fayettev after the tomorrow dies down. >> woodruff: finally, p.j., inu were -- you referred to the history of floin the area. tell us how that is expected to affect everything. >> the eastern part of north carolina and south carolina, honeycombed with rivered and streams, tributaries, even small bodies of water. when this rain happensthey start to swell. and all of them run out to the ocean, which is just to our east, a few miles that way. when the storm surge happens, 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: welk we certainly hope earn who needed to get out has gotten out and that everyone is staying sa. 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 government vehicles. long acknowledged he's under investigation by the ior general at the department of homeland security. but he said, "doing something unethical is not part of my d.n.a." in the philippines, mass evacuations are ofderway, ahead he most powerful typhoon to target the country this year. the storm today had ned 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 four million people are at risk. a roman catholic bisp in west virginia resigned today over allegations that he sexually

harassed adults. pope francis accepted michael's bransfieesignation and approved an investigation. bransfield has denied abusing anyone. the news broke as francis met with u.s. cardinals and bishops at the vatican to discuss ie abuse cristhe church. for the rst time, myanmar's civilian leader has acknowledged problems with the expulsion of 700,000 rohingyauslims. the buddhist nation's military is accused of mass rapes killings and burning rohingya villages last year. aung san suu kyi spoke today during a conference 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 to all sides, that rule of law must apply to everybody. >> woodruff: suu kyi said myanmar is prepared to take back muslims who fled to neighboring bangladesh. gorkey is stepping up efforts to head off a syriarnment offensive, aimed at rebels near the rkish border. activist video today showed a turkish convoy inside northwestern syria's idlib province. it came during aause in syrian and russian bombing raids. turkey fears new figing there will send another wave of refugees into its territory. two russians accused of poisoning a formerpy in great britain, proclaimed their innocence today. british police say alexander petrov and ruslan boshirov work for russian military intelligence. they were seen in salisbury, england, in seei skripal's neighborhood, in early march. that's when skril was poisoned with a nerve agent. he later recovered.

today, on russian tv, the two men claimed they were just tourists, and were falsely cused. >> ( translated ): every day, two photos full screen, you turn on the radio-- boshirov and petrov, you tu on the tv-- boshirov and petrov. how would you live? i'm really scared and frightened. i don't know what co 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. a twist in the supreme court fight over brett kavanaugh. dianne feinstein said she's given the f.b.i. a ckmplaint abouanaugh from someone who did not wish to be named. the "washington post" reportedh that f.b.i. declined to investigate apparently due to the age of the information, which dates from high school. festein is the ranking democrat on the feinstein is ranking democrat on the senate it's set to vote next thursday

on the nomination. and, on wall street, a tech rally led the broader market higher. the dow jones industverage gained 147 points to close at 59,145. the nasdaq rose oints, and the s&p 500 added 15. still to come on the newshour: president trump casts doubt on e death toll from hurricane maria in puerto rico. why the number of migrant children detained in the u.s. is at a record level. the fight to save the amazon rainforest, and much more. >> woodruff: while the federal government prepares for hurricane florence, president trump 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 suggested that figure failed to take full account of the deadly effects of prolonged power failure, blocked roads and interrupted health. care studies estimated the death toll ranged from 800 to more than 8,000. puerto rico governor ricardo rossello commissioned george washington university's school of public health to look into the question. last month, rossello accepted the study's conclusion that nearly 3,000 people died as a s.sult of the storm's effe today, president trump said "3,000 peoe did not die in the two hurricanes that hit puerto rico. 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 any reason, like old age, just add them onto the list." republican response was largely muted. one exception: florida gov snor ritt, a candidate for the u.s. senate, who said, "iit disagreethe potus. an independent study said thsands were lost." we're now joined by philip bump, a "washington post" national correspondent who foon the numbers behind politics. philip, thanks for being with us. as we heard in the tape, a new higher estimate from george wasington university, how that reached, how is that number reached? >> so the conclusion they ached was that there was a range, and 3,000 was nose likely central you that they camup. with that range was determined by looking essentially at what the normal lvel of mrtality was on puerto rico and how that level of mortality had increased in the months after the storm for out six months after storm. so say if 100 people died

normally in november, if aftere orm 150 had died, they would estimate about 50 additional pple had died. it was that sort of analysis they did fan extended period after the storm that allowed them to come up with this value. >> yang: george washington university's school of public alth put out a statement that said we stand by the science underlying our study. we a confident that the number, 2,975, is the mostac rate and unbiased estimate sf excess mortality to date. so this wasn't a 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 this mighbecome a proem, and the thing that was pointed out the me is that most of these causesf of death, for example, someone has diabetes and their insulin th needs to be kept refrigerated, they can't keep it refrigerated because they lose electricity from the storm, the cause of death on their death

certificate is not going to beat hey 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 true reason they died at oint they did, which was the aftereffects of the storm. >> yan so two points coming out of that. number one, when the president said they just add people on to the list, there was no list. >> that's exactly right. that was just polliti rhetoric. >> yang: secondly, you've written a lot about the complexities of reaching deathll g figuring out death tolls after natural disasters. talk about that direct effects of people, rect effects and the indirect effects. >> so direct effects of dying from the stmm are, for eple, going outside during the storm and having a tree hit you in thy head, being r home and having a flooding and drowning as a result of it. we are pretty familiar with thosdirect effects. obviously lamentable and tragic. but what we're really about here is that period aftera .

that period of months where much of puerto rico lacked electricity,lacked potable water, lacked clear roads. the "post" in may told the story of a woman who died in her home in part because medical worrs, cell phones weren't working, and in part because ambulance got caught in traffic because traffic lights weren't working.s deaths are a direct result of the storm, but they aren't erectly attributable to storm itself, this two-day period. the remarkable thing that the president did today issked us to focus only on those direct effects from the storm and ignore the preventable deaths that happened in the weeks and months aferward, the preventable deaths that were ultimately the responsibility of the federal and localo governments revent. >> yang: and you tweeted this afternoon that when you spoke to researchers last year, they were concerned about how president trump might use this sort of uncertainty about the exact number for politicalreasons., >> we wouldn't say that they expressed that they themselves were concerned how, trump would dis but they did note that it was not

uncommon for death tolls froe m thrts of disasters to become political footballs. and as part of our conversation, as something when i spoke with them, they noted that these things are never able to be pinpoint accurate simply because of the way that these deathsre occur, and as ult of that, they often become subject to nations.l mac it's unusual, however, that we see that in the united states. aftekatrina, for exale, there wasn't much debate. there was an accepted figure they will note was calculated in much the same way that this one was. t yang: philip bump of the "washington postnks so much for being with us. >> of course. >> woouff: government figures show the number of unaccompanied immigrant children in federal custody has en growing in recent months, and according to one report, have now grown five- fold over the last year,

reaching their highests ever. rena nawaz has been following the story, and is ith the latest. amna, this "nepoyork times" saying the number of these immigrant children has skyrocketed. you, we have done a lot of reporting on these separated children. are these the same children? what are you finding? >> it's important to separat out here. those separated children, they represent a very small slice of all the unaccompanied minors u.s. government custody. now, the vast majority of these kids, ey're older, slightly older. they usually arrive alone. and they also usally arrive with the intent of uniting with family member insie u.s. "the new york times" report you mentioned, they say may 2017 there were 2,400 kids in custody. they've seen a fivefold increase. now, that increase is what is most striktag. i want to a closer look at some of the numbers we've seen, because we were ve an first-hand look at some

government documents. this is over the last three months. ,otal number in july, 11,978. in august 350. and in september, this is the number we got from the last 24 hours, 12,869 children in custody. the government would not ve us comment on specific numbers, and they say the numbers change on s daily basis on arrivals and how fast they can place kids >> woodruff: so what is behind this increase? yesterday the department of homeland surity puts out thse numbers saying these are the highest family crossings on rerd for the month ofugust. is this just a trend? is that what's going on? >> partly. over the last six years the numbers of unaccompanied ildren 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 and say they kind of stayed srady. that's lly because the things that people are fleeing, the kids that things are fleeing in guatemala, el salvador and honduras, the violence and

uncertainty, those haven't changed. two other things offer some insight into what's going on here. one is the discharge rate. the documents we saw showed tht has gone down. we're leaving kids out of the system -- moving kids out of the system much more slowly. at the same time, the average length of stay has gone up. some other numbers to take a look at. tws ago the average child was staying in u.s. custody 40 days. w 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, th point to trump administration policy. there were two new policies that went into effect. onai s look, anyone who is in the household that wants to get a child back in their custody everyone has to submit data and fingerprinting. that can take a long time. they also said all this information is going to going to ice for enforcement purposes. so it had a chilling fect. people are less likely to come forward. >> woouff: so how is this affecting the system? how is it affecting the children? >> overall the system is

stressed. shelters were not designed to be handling this kind of capacity. e 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 whey reached around 90 or 91%, panic would set in. and they would require multiple agency resources to try to come agether and get tht number back down to 80% or 85%. that was a sweet spot for thm. but look, the bigger picture here is it's bad for the children those th's consensus now that prolonged detention can have trauma, can have deep impacts on these kids and one official actually said, look, the longer these kids st in the shelter, the greater the chances something can go wrong.oo >>uff: you had referred to a previous administration taking e a whovernment approach to this. how is this administration different? >> this government seems to be focusing much more on getting resources to derention rat than getting the kids out. we've seen that with them

wanting to give mexico to help deport people before they get to the u.s. we've seen them move millions of dollars from other agencies to ice toupport additional resources. it looks like their approach to chilenen in deton is really no different. the difference right now they're saying, because governments past have done this with emergencies, they've ramped up eergency beds, double the number of shelter beds available for kids over t last year. in the past, they say, those were emergencies that came to them. this time they say it's aner ncy of the administration's 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 woodword 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 ahi hotter planet,week in san francisco, california governor jerry brown is presiding over a stobal climate action summit. it's designed to b the paris climate accord process, an agreement president trum withdrew from last year. a major concern of scientists is the stability of the amazon, the world's largest rainforest, often call "the lungs of the planet." tonight, with the support of thz pu center, and in collaboration with the nation magazine and pri's "the world," special correspondent sam eaton takes us to maranhao state, in brazil, to look at the fight to save this vital forest >> reporter: it's dusk on the eastern edge of the amazon

rainforest. this is a hotspot for illegal logging and for these guajajara indians patrolling their ancestral lands, the day is far from over. the spotter sees an y canoe on the riverbank. we pull up to next it and movear quickly up arow 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 ru indigenous territory, where the guajajara live. they confess to cutting trees in kee guajajara's forest to and sell charcoal, a valuable trade in thiimpoverished region of the amazon.

( speakingoreign language ) they're taken back to the boat and then up the river to the ajajara's camp for questioning. these vigilante patrols began six years ago as a way to battle thgregion's powerful loggin mafia. they call themselves the" guardians of the forest." it's dangerous work. the land they're protecting is part of a mosaic of indigenous orrritories that hold nearly all of the remainingt in maranhao state, one of the most violent and lawless regions in the world. claudio da silva, the leader of the guardians, says he's received dozens of death threat >> ( translated ): this struggle for us is war. because it is dangerous, risky. the invaders don't respect us, they want confrontation. we run into armed hunters.ca the loggery 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 years with more than 140 killings since 2015, according to global witness. maranhão,here the guajajara live, is perhaps the most dangerous. from right here where sitting in the middle of the caru river, which marks the boundary between the indigenous reserve on one side and rural o brazthe other, the difference between these two communities couldn't be more apparent. you look right over the riverbank here and the forest is completely gone. the resources have been us up and taken away. on this side you have pristine forest. and so the tension between these two communities is constant. aside from the human toll, it's g a war that's also causinuntold damage to the world's climate.

>> ( translated ): this is something we would like the white people on the other side to understand. that what we are protecting here, this forests, 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 the forest to relee more carbon into the atmosphere than it absorbed through photosynthesis, endangering one of the planet's most powful tools for buffering the effects of climate change. >> the amazon was buying you some time that is not going to buy anymore. sa reporter: that's research

scientist carlos q, or beto as people here call him. deep in the amazon forest quesada's team of scientists from brazil's national institute for amazonian research, have been calculating, leaeaf, the forest's capacity to absorb co2, a greenhouse gas that causes global warming on the one hand. 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 i said, the emissions of all cars on the planet. and now, it will stop.th effects of the increase of co2 in the atmosphere are going to be much higher and co2 will grow in the atmosphere in a much, much higher ra >> reporter: quesada says that stange is happening even in the most pristine folike this one. by burning fossil fuels, humans have pushed carbon dioxide concentratio in the atmosphere higher than they've been in more

than 800,000 years. these trees can no lonep up. >> so you have already a fragile system that may be on the edge, and then you bring on fragmentation, deforestaanon, cattle rching, illegal gging, all this pressure overth forest usually also brings on with fires. so you imagine on top of this, a futu climate that is drier a hotter. so this could 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 die backpermanently, if deforestation continues at its current pace. a terrifying runaway climate thange scenario laid out in the so called "se 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 the land rights and autonomy of indigenous people.ni congressmaon leitão heads the agribusiness lobby.tr >> ( slated ): i can say with certainty, brazil's debt with the indian is nep the land. >>ter: this view runs heunter to multiple scientific studies that foundest way to defend forests is to empower e people who inhabit the granting them land rights and legal standing. but unr leitao's leadership, they're trying to expand mining and agriculture into the amazon's indigenous lands. brazil's indigenous groups are fighting back. in april, more than 3,000 peop from over a 100 different tribes descended on the capital,

brasilia, for a week of protest. claudio da silva and the caru guardians also made the long joury. it was one of the largestli mobitions of indigenous people in brazil's history. sonia guajajara, a vice presidential candidate and head of the articulatn of indigenous peoples of brazil, organized the mobilization. >> ( translat): 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 indigenous territory in maranhao da silva and his band of guardians rise at dawn for other patrol.

this time the raid is a possible marijuana plantation. and because of the potential for a shootout with drug traffickers a heavily armed litary police it comes along in a rare show of support.ut it turnso 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 take decades recover. raimunda guajajara, one of the female guardians, or "warriors"l as they hemselves, says defending the forest is the guajajara's fate. >> ( translated ): if someday i die, there are my children, my e andchildren to keep going. to say: i will do same work that my grandfather did, that my grandmother did, that my mother d my father did. >> reporter: we're not 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 presidency, exposing a chaotic white house lead by a man who has said he believes the key to por is fear. that is the title of bob woodward's latest book and the teran editor and reporter for the "washington post" joins me now. welcome back to the newshour. >> thank you. >> woodruff: ti congratus on the book. there is something jaw-dropping on virtually every other page.od bob rd, did you come away believing that donald trump isfi noto govern? >> see, that's not for me to judge. that's up to individuals in th political system. as a reporter having done this, this is my ninth president, and

the goal is to lly understand, you know, what's happening behind the sces, what's real, what are the motives, who is thisso per where is the advice coming from, and ultimately what does it mean for the country, but that's not for me to decide. so i stepped back on that. en>> woodruff: you've wri well over a dozen books on veshington, on the presidency. in the past there een protests and criticisms. but there has never been a torrent of denials, gary cohn, james mats, rob porter. why the torrent? >> they're not denials, judy. you've been around long enough to know these are non-denial denials. "it does not fully capture my experience in the trump white house," said one of them. well, the reporting is rigorous

and careful. people are not disputing something or where they are. it's this kind of survival denial, politically calculated. but that happens. going back to nixon... >> woodruff: here's an example. rob porter's statement says your reportinenabout a docbeing stolen off qohn's dsk says that misunderstands how the document review process works. >> but he d't say it didn't happen. the book is very clear and shows the document itself that was taken off the president's >> woodruff: national security. there are a number of disturbing scenes you describe.er one is a meeting at thepe ntagon. top officials trying to help the president understand, you say, the importance of allies, relationships betweenhe united states and foreign governments.

you write, "the meeting was such 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 concerned with his erratic nature, his relative ignorance, his inability to learn, as well as what they consider his dangerous views." >> what happened in thatg, meetary cohen and secretary of defen mattis formed an alliance, this has not 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's not kind of prisoner to the calls thae t ming in. so they brought him over to the pentagon. the tank, which is the jointse chief'et meeting room, there are no window, there are no distaxes. d secretary of defense mattis

put up on a screen a list andps howing this triad of support for the ted states, trade deals, secret intelligence partnerships, and they're in amp very, verytant way security alliances, like the one with south korea, like nato. end mattis literally said, "th great gift from the greatest generation, the past, is thi rules-based international order." secretary of state tillehon said, is is what has kept the peace for 70 years." and trump erupted and said,hi is b.s. " he gets in 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 the basics. >> woodruff: yu also describe a time earlier this year when the president wanted to tweetsi his de to order all u.s. military dependents out of south korea, some thousands of family members of the troops who are serving there.os how did the president come to doing that? and what would that have meant? >> as sti undd, he had the tweet prepared. what had happened on december 4tu sung yo, a key north korean official, he sent throu intermediaries the message that if there is whdrawal of dependents, it will be a sigornl to korea that an attack is imminent. now, the pentagon leadership went, my god, we have to stop

this. they did stop it. the tweet was never issued. it was frightening to the people volved in ths. >> woodruff: the domestic policy, the economy. you describe the frmer economic adviser gary cohn talking to the president and having to explain to him about interest rates. gary csaying they're going to rise, and the president reacting and saying, well, we should just go borrow a lot of money right now, hold it, and then sell it andk mae 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, interest rates are going to go up, the deficit is going to go up. this is before trump is president, but he's ben elected. , we're going to actually make money, and if you go thr

this... he's obsessed with making money and not spending money on things like defense, which, as the secretary of deense tells the president, says the best dollars we spend, if it was ten times as expensive, we should do it. >> woodruff: do you have aar sense, bob woo of what percentage of the people of who work for the president right now are worried about him and his leadershipe >> no, and, that's the ideal in the book, the ke officials talking, debating, trying to reach decisions with the president and with the whole administration, ane i think on of the bottom lines, in addition to the war o truth, is it's not a team. they don't work togethe we don't know what's going to happen. key people in the white house

say they spend one-third of their time preventing bad things fromappening. >> woodruff: and did you get that sense that some are stayi there because they're there 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. >>y the chief of staff. >> woodruff: the chief of staff, the former chief of staff. on balance are they a check on the president? are they add adding expertise? >> they represent some points of view. thye are people who sa they are a moderating influence on the president. there are others who think because of the family relationship it gives them too much of a presence, too much etfluence, and somes people have said to the presidenting

you know, it would be better if they're not here. you know, we'llee. >> woodruff: one point. both the "washington post" and "new york times" views of the book say you, bob woodward, have in the past treated peple who give you access more gently, that you're harsher on people who don't talk to you. a how do yswer that? >> look, this is rigorously reported. i think there are enough people who are unhappy that all of this hacome out, but i have just done this too lons g to... t not partisan. somebody called me and ultra centrist recently. and it also isn't personal. b it is theest obtainable version of the truth.

>> woodruff: bob woodward, the book "fear: trump in the white house." thu very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: it was one of thed most profoents in generations with huge consequences for on the american economy and useholds throughout the country. the point a decade ago when the financial crisis erupted, a crash that most experts didn't foresee. its effects, and of the recession that followed, on income, wealth, disparity and politics are still with us. tonight, our economics correspondent, paul solman, revisits how it all went down, and the impact today of decisions made then. it's part of our weekly series, "ming sense." >> reporter: so this is where in some sse the crisis began.

>> yeah, this was the place where people were stumbling out of offices on the 15th of september 2008, the rld having ended. >> reporter: the midtown manhattan headquarters of lehman brothers, whose collapse ten 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 evebody knows. how does that crisis in the suburbs of america move all the way ba to the center of finance in new york. >> reporter: okay.w es it? >> banks are fragile things.ll classiwe think of them as being funded by deposits with households putting their savin a into the ban then the householders begin to get panicked and take all their ysney out. >> reporter: but, conomist and historian adam tooze, author heof the new book "c"... >> banks like lehman don't have deposits. what they do is borrow money neom other banks and that runs faster than any depositor can run. >> reporter: so subprime mortgages begin to default. lots of people are invested in those mortgages.

banks have a big stake. and so suddenlwhen banks look lnerable, then they don't lend to each other anymore,tors pull back, that's what happened? >> yeah that's the crucial thing. terwards there was a congressional inquiry that went after the banks for selling the bad securities to investors who ended up beingipped 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"-- bacd by iffy subprime mortgages, it held on to them. when the debts started going bad, faith in lehman collapsed. edno faith, no credit; no , no lehman. >> we came as close as we have ever come in history to a total cardiac arrest not just of the american economy buthe entire world economy. >> reporter: meaning everybody is afraid to lend to everybody, eledit simply freezes, and

an economy, a modern economyti can't fu that way? >> a modern economy can't function without credit, for c more than evenple of hours frankly, seconds. g.e., the pillar of an manufacturing, was having a harg time getti short term credit. so was harvard university. wage bills were not being paid. >> reporter: and soon enough, the whe world was watching, and enmeshed. to illustratyour point about how the crisis spread globally i thought we'd go to a greek food stand.yo but u 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 about banks. and the failure of the irish banks in september 2008 is really the moment when the panic spreads to europe in a way that the european states ultimately find almost impossible to handle. >>eporter: because europea banks have a stake in irish banks? >> all of europe is tied up with the irish banking boom, is usin dublin offshore financial center and dublin finds itself

in a position on the 29th of september of having to guarantee the entire balance sheet of the irish banking system. >> reporter: back in the us of a, september 29 was also theay congress rejected president bush's bailout bill, and the dow fell a record 777 points. >> thise is where isis goes from being a banking crisis to a crisis of the american economy as a whole with stock market values crashing in september 2008. n >> reporter: we were nowe 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. >> reporter: ground zero 9/29: the new york fed. here is where the system was saved. and what the new york fed decided to do, wt the united states federal reserve system decided was play the classic role it's always intended to play. to be the lender of last rest to american financial

institutions. >> yeah. there's a lot of emphasis for obvious reasons on the unconventional 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 the global bankinsystem in september 2008 was indeed liquidity provision,w to take an assch is very unattractive to sell in the moment of the crisis because 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 sanancial system. >> this didn't jus 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 and in japan. >> reporter: and this, says adam tooz is the key to understanding the crash of ¡08: inancial crisis because of global financial interconnectedness-- a crisis at would have been far worse had the u.s. not dispensed dollars worldwide. >> wall streets a global banking center. so you have banks from all over the world and the fed is providing them liquidity not out me the goodness of its heart but to stabilize thecan financial system, to stabilize the american housing market. a >> reporte to stabilize the intricately interconnected global financial system, with players like barclay's of london, which bought tains 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 it was before the crash. >> well it did if you happened to be one of the minority of americans who actually has stock. most americans don't.s

large pa america have not recovered from the crisis. the san francisco fed was 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 obably 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 happens in the stock market.ch >> reporter: wrompted a final question, about the pohetical ramifications of t crash of ¡08, at a final location. >> this is zuccotti park, just by wall street, the site of the famous encampment in 2011 that awned occupy and the discourse of the 1% against the 99%. the place where inequalia in amerday 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 borrowers who 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 the 10th anniversary of the crash ¡' 08. for the pbs newshour, this is economics coespondent paul solman, reporting from new york. >> woodruff: next, we turn to another installment of our weekly brief but spectacularri where we ask people about their passion. tonight, we hear from attorney robin steinberg. she's c.e.o. of "the bail oject," 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 noildea how the ystem operated and it

doesn't take long when you're a public defder to stand in the courtroom next to a client, watch the judge set bail and have the client rn to you and say, "i, i don't have that money," and inevitably, what happens is, the client wndl turn to youay, "i'll just plead guilty. they'll let me go home." and, you want to scream and you th should go to a jail cell because they don't have any money but that'shat happens every day. so jail is terrifying and its vient and it's dehumanizin and it can do everything from destroying your mental health to ur physical health. you can be sexually victimized. you can be one of th jail deaths that happen in the first week of jail. 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 destruction that happens to you and your family and to your community even if you're theree for y, two days or three days in jail. it's a horrifying place to be. so the bail project is an unprecedented effort to disrupt the money bail system.

the idea is to create a central bail fund that we will then useo pen sites in at least 40 places in america or we can begin to use philanthropic dollars to pay people's bail who t have enough money to g 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, bwe actually pay somebodyl and at the end of a criminal casebecause bail money comes back, it will revolve back into the fund. bail was aually 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 twos tierm of justice-- one for the rich, and one for everybody else, but that is exactly what it's done. 75% of people in american local jails are there because they cannot pay bills.le these peaven't been convicted of a thing. until we grapple with what the reality is and how our country has been addicted to imprisonment fors long as it has existed, and since slavery to mass incarceration have happened, we're t ver going to 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 and those 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 shoulde itting in jail cells who haven't been convicted of anything. r my name in steinberg, and this is my brief but spectacular take on disrupting the money ioil system and turning the tide on mass incarcerin america. >> woodruff: you can findon addi brief but spectacular episodes on our website,ho pbs.org/ne/brief. and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. join us online and again here tomorrow evening with analysis of mark shields and david brooks. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you and see you soon. or funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

>> kevin. >> kevin! >> kevin. >> advice fo life well-planned. learn more at raymondjames.com. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions >> this program was made possible by the corporation forc puroadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wh.org martha stewart: have you ever seen a fanciful pie

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