captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening. i'm judy woodruff. on the newshoutonight: a major week in the russia investigation, as special counsel robert mueller details the level of cooperation fro the president's former personal attorney and campaign chairman. en, team trump. the president announces his picks for u.s. attorney general, ambassador to the united nations, and chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. plus, "the future of work."be how getting a l arts degree could help land a job in the tech sector. >> thinking clearly, writing inll, working well with other people, understadiversity, working in groups... these are skills that are usefuu in vly any kind of work. >> woodruff: and, it's friday. mark shields and david brooks

analyze the latest in the russia investigation, the legacy of president george h.w. bush, and more. all that and more, on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> consumer cellular believesth

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>> woodruff: president trump's former lawyer, michael cohen, has provided investigators detailed information about contacts between russia, the trump organization and the trump campaign. in a crt filing this evening, the special counsel says cohen has provided prosecutors with details on "certain discrete russia-related matters" that are central to the investigation. it is just one of three major developments from robe mueller's team this week. in a separate filing, federal prosecutors in new york detail riw cohen made payments to silence women at aical moment in the campaign at the direction of mr. trump. william brangham is here to bring us up to speed. william, so robert mueller what's been happening?

>> brangham: he put out a esse of tweets this morning, again asting robert mueller, io woke up and issued several tweets in anticipaof. this again, as often, he criticized the mueller v said all the prosecutors are conflicted. at he was worried about isent at happened earlier tuesday and today, which was these three major filings detailing crucial detailabout the cooperation that three maavor figurese been providing. let's take a look.fi the t filing was on tuesday, and it concerned michael flynn, who was president trump's short- lived national security advisor. last december, flynn admitted lying to federal agents about talks he had during the transition with russn ambassador sergey kislyak. after pleading guilty, flynn agreed to cooperate with mueller's team, and he's been doing so for a year. this week, mueller's office issued this heavily-redacted sentencing memo asking for no pris time for flynn, citing his "extensive cooperation," including sitting for 19 interviews.

among other matters, flynn talked about "interactions between individuals in the presidential transition team and russia."e ling described flynn as "one of the few people with long-term and firsthand insight regarding events and issues under investigation." because of the redactions, , wever, it's not clear what else was discusst the document indicates there are at least three distinct investigations he's helping with, including the russia probe. like flynn, former trump lawyer and "fixer" michael cohen hasso been cooperating with the specian counsel. cohefirst pleaded guilty in august to eight cots unrelatedr to his work foump, but then last week, he pleaded guilty to diing to congress about negotiations he on a failed trump real estate deal in moscow. those negotiations went onth ughout the 2016 campaign, and cohen says then-candidate trump was dated on the

discussions. former trump campaign manager paul manafort was convicted on eight counts of bank fraud and related crimes this summer, and later pleaded guilty to othe conspiracy and witness tampering charges. he too agreed to cooperate "fully and truthfully" with mueller's team, but that apparently didn't happen, because mueller last month accused manafort of repeatedly lying to investigators. so, judy, as we just heard, paul manafort was accused by the prosecution of repeatedly lying, and robert mueller just issued a filing tonight detail how he alleges that manafort broke that coopn agreement. we'll go through it and update our viewers on all that.s but lern to the cohen filing today from the southern district of new york. 38-page filing that they put out today, and it was a very tough indictment that they put frward about michael cohen.

ohey reiterated his behavior throughout the cess, they refer to it as pugnant. beey said there is going to some serious consequences for t him,y recommended the maximum sentence for him. they detailed the four spectrifc ls they are alleging that he has committed and those are willful tax evasion, making false statements to a financial institution -- these were personal loans he took out from banks -- illeg campaign contributions -- these were the arranging of hush money payments to stormy daniels and the other women, if you remember -- and then making false statements to congress -- this wasbout that moscow-tru had lied to congress about and they are pointing that outr . his, prosecutors are recommending a substantial term of imprisonment, could be up to four years. they went on to describe cohen's motivations. quote, he was motivated to do so personal greed and nudessed his powe are and influence for

deceptive ends, now h seeks leniency with no jail time based on his rose-colored view of the seriousness of therimes. they went on to reject his request for lean ns yes and noted some of the crimes committed inhe middle of a campaign, specifically the stormy daniels hush payments, those were meant to keep someone who might potentially have very embarrassic information from going public. he arranged what we nowelieve are illegal payments to her that violated camawpaign finances. this was another vote regarding this payment. akikoen's crimes were particularly serious because they were committed on thea ve of presidential election and they were intended to affect that election ." so tough talk from them. >> woodruff: and tough recommendation. within minutes after that filing came out of the southern district of new york, you had robert mueller's office issue filing that had a different take, frankly a milder

haelmmendation for mic cohen. >> that's right, somewhat in contrast to the way mueller treated michael flynn earlier this week where he said he' been coorpting and we want to give him no sentence whatsoever. the mueller letter detail yes, he lied but has gone to great lengths to do bert, admi to his crimes, to explain who is cooperating with him in those crimes. they say he offered seven prfer sessions, conversations cohen had with prosecutors, specifically detailin he lold him about this moscow r estate project. the important thing to remember is cohen lied to congress about all the negotiations he s ing during the campaign and into the transition where, simultaneously, you have thene candidd then president-elect trump sayingh nicegs about russia while his main lieutenant is trying to negotiate a potentially tlti-billion-dollar deal to

build what was goi be the biggest building in all of ossia. so i'ma prosecutor, so i don't know exactly what this means, but they did say we will abide what the judge's recommendations are. >> woodruff: all right, william, that is a comprehensive look at that. as you mentioned, we have this second mueller filing tonight having to do with paul manafort. you're going to take a look at' that and come back to you at the end of the program to find out what's in there. thk you, william. >> woodruff: so let's dig a little deeper into the legal questions here, with jessica roth. she's a law professor at yeshiva university, and a former federal prosecutor for the southern district of new york. ssica roth, i think you have been listening to william brangham's report and i'm sure you've had a chance to take a look at thesefilings that have come one, two, three. maybe not the latest one but certainly the first two from southern district and then from robert mueller. what do you see here that tells us anything more about the

president's role in all this? >> well, what we seecertainly, is a contrast between the two filings, one fr the southern district and one from the special counsel'soffice, and the filings from the special counsel's office makes it clear. thatohen has provided information about four areas that have been enumerated, some of which are described in a way that's fairly opaque ad could involve the president and other people in the white house. there is a reference to people connected to the white house, i think frotom 20172018 period, that it's not elaborated further what those communications were about specifically. but there is enough there to suggest that people affdilia with president trump and possibly the president himself were involved n some of the conduct that mr. cohen himself was involved in.

certainly, that's always been alenld, and mrha cohen said as much in court in terms ofh is coordinating with the president who's identified as individual one or candidateoreral office in different filings with respect to the payments to the women during the campaign, the women who alleged the president had affairs with him. so there's lots of statements that potentially could connect to the president and to those close to the president. >> woodruff: so we are beginning to see here more pieces of the puzzle, but e also understand that there is a lot more. we are led to believe that there is a lot more that robert mueller has been working on that we don't see here. n wh questions has all of this raised for you? >> well, one of the things that i saw in the special counsel filing -- i believe in the special counsel filing this ening was a reference to communications that mr. cohen had with people in russia that brought up the idea of synergy

between political alliances, if you will, and businessst inte and that has been sort of the missing link. we've had a line of inquiry in the mueller investigation into communications between people saying in the trump campaign and ncficials with respect to u.s. policies such as sons against russia, communications about actions that the security council with respect to resolution on israel, and, so, those are polal policy issues, and those are the things thatichael flynn has admitte that he had communications about. then they have a separate line of inqiry about business interests that the trump organization had, what michael cohen admitted recently he had lied to congress about, thef timinghose communications that he most recently admitted that he lied to congress about how far into the campaign those

communications continued. so, to the extent michaelcohen is able to connect those two lines of inquiry to suggest there was a nnection between policy discussions and business interest discussions, that could be quite significant. >> woodruff: in the few sects we have left, a signal if you cooperate with therosecutors you are likely to get a more lenient sentence th if you don't. >> absolutely. i see a big distinction here between how the special counsel wrote in favor of flynn and his teupcoming sening and how they wrote with respect to mr. cohen. so with mr. flynn facing a zero to six-month sentence, they commended something that the bottom of the range and we're quite clear about that. and here the special counsel'sti recommen was essentially nothing specific, and, in fact, it wasn't recommending much of a benefit at all. it was recommending that simply the sentencen the sine charge to which mr. cohen pled

guilty purt su charges by special counsel's office run concurrently with his sentence on theeven district charges, and that's the traditional practice is to run sentences concurrently, absent extraordinary circumstances. so i don't really think that thp ial counsel is offering him much. >> woodruff: former federal th, thankrs jessica yo >> thank you. >> woodruff: in the day's other major story, the presidents announced cks for three key posts: attorney general, doairman of the joint chiefs of staff, and ambasto the united nations. our white house correspondent yamiche alcindor is here to lay out these latest staff shake-ups. so, yamiche, let's talk first about the president's pick to be attorney general. there's an acting attorney general, rbert barr -- i'm sorry -- william barr who served in the administration of president bush, george h.w. bush, is now being aked by president trump to become attorney general. what do we know about him? w >> well, whe know is william

barr is looked at as a attorney and democrats and republicans signaled they could support him as attorney general. from 1991 to 1993, he wa attorney general for the late former president george h.w. bush. he was, howinever,volved in the controversial iran contra he worked at the c.i.a. in the 1970s and executive at vines.'s ow practicing law in washington, d.c. people who i talked to today told me he was an establishment republican. not someone who is a trump loyalist. the trump has at tmes filled the cabinet members and the white house with people who are loyal to him personally, but this is something that marco bio might have picked for his attorney general. he's had past conversations with special counsel and investigations. from the "new york times" on november 14,017, the "new york times" published an article dhere they said, "mr. barr sai

he sees more basis for anvestigating the clinton uranium deal thay supposed collusion between mr. trp and russia." and mr. barr told the "new york tis," to the extent it is not pursuing these matters, the department is advocating its responsibility. so, to be clear, mr. barr is saying hillary clinton might need to be investigated some more. he alssaid it's okay for presidents to specifically ask for investigatns to happen under the doj. the democratic national committee put out a statement saying he could get behind william barr but will have to prove to the people he can be an independent officer and stand up to president trump. >> woodruff: crucial because he oversees the mueller investigation. so, second, let's talk about his pointment to be the nex ambassador to the united nations. heather nauert, she haseen the spokesperson and assistant secretary of state. what do we know about her.

>> she was spokesperson for the state department, she was appointed by president trump in she is a former correspondent for the fox news and a correspondent for abc news. so she's someone who a hasot of experience in journalism. i'm told today prerusident appointed her because she's a good talker, she's someone whofe ed this administration's foreign policy plans. the president said she's very smart and quick. people i talked to said she is someone who could lk, really come up to speed on the u.n. dealings, could do the outside job which is giving speeches and esly on her state of to talk about other countand get them to really support the things that the united states wants them to do. >>oodruff: but no significant diplomatic experience. what about the appointment of mark miller to be the next chairman of the joint chiefs? >> he is a four-star geeral and

the army chief of staff. a special forms offiers, he was, commanded troops in afghanistan, iraq and korea. the people ho know him says he's blunt, that once he figures out he's rigis going to push for his point of view. that could mean he gets alongt with presidump who is also someone like that, or that he could butt heads with t president instantly. i'm also told he likes to deal with tops and visit troops. i talked to someone who spent time with him in afghanistan and told me a funny anecdote, and that is he went to visit a french battalion and they ckepared baguette, and his dentures got sn the bread. the troops were saying, omigod! we're to embarrassed. he said, it's okay, i sometimes carry a spare pair of teeth with me. he's down to effort and beloved by a lot of troops, so he could be someone who ts along with the president. >> woodruff: he may need that >>nse of humor. >> yeah. oodruff: yamiche alcindor, thank you.

in the day's other news, former f.b.i. director james comey appeared before the house judiciary and oversight committees for a closed-doorpo tion. house republicans are investigating the f.b.i.'s actions in the 2016 presidential campaign before democrats ke power in january. comey had unsuccessfully requested a public hearico, over erns republicans would leak damaging information. >> we've scheduled another date for 17th, after a full day of questioning. two things are clearo me. one, we could have done this in open setting. d two, when you read the transcript, you will see we're talking again about hi clinton's emails, for heaven's n sake, so i sure we need to do this at all. >> woodruff: president trump weighed in on twitter, and called on lawmakers to force comey to answer questions unr oath. the man who rammed his car into a crowd of counter-protesters at a white nationalist rally in charlottesville, virgia last

year has been found guilty of first degree murder. james fields was also convicted of nine other charges. k the 2017 rampaled heather heyer, and injured dozens more. the 21-year-old's sentencing hearing will begin monday. he could face up to life in prison. a chinese telecommunicationse execut facing multiplege fraud chin the u.s., anr allegedly violating u.s. sanctions against huawei's chief financial officer, meng wanzhou, was arrested saturday in canada, at the quest of the u.s. today, she appeared in a vancouver court for her bail hearing. her arrest sparked fears of an escalation in a trade war between the u.s. and china. huawei is the world's largest supplier of phone and internet technology. u.s. intelligence agencies have accused the company of spyingch foa. on wall street today, a weaker-

than-expected monthly obs report, coupled with lingering fears about a u.s.-china trade war, caused stocks to take another nosedive. the dow jones industrial average plunged a total of more than 1,700 points this week, shedding 4%. today alone, the dow plunged over 558 pois to close just under 24,389. the nasdaq fell 219 points, and the s&p 500 slipped nearly 63. opec and other oil-producing countries have agreed to cut global oil output starting in january. the oil cartel today announced a reduction of 1.2 million barrels a day for six months. the move is aimed at stabilizing oil prices, which have fallen 25% in recent months. word of today's agreement caused the price of crude oil to surge 4%. former u.s. secretary of state retillerson is speaking ou

publicly for the first time about working for pres trump, after being fired in march. tillerson descbed the president as impulsive and someone who is, "undisciplined, and doesn't like to iad." last nighouston, tillerson told cbs news contribur bob schieffer thal the president asked him to do things that weren't legal. >> president would say, "well,he 's what i want to do, and here's how i want to do it."ve and i would o say to him, "well, mr. president, i understand what you want to do, but you cat do it that way. it violates the law. it violates treaty." you know, he got really frustrated. i didn't know how to conduct my affairs with him any other way than in a very straightforward fashion. >> woodruff: today, president trump fired back on twitter hetrote, "rex tillerson did have the mental capacity needed. he was dumb as a rock and i couldn't get rid of him fast enough. he was lazy as hell." some 20 survivors gathered today in pearl harbor, hawaii to

remember t more than 2,400 ves lost in the japanese attack 77 years ago. they shared a moment of silenc at the exact time the bombing i began ba1941. the youngest of the survivors is now in his mid-90s for the first time, none of the survivors from the u.s.s. "arizona" were able e the ip, due to poor health. that ship lost 1,177 sailors and marines the attack, more than any other vessel. and the host of this year's oscarskevin hart, has stepped down following public outcry over his past homophobic tweets. most were posted from 2009 to 2011, and some were deleted. last night, the actor and comedian tweeted that he didn't want to be a "distraction," and apologized for, "insensitive words from my past." still to come on the newshour: mark shieldsnd david brooks break down a packed week of politics.ou

how quality ofng can have a major effect on asthma rates, especially ipoor communities. and, the tech sector reconsiders college graduates with liberal arts degrees. >> woodruff: let's take a look natow at an inne approach to health care. john yang tells us about an effort in north carolina that tries to track and treathe housing conditions that contribute to chronic illnesses like asthma before they become health emergencies. >> there's some mold on the door sill. >> yang: there is so much mold in the greensbo, north carolina, rental property that inspectors krishnaveni balakrishnan and ken cook are examining that the residents moved t after only a few weeks.th

>> the famil lives here, they have five children. one of them is asthmatic, and the mold in the home is nousing only that child but also the rest of the family to become sick. >> mildew spores. >> there's a lot of moisture issues, a lot of mold g, the ceilinn the family's belongings. the home is not habitable. >> yang: the residents say the landlord's suggestions for getting rid of the mold haven't worked. they had to pay for a hotel-- while still paying rent here. balakrishnan and cook work for the city. they work for an advocacy group called the greensboro housing coalition. they're part of an innovative approach aimed at improving the health of low-income residents. doctors, housing advocates, and community activists say taking care of houses like this is a form of preventive medicine. by getting rid of unhealthy environments, they can keep people out of emergency rooms.se chers say asthma accountsof for 93he respiratory

illnesses in greensboroom emergency and clinics. on this day, one of them is alveno stanford's 14-yeaold son, jacob. t>> i noticed like his ch would come out more than usual. i could tell the chest was, likecoming out more. >> yang: it's not the first time jacob's made a costly emergency room visit. >> three times a year. like this year, he may come three. year before that, he may come like t or three. year before that, he may come two or three. >> yang: greensboro's efforts are part of a growing interdisciplinary approach attacking the causes of conditions like asthma, to try to improve health anl reduce medicasts. >> respiratory illness around the crescent. >> yang: stephen sills is a university of north carolina-ro greensociologist. he looks for patterns in asthma cases, using data som cone healtem, the city's major hospital operator and a partner in the project.

then he uses google maps' streetview to plot substandard housing. >> we map that, block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood. where are more of these respiratory illnesses coming from? you see that t re's three areas of greensboro that really are the concentration of poor roofing, absent gutters, broken, cracked foundations, cracked windows, missing shingles and siding. >> yang: areas where asthma cases are honcentrated, underscoring the link between pooing and poor health. and all these conditions, what you just described, can exacerbate or trigger asthma? exactly. exacerbate is a good word. if i'm living in a house where the roof is leaking, the pipes are leaking, there'sold and mildew, the carpet hasn't been replaced in years... whoare triggers for someo has a respiratory condition like asthma.an >> sills' students use the

data to make referrals to the greensboro housing coalition. it turns the tditional approach to delivering health care on its head. >> often, the physician is thinking about the biology of the individual, what's wrong with this person, how can i p treat thblem that is a biological, medical problem? what dg can i give them, or what behavior can i ask them to change? in this case, the treatment is for the community.le the prisn't the individual, the problem is the structe around the individual. >> yang: sills' resear provides hard data to support the coalitios work at an apartment complex in the impoverished east greensboro neighborhood of cottage grove. >> you can see the roofing and all this up here, very old. >> yang: josie williams of the greensboro housing coalition documents conditions there. sewage was coming up in the drain? >> yes, sewage was coming up in the drain. that's why the water is so dark. the way they were turng this off, was by pliers.

>> yang: and the people are paying rent for this? >> yes. >> yang: there were 177 apartments, and 100 cases of asthma. >> we walked into an apartment onheday, and the sewage from bathroom had come out of the toilet onto the floor, into the and the family had been living like that for three weeks. >> yang: three weeks. >> we walked into another apartment complex where the ceiling was leaking, and it was sraining, and the mother catching the water with an inflatable pool in the middle of the floor. >> yang: one of the asthma ses: seven-year-old shaw meh, whose family are immigrants from myanmar. dr. beth mulberry is her pediatrician. >> they were living without heat, it was below 20, they'd had a huge water problem. their carpet was soaked. she was needg to be on maintenance medication. allergy medication, oral. and then she was on a rescue inhaler. >> yang: the housing coalition

helped the family find better housing, and shah mei quickly improved. >> i think it was about two months. so, it's pretty quick. pretty amazing change. she has not used her rescue inhaler since july.om >> yang: tex has since been sold, and the coalition is working with the new owner to improve it. led by josie williams, the mohousing coalition holds hly neighborhood meetings to help residents press for other changes in the area. at their most recent session, they disssed a corner store. >> anything healthy in that little store? alcohol, cigarettes, what else you see in that little store? snacks, what else? you have the power to create those changes. >> yang: the recognition that health care extends beyond the walls of hospitals and doctorss office growing. in october, federal officials approved a five-year pilot program allowing north carolina

medicaid to pay for such services as removing mold, controlling pests and repairing heating and air conditioning. >> we really need to start making an investment in what are the root causes of these chronic illnesses. and a lot of thihas to do with our people that are living in poverty, and the inability to rent a place where theexpect changes to be made if it's an unhealthy environment for them. >> yang: a prescription for good health, that cannot be filled at a pharmacy. for the pbs newshour, i'm john yang in greensboro, north carolina. >> woodruff: this week, our nadon mourned a president, got a better glimpse of the investigation into the current mmander in chief's ties russia. there is a lot to unpack telight with shids and brooks.

that is syndated columnist mark shields, and "new york times" columnist did brooks. hello to both of you. so there's a lot of news tonight. it's friday, as we've seen on a lot of fridays, david, the special counsel robert mueller and not only he but the uthern district of new york, the prosecutors there have made public what they call filgs that detail activities by people who are close to thpresident, specifically michael cohen who's his former lawyer,nd later on we had another filing about paul manaenrt. we have listening, rapidly reading through this, what do we think it has up to >> first, these twice are not very good cooperators.e if youing to cooperate, cooperate, but manafort is going to jail probably for the rest of his life and cohen is getting a healthy sentence because he semicooperated, some that, but i think what we're seeing is the pace rampup on a t of frontes. they are clearly interested in

more contacts than we knew with russia in the cam pain, the synergy they reportedly found, and the busines dealings, trump's dealings in moscow. and my instinct is there's going to be a lot moreon investiga into business than into russia collusion. there's just a lt more there. the other sense you get is a lot of republicans are looking at eis white house and they seeing an administration under a lot of judicial and legal threat and a lot of political threat, sed they see a white hou council's office that is uted of authority and people and they see the membrane faili, the people they put around trump to protect him from himself, and the john kellies of the wor are going and gone and you see a trump unprotected from himself and a lot of republicans are looking at 2018 at a lot of fridays like this one and trump mae hurting himself and maybe

not serving out the term. >> woodruff: it's a lot, mark. it is. th>> woodruff: start wit filing. what do you see here? >> well, quoant, judy. i mean, i look at michael cohen, and he turned over computers, tapes, everything h. he turned over his life. he had a public conversion to have you chew and saved him a year, is what it looks like, anyway, to the layman from the sntside. it certainly doe look like he's skating by any means. so i'm not sure if he gave what he thought he was giving or what they thought he was giving or whether there was a miscommuni but it did not seem like a major reduction to me. >> woodruff: it's not clear. no, it's not clear, and i don't pretend to be an authority on it. i would say that manafort, you know, looking at a difficult choice. i mean, loo like he was trying to keep channels open to the white house where the ultimate

executive pardon lies, andhe got caught at it. ea woodruff: and ring from republicans expressing concern about the kind of pressure -- not that he hn't been under pressure, but that it now seems to be in a waythat is serious. >> i have yet to see that kind n independencee part of -- i see the concern there, but it's donald trump's par. it really is. there's no question. it's a mark sanford experience of 2018 that is burnt in the mind and consciousness of every republican who's looking ats 2020, thate idea that donald trump with just the snap of a finger or an unfortunateom flatteringnt can cost you renomination in your own republican prim sanford had been a governor, a member of the houseu and jst by

trump's kind of dismissive, lost imary. and it made no difference his party ended up losing the whneral. that'sre the concern is. i do not see that streakf independence other than by those who are i have yet to see it of those in 2020. >> iok them a while to digest their own election results and what it met that democrats ntrol the house, and, so, what you see is it's going to ramp uthe poltical pressure. the southern district pay be more important than mueller. got a lot of legal help. then there's more fear,worry, almost mania in the white house as they feel all the safety guardrails coming out. so they really don't know what's goin me, the crucial thing over the next year or a crucial thing is how the base republicans react if there are indictments, if there is a political catastrophe, if people start leaving the white house in

droves. the republican base is still very pro-trump. in the talk radio circuit they're getting rid of anyone like mike medvev, may be closed because not sufficiently pro-trump. you see the base going so pro-trump at the exact moment when the wheels are coming off me whole thing. >> woodruff:ark? republicans are really slow learners. they lost midterms b more votes than any midterm election in the history of the coury, all right. the republicans got fewer, democrats got more vtes. i don't know what point has to be driven home to them. donald trump announced the y ter the election it was a great victory. that's 40 seats later and wit north carolina nine still hanging in the balance, it could be 41 seats later. i don't know, they lost 32

house seats, s.a.t. legislative seats. 's a pretty stinging rebuke of the sitting administration. ew woodruff: what about in terms of today's the president announcing who his pick, is mark and david, to be the forge. william barr who served in the george h.w. bush -- and we're going to talk about him in just a moment -- his life, and that andt heather nauto the u.n. and new pick for the head of the joint chtefs. does thil us something new? >> i think bill barr is probably as quality a choice as has been in the trump administration. he's confirmable, an able mesan. cially confirmable in the sense that he's now identified with george h.w. bush, 41, who was lionized if not ideal eyed this week, it's a great credential. to me, perhaps the inwritten story is th dismissal -- the abrupt ending of joe dunford's

chairmanship of the joint chiefs of staff. his term does not expire until next i want september 30th. they announced his successor today, which puts him in a terrible position. woodruff: unusual. unusual position. the word is both mattis and dunforwere pushing for the chief of staff, the general of the air force to be the next chairman of the joint chiefs, they didn't prevail. general milley was chosen. so this will be a real upset. dunford will be gone. the stories that the chief of naval operations will leave, the general of the air force willj leave, a turnover in military leaderships. >> a lot of change. david? >> barr is a big one for me. a great pedigree, a lot of respect around this town. h he is an. republi there are a lot of democratsmp

ining he has views. the herring thing is does he become elliott richardson. elliott richardson resgned rather than fire the special counsel and after that it'or curtainsrichard nixon. and here is someone within grity, credibility, loyalty n donaldhing higher tha trump. and if trump asks him to do something immoral it's possible he would resign and you would see a sort of saturday night massacre again. >> woodruff: wow. in the fe mines we have left i want both of you to reflect on the life osif prent george h.w. bush. we spent several days this week remembering him, remembering administration, mark. not a perfect man, every dy said that, but someone who stood out for his decency, for his belief in publiservice. >> yeah, i found the whole week rather fascinating, a reminder david has written and gotten a lot of attention for,

difference between resume virtues and eulogy virtues, resume virtues being those that operate in the marketplace -- your professional achievement, your business success, your high test scores -- and the eulogy virtue being the qualities, the charerter one is reme or cherished for. the concentration was vermuch on the radder. it led for an awkward ceremony at the national cathedral because even by unintention, everyone was compared, the unselfishness, deansy, thoughtfulness to people. a little story, when president bush was meeting pope john paul and he arranged in his close detail that day that the catholic members of the secret service be there so that they would have the privilege and honor of meeting his holy father.

and when donald tmp was meeting pope francis, the most excited person in his wholeur ene was sean spicer, his press secretary, who was thenfr excludedm the party. it stood in stark and march contrast and merely is overt in its difference as was the mccain where this is one-sided r >> wf: much more overt. and, david, there was humor, too, in remembering him. >> one of my favoritebush stories is when he was first running for office, the staff would put in paragraphs in thesp ch where he would talk about how great he was, and he would never read them because, i n't do that, that's the ethos of a modest man. they finpeallyuaded him and he eventually read the paragraph about w great he wad his mom who was still alive called him up and saido, george,'re talking about yourself, and he would never read it again. sothat' --uf >> woo it's a reminder

of how differently we view our politicaaleaders. wey leave office and step aside from being in the public eye every minute to being 25, 27 years later, and, you know, as u say, mark, there's a big contrast. >> a prison of the present. that's right. if barack obama were presidt, there wouldn't have been, i don't think, the emphasis upon the personal virtues, which he certaly deserves. >> woodruff: mark shield, david brooank you both. >> thank you. >> woodruff: we hear it all e time-- a degree in the liberal arts may not be the ticket in our high tech economy. many young people seem t believe it. just one in 20 of all college degrees are now the humanities and liberal arts, down from nearly one in five in the 1960s. but some experts, both scholars

and tech executives, see another side to the story. jeffrey brown reports from california's bay areaour special series this week on "the future of work." >> the eventual goal is such that my movement... as i'm doing all this crazy movement, all over the place, will actually control the robot. >> brown: jobs of the cature? e cuan calls herself a "robot choreographer."d >> we creais 3d animation of the robot, which i can then interact with through this depth pnsor. >> brown: a formfessional ballet dancer, cuan now dances robots, doing research a ph.d. student in mechanical engineering at stanford university. rt i move with robots in my research, and mytic work th about how those movements can control robots or change human behavior and human conceptions of themselves. >> brown: the idea: when robots are taught graceful movements,

they become less intimidating and me approachable, even friendly-- important traits, as humans interact with them more and more. >> right now, we have incredible hyperbolic overwhelming sense of fear of robotsn the media. >> brown: and taking over the world, taking over jobs, taking over everything? >> right. d that fear is very real for so many people. and i thinthe fear is absolutely legitimate, but it's why we need artists and people from humanities ckgrounds to help re-frame what robots can and will be in society. >> brown: no surprise that at stanford, ground zerfor silicon valley's higher ed-high tech connection, tsthe big major by far is computer science. students here, as elsewhere these days, want their studies to lead to high-paying jobs, immediately. >> it very much changes the way you think about college, and i >> brown: louis newman is

stanford's director of undergraduate advising and research, and himself as religious studholar. >> we tell students all the time, "don't think about the job you're looking for. think about the job that hasn't even been created yet, because the skills that you're gaining here may well position you for something that you can't even imagine." >> brown: he says that while enrollment across the nation in history, philosophy, literature and other liberal arts majors has been falling for decades, the skills they provide are still needed in the modern workforce. >> thinking clearly, writing well, working well with other people, understanding diversity, working in groups... these are skills that are useful in virtually any kind of work context. is brown: you can't promise, you can't say to an enmajor or a history major or a classics major, "you'll get a job with that degree," right?ca >> wt promise it, but we have a lot of track record to say th students with those majors he, in fact, gotten jobs. >> brown: and that includes jobs in some unexpected places. >> if you look at some of the senior-most leaders of companies, like youtube, where susan wojcicki, she studied literature and history.

or you look at the founder of pinterest, ben silbermann, was a political science major. you look at the founders of airbnb, they studied design and art. >> brown: scott hartley is a venture capitalist who advises tech startups, and author of a new book, "the fuzzie and the techie: why the liberal arts will rule the digital world." he argues that tech companies are more and more in the business of solving large-scale human problems. technology, seen this way, is sometimes the easy part, and getting easier. figuring out how to use it is still key. >> fluency with technology, literacy with technology, in order to get your foot in the door, is important.at but if you looort of the growth over time, oftentimes, the leadership of these companies are people that have the ability to take a step back, have the ability to ask the right questions, and have the ability to empathize with the customer. and these are the various things that you learn through a humanities or liberal arts typ program. >> brown: one example cited by hartley: stitch fix, ald seven-yearompany in

san francisco, with nearly three million customers. a tech-driven business, but based around retail clothing: customers fill out surveys on their fashion preferences, and are then paired with people like layne cross, an art history major, who now oversees more than 400 of the company's stylists. >> ...or you could totally layer this and wear it in the fall. >> brown: cross and her team prepare a "fix," and a box of clothes is assembled, packed, and eventually shipped customers keep what they like, return what they don't. what's the biggest problem you all had to solve? >> i believe it was gettingin ma and humans to worke together to sois common problem. >> brown: eric colson, who studied statistics aford, as it happens, is the company's chief algorithms officer. he says along with tills, stitch fix needs people with a

sense of "empathy." >> relate to your fellans. this is what's most important to that job. you are picking clothes, not for yourself, but for your fellow nt to client, and you make sure you understand them. a client might write in, "i need to look good, i'm going to my ex-boyfriend's wedding." oh, wow! there's a lot of meaning in e.at, that a human-- >> brown: of cou there's a whole story embedded in that, right? >> there's a whole story, things they didn't say. yet, our fellow human is going to know what that means, and they can appropria ily curate soms that will meet that particular need. so, yes, they're in high demand here. >> brown: they're in high demand, but of course, you couldn't run the company with just philosophy majors? >> no, you need both. if y're on the techie side, you're going to have to learn how to work with people and learn the power of storytelling and geing people on board with your ideas. and if you're on the soft side, you're going to have to appreciate wchnology can do for you. >> brown: embodying both: stewart butt major and co-founder and c.e.o. of slack. when you were studying philosophy, you did not agine this kind of future. what were you thinking? >> well, i was thinking that i p would end up alosophy professor.

t brown: slack is a popular chat app with moren eight million daily users, widely relied upon by companies and large organizations for internal office communications. butterfield, who, by the way, also has a masters in philosophy, oversees a $7 billion business. >> there's a lot of companies who started here in the bay area that have incredible technical abilities and have a great solutionn search of a problem. on the other hand, you could have the greatest idea in the world, and if u're not able to mplement and execute, again, it doesn't really matter. so again, there's, lik a real marriage of all these different skills and approaches that are required to achieve this lev of success. >> brown: here at slack, itt, turns ven reading james joyce can help... at least, according to jaime delanghe. >> i'm basically responsible for making all of the business decisions around how we help people find what they're looking for in slack. >> brown: search, delanghe says, is about language, and how it's used and intended.

now head of search learning she was an english major in college who loved joyce. re i loved the people who more playful with language, and i think a lot of what i spend my time doing in the technical world of trying to build the best product is thinkiut what is somebody typing, what are they trying to do here, and then make that happen for them. >> brown: but-- and this is important-- delanghe also became fluent in the technology side of her work. she offers this advice: >> you're not done yet, i think, if you're an english major. you have to do more th and reflecting on where it is you actually want to be, apply those skills, i guess, in society. there's totally hope, there's definitely hope. >> brown: but, looking to the future, will the mhines one day take even the most "human" of jobs? back at stanford, robot choreographer catie cuan isn't worried. >> i mean, ibecomes so circular, right? because then, at that point, maybe i'll be doing somethin completely different i can't even comprehend yet at this point.

and "robot choreographer" will feel superfluous oantiquated. >> brown: maybe so. for now, the message here: "there is hope for artists and liberal arts majors, as long a k thp moving with the latest technology." for the pbs newshour i'm jeffrey brown in california's bay area. >> woodruff: as we reported earlier, in a court filing late this evening, special counsel robert mueller's team detailed how former trump campaign chairman paul manafort lied repeatedly to prosecutors, after manafort had agreed to become a truthful, cooperating witness. william brangham has been going over this latest document, and is back to help fill us in. so what do you see here? >> the important thing, before we get into the filing, is to remember that giving paul

manafort -- getting paul manafort to agree to a pledeal and cooperate was a big deal for muelleras team. remember, he wasthe campaign manager at a very crucial part of the trump administration, the very tfledglimp administration at the end of the campaign as well. he was there at the infamous trp tower meeting where don, jr. and jared kushner was there, so he might have a lot ofce informatioral to muelleras investigation. mueller's team earlier this yea was able et him -- guilty pleas against him abounkt fraud, money laundering, lying about his work as a ukranin lobbyist, and as part of that conviction, they got him to agree to be a plea. so, today, they sad, y agree to be truthful with us and you were not. they laid out fully. they said manafort laid about the following items -- interactions with a suspected asssian operative -- this about to coordinate a story to make him look better -- he li about the the nature of one particular wire trance ferks he lied about a separate other

department of justice investigation but because of redactions we don't know what that is, and he lied abot contacts with trump administration officials. this last part about the contacts with ttrump administration is particularly tough, because it's not illegal but you'reenot supposed to telling the trump administration what prosecutors are asking you out. >> woodruff: the pieces just continue to come together. william brangham, thank you very much. >> you're welcome. i and ththe newshour for tonight. .'m judy woodruff. have a great weeke thank you, and see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >>inancial services firm raymond james. >> bnsf railway. >> conmer cellular. >> supporting social entrepreneurs and their solutions to the world's most pressing problems-- skollfoundation.org. >> the william and flora hewlett foundation. for more than 50 yeaea,

advancing and supporting institutions to promote a better world.le at www.h.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and friends of the newshour. >> this program was made possible by the corporion for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbe station frwers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored py newshoductions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

♪ ♪ >> tonight on kqed newsroom, the nation has a new class of state lawmakers ready to tackle housing and health care. plus wildfires and your health. a look at the effects of ldfires on your lungs, skin and heart long after the flames e ou and the rise of millennials in politics. berkeley voters just elected the youngest council member in city history, a 22-year-old cal grad. hello and welcome to stakqed. i'm thuy vu. jeff sessions will be remaced who resigned under pressure. barr served during the george w.h. bush administration. the nomination came during a week when the nion paid tribute to mr. bush at his