tv PBS News Hour PBS March 18, 2019 6:00pm-7:00pm PDT
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captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening, i'm judy woodruff. at the newshour tonight, new zealand reflects o could have been done to prevent the massacre at the mosques amid calls to change gun laws to sto future mootings. then, new details on thela ethiopian airp crash raise thw questions about how federal regulators approveboeing 737 max. us, a ballad of bias-- w explore the gender gsi in country and why female voices increasingly are not heard on t radio. >> i walked into a couple of major labels and had them look me in the eye and say, "we can't sign another girl right now, we already have one." >> woodruff: all that anmore on tonight's pbs newshour.
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foundation. for more than 50 years, advancing ideas and supporting ns to promote a better world. at www.hewlett.org. >> and with the ongoing support these institutions: and individuals. >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by ctributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: the government of new zealand is promising tougher gun law proposals within 10 days. that word came today after friday's terror at two mosques
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in christchurch, with 50 people killed. meanwhile, president trump complaed that news reports are unfairly blaming him for the attack. the accused gunman referred to him as "a symbol of renewed white identity."l we'll look at this, after the news summary. gunman in the netherlands today killed three people and wounded five on a streetcar in utrecht. a 37-year-old man from turkey was arrested hours later. foreic teams and bomb-sniffi dogs searched the scene after the attack. the dutch justice minister said is still unclear what sparked the shooting. >> we were able to versoon spot him, to also connect him through a runaway car in which he had fled from the place of the assault. so we have now arrested him. we do not know as yet as to what his motives are.o wet exclude any type of
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motive. >> woodruff: the justice minister said the suspect has a criminal record and was known to dutch authorities before today. a tropical cyclone that smashed into southern africa has killed more than 200 people, and the president of mozambique says the toll could hit 1,000. the storm surged down the mozambique channel last week, tearing through that country's coast and into zimbabwe and malawi. officials say 90% of the mozambique port city of beira was damaged or destroyed. the storm wrecked homes and flooded swaths of land.da in indonesia of torrential downpours have caused deadly flooding and mudslides, killing more than 80 people. the flooding, in a mountainous region of papua province, covered roads with mud and debris and hasrtade rescue efmore difficult. meanwhile, aearthquake caused a landslide early today. it killed three people and
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damaged hundreds of home across the u.s. midwest, heavy rain and snowmelt have sent rivers over levees, submerging farms and whole neighborhoods in several states. william brangham as our report. >> brangham: in peru, nebraska, nation guard trucks bring a lifeline: bottled water. volunteers unload the water after flooding from the missouri river shut down the town's water treatment plant. fred knapp of nebraska pbs station net was in peru. >> down here, there are about 10 houses that have been flooded by the missouri river after a levee broke north of here. >> brangham: across the state, roads, livestock and hundreds of homes have been swallowed by floodwaters. >> it is devastating. it is devastating. >> brangham: flooding began last a massive late-winter storm hit. water levels rose through theen we hitting those who live along the missouri river the hardest.ab
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>> it't as bad as it gets, you know we're starting over. >> brangham: lisa lemus, from sarpy county, is one of hundreds who had to evacuate when waters flooded her home. >> there is no words that can describe somebody's state when all this comes down. >> brangham: rescuers in airboats came to save those whot coulscape in time. across the midwest, floodwaters brought record river levels to s places, including 17 sp nebraska. the water reached seven feet in some areas. on the eastern side ofhe missouri river, nearly 2,000 people have been evacuated ross iowa. floodwaters destroyed roads, including part of this bridge in council bluffs. overflow from the rock river in illinois has inundated communities along its banks. and it could still get worse. rain is in the forecast for tuesday and the missouri river is expecteto reach its highest level on thursday. for the pbs newshour, i'm
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william brangham. >> woodruff: there is more today, on the ethiopian airlines crash that killed 157 people. french investigators are helping recover the plane's "black box" data. today, they reported clear similarities between that crash and one in indonesia last october. ethiopia's transport minister said much the same on sunday. both crashes involved the boeing 737-max.s we'll fo how the new plane won regulatory approval, later the program. british prime minister theresa may suffered a new setback today in her bid tpush a brexit plan through parliament. the house of commons has defeated the plan twice, but may wants a third vote this week. today, though, the speaker of the house ruled that a ronturies-old rule bars another vote, unless thesal is "substantially" different. >> what the government cannot legitimately do is to resuit to the house the same
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proposition or substantially t same proposition as that of last week which was rejected by 149 votes. >> woodruff: britain is now set to leave the european union on march 29th, with or without a deal, unless the e.u. grants a delay. the u.s. supreme court was back in action today. the justices rejected an appeal from a bed-and-breakfast in hawaii that denied a room to a lesbian couple. they agreed toeview a criminal conviction in louisiana. it was decided by a jury that was not unanimous, but the state has since changed its constitution to mandate unanimous verdicts. on wall streetjooday, the dow s industrial average gainedoi 65s to close at 25,914. the nasdaq rose almost 26 points, and the s&p 500 added 10. and, noted economist alan krueger has died.
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he was a top treasury department official and chair of the council of economic advisers seder president obama. before and after t positions, he taught at princeton university. his groundbreaki research ranged from economic inequality to the economic effects of opioid addiction. alanrueger was 58 years old. still to come on the newshour: how the massacre in new zealand highlights concerns of hate spread by social media. questions over how the boeing 7 max got approved to fl breaking down president trump's test twitter storm, and much more. >> woodruff: we return to our top story, the aftermath of friday's terror attack on mosques in christchurch, new zealand.
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as that nation reels from the massacre, and the true scope of the horror comes into focus, public anger is being directed not only at the gunman and his cist ideology, but at social media companies whose platformsd are o traffic such hate. john ray of independent television news is inch christch and begins our tverage. >> reporter: it is way only new zealand shows its th, against an adversary that violated everything th hold dear some who were school children. their short lives symbolized by candles. and celebrated in song by their classmates. there are women who mourn both children and husbands. naim rasheed died as he was trying to overpower the gunman, and his son tala, who shieleded
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another wounded worshipper. >> the person was trying to move and he said in his ears "don't move, stay, stay still." he wanted to save him. >> he was 21, he was an innocent soul. >> reporter: it's now know the prime suspect bought four of his five weapons online from new zealand's biggest gun supplier. the government promises togh reveal t rules within ten days. but in a bad tempered news conference... do you not feel any sense of sponsibility at all? >> i think you're asking the q sastion, someone else? >> reporter: ...the store's bos onuldn't tout gun control. >> i had my granome to me, "grand dad, why do people think the guns are the probl the guy was crazy. >> reporter: the failure of the intelligence services to track
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far-right terrism, the use of social media to spread hate, there are many seeking answers. and not justn christchurch. of the victims named so far, the youngest is three, test in their 70s. they came from 19 separa nations. so this is a calamity for new zealan but it reaches across many borders. and th there are the questions they never thought they'd ask. ala wonders how to break the unbearable news to the threeen young chilf his friend hazama. >> we will be stng and we will get through this, but for his kids i don't know how somebody can explain to them why their father is not around. >> reporter: as night falls, another vigil begins. a little light, in the darkness. >> woodruf been raised about how graphic videos of the attack were posted
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and allowed to spread quickly ot e, facebook and other social media platforms. the companies said they tried to stop it but faced big challenges facebook said it removed 1.5 tllion videos depicting images from the shooting first of hours after it happened. more than a milliohose were blocked as they were transferred to social media. youtube had its own war room- li response center. but it, too, struggled to stop the posting in the minutes after the atta. reporter elizabeth dwoskin took a close look at hoyoutube and others tried to combat this. she's the silicon valley correspondent for the "washington post" ans us from san francisco. elizabeth dwoskin, welcome to the "newshour". so i think my first question is, as this shooter, this gunman, decided he was going to use his camera as he began this terrible massacre, was theranything in social media to stop him? >> that's a great bit. it feels like the 10,000-foot
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question and it's a great ocestion. i would say thel media companies, often they say, another day, another failure. this is opportunity first rr that's been streamed live on facebook or uploaded on to youtube, but it was the one most designed to go viral because the shooter was live streaming himself while appearing to niche onlines communitat aggressively reposted it and reposted dierent permeations of it, cutting it in half, cutng the length and even turning it into a video game. even ater russian meddling and the tech companies saying they're putting millions of dollars of resources into fighting these problems, many couldn't take do the viral content for 24 hours. >> woodruff: i know you spent me talking to yowbtd, how did they first see what was going on? >> well, they knew right away on thursday night u.s. time tt, you know, that a video had been
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uploaded because, again, it was streamed live on facebook and then middle east people on hmm n. and other sites started take copies of the facebook video and uploading it like crazy on to youtube. so they already knew this was going to be a problem. what's wild is even though it was an all-systems i go effort, by the nethxt morningy're realizing this stuff is still up and easily findabl so what they actually chose to do, and it doesn't say great things about where the situation, is they basically hit a panic button and chose to doe able mhfeatures of youtube and made a huge decision they never made before to suspend the use of human moderat. usually the content goes through a.i. and a moderator makes the decision. they realized humans are too chloe slow and wilal mke a.i. make the decision. they would rather err on the side of wrong and have less video. that was a stop-gap measure.
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>> woodruff: a.i. morated, did they find that worked better? >> after 24 hours after disabling core features of their site -- this is the biggesto viite in the world and you have core features disabled to this mont -- after they did that, they were able to contain it. but you have to acknowledge that's not a long-term solution d not the first time they've told me or another journalist there was a crisis sdome unprecedented element of the crisis made it hard tonight's pate. if you remember the parklanth massacrestudents were called crisis actors, and the videos wrote to the top of youtube and that was another thing where they said well we couldn't have anticipated that. >> woodruff: is youtube and facebook, are they saying they weren't aware that t veideo could be changed into many different forms and shared in many different ways? it's not as if they didn't know this could happen, is it? >> they know, and, remember, they deal with copyrighted
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videos, they deal with i.s.i.s. videos all the time where peopli uslar tactics. the difference is with i.s.i.s. recruideng vi and copyrights, they have prerecord files to have the videos, so they can teach their technology to understand any snippet of it at upload. but when you have a new video technology that someone hasn't seen before, with new variations coming all the time, it trips. the system u but you're saying can't you anticipate a totally new video might go viral, might be put on your web site in different ways tand that you should try ach the technology to anticipate that? i think the sad truth is technology isn't there, which then raises the question of can the platforms actuay police themselves at all. >> well, and, of course, all this raises the question, do these social media platforms, do theyee tir responsibility as stopping this kind of materialei from spread? >> they'd say yes, but the
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reality is that that's were they fail. they also will tell you that it will never not be posted beause they have a system where there's not prior revw. yone can post and it only gets reviewed later, if it gets. review as long as you have that sirnlings you're going to accept that some of this stuff goes up and gets spread.et then add to this their responsibility. it's not just ke the content goes up and anyone sees it. youtube and facebook, they have highly personalized gorithms where the content is designed to be turbo charged. when people click on it, they start recommending it. so they're making a lot of editorial, territoal actions that actually promote content to people who didn't even ask for it. and, so, they have a huge role. i that y could today to a former director at youtube who said that he himself was stunned by the level of irresponsibility of those desig choices. >> woodruff: quickly, it
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sounds as if youe saying if something like this were to happen next week that the samec thinld happen again, that it would be spread that quickly. >> i think the companies n couldn't s to that. >> woodruff: well, that'so disturbing andething for all of us to reflect on. elizabeth dwoskin with the the washington "post," we thank you. >> woodruff: investigators are still trying to figure out what caused the ethiopian airlines crash that led to the grouing of the boeing 737 max.as ohn yang reports, questions are now being raised about how the federal government approved the plane's safetyn the first place. >> yang: judy, the "seattle times" reports when the f.a.a. approved the jetliner in 2015, the agency delegated key safety
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assessments to boeing itself. the newspaper said that included an assessment of the automated anti-stall system th leading suspect in two crashes s in tn of five months. in addition, the "wall street journal" reports that both theon transportaepartment and ocderal prosecutors are looking into the approval s. to discuss this, we are joined by jeff wise, a science writer who specializes in aviation and psychology. he's author of "the taking of mh 370" on the malaysia airlinesha flightvanished in 2014. he's also a licensed pilot. boeing and the f.a.a. clined our invitations. a lot of discussion about automation. this was an automated system that they added to this model of the aircraftth it was one o systems that the seattle "times" reports the f.a.a. let boeing decide on the safety aseptember you've written a lot abdut auto meication and auto pilot. what does the increased use of m
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audication in flying mean and is it a good, bad thing, and what doeit say fore need for training? >> well, you know, that's a great question. broadly speaking, auto medication is a really good thing fon r aviatfety. what you can do is take the more mundane tasks of flying, things a piot would otherwise have to do, monitoring things and keeping check things, and can focus on the more important, t creatiings, if situations are arising. let the computer deal with theu moreane stuff. so that's really been a majoror fand a tremendous increase in aviation safety over the last few decades. on the other hand, we can't get too complacent. there are sations, as flying becomes more and more safe, the numbermef incidents beless and less, and you get into this situation where only these sort of really sort of corner of thet envelope suations do multiple
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problems arise simultaneously. you might ve a inexperienced pilot on a day with bad weather, a mechanical oblem that happens at the same time, and the system gets overlead, the auto medication can't hantdle i and either fails or turns itself off and dumps everything on to e pilot, oftentimes in a situation where the pilot is highly str bessed, mig inexperienced, and, so, the weak points of auto medication and human beings overlap and there's no one to catch the falling baby, as it were. >> yang: when you talk about the inexperienced pilot, it is said boeing wanted to be able to say to customers, you don't need to rera your pilots because they wanted it to be cost effective, they wanted it to be a fast changeover for thighs these airlines. this is something, though, they should have prepared the pilots that if something goes wro while they're flying on auto pilot, they would have been prepared to handle? they're saying theirttitude after the indonesia crash was,
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well, a pilothould know how to handle this. >> right. so the context of all this happening is boeing gets big chunk of its profits from the most popular arplane it blds, the 737, it's been building them since 1967. it's a whole different era. over half a century, they have been building these planes. it's a creature of that age. aluminum, hydraulics instead of fly by wire like modern planes have, so they have been progressively been te ing to impr to try to stretch out its life span and, you know, thr ment that many are making is, look, they've just tried to stretch this thing out too long. they've basically tried to add these new fuel-efficient engines on to an aging air frame. the slane wan't designed for this kind of engine. they had to sacrifice fight characteristics to get it to work. because it had these are ergonomic problems and a disturbing tendency to pitch up
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in certain circumstances, they d a patch of automation software that would kick in when the corner of the flight envelope got bad, they'd paste this on it and this thing would take over. but as was talng about, auto medication can act in soetimes surprising ways, and as part of the effort to keep the f 7et going, they wanted to be able to tell to customers, hey, listen, you can buy this,ist going to have the same commonality of parts with the rest of the 737 family, it's going to fly this thing, you don't have to buy a bunch of new parts i like if we had to build a new plane, you don't have to retrain the pilots, just treat it like an old 737, just keep using it. that turned out to be a disastrously bad decision because as we saw in lion air and probably ethiopianes airl you do need training, and i think they're going to come bac this grounding and definitely goinlt have to be
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teaching pilots, look, this situation could arise, you're not going to see it another i model, and thwhat you have to . do it's not that complicated. but, again, e situations where human beings are worst is the kind of situation where the automation turns itself off or fails and you're thrown in thins l situation where you're asking a pilot to figure somethin know what this auto mated system is doing and that's where it falls apart. >> jeff wishae, you very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: stay with us,ng cop on the newshour: why more womens' voices are not heard on country music radio. and a brief but spectacula atake on gettiecond chance. what do general motors, nehn
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mccain, fo and saturday night live have in common? they've all been targets of thesident trump's tweets i past few days. the esident is usually a prolific tweeter, but this weekend was unusual even by his stdards. he posted 30 times on twitter on sunday alone. white house correspondent yamiche alcindor is here to walk through it. is getting so much attention sitcoms on the heels of the terrible massacre new zealand. there's a connection, turns out. >> t. has been on a tweettorm and his mood is angry, he's been venting on, twittlling his 60 million followers on twitter he's a victim of all sorts of conspiracies. the mood started friday when the tresident had an exchange in the oval office, g backlash for it. let's watch what happened. >> you see today white nationalistism is a rising reat around the world?
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>> i don't really. i think it's a small group of people that have very, very serious problems. i guess if you look at wha happened in new zealand, perhaps that's the case. i don't know enough about it yet. they're just learning about the person and the people involved. but it's certainly a terrible thing. terrible thing. >> there are a lot of people who think the president missed an opportunity to really condemn white nationalism aint out there are hate groups rising in numbers in this country. a tweet he followed out, the fake news media is working overtime to blame me for the horrible att k in new zealand. they will have to work very hard to prove that one. so ridiculous. what the president is saying is, even though this person in new zealand said the president was a symbol of rnewed white identity, i don't want anything to do with him and the media is trying to create the story. but the facts don't barb out what president trump said in the oval office. the orgization, new york-based anti-defamation league say hate
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crimes and white supremacist propaganda is on the rise and tripled from 2017. the southern poverty law center say there are more hate c times e united states than in the last ten years and a lot of the groups are whitte naionalist. the president sayg this is a small group, is wrong here. >> woodruff: the white house has been worried, been concerned about the coming results of the mueller investigation, but the president used thaekover the d to go after and attack the late senator john mccain. what did hed say an what was that about? a >> i want ain read another tweet to you. this tweet was from sunday. it says, its indeed just proven in court papers, last in his class annapolisohn mccain who sent the fake dossier to the s.c.i. and mia hoping to have itprinted printed before the election, he and t dems worked together failed as usual. even the fe news refused this garbage. the president was talking aut
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a fox news segment, ken starr was former inddeep counsel when president clinton was investigated, they were doing a story on that and the president was tweeting whae watched on fox news. john mccain dade in august andpr thident continued to attack him. megan mccain and others found it to be tasteless. it's also important to note that the president is in some ways saying the russia probe was started by this dossier. not tru george papadopoulos, a young advisor to the tru campaign, was bragging about russia having evidence and dirt against hillary clinton to an australia diplomd that diplomat told the united states you need to look a into thaat and tht's how the russia probe started. so the president has beenht mislead thrisn a completely different vain, it's not just big names the i'm is ing. a he's gone after a local union leader. what's that about? is it some connection to manufacturing jobs? >> the tweet sunday, he tweeted,
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democrat uaw local 112 president david grown ought to get his act together and produce g.m. let our country down but much better car companies are coming into the united states in droves. i want action on board. stop complaing and get the job done. here again was the president tweeting about a segment that peared on fox news st minutes before he put this tweet out, fox news did the segment ebout he might have trouble being elected in industrial midwest. they were also pointing out the president came to youngstown ohio and said n't sell your car, everything will be good. in fact, everything the is not going well there. lordstown's plant is close, people losing jobs and the president is feeling the heevmenthe union leader said he sent president trump two letters trying to work with him to get this g.m. factory still perational, keep it o and he never heard back. so it's unclear whether or not that plnt will be closed for
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good, but it's clear the president is misleading. >> wooofdruff: covering a lo ground with these tweeghts, yamiche alcindor. thank you. >> thanks. >> woodruff: the 2020 presidential field keeps ongr ing and many of the candidates showed up in key primary states this weekend to make their case. lisa desjardins reports. >> thank you nevada!! >> desjardins: from nevada, to iowa, to tennessee, democraticav candidates hbeen criss- crossing the nation in the hopes of breaking through an increasingly crowded field. new york senator kirsten gillibrand officially entered the 2020 race this weekend, with a mpaign video that takes income inequality, discriminaon and government corruption, and pivots off the star-spangled banner's question
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about the home of the brave. >> will brave win? well it hasn't always, it and it isn't right now. >> desjardins: meanwhile, rmer texas congressman beto o'rourke, near detroit, michigan this morning, announced an eye- popping $6.1 million raised online, in a single day last week. >> i think this is a great sign that in the first 24 hours this many people were able to come together. that's more than vermont senator bernie sanders, who pulled in $5.9 million in his first day this year. o'rourke, has not yet said how many indivual donors had contributed. the issue for joe biden this weekend was what he did say, saturday in delaware the former vice president, and not-yet- official candidate seemed to accidentally say he was in the presidential race. i have the most progressive record of anybody running for the united...
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anybody who would run.s: >> desjardinresident trump took note, tweeting this morning that biden got "tongue tied." for his rt, mr. trump will campaign in michigan at the end of the month in an effort to hang onto a state that was part of his 2016 win, and where his approval rating has since lagged. for the pbs newshour, i'm lisa desjardins. >> woodruff: and that brings us to politics monday. dui'm joined by our regula amy walter of the "cook political report" and host of "politics with amy wadter" on wnyc. and tamara keith of npr. she co-hosts the "npr podcast." hello to both of you. >> hello. so it's beto time he was out, tam, on the trail, as we just saw, raising 6.1 million in the first 24 hours. has that become the new measuremout as to whether will make it as a candidate? >> it definitely sends an ea signal about your strength and potential grassroots energy.
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what beto o'rourke dith was pretty supermarkets he didn't announce it saturday ornday, he announced it on monday, which ishen people are paying more attention to the news, so he got a bigger, better news cyc. what he showed over theme weekend -- i, he had some stumbles, but the stumbles were also part of his somewhat remarkable ability to get attention in a way that some of the other candidates haven't been able to. he did this when he was running for senate in tex. he is able, somehow, to get people to pay attention to wat he's doing and talk about them. even back when he ws just like on his weird vision quest when driving across america and blogging between the campaign, people are wondering, right, is the phenom we saw in 2018, can he re-create that? and one of the phenomenal things he did in 20 is raids $80 million. that is --
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>> woodrf: for a senate race -- >> it's an unbelievable amount. to have $6.1 million. what he's definitely sayg, as tam pointed out, it's still there. it didn't go away because ti lef texas or the senate race. i still have this core group ofe le who support me and are willing to write me these checks and you better get ready for more of lyhis potentio come. the thing that will really be tested in the next few weeks is his durability on the trail. he was tested in texas, ran against ted cruz, a lot of international attention.me this remindf the obama campaign when he first started his campaign. the sa meiticism is leveled or questions leveled, beto came to obama. he doesn't have much experience obama senate race. but that was the only experience both had. they don't have real depth of
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experience legislatily. can they last in a field that has a lot of really experienced people? >> woodruff: and obama overcame those questions, but, as you say, there are a number of them. tam, youtiened missteps. he made a comment about his wife and children that didn't go over so well in some quarters. >> yeah, he de this joke a fw times and realized maybe heo should smaking this joke, something to the effect that i help my wife sometime-- well, she is raising the children. and, you know, one to have the questions th female candidates get a lot is how do you do it? how you going to do this? what about yor kids? and beto o'rourke has young children, and he acknowledged over the weekend that maybe that joke isn't the best joke, and he also, at another point, talked about being someone who has white privilege. so it seems in some ways to beth sort oeducation of beto o'rourke over the course of a few days of the campaign. >> also, it's just the limit, too, of getting everything
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throug quick twitter headlines, if you watch the entirety of the twn hall, about one second after he says that about his wife, he says, and i miss my kids rribly and i sure wish i could be with them, but this is really important. and so many of us wish we could be with our kids but we know this journey to be president is so much more important. the only thing i want to point out about beto and where he was this week, not so much he's i iowa, but he's going to three important states critical in the 2016 general election, michigan, wisconsin,a.ennsylva every democrat going back to 1992 won those states, but for hillary clinton. those are the states democrats want to get back into their column. >> woodruff: and attention from the media and everybody re.e by going the >> and candidates like amy klobuchar, they've gone to visit
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theu formerly ble wall. >> woodruff: and quickly, the other thing, he and put ttigieg and some of the others, it's interesting some of the subjects the candidates are already addressing. >> right. >> woodruff: the electoral college, the supreme court, shether it's packed, which it' been moving in that direction under president trump. >> right. and, also add to that, some of them are also talking about filibuster in the senate, the legislative filibuster and whether that is something that,p sident, they would encourage doing away with, if they could, you know, get medicare for all or some of these other more progressivet policies tmocrats are campaigning on, but that there's no way it wou get through if the legislative filibuster is still in place. ede candidates are pretty mix on how they feel about that, though. >> which i think is going to be consistent throughout the campaign about how far you want to go throughout these issues. preface isn't something we
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usbolly talk ut on the campaign trail. after the last eight years between the fights over the supreme court, the popular vote going to opposite way to ha the electoral vote and, of course, the reality in 2018 tha even when democrats have a great year, they still aren't winning control of the senate, makes the questions more. >> woodruff: the suffolk "usa today" poll showing 50% answered they agreed with president trump that the muellea investigatiobeen a witch hunt. amy, what do you make of this? >> not surprisingl if you look underneath the numbers, overwhelming majority of democrats say they don't think it's a witch hunt, overwhelming majority think it is, and independents are divided. what's fascinating in the poll,t sked a bunch of questions about the president, about the process of russia, and, while democrats overwhelmingly think that the president is nottr telling thth about collusion, overwhelmingly think
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that the homouse deats should be investigating him. only 53% think that he should be impeached. so there is some, like, natural breaki going on, oe part of democrats, that's interesting. >> woodruff: quickly, tam, no question the white house is going to b talking about this. >> oh, absolutely, and they have been talking about te investigation, calling it a witch hunt repeatedly for months and mond months. meanwhile, on the other side, robert mueller, we've not heard his voice at all the entire time. he's not out there advocating for his investigation aside from the legal filings in the cases. >> but we wait, as we have. >> woodruff: tam tamamy walter, thank you both, "pitics monday." >> you're welcome.
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>> woodruff: one of the biggest winners and better stories at this year's grammys was kacey musgraves, a country artist whot took home lbum of the year. but the realities women face in country music play a lot differently most of the time. jeffrey brown, who profiled kacey musgraves last month, has a report on nashville's gender imbalance, and what's being done to address it. it's part of our regular series on arts and culture, "canvas."♪ ♪ th >> bis is the sound ofht monday nat "the listening room," known in nashville as a" writer's round where singer- songwriters learn to hone their craft before a live au. ♪ ne♪ but thiss different, and rarean all-women showcase in city dominatedy male voices.
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turn to a country station today and this is what you're most likely to hear: ♪ ♪ in fact, in 2017 only around 10% of billboard's top 60 country songs were by women, a number that's actuallfallen in recent years. and it was that persistent disparity that led producetodd cassetty to found this all- female showcase, called "song suffragettes." ♪ ♪ >> we thought if we create a female only weekly show where a e play these women can c their songs try them out see what the responses are, meet like-minded creatives that they would benefit. >> brown: kalie shorr is one of them. originally from maine, in 2012
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she graduated high school early so she couldove to nashville pursue her dream. >> my first concert ever was the dixie chicks with michelle branch opening, and i was nine and i just remember looking at them and being like, that's what i nt to do. ♪ >> brown: in 2015, shorr had a hit single in "fight like a girl," a song discoveredstere at the liing room and played on the sirius xm station "the highway." ♪ ♪ it was an anthem for an issue she's become outspoken about: the lack of opportunities for young women in country music. but ironically, that experience only highlighted how bad the problem was. >> it was doing all this stuff d getting all this traction has-- you know millions of streams and it sold really, really well. and i walked into a couple of major labels and had them look
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me in the eye and say, we can't sign another girl right now. we already have one. >> brown: we can't sign-- we already have one.ea >> and it sounds unbelievable. and you know i would look at the guys who were getting signedu nd ow, i'd have higher social media numbers than they would and i'd have higher spotify streams and you know all ofth thesgs that are supposed to be you know why you get the deal. >> brown: for many in nashville, the lack of women's von the air came to a head in 2015. that's when a country radio consulta a trade newsletter that to maximize radio listenership, mawomen should be like "toes" in a larger "salad," of male artists, never played back to back and never more than about 20% of the mix.th e comments confirmed what many had long suspected, that the lack of women on country radio was by design. >> it's kind of historically kind of an accepted actice that if you play more women on your radio station listeners will turn the channel and ur ratings will go down which will
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affect your revenue. >> brown: but you're saying it's it's perceived economics. you don't buy it?wn >> bro: the backlash to the remarks became known as" tomatogate," and galvanized women across the industry to speak out about their experiences of sexism, including at this monthly forum called" change the conversation." each month songwriters, performers, producers, industry veterans and newcomers, mostly women but men too, gather to share stories. beverly keel helped found the group. she's a journalist and professor of recording at middle tennessee state university.wr and i ote a column in "the tennessean" about it and said, look you know the problem's ato country racause they're not playing women. and then you have a chilling efsct because country radio still the driver in country music. so if country radio doesn't play
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women, labels don't sign women. gofemale songwriters aren'g to get signed as much you won't see as many female producers and so on. >> brown: why do you think it's happening? i mean, is it sexi? is it economics? perceived economics? >> i think it is long-he beliefs. i think that it's sexism. there's institutional sexism. there's just tdition, there's cultural norms, but you'd think we'd be past this in 2019. >> i think it's just as frustrating to radio as it is to anybody else. >> brown: that's r.jcurtis, incoming head of the country radio broadcasters, a non-profit group that helps promote the music. >> this is a multi-layered situation and it's ( bleep ) up all over. >> brown: he's been attending the "change the conversation" meetings, and wants people to recognize that this problem isn't just with radio, but with the entire industry pipeline, from talent scouts to publishers to labels.ed >> if you lot the rosters of most major labels in townnk here i tou'd find that the
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ratio is about a four to one male to female in terms of artists on that roster. so there's just fewer of them coming at radifor airplay consideration. >> brown: if you're a woman who's concerned about this and they're heing you say well it's the ecosystem, that would be frustrating. >> very frustrating. >> brown: because then it's like no but everybody's to blame, nobody is to blame. >> yeah. n.i can see their frustrat i definitely hear that. >> brown: we reached out to multip country radio stations for comment but none responded. and whether radio is the drivepl of this marke, or just another victim of decisions made at other levels, many here say it's past time for solutns. >> i don't know what caused it. i don't know who caused it. and we don't want to just put the blame on country radio, an change the conversation is not interested ifinding blame or pointing fingers. we just want to find aolution. >> brown: one answer: new
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streaming platforms, social media and touring to connect directly with audiences, circumventing radio. radio disney country is a relatively young, mostly streaming station based in los angeles that's found an audience by playing mostly women in its mix. and prominent artists such margo price and kacey musgraves, whoou just wongrammys, including album of the year, are succeeding despite a lack of airplay. meanwhile in nashville, forums like "change the conversation""g and "uffragettes" are bringing women together to help one another. >> i think in the pastsix ifars that i've been in town i saw this attitude even within myself. it was like, she's not your competition. she's trying to do the same
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thing you're doing ands great because like you know, patsy and loretta were best friends. you know and dolly and emmyloual anthat, like women can support each other. and i think they're more successful when theyre. >> brown: for the pbs newshour, i'm jeffrey browin nashville, tennessee. >> woodruff: for the past few weeks, our brief but spectacular series has profiled several voices from jackson, mississippi. tonight, we hear from terun moore, who at the age of 17 was charged with capital murder and sentenced to life without parole in 2012, the supreme court ruled such sentencing of minorsti uncotional. as a result, moore was recently paroled following 19 years of incarceration. he's currently enrolled in y college and works with "the people's advocacy institute," focusing on reducini
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ence in jackson. >> i went to school in north jackson my whole life, i love ing ball you know, growi , around here. on april 2nd, 19was actually playing ball at the park, and a couple o neighborhood guys, they were about to commit a robbery on some guys from out of town, they gave me a gun they asked me to stand there so, i was 17 ath really wasn'king about consequences or whatever. so, i held a gun oa dude, i wanted to take the gun from me, so he ended up getting shot, a he later die >> and who was it that shot the man? >> i did. they didn't seek the death penalty because i was 17 years old at the time. so they sentenced me, sentenced me to life without parole. i was incarcerated for 19 years, six months, and six days.
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that was my first time ever being locked up, and the one person who always stood out to me was my grandma because no matter about me catching the arge and the family being embarrassed or whatever, she never changed on me, she's never treated me any different, and it takes a special type of person to be able to you know live like that.en ou get incarcerated you find out who your real friends is. you acquire a lot of jealousy for unknown reasons you acquire , lot of hate, you have limited people you can trud most people, will friend you for what you could do for them, so you had to learn how to move around, and be, you know, in that environment. i sted to read a lot, i was you know 23 hours and one hour recreati, and i played ball. and whenever i got to a place where i could playall, that was my time being free. i've been through a lot, i've
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se. some friends die in thego i'g to be honest with you man, this is mississippi. so prison in mississippi is different from anywhere you ever want to be. i kept a cell phone, i kept in touch with my people, i was able to influence my little sister,pu ue her dream and do what she wanted to do in life. she used to tell my grandma when she was little she was going to be a lawyer one day so she could be a judge and get me out, but she started law school a couple weeks ago, so at made me feel proud. as i said, i had a phone and, my mom called me and said "i just seen on abc news, where they got a new law, and i believe it apply to you." it was cruel and unusual punishment to sentence aju nile to life without parole brian stevenson, he was the onee
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that did tesearch on it. he said his grandma said "if you waot to solve a problem, you to get close to it," and he did that, and he made a way for a lot of us to get freod because evermake mistakes in life, but it don't mean you're going to be bad your whole life, you just have one bad da i thought about that day every day. when my friends graduated college, when they were getting married, having kids, moving on with their life, and i was still there, in that same place. i thought about it every day when my little sister grew up into a whole woman and i wasn't even around. and my best friend passed last year. my grandma. and i had to go to the wake in chains and a shackle. >> if you could go back to 1998 to speak to your 17 year old self, at would you want to
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say? >> walk home, man. i'm terun moore, and this is my brief but spectacular take on second chances. >> woodruff: tonight's episode was produced with help fromd mississippi-baurnalist ko bragg. she's reported extensively onri juveniles. you can watch her brief but o spectacular taour website, that's pbs.org/newshouf. and on the newshour online right ayw, we've rounded up some to help those affected by the flooding in the midwest. find tho ideas and more is on our web site, pbs.org/newshour. and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. join us online and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you and see you soon. >> major fding for the pbs
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newshour has been provided by: jason isaac. >> the truth is we need to stick together.m >> hotel mubai. babble a language program that tches >> babbel. a language app that teaches real-life conversations in a new language, like spanish, french, german, italian, and more. >> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. >> supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just world.t and peaceful more informaon at macfound.org
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