tv PBS News Hour PBS March 22, 2019 6:00pm-7:01pm PDT
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captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening. tm judy woodruff. newshour tonight: special counsel robert mueller delivers his long-awaited final report to the justice department after nearly two years of investigation. mark shields, david brooks and others are here break down what's at stake, now that mueller has completed his dinvestigation into russi the trump campaign. then, america's heard braces for disaster, and a potentially ruined farm season, as floodwaters rise along the missouri river. all that and more, on tonight's pbs newshour.
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it hasn't been made public. mueller and his team of prosecutors have bee investigating russian interference in the 2016 presidentiallection and any potential links to the trump campaign. here with me now our capital , ll and white house correspondensa desjardins and yamiche alcindor. and host of washington week and carrie johnson, the justice report correspondent for npr. hello to all of you. carrie, i want to start wiyoth since you've covered the justice department. we know the attorney general said today they've gotten the report, he said he's going to begin to rev,iew and yet the word came almost immediately from justice inials that there weren't going to be any indictments, how do we read w that? >> no jor inl dimes coming. the bottom line is mueller's investigation has ended. he is closing up shop in theto week come. several of the prosecutors who worked for him will go on to do other things, and we know that, en the next several days, th
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attorney generl bar and deputy attorney general rod rosenstein along with mueller are going to decide how much of his reportake public. >> woodruff: they said they're going to review it, meaning'r thgoing to read it, share it with a number of attorneys at the justice department, we assume. >> yeah, right now it appears ar very small nuof people have actually seen this report which has been described to me as comprehensive. we don't know how long it is. we do know the attorney toneral expect tell congress perhaps as early as this weekend the top line conclusions from the special counsel. that underlying evidence, other facts may take a lot longer to emerge. >> woodruff: i want to turn to lisa desjardins. the attorney general said turning it over tos congror at least providing what he called principal conclusio to the congress. that doesn't say he will share everything so what does congress expect? >> let's take a look at the single sheet of paper that we
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have right now that s what we know. this is the letter that attorney general barr sent to the four key members, the leaders, republican and democrat, to havo the judiciarmittees. let's take this except from it. he writes, i may be in poa tion to advise you of the s ecial counsel's principal conclusi soon as this weekend. it's interestingsothere's a another very standout paragraph in this in which the attorney general writes that as part of the provisions of the special counsel statute, it requires i provide you are insta es, if any, ich a proposed action by a special counsel was so inappropriate ora urranted that it should not be pursued. and he ites, attorney general barr, there were no such instances during the species counsel's igation. that's very notable because it says that the justice department is on one page at this time. now, it doesn't indicate what's in the report, but it does mean that there may be less divide than potentially was there. >> woodruff: but sending signs. so, yamiche, the white house. when does the white house get to either see this entire report or
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get some sort of briefing on it? >> it's unclear when the white house will gt . it will likely be sometime around when congress gets it.ha been e-mailing with the president and texting with the president's personal lwyer rudy giuliani. there were some reports early on they were demanding to see it before barr would review it, and rudy giuliani tonight tells me that's not true. they're happy towait till william barr has reviewed it and thit to see it along with congress and when's going to be ready for that. i think it's also important to te the white house hasn't reacted yet. everyone's watchin president trump's twitter feed at this point to say whether or not he's going to say something. the white house has called a lid which means inyman's terms we're not seeing the president tonight, around 6:0 p.m. we have a single tweet from the white house from sarah sanders. she's the white house press secretary. i want to read the treat becse it is all the we have from the white house now. she says next steps are up to attorney general barr and weo look forwarde process taking its course. the white house has not received
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or been briefed on the s counsel's report. that said, even though the white house has not seen anything, there are people in trumworld, people close to president trump who are already saying this is vindication, the fact there are no further indictments that will be had. they say this is essentially moving the president was saying this is a witch hunt and had nothing to do with the president or collusion and his campaign is vindicated. that's too early to say because no one's seen the report but that's what they're saying. robert costa, you've talked toll peopleacross this city who are around the president all the time. how much does it matter how much this report is interpreted in the early days? >> it's going to depend on what t attorney general decides to release and it certais in his hands at this moment but the re fight goes to capitol hill. regardless of what the attorney general deciodes, house drats are always saying including speaker pelosi, wwant th report made public. the attorney general may say we
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want tput this o a shelf because it's too sensitive, some of the background information in the report, but you can expect maybe mr. mueller, the attorney general, to be called to congress to testify before house democrats and say what do you really know, why won't you release more if they don't release more.so >> woodruff:expecting a big fight. >> a political war. >> woodruff: over what released and what isn't. >> this is the reckoning for the department of justice, for the trump presidency. more than two years into th trump presidency, we have been waiting for this moment. it's going to hinge on hows leadspond in both parties at this pivot point. >> and carrie johnson, t justice department is supposed to be nint all, this yet this was an attorney general appointed by president trump. how does the justice department play this going foard? >> bill bar bar is i think only the second person to serve as u.s. attorney general twice. he was the attorney generalor under h.w. bush and basically told senators in his confirmation hearing this time
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around that hes a 68-year-old guy and he doesn't need this job really, so hehas the independence and the d.o.j. tradition to step back or draw a line in the sand if he believes there is interference of some sort. there's no evince the white house has interfered at all with barr and i think he would be the kind of guy to speak up and push back if that actually happened.a >> woodruff:'s what we'll watch for. ofw much push on the part democrats? robert mentioned many are prepared to go to the mat. >> the first e-mails i got in my inbox were from democrats tonight. no doubt they had those re and they know their call is not just to ask foelr full ease of the report but it's notable they want all theuprting documents. because whatever mueller concludes, now there will be a question of congress. is there anything in here that impeachable at all? we don't know how the president plays out in this reportatut s the question democrats annt to answer next. briefly, ito review, we talked about the president, this
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report was about russian collusion. this investigation has had 34 individuals who were indicted. of those, six of them were tr associates. only six. the vast majority were russian nationals invoed in some form of hacking. now, it's interesting this investigation 2egan 16 with an f.b.i. investigation and then handed over to muellein 2017. so we're about a year and a half into mueller's investigation, a little bet more, and now we see the end of it. >> woodruff: yamiche, who at the white house igoing to be in charge of examining this and going over it? we know the president has beenv intimately olved. he has been calling this a witch hunt soon after it began, when he realized he was under the microscope here. but who's going to be running the show? >> well, i think if we ask who's going to be running the show, that would be president ump. if we as who's going to be reviewing it for legalrt exe, that's the white
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house counsfiel's of. but rudy giuliani and ja jay sekulow will look at this report. the preside will want to spin the report to say i am completely vindicated, thiss evidence of this witch hunt. there was talk at the beinning before the report was turned over, a report that the president might have anat altereport if he didn't like what he saw. looks like the president won't do that. wi have been caulkith corey llewylewandowski and he says any report has nothing to do with donald trump or the campaign. i thi this is about hillary clinton. that's the president's camp quickly. i'll pick up a quick graphic of the people associated with president trump that have been charged. there's a long list. michael koehn, george
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papadopoulos, roger stone, paul manafort, rick gates, michael flynn, now all of these men are arged with lying in some way either to congress or to theb. paul manafort is the only one who's also charged with taxk evasion and ba fraud. that's key because the trump campaign a camp is sayingll that shows it has nothing to do with russian collusion. >> woodruff: it will be interesting to see if this report goes light on theid prt after he's undermined it and called it a witch hunt, how does the wte house tal about it. yamiche alcindor, lisa desjardinsrobert robert an carrie johnson, we thank you all. now reaion from capitol hill directly. democratic congressman adamhi of california chairman of the house intelligence committee, i spoke to him by phone earlier this evening an started by asking what he knew so far about the report. >> well, i think what we know so far that this report is going to
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deal with the decisions prosecute certain people and the decision not to prosecute others, why the special counsel felt the evidence was sufficient as to some but not as to others. the important point is this focuses predominantly on the criminal investigation. but this investigation began ase a counterintele investigation, and that may be the far more significant side of the house because that goes to the question of whether the president or anyone around hi has been acting either wittingly or unwittingly as an agent of a foreign power. and it's going to be very important, number one, that the report is made blic, so the public understands what decisions the special counsel made and the criminal evinc but it's going to be even more stportant potentially that the congress undds if there are counterintelligence risks that this president or those around him are acting not in the national interest but because they have some pecuniary interest or because they'reen behod or compromised in
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any way. the congress or our committee s particular a statutory right to know, and we expect that the justice department is going to share that information with us because theye going to have to. >> woodruff: well, when you remind us that this investigation began as a counterintelligence investigation, what does that say about what we may or may not be seeing right now in this report? >> well, it means that what we are going to see when the report is made public, and we may have to fight the attorney general to make sure ths,at happut in a very bipartisan showing on a very pocialized issue, the housg overwhel said we expect this to be made public, that may only tell us abut prosecutorial decisions that may shed very little light on the issue of compromise, and to give you one very gra iphlustration, other presidents during the campaign sought to consummate something that would have been the most lucrative deals of his life, and that is the building of a tower that would have required kremlin support at a
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time when he was publicly espousnsago new relatp with russia and praising vladimir putin, whose green light might be neessary for that project. that is obviously deeply compromising, but that may not be much of the report because, whether it was criminal or t will go into the report, but what is essential in terms of the public safety and the security of the country is another matter entirely. >> woodruff: and, congresso n, whatu make of these early reports that this will not include any further indictments than what we've already seen?hi >> well, i a couple of things. first, that means that this office, the special counsel's office, which is essentially like an outside counsel for the justice department, it won't be bringing future indictments. that doesn't preclude either the main justice department or the southern district of new york or other elemes of the jutice department from bringing indictments,and i think is very possible given the number of redactions in the mueller
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pleadings that suggest other investigations that are still ongoing. but the st point that i want to make because it addresses the conversation you were havingm before i online is this issue of does the department share information about people not indicted, and it's important for people to know that, during the las,st congrhe justice department shared over 880,000pa s of discovery with the congress in an investigation in which mueller waindicted. about hillary clinton, about bruce orr, peter strack, page, mccabe and others -- and did so because of intense public interest and because congress insisted on transparend . as i tem at the time, they are not getting away with a anuble standard. if the congress s hands, ar it has, we will insist on the same level of trancy as to this even more important y vestigation. so the department eak in generalities about that, but the
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reality is, if public interest demands , here clearly the public interest demands it. >> woodruff: congrscsman adam ff, chairman of the house intelligence committee. we are keeping our focus on what the conclusion of the special counsel's investigatiocould mean with amy jeffries. she's a former federal prosecutor who also served as counser to the attorney general for national security. and john carlin. d for several years as the assistant attorney general for national security in the obama administration. john carlin, to you first, we are talking about something that we don't have any idea ye what's in this report, we hope to learn in the coming days, but, at this point, owing that it has been described as a comprehensive report, knowing that there e not going to be any further indictments, what do you expect to learn?t, >> well, fi let's take a step back and think about what we know, already, which this h been an historic investigation in terms of its speed, scope and
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results. we have 34 individuals and three corporations indicted, 199 counts. we know in terms of the scope of the activiety that re's been to unprecedented attempt by a foreign power interfere with our fundamental rights in our lvedcracy and that that inv millions and millions of dollars being funneled here. we knothat key figures, campaign manager, the national security advisor were committing felonies and lying about contacts wit russians, and there is much work to be done to ensure our secury going forward. >> woodruff: so, given that, amy jeffress, a lot has alread cot, but we don't know how many pages, we don't know the scope of this, butwe assume there's going to be a lot more detail hervee about rything potentially from alleged obstruction of justice, contacts with russians. so we're going to get a much fuller picture, do you expect, of what happened? >> i do expect tha i know many of the people on the
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team and, of course, john and i bo know director mueller very well from our prioceexperi and he is absolutely professional and thorough and i know this team has been working hard for two years and i expe that this report will contain more information and, john is right, there'slready been tremendous results in terms of estigation-year inv most special counsel investigations have lasted far longer. so what they've produced in twoe s is very significant and substantial. but i think there'soing to be more in the report, and i expect that becae there's more to say and there's probably evidence that they're going to describe that has not become public and, also, i just read that the president is taking hiss attorno mar-a-lago this weekend, and i think they're already there and i don't think they're there for the weather. but i expect they're expecting there will be substance to thisr >> wf: i don't doubt it. what are we told not only from
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what the attorney general said that we're not only going tond ut the decision on who is and is not being prosecute k whd of information could that be? what are we talking about here? >> it's uncleawhat will be made public but this report could contain a road map o referrals to other offices. to date, when you look at whether it's the michael cohene prosecution, rosecution in the eastern district of virginia ofsa russianse type of russian meddling efforts in the 2016 election because of referral not handley the special counsel, and the investigations of the inaugural even and the trump organization, those are continuing and not part of the special counsel investigation. there may be other chargesfo referred forlow-up. >> woodruff: amy jeffress, when we see that robert mueller s decided not to -- and ima asked congrechairman schiff about this -- not to pursue fumerther indis, does that add up to a lot of time
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spent that was disappointing on the part of these attorneys, these prosecutors who spent all this time trying to find out what was at the bottom of this? >> i don't view it that way, partly because i think report will have substantial content. so there's more to see there. i also agree that there are a number of referrals that are already underway, i think some we knobeause they have become public, but i imagine there are others we n't know about because they have not become public. so they have started an investigation and they have concluded what thew to be within the scope of the core of their investigation. and then there are tentacles o at are goingntinue. so it's not over. >> woodruff: john, remind us why robert mueller likely did refer a numberth ofse pieces of evidence caseso other courts -- excuse me -- other prosecutors -- southern district of new york, eastern district of virginia?
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>> wheffi was chief of sta to bob mueller, he was quite clearg on always beumble and constraining his mission to exactly what was assigned, and then trusting in othe in other parts of the system to get their jobs done. so i think he looked at his mandate. he did exactly the most -- whato held do as efficiently as possible to get to the heart of what he was ked to do and then dyusted and has referred alr multiple cases to others to follow up when he saw other potential crimes. >> woodruff: how easy sit, amy jeffress, to do that, for someone who's prosecuting a case to say i'm going to stick tond this'm going to give three or four or five other things to other prosecutors? >> i think it is unusual, and other special counsel have not done that and, as a result, they have been criticized. so i think he has, first of all it's his nature to do as john said to keep focused, but it's also learning from history that some special counsels have gone too far, and i don't think he wanted to do that.
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>> woodruff: from both of you, what are you goi to be looking for when you -- to the extent we get our hands on very much of it, what are you looking for? >> i think it's very importantt that at lehe congressional oversight committees do get their hands on the vast majority of the facts contained in the report so they can do their mission of making re we're safe from an adversary that seems determined to meddle and continue meddling in our democracy, and i will be curious to see what the fats are that show the actions of the president where under office of legal counsel guidance the not be able to be prosecuted byo the departmejustice and it's up to the other branch of congress to decide what th appropriate remedy sivment what are you looking for? >> the evidence described in the report tbet has notn made public by way of the indictments around chargese've already seen. i think we will see the report in short order. if i were advising attorney general barr right now, wdon't think ld be good for the
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department of justice to sit on this reporfor a lengthy period of time. so i expect that there is some plan underway to takok at the report and determine what can be made public as quickly as possible. congress wants it and the public want it and i think it will happen soon. >> woodruf interesting given the predictions about how much a fight we likely otorentially may see over what gets made public. amy jeffress, john carlin, thank you. >> thank you. >> woodruff: that brings us to the analysis of brooks and marcus, david brooks and "the washington post" ruth marcus.ha yo been listening to this analysis in an attempt to whawnts we know so far. david, has the air been let out of the balloon? i mean, this has been building for more than two years, and here we have it, and now we're told no indictment. >> two media thoughts. one, this takes place in ant political t where donald trump has been under attack and doing things that are norm
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wobreaking for the past years and has not broken his base of support, still at 46%. the expectation or hope for some from e mueller it would be the thing to change the game that actually seem to break through out to have the gridlock and did seem todo fundamental damage to the trump administration, i think with not indictments eems less likely. we'll argue about what's in the report, things we'll learn, but whether we'll change the basic geometry of where our politics are now that seems less liel it occurred to me donald trump has been bashing mueller for the last two years. this may be the luckiest pick he had. if it were around contra or ken starr, that prosecution could have wandered off in a million direction. in that way, mueller was disciplined, defined, focused and it could have been donald trump's luckiest break. >> woodruff: how you reading this? >> mural and his 13 angry democrats.
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i'm reading it differently. i do not think the air is out oa thoon. i think also certainly, i think, good news for the president and particular for those around him that there does not seem to be the round of iictments for mueller some had been expecting ection or after the possibly of his son, possibly of jared kushner. if that's nohappening, even if there are going to be other t is good news for the president, but what could be really bad news for the president and the reason the air is not out of the balon is exactly the kinds of facts that amy was talng about. we have learned all along that bob mueller knows a lot more than the rest of us do about what happened here. so the facts contin in this report which i believe is essential not just for the congressional oversight committees to see but in as full a form as is legally and humanly possible for the american public to see, the facts will deneter
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where this balloon is going. >> woodruff: is it all about, david -- or to whaten extright now is it about what gets made public and what doesn't?ll >> i think it et public. it will get public eve sntually, n as it gets to an x number of congressional democrats, somehow it will make it into the newspaper. so why fight it when it gets de public? i think it will be made public. president is there, the public support is there, the political motivation is there, so i think that will happ. the thing iline curious to learn is how waambolic the trump administration or campaign? i thought there was probablyca collusion e there is no organization within trump world that could possibly collude but we'll learn more about the meetings, trump alleged projected tower in it will be like the best non-fiction account of what the trump campaign was actually like and that, to me, will be maybe the most interesting thing, but really don't thinketh going to
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change the political dynamic. >> woodruff: that's setting a high bar saying we're going to learn the inside to have the trump campaign. ruth? >> one of the things that's important to remember is how uch we know now that we did not know as a countfore the election. we know that trump's son and his campaign chairman and son-in-law hadwia meetingh a russian, somebody who represented herself to be an emissary of the russian government to peddle badio informabout his opponent. we know as he was denying it to the person people was having his agents and emissaries negotiate to build trump tower moscow, al sorts of things that had people known might have been relevanthe toat the time and the american people were at the best misled about and they continued to dissemble anthe trump tower meeting in new york and the building of trump tower moscow.
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so shambolic or not, there is ehe prospect of having mor damaging facts come out. >> woodruff: david, that could add up. if we lea seemy details, or however you want to describe them, about meeti phone calls, texts, messages, it could be a not-so-pretty picture. >> for sure, and when bob woodward releases a book, it's also not a pretty picture. >> i'm going to get in trole with bob woodward, but i want to read the mueller report. >> the power to subpoena people is a bething. >> sorry, bob. we'll learn a lot. i'm just saying wi it change the republican party, republican loyalty to him? that seems much less lily. i must say i'm a little prized there's nothing about obstruction of justice, no indictments there or nothing coming down. while i didn't think there was
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likelihood of collusion, obstruction was within their capacity and inclination. >> woodruff: you could have a lot of detail in this report about what was attempted. you could say attempted obstruction. we don't know. >> obstruction is a hard crime because it's a crime that requires you to be able to sho very specific corrupt intent. either way, the person should be focused on and conduct we should be focused on a is conduct of the president. maybe there are no more indictments, no indingments cofrom bob mueller himself because he is following justce department guidelines and not indicting the president, butqu that raises thstion, yes, we need to know the information that would have led him to indict the president -- i'm t makis up, right -- assuming if the president had been somebody ele. but the more important thing is even if he were not going to indict the president because he didn't think the evidence built up to that degree, because donald trump is the president,
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because this investibotion has been the president of the united states, even if the facts would not support indicting somebody else doesn't mean they're not material and important for congress to have and for the rican people to have. >> woodruff: let's come back to theolitical sea that we're swimming in right now, david. we are a couple of monthinto 2019. we are entering a presidential contest. you were just saying you don't see this changing the support the predent has among his own people. does it have the potential, though, to shake things up in a bigger way?si >> it's pble. the people we need to look out for are people like larry hogan the potential republican competitors to donald trump for the nomination. they have been sitting around waiting for this, frankly, and if it doesn't seem to be a sm dunk one way or the other, they're much more likely to sit on he sidelines and notrun against and decide he'sin lnerable. we'll see what we learn but if there were no indictments that makes it more likely he will not
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have a primary contender. >> woodruff: how do you see that? >> the trump base is so ticky and so loyalwe're back to shooting somebody on fifthav ue or obstruction of justice on eo on fifth avenue, so that won't shake n them, bew facts could invigorate the hogans of the world, could shake maybe some of the congressional support and, in fact, the reality is that these facts are for not just for other prosecutors but for a democratic controlled house of representatives that has oversight power, that's a way different world an giving thi report to a congress that's in total republican hands. >> woodruff: and david, even with this out, as has beepon ted out, we will still be waiting for the southern school distri of new york and other prosecutors to do their work.th willt, do you think, have the feel of being the, i don't a
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know, tatross hanging over the administration that this has had or not? >> for sure. i'm told it's public. that investigation has shepherds, people within the trump administration actively leading the way, so that's aor muchdangerous set of investigations. on the political front, we don't know what speed they're moving at, so we don't know if they will be coming out of the middle of the republican imary season, beginning, end, that's maximumaximum, potentially the t time. >> woodruff: we're ahsouple of moaway from the first democratic debate and as david said some republicans are trying to decide whether they're going to run against us. >> sure. as with previous presidents, this is just a cloud that is b going ically has hung over this administration from the get-go and he has cried witch hunt all the way along, and you sure that if there's any damaging things in this report, he will cry witch hunt again.
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i think -- >> woodruff: but if there aren't -- >>e may love bob mueller, you cow. there's nsistency is not the donald trump hallmark. portant it's really for us to take this moment to pause and appreciate what didn't happen. at many points along the way, many people were very worri that mueller would be fired, that rosenstein would be fired and anybody else would fire or constrain mruller, ov mueller. that doesn't seem to have happened. the thing that worries me is we've also had a president of e united states for monts, now, going after a duly-constituted prosecutor, assailing him, calling him a witch hunt, suggesting he shouldn't be in the job because he hasn't been elected to anything, that's wrong. that's the bad news part. >> woodruff: we've got days to look at this. ruth marcus, david brooks, thank you.
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>> woodruff: now, a look at the mounting tken by the ongoing flooding across the midwestern united states.om thousands of are damaged and vast swaths of farmland underwater, leaving local residents and public officials trying to cope. >> here goes the canal bridge. watch out. >> woodruff: swelled with rainwater and snowmelt, the missouri river crested to its third highest flood level on record. the missouri river's floodcrest breached numerous levees, including one that destroyed a water treatment plant in the small town of peru, nebraska. >> the's no potable water in town, other than the two days supply approximately in the
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city's water tower, and that's being supplemented now by the national guard bringing pallets of water and local oourch groups as well. >>uff: record-breaking late-winter floods have led to state-wide emergency declarations in mississippi, missouri, nebraska and wisconsin. in nebraska, floodwater rendered ads and entire highway routes impassable. r farmers across nebraska and iowa, the record floods have been especially devastating, with many losing much of their livestock and last year's harvest. the nebraska national guard irs taken toropping bales of hay, attempting to save horses and cattle trapped in flooded fields and at risk of starving to death. in iowa, the flooding has caused ma estimated $1.6 billion in . for nebraska, the damage to the state's livestock sector alone is projected to be $400 million.
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on thursday, the u.s. national oceanic and atmoraheric adminion, or noaa, released a report forecasting a "potentially unprecedented" flood season in the current year. noaa forecasts that 25 states-- nely two-thirds of the low 48-- a at risk of serious flooding this spring. and with us now on the phone is pete ricketts, the republican governor of nebraska, whose state has felt much of the brunt of the flooding. he has been monitoring conditions all over the stat governor, thank you for talking with us. tell us what you are seeing. >> well, the devastation is the most widespread that we've ever had in our state's history. i've flown the plat river, the missouri and all these major river systems are flooding at record levels that we've never seen before here in the state,d, o, in many cases, for example, you can't see where the channel of the river is supposed
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to be. i was flying two the vice president on tuesday when s he came to ote, and i couldn't tell where the missouri owver was supposed to be, where nebraska ended andstarred. the elk horn river looked like the missouri river normally does. it was stu water coming through our state all at the same time. >> woodruff: how have conditions cnged in the last w days? >> well, water levels are beginning to dro and that's the good news. so people are being able to get tack to their homes and st the cleanup and recovery process. we had several cities that weree isolated, nt, nebraska, for example, was really -- you couldn't get tabre by road for o 48 hours, and, so, now, people can drived from freemont, the city of columbusul was a peni that's gotten better, waterloo was another community that was isolateer we can get now by road. with these water levels dropping, we're seeing more people returning to their homes, the more people in the shelters is going down, but there's going
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to be a long road to clean up left ahead of us. >> woodruff: tell us who is feeling the toll of this the most? we've just seen and spoken about what the farmers are dealing with. ve us the bigger picture there. >> certainly our farmers and ranchers are feeling a lot of the damage here. ed about $400 million in cow-calf losses, $400 millios in crop over 2,000 homes and businesses damages. and our infrastructure has really take an lot of the heat. ability $439 million, we think there. at one point, 20% of our roads were impacted. our state highways, that is. we've still got about 200 miles of highways that will not with usable until they can be fixed. the listeners an impact over 85% of our counties have declared an emergency.st this is the idespread. >> woodruff: and governor, how long is it going to take for
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things to get back to normal? >> well, this is going to ta many months to recover. these major infrastructure projects like the roads i mentioned, we have 16 bridges out, this is all going to take time to fix. we want to move as quickly as possible and that's why our team works quickly with fema to get a disaster declaration in place. we were able to submit a disaster declaration on tuesday, and fema got to that, to the white house very quickly, and we got the disaster declaration yesterday, so that will help u by tapping into the resources both for public and individual assistance.i anow the resilience of the nebraska people here. 've got a drive going on right now to raise money called nebraska strong. we're going to rebuild even gger and better before and g'll get through this together. >> woodrufernor, we are thinking of you and all the people affected by this flooding, this terrible inundation that u've been dealing with. governor pete ricketts of nebraska, thank you very much. >> great, thank you!
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>> woodruff: in the day's other news, president trump announced is withdrawing sanctions his administration placed on north korea just yesterday-- an issue that caused his summit with chairman kim to collapse last month. white house press cretary sarah sanders said the president "likes chairman kim" and "doesn't think these sanctions will be necessar" yesterday, the treasury department sanctionetwo chinese shipping companies believed to be helping the north evade sanctions. meanwhile, north korea abruptly pulled its staff out of a liaison office with south korea, near the demilitarized zone. south korea's vice unification minister expressed his disappointment. >> ( translated ): our government finds the north's decision regrettable, and is hoped that the north returns its asaff to the liaison office for normal operationt was agreed between the two countries. we want to monitor the situation for a bit longer and respond to the developments, instead of making predictions or premature judgments. >> woodruff: north korea gave no reason for withdrawing itsf.
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st the office opened last september in a bid to improve diplomatic ties between the two koreas. new zealand held a national day of remembrance to mark one-week si people were killed in a massacre at two mosques. prime minister jacinda ardern t was one usands in christchurch who observed the muslim call to prayer at a park next to whe shooting began. an imam from one of the mosques told the crowd, the country stands as one. >> we have shown that new zealand is unbreakable, and that the world can see in us an example of love and unity. we are broken-hearted, but w are not broken. >> woodruff: elsewhere in christchurch, thousands of mourners gathered for a burial ceremony for 26 of the attack
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victims. the death toll from a powerful cyclone on the african continent surpassed 600 people today, as the floodwaters slowly began to recede. the storm battered mozambique, malawi and zimbabwe. aid agencies warned the toll could easi top 1,000 people. john irvine of independent television news filed this report from one of mozambique's hardest-hit areas. >> reporter: these children have lost everything and everyone. toey've been rescued and ferried afety, but they're on their own, orphans of the flood. the rescue operation out of beira has involved local fisherman conducting a dunkirk- style evacuation, going andra getting those ed way out there and bringing them back here most of the people rescued have survived an epic flood.
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they're from in and around the town at the heart of the giant lake created inland: the town of buzi, where for the most part, life has been lived rooftops since the cyclone struck. first came the wind that ripped apart many homes. then came the floodwaters that made any indoors left uninhabitable. and so, it was to the rooftops they retreated, with all they could manage. for eight days, they have survived on the bare minimum. >> we need food. we need food, we need clothes, we need shelter. >> reporter: the only good news in buzi is that water vels are receding, and t weather forecast is better. the cyclone is probably the worst natural disaster in mozambique's history. and to say the government here has been overwhelmed would be an understatement. here in buzi, the relief effort has been minimal at best.
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by and large, these people have had to rely on themselves. the cyclone has been a cataclysmic event here.el lives, livood, livestock, crops and homes.ge the costs are nd will define this are for the foreseeable future. >> wooatuff: awful. eport from john irvine of independent television news. two u. operation in afghanistan today. that brings the total number of american troops killed in the country this year to four. word of their deaths came as thi u.s. is neing with the taliban to bring an end to the some 14,000 u.s. troops are stationed in afghanistan. in u.s. economic news, stocks plunged on wall street today, amid growing fears about a slowdown in the global economy. the dow jones industrial average plummeted 460 points to close at 25,502.
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the nasdaq fell 196 points, and the s&p 500 slippe54. the government of syria today vowed toake back the golan heights, one day after president trump cognized israel's sovereignty over the disputed territory. israel captured the strip of land on the syrian-israeli border during the six-day war in 1967. iran also condned president ump's move today, over fears it will destabilize the region. and in istanbul, turkish president recep tayyip erdogan echoed those concerns. >> ( translated ): presidents trumfortunate statement yesterday with regard to the o lan heights has brought the regione brink of a new crisis and new tensions. we will never allow, cannot allow, the legitimization of the occupation of the golan heights. >> woodruff: a spokesman for the british government also said the united kgdom refuses to, and has "no plans"o change its
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position. and police in charlottesville, virginia today arrested a 17-year-old boy for posting online threats of "ethnic cleansing." they targeted black and latino students at a local high sool, prompting authorities to close all of the city's schools for two days. charlottesville has struggled to combat racism, after a whitera nationalisy turned violent in 2017. at the time, psident trump was criticized for saying there were "fine pele" on both sides of the issue. today, the city's police chief offered this warning. >> we want the community and the world tonow that hate is not welcomed in charlottesvillle. violence is not welcomed in charlottesville, intolerance is not welcomed in charlottesville, and in charlottesville and around the globe, we stand firmly in stating: there are not very fine people on both sid of this issue.f: >> woodruf the city's schools are expected to re-open on
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monday. >> woodruff: after nearly five years of fighting inand syria, the trump administration signal today that isis no longer controls any territory in iraq or syria. the brutal final battle has taken place in easte syria, in baghouz, near iraq's border. but this is not nearly the end of isis. special correspondent jane ferguson is on the ground in syria for the newshour. >> reporter: night-time barrages hemarked the final days of dlamic state. u.s.-backed syrianocratic forces, or s.d.f., rained heavy gunfire down on isis after dark, as american and coalition airstrikes hit tgets below. the attacks caused the encampmenttch fire. stopping briefly to reload, the troops prepared for the next
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onslaught. every night, these troops come on this hilltop, overlooking the and they bombard the holdouts down the hill less than 100 yards fromthere. despite ose bombardments, they are still not surrendering. in the day, isis can see again, d reaching the front line is more risky. down below, on the edge baghouz village, the dying caliphate, a desperate of churned-up land and abandoned trucks.es thousands of lave been lost reaching this small muddy patch of land by the river euphrates. it has taken over four years, and international coalition to back isis into this tiny corner just over this berm. but even now, they are having to show some restraint, because all around in the area, they knowll there e civilians embedded in there with isis.ne arby, snipers picked off whatever fighters who popped up from the tunnels and trenches
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is had dug. this s.d.f. soldier, called rainas, told us he breieved there till several thousand isis loyalists down there. "there are still women there," he told us. "tre are female fighters, around 50." in recent weeks, tens of thousands of isis members-- men, women and children, as well as their yazidi captives-- have surrendered and streamed out of the stronghold, manyick and exhausted. dozens of children died on the miserable march before making it to the trucks that take them to refugee camps. ca ( translated ): we left iraq e of the airstrikes and artillery bombing. we came to syria and the same thing happened to us. >> reporte for the victors, the final defeat of isis marks the end of a long and bloody campaign. today, the white house said the isis caliphate had lt all its territory. >> there is i.s.i.s., and that's what we have right now as of
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last night. nothat's what we have righ >> reporter: on friday, fighting continued in baghouz, as some isis fighters remained. this is the end for the isis dream of its own state, stretching across the middle east, and north africa, but thif from the end of isis. syrian democratic forces spokesman mustefa balided us that isis are still present, but hidden. >> ( translated ): isis sleeper cells are active every day. the isis ideoly is still very rong. it's not over. >> this is a milestone, but it's not the end of isis. >> reporter: analyst h hassan of george washington university has watched the syria war fromts earliest days, and the rise and fall of the islamic state. >> you're no longer facing a physical isis. now you're facing a nebulous isis, where you have to follow an entirely different approach in fighting them. so it's no longer sort of a military challenge, primarily. it's more like a security
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challenge. you have to go and try to find out the sleeper cells, the sympathizers, the support network that they haveann iraq syria and beyond that. >> reporter: senior american military officials tell the newshour that the sheer numbers that came from baghouz surprisea u.s. force that the level of strong, "unrepentant"it ideological cont to isis represents a longer-teeat. >> ( translated ): i do not regret joining islamic state. ify husband hadn't insiste for the kids, i wouldn't have come out. he insis treatment.n get it's the same death if i die in here or in baghouz. >> the ideology will continue to exist, because it didn't start wh isis. it predated isis, and will continue to exist after isis. the conditions that existed because of the fight against isis ve now worsened compared to what they used to be before isis. >> reporter: isis fighters are still believed to be in the area
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surrounding baghouz, hiding. even the syrian fighters who on the battlefield don't like to siive through here these areas. ro bombings began months ago. the group's evolution from army to insurgency continues. for the pbs newshour, i'm jane ferguson in baghouz, eastern syria. >> woodruff: no details tove obert mueller's report have been made public. multiple news encies are reporting it does not recommend any new indictments. in a let tore the congress, the attorney general said he could provide lakers details as early as this weekend. online, we continue our coverage uabout what we know at the mueller report and what happens next. on instagram, find the latest
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takeaways,ollow us at "newshour", and on our web site follow key players and developments in the mueller probe through the russian timeline and read ouanalysis on how the report could be made public and what actions could take if it is you can find all of that at pbs.org/"newshour". and for the latest development follow us on twitter. we are@"newshour". i'm judy and that is the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. have a great weekend. thank you, and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> on a cruise with american cruise lines, you can experience historic destinations along the mississippi river, the columbia river and across the united states. american cruise lines' fleet of small ships explore american landmarks, local cultures and calm waterways.
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>> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and friends of the newshour. >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. ecaptioning sponsy newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org
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tonight on kqed newsroom newsroom, congressman adam schiff, chair of the committee joins us in the studio to discussing politicalel dements. we hear from california's first-ever surgeon general. also, san francisco moves to restrict e-cigarettes asarnew rese emerges around the health effects. plus from the runway to the nightclub, fashion icon isaac mizrahi. hello, a welcome to kqed newsro newsroom. i'm thuy vu. robert mueller issued his report today. it's unclear when
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