captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening. i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight: "fanning the flames." chants at president trump's rally add fuel to an already incendiary debate over race in america. then, when fun turns scary. a popular app that canyou look older or younger raises fears russia's online influence. plus, as marijuana goesst mainam, certain strains turn to luxury. "making sense" of the pagne of cannabis. >> the place you want to be is on the high end. nogjust quality, but someth about your style, something about your story. and u make it a small batch, and you make that your advantage. >> woodruff: all that and more, on tonight's pbs newshour.

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education, democra engagement, and the advancement of international peace and security. at carnegie.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: anindividuals. >> this program was made fossible by the corporatio public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: one day after chants of "send her back" erupd at a re-election rally for president trump, republicans struggled with how to respond. as white house correspondent yamiche alcindor reports, the controversy surrounding mr. trump's tweets that four progressive congresswomen should return to their native countries shows no sign of going away.

>> here's the chant that i would >> alcindor: in north carolina, a controversial chant, and ( "send her back" chants ) on capitol hill, republicans playing defense, as the fallout over president tweets deepens. at a rally in greenville lastni t, the president again orlsely accused congresswoman ilhan omar of sung terrorist groups. the muslim minnesota lawliker is a natud american citizen, tho came to the u.s. as a somali refugee. crowd-- including children-- chanted "send her back." this morning, house minority leader kevin mccarthy downplayed the president's role in e chants. >> it was a small group off to the side. what the president did-- the president did not join in. the president moved on. >> aindor: but others offere slight pushback. >> the point is, they're all

american citizens, entitled to their voice, and when they do provocative things, they're going to be met with provocation. so this is a two-way street. >> i'm just ready to move on. i mean, this is-- i don't hate anybody. i think, this is america, you're entitled to your opinion. >> i believe he is fascist. >> alcindor: today, omar responded. >> this is what this president and his supporters have turned our country, that is supposed to be a country where we allow democratic debate and dissent, to take place.d , this is not about me. this is about us fighting for what this country truly should be, and what it deserves to be. >> i was not happy with it. a indor: at the white house, president trump told reporters he didn't agree with the chants. ta claimed that he tried t over them at the rally. >> i started speaking very quickly.i it really was-sagree with w it, by t.

but, it was quite a chant, and i felt a l it. bit badly about budi will say this, i did, i started speaking very quickly. ( "send her back" chan ) >> alcindor: asked if he would stop those chants in the future, the president replied: >> i will try. i would certainly try. >> alcindor: last night, the president succeeded in firing uh crowd, but several of his claims-- specifically about representative omar-- were not based in fact. the president accused omar of praising the terrorist organization al-qaeda, which is not true. mr. trump also falsely said oman "hates israehates jews." omar is openly critical of israel and its influence in america. she has apologized for comments that, she said, were not intended to be anti-semitic. >> everyone knows that's nonsense. >> alcindor: today, majority

leader mitch mcconnell also brushed off criticism that he is helping to advance racism in s america by naking out more against the president's rhetoric. >> we ought to tone the rhetoric down across the country. using, throwing around words like "racism," you know, kind of routinely applying it to almost everything-- let's talk about the issues. >> did you see or hear trump'sht rally last n it was despicable. >> alcindor: democrats, meanile, seized on the rally including presidential candidate and former vice president joe biden. >> to stand and attack those four women in the way he did. talking about them going back ho. the racist, basic taunts. >> alcindor: there's no sign president trump willbandon his efforts to stoke racial tensions ahead of the 2020 election. for the pbs newshour, i'm yamiche alcindor. >> woodruff: to weigh in on the republican response to the president's rhetoric, i'm joined

by the former republican senator from arizona, jeff flake. senator flake, thank you very much for joining us. i know you have been following what the president's been saying this week. what's your reaction? >> well, it's, frankly, an awful thing tsay "go back to where you came from." it's just notn commiss ought to countenance, and it's maging, it's damaging, obviously, for the president and his standing, b i's nothing that any of us ought to stafond >> woodruff: and as you listen to some of your former colleagues, a mber of them have, we know, stood by the president, others are saying that they find what he's saying unacceptable or, in the words of senator tim scott, racially offensive. how do you read what members ofn yourarty are saying as they hear this?ou >> well, i like to see more pushback, obviously, on the president's language, i wished

that for a while. on something like this, it's much like the phrase, you know, calling the press the enemy of the people. if it's used often enough and unless there's enough pushback, it becomes normalized and puts journalists in danger of, you know, wor worldwide. something like this, you know, it erodes our value, our standards and our standing in the world. it's somhi that nobody ought to stand for. there's no good, you know, excuse for this kind of language. so i wish that my republican colleagues wouldn't even try and simply say, mr. president, this is unbecoming of the office, you shouldn't say it a you ouht to apologize and certainly not stand by and listen to peo chant it at your rallies. >> woodruff: speaking of that, the prd,esident saioday, at the white house, he said that he disg.e.d. -- disagreed with the chant and said, i spoke quily as it was underway.

and, of course, we've gone bacan listened to what happened last night and there were ten ol en seconds of chanting before the president spoke olain. >> well,the tape. if there was disagreement with what was being said, iwasn't voiced by the president, there was no indication and, of course, what was said was simply paraphrasingsihat the prent had said, which he has really not disavowed. he's phrased it differently now, t he hasn't apologized for it.vi sly, he should. >> woodruff: why do you think more republicans are not speaking out and calling out the president? >> well, obviously, those who are close to reelection don't want to see any distance between themselves and thntpresi the president is very popular amonprimary votin republicans, and my colleagues know that, and, so, it's difficult to politically stand up. but, i mean, that should be no excuse. for me, when i was deciding whether i would run for reelection, you know, one of the things that i had to consider

and what weighed most heavily on my mind is having to snd with the president on the campaign h age if he were to campaign with me, wh would have, i assume, if he didn't oppose me a zona, and i would have had to have been okay when peopleck chanted "loer up," for example. i would have had to have been okay when he riduled my colleagues, my democratic colleagues in e senate or ridiculed the minorities in my state or my colleague john mccain, and i dermined i simply couldn't do that. there are limits, anid i thnk that the president has long tested them, and i would hop that we would stand up as republicans and y we cannot normalize tis kind of behavior. it's one thing, you know, to support somebody more progressive or a democrat, you know, political pendulums do swing.rn my cons that, when the political culture changes, thatt

oesn't snap back, it doesn't -- that pendulum doesn't swing as well, particularly given the overlay of social media. >> woodruff: righl and the way ics are structured today. >> woodruff: i just wanted to quote one si the currentting members of congress from your home state of arizona paul gosar tweeted just a day or two ago, he tweeted, was referencing the pres tent's criticisms e four women, members of congress, he has a picture of them and he said above thatr, e like four horse women of the apo>>calypse. eah, i've heard that a few times from others as well. that's unbecoming. mr. gosar has a bit of a hisofty aking outrageous comments like that. so i would hope at more republicans would actually condemn what is said rather than excuse it and maybe up a thente, as we're seeing here. >> woodruf do you think this is a political strategy, though, senator, that could work for president trump?

>> i do think that a certain number of his supporters do like at. you saw it at thely.( dience chanting ) and it may harden them and make them more excited to come out and support the president. i think, overall, though, it turns off millennials, certainly, suburban women, others that we need in the coalition as republicans ton. so i think that the president definitely is ing it as a strategy to really buoy up the base, but this kind of basepo tics, you know, you can win an election here and there, but, over time, it wears and, frankly, i think that 2020 will be a time when it's worn too thin. i just don't see how you can offend so many groups and still have a coalition big enough to win. at woodruff: former senator jeff flake of the of arizona, we thank you. >> and thank you.

>> woodruff: in the day's other news, federal court records shed more light on president trump's knowledge of hush money payments before the 2016 election. the money went to silence two women who claimed they had sex th mr. trump. the documents showed he spoke repeatedly with michael cohen, his personal attorney at the time, as the payments werega zed. cohen is already in prison, but it was widely reported that osecutors will not file additional charges. the u.s. and iran have clashedn, agt the entrance to the ysrsian gulf. president trump n american warship destroyed an iranian drone today, when it came within 1,000 yards of the shi ignored warnings to move off. he spoke at the white house. >> the united states reserves the right to defend our personnel, facilitie aand interest calls upon all nations to condemn iran's attempts to disrupt freedom of navigation and global commerce. >> woodruff: news of the drone

incident came hours after iran confirmed that its revolutionary guard seized a foreign tanker in the gulf. state media said the impounded ship was trying to smuggle fuel out of iran. the vessel was based in the united arab emirates. and we will be speaking with the foreign minister tomorrow. meanwhile, the pentagon is sending roughly 500 u.s. troops to saudi arabia, in a move aimed at iran. reports today said the troops will make ready for advanced warplanes to use a key saudi air base.ti the 's top homeland security official drew fire today over conditions for detaineeat the southern border. kevin mcaleenan, the acting secretary of homand secretary, went before the u.s. house oversight committee. he defended the trump

administration's efforts but the committee chair, democrat elijah cummings, rejeed it out of hand. >> you feel like you're doing a good job, is that right? >> we're doing our best, under trying... >>hat does that mean? what does it mean when a child is sitting in his own feces! can't take shower! come on, man! what's that about?! none of us would have our children in that positn! they are human beings! >> woodruff: mcaleenan said conditions improved greatly after congress recently approved emergency funding. d, he said, the numbers of children being separated from families has dropped sharply since last year.s. the ouse voted today to raise the federal minimum wage for the first time in a decade.i ma democrats pushed through a bill to raise the wage to $15 an hour, over six years. it is now set at $7.25. the measure is given little i chanthe republican-run senate.

the naonal weather service today warned of dangerous temperatures in nearly half of the lower 48 states, in a scorching heat wave. in washington d.c., families stocked up on water bottles onti the al mall, where temperatures are expected to hit 100 degrees. ilme 158 million americans face heat advisories and warnings, from the plains to the mississippi river valley, and eastward.ea in japan, at 33 people were killed today when a man set fire to a popular animation studio in kyoto. black smoke billowed fm the three-story building for hours, as rescue workers scrambled toeo pulle out. they worked well into the night, as bystanderlooked on. >> ( translated ): i never expected such an incident could happen this close to my neighborhood. so many people lost their lives or got injured, and i really feel for them. it is so outrageous hearing this was caused by arson, regardless what the motivation could ve been. i feel anger towards the suspect. >> woodruff: officials said the suspect was a 41-year-old man, who burst into the building

shouting "you die!," and doused the place with gasoline. he was burned in the attack before being arrested. officials in the philippines say nearly 8,000 police officers have been punished for misdeeds during a nationwide anti-drug offensive. more than 2,000 were fired outright, and the rest wereot suspended, d or reprimanded. at least 5,500 people ha died in the drug raids. president rodrigo duterte launched the campaign three years ago. back in this country, the u.s. environmental protection agencyh has announce it will not ban the widely used pesticide chlorpyrifos.en ronmental and public health groups argued it has been linked to neurological damage in children but the e.p.a. said critical questions remain about that claim. farm and industry groups welcomed the decision, but pporters of a ban are expected to fight it in court. back in this country, a federal judge in new york denied bail day for financier jeffre

epstein on sex-trafficking chargeof he is accusexploiting dozens of underage girls in new york and florida ithe early 2000s. epstein was silent as the judge refused to l him await trial at his manhattan mansion. later, a lawyer who is representing some of theictims commended the judge's action. >> only taking away the freedom of jeffrey epstein can we restore the freedom of these victims. they have been living in fear and intidation since the day they were abused by him, and now he is in jail. >> woodruff: prosecutoued that epstein was a danger to the community and could be a flight risk, and the judge said he agreed. puerto rico's governor, ricardo rossello, insisted today that he will not step down, despite protests roiling the u.s. territory. violence erupted last night, as thousands of people marched to rossello's residence in san juan, and police fired back with tear gas. protests began after online

chats showed the governor and aides insulting women, gays and even hurricane victims. rresident trump today accused island leaders of tion and wa wasting hurricane aid. the governor of has declared an emergency as growing crowds of protesters delay construction of a giant telescope. the project is slated for mauna kea, but some native hawaiians say that the work will desecrate sacred ground. up to 2,000 monstrators have turned out to prevent construction. the governor's action gives police more options to remove the blockades. on wall street today, th dow jones industrial averagega ed three points to close near 27,223. the nasdaq rose 22 points, and the s&p 500 added ten. and, the top u.s. diplomat in iran during the 1979 hostage crisis has died. l. bruce laingen was appointed to tehran just months beforepr iraniaesters stormed the

u.s. embassy. he was among the 52 americans held hostage for 444 days. he was 96. still to come on the newshour:ho pharmaceutical companies fueled a spike in overdose deaths, as the opioid epidemic was worsening. a photo app goes viral, and sparks fears over russian misuse of facial recognition. taking history into the future. the new head of the smithsonian institute, lonnie bunch, in his first national interview since taking the helm. and, much more. >> woodr a legal reckoning for opioids manufacturers and distributors. states and cities arto bring a series of national lawsuits in oh. the epidemic has led to a series of tragic disaers that have

unfolded over two decades involving opioids, hoin and fentanyl in different waves. hundreds of thousands of people have died throughout the country. now, as william brangham tells us, a new database has been unearthed that gives the larst look yet at the scope of the problem. >> braham: this database-- which the industry and the government fought to keep secret-- was dug out by an investigative team at the "washington post." it is data collected by the drug enforcement agency about every single opioid pill made, shipped and sold in the u.s. between 2006 and 2012. the "post" analyzed the path of oxycodone and hydrocodone pills. those were two of the key drugs in the genesis of the whole opioid crisis. and their analysis offers a jaw-dropping look at the tidal wave of drugs that washed across the country-- some 76 billion pills in all. scott higham is one of thest

"washington reporters on this series. he joins me now. sc "newshour".back to the just an incredible piece of reporting and analysis you guys have done here. i wonder if you could walk us riatng findings from this base. >> you know, the sheer volume of at were spilled across the united states of america between 2006 through 2012 is just jaw-dropping. there werlse 76 billion pilhat were distributed or dispensed across the country during that time frame, and 75% of those pills were distributed or dispensed by some of theiggest names in the drug industr mckesson corporation, cardinal health, amerisource bergen, cvs, walgreen's, those compani distributed 75% of those 76 billion pills. >> and the strack levels of

saturation in some these communities. can you talk about how the simple volume of pills that were dispensed in these tiny communities? >> yeah, you know, the striking thing from this data is that little tiny towns in rural america were heavily hit by this epidemic. pharmaw,es that serve, you kno just a few thousand peo received millions a millions of pills. you know, under federal law, the companies that are shippin these pills and dispensing these pills are under an obligation to report suspicious orders, and a lot of times they didn't. and, you know, it looks pretty suspicious when you have a small pharmacy and small town dispensingillions and millions of hydrocodone and oxycodone tablets. >> reporter: that's right, this database, if you look at it from a sales per sperveghts it's the chart you like to see, les going through the roof. if you look at it from a regulatory perspective, this is

a road map of red flags that the companies should have seen. can you explain a little bit about a little more about what the companies are supposed to do if you see sailes spikingke they were? >> yes, i mean, this is a closed, tightly regulated system. it starts at the top of dlnufacturers, in the miare the distributors, and at the bottom are the retailers, theth pharmacies, ann the doctors on the street level. so if there's a break in thaclt ed system anywhere along the line, pills start leaking out. so eerybody in the system has a responsibility to report suspicious orders,epto rort andpicious prescriptions they're supposed to report those to the d.e.a. and stop those sales from going through, and time and time again, they did not report those suspicious orders and they let those sales fly. >> reporter: and what if these companies said about their failure to do that, those requirements under the law? >> well, you know, they blame

this on overprescring doctors, on corrupt doctors, and they also blame it on pple who have misused these pills and become addicts,nd they blamed the d.e.a. for not doing a better eob of monitoring the situation. >> reporter: th's the -- there are two maps in your reporting and the riking correlation in which they seem to indicate, one isre whehe pills went in red, and the other is where the opioid deths occurred, the map in blue. it doesn't take a data scienti to see the correlation there. >> no, it's quite stunng. stephen rich, who's our database editor, took the pil data from ce d.e.a. database we won access to in aurt fight -- it thok us a year to get that database -- he toot database and measured that with the c.d.c. prescription death

database, and you see the areas of the heaviest concentration of pain pills are also the areas oo heaviest loss human life. everybody has thought they knew this, but you don't knoknw you it until you see the data and see it lining up, and it's there are places in west virginia, southern virginia, all thrghout app -- apalachia where the death rate is 12, 13 times in national average in places where millions and millions of pills cae into these communities. >> reporter: you have now posted this database on your web sitend it's searchable. help me understand what people can do with that database now. >> so you can go on and you can take a look and see, tate by state, county by county, how many pills came in to your mmunity, who shipped tm, who dispensed them, and who manufactured them.is so thiata that the d.e.a. has kepy,secret manany years, the industry kept secret

for many, many years, this isow the industry' data they report to the d.e.a., they fought very hard for the public not to see this, and now that we've won the court case, we believe th is a true public service, that the public aeserves to see this and every citizen and every ce in america can now go online and take a look ande se what exactly happened in their community. >> reporter: scott higham of "the washington post," thank you, very, very much. >> you're welcome. ank you. >> woodruff: the growingla poty of a new digital application called faceapp, at photo filter tlows users to transform their features by adding wrinkles or taking them say, is sounding alarm be among privacy advocates and members of congress. it sparks questions about how the images of u.s. citizens, and their faces, could be used b foreign governments. amna nawaz has the story.

>> nawaz: that right, judy. at first, it seemed fun. celebrities, like lebron james,c were uploadingres of themselves using faceapp to make them appear older. a number of other cebrities have joined in-- comedian d actor kevin hart, for example, and the former boy band the jonas brothers. but then, the fun turned to wrinkle-causing worry in some quarters. that's partially because of the location of faceapp headquarters: st. petersburg, russia, and, because the democratic national committee warned campaigns not to engage on faceapp. let's clarify what the concerns are about, and the larger picture around all of this. joseph jerome is with the center for democracy and technology, a non-profit that aims to protect the privacy rights of internet users and advocates for stronger legal controls on government surveillance. joseph, welcome to the "newshour". >> thank you for having me. >> reporter: so let's talk about the concerns. penal are wondering where are my otos going and how are they being used. l are thogitimate concerns?

>> i think it's a good but wrong question. this is a perfect privacy storm when happ what happens when your information and privacy is protecbid bad, overbroad and poorly-drafted privaclicies. so faceapp has been clear, you can go to its privacy policy and mae what it does with the information, ites products better, shares anonymous information with some people, makes this information available to law enrcement, it basically gives itself broad rights, do whatever it wants with this information, but that's almost every application we usnl oine these days. >> reporter: not unique in that way. >> not at all. >> reporter: you said it uses it with law enfwhorcement? does that mean? >> all applications, all information is subject to lawful access requests for information, this is true of local u.s. american law enforcement. i thofk what has sor gotten people confused or at least sort of upset is this is bsed in russia and, obviously, a company

based in russia is under rsi jurisdiction which means that that information is available to russian law enforcement and the broad accugess thwhich russian law enforcement get information is probably surprising to amecan consumers. >> reporter: so there are concerns about that. as we said in the introduction, senator chuck schumer expressed those concerns explicitly. ta a look at what he had to say. >> this is breath taking level of access, all too common in murky apps like these that raise verystantial privacy concerns. we need more than the assurances, we need the facts. the potential for our facials data and the daa from all our friends and family contained in our photos to fall into the hands of something like russian intelligence or the russian militarys really troubling. >> reporter: there's obviously heightened concern abowut ho russian officials use information gained from social media d other platforms. is that concern legitimate here?

>> so i can certainly understand why democrats after the 2016 c election ancerned about potential russian interference and access to information, but i think it'sery important to distinguish between russian intelligence trying to hack into mails and a consumer application that's based in russia. so i do think that some of that a little bit overblown. what i think is actually really of concern here is not that your photo, when you give it the faceapp, is going to somehow end up on a billboard in russia or anything like that but that this information instead is going to be used tosically improve the facial detection analysis and recognition ago algorithms of faceapp, and we've seen this with oterype of photo analytics and management tools where we have a mample app that lets youage your photos, seems pretty innocuous, and, before you know it, all of those photos help power all of these algorithms that are great a face detection analysis and then those tools can be used too prvide facial recognition services to employers, to law enforcement again, but also, you know,o

schools, and we've also sort of seen facial analysis being used to detect health conditions. so really the genie is out the bottle to do interesting stuff with facial data. i don't think individual democrats need to be worried faceapp is going to b used against a democratic candidate or frankly a democratic politician or staffer, but all of this dust does sort of go into powering facial lainltics tools that are really powerful and very hard for average people to understand. >> reporter: there was some concern aroundhat privacy agreement. as you mentioned, it's not unusual. other apps have similar agreements, but other people are concerned about what else is the app gathering. what abt other info on my phone? >> again, it's a pretty generic privacy policy. it preserves the right to gather technical inormation, device identifiers, things companies often say are anonymous. again, i actually don't think

faceapp is terribly pernicious. it's not the exception to the rule. if we're concerned about faceapp, we ought to be concerned at all apps and ohat's pathe larger privacy conversation that privacy vocates like myself have been pushing for a long time. >> reporter: in 30 seconds, if you can tell us for folks who want advice about how their information is being used, what is that. i don't think reading privacy policies will help. i think individuals need to reach out to their lawmakers, state, local and federal lawmakers and punch them to put foh privacy protections. when it comes to facials, the government said there are no federal laws for protection. so if we want face data protection, pass a law and congress can do that anytime it wants. >> reporter: joseph jerome, for for democracy and tenology, thanks for bein here. >> thank you.oo

>>uff: while so much of today's news from washington naturally focuses on the political life here, there is another well-known part of the nation's capital that's all about america's history and art. that is the sprawling smithsonian institution, which houses more than 150 million artifacts and works of art and attracts some 30 million visitors a year. in may, the smithsonian named its newest secretary, lonnie bunch iii, and last week, i caught up with him at one of the museums he oversees, air and space. it was his first national tv interview since taking office, and is part of our ongoing arts and culture series, "canvas." lonnie bunch has come home. >> it brought tears to my eyes. i'm proud of you, our. >> thank >> this was my first jobspere at air ane. >> woodruff: bunch calls his position 40 yearatago as an edn specialist and

historiaat the smithsonian national air and space museum his "first real job." >> oh, yeah. >> good to s you all! >> woodruff: portraits of theet smithsonian seies through the years line the halls of the main administrativbuilding. now, bunch is the first african american to lead this revered institution ints 173-year history-- the world's largest museum, education and research complex. man can accomplish thes kinds of things, and, as long as you're educated, you can do this. this was tied to my parents' commitment to education, and it was kind of "how do these things happen?" and it really created a kind of inquisitive nature of trying to understand life. we spent many an hour talking about going to the moon, talking about philosophy, talking about literature. >> woodruff: bunch grew up in belleville, new jersey, where he and his family were the only african americans after his gerrandfaa former

sharecropper, moved to the area as one of the first black i dentisthe region. bunch also has worked at the national meum of american history and led the chicagooc historicalty. then, he was the founding director of the national museum of african american history and culture, one of the hottest ticketin washington. ery part of the smithsonian can ofdrive home the importanc history toveryday life. >> there's something so rich about seeing this, the richness of an artifact. the smithsonian is a place that's as much about today and tomorrow as it is yesterda >> woodruff: bunch is the first museum director to become secretary in decades. we talked in his office about the challenges that lie ahead as he now oversees a $1.6 billion annual budget that supports 19 museums free to e public, plus

nine research centers, 21 libraries and the national zoo. 29 years you've spent one way or another connected to the smithsonian. what does it mean to now be the head of it, the secretary? >> well, it's both humbling and frightening. so, for me, it's about helping the smithsonian be the place that is the glue for america and that helps america grapple with who it is, help it understand aself in this world. >> woodruff: theot of firsts connected with you. you are the first historian to become secretary. at i think being a first historian means ou view the world through a different inns. you're always lohow you contextualize, how do you help people understand by looking back. and so, what i hope isi can help the whole smithsonian is the place that people look to-- not just to, but for answers to help them live their lives.

>> woodruff: you grew up in a time when this country was very much in the throes of a civil rights conflict. >> right, what it meant is that i had to learn and negotiate race at an earlier age. and one of the ways i tried to do that was by learning, looking at history, by understanding the history of this town, because i wanted to understand why some peop treated me wonderfully and other people treated me horribly. i rememberalking to elementary school. there were little girls that would sit on a porch, and, as i walked by, they would alwaysh, yell, od left you in the oven too long. you're too, too, too, too dark." and i didn't understand that. i thouy ght the histuld be my way of understanding myself. rsd later, i realized history was my way of unnding the country. it helped me understand that the key for my success is to embrace ambiguity, to understand that i've got to be nimble, to understand that there are shades of gray, and that in essence, it's taught me that there wereno imple answers. >> woodruff: do you come into this job with fully formed ideas

about what you wan smithsonian to be? >> well, i think, in some ways, it is regnizing that the smithsonian is unbelievably venerated and visited. and now, the question is, how could we add value in the traditional ways with great exhibitions, wonderful education programs? but how it also can give people tools to live their lives, to understand climate change, to understand ethnicity and race, to understand scientif innovation. well, you think about the products tt we create and to make sure they have contemporary resonance. so for example, if youhink about deep time and the dinosaur hall, what is so powerl about that is, yes, it reflects all the new science, but it also raises issues of environment and climate. >> woodruff: and you mentioned climate change as something that you want to incorporate into the perspective. >> well, i think it's already there. and so, the key is to just be clear with it so people

understand. not that there is a political agenda, but that we're really saying the smithsonian is an educational institution, and it's our opportunity and responsibility to help you understand the world you're grappling with today. >> woodruf and how do you do that? >> well, i think you think about it in different ways.cr yote. one of the ways to doing this to create a virtual smithsonian, is to recognize that millionspend millions ole come to the smithsonian every year, but millions more will never have that opportunity. to find the balance betwnsn the traditnd innovation. >> woodruff: you've written about the influence of politics ord funding of museums. it doesn't get anyintense than here in washington. we are living in is the most brutally polarid time

since maybe even the civil war in this country. how do you navigate that? >> partly, i learned a lot in chicago. chicago's politics are pretty intesting, as well. i think the reality is that the smithsonian is not partisan. i feel that i have very strong relationships on the hill and in the white house, and that my notion is that everybody whoam cares abouica should care about smithsonian.>> oodruff: you've talked openly about your commitment to diversity. is the smithsonian today as diverse as you want it to be in every respect? >> no.ha the smithsoniadone a much better job, and we're very good, better on issues on gender. i won't be the secretary just in search of diversity and inclusion. but it's real clear to me that we can't be the institution that matters to americans if we don't reflect that diversity. >> woodruff: i ask in part because some people say, well, "well, wait a minute, are weg go see a latino american museum, a museum of american women in historya museum of the l.g.b.t. community?" how do you think about all that? because we know there are pressures to come up with something to serve each one of these communities in america.

>> my whole career has been about expanding the canon, making sure that the history, the culture that is explored reflects the diversity of america. sothat's not going to stop i think that at this stage, it's up to congress to determine whether or not we build new museums. >> woodruff: with many big decisions to make, bunch said he likes to surround himself with a few reminders of the smithsonian's massivection which have personal meaning for him. >> look, the hoe is taller thanh is. the basket is heavy. >> woodruff: the 1890's photo called "return to the fields" by rudolf eickemeyer is one that >> i keep this wherever i am so i can always see it. so, no matter how bad the day is, i say, "it's better than what she got." >> woodruff: bunch says he hopes each visitor to the smithsonian will find inspiration, too. >> the breadth of

the smithsonian is part of the wond of it. and i don't ever want to lose that. i don't want to ever lose where you can walk from understanding dinosaurs and gems, to understanding race, to lookingat he history of the american presidency, to suddenly looking at the lunar lander and recognize how central science is to the world that we live in today. m so, that, toe, is the great joy of the smithsonian. >> woodruff: next, we come back to our series, "the green rush." now that adult marijuana use is legal in california, tte government is starting to write the rules in order to be considered a growing region. the hope is that bdoing so, it could provide a lifeline for small farmers.

business and economicspo corrent paul solman has the story. it's part of his reporting, "making sense." >> reporter: in mendocino county, california, swami chaitanya announces his presence. ( ringing bell ) to ganesh, hindu god of-- amon other things-- good luck, who presides over the crop swami grows to produce "swami select," his patented marijuana brand. >> all the potency is in the female plants. >> reporte so why do you have the males here? >> well, because we don't know which is which yet. >> reporter: oh, is that right? >> yeah. at a certain point, each plant will declare. what's your gender declaration, right? they do! i'm not kidding you. >> reporter: so cannabis is gender-fluid. >> absolutely.or >> rr: california's marijuana market has itself bee pretty fluidte. swami's been growing for years at hist emote ranch. went legit, and ylegalization brought cos

regulations, and taxes, which his black maaret colleagues 't saddled with. and new industrial-scale rivals have economiesf scale that lower their costs. so how can a small legal grower like swami possibly compete? branding. >> the pla you want to be is on the high end. not just quality, but something about your style, something about your story, and you make it a small batch, and you make that your advantage. >> reporter: niche branding, asi wines and their "appellations." s the idea is that the soil that a crop or a product grows in creates something in that product which is unique, a if you grow it anywhere else, it's not going to be the same. >> reporter: french wines are classified by location, grape riety and winemaking omactices. champagne can onlyfrom champagne. swami claims to produce the champagne of pot. >> if you take a bottle of sparkling wine from spain or anywhere else, and compare it

to a veuve clicquot or dom g perignon, itng to be different than wine. the product is an expression ofo th it comes out. and the culture and skill of thw peop make the product. >> reporter: at alpenglow farmso in humboldty, the cannabis flourishes near waterfalls, and tuowers. >> this is our sig strain. lwe have bred this over tt 15 years on our farm here. for our site and our location and our climate. >> reporter: this specific w vironment is what french winemakers, and lifornia pot growers, call their "terroir." craig johnson is shooting for a "southern humboldt" appellation. >>ndustrial america is not producing what we produce. you're not seeing rows of greenhouses here.ge we have renerative growing practices, where we're closing loops. more than sustainable. and more than organic. so this is the internet of the earth right here. these long fungal trands. we have living soils. you peel back that cover crop

and there's worms and biology. the checks and balances of nature we try to keep in tune with. >> reporter: and thus the entire culture of cultivationat makes his premium products a hit. even his vaping oil. >> so this is extract from our flower, "blood orange kush" that was grown here on our flat. this is extracted by a company called chemistry. and you can think of it as a grape grower-winemaker relationship. >> reporter: and they're the winemaker. >> they're the winemaker and we're the grape grower. this is single-source, single- batch. >> reporter: it's like a vintage? >> yes, this would be summer 2018, southern humboldt county, alpenglow farms. >> reporter: of course the business model whonsy hinges on ers caring where their cannabis comes from, and willing to pay up for it. craig and wife melanie are betting th will. >> there is a strong resurgence for family, mily-owned, family

farms. people want that eerience of knowing where their food comes from, where their medicine comes from, and i feel that as a small farmer, we will always have that niche. we may not have a million people but we'll have enough people. >> we have a littlbit of cloud cover this morning. >> reporter: in order to find their people, the johnsons brand-boost every day. on instragram live, for instance. >> my goodness, i wish you guys could smell that. we have people popping up live from israel, uruguay, new york. i want people to know alpenglow farms. i want them to have an image of this site, this area, and have a-- >> a connection. >> to the plant. >> reporter: the johnsons are, of course, aware of the very different image of where they harvest: >> i've been shot at, beaten, kidnapped three times. >> reporter: on humboldt's counurder mountain. >> which is right over there. >> reporter: a netflix documentary about thblmurder of a ack market grower presents a

lawless, violent imat humboldt farmers are intent on countering. swami, in a prior life william isnans, a '60s wesleyan grad, filmmaker, san fra hippie who spent ten years in india, has his own angle. is the way you're dressed, the way you ok, have anything to do with furthering your branding, because it gives it authenticity to swami select? >> i was a swa before i really started getting into growing the finest cannabis, right? but they go hand in ha because the are many, many swamis india who start the day with a chillum of hashish, right. and it's seen as a sacred plant and seen as a way to get more in touch with the divine energy which surrounds us all over the place. >> reporter: and swami, who's been toking for more than 50 years, thin there's "getting in touch" and "getting in touch." but don't i have to be an aficionado to be able to tell the difference? >> that would help. >> reporter: dylanattole thinks an appellation

designation for his "mattole s vallgrown" cannabis is key to his farm's future. >> it's more than just an agricultural commodity to us. it's part of our culture. >>epdustrial-scale investors, mattole says wine is just one model. >> we have budweiser and we have hundreds of small microbreweries. >> reporter: some of mattole's neighbors have formed a cannabis farmer co-op to create someie econof scale. >> hopefully we will still have a chance, that we can actually compete against corpt ations. i dove the money to spend. on marketing i mean, with all these other farms, we have a chance, so we rccan pool some of our res, i might actually be able to do some branding. >> just packaging product is very d cost but the regulations. working together, arch of us can a piece of that burden. >> reporter: michael salbego reminded us th necessity is the mother of invention. >> we grow in this sustainable fashion because we cou afford to just go out and buy everything in bags and bucts.

we had to use the manure on the land or cultivate things from orr own operty because that was what was affdable. this is all going to turn into dirt.ep >>ter: like soil made from amazon boxes. oh you got a bonanza of worms here. >> basically, the worms process the paper into a super readily available plant nutrient. >> reporter: ssmall farmers are selling the step beyond sustainable or organic: regenerative farming. but the market has other ideas. >> now, all of a sudden, what we did naturally was just farming. it's now, it's how many likes do you have on instagram? how many pictures have you posted? and you've got farmers, family farms, that don't know if they're going to make it. we're up against people with pockets that are so deep thatan theyurvive at a loss for the next five years, to capture market share.r: >> reporwami chaitanya's forecast? >> our dedication is to making the finest cannabis that we know how to grow, and how big that gets, it's not up tot's up to the goddess of economics,

actually. >> reporter: but if i, hindu goddess of wealth, has made up her mind, she isn't tellg anyone for sure just yet. csr the pbs newshour, this is business and econo correspondent pa i solman, deepn the woods of northern california. >> woodruff: the documentary, "hale county: this morning, this evening," about a community in the alabama "black belt," was nominated for an academy award earlier this year for best documentary feature.ke filmramell ross, who spent more than five years making the film, gives his "brief but t spectaculae on the black experience in documentary film. it's also part of our of arts and culture series, "canvas." >> we lookt black folks. we don't often look from black folks. and the reason why that's the

case is because the sort of worldview of the u.s. is the white gaze. and so blackness is the other. you go into a black community. you don't leave a black community. >> i live in hale countyen cuy, been there for ten years. i moved there topheach photograand then eventually ran a youth program. ght years living there, people still knew me as the one who could help someone write a resume or help scoeone get into ege. thatole gave me more leeway, and, and allowed for people to trusme by default, before i intended or thought about making a film. i talk about the film as a return to home for a northernac american to the historic south. looking through my eyes, i'm encountering the moment the same way in which you encounter the moment. i'm waiting and tching and participating, in hopes that something magnificent wod

unfold in front of the camera, in a beautiful frame. when i'm filming quincy and we awalk outside and literal storm is born on the horizon, i'm in the same shock and awe and appreciation for the moment, viscerally, as you are when you encounter it on screen. making the film was the most had.ound five years i've ever no one has access to the nuclear family, the living roomen ronment over the course of many years in someone's family. this is where the myths are made. this is where you learn how to love.ab and i was to witness that in daniel and quincyives. if we weren't stuck in our first-person points of view, i'd argue that most problems in the world that have to do with

inequality would be solved because we wouldn't beletuck in our points of views. my name is ramell ross, and this is my "brief but spectacular" take on the centrality of the black experience in documentary film. >> woodruff: and you can find additional "brief but spectacular' episodes on our website, www.pbs.org/newshour/brief. and that is the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. join us online and ain here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you, and we'll see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> babbel. a language program that teaches real-life conversations in a new language, like spash, french, german, italian, and more. babbel's 10-15 minute lessons are available as an app, or online. more information on babbel.com. >> consumer cellular. >> financial services firm

raymond james. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions >> this program was made possible by the corporfor public broadcasting. and by con station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> you're watching pbs.

. hello, everyone. here's what's coming up. >> we'll stay focused on our agenda. g we won't caught sleeping. all of this is a distraction. >>s donald trump's latest twitter storm hiding a failing foreign policy? frank discussion on iran, north kore and whether a brexit britain will still pull its weight. then -- >> do you ever wonder why you are still alive? >> i don't know. no idea, man. >> rock and rolld music leg david crosby joins us. how a devastating personal life inspir incredible music. plus -- >> the feeling of isolati these groups are preying on, i felt that. i know what it's lik