captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening, i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight, mounting evidence: a clearer picture emerges of president trump withholding military aid to ukraine for political favors. then, the social network under fire. facebook c.e.o. mark zuckerberg faces lawmakers' ire over his defense of false political advertising. plus, drawing a parallel-- actor and activist george takei on his new graphic memoir about his family's internment during world war ii, and the disturbing similarities he sees at the southern border. >> i hope that young people are getting this information and

they grow up with it. so by the time they're adults they are going to be a different breed of americans, aware of the history of this country. >> woodruff: all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us.

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>> woodruff: a day of spectacle in the impeachment inquiry. trump-loyal republicans stormed a congressional n wiseio investigators and forced it to a standstill for much of the day. that came after tuesday's testimony shed critical new light on the president's actions toward ukraine. white house correspondent yamiche alcindor begins our coverage. >> we demand open hearings. we accept nothing less. >> alcindor: on capitol hill, more than 30 house republicans disrupted a closed-door deposition with a top pentagon official. they staged a sort a sit-in in the highly-secured room. they also demanded t impeachment inquiry hearings be opened to the public. >> we have secret hearings that are going on that we as the elected members of the united states congress, 435 members, are not privy to. that is simply not fair. >> alcindor: the scheduled witness was laura cooper, who oversees ukraine policy at the pentagon. she was expected to discuss the

$400 million in military aid for ukraine that president trump temporarily blocked. but when the republicans brought cell phones into the facility, where they are not allowed, the proceedings stopped before they started. one democrat in the room called it a stunt: >> the tactics are an effort to delay the inevitable they are response to just damaging and they've obstructed the hearing it was an effort to intimidate a witness they brought in electronics into a secure room. >> alcindor: it was the latest lcescalation in a war of words over process. so far, only members of the intelligence, foreign affairs, and oversight committees have heard the interviews and seen the transcripts. republicans insist that is unfair. democrats say it is not unusual to hold sensitive investigations behind closed doors. congresswoman val demings of florida sits on the house intelligence committee: >> i guess when you're desperate you go back to complaining about the process. >> alcindor: meanwhile, democrats sent a new letter to the state department demanding

e-mails related to the july 25th call between mr. trump and ukrainian president zelenesky. they also want any electronic communications between witnesses in the impeachment inquiry, plus diplomatic cables relatefreezins that document any efforts to have ukraine open investigations that would politically benefit president trump. all of this, one day after the stunning testimony of acting ukraine ambassador bill taylor. he told lawmakers that president trump withheld the military aid in an effort to make ukraine investigate vice president joe biden and his son, hunter. house investigators had planned to hear from other witnesses tomorrow and friday. but those plans will be delayed by memorial events for the late congressman elijah cummings. >> woodruff: and yamiche joins me now. yamiche, tell us more about this storming of what was supposed to be a closed briefing, a closed interrogion, the significance of it and how are the her democrats and republicans

reacting? >> well, democrats say this was really a political stunt by republicans who are angry about the process and who only want to focus on the process because they don want to answer questions about president trump's actual actions as it relates to ukraine. republicans have a completely different view of this. they say this is abouttimes not having a lack of transparency -- or having a lack of transparency. they say they're not really allowing all members of congress to partake in the impeachment inquiry and as a result that is wrong. tonight republicans are celebrating this. they think it's a great thng they upended this deposition and had this pentagon official waiting for hours to testify, they say this proves a point republicans need to continue to speak out against what they see as an unfair process. democrats are saying republicans have violated political rules of the house. they say the republicans who

uphennedded thetime were actually in violation of the house deposition rules. representative bennie thompson who is the chair of the homeland security committee, he sent a letter to the house sergeant at arms who said -- and he was basically saying that the house sergeant at arms needs ttake action against these republicans. at to that house dls are pointing toward former congressman trey gowdy who once said depositions behind closed doors is a good thing to do because it gets more information out there. they're now saying trey gowdy's words should hold still. trey gowdy said the rules should be followed and no exceptions made. democrats are pointing to those words and saying replicans should be listening to the words of trey gowdy. >> woodruff: yamiche, a completely separate thing happened today, two of president trump's attorney rudy giuliani, two of his associates were in court today accused of illegal campaign contributions. they are pleading not guilty. one of them spoke about having some of the evidence covered by

executive privilege. that obviously refers to the president. what is the white house saying and how do iney see the significance of this? >> well, this could be really problematic for president trump, when you have an associate of rudy giuliani bringing up executive privilege as it relates to a campaign violation, campaign finance violation case here. the lawyer who was an associate of rudy giuliani said his client never actually worked for president trump but that he worked for rudy giuliani and did actually employ him at times as his own personal attorney and as a result could be executive privileges there. the attorney for les said this is being brought up because a former attorney for president trump john dowd told les he should be be talking about issues of executive privilege. this is important because rudy giuliani the president's personal attorney, he's someone who's emerged as a central figure in this impeachment inquiry and, as a result, rudy y

giuliani's work could be connected to president trump and that means connected to these associates. we'll have to see how the white house responds. the white house is not talking about it at this point but it's something we'll definitely have to watch. >> woodruff: another separate thing that happened today, yamiche, in a federal peals court that has to do with the lawsuit ainst president trump to force him to turn over his tax returns. in the course of this proceeding, the president's lawyer talked about immunity that the president enjoys against any criminal prosecution, any sort of criminal accusation, which could be pretty broad. so what is our understanding of what this is all about and what are the implications? >> this case is involving a subpoena from new york prosecutors for president trump's financial records. they're seeking them as part of an investigation into hush money payments that were possibly paid to stormy daniels and other

women who allegedly had affairs with president trump. the president's lawyers are saying tthe president has temporary immunity because he's president of the united states. president's word from january 26 through 2016 are coming back. let's listen to what the president had to say when he was then candidate trump. my people are so smart, and you know what else they say about my people? the polls, they say i have the most loyal people. did you ever see that? where i could stand in the middle of fifth avenue and shoot somebody and i wouldn't lose any voters, okay? it's, like, incredible. >> now, those comments are critically important to this case because the judge and the president's attorneys had a back and forth and exchange about what that exchange had to say and here's what the exchange was about today. >> what's your view on the fif avenue example, the local authorities couldn't investigate, they couldn't do anything about it? >> i think once a president is removed from office, any local

authority -- this is not a permanent immunity. >> i'm talking about while in office. >> no. this is the hypo, nothing could be done is your position. >> that is correct. that is correct. >> so critics of the president say that this is really a stunning argument to make and theysay this idea of temporary presidential immunity is not actually part of the law. the president's attorneys, though, are really pushing back. so we'll have to see how this happens and ends up in this appeals court, but the judge seemed to really want to push the lawyers on this issue of the president shooting someone and being able to get away wit at least while he was in office. >> woodruff: well, it is stunning to even the be thinking in the hypothetical sense about the president shooting someone, but there you go. yamiche alcindor, thank you very much. >> woodruff: our other lead

story tonight: president trump defends his decision to cede ground in northeastern syria. he said today he's lifting sanctions on turkey, after the turks and russia extended a ceasefire, while syrian kurds evacuate the syrian border region. the president said the credit goes to his decision to pull u.s. troops from the area. >> by the moves that we've made, we are achieving a much more peaceful and stable area between turkey and syria including a 20 mile wide safe zone. let someone else fight over this long-blood stained sand. >> woodruff: the president has faced bipartisan criticism that the u.s. pull-out abandoned kurdish partners and green- lighted a turkish military offensive. for more on his statement today, we turn to our foreign affairs correspondent, nick schifrin. so, nick, you have been following this all day long. where does what has happened

everything on the ground in northern syria? >> president trump is accurate that the region now is relatively quiet, but kurdish partners of the u.s. and bipartisan member of congress ask at what cost. thern syria, no russian military police deploying cities along the border that the u.s. and kurdish partners freed from i.s.i.s. syrian regime going in where they haven't been five years and turkey bragging they made deals with both u.s. and russia and their kurdish enemies will evacuate from a much larger area that the u.s. agreed. let's look at the area the u.s. agreed with turkey on. that is the u.s.-turkey buffer zone, 75 miles wide, agreed upon a couple of weeks ago in ankara, and let's look at what the turkey-russia buffer zone, more than 300 miles wide. turkey promised it wouldn't go beyond what the u.s. negotiated,

but that buffer zone is much bigger, today turkey saying they would kill any syrian kurdish fighters inside the new buffer zone and russia said that would be okay with them, meaning turkey is abdicating the deal with the u.s. i asked the senior official you promised to impose sanctions on turkey if they abdicated the deal, why has the president lifted the sanctions? the official shrugged and said kurdish fighters would have to leave the entire area and that's an issue for the russians and syrians who control the ground to deal with the turks and not the u.s. an effort is in congress to penalize the turks who are what u.s. officials say are war crimes and those seem to be done as well. >> woodruff: they were following efforts pri by the trump administration to reassure american allies in the region. >> we've seen military officials and state department officials trying to reassure allies and

partners that, as critics put it, that the president abandoned syrian kurds and they're trying to reassure, no, you guys won't be abandoned. we heard from th top military officials in the middle east today general mckenzie who said u.s. strategic strength has never rested solely on u.s. might but that the partnerships and alliances that we had, and we saw state department officials in the last few days go to iraq. they went to the kurdistan regional government, and you can see the map there on the right, is the kurdistan regional e kurdish territory in syria. so e.r. talking about u.s. officials going to iraq and visiting iraqi kurds and a senior state department official said the trip was to reassure our kurdish friends in iraq that we were committed to them andnd how important they are to us. judy, this official would not say whether they were reawe insured by that reassurance. >> woodruff: they are understandably asking questions after all this. nick schifrin, thank you.

>> thank you. >> woodruff: in the day's other news, mass demonstrations in lebanon entered a seventh day, with no end in sight. in beirut, protesters lit flares, waved flags, and handed out food to comrades. main roads remained blocked, and schools and banks remained closed. the demonstrators accuse the country's political elite of destroying lebanon's economy. police in britain ha a horror story on their hands: 39 bodies discovered in a cargo container on a truck. the truck was found early this morning in an industrial park east of london. authorities say they believe it came from belgium, as part of a human trafficking operation. >> a murder investigation was launched and the lorry driver, a 25-year-old man from northern ireland, was arrested on suspicion of murder and remains in police custody. at this stage, we have not identified where the victims are from or their identities, and we

anticipate this could be a lengthy process. >> woodruff: police confirmed that one of the victims appeared to be a teenager. the rest were adults. back in this country, major utilities in california announced new blackouts, as wildfire conditions worsen again. pacific gas & electric said its outages willffect 0,000 customers in the srra foothills and san francisco bay area. and, southern california edison said it will cut power tomorrowc to more than 160,000 customers. on wall street, a day of modest movements. the dow jones industrial average gained 45 points to close near 26,834. the nasdaq rose 15 points, and the s&p 500 added eight. and, google is claiming a breakthrough in blazing fast computing speed. the company says its experimental quantum processor needed less than three minutes

to make a calculation that would take thousands of years on existing super-computers. ibm disputed that today. it said its top-line machine can actually do the task in 2.5 days. both sides agree that quantum technology is still years away from practical use. still to come on the newshour: free speech and falsehoods-- mark zuckerberg mounts a defense of facebook before congress. what's on the line for chicago teachers striking in the country's third largest school district. why 2020 democratic hopeful michael bennet is running for president, and much more. >> woodruff: facebook c.e.o. mark zuckerberg arrived onrb

capitol hill today and was put on the hot seat today about mounting concerns from republicans and democrats. amna nawaz has the story. for the record, we should note the pbs newshour produces some content as part of a business relationship with facebook. >> nawaz: it's the first appearance from zuckerberg on capitol ll since lawmakers grilled him over privacy concerns and oer issues around cambridge analytica a year and a half ago. zuckerberg's testimony before the house financial services committee was ostensibly to build support for facebook's new cryptocurrency project, libra, a global digital currency originally set to launch next year. >> the idea behind libra is that sending money should be as easy and secure as sending a message. i actually don't know if libra is going to work but i believe in trying new things. i view the financial infrastructure in the u.s. as outdated. >> nawaz: but that project has drawn harsh criticism and lost

support among regulators and the financial industry. >> scores of stable partners have dropped out. why? >> well, congresswoman, i think you'd have to ask them specifically for... >> why do you think they dropped out? >> i think because it's a it's a risky project and that there's been a lot of scrutiny. >> yes, it's a risky project. >> nawaz: zuckerberg acknowdged the anger surrounding facebook. >> i know we're not a good messenger. >> nawaz: but he was hit with criticism on multiple fronts, including his decision to allow false claims in political ads to stay on the platform. the decision to allow this ad, which endorsed by president trump and includes false statements about former vice president joe biden and his son hunter, is drawing fierce criticism from democrats. financial services committee chairwoman, maxine waters of california, grilled the facebook c.e.o. on the matter. >> how does this new policy benefit you? it seems that a policy that allows politicians to lie

mislead and deceive would also allow facebook sell more ads. >> from a business perspective, the very small percent oour business that is made up of political ads does not come anywhere close to justifying the controversy this incurs for our company so it's really not about money in principal. i believe in giving people a voice. >> you plan on doing no fact checking of political ads? >> we do not fact check politicians speech. >> nawaz: speaking last week at georgetown university, zuckerberg strongly defended his decision to allow false or misleading ads, on the grounds of free speech and other principles. >> now, you know, given the sensitivity around political ads, i've considered whether we should stop allowing them altogether. banning political ads favors incumbents and whoever the media

chooses to cover. but practically, even if we wanted to ban political ads, it's not even clear where you draw the line. >> nawaz: his speech came after the biden campaign wrote to facebook, twitter and google asking them to take down the false ad. social media companies have been criticized by president trump and other republicans as well, who feel conservative voices are silenced on the internet. republican andy barr of kentucky. >> will you commit that facebook will not censor any political ad placed on your platform or in support of president donald trump? >> we believe people should be able to see for themselves what politicians are saying that doesn't just go for trump that goes for any candidate. >> don't be bullied by politicians who want to censor politically incorrect speech. >> nawaz: in june, the president said he thought the u.s. should sue facebook and google for what he says is unfair repression of his political messaging.

>> look. we should be suing facebook and google and all that and perhaps we will okay. >> nawaz: democratic presidential candidate, elizabeth warren, has been taking aim at the social media giant. in a tweet, the massachusetts senator wrote: "facebook is actively helping trump spread lies and misinformation. facebook already helped elect donald trump once. they might do it again, and profit off of it." nearly three years after u.s. intelligence agencies found that russia and other adversaries used social media to influence the 2016 election, facebook and instagram, which is also owned by zuckerberg, along with twitter and google, are still grappling with how to approach political messaging on their platforms ahead of 2020. for a closer look at these issues, i'm joined by vanita gupt she is the president and c.e.o. of the leadership conference on civil and human rights, a coalition representing 220 civil rights groups. she also served as acting assistant attorney general and head of the u.s. department of justice's civil rights division under president obama. we've invited mr. zuckerberg to

appear on the program as well at a later time. welce back to the "newshour". >> good to be here. >> reporter: let's start with mr. zuckerberg's intent to leave political ads on his platform unchecked. he says it's a matter of free speech, free expression. >> i think that's a ruse. the problem leaving politicians speech unchecked will allow mass information to reign on the platform. this is a real problem. this isn't a hypothetical issue. we saw how facebook was weaponized by foreign actors and domestic actors in 2016 and, right now, this move to totally exempt politicians from the same community standards you and i would have to abide by as private actors is reckless for our democracy. >> reporter: is it a slippery slope if they start to police this and decide what is true and false, do we really want a

social media company that doesn't have a journalistic ethos of mission to be the arbiter of what's true or false here? >> the reality is facebook decided to do this for private citizens in the last couple of years. they recognize that they are not the government, they are a private company, therefore don't have the same first amendment obligations in the same way and as a prmpaniva they decided they'd police hate speech and white supremacist speech on the platform. what is so troubling is they have decided that politicians who have historically been the very perpetrator of voter suppression throughout our history are going to be held to a lower standard than you and i as private citizens and americans and that seems incredibly dangerous in a time where, increasingly, we have politicians who are embolding and using the world's largest meg phone of this platform to spread lies, use fear mongering and other ttician to chill political partstation.

>> reporter: you worked with facebook, for years, we point out, but you've raised concerns about their protection of civil rights, abt posts used to discriminate in housing matters, whether the company has enough diversity in their own ranks. the've spoken with leadership, with mr. zuckerberg and sheryl sandberg, have you heard anything from them in the testimony today that says they will address the concerns. >> the leadership conference pushed the facebook to actually starts a cil rights audit. a bunch of our organizations were pushing for this. over the last year, i will say, there has been progress made. as i said, they announced policy to really com bat hate on the platform, they were settling more of the housing litigation and announcing a policy to combat unlawful racial targeting in their ads, policies. the problem s. we were starting to make a little bit of progress on voter -- having facebook fight voter information and

misinformation. but this recent announcement basically threatened to undermine all of that because it allows for politicians, as i said, who are the very perpetrators of voter suppression, historically, to go without any checks on them whatsoever. what's created this massive cognitive dissidence is mark zuckerberg and sheryl sandberg are saying, no, no, facebook will take the election and voter suppression very seriously. we will take down when officials might lie about a polling location or poll hours. what they're failing to recognize is that in 2019, voter suppression looks a lot more like racial appeals, like deliberate campaign misinformation. you could have local officials basically do a doored curednated campaign payne saying we're going to have police officers stated outside every majority black neighborhood on election day, or we could have local officials or the president say, you know what? if you fill out the census and

you're la teen o we're going to give you information to i.c.e. facebook is saying that's fine, even though it's complete plies information, we're going to allow that to stand. >> reporter: i want to be clear because there's an election astake, they have said based on what they learned in the last election they are staking specific steps to protect themselves from foreign interference, letting people know which news comes from state owned media. you're saying what they've done is not enough. >> they have made protections against foreign actors more robust but have failed to recognize what actors here are weaponizing information and racism to have an electoral advantage and i think that is dangerous. most broadcasting when they're out there posting the ads have to make decisions around fact checking. they are requiring disclosures to protect the authenticity of the speaker and either putting warnings up or quarantining ads

that contain misinformation like. this we are seeing this platform is allowed to be weaponized as it was in 2016 by domestic actors for exactly the kind of behavior that i think is so corrosive towards democracy. >> reporter: vanita gupta, president and c.e.o. of the leadership conference on civil and human rights, thanks for being here. >> thank you. >> woodruff: the chicago teachers strike enters its fifth day with no clear sign it might end any time soon. as john yang reports, teachers are calling for changes that include, but also go beyond, traditional pocketbook issues. and they charge that the city's new mayor is changing her position since coming into office last may. >> yang: thousands of striking chicago teachers converged on city hall today. as new mayor lori lightfoot

delivered her first budget, the teachers had their own spending priorities. >> the people of the city of chicago demand funding and resources to go to the services of the city. we have to have schools that work for our children. we need a budget that works to our priorities, not just the priorities onodevelopers. >> yang: for the fifth day, the strike canceled classes for more than 360,000 students in the country's third-largest school district. the city and the chicago teachers union are at odds over several issues, including: higher salaries, smaller class sizes and the union's demand for additional support staff, inuding nurses, counselors, and librarians.

>> yang: lightfoot was elected on a progressive agenda and an education platform that includes some of the very changes the union is asking for. now she says the city can't afford them. >> there's a finite amount of money that's available. you know, as you know we're barely two years way from a moment where c.p.s. was on the verge of insolvency, there's not an unlimited pool of money. >> yang: striking teachers say she has turned her back on her pledges. we need things in our classroom that we're not getting. i have students that take medicine. i don't have a nurse to help me out except one day a >> yang: parents are also feeling the toll, scrambling to find day care for their kids as talks drag on. but some say they still stand behind teachers. >> we know it's a sacrifice that we need to make in order to support the teachers.th >> yang: with no end in sight, chicago teachers union has said they'll take to the picket lines again, tomorrow. negotiators have been meeting for several hours every day since the strike began. reporter brandis friedman has

en covering the strike for "chicago tonight" on pbs member station wttw. brandis, thank you so much for joining us. what's your sense of how far apart the two sides are? >> you know, john, it's kind of hard to tell. over the weekend, it seemed like we took a few steps forward, then monday and tuesday it seems like we took another couple of steps back. i know both sides are saying they feel like they've made l me progress, but then something would happen like mayor lightfoot sent a letter to ctu leadership a couple of days ago saying we've made progress, we've given you much of what you asked for, why don't you and teachers come back to work while we continue negotiating at the table, and we theater ctu president sharky and gates say they felt like hat's not how negotiations worked and their hopes of prirgress had been dashed. but i think they are making progress and working towards each other, but they're sort of buttoning up these last few days on exactly how far apart they are on what we know to be the

sticking points. >> reporter: and some of the sticking points, it's not just the usual pocketbook issues of pay, it's things like class size, prep time, support staff. why are those issues so important to the teachers? >> you know, the union says that they are looking to make -- that they're on the precipice of one of the most important contracts for chicago public schools because they want this contract to be the one that makes chicago public schools into what they keep referring to as the schools that chicago students deserve. i think they have atefnted to make the case their working conditions are student learning conditions and in the absence of nurses, librarians, social workers and counselors, teaching the students, educating them is harder because they're not getting all their needs met. so they see this as their responsibility to take on and to get it in writing in the contract to improve the schools for their students. >> and this is the first big test for the new mayor, mayor

lori lightfoot. some of the things that the union wants in the contract are things that she talked about, supported in her campaign. so why is this an issue now? >> so she did support much of what ctu is arguing for, but she did not say i'm going to put it in the ctu contract. so a lot of folks will say some of what ctu is asking for, affordable housing, does not belong in the teachers collective bargaining agreement. the teachers argue they want it in the contract because they don't trust politicians. just because she campaigned on these issues doesn't mean she's actually going to make good on them. for mayor lightfoot's part of it, she said she campaigned on these issues and some have been written into the chicago public schools budget passed back in august. ctu says that's not good enough, we need them in the contract so we havenorcement mechanisms to hold you accountable, to hold you to what you say. >> reporter: this is putting a hardship on lot of parents in chicago,ot to find things for their kids to do during the day

now that classes have been canceled. how much of support is there for the teachers from the parents and is there danger that it's go going to away as this es on? >> you know, it's hard to say, like we know that a lot of the s whpantdo psuport ctu, they are vocal. there are multiple organizations in chicago that have expressed support. some parents are on the picket line with their kids and ctu. the city works with some sister agencies to make sure students have places to go like the public library, and schools across the city have been opened and staffed by members or employees from central office as well as principals for the students who have to come to a school, and as far as whether or not, you know, they're going to lose parenting support, i know not all parents do support ctu in this, whether or not they are a majority or minority of allal parents, it's hard to tell, of course. not all of them support ctu, and they are struggling, but i don't think that the length of this strike is going to have either

side change camps. >> reporter: brandis friedman from "chicago tonight" on wttw. brandis, thank you very much. >> you bet. >> woodruff: senator michael bennet of colorado is one of 18 democrats vying for his party's presidential nomination. like other presidential hopefuls, he's making his case to voters, why his health care plan is better than his opponents-- even as issues like syria and impeachment have taken center stage in washington. senator bennet joins us once more. thank you very much for being here. >> thanks, judy, for having me. >> woodruff: let's talk about syria it's in the headlines, you're a member of the senate intelligence committee. i know you have been critical of what president trump has done there taking u.s. troops out, but what would you do differently as president? >> i never would have taken these troops out.

in the first place, unlike many things in the middle east that we've done wrong, this is a case where what we were doing was working. we had been there for five years, it was a critical mission to defeat i.s.i.s. we have lost six americans, which is tragic, but only six americans. the kurds lost 10,000 kurds in the same actions that we were taking, and we had managed to deal with i.s.i.s., which is not the same thing asinishing or ending i.s.i.s., and, today, the president's put us in a position where we're not going to have the opportunity to deal with i.s.i.s. if they reemerge, and syria, russia and iran and assad are splitting up the region. >> woodruff: the president of turkey is telling you we're sending our troops across the border into thisiary. you're saying u.s. troops would have faced off against turkey. >> all it would have taken was a strong president who said don't even think about coming across that line, and the evidence

erdogan didn't come across line is through the obama administration and the trump presidency. erdogan would not have done this without a permission slip from donald trump. >> woodruff: would you put troops back in? >> i don't think it's viable. i think that's one of the cases where, you know,he president seems to think that he makes these decisions and he's got all kinds of options. what he is doing is foreclosing options and one of those is our putting troops back in northern syria. i just hope the ones leaving can get out safely. >> woodruff: let me ask you about healthcare. you call your plan medicare x. >> right. >> woodruff: it would create a public option. and you say it's cheaper than the medicare for all plan that senator sanders, senator warren have proposed. but, as you know, what they say is that, when they eliminate premiums, they eliminate co-pay and deductibles, that means,

they say, that it would be a net savings for consumers. why isn't that idea better than -- >> i know they say that, but america doesn't believe it and even vermont didn't believe it. you know, they tried to pass something similar to this in bernie sanders' home state of vermont and when they saw what the cost might be, a 10% tax increase on individuals and 11% on businesses, they rejected it, just like the american people are going to reject a healthcare planhat raises $31 trillion in taxes. bernie sanders and i are the only two people in this race who have been consistent on our positions for the last ten years, and he has been -- and i honor his consistency. just like he says he wrote the damn bill for medicare for all, i wrote it on the public option, and it not only is cheaper, it actually would benefit the federal treasury and i think we could cover everybody in three years without stripping the american people of their choice to buy health insurance or a public option if that's what they want, and without raising

taxes at all on the american people much less massively. >> woodruff: do you believe a democrat who is the nominee who proposes a single payer plan, which is what medicare for all would be, enhanlses the prospects of president trump getting reelected? >> i do. i hope any democrat will beat otnald trump but this is just about beating donald trump. it's about winning a majority in the senate as well, and if these candidates can't even be candid about what -- how they're going to pay for these plans today -- i mean, elizabeth warren has a plan for every single thing except for how to pay for a healthcare plan which is something she's had since the beginning of the election. bernie is honest about it. bernie is telling the american people at least i can fay for half the plan, $16 trillion, by raising taxes on everybody in america who are making $29,000 or more. that's never going to fly, judy, and that's one way to lose a senate race in iowa and colorado

and arizona and might be a way of losing the presidency and it's so unnessary. >> woodruff: excuse me because there are a couple of other things i want to -- you waited to endorse an quiesh quiesh you said because you believe it would have to have broad public support, but with information that's come out about president trump, the phone call with the president of ukraine, the request about joe biden, are you now convinced tuat this president should be impeached by the house? >> i'm absolutely convinced he committed impeachable offenses and i'm absolutely convinced we should have the impeachment inquiry that we're going to have, and i think the stuff that he's done is reprehensible. our standard has falon so low, judy, i mean, these congressmen today rushing into a secure briefing like a mob, president trump pretending that the rest of the world isn't watching us abandoned our allies in the middle east and the american people will stand for

having a president who, you know, in this instance is asking ukraine to weigh in on the election by digging up dirt on joe biden, this stuff is terrible. >> woodruff: you know if the house impeaches, it ves to the senate, there would be a trial that would go on for weeks if not months, are you worried all that interferes with the democrats running for president? >> i'm not worried about it because we have a job to do and a solemn responsibility to fulfill in the senate. what i hope for is that this whole process is going to end up leading to a place where we can restore the american people's confidence in our exercise of self-governmenthe rule of law and i hope to play a part in that. >> woodruff: senator michael bennet seeking the democratic nomination for president, thanks for being here. >> thanks for having me. >> woodruff: the united nations says more than 170,000 syrian

people have fled their homes since turkey launched its cross- border offensive more than two weeks ago. nick schifrin recently sat down with journalist gayle tzemach lemmon, who has followed the lives of some of those forced to adapt yet again. >> schifrin: long before the trump administration announced its withdrawal from northern syria, the people of that region struggled through an extraordinary few years: revolution against the assad regime. the brutality and radicalism of the islamic state. the battle to defeat isis, and the subsequent struggle to stabilize and rebuild. on the front lines of that fight are so many men and women, now forced to readjust, again, as the u.s. withdraws. for their story, we turn to journalist and author gayle tzemach lemmon. gayle, welcome back to the "newshour". let's talk about some of these people who you've followed for years. many of them fled i.s.i.s. talk about the woman who you met leaving raqqa,cies"'s former

headquarters. >> she had just delivered a baby around four pound and no one knew what would happen. she fled the united states during the siege of raqqa, had given all our savings to a smuggler who got her in a five-car convoy. her car was the first car, the fifth car blew up in an i.s.i.s. land mine. in the past few years, i've watched her fight for normalcy. in may, it's so moving on how she talked about things going well. she said thank god, our childreny in school, we have this fragile stability, and she really was, i think, to me, a mom whose life is on the front lines in the fight against extremism. she said, look, we don't want the world to save us, we can o the work, but we need space and normalcy. >> reporter: the people who needed the space also needed

spicespace within their own families. you found a romwoman with an extraordinary story whose own family were i.s.i.s. supporters and she fled in ordeto give her children a better life. >> yes, a womanamed monica i met a few times over the past year. she's from darizar and said her husband joined the u.s. forces fighting i.s.i.s. her husband died fighting i.s.i.s. along other meps who were backed by the americans and talked to me about how her inlaws afterward wanted to takee control of her children two, boys and a girl, and she said no way, i will not have my children grow up among extremists, i'm going to give them a chance of education and she talked with me about her daughter and how she wanted her daughter to be educated. even when i pressed her about what she wanted for her daughter and in terms of a husband, she said i don't want to think about that now because i want her to

be a teacher or a professor or something i never had a chance to be. >> reporter: the fight for stability and a better future isn't only being done by kurdish people who we have been talking about, of course, in the news, gayle, and arab families who you just talked about, but also other minorities including christians, right? >> yes, monica is from the arab community, and nisa who i met who is from the bethany women's protection forest who is a group of christian women who formed early in the i.s.i.s. fight and joined along the kurds and later other arabs who was part of the u.s.-backed forces. she talked about when she first joined the all women's force, her mother and thought father thought it was shameful. when they realized her unit was protecting christian communities from the islamic state, besieged by i.s.i.s. fighters, kidnapped and worse, they were really proud and come to accept her decision and be very proud of it

when they we want to church on the weekends. so she was talking to me how she is in law school now and was recruiting the next generation of young women o are going to be part of protecting their future and she says, you know, gayle, our generation is very different. we're educated, the young women are educated and we want stability and security in our area. >> reporter: how important is it that these people whose stories you just shared and the people you pith met throughout your time there find that stability and are able to change their futures, in your opinion? >> this is not about sent mentality, this is about american national security. we talk about the war on extremism, fighting the islamic state, finding people who have these kinds of ideologies as oln abstraction, but these are the women whose lives very much live on the front line of this battle and they are the people fighting each day for security, for stability in their own neighborhoods and really against the extremists who would bring

all kinds of insecurity not just to their area, but certainly well beyond, an that's why i think their quest for normalcy, their push for a very fragile stability matters deeply to each of us. >> reporter: gayle tzemach lemmon, thank you very much and thank you for all your reporting. >> thank you. >> woodruff: finally tonight, long before george takei made his name in the tv show "star trek," and later became a popular civil rights activist. he and his family were rounded up and imprisoned by the u.s. government in japanese internment camps during world war ii. as william brangham learned, takei's recent graphic novel connects the way some view immigrants today with how his family, and over 100,000 others, were treated nearly 80 years ago. their conversation starts, just as the book does, on the day

takei's family was taken away. it's part of our regular arts and culture coverage, canvas. >> we were at the front window just gazing out, and suddenly we saw two soldiers marching up the driveway, carrying rifles with shiny bayonets. they stomped up the front porch, and with their fists began pounding on the door, and that i can't forget. >> brangham: really? >> my father came out answered the door and we were ordered to leave the house. they were questioning my mother in the house. and when she came out she had our baby sister in one arm and a huge duffel bag in the other. and tears were streaming down her face. that was to us shocking and absolutely scary. >> brangham: it was 1941, the u.s. naval base at pearl harbor

had just been attacked by the japane. and now, american soldiers were coming for george takei's family, at their home in los angeles. fearing that people of japanese ancestry were potential spies or saboteurs, president franklin roosevelt signed executive order 9066, and more than 100,000 japanese americans across the west coast were rounded up. can you help us understand why you think america reacted the way it did? i mean, pearl harbor was an absolute tragedy and a surprise, brutal attack on our country. >> prior to pearl harbor, in the media the characterization of all asians. we were either buffoons or silent passive servants, or cruel evil villains. and so that prior planted stereotype was turned against us. we were americans but we looked

like the enemy. >> brangham: the world first got to know george takei when he played hikaru sulu on the hugely popular tv show, "star trek." 40 years later, trek fans still mob him at sci-fi and comic book conventions. takei has also become an inuential civil rights and l.g.b.t.q. rights activist. but for years, he's also been telling the story of his family's internment during world war ii: in a memoir, on broadway, and now in a new graphic novel, titled"they called us enemy." >> i mean there have been documentaries now, there have been other books written and yet to this day there are people that don't know and are astounded when i share this story with them. >> brangham: back in 1941, young

george and his family were forced to leave their homes with only the bags they could carry. people lost their homes, their cars, their businesses-- either sold in desperation, or stolen outright. >> there just wasn't time to sell everything. my father sold his car, a pontiac, dark green pontiac, for five dollars. >> brangham: five dollars? >> it was better than just leaving it there. people lost everything. things that they couldn't sell, abandoned and raided by those vultures. >> brangham: throughout the book, takei contrasts his parent's anguish about their treatment, with his, more child- like view, like when they were initially detained at the santa anita racetrack in los angeles... >> later on i remember my mother saying it was the most degrading, humiliating thing to take their children into this horse stall with the pungent smell of horse manure. but to five year old me i

thought it was fun to sleep where the horsey sleep. i can smell the horseys you know. so two different reactions on the same event. >> brangham: takei and his family were later sent to live behind barbed wire in a camp in rural arkansas, one of the ten permanent camps spread across the u.s. they weren't hurt or interrogated, but in some camps, especially when the government tried to get people to sign notorious "loyalty oaths," protests were met with violent pushback. takei and his family were kept imprisoned for nearly four years. when the war ended, the camps were closed, and everyone was let go. takei and his family went back to southern california, penniless. they had to start over again. you have been telling this story for years-- on stage, in memoirs, in speeches, on commissions, now in this graphic novel. why is this-- why do you keep wanting to tell this story?

>> because today we are living through another cycle of this story of mindless inhumanity. there are latinos coming from central america and mexico, desperate people fleeing violence and poverty, and they're fleeing literally for now children, infants, are being torn away from them and put into filthy cages with poor hygiene, human waste and poor diet. this kind of repetition of the same sort of thing that we went through is 75 years ago and with this book i hope that young people are getting this information and they grow up with it. so by the time they're adults they are going to be a different breed of americans-- aware of

the history of this country. we have plenty of glorious chapters. some of the darker chapters are the lessons that we really need to learn. >> brangham: the book is "they called us enemy." george takei, thank you very, very much. >> thank you for allowing me to share. >> woodruff: and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. join us online and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you and see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> you can do the things you like to do with a wireless plan designed for you. with talk, text and data. consumer cellular. learn more at consumercellular.tv

>> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and individuals. >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

hello, everyone, welcome to "amanpour and company." here's what's coming up. >> we didn't sign up to fight a war to defend the kurds against a longstanding natoally. certainly didn't sign up to help them establish an autonomous state. >> my exclusive interview with u.s.u.efend secretary mark esr demonstrating new forces here in saudi arabia designed to confront iran. while also coping with territory the u.s. has ceded to iran in syria. the people inside those organizations realize i'm the last line of dense. if i don stand up and say something, no one will ever know. >> in an an of whistle-blowers, author tom muller