captning sponsored by wnet >> alcindor: on this edition foy sudecember 22: the latest on the impeachment of president trump. new deils emerge on the freezing of aid to ukraine.ic and democrresidential candidates andrew yang and tom steyer. next on pbs newshour weekend. ws >> pbs ur weekend is made possible by: bernard and irene schwartz. sue and edgar wachenheim iii. the cheryl and philip milstein family. rosalind p. walter, in memy of george o'neil. barbara hope zuckerberg.ro charles nblum. we try to live in the moment, to not miss what's right in front of us. at mutual of america, we believe taking care of tomorro cahelp you make the most of

today. mutual of america financial group, retirement seices and investnts. additional support has been provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the american people. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. from the tisch wnet studios at lincoln center in new york, yamiche alcindor. >> alcindor: good evening and thank you r joining us. asfour days ago, the housed two articles of impeachment against presidt donald trump. now, members of both parties are weighing in on house speaker nancy pelosi decision to delay sending the articles to the senate. republican senator roy blunt said he doesn't even think the speaker has the power to withhold the articles. >> frankly, i thk this is a mistake on the speaker's part. ndthink this has looked pretty political anywayhis is sort of the icing on the political cake where at the end,

the speaker can't let go of this as an sue to try and wring the last vestige of politics out of. the outcome here is virtually certain. >> alcindor: democratic senator doug jones defended speaker pelosi waiting to send the articles to the senate. >> i think what the speaker is doing is to say, ¡what are the rules going to be when i send house managersver there. what kind of playing field are we going to have? what is the timing of this. unreasonable. this is >> alcindor: at stake is whether witnesses that the trump administration blocked from speaking to e house, will stify in a senate trial. marc short is vice president p mice's chief of staff and the former white house legislative director. >> i think the president w its to prove hocence. >> and he wants witnesses? >> i think the president has articulated that he's open to witnesse chuck. >> but his legal team doesn't? >> no, i think at the same time the american people are tired of the sham. >> alcdor: this weekend, new information about the administration's hold on military aid to ukraine emged

late friday as part of a freedom , of information act reque court ordered emails released related to millions of dollars of aid. one of those emails shows that an office of managemt and budget official requested that fus be held up less than two hours after presidenp's phone call with ukraine's president on july 25th. a spokesperson for o.m.b. defended the move. she said it would be "reckless" to tie the hold to the phone call. for more on this story and reactions to the impeachment of the president, politico reporter anita kumar joins us from washinon, d.c. thanks so much for being here, anita. how much of these emails matter, given that lawmakers seem pretty >> i do think theyres? because what you're seeing is democratimmediately saying the you know that they want to know more about this, that they want to have witnesses at theenate impeachment ial. and if you'll recall, that's the thing that we're gonna beor debatinghe next two weeks over the holidays is should there be witnesses at the trial? atshould there be a real s trial? and this is just what mocrats

need to say, yes, we need more than just a just a quick trial with no witnesses on either side. >> alcindor:ou've been reporting about how president trump is handling being impeached. last nht, he spoke surprisingly little about impeachment at a youth rally in florida. tell me a little bit about the range of emotions that president ump is going through as processes beinimpeached. >> sure, i mean, we heard from people that have talked to him in theast week that he's feeling everything you might feel really. anger and frustration, which we've seen him express itweets and in speeches, but also surprise. even though he knew it was coming, it was sort of surised that it actually happened. and then surprise, really a lot of surprise atenate. excuse me at the house, holding on to the articles of impeachment. that move really surprised him. he's not se what to make of it. he was calli around to capitolnd hillsking members of congress what they thought of this move. obviously, republican members og ss, and they don't they didn't really know either, so he's been sort of feeling all of those things.

but the one thing that we have been hearing is that he's just very angry. he's just very, very angry, it's a raw anger and that it's justaw not going to g and that he's she sort of turned that anger into energy, that he is going to get reelected. and he's going to work hard on that, and that's where all of his energy is going right now. >>lcindor: one of the thin that the president is also angry about is this editor ofto "christianity," writing that he is morally lost and confused. how much is that evangelical magazine's editorial show crackt in the presi base? or does it not really matter that much? >> iean, so far, it's only been a couple of days. it doesn't seem to show much of the crack. i meanit's one articleone editorial with less than 100,000 subscribers. but the president really reacted stroly to that, and i think it's because obviously, evangelicals they don't all vote the same way, buthat it's a very strong part of his base. it's a lot of peop, and he really needs to keep the base as

he is going into reelectn. and i think you know, he was as we just talked about, he's angry this week and that kind of set him off.pe i had talked tle who were surprised at how angry he got, you know, lashing out on twitter and comment, and they thought, well, it's he's overreacting too thing that's not probably going to cascade into something else. but i think that just es to ow sort of the emotions he's feeling this week. >> alcindor: and we have about a minute left. but i want to talk to you really briefly about the economy. out president was talking how well the markets are going. how much do we think that that's going to factor into the president's 2020 campaign? that starting? really close to >> republicans hope it is the entire campaign. they think that if the president lks about the economy period, he can win reelection. but the president's problem is the goes off and talks about 20o other thingsf he can stick to the economy, trade some of market, he would probably be in pretty good shape. >> alcindor: well thank you so icch, anita kumar of polito. >> thank you. r:

>> alcinoday, afghanistan's election commission announced that incumbent president ashraf ghani won a second term with 50.64% of the vote, a fraction over the 50 percent needed. accusations of misconduct and technical problems with the ballot count delayedesults of september's election. ghani's main challenge the country's chief executive abdullah abdullah called the vote fraudulent and the result"" not legitimate." today's results are still considered preliminary. a victory for ghani would give him a prominent role in peace talks betwn the united states and the taliban. at a rally in new delhi today, india's prime minister defended his hindu-nationalist government's controversial citizenship law that excludes muslims. narendra modi told a crowd, waving india's flag and carrying signs in favor of the so-called citizenship amendment act, that oppones of the new law are" spreading lies." the law establishes a religious

test for mignts who want to become citizens. today, there were more protestsi t the law. over the past few weeks, more violent clashes between protestors and security forces. in the ivory coast yesterday, president alassane ouattara ande french presideanuel macron announced a name change for the currency used in eight african nations. ,the french-backed curren called the c.f.a. franc, was established in 1945. starting next year, the currency will be called the "eco." it will be tied to the euro and participating countries will no longer be obligated to keep half their foreign reserves ance. in a speech yesterday, macron said colonialism was "a grave mistake" by the french republic. in the n mexico desert this morning, boeing maneuvered its starliner space capsule to a sunday touchdown. >> and starliner touches down in the desert in new mexico. >> alcindor: the starliner mission to the international space station was aborted when a malfunction sent it to t wrong orbit on friday.

the trouble began when the capsule'internal clock failed to sync up with the atlas v rocket, throwing off the timing. the starliner is the first american-made capsule designed for a ground landing. boeing hopes to use it to launch astronauts on nasa missions starting as early as next year. to watch all our weekend of special political coverage, visit pbs.ornewshour. >> alcindor: last night, in west trump spoke to a group of young conservatives. he called them "fearless young and while there are young people who are engaged and active in politics, a recent poll of eighe to 1-olds found that less than half felt presidential candidates were listening to them. here wh me now is anucha browne. she is the chief engagement, officer for unicef usa, which thanks so much for here. only about a third of american kids feel included in theli cal process. what does that suggest? and what do they want to be talking about thatandidates

aren't talking about? >> yes, that's absolutely alarming. you know, we talk about our children being our fute. they represent 25% of the future of today, buthey're really 100% of our future, and they're saying that their voices aidot being coed in the entire political process. 80% of them say that thethink they can absolutely be benefit and help this country improve. and 90% of them highlight that they're worried about many things. they'rhighlighting that they're worried about violence and violence, not only against them, but their friends and eir families. they're concerned about the climate. they highlight that they're concerned about lack of resources and just their overall wellbeing. alcindor: and the poll found that young girls are more likely to feel excluded from the political process than boys. what does that tl you about what's going on? ic because girls, young girls, their are less considered in the process. you know, we are the generation

today that's making policies and moving our country forward, we grew up at a time when cntldren were mo be seen and not heard. we alsgrew up where that was p movalent for girls. and so the fact that young girls don't feel that they're part of political process is just it's systematic. would say kids don't vote. why listen to that? what's your response to that? >> becau impacts them.hat we do these are the leaders of tomorrow, and if we aren't concerned about them tn tomorrow is not going to feel well field well for us. do alcindor: what should w to engage more young people in the political process? >> well, we want our politicians, we want all of ourh candidates on ides of the aisle to listen to young people. young peopleave not been even considered as in many of the debates that have taken place to date. why don't we have a youth moderator as the next, as part of the next debate. we should be listening tyoung people. we should be asking them the same questions that we're asking

their voices are heard ando that considered in everything we do. >> alcindor: now candidates say they talk about climate change. they talk about gun violence. so is specifically why do people, why do young people in particular feel like their issues are being heard? what do they want to be heing? >> well, the most important pieces, this violence against children, bullying, issues of poverty, those are things thatpp are ing to young people today and so we need to hear them out.fu so as we're ng so that we're infusing child well belig es and everything that we do, and so their voices have to be heard.do >> alc and what if it say about our political process and the future of our political process if young people are alady feeling excluded? >> yeah, we need to engage young people, you know, they're all gonna be vers whether they're under 18 today, tomorrow they will be a ting age, and we need to engage them through this process so that they know that they're valued and respected. and so these are emerging leaders. so how we treat them now is

really going to be telling in terms of how they feel about themselves and the future of this country. >> alcindor: especiallou think about the fact that half the country about half the country, doesn't vote on even in presidential elections. >> yeah, i think you know, we've seen, we've seen young people more than ever lift their voices. we saw we've seen greta. we've seen malala. the fact that greta was announced as person of the year by "time" magazine, that's very telling that the voice of one child can change the world relative to climate chge. just think about if we spent more time lifting up the voices of young children. that would be so meaningful if adults heard them. their voices have to be considered as part of thees pr one of the things that would bef really h is if individuals texted 52886 of the word childto 2886, what that does is it s a letter to all of ouren

presal candidates. and it asked them what their vision is for children. s alcindor: well, thank y much. anucha browne with unicef usa. >> thank you. r: >> alcinemocratic candidates will be back on stage on january 14th in des moines, iowa. so far, five candidates have qualified: vice president joeor biden, senernie sanders, elizabeth warren and amy klobuchar, as well as mayor pete buttigieg. and joining me now is candidate andrew yang, he is also hoping to make the stage. so thank you so much for being he in studio. i know you've had a busy, busy week. as we've reported, the democratic national committee is gonna be raising the threshold again for january. you were the only candidate of color on stage this time around. are you concerned at all that these rules are icing out candidates of color? >> you know, our biggest concern yamiche, is how many polls are they going to run between now and january 10?

we're confident that i'm going to be on that debate stage in january as long ashey run some polls that show that we're growing every single day in the early states. and i was genuinely surised that ty decided to raise the thresholds. >> alcindor: and are you at all worried about what that says toe voters, ally as the decratic party is becoming >> well, certainly to me, i was surprised by the d.n.c.s decion becausehey had beenic cred for this pa debate when i was a lone candidate of color, and then they raised a threshold that might exclude me from this next debate. so to me, it's a little bit bewilding, but you know, you have tt tom make his own decisions.lc >>dor: let me ask you about your signature program. $1000 a month for american adults over the age of 18. how does that program square with social safety net programs, especially food stamps andho federaing vouchers? >> so the way it works is that is universal and opt in the freedom dividend of 00a month for every american it

stacks on top of social secuty benefits to help stab off the retiree crisis, the retirement crisis that many older americans are facing, and so it's opt in. if you do opt in, you would forgo cash and cash like benefits from certain programs.o >> alc like food stamps and federal housing vouchers?, >> not federal housing vouchers. that's not on there, butood stamps, yes. thoughwhen i talked to people who are on these programs, they live in fear, often times of losing whatever benefits they're they're afraid of missing some filing requirement or having pele look in on them. and so for them, unconditional cash seems like a massive improvement.do >> alc there a lot of foreign policy issues that presidents are going to have to navigate.w, right orth korea is threatening to deliver a christmas gift, which might be a missile test. how would you deal with thiser issue if youpresident? >> i have family in seoul right now, so it's personal. we need to do everything we can to encourage north korea to denuclearize, either in whole or in part. and whe donald trump i don't

think made a mistake necessarily byitting down with kim jon un, he did make a huge mistake in that he didn't actually getan gful concessions. and this nuclear missile test, unfortunately, is illustrating that. >> alcindor: how would you what would you do entlyresident? than president trump if you're faced with this issue? >> i would say to e north koreans, look, we will meet with you and try and addres of your economic concerns because the reality is that societis on the brink of economic ruin. but we need you to work with us in terms of scaling back your missilprograms and your nuclear development. >> alcindor: so you would meet with kim jong un? >> i would aee to meet if i thought it wouldelp denuclearize the peninsula. i would not meet just for the sakef a photo op. >> alcindor: the economy. it's also something that's on voters minds. president trump last night talked a lot about it. hat mucht talk surprisingly about impeachment. what do you say to voters who maybe don't like the presint but really do like the way that the economy's going, especially with low unemployment rates?

>> well, the unemployment rate does not illustrate the lived experience of any of the americans i'm talking to on the trail. the fact is, millions of americans have dropped out of the workforc 40 to 44% of recent college graduates are underemployed in t job that doeequire a degree. there'a ton of weakness in the labor market that's being obscured by the headline unemoyment rate, which even donald trump when he was running for president said was fake news. it's a very, very misleading statistic. >> alcindo so in other words, you think that you would make the case to voters that the oreconomy is basically notng for people, and as a result, you should elect me for president. >> whai would say to americans is look, record highs in this country right now. stress, finaial insecurity, overdoses, studentdebt.rug and they sense this. they feel it when they seehe headline stat on the tv screen. they're not saying, oh, things are great. they're saying, why does it not feel like it'sreat in my family and my community? >> alcindor: and would you pardon president trump if you were elected?

>> well, you'd have to make a decision at that time. but what i would suggest is that a dynamic the united states wants to avoid is one presidents are throwing past presidents in jail. because if you look around the world, that's been a dynamic tablished in developing countries, and the united states has historically managed to avoid, that benefit >> alcindor: so you would have a president trump possibly? >> i'm focused on solving the problems that got donald trump elected and moving theountry forward, and that's what i think the president's party should be. >> alcindor: so that sounds ke a yes. >> let's just say like, i'm noth someone whks that being overly vindictive or punitive necessarily is helpfunify the country. >> alcindor: well, thank you so much for joining me in studio. andrew yang who is, of course, running fohapresident. >> you, yamiche. it's great to see you again. and great job with tlc debate. >> ador: thank you. >> alcindor: anoth democrat

vying for a spot in the next eybate is billionaire businessman tom . he's on the campaign trail this weekend and he joins us now from manchester, new hampshire. >> with thanks so much for being here. u were one of the firs democrats to come out in favor of impeaching president trmp. now house speaker nancy pelosi m says she delay sending the arms of impeachment to the senate. do you agree with that strategy? >> look i think speaker pelosi is trying to her police departmentary power to try to ensure that there is somee sembla a fair trial in the senate. and i applaud her for tt. because what i've been calling for for two years is to have televised hearings with everybody from the white house, testifying under oath in front of the american people, as to the corruption of this president and his obstruction of justice. and nancy pelosi is trying as hard as she can to force mitch mcconnell and the senate is republicans to put some mblancof a fair trial in front of the american people and not to bury the evidence of this

president's long standing corruption. >> alcindor: you became a billionaire in part by a hedge nd, you are now runing as a climate change advocate. how do you squreahat, giv way you made your money? >> that's not how i made my money, yamiche, just to be fair. i invested in every farther of the economy, we invested in fossil fuels at aful smal ller le the economy. i realized oh my goodness there is that unintended convention, of being divested in fossil fuel. i gave the giving pledge dom give my money to worthwhile causes, pushing clean energy, c fighting opanies and plitle to force them to do the right thing and i've beeng.

winn in fact what i'm asking americans to did is exactly what i did. we have alcomem a fossil fuel economy, we all grew up in one. we all haveo realize that we weren't trying to do something wrong when we got to the school bus, we were just trying to get to school. now we have to make ahange that there is this unintended consequence called climate change so isr ovea decade i've been leading the charge to make that change and to do it in a that starts with environmental justice, that makes sure that wa start withrship, from the black and brown communities where it's unsafe to breathe the air oer drink what comes out of the tap. that we can do it and when we do it we're going to create literally millions of good paying union jobs across this country. >> alcindor: and you have said also you can win back white working class voters in places like pennsylvania pennsylvania and wisconsin. but some people tod us they

remember being called dekorable, that democrats l down on them. how do you convince them otherwise? >> you'll ner hear me say a bad word about people from those what i know is that over theit last 40 years this government has been bought by corporations prospect they've rigged th system.and the proof is that wog americans haven't had a raise for two generations, for 40 years. so you're never going to hear me blame the victim, to say to working people across the united states, it's your fault. what i'm going to say is this: i've spent a decade fighting ant g corporations on behalf of people in the country. i've spent aad decbuilding grass roots democracy so the people's voice can be heard. so my point to working people c across tuntry is this. if you think corporations have bought the government and are running it for themselves and not the people, i know it too. and if you want someone to break that corporate strangle hold i'm an outsider who has been fighting and beating those corporations for adecade. who do you trust to really take

them on? an outsider who's been doing it or someone from d.c? >> alcindor: the democratic national committee has been raising the threshold, do you think,. >> to me yamiche the biges on in this field is do you have a message that's differential and important and i believe i'm saying something different. i believe i have a different ability to take on mr. trump, because i built a business from scratch. no one can ever call me a socialist anno one cany i don't understand what creates prosperity and growth inhe country. so as far as i'm concerned for a decade i've been figleing pr in america with everything i have including spending money and if that's the worst thing anybody ever says about me i'm okay with that. >> alcindor: thank you so much tosteyer from manchester, new

hampshire. > thank you very much very much yamiche for havime. >> alcindor: finally tonight, hanukkah begins at sundown e festival of lights as it is also known lasts for eight days. happy hanukkah to those who celebrate! and on tomorrow's newshour,ac ng our every move: the implications of carrying a smartphone wherever we go. that's all for this edition of pbs newshour weekend. i'm yamiche alcindor. thanks for watching. have a good night. pt ning sponsored by wnet captioned by media access groce at wgbh .wgbh.org >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: bernard and irene schwartz. sue and edgar wachenhe iii. the cheryl and philip milstein

family. rosalind p. walter, in memoryo' of georgil. barbara hope zuckerberg. charles rosenblum. we try to live in the moment, front of us.what's right in at mutual of america, we believe taking care of tomorrow can help you make the most of today. mutual of america financial group, retirement services and instments. additional support has been provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the american people. tributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

thank you. >> ♪ baruch atah,on ♪ eloheinu, melech haolam ♪ ♪ asher kid'shanu b'mitzvotav ♪ v'tsivanu l'hadlik ner shel hanukkah ♪ ♪ so happy that you're in bubbe's house. >> in a way, hanukkah is the neon sign that says, "we are different." >> i heard that the meaning of hanukkah was only a military victory. is that really what it's all about? >> the hanukkah miracle -- the "chanukkmi