robert: protests and fierce debate over presidentialan powe d american values. >> let stop thinking that our voice don't matter! and vote! because it's aot of us. it's a lot of us! it's a lot of us! [cheers] robert: across t country, protests over the police killing of george floyd brings civil ioght to the floor of the american convers >> i am your president of law and order - robert: but president trump responds with force and calls for dominatn. former military leaders and some republicans are alarmed. >> i am struggling with it. i have struggled with it for a long time. robert: andra top dts speak out.

>> donald trpas turned this country in a battlefield driven by old resentments and fierce. robert: next. announcer: this is "washington week." corporateunding is provided by -- >> life suspect a straight line. and sometimes you can find yourself heading in a new direction. fidelity is here to help you work through the unexpected, lawith financialing and ♪ ice for today and tomorrow. [laughter] ♪ announcer: keiser per man then in te. additional fund r funding is prided by the estate of arnold adams and koo and patricia yuen, with the yuen foundation

committed to pridging cultural -- bridgin cultural foundations in our community and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. once again from washington, moderator, robert costa. robert: good ening. a week that will be remembered by history began on monday with a walk across laugh fa yet square that tested the bounds of presidential power. president tmp's decision to visit st. john's church and the use of force to move out sparkedutrages from americans across the nation whoave protested the killing of george floyd by a police officer. according to some reports, attorney general william barr personally order law enforcement officials to clear the area. and his roll in the militaryization is now under increasing scrutiny. p thesident has been dismissive of critics from

leading members of the clergy to republican senators, to his former defense secretary general james mattis. but he remains defiant and bouied by economic numbers on friday that show the unemployment rate dropping to 13.3% in may from 14.7% in april. the president als invoked mr. floyd'samat the white house on friday. >> hopefully george isdo lookin right now and saying it's a great day for our country. it's a great dayor everybody. it's a great day for everybody. this is a gat, great day in terms of equality. robert: former vice president joe biden ler responded. >> georgeloyd's last words "i can't, breat i can't breathe" nation and quite frankly around the world. for the president to try tout

any other words in the mouth of george floyd i frankly think despicable. robert: and in minneapolis this week, there were calls for sweeping change at mr. floyd's memorial service. here is the revershd al pton. >> the w reasone could never be who we wanted and damed toe in is you kept your knee on our neck. what happened to floyd, happensn every day this country in educatn and in health services and in every area of erican li. it's time for us to stand up in george's nam and say get your knee off our necks. robert: joining me tonight are four reporters who have been covering this american moment. jonathan martin, national political correspondent for the "new york times." amna nawaz senior national

course upon dent for the pbs newshour. paula reid for cbs news. and pierre thomas,hejustice correspondent for abc news. paula, you join us tonight from the white house. you are at the w white housen the president made that decision to walk acrosset laugh fa square. what drove that move inside the west wing? was it a response to reports that he was in the white house bunker on friday night? or was it a deliberate flexing of executive power? paula: a little bit of both. there was a feeling inside the white house that the presidents was being perceived as weak, and he wanted a demonstration of strengthnd he wanted to show support for this historically significant church that had been af part o it -- that had been set on fire the night before. but it was so remarkable because just a few yards from where i am re, the president in the rose garden saying heupported peaceful protest talkingingd

about law rder. wile a few yards this way they were using flash bangs to clear peaceful protestors so the president could walk across and ha what i effectively a photo op in front of this church. so thell president rea stepped on his own message of showing strength and support for law and order andin preventg any sort of vandalism because o the way they cleared that park. arguments that theere too aggressive, that they shouldn't have used this kind of eorce. son called it, unconstitutional. bert: bill, you spoke to the week. s general bill everyone's wondering across in washington what exactly was h role in that incident? >>ad well, he the case or tried to make the case that there were people throwingoj t tiles objects at police, that it was a dangerous situation. the media has pushed back on that saying there was little of th and many people say they didn't see any of it.

and so his case to be made was that it was a securing issue that neededo be resolved. that he wanted that park cleared a day earlier.th hadn't gotten around to it. because the crowd was largely peaceful. i think we can all agree with. to see the aggressive tactics by of people who believe in the first amendment and freedom of speech and the freedom tole asse robert: pierre, i just want to follow up on that poi. why is the attorney general of the unitestates involved in thesey source of secur decisions on laugh fa yet square? why is the attorney general involved with assembling a security force in the nation's capital wit correction officers from around the country? >> number one, theresident wants him to. and he is a law and ord attorney general. he's spoken about the fact that during tody king tragedy

that he believes he should have been more iolved in dealing with the onslaught of reaction, violent reaction in that city. but at the same time bar is a complicated figure. he's the same attorney general who sought p tosecute and did prosecute the officers who beat up rodney king in v thatious way. and at the time, that was extremely rare for tt to happen, bob. robert: jonathan,'ve been followingour reporting all week. you comout of a great tradition at the "new york times." when you think about the political side here, what was gained? was this a presint thinkthg abou campaign and law and order and suburban vots or something olse? yeah, he had his eye on his re-election, certainly in his comments. i think h sees an opportunity to try to come across as somebody who is -- pushing off of people's television that are to some voters frightening

seeing- looting, seeing stores being broken into. trump has taken it upon himself saying if i'm thene as a strong man to come down on that conduct, i'm to be over atpolitically. a gamble, though, because if people want order, they wa stability, they're not looking for a sort of chaotic moment, well, he's probably not the best candidate given his conduct. this has always been the challenge with trump, bob, is that even ifor he'sof given can itical oortunity, he often be his own worst enemy given his own rhetoric. ary often make incenning he comments. you look at this past week and he did. robert: when we watch t

protests, we pay attention t e activism, but also the police forces. and it's not just in lafayette square. i was wondering how do police leaders see this. and you've spokeno other police officials. how are they handling this mill tarization not only in washington but across the country? i think it's two different conversations, right? if you get back to that moment which was a tipping point in so many ways of the president's walk across lafayette square, obviously military offubials were td enough by that general milly who was with him on that walk felt he needed issue a statement to all of the armed services member to say i want to remind you of your constitutional obligatio is to the constitution and not the president. there's a growing fear within a number of sior military officials that i talked to that over the last three and a half years, they've become increasingly used as political tools for the president. now, on the law enforcement

side, you're right. i talked to the hston police chief. he oversees one diverse areas in the country. he is not immune and his department is not immune of so many police departments acrs the country. on the same day that george floyd was killed, the houston police department had its sixth fatal shooting in as many weeks and tt acevedo, the police chief even as he's walking with the pros is facing tough questions about why he won't release body cameras footage. there are some questions about all the uses of force that we don't see cght on camera but also the use of force in response to these very protests that are against police brutality. robert: speaking of tgh questions, president trump's call for "domination," it has faced pushback. some governors have spoken out. i had a story about them having

so concerns on conference call. and defense secretary mark esper says he does not support invoking theur iction act, sending the military to states. >> the option to use active dy forces in a law enforcement should only be use as a matter of last we sort and onlyn the most urgent and dire of situations. we are not in o of those situations now. i do not support invoking the insurrection act. robert: esper's spread says so says that the president's action were abuse of executivey. author we must reject and hold accountable those in office whom would make akery of our constitution. some republicans such as senator lisa murkowski of alaska called th general's comments true, honest and necessary. the president,in he has pledged to defeat her. paula, when you're talking to white house officials and they see general mattis stepping out

who h often been quiet, what's the significance of that and of secret esper making his own views clear? >> on defense secretary esper that probably contradicting president trumps not a good way to keep your job in thisad nistration. he is still in his position as of tonight. even though he broke with the president on this issue, sort of had to walk back a couple of things that he said, as of tonight, he is told most of the active duty military troops who came here to washington to return to their he bases, though a few will remain on high alert. so en though t president and he had a public dagreement. it seems that he prevailed. the defense secretaryil pre. behind the scenes, i'm told there are no eminent plans to re the defense second they. but as we know here at the white house things can change on dime. in terms of forr administration officials it is significant to hear from james

mattis. it was just about 10 months ago hat he told my colleague dav martin that he did not intend to publicly criticized the esident. he said h wouldn't criticize him publicly. so to see b the presidentng criticized by current and former defense officials, it is an doesn't do a lot to ignificant. really bolster his arguments about law and order or the need to usective duty military. robert: w jonathan,n you see general matisse speak out and senator murkowski speak, do you see g.o.p. cracks? do you see a party considering breaking away at the moment or not? >> i see two things. i see it affirming the decision of former republicans to stay former republicans and support joe biden or at least not vote for president trump. but i also do see it sort of sowing some doubtin a small pool who are perhaps still deciding who generally are

repuicans who are uasy for voting for a democrat, watching a democratic presidency for four years but really don't like president trump thatuc just aren't sure if they can support a democrat. i think when you have people like mattis put this in context of the country's security, i think it sort does give that sort of voter pause. and i would just add, bob, on senator murkowski, this to me is a viv illustration of what a fallacy it is to suggest thatt presidrump operates with some sort of grand strategy, the cliche is the sort of five-dimensional chess. this completelyov dis that. no political advisor let alone a g.o.p. senator would advise the sitting president to not only attack senator murkowski but threaten to run her out of the senate. trump.dn't say she was against but he was struggling with how

she was going to vote. he's an undecided voter, if you wi. the mos cherished person for typically ians and not the kind of voter that they threaten. and that's what president trump did. but not terribly surprising. robert: when i was talking to some republicans today on capitol hill, they said partf the reason to build onth jo's reporting that they're sticking with president trump is because of themy eco they see this jobs report that's improving. amna, there are still millions of americans unemploy. what's the reality for people of color in this country? >> it's still not a good picture. we've heard the president again talk about the fact that african-american unemployment numbers, latinot unemploym numbers under his presidency have been as good as they were, and they were. the pandemic changed everything. and as we are slowly starting to see especially in today's surprising numbers where we saw

some of those job numbers go back up, that's the way most recessions have ened in the united states reallyng one segment of the population more than the other. and that is white americans. for a the numbers for black americans that went up even though it went down for otherit comms. it nearly hit 20% for latino americans. and even among the trump voters that i've spon to, a i spoke to a lot in the lead-up to the 2016 election and the ones i they held their nose. d maybe they don't like his tweets. they don't want him weighing in on some of the issues he does. thhe were voting on economy, on their jobs, on the fact that it would help them. and they are asking themselves wquestions aboutther that is enough. robert: pierre, let's turn t what's happening in minnesota. we saw the images from the floyd

memorial. you see n charges now from the staterottorney general in that state, keith ellison. what's the nex step for the attorney general and the department of justice as they consider a civil right investigation? >> well, the state charges have been filed. investigation ongoing being conducted by the f.b.i. and they're doing what they call a color of law investigation, looking at whether those officers intentionally violated the civil rights of mr. floyd. d those are difficult cases to prove because you must get into the mind of the officers. part of the investigation will look at their background. what k of complaints were filed against them. but i must tell you, bob, that funeral was veryse poignant t because it reminded us of the origins of all this unrest, a man was held down for nearly nine minutes, white police officer, knee on his neck, knee

in his pocket lookings casual as if he were reading the newspaper. that has struck a cord in way -- it symbolizes all these case iwhere is african america particular have encountered police in routine situations and ended uly serio injured or dead. robert: pierre, such an important point becse soany change and the question is what does that change mean? and we're seeing paula, some new ideas proposed by joe biden and a federal boone chokeholds by police officers, calling for a national o policersight commission. is the white house focused on any criminalss justice at this moment to address racial across theountry? lice >> the white house has notiven specifics that they intend to issue.orward to addre this both the attorney general and the president have acknowledged this problem.

butheyon't say. eeds to be done what if you look at the administration especially using federal authority tosn gait practicesf racially bias policing, one statistic is that the previou three administrations, obama, clinton, bush, they opened nearly 70 int enforcementnc as. this administration has opened one and it was into a discretes in springfield, massachusetts. it appears that the trump justice department has not opened an investigation into this specific incident. when it comes to looking at systemic issues, it has not been a priority for this administration.hi now, administration will argue that they have done a lot for that community. they will point to criminal jissity reform, they will fund historically black colleges and university, but that moment, thisdministration is not

putting forth any specific policy ideas to aress the larger issues about disparities in the criminal jew tiss system. next for the black lives matter movement? what do ty wt? amna: i think none of us are in comes next. hat but in writing this cham chapte of history as it unfolds before us is we're seeing a movement like we've ever seen. this is not just about one man's death or one city's pain, this is about 400 years ofystems being used around racist ideas and all of that unfolding in an uprising across the country. you've seen the protests get bigger in cities that d you't expect about racial gaps, healthca, education, economy, every single part of our country is touched by this. and you're seeing this frustration pour out into the streets. it's about policing reform right now. that's maybe one of the eiest

place where is you can start to see some standards changed. but what t movement is about and as diverse and big as it iss itething much big ethan that. we'll have to wait and see what haens. robert: is ben running as healer-in-chief? >> i think that's the hope. as long as president trump keeps saying things like fodder to ill be think biden able to do that. robert: we've got to go. >> once we have a hd-to-head campaign at this summer or fall does this narrative shift -- robe: this is a shorter show than usual due to the pledge week at most stations. make sure to support them. and jonathan martin, amna nawaz, paula reid, andma pierre t thank you for joining us. we'll keep taking you as close to the news as we can. the extra, we'll continue our conversation. it airs on our facebook.

for now, i'm robert costa. good night from washington. [captioning performed by the national captioninicinstitute, is responsible for its caption content and accuracy.visit ncicap.org] >> corporate funng for "washington week" is provided by -- >> life isn't a straight line, and sometimes you can find yourself heading in a new direction. fidelity is here to help you work through the unexpectediaith fina planning in place for today and tomorrow. announcer: kaiser permanente. additional funding is provided by the estate of arnold adams and koo and patricia yuen, through the yuen foundation, committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities.

the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs thank you.om viewers like you. >> you're watching pbs.

captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening, i'm judy woodruff. welcome to this pbs newshour special, "race matters: america in crisis." >> i can't breathe! i can't breathe!