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tv   PBS News Hour  PBS  July 2, 2020 3:00pm-4:01pm PDT

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captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening, i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonigh feeling the pain-- a rise in covidns infectorces closures and job losses, and threatens the economic recovery that was starting to get underway. race and politics-- at a time of reckoning in the u.s., how what tensions and highlight division. and, manufacturing for the moment-- a nr-bankrupt textile company changes its businessth model to meet e demand for sorely needed protective material for healthcare workers. >> there isn't an tfrastructure united states that is capable of building even 10% of the medical products that we need today. >> woodruff: all that and more tonight's pbs newshour.
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>> major funding for the pbs newshour has been providedy: >> when the world gets complicated, a lot goes through your mind. with fidelity wealth managemente a dediadvisor can tailor advice and recommendations to your life.y that's fidelitalth management. >> the kendeda fund. committed to advancing restorative justice and meaningful work through investments transformative aders and ideas. more at kendedafund.org.
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>> carnegie corporation of new york. education, democraions in engagement, and the advancement of international peace and security. at carnegie.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: d individuals. >> this progm was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: the covid-19 pandemic has surged to new highs, as the u.s. recorded more than 50,000 new cases in a sing day. infections have spiked in 40 of 50 states. one of those states is florida,
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which set a new daily record today with more than 10,000 new cases.go rnor ron desantis insisted florida is equipped to handle the crisis. >> if you go back to march when we faced the initial wave of this you know we had very few tests relative to what we have now, now hospitals tests for anmeyone that in for something they can test, between the state we're doing between ten to 15,000 tests a day at all the different sites. >> woodruff: also today, texas governor greg abbott issued a statewide order that face masks must be worn in public in counties with more than 20 navirus cases. that amounts to nearly 75% of all the state's counti he'd previously insisted the government couldn't order people toear masks. there are more signs of economic the labor department reported the u.s. economy added 4.8
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million jobs in june. and the nation's unemployme rate fell to 11.1%. but that recovery may be short- lived now that a surge in covids 19 casesriggered a new wave of closures. even so, president trump remained optimistic. >> 80% of small businesses are now open, 80% and we thi we're gonna have some very good numbers in the coming months because others are opening. especially as we put the flame out, we're getting rid of the flame that's happening. >> woodruff: there are still nearly 15 million fewer jobs in june than there were back in february, before the pandemic meanwhile, the presumptive joe biden id americans wouldnee be better off had the president taken swifter action againstco >> we're still in job hole because donald trump has so badly bungled the response to
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coronaviru and now has basically given up on responding at all. you know a million more americans, a million of them, would ill have a job if donald trump had done his job. >> woodruff: we'll tcloser look at today's jobs numbers after the news summary. the upbeat employment report boosted stocks on wall street today. the dow jones industrial average climbed 92 points to close at 25,8. the nasdaq rose 53 points, and the s&p 500 added 14. the supreme court today agreed to hear whether the house of representatives caaccess secret grand jury material from sp'sial counsel robert muell russia probe. the trump administration had appealed a lower courts' order for the documents to bturned over to the democratic- controlled house. today's move means congress won't likely see the documents until after november's election.
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the supreme court also ordered lower courts to reconsider two cases stemming from restrictive abortion laws in indiana, that had previously been blocked by courts. one required women to get an ultrasound before the procedure. the other expanded parental tifications when minors seek an abortion. the move comes just days afterhi th court struck down a louisiana law that regulatedli abortioncs. a new york judge ruled overnigho that a tell-al by president trump's niece can move forward. lthe decision overturneder court's temporary hold. the president's brother had suet to storelease, arguing it would violate a familyy confidentialreement. but now the book will be published later this month. in myanmar, rescue workers covered the bodies of mo adan 160 people who died in a landslide at a je mine. heavy rain caused a heap ofc mining waste tollapse into a
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lake. the wave of mud engulfed scores of freelance mins scavenging the area. thspoorly-regulated jade mi in myanmar's northern kachin state are the most lucrative in the world. a building caught fire at iran's natanz nuclear plant today. u.s.-based analysts told the associated press they believe the site was a new centrifuge production facility. the underground plant is used to enrich uranium. iranian officials insisted there wasn't major damage or radiation leaks. and, a passing to note. broadcast veteran hugh downs died of natural causes wednesday at his home in scottsdale, arizona. his career spanned seven decades, and included co- anchoring nbc's "today" c ow and the wsmagazine "20/20". he also hosted the pbs series "over easy" and "live from hugh downs was 99 old.
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still to ce on the newshour: a rise in covid infections threatens the economic recovery folling the original outbrea hong kong continues to reel from the chinesgovernment's imposition of a new security law. the president's rhetoric stokes tensions amid a racialning in the u.s. and much more. >> woodruff: today's positive jobs numbers seem to indicate a strengthening economy, as businesses across the country re-opened in june, as restrictions on social distancing and other safety how do we re-start the economy without re-invigating the pandemic?
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we explore that now with paul romer, a nobel prize-winning economist who has been closely d on just these questionssi e the outbreak began. the paul, welcome back to thet newshour, so talk about today's jobs report. some people are focusing on the positive saying yes 4.8 million new jobs in the month of june, others a pointing out but h were still many millions behind where we were before this all started. how do you read these new numbers? >> well, you got it right in the earlier introduction of this issue. employment is still down by about 15 million people. last month it was down by about 21 million. by 15 million than by 21 million, but it is still pretty terrible. it is the worst labor market in my life. >> woodruff: and of course all this as we know, paul romer taking place a the covid cases are starting to spike, to surge back up again.
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what is that portend for the economy erall? you have businesses that were getting started, opening up,op who were thinking i am going back to work and now this has happened.wh could this mean for the economy? >> well, it is clearly showing that we are not on a sustainable path, and trying to describe what we are doin it is as if imagine some gremlins turned all of our cars, not all of them bu a lot of cars into time bombs so we drive our cars and they blow up and kill us so we have a lockdown, nobody drives. and then everybody says well,ow you we have to drive, we have to get back out there, so then you srt driving, well, we will only drive to the grocery store and we will only drive on tuesday but that cars blow up d people keep dying. the thing you have to do is figure out which are the carsti that arme bombs, it is only a small portion of them, and then somehow fix them so they don't keep blowing us up. so we just keep thinking if we are driving on tuesday or driving to the grocery store we are not going to get blown up but we are not addressing the
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fundamental problem. we should using tests o figure out who is infectious and then isolate them, then everybody else would be safe. >> woodruff: and i know youi have been aadvocate of testing, you have been talking about that, writing about that,u in the meantime while we are at what, half a million tests a day, roghly, in this country, trying to get more, but we are not there yet, in the mentime, what are businesses to do? what are people to do who are thinking, okay, am i going to be open? am i going to be closed? will i have a job or am i not? what effect is this uncertainty having on what we face? >> i mean, the first thing is, there is a way to get much more -- get many more people tested with the capacity we have. it is this idea of pooling tests. and dr. fauci and others have been annocing talking about this in the last week,e need to move ahead with this, just full steam ahead. and then we also need to recognize that some of the
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sophisticated players here, like thicstanford med school and cornell university, what are they doing? they are saying, we are going to test everybody when we reopen because that's the way to keep ourselves safe. and in their case they can just ignore what the cdc says, which unhelpful. you know, biz they just ignore it, but unfortunately far too many people are listening to the cdc on this, and the cdc says don't test. >> woodruff: so you put yourselves, paul romer, in the shoes of say someone who owns a small business or someone wh honing they can go to work or stay at work, and they are trying to make a calculated decion. i want to go back twork. i want to open my business but i have got to be worried about health. how are they able to make these decisions with any sense of certainty right now? >> well, it is really tough when the sophisticated players are sayingonou can't relthe cdc, so it is very hard i think for anybody to know wh to do.
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i will tell you what i do. i mean, one fresh air is very good. in closed spaces with people who might be infectious, very bad. >> woodruff: so you are speaking for restaurants and any kind of work that can -- could be done outside, of course not all work can be done that way. another thing want to ask you about, paulomer, the fact we see in these numbers once again individuals, people of color, people with less than a college education are facing a much tougher job picture than everybody else. is this just something we are destined to have with us for a long time to come? >> on the curnt course, the cbo is predicting we will get back to where -e were befor- where we would have been if the pandemic hadn't hit and get bach e by 2028. so if we keep doing what we ago doing, it isg to be a very long, slow recovery, and the
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people who -- in the most disadvantaged will be the ones who suffer the most. kids are not going to be able to get an education this fall. >> woodruff: you mean in terms of getting back to where w o would haerwise been if it that's a long timeit.pandemic, >> it is. it is a terribly long time, but the d thing is, is that if we could just do enough testing to find out the rohly 2 million people who are infected right now, quarantine them for two or three weeks, the pandemic would come to a screeching halt. this is all we need to do is figure out who ecis ind, get them into ice isolation, the pandemic comes to a screeching halt and we just need to have the commitment to just start doing it. >> woodruff: very tight nnection between business, between jobs and the economy and finding out who has ths covid infection and then dealing with it. >> absolutely. >> woodruff: paul romer, thank
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you very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: >> woodruff: now, to hong kong, where today the city reeled from the effect of a new national security law imposed yesterday by the central governm beijing. after nearly a quarter century of relative freedom, there is an new realitong kong. ted there's a new reality, too, for the united sas it deals with the rising power of china. here's nick schifrin. >> schifrin: judy, there is not much that republicans and democrats in congressgree on. but since just last night, both the house d the senate passed a piece of legislation unanimously. >> take a listen to republican senator pat toomey, democrat senator chris van haul. >> several years from now we will will look back on july 1st of 2020 as a milestone in the
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chinese communt party's aggression and hostility tward hong kong. >> i hope that president trumpig willn this immedtely, immediately as a country, republicans and democrats together need to send a strong signal. >> those are the >> schifrin: the hong kong autonomy act requires the administration to punish chinese government officials involved in what congress calls the crackdown on hong kong's autonomy: the erosioof the city's british-era rule of law, and restrictions on the freedom of speech. it requires sanctions on any banks who do business with those individuals. talk about the act, beijing's national security legislation,er and this leaves u.s.-china relations, i'm joined by susan shirk. she was a top statrtment asia official during the clinton administration. she's now chair of the twentch first centura center at the university of california san
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diego. >> susan shirk, welcome back to the newshour, bottom line, can tha kind of act ge chinese behavior? >> no, it won.'t this xi jinping will not reverse this at o i don't think anything that the world can do at this point will cause him to st down. he has been determined to stamp out any threats in what is china, because hong ng is part of china, any threats to chinese comist partyule and to his rule. and he appears to be willing to pay a high price to do that. he will payri a high in terms of his reputation, china's reputation as a responsible power, and i think heu will spr
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a global coalition to condemn china, cosndemn thi action, but i see ecno pro of any flexibility on his part. >> the specific actions that senior administration officials i talked to that believe that they can somehow change chinesee behavior incwo things, one, sanctioning senior chinese officials and, two kind of reaching out to civil society in hong kong too at thest very le give them access to the united states. can either of those actions help? >> yes. i definitely favor the approach of sanctioning chinese officials responsible for the end of the one country, two systems hong kong autonomy. that's a much better approach than changing our treatment of esng kong, which is what
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ent trump earlier said he would do, which for ars we have treated hong kong separately as a separate customs regulations, trade status, and various other types of cooperation, even more i think we need to strengthen our ties with with with hong kong cil society, universities, ngo's and even think we ought to join with the uk and with japan andiw . these countries are offering to take in basically political refugees from hong kong. >> i want to zoom out bit.ttle the national security legislation that beijing hason impose hong kong is sweeping, anyone can be arrested and iled for talking about separating hong kong from beijing, from anyone who gets any kind of support from foreign
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country, even quote provokes hatred of beijing. what is the legislation itself say about the nature of the government in beijing? >> well, it does give us-- it is so heavy handed, it is so vague, s poorly drafted, so expansive, including a kind of global scope. you don't have to be a hong kong citizen to be punished under this law. so it is so over the top that what it really tells us is that xi jinping is a very different type of chinese leader than his predecessors. evious leaders were willing to top rate -- tolerate hong kong autonomy because they had kong as an important place for b
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finance and trade to help the development of the chinese economy. now, xi jinping has signaled us, she willing to sacrifice all of that in order to prevent any threat to the power of the party and to himslf in china. and i think he may actually really believe that all of the pro democra sentiment, the millions of people who are out on the reein hong kong, the people who voted for pro democracy legislators in the local elections a few months agh are so doing that because of foreign subversion.at i mean, ts a ludicrous idea, but it apears that xi jinping may actually believe it. >> if you don't mindsamy ing, some of the language you are using right now sounds a little different from what i have heard and read from you over the
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years. e ofhave been a long advoc more engagement with beijing. have you rethought that? well, i have to confess that yesterday i was questioning a lot of my prior assumptions about wha kind of rising power china is. i had been an advocate of trying to compete with china, but also to engage diplomatically with china in order te o resor mo a serious disputes, but not sure how you deaitl h xi jinping's regime and i am rethinking a lot of my premises out what -- how the united states should really deal with this type of regime. >> sus shirk, thank very much. >> thankou. >>
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when the u.s. is facing crises on multiple fronts, presidenttr p continues to use language that stokes controversy and racial division. yamiche alcindor reports. >> we begin, we begin our campaign. >> alcindor: racist tweets. derogatory terms and a president diing on culture wars. on sunday, president trump retweeted a video of supporters at a retirement community in florida. one man can be heard chanting the white supremacist slogan" white power." >> whiteower! white power! >> alcindo president deleted the tweet. but the damage was already done. a campaign spokespern said mr. trump "did not hear the one statement on that video." i an name, "kung flu."r: >> alcinritics warn the use of the term "kung flu," w
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twice in as maks, provokes xenophobia and racism against asian americans, who are already experience an uptick in racist attacks against them. and in the wake of national protests on racism and police violence... >> no justice! no pce! >> alcindor: ...he has retweeted incidents of violence carried out by black americans agains. white americ meanwhile, the president has also championed monumes of nfederate generals. >> alcindor: ...and advocated for prosecuting the protestors who >> long-term jail sentences for these vandals and these hoodlums d these anarchists and agitators. >> alcindor: eddie glaude is the african american studies department chairt princeton university. what is so offensive about that for people who, maybe don't get it? >> when we read a particular eiperson, a specific human as a thug, we're saying there's something inheres in that person that is aligned with criminality. policed and contaid have to be
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constrained. at the end of the day, what we're seeing here is a kind of white naonalist politics making itsay into the mainstream and an unadulterated way. >> alcindor: stoking racial vides is not new for mr. trump, going back to his entry into politics, says michael gerson. geon served as chief speechwriter for president george w. bush.e >> sople think it's more authentic to have the president. speak on impul i think when president lincoln wis putting togeth the second inaugural addres great care and craft in thralanguage and content, that that's what real authenticity is. it's putting thought into it's putting craft into something. your mere impulse is not rhetoric. it's just impulse. >> i'm voting against donald trump more so than i am for joe den. >> alcindor: onika ellis does not identify with either litical party, but she says donald trump's words make him impossible to support.
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>> he's been more concerned about the monuments and the statues than he is about the flesh and blood. we are in dire crisis. this is not the time to try to incite people. people already angry. people are upset. people are anxious. they don't know what to do. and he's just stoking the fire. >> alcindor: in a recent fox news poll, less than a third of biden voters said enthusiasm for biden was driving their support, while more than 60% said it was fear of president trump's rselection that motivated them. among trump vo the opposite result. >> i find his rhetoric as raw as it is. i, i value that. >> alcindor: schume' navomro entennial, colorado originally voted for donald trump to reject hillary clinton. but she says the last three years ha support.inforced her >> he's a firecracr. and i have enjoyed what he has been tearing down in terms of the cesspool swamp, if you will, of
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our government. >> trump's not perfect. but the things he's trying to do gr us, i think, is as close to perfect as you c. >> alcindor: joyce skelton, a republican from datexas, agrees. >> i mean, the you're blaming trump for what's happening in the race relations. that picture is so much bigger and we need to all look at thatc >>dor: glaude says the bigger picture is that trump is using race to stoke fear like many republican leaders before him. >> i think the idea of appealing to whiteesentment and white cheers, drawing on a particular understanding of america as fundamentally white, that that language has been a part of republican strategy since i remember rememberin right. it's been a part of my political reality ever since i became aware of american politics. so he sits somewhere in the
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spectrum between ronald reagan and george wallace, maybe closer >> alcindor: but recent polling consistently sho there may be a shift in some of president trump's supporters. a recent "new york times"/ siena college survey found that almost half of self conservative" voters and more than two-thirds of moderate voters disapproved of his handling of the protests. >> it's just become where i just don't really feel like i belong in the republican party anymore. >> alcindor: one of those moderates is david meyer of willmar, minnesota.ed he vor donald trump in 2016, but will back biden in the fall. >> you've just seen so t of the thint he's done in some of the words thate said. and it's just been incredibly divisive and it's just gotten worse. >> alcindor: gary smith of reno, nevada also calls himself a" moderate." de will vote again for pre trump, but wishes he would work on his rhetoric. >> but i think it you know, whoever advises him or attempts to advise him should be trying to trainim about racial sensitivities and how to
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communicate, especially as the president, you know, we were supposed to hold them to a higher standard. and it really doesn't meet that standard. >> alcindor: but that standard >> i won't traffic in fear and division. >> alcindor: the bidenpaign has seized on president trump's handling of the protests in digital ads and this week, biden argued he was the candidate to unite the country. >> when a golf cart goes by yelling white supremacy, and the do something like that., don't bring the country together.>> lcindor: with president trump's inflammatory rhetoric driving away some moderaers, noves shaping up to be a final test of his strategy. for a closer look at how presidt trump's rhetoric, as well as his response to coronavirus, is resonating across the country, i'm joined c is buskirk. he is the editor of the conservative journal and web- site "american greatness." he joins us from phoenix. d cynthia tucker. she is a pulitzer prize winning columnist and the journalist-in- residence at the univeabity of south a.
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>> thank you so much to both of you for being here. sin, i can'tly start with you n the last few aeks we herd the president talk about a number of thgs, confederate 0 monuments. >> what is the take away and how this is resonating with votersco across thentry and of course out in alabama where you are? >> well, trump is still heavily favored to win in alabama, and across the deep south. he is very poular in the deep south. i have to tell you, though, that am still disappointed in his campaign and a little surprised he is running his second ran his first, as the heir to george wallace, ane her alabama as a native of alabama, the rhetoric is unfortunately familiar. all of wallace's rage and a resentmed racism are clear in the president rhetoric. and while that appeals to his a
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ba minority of whites who are racially resentful, it does nothing to eand -- to winning coalition for november. so it is odd to me that the president is running into -- in defecoe of ederate mounts. >> chris, i want to put something up on the screen for you because cynthia is saying the president is running on white resentment if you look at what the president tweeted just this week, new york mayor is going to paint a big black lives matter 0, desecrating this avenue. maybe the police won't let this symbol of hate be painodd ten street. what black lives matter as a a symbol of hate? >> yes. i saw that tweet, and here is the wayi understand it. here is what i think the prident is trying to basically separate the idea that there is a sanctity behind black lives, in other words, that all black
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-- all black life is sacred, and he is trying to separate that from the organization or the corporation called black lives matter. hes doing that for a reason, because the organization has these ideas and you can sme the on their website, they say we want to disrupt the nuclear c family, era. and so what he is trying to do, i think, is separate the moral sentiment that people should suort from the corporation and then do a second thing, which is to draw a contrast between the police and between that, organizatid by doing that i think that she hoping to run a campaign that is sort of like a w and order campaign,which i know sometimes is a charged sentiment or a charged phse, but when you think about the states that president trump needs to win sort of in the upper midwest and even here in ars, arizona, states he absolutely has to carry, most ople think about jusi just don't want the targets to burn. they think i want to go back to fe. we had lockdowns and coronavirus and protests and how do we get
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back to normalcy and i think president trump is trying to run on getting to some type of a normal life. >> well, if he is trying to make a distinction between the organized group black lives matter and some other view ofbl k lives, it is not at all clear in a tweet thas t sayblack lives matter is a hate group. you know, just two years ago, most americans wer toppos black lives matter. it wasn't that broly popular. now that so many americans saw of george floyd and many, many other videos of police violence, black lives matr is popular. and most americansport police reform. >> and cynthia, people are notre justponding to president
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trump's issues and his restonse he protests they are also responding to his handling of the coronavirus pandemi how are you seeing concerns played out in alabama? >> well, again, president trump remains broadly popular here, but people are vey concerned about the coronavirus. alabama is one of those states where the case numbers are rising. when i go to the grry store, when i go out, i see many, many people wearing masks. when i return to my classes at e university of south alabama in august, the school is going require students to wear masks. will that annoy some students? absolutely. there will be students who won't want to wear themasks. they have taken their queues
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from the president cues from the president who s insisted that people wear masks because they don't like him. they wear sks because they want to show that they are opposed to him, that is ndnonsense. >> president trump has resisted wearing a mask in public, chris. lyou went to a ra in phoenix and you yourself didn't wear a mask. how concerned are you about the split station of mask wearing? you know, i guess i would have answer that question differently a week ago. i was a little worried about it but now, mostly for practical reasons because what- d i am in arizona and everybody i think knows the story of the rising caseload, you know, positive tests here in arizona, an arizona ans i think, i don't know were sort of split on this issue but what i have seen is people sort of coming around to wearing masks, even people who i know just personally who were very much against it even a week or two ago d said look this
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is what it takes to get back to living our lives and being able to go out, to restaurants or go to work or to get schls open, i may not agree with it 100 percent, but fine i am going to do it because -- whether or not i believe in it, it is just practical matter.so i feel likeh was almost becoming like a tribgnified for people, i feel like that tied tied is receding right now. >> thank you so much, sin sin and chris buskirk. >> thank you. >> >> >> woodruff: the child sex abuse case agait disgraced financier jeffrey epstein took a new turn today with the arres ghislaine maxwell, his longtime confidante, companion,nd now accused accomplice. as john yang reports, survivors
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ofdbuse by epstein, who kil himself in jail last year, may now be able to face her in court. >> yang: judy, maxwell was arrested earlyhis morning in southern new hampshire. a grand jury recentlreturned a sealed indictment charging her with recruiting and grooming underage girls, some as young as 14, for epstein. actingew york u.s. attorney audrey strauss detailed the indictment. >> maxwell enticedinor girls, got them to trust her, then delivered them into the trap that she and epstein had set for them. she pretended to be woman they could trust, all the while she es setting them up to be sexually abused tein and in some cases, by maxwell herself. >> yang: late this afternoonde l magistrate in new hampshire ordered maxwell into the custody of u.s. marshals to be taken to new york. ere, the government will ask a
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bacourt to hold her withou, saying she's "an extreme flight risk." ben wieder is an investigative reporter in mclatchy newspapers washington, d.c., bureau who has worked on the "miami herald's"nn award-g investigation of epstein. >> ben, thanks so much for joining us. it has been a while sice this story has been in the headlines, so how, remind people, who ghislaine maxwell is and who she was in jeff grenfield's -- jeffrey epstein's life. >> ghislaine maxwell was jeffrey epstein's partner in both a personal way andffectively sort of a business way, depending on how you look at it. she was by his si for decades and the public face they presented was, you know, two people in the highest are a reaches of society, ingling with, you know, members of the british royal family, with the h rrent prewisident former presidents, witprominent people all across society, but at the same time, what we havene
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leis that she also held a role asfe ctively as th madam, finding young girls to tisfy epstein's sexual desires and some of the gils later alleged directing some oose girls to actually have stakes with some of the prone friends that epstein had in his circle. >> we heard audrey strauss sort charges, what specifically ise the -- does the indictment say thataxwell did? >> the indictment says that maxwell basically, the term they use is groomed, that she sort of coziederself up to young girls, sought them out, cozied up to them and had a process in normalizing them to the idea of sexual activity, that might mean, you know, getting undressed in front of them. basilly taking them from conversations about benign issues such as, you know, what is going in their lie, how they were doing at school, to then getting them comfortable
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with th idea of sexual activity, ultimately to deliver them to epstein and in one of the three victims that are mentioned in the charges today, maxwell is actually accused of participating in the sexual activity herself.n >> audrey strauss, the affecting u.s. attorney in new york hadhe intriguing tidbit that this case is being led by the puic corruption unit in her office. what do you make of tt? you know, any number of things to speculate. one of the things we havhee d from legal experts is it raises questions ofy whether tare pursuing the prosecutors who originally gave epstein his sort of sweetheart deal more than a decade ago that led to a very unusually lenient sentence against epstein for the crimes he was accused of committing at the time. the u.s. attorney in sounth florida who led that was the former labor secretary who
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resigned soon after reports came out raising questions about the deal tha t hed okayed. >> so there has been g?eculation, is he someone who they are target but also we know that any number of prominent people were in epstein's circle and have been alleged ve participated in the activities that he was ultimately chard with an ms. maxwell has also been charmed with. >> publicly there has be a lot of sort of speculation about maxwell's whereabouts during this period, during theig inveion after epstein committed suicide in a new yor jail. what is the fbi been saying about how they were keeping tabs on her? >> so they said they discreetly were watching her. they were keeping an eyen r. he is would pop up here and there, you know, at int attract add lot of attention when she popped up at a location the popular california burger chain in and out burger in a very intriguing photo. and the ter they used today was that they learned she hadre
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slitaway to this property in new hampshire where she was ultimately apprehended and at some point after she had done, thich they later said was in december, they ultimately decided to gin and actually arrest her and bring her in. >> epstein's suicide, of course, deniedfthe survivors this abuse of confronting him in court but what is going on now with tie civil suts against epstein's estate? >> so the civil suits are proceeding and there is a victims fund that is bei overseen to give some degree of compention to victims for th suffering they faced. there are a number of ongoing suits at this time. and i think, you knhat we heard from attorneys representing victims today is th they were very relieved to see the charges brought against maxwell and in some cases are hoping that maxwell is not the last person who faces chaforges these alleged activities. >> ben wied of mclatchy
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newspapers dc bureau, thank you so much. >> thank you. >> >> >> woodruff: before the pandemic, transformations in manufacturing changed american life. covid-19 is now delivering a new blow, but paul solman reports on how one nearly two-century-old family business is working to turn that around. it's part of our weekly economics series, making sense.r orter: business resurgent in fall ver, massachusetts, at founded back in 1838.acturing, >> this is the first overlock machine. merrow created the first overlock machines in the late 1800s, >> reporter: 120 years later, 8th generation owners charlie merrow and his brother owen tr, d to revive the business an industry with a proud pastse and moribund p. >> the first thing people see is
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how much history there is. ond the first thing i will tell somebody is thatof that pays the bills. >> reporter: the merws' bright idea was to sew electronic components, simple ones, into clothing for the military and apparel makers. e d then along came covid. how vulnerable wu as a business? >> complely exposed. having to shut the facility down completely and not knowing whether we were gonna be able to open again. after closing, your revenues, they disappear. to reopen requires capitalizing your company again, meeting a payroll without any without any income. it was terrifying.ep >> rter: meanwhile, the whole country was terrified, and especially of course hospital workers, like nurse jacqui anom> t's literally frightening when you walk in there and if you're spending half your brainpower worrying about if you're going to die, you're not concentrating on the patient. >> reporter: because they didn't even have the most basic personal protective equipment: masks and gowns. >> it was a disaster. >> reporter: but one that
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merrow, with its 500 sewing machines and know-how ers, was uniquely poised to address. >> after shutting the business down with our health teams working, working to clean thed facility up r design teams, building prototypes, it became clear.ug ththe phone that started to ring that this product was needed so desperately that if we wereble to build it, we woul get orders behind it. business within days to makethe medical gowns. >> we're building 100,000 to 150,000 gowns a day now. >> reporter: it's now the nation's biggest producer of them. we're wearing its masks. >> this is a new mask. and we'll probably scale it up to 25,000. >> reporter: and, as merrow told congressman joe kennedy, he's all in. >> we put in aid to build 40 million gowns in fall river over the next six months. it's aig deal. >> 40 million? >> we've got the plan for it, i've got the fabrics for it. >> reporter: politicians both near and far are inter merrow's phone rang during our interview. >> i thought this was off. i have a call today with the g canadiernment.
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>> reporter: wait, that call just now was the canadian government? >> it was. a >> reporte what did they want? >> they want to have asi disc about how to build a technical manufacturing of medical goods that'll survive for two, three, four years.or >> rr: because canada may be realizing something critics of american business have bemoan for decades: the offshoring of manufacturing, which saves money short term, but comes at a prohibitive, in this case fatal, long term price. >> there isn't an infrastructure in the united states that isin capable of buieven 10% ofod the medical pructs that we need today. >> reporter: not the factories, not the know-how. stin fact, 80% of the simp protective equipment was sourced from chi and southeast asia. >> part and parcel with moving manufacturing to centers outside of united states is moving the, desie development, the pattern making, the engineering of products outside of the ited states, which is fine. global trade is an important part of our of our healthy,al hey economy. however, without those skill sets local, it makes it much
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harder to ale anything up. >> reporter: that's why merrow, one of the textile industry's survivors, was so desperately needed. >> it has been two months of 18 hour days and every singen day has been. you have to remember, the demand for these gowns is in the millions. peop need them tomorrow. there are calls every single day from providers who don't have them, that are wearing trash bags. we paid employees to be here twice their salaries to work here until late at night. and every single daye worked at that at the very edge of our limit, there isn't anything i've >> the hours was crazy for a while! i was exhausted. >> reporter: while distancing, while disinfecting, while masked. do you like wearing a mask? >> no, not really. it's it's tough. sometimes it's difficult to breathe. >> reporter: but it'll get easier, presumably. meanwhile, the mostly-portuguese immigrant workforce, all of them legal, emphasizes charlie merrow, takes home on average more than $17 and hour plus benefits.
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merrow has addjo about 50 new bs already and expects to create another couple red by year's end. >> we have no control what's g in the world and doing this, this type of work makes us epfeel good. >>ter: now, merrow is not alone in its pivot to p.p.e. production. shoe company new bal shaving brand gillette, car companies ford and gm, and, many, many more manufacturers are for the moment stepping up, stepping in.bu charlie merrownsists his is a sea-change shift. >> at the expense of taking short term business in we signed long tercontracts because this is the only way, in my opinion, for us to justify infrasucture investments, which is at we need in order for this p.p.e. problem to not be a supply >> reporter: one t that's happened during my reportorial lifetime has been the move from >> yes. se to just in time. >> reporter: no warehousing of anything. is there going to be a sea change, do you think, in how american business does businesst >> this beginning of understanding how vulnerable we
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are to our ports closing. the business of building things is going to be a function of national security in addition to ease and access. >> reporter: are we moving back from just in time to just in case l? >> no, not yet. i thinthat if that if the covid crisis fades from our consciousness, that the industry will quickly go back to waiting for waiting for imported products to show up and not solving any problems. >> reporter: but merrow, for one, plans to produce p.p.e. here for years to come. paul solman, in fall river, massachusetts. >> woodruff: throughout the yndemic, we've profiled m frontline workers, whose jobs have been emed essential. tonight's brief but spectacular introduces us to savoya taylor. she works as a line-worker for
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com ed, which powers chicago and much of northern illinois. taylor is the company's first female overhead electrokian and she to us about her work and her family. >> just imagine this pandemic without electricity.ev ybody was running out to the grocery stores, with no electricity you have nowhere to store that grocery.ev no tion, no cell phones. we are definitely called first responders in our position.ic so we're bly the first ones out there. i work on the north side of chicago, and also part of the west side. this was definitely not the ying, oh, i'm to be aninon electricia i'm the only lady. the guys treat me well. they treat me as if i'm one of their own. it's an amazing position to be in.
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actually my whole household, we're all essential workers. i have a daughter. she wos for the company as well. she works for customer service and i have another daughter. she works at a restaurant. i also have a son at home. er was diagnosed with hodgkin's lymphoma in novemy 12 year old son. it's days my son wants to just be right up under me and i'm like, give me a second. let me get out of these othes, shower, it's just hard when you got a young child at home that wants to love and hug all over his mother and his sisters and stuff. and we just trying to keep a imod distance just to keep safe. to be out here working every day and not knowing if i'm going to contract this illness or not, i definitely h try to not bring it home to him. and it's days where his strength en't up and he had to do chemo and everything.
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these types of diagnosis is hard on adults,o just imagine a 12 yearld boy that don't even understand, like why me? sked me that. why me? and i didn't even have an answer. i just told him that things happen to people sometimes, but just continue to be strong and that's on our web site, pbs do we'll get through it. he inspired as so much. hehown me that you just can't give up. i worked really hard to be here. and i'm opening up, trying to be positive for a lot more ladies to come behind me. inand i'm also trying to ty youngest daughter how to do what i'm doing and teaching her how to climb. she wants follow into my footsteps. so that really mes me proud. my name is savoya taylor. this is my brief but spectacular take on empowering my family and my community. >> woodruff: and you can find
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all of our brief but spectacular segments online at pbs.org/newshour/brief. and before we go, an update to the ventilator challenge story john yang reported on tuesday. the winner of the "covent-19 challenge" to build a cheaper, easy-to-use ventilator has been announced. it's a team from smith college in massachusetts. they won for their design of a simplified, cost-effective ventilator. team of mostly women went from knowing nothing about ventilators to having a fully functional prototype. now, we explore how president trump is rolling back environmental regulations as the november election nears. th's on our web site,. pbs.org/newsho and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff.
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join us online and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you, please stay safe, and see you soon. >> major fundi for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> since our beginning, our business has been people, an their financial wesibeing. that m gives us purpose, and a way forward. today, and always. >> the alfred p. sloan foundathon. driven bpromise of great ideas.
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>> and with the ongoing support of these institutionsan friends of the newshour. >> this program was made possible by the corporatbln for broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. at the "pbs newshour" we have a long tradition of reporting on the events that define our new times have led us to find new ways to ado wht we do best. now more than ever, we seek answers to the tough questions. >> the united states is still get you inf you canancht and trust. >> we are the pbs network. >> weeknights on pbs. >>
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>> ptioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org
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>> hello, everyone, and welcome to "amanpour & co." here's what's coming up. withhe u.s. in retreat, syria's assad regime pounds the rebel's last holdout. we talk to top humanitarian jan egeland about the civilian exodus. and "parasite," the south korean movie that made history at the oscars. we talk to film critics, a.o. scott and karen han. plus... >> i saw a tweet that i thought was about me, buit wasn't. it was about a guy who had my same name, and it turned outuy thatas detainee 244 at guantanamo bay. e.>> ...a bizarre coincide radiolab's latif nasser discovers a prisoner with the same name inside guantamo bay. he and journalist carol rosenberg talk to our hari sreenivasan.
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