captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening, i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight, one on one-- i ask u.s. senate majoritm leader mitonnell about congress' struggle to extend 9onomic relief from covid and more. then, technically speaking-- leaders of amazon, ale, facebook and google faceru congressional ny over whether they have too much power in american life. plus, trump and russia questions arise over the president's deferential behavior toward vladimir putin despite a russiamilitary unit paying taliban fighters to kill u.s. soldiers. and, economic si effects-- many covid-19 patients develop secondary infections at a time when the pharmaceutical industry struggles with an increase in

tibiotic-resistant bacteria. >> this need to have a robust antibiotics has reever been greater. >> woodruff: all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding fhe pbs newshour has been provided by: >> supporting social entrepreneurs and their solutions to the world's most pressing problems-- skollfoundion.org.

>> the lemelson foundation. committed to improving lives through invention, in the u.s. and developing countries. on the web at lemelson.org. >> supported by the john d. md catherine arthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfou.org >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers lu. thank you. >> woodruff: the nation's toll " frvid-19" has reached a w high, passing 150,000 dead day. but hopes for a new relief package have fallen to n lows, with federal jobless benefits and eviction protections ending this weekend.en

prestrump already branded a trillion-dollar republican bill as emi-irrelevant." today, he dismissed democrats' $3 trillion bill as a big bailout for cities. each side blamed the other for the impasse. >> it seems like senator schumer and speaker pelosi are very content on allowing things to expire and try to use them as leverage to extract other democrat wish list items. >> the republicans don't even have a bill that the senate republican conference uniformly supports. the president said it's semi irrelevant. what is there to negotiate? they have put forth a fiction of a response.nw >> woodruff: mle, another member of congress has come down the virus. texas republican louis gohmert

tested positive at the white house today and cancelled plans to fly to texas with the president. gohmert passed close by attorney house hearing yesterday.side a barr was getting tested today, as a precaution. with democrats and republicans dided oney issues and time coronavirus relief bill before benefits expire, congressional leaders met with the white house today to find a path forward. to shed light on where things stand, i'm joined by senate majority leader mitch mcconnell. mr. majority leader, thank you very much for joining us. the chief of staff at the white house, mark meadows has justt said in the law minutes that they are no where close to a deal between the two sides on covid relief. given the division among republicans, machines of your own party, does that mean theseo benefits addl unemployment benefits are going to lapse on friday? >> i certainly hope not. neither side would li for that

to happen. you know, many a thingsund here happen at the last minute. this is only wednesday. so h,e springs eternal it will reach some kd of agreement ther on a brought basis or more narrow basis to avoid having adverse impact on unemployment. >> woodruff: speaking of a nor narrow basis our lisa desjardins reported like 20 members of your republican caucus have problemwith the proposal, the larger republican proposal that you outlined theay other, given that, are you seriously looking at some st of slim down short term deal here?>> e're looking at all options of course the secretary munchin and chief of staff mark meadows are doing -- negotiating withat the demo. you're right about 20 of my members think we've already done enough. they a deeply concerned. it's understandable about the size of our nation debt now which is ago big as our economy for of the first time srlce

war ii. i do have reasonable number of ughters who don't think we to do another package. that is not my view. it's t not majority of our conference view nor is it the view of the president. nment so divided gov we have to sit down with the democrats and work out something hopefully t we'll dot before the end of the week. >> woodruff: what is going to make a difference? todanone other than the chairman of the federal reserve is again saying, theconomy needs the kind of boost that it got in the spring from the congressiol covid relief package. he's urging congress to do something like that again.ou how do turn your members done enough?ay we've >> well, i agree with the chairman, we need to do more. i'm sure he didn't put a number on it. the democratic house wanted to add $3 trilln to the national debt as much as we added back in march and april. we think that's clearly far

bend what is necessary to g through this next period as coronavirus which is simply not going away any time soon. we all know that. until we get a vaccine we can't begin to put this in the rear view mirror. the economy does need more help. we have divid government. we have to talk to each other and try to get an ocome. >> woodruff: you have made the argument steadily, mr. mr. majority leader that the reason the benefits, these additional $600 a week benits shouldn't be conditioned is that it's incentive for many people not k go back to w but to stay home. we have looked at economists s saying, tore's just n measurable evidence that people that.taying home because of tha they say if they are staying home it's because they don't have a job to go back to or don't have kyle care or ay serious wobout getting sick. you're talking about. ecomist

bute a h percentage of people in that category are choosing based upon the fact that they can make more staying at home, not -- irrational decision when you look at,he numbe are reluctant to go back to work. so unemployed insurance is extremely important. particularly at a time of high unemploynt like we have now. it ought to be operating like is traditionally. but to pay people more to stay home than to go back to work we think is a mistake and i don't know which economist you're ting but huge numbers of small business people all across the country, almost without exception, telling us and i'm sure telling democrats as well that this is a deterrent to w getting back tk. >> woodruff: there are a number of them. let me be verypecific we put a call out to social media asking people to legal us know about unemployment benefits, we had

something like 23,000 people responding including a woman named latrice wilson, she's from kentucky, your home state. she says that600 additional a s ek allows her to pay for the medicine she neor her auto immune disease and pay for her daughter continue to go to school what do you say to meone like mrs. wilson. >> you are probably going to be eligible for the 200 additional cash payment that we would make under our proposal the same as backing the cares act. directash, straight into your pocketut of ourckage. so, yes, those are people who do have significant concerns and we address that with $1200 direct cash payment. jude let me ask you about a number of other things. government repts are right now now, mr. leader as many as 26 million america, most with chdren say they aren't getting enough to eat these days.

we know that for very young t childrt can be incredibly harmful. democrat plan right now increases food stamp or snap benefits by 15%. the republican proposal would noextend those increase benefits, why not? >> i'm sure when we sit down toc talk to the dts that will be an area we discuss. of course one thing that is children are well fed to gets them back in school. and we actually put mor money in our proposal than housecr des for education. that's both k-12 and college and to extent these local school districts are allowed m --e the decision to let their children come back to school that will tak car of a lot of the -- for many of the kids best meal they get in the day is the one they get at school. t gettingm back in school is an important step in the light direction. >> woodrf: there's also a question about housing, democrats would ban evictions, continue to ban evictions, are

you prepared -- as early as next week in coming weeks to see people thrown out of their house or apartment because they can't afford to make rent or mortgage >> i think that sf thing we ought to be talking about with the democrats to try to get to a solution. >> woodruff: aid t state and cal governments, mr. majority leader, democrats are asking for a trillionrs dollmost. to pay these front line workers, people who are out there working because they have to despite the coronavirus. the republican bill, nothing ino ther these state and local government workers. why not. >> judy, as you know every stato budget as really big items. education and medicaid. our proposal puts more money in for edation. than the democratic proposal. education aid is state and local government. s and we think that is a excellent way to infuse cas in

addition to that, the previous 150 billion we sent down to stes, muc has not been dispensed yet. we'd change the formula -- change the proposal to allow them to use it any way they choose, even including revenue replacement. so in both of those ways, we think w provide additional assistance to state and localities. >> woodruff: other very quick things. you have said you don't like the in this plan for new fbi buil building in washington. coincidentally across the street from the trump hotel. you said you want only covidma rial in this bill, why not just say no to the white house on this. by the way there's money -- another 8 billion in this bill sor military material, f35 fighters an forth.

>> well in the house bill, for example, there's a tax cut for high income people in blue states. and all kinds of things related to marijuana and legalization of asstance to illegal immigrant immigrants. my point was, judy, i think all of the things that are not related to the covid-19 fight c ought te out. whether it's the fbi building or eatax cut forhy people in blue states. >> woodruff: so can you just t say no to white house on the fbi? >> i would say no to all of these unrelated covid-19 items that both sidese have m an effort to inject into the deba debate. >> woouff: finally, in the wake of more members of congress testing positive for covid-19, house speaker nan pelosi sa saying she is considering aem requt that everyone on the house side of the capital wear a mask. would you t considert kind of requirement in the senate?

>> we've had good luck without a requirement. i believe just about everyone om bers is wearing a mask and we have since the first of may when we resumed. i think we've been followi the guidelines of the capital ysicn, properly socially had on until i stepped up to the .icrophone to talk to you and we've had good compliance with that on the senate side without a mandate. and so we're getting compliance, voluntary a old fashion way, everybody is doing it. >> woodruff: would you consider a requirement, though, if necessary? >> it appears not to be necessary since everybody seems to be doing it. there.truff: we'll senate majority leader, mitchme mc, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: after that interview the speaker of the house nancy pelosi announced that everyone both memrs and staff are now required to wear a mask in the entire house of

representatives complex. >> woodruff: in the day's other news, federal agents will begin withdrawing fr downtown portland, oregon tomorrow, in a deal with state and local leaders. federal agts and protesters have clashed nightly at the federal courthouse. h but u.omeland security officials said state local police will guard the site, instead. >> our additional officers that have been brought to portland will still be in downtown portland. they will simply not bhe courthouse, and they will not be engaged if they are not needed. our hope is, of course, for all of us, is that will not be needed. >> woodruff: portland's democratic mayor tedheeler praised the end of what he called "an illegal occupation." meanwhile, the u.s. justice department formally announced it is sendims of investigators to cleveland,

detroit and milwaukee. their stated mission is to aid police fighting violent crime. members of cgress grilled c.e.o.'s of four th giants today, on whether they are too dominant. the heads of amazon, google, facebooknd apple appeared by video at a house hearing. as they did, presidentrump threatened executive orders to roll back legal protections for the companies. news summary.cmore, after the in turkey, social media is cong under tighter control the parliament approved a law today, ordering fabook, twitter and others to set up local offices and police content. supporters called it a curb on cybercrime andnline abuse of women. critics and rights groups raise fe cenrship. and these measures will have a chilling eect on the turkish social media platform users and people will be scared to use

these atforms because turkish authorities will have access to the users' data. >> woodruff: the law also requires companies to store user data in turkey. the u.s. military formally anunced today it will pull 12,000 american troops from germany. the move will leave 24,000 troops still on german soil. president trump has repeatedlyce denogermany for not spending more on defense, ands shed to withdraw u.s. forces. we'll get details, later in the program. the eastern caribbean is facing heavy rain and strong winds tonight, as a budding tropical storm blows through. the weather system is expected to pass near puerto overnight, and brush past the dominican republic tomorrow. puerto rican officials are warning of the potential for landslides, flooding and widespread power outages. the federal reserve warned today that t resurgence of covid-19 cases is sure to be a drag on the economy.ai

an jerome powell said the fed will use all its tools to help, but he warned that a recovery is linked directly to ople's behavior. >> the path of the economy is going to depend to aery high extent on the course of the virus and the measure we take to keep it in check. that is just a fundamental fact of our economy right now. the two things are not in conflict, you know, social distancing measures and reopening actually go together, each other. in competition with >> woodruff: the fed announced no new policies toda said it plans to keep its benchmark short-term interest rate pegged to near zero. wall street moved higher on the up the economy. continue shoring the dow jones industrial average gained 160 points to close at ,539. the nasdaq rose 140 points, and the s&p 500 added 40.

and, the annual hajj pilgrimage is undway in saudi arabia, greatly scaled back by the coronavirus pandem 1. so00 muslim worshippers begasarriving today at mecca' grand mosque, wearing face masks and praying at a disal the hajj usuly draws up to 2.5 million people. still to come on the newshour: leaders of tech giants face ngressional scrutiny over their impact on society. questions arise over the president's continuedl deferenthavior toward vladimir putin. the pharmaceutical industry struggles with an increase in antibiotic-restant bacteria amid the pandemic. and much more. >> woodruff: the leaders of some

of the most powerful tech and social media companies got a grilling today from democrats and republicans ale. together, their devices, platfos and innovations are a part of our everyday lives. the compies are valued at generate hundreds lions ofy dollars in revenue. they employ significant numbers of workers and include two of the world's richest people. but, as amna nawaz reports, the coerns over their practice and unrivaled power are growing among many lawmakers. >> nawaz: appearing virtually before the house judiciary subcommittee on antitrust, the titans of tech leaders from amazon, google, facebook, and apple-- answered accusationshe thatre too big and too powerful. these companies have harmfuld by economic effects. they discourage entrepreneurship, destroy jobs,s hike cand degrade quality. simply put: they have too much

power. >> nawaz: amazon faces questions over giving its own products an advantage on its massive online marketplace. apple accused of making it harder for app store rivals to compete. facebook is criticized for acquiring potential rivals, like dwhatsapp and instagram, google has been alleged to use its search and advertising systems to squash its competition. today marked the fi.et time amazon. jeff bezos has appeared before congress. bezos founded amazon in 1994. today, it's worth morehan $1.5 trillion and accounts for 38% of all online retail sales in the s. he defended that growth today:e >> we compainst large established players like target, costco, kroger and of course walmart, a company more than 20 years ago we mae. decision to invite other sellers to sell in our store to shar the same valuable real estate we spent billions to build, market and maintain.m

>> nawaz: ok took over at apple in 2011. today, it's the most valuable company in the world, at $1.6 trillion. ed the hearing, cook portr his massive company as an bderdog. >> our goal is tt, not the most. in fact, we do not have a dominant market share in any market where we do business. >> nawaz: mark zuckerberg founded the social networking site facebook in 2004. today, more than three billion people use facebook-owned platforms at least once a month, and, it's worth $665 billion. zuckerberg called the growth of apps like instagram, "an american success story." >> it was not a guarantee that instagram was going to succeed. the acquisition has done wildly well large because not just because the founders talent, but because we invested heavy in building up the infrastructure and promoting it and working ont securitynk this is an

american success story. >> nawaz: sundar pichai has led alphabet and google since 2015. every day, 90% of online searches happen on google. the company is valued at $1.5 billion. he pushed back on questions about google's search engine blocking competitors: >> we've always focused on relevant informatie most we rely on the trust from users toy.ome back to google every >> nawaz: for more than a year, the committee has investigated the companies, through mor a million documents, and hundreds of hours of interviews. washington sta congresswoman pramila jayapal cited one of those interviews in a question bezos. >> a former amazon employee in third party sales and recruitment told this commite that "there's a rule but there's nobody enforcing or spot checking they just say don't help yourselto the data, it's a candy shop everyone can have access to anything they want." do category managers have access to non-public data about thirdrt products and businesses? >> here's what i can tell you.

we do have certain safeguards in place, we train people on thepo cy, we expect people to follow that policy to the same way we would any other. it's a voluntary policy, as far as i'm aware. >> so there's no actual enforcement? so it's voluntary and there's nr actual ement. >> nawaz: and, while the hearing's stated purpose was o titrust... >> i'll just cute chase: big tech's out to get conservatives. that's not a suspicion. that's not a hunch.t. that's a f >> nawaz: ...some republicans on the panel focused on what theyrs call cenp of conservatives by big tech. congressman jim sensenbrenner of wisconsin: >> conservatives are consumers too. and the way the net t together in the eyes of congress to speak their minshould be able >> nawaz: zuckerberg pushed back: ve frankly, i think that w distinguished ourselves as one of the companies that defends free expression the most. we do have community standards around things that you can and

cannot say. >> nawaz: on the other side of the aisle, congressman jamie raskin, a maryland democrat, asked what platforms are doing to combat te speech and election meddling: >> is there nothing that can be done about the use of facebook to engender social division in america? >> since 2016, there have been a lot of ste that we've taken to protect the integrity of elections. we've hired more than 30,000 people to work on safety and security. we've built up a.i. s to be able to find harmful contentl ing being able to find more than 50 different networks of coordinated inauthentic behavior. basically nation states trying to interfere in elec >> nawaz: still, there was bipartisan concern the fr tech giants are exerting too much influence. >> i'moncerned that you've used amazon's dominant market position to unfairly har competition. >> google buys up companies for

the purpose of surve americans and because of google's dominance users have choice but to surrender. >> nawaz: and without action from congress, that influence is unlikely to wane. let's dive into a few of the issues raised at today's hearing. he leads the digital platforms and technology project at the harvard kennedy school. a computer scientist by training, he also worked at facebook, where he ledts to address privacy and security issues at the company and served as a technology and economic policy advisor in the obama white house. before we begin shot fort the record he is is a fund of the "newshour welcome to the "newshour." thank for being here. thatnk it's fair to say real estate question about the power and the reach of these four big cpanies, wht comes to concentration of power and to the detriment ofn competit, what new formation did we learn a bout their business practices and about their behavior? is that both dem andhing here

republicans on committees really got to the detls o how these companies work, how their corporate strategies.ork and, for instance, both democrats and republicans reallt trpin down how facebook and googlend amazon and apple went to certain decisions around corporate devopment. went to decisions how they strategized with the app stoho the thought about mergers and acquisition. and all of that really serves to support the imperative of holing these companies accountable onet coion issues. i think we learned quite a lot. >> reporter: there is of course, this political divide we just reported on, right? democrats dig ink on those occupations of anti-competitive behavior. republicans largely folked some at least, on censorship of

conservatives, even president trum i should mention weighed in he was tweeting saying if congress doesn't bring fairness to big tech, which they should have done years ago, i will do it myself with executive orders. if you were watching the hearing unfold seeing that, not just gaps between the lines of questiong, what do you make o that? >> there's no doubt about this, you are spot on.s there this divide. and traditionally republicans and democrats have oming at the issue of anti-trust and market competitionhe in digital economy from different angle else. democrats cared more about economic, racism and bias, these kinds of things. where as, republicans have been thinking, including president trum and his former attorney, jeff sessions have been thinking more about these content related issues in particular anti anti-conservative bias k. are allegations thatompanies and many other experts have wholely

.ejected i would acknowledge that certain republicans on the committee have been asking really pointed technical queions about t market power of these companies, armstrong from north dakota. but largely we have seen this division, i hope that we can get more bipartisan reaction. >> reporter: there are couple of lines of questioning i'd love to get your take on. one in particular directed at facebook's mark zuckeerg that was coming from washington state congresswoman, the theme was based on e-mails that she says showed the committ zuckerberg was essentially threatening to overun instagram with similar photo product even as facebook wa trying buy instagram. take a listen to this exchange. >> do you copy your competitors? >> congresswoman, we've certainly adapt features that others have led as have other

copied and adapted f featuresm -- >> i'm not concerned about others. i'm asking you, sce march of 201 of a ii that e-mail conversation how many competitors did febook end copying? >> cangresswoman, i give you a number ofpa ces. >> reporter: bee know facebook went on to acquire in cent gram for about a billion dollars in cash and stock but this allegation that zuckerberg was threateng to basically over run the company, be acquired or we will end you with our own product. is that fair, is that what happened here? >> i think it's fair to assume that that may be what happened. of course i'm not -- to mark zuckerbe's specific thoughts or either of the two founders of instagram. but i thinkt's fair to assume that the company did really put pressure o instagram and tried to really get at understanding what its business model was.

how it was trying to engage people and certainly tried to py some of the feature which i think to be fair, mark zuckerberg essentially acknowledged. i think it's a problem and reason that we see it happening over and over aga, there were similar themes around questions asked of amazon andin i similar themes around apple and google as well. the problem here is that these are companies that he man o oplized huge swaths of the dol digi media ecosystem. if they're copying small woul would-be rifles -- rival, is that presents serious challenges to innovation in the ver long run. >> reporter: there's the issue ever copying plsducts, the issue of pushing your own products over your rivls, another exchange i wanted to play with amazon'se jeff bzos.

he was asking basically if amazon uses it platform, massive platform to push its own products over rivactl pro he was asking about the alexa voice service in this exchang, take a listen. make up 60% of the smart speaker market, mr. bezos when i asked 'lex saw, prime music is the default. has alexa famed favor amazon products? >> i don't know if it's been trained in thaway. there are where we do course of common practice inough business. it wouldn't surprise me if alexa sometimes does promote our own products. >> reporter: the is this just good business promoting you own products on your platform or is it anti-competition behavior? >> i think what internet companies have reaady in to a situation where they didn't

quite recognize their market power. yes, they did engage in harmful business practices, we see this in the case of amazon, which has this monopoly. seen this in the case of facebook, was questioned that. we've seen companies spy on ri rivals, try to copy them, try to understand how there would-be rivals or smaller competitors might try to approach consumers. then essentially just consume them or -- those are the kinds of things that are really damaging t competition, innovation and the price to consumers. i think there's no doubt that amazon has really screwed with the market and attempted to shut down smaller companies at their

expense and amazon's benefit. that is precisely t whats committee really needs to get to the bottom of with this investigation. >> rorter: feels like every time big tech comes under the scrutiny we ask this question, wh ah is, do the laws the rules that we have in place the way we define anti-trust, f example, do those keep up with the problems that are presented to us by by? tecto >> i don't think they have. don't think they have kept up. let's go real here. weave anti-trust and competition policy enforcement regime in phece innited states. and they do reasonably well witt certain malaces, with certain consumer markets but the omgital economy ishing totally different where we're dealing with a new currency in the form of people's attention and people's personal information and our regulatory

regime has not stayed in line with that. it isd way beh where the digital economy is today. and i think, though, with this hearing being the start to a broader conversatn aboutow we need to develop a stringent regulatory regim for digital ndonomy through privacy transparency and through inte interoperability and data por portability and competition and potentially even conditions on mergers and acquisitionsnd potentially break ups. we're going to see thesemp ies having their feet held to the fire and the committee will see to it, i think, in the lo run. >> reporter: that is dipayan goff of the digitalm platf at the harvard kennedy school. >> thank youch for your time. thank you for the conversation.

>> woodruff: in an interview released today, presidump said he had not challenged president vladimir putin over russian efforts to pay the taliban to kill u.s. troops in the two leaders spst last week, for the seventh time in recent months. as nick schifrin reports, this comes as the administration alsd cemelans to withdraw, and redeploy american forces in europe. >> schifrin: president trump often questions and criticizes the ,s intelligence community and praises ruian president vladimir putin. and when he spoke to putin on july 23, he did not raise thece intelligommunity's investigations, into russian payments to the taliban, to attack us troops, as he told axios on hbo's jonathan swan. >> we discussed numerous things, >> and you've never discussed it with him. >> i have never discussed it with him, no. i would, i'd have no problem >> but you don't b-- it's

because you don't believe the intelligence, that's why. >> everything-- you know, nobody ever brings up china.lw it'ss russia, russia, russia. >> schifrin: former intelligence officials tell pbs newshour the taliban received russianry milintelligence money to target u.s. service members. officials debated the intelligence, and commanders say the bounties did not likely result in deaths. but it was an increase in russian support to the taliban, as already detailein 2018 by then top commander gen. john nicholson. >> wve had weapons brought t this headquarters and given to us by afghan leaders and said, this was given by the russians to the taliban. we know that the russians are involved. >> john nicholason, former head s in afghanistan, said-- and this is when he was working for you-- that russia was supplying weapons to the taliban. isn'that enough to challenge putin over the killings of u.s. soldie? >> well, we supplied weapons when they were fighting russia, too. you know, when we were, when they were fighting-- the taliban, in afghanistan. >> but that's a different era. >> well, it's a different-- i'm just sayg-- >> but-- >> i just saying, we did that too. >> schifrin: in 1979, the soviet union prop up an unpopular communist government.th

united states supported and armed afghan fighters known as mujahideen, who targeted soviet troops. in 2001, the united states was attacked, and waged war afghanistan because that's where 9/'s planners plotted. president trump's moral equivalence, is inaccurate, says doug lute. >> the equivalence here is inappropriate because the situation is exactly reversed from what it was 30 or 40 years ago. >> schifrin: doug lu is a retired lieutenant general, appointed by president bush to coordinate the afghanistan and iraq wars, and by presidente obama toto ambassador. he said both his former bosses, would have demanded more information about the bounty program and responded, even if the intelligence was uncertain. >> it's unimaginable to me that thspresident has that this been public for weeks, and probably available to the president for many weeks before that. and yet he's done nothing include not even raising it in multiple calls with president putin. >> schifrin: today president trump added heould be "very angry" if the bounties were

true. his administration has sanctioned russian officials for election interference and chemical weapons attacks. but he has also reverted to moral equivalence on russia before. >> putin is a killer. >> there are a lot of killers. we have a lot of killers. what, you think our count?y is so innoc >> schifrin: another priority-- reducin troops overseas. today the administration announced it would withdraw nearly 12,000 oops from germany, and bring half home. secretary of defense mark esper said thousands of service members would move toward russia's borders, anhance deterrence. >> we're following in many ways the boundary eas where our where our newest allies are. we talked about adalea region. forces into poland, and i think therare oprtunities to put forces into the baltics. that's why it's the strategic laydown that enhancesrr dece, strengthens the allies. >> schifrin: but just minutes before, president trump said the decision was punishment for germany's failing to fulfill it2 promise to speg.d.p. on defense.

>> so we're reducing the force beiruse they're not paying t bill. it's very simple: they're delinquent. >> schifrin: today a senior ally to german chancellor angela merkel said the reduction would weaken nato. and the unit that will return to the u.s. is the most capable ground force in europe. >> it is in itself the most d flexiberrent package that is in place today. so to remove it from germany and move it to the united stes does not provide the same reassurance as having american soldiers live in europe, be there 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. >> schifrin: but reassing western european allies, and overcoming bipartisan concerns about troop draw downs and his relationship with vladimir putin, have never been president trump's priorities. for the pbs newshour, i'm nick schifrin.

>> woodruff: the coronavirus crisis has a menacing medical si effect that's receiving little attention thus far: the secondary bacterial infections it causes. and that raises acute economic issues that are causing a crisin he antibiotics industry. economics correspondent paul solman has the story, part of our regular series, "making sense." >> reporter: how valuable was the company at its height?wa >> iabout $1.4 billion. >> reporter: and today? >> a little over $8 million. >> reporter: highly touted biotech startup tetraphase pharmaceuticals in watertown, massachusetts.st we fisited three years ago,seeporting on the scary ri gi deadly ug-resistant bacteria and funso-called" superbugs," which infect, according to the c.d.c., some three million americans a year and kill tens of thousands of. the good news: there were dozens of scientis in this lab alone,

working on several promising new antibiotics like xeravhich soon after our visit won the gold medal for medications: f.d.a. approval. now, it may seem strge to focus on antibiotics during a viral pandemic, since antibiotics don't kills viruses. >> you're on the ventilator right now. >> reporter: but many covid-19 patients develop potentiallyta secondary bacterial infections. so, we returned to tetraphaseis earlier ear, before masks and social distancing were mandat, to see how the antibiotics industry was progressing. the results were shocking. this lab is completely nonfunctioning.i tice even the dust here. >> yeah, we had to let all of our research go.>> eporter: all of your research! >> all of our research is gone, yes. >> reporter: all the scientists. laid o stead, c.e.o. larry edwards had a skeleton staff trying toel market andxerava, and keep tetraphase from going out of

business, a fate that's nowfa llen two of the 12 companiesas that, over thedecade, also won f.d.a. approval for new antibiotics. you were in one of those companies. >> i was in one of those >> reporter: erin duffy was chief scientist at melinta therapeutics, translating the company's nobel-prize winning research. >> orbactiv prevents theell from expanding and multiplying. >> reporter: into new, super-bug slaying anbiotics. >> that company has now filed chapter 11. >> reporter: was the drug that it was selling promising? >> we had four very promising antibiotics. all for serious infections in the hospital. >> repor me.it simply amazed while antiviral research is booming, the antibiotiket is broken, at the worst possible time says infectiousse specialist helen boucher. >> we know that with the regular flu, influenza, our patients sometimes develop what we ca secondary bacterial infections. and in fact, when they get to ui in the hl, that's often

the dire consequence and that's how we lose patients. proving true of the coronavirus pandemic. according to a recent pape half of those who died from covid-19 in china also had drug resistant bacterial infections. concern: that as md more for covid patients become seriously ill, antibiotic resistance will >> going on ng enough, covid 19 and hospital pneumonia will drive resistance. >> reporter: dr. john rex is a retired pharma executive. >> we're seeing people hospitalized on ventilators for extended periods of time. and that's a setting where you're going to use a lot of antibiotics. >> reporter: you mean because antibiotics are being used forts the patif covid for a secondary infection or to prevent it, that means resistance building up more quickly? >> absolutely. any given antibiotic, really, e u could think of it as having a relatively finfetime. resistance develops to everything.

>> so this need to have a robust renewable pipeline of antibiotics has really never been greater. >> reporter: doctors like boucher see the need all the time in their patients, like larry parente. heart transplant last august, followed two months later by a bacterial infection. >> case of klebsiella, which is one of the more highly drug resistant organisms out there. >> reporter: so drug resistant, it's sometimes called a nightme bacterium. he was treated for two weeks with intravenous ertapem, one of the very few drugs, if not the only one, for his infection. a month lar... >> it had come back. so what we thought was gone really was just sort of hiding. you know, if you're limited to one or two drugs and they don't work, then what doou do? where's your options? >> reporter: today, after six months of nearly continuous i.v. treatment, parente now seems healthy. but, he says: >> this can happen to anybody. i personally know a gentleman

that never got out of bed after surgery. he just literally got an infection and was gone within a week. >> reporter: a new knee, a c- section, even a cut now puts you at risk. not to mention ventilators. c.e.o. larrydwards cites a university of washington study that puts the number of deaths due to drug-resistant microbes at up to 162,000 americans a year, mo than triple the c.d.c.'s estimate. suggesting hospitals may be misreporting.he >> they'll saydied due to cancer and underlying factors where a lot of times underlying factor is the resistant pathogen or the bacteria that's killing the patient.>> eporter: so why would they be misreporting it? >> they end up getting hit negatively oif they're showing that patients are dying due to a resistant bacterial infection, more than likely t patient got that when they were in the hospital. >> reporter: so between 50,0 and 162,000 deaths a year as things stood before the pandemic.

look, an obvious takeaway from covid 19 is that our market- driven economy didn't invest in the necessary public goods for a virus-- tests, masks, ventilators, treatments. but we also haven't invested to counter the bacterial and fungal infections that increasingly plague us. and it's led to the predictable market outcome: the antibiotics pipeline is going bust. >> this is a huge problem. and it's not getting better, it just continueso get worse. i>> reporter: ted schroed c.e.o. of nabriva, whose market value, its "capitalization," has also cratered, despite its recently approved antibiotic. >> i don't think anyone envisioned that the entire market cap of all the companies involved in this research would be half of what a single company was two and a half years ago. n that's, that just a decline. that's a near collapse. >> repter: at a moment of arguably the most dire need. >> and i am very sorry for you loss.

>> reporter: we'll explore why in our next report. this is paul solman in boston. >> woodruff: finally tonight, our "now read this" book club conversation. our july pick is a book that remains as relevant and powerfu as w was first written. jeffrey brown talks with author and poet claudia rankine aboutiz "cit: an american lyric," for our ongoing arts and culture series, canvas. >> brown: in 2014, american cities were convulsed in thehe aftermath ofeaths of michael brown and eric garner, eltwo of the killings thatd catalyze the ¡black lives matter' movement. that year, the book: "citizen: an americalyric" was published, with prose poems, monologues, and imagery capturing the moment but through a different lens: the inner

lives and thoughts ofdi duals, the almost casual racism that permeates daily life for so many. r author claudkine. >> racism is institutional, we know, but institutions are made up of people. so whaare those thousand cuts that lead to the big institutional failes around racism? i asked people who i knew, friends, other colleagues tol just t moments where they were going along in their day. and suenly somebody said or did something that reduced them to their race. and so i collectedhese stories, rewrote them, got to the heart of what i was trying portray. >> brown: one of them that stuck with me, a man is narrating his own experience as he's being pulled over by the police and keeps repeating this l

himself, "you are not the guy anstill you fit the description because there is tonly one guy who is alwa guy fitting the description." >> and that line actually came from the person i wa interviewing. he he said, of course, i wasn't the guy, but was the guy who t the description again. and so that became a refrain as i sort of crafted that poem. >> brown: you know, several of our readers asked about the form of the book because you have prose, poems, monologues, you have photographs and images. hat was your thinking abo to strture the book?>> ell, i you know, i've always aylt that visual artists have been able to porhese kinds of ways in which racism hits the body in ways that were so succinct. s you ju it. you understood it.

collaboration with thehis works of these visual artists without even the knowing, because i was just requesting the use of an image in the book. but i really wanted people to engage all of their senses in the book from their sight to their reading skills to their body, so that it really these moments really sat inside them >> brown: the book came out in 2014. it was incredibly timely at that moment. what's going on now in light of what you wrote then? >> well, you know, henry louis gates a long time ago wrote a s book called "tnifying monkey," and he said that african-american writers were always in conversation with the time and with each other. i feel like citizen was just the next book that looked at the same dynamic that to morrison was looking at or frederick douglass was looking aor james baldwin, obviously.pu

and so if i haished citizen in in 20 or 2012 or 2015 or yesterday, it would ve the same mirroring, really effect because those events have been going on and continue to go on. >> brown: of course, but a number of our readers, ofur , wondered if you if you see signs of hope, now. even last night we saw indible. portland mothers of all races putting themselves in front of the military and protecting justice in this country, in a sense. and so that that is new. the intergenerational inter cross race gatherings that we have seen during the quarantine is unprecedented in this country. brown: when all of this is going on, when people are in the streets demonstrating and so

much hpening in the country, what does poetry or literature do? what can what does it offer? >> i think writers as culture makers are in that special place where they are able to say, what . and that's it. they're not asking for sething to happen or needing to create a transaction. they're just saying what it is. in a sense, their work becomes a kind of record, but not the record of values, the record o experience.en >> brown: "citan american lyric." claudia rankine, nice to talk to you. book club.r being part of the >> thank you. >> woodruff: claudia ranki's new book, "just us: an american conversation" will be published in september. and for our august selection, something very different:

"beijing payback," a geopolitical thriller and crime novel.th daniel nieh will join us here at the end of the month. and we hope you will join us and other readers on our website and facebook page for "now read with the "new york times."ersh and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. join us online and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you, please stay safe and see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> consumer cellular believes thatireless plans should reflect the amount of talk, text and data that you use. to learn more, go to consumercellular.tv >> when the world gets complicated, a lot goes through your mind. with fidelity wealth management, a dedicated advisor can tailor advice and recommendations to your life.

that's fidelity wealth manament. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutials and indivi >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbo stfrom viewers like you. thank you.

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hello, everyone, and welcome to "amanpour and co." here's what's coming up. >> this is 2020. enough is enough. the people marching in the streets are telling you enough is enough. >> a moment to cnge amera. how will the nation face i long time activist and civil rights icon mary frances berjo s us. plus democracy racism all pandemics. how to fix the system's failures. errmer gr of massachusetts deval patrick joins us. then -- >> using force against peaceful protesters is a mistake. >>america's former top military br