♪ judy: good evening. 'm judy woodruff. on the "newshour" tonight, one-on-one. i ask u.s. senate majority leader mitch mcconnell about congress' struggle to extend economic relief from covid-19 and more. , then, tenically speang. leaders of amazon, apple facebook and google face congressional scrutiny over whether they have too muri power in amen life ♪ plus, trump and russia. questions arise over the president's deferential behaviod toladimir putin, despite a russian military unit paying taliban fighters to kill u.s. soldiers. ♪ and, economic side effects. many covid-19 patients develop secondary infections, at a time when the pharmaceutical industrh

struggles wi an increase in vetibiotic-resistant bacteria. >> this need to robust and renewable pipeline of antibiotics has really never been greater. judy: all that and more on tonit's "pbs newshour." ♪ >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by consumer cellular, johnson & johnson, financial service firm raymond james. supporting social entrepreneurs and their solutions to the world's most pressing problems. skoll foundation.org.

the lentils and foundation, committed to improving lives through invention and the u.s. and developing countries. on the web. supported by the john d and catherine t macarthur foundation, dimmitted to bu a more just and peaceful world.ma more infon at ma thec thace bounded.org, and wit ongoing support of these institutions. this program was made possible by t corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs e ation from vwers liku. thank you. ♪ judy:io the 's toll from "covid-19" has reached a new hi, passing 150,000 dead. but hopes for a new relief package have fallen to new lowsi federal jobless benefits and eviction protections ending this wkend.

president trump already said a trillion-dollar republican bill is largely irrelevant. today, he dismissed democrats' $3 trillion bill as a big bailout for poly-run cities. the white house said there's no deal in sight, and each side blam the other. >> it seems like senator schumer and speaker pelosi are veryin content on allthings to expire, and try to use them as leverage to extract other democrat wishlist items. li >> the repns don't even have a bill that the senate republican conference uniformly supports. the president said is semi-irrelevant. what is there to negotiate? they have puforth a fiction of a response. judy: meanwhile, another member of congress has come down with

the virus. tested positive athite gohmert house today, and cancelled plans president.texas with the gohmert passed close by attorney general william barr outside ae hoaring yesterday. barr was getting tested today, as a precaution.io with 23 miamericans out of work, the stakes are dire for many families if mor is , not on the way. there remain deep divisions among lawmakers. d to sght on where things stand, i spoke moments ago with 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 just said they are nowhere close to a deal between the two sides on what would relief. given dision among republicans, members of your party, does that means these additional unemployment benefits are going to lapse friday? >> i certainly hope not.

neither side would like for thae to h many things here happen at the last minute. so hope springs eternal that we will reach some agreement, either on a broad basis or a narrow basis, to avoid hing an adverse impact on unemployment. judy: speaking of a more narrow basis, our lisa de chardin reported something like 20 members of your republican caucus have problems with the larger republican proposal you outlined the other day. given that, are you looking at some slimmed down, short-term deal? >>l, we are looking at all options. secretary mnuchin and chief of staff mark meadows a good at gotiating with the democrats, but you are right, judy. about 20 of my members think we have done enough. they are deeply concern. and it is understandable, the size of our national d now is

as big as our economy for the first time since world war two. so i do have a reasonable number of members who think we shouldn't do another package. that is not my view and thats not the majority of our view of our presid nor is it the we have a divided government so we have to work out something with democrats and hopefully we will e do that before t of the week. judy: what is going to make a difference? because today, none other than jay powell, chair of the federal reserve, says the economy needs the boost it got in the spring from relief package.l covid he is urging congress to do how do you turn your members around who say we have already done enoug >> i agree with the chairman of tfed. we ha need to do more. i'm sure he didn't put a number on it. the issue is how much. the democratic house wants to at $3 trillion to the national debt, as much as wadded back

in argenta april. that is clearly far beyond whats is nry to get us through this as we continue to wrestle the coronavirus not going away anytime soon. we know that. and we get a vaccine, we can't begin to put this in the rearview myror. the econ does need more help. we have to talk to each other. and we have to try to get an outcome. judy: you have made the argument steadily, mr. majority leader, that the reason this $600 a week d benefits shouldn't be continued is that it is an incentive for people to not go back to work and to juy home. but economists are saying there is no measurable evidence that people are staying home because of that. they say, if they are staying home, i is because they don't have a job to go back to, they don't have childcare, or they have a serious worry abo getting sick. >> i don't know which economists you are lking about

but a huge percentage of people in that category are choosing, sed upon the fact tha they can make more staying out o, not in a rational decision when you look atum thers, are reluctant to go back to work. so unemploent insurance is extremely important, particularly at a time of i unemployment like now, and it ought to be operating like it has traditionally. but to pay people more to stay home than to go ba to work, we think is a mistake. i don't know which economists you are citing, but there are huge numbers of small business almost witxception,ountry, telling us, and amateurat telling demo -- and i am sure are telling democrats as well that this is a deterrent. judy: we put a call out to social media letti -- asking

people to let us know about unemployment benefits. we had sometng like 2000 people responding, including the tree'silson from kentucky, your home state. -- livatrice wilson from kentucky, your state. she said she needs the money or her daughter to college.to send >> what iould say to misses wilson is that you are eligible for the $1200 cash payment th we are making available in our proposal. the same as the cares act, direct cash into your pocket out of our pkage. so yes, thos are peopl that you have significant concerns and we addressed that with the $1200 direct cash payment. judy: let me ask y about other things qckly. government reports now indicate 26 million amecans, most with children, are not getting enough

we know for very young children that can be incredibly harmful. the democrats' plan rightodow increases amp, or snap, benefits by 15%. the republican proposal would not extend increased benefits. why not? >> i am sure when we talk with democrats, that will be an area we discussed. onehi that is important is to make sure children are well fed, and it is to get them bk into school. at we actually put more money in our proposal that house demoats for education. thats both k-12 and college, and to the extent local school districts are allowed tak the decision to let their children come back to school, that will take care of, for many of these kids, the best meal a day that they get is the meal they get sool. so getting them back to school is a step in the right direction. judy: there is also a question about housing.

mocrats would continue to ban evtions. are you prepared asarly as next week to see people thrown out of their houses or apartments because they can't afford to make rent or mortgage payments? >> t yeah, andt is the sort of thing we should be talking about to gethrough to a solution. judy: aid to state and local governments, mr. majority leader. democrats are asking for $lm trilliont in aid to pay frontline workers, people out there working because they have to, despite the coronavirus. the republican bill, nothing in there for the state and local government workers. why not? >> every state budget has two really big a items, educatio medicaid. our proposal putting more moneyn for education he democratic proposal. education aid is aid to state and local government. we think tt is an excellent

way to infuse cash. in addition to the outcome of the previous $150 billionese sent to stmuch of which -- much of which has not been distributed yet, we would change the proposal tollow them to use that in any way th choose,en ncluding revenue replacement. so in both of those ways we think we provide addceional assisto states and localities. judy: you have said you don't billion in this plan for a new fbi building in washington, coincidentally across the street from the trump hotel. you have said you only want covid material in this bill. why not just say no to the white house on this? and there is another $8 billion in this bill for military materiel, f-35 fighters and so

forth. >> in the house bill, for example, there is a tax cut for high-income people in blue states and all kinds of things related to marijuana and assistance to illegal immigrants. all the things that are not relahtd to the covid-19 f ought to come out, whether it is the fbi building or a tax cut for wealthy people in lu states -- blue states. judy: can you say no to the white house on the fbi? >> i would say no to all these unrelated covid-19 items that both sides have made an effort to inject into the debate. judy: and finally, in the wake of more members of congress testing positiv for covid-19, house speaker nancy pelosi is saying she is considering a requirement that everyone on the house side of the capital wear a mask.

would you consider that requirement in the senate? we have had good luck without a requirement. about every one of my members has been wearing a mask, and wee have s may 1 when we resumed. i think we have been following the guidelines of the capital position, properly socially distanced, wearin a mask, which i had on until i stepped up to the microphone to talk to you, d we have had good compliance with that on the senate side without a mandate. so we are getting comiance in the old-fashioned way. everybody is doing it. judy: y would consider a requirement if necessary? >> it appears not to be necessary since everybody is doing it. judy: senate majority leader mitch mcconnell, thank you very much. >> thank you. judy: moments ago, after that interview, speaker of the house nancy pelosi and askedth everyo, members and staff, are now required to wear a masin the

entire house of representatives complex. >> we will return to judy wou f after t headlines. our top story, william barr, the attorney general, waste tfor coronavirus because of his proximity this week to representative louie gohmert. we learned this evening barr's test came back negative. news on the health of supreme court jtice ruth nader ginsberg this evening. the court said she underwent a procedure today at a new york hospital andors resting cobly. she expects to be released by the end of the week ginsberg announced this monthhe had a recurrence of cancer. federal agents will begin withdrawing from downtown portland, oregon tomorrow, in a deal with state and local

leaders. officers and proteders have cl nightly at the federal courthouse, but u.s. homeland security officials at sta local police will guard the site instead. >> our additional officers brought portland will still be in downtown portland, they will simply not b at the courthouse at they will not be engaged if they are not needed. and our hope is that that will not be needed. >> portland's democratic mayor ted wheeler praised the end of what he called an illegal occupation. meanwhile, the u.s. justice department formally announceitll e sending teams of investigators to cleveland,lw detroit and kee. their stated mission is to aid police fighting violentrime. grilling of the most powerful tech ceo c hascluded. the heads of amazon, google, facebook and apple appeared by video and house hearing focused on antitrust issues.late today,e

subcommittee said e testimony confirmed evidence they have gabbard on the tech companies over the last year. -- they have gathered on tech companies over the last year. we will have more after the newshour. in turkey, social media coming under new controls. the parliament approved a law orderingacebook, twitter and others to set up local officers to police contt. opporters say it is meant curb cybercrime and online abuse of women. critics raised fears of political censorship. >>re these meawill have a chilling effect on the turkish social media platform users. and peoplse will be scared to these platforms, because authorities will have access to the users' dat anchor: the law requires companieto store user data in turkey. the u.s. military formally announced today it will pull

rom000 american troops germany.in a tweet, the presidet questioned why the u.s. ised supp to protect germany from russia, and said the ally has beennq very dent in paying its nato dues. we will dive into this later in the program. the eastern caribbean is facing heavyain and winds as a tropical storm -- budding tropical storm blows through. them weather sys is expected to pass puerto rico overnightst and the dominican republic tomorrow. puerto rican officials are warning o potential landslides, flooding and widespread power outages. the federaleserve warned today that the resurgence of covid-19 cases is sure to be a drag on the economy. chairman jerome powell said the fed will use all its tool -- all his tools to help, but warned her recovery is directly linked to behavior. >> half of the economy isep goig tod on the course of the rus and the measures we take to keep it in check. that is a fundamental thing

about our economy right now. those two things are not in conflict, you know, social distancing meassuresinnd reopactually go together, they're not in competition with each other. [trt 0:21] anchor: the central bank announced no new policies, but did sa its benchmark short-term zero. st rate pegged to near and the annual h, j pilgrimage underway in saudi arabia, greatly scaled back by the coronavirus pandemic. some 1,000 muslim worshippers began arriving today at mecca's grand mosque, wearing face masks and aying at a distance. ws up to 2sually d an a-half million people. still to come on the "newshour" with judy wood, ff leaders of ch giants face congressional scrutiny over their impact on society. ♪ questions arise over the president's continued deferential behavior toward

vladimir putin. ♪du the pharmaceutical instry struggles with an increase in antibiotic-resistant bacterimi amid the panand much more. ,♪ >> this he pbs newshour, from weta studios in washington and in the west, the walter lcronkite schf journalism at arizona state university. judy: the leaders of some of the most powerful tech and social media companies got a grilling today, from democrats and republicans alike. together, their devices, platforms and innovations are av part of ouyday lives. the companies are valued at nearly five trillion dollars and they generate hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue. they employ significant numbers of workers, and they include two of the world's richest people. but as amna nawaz reports, concerns over their practices and unrivaled power are growing on the part of many lawmakers.o >> du swear or affirm under

penalty of perjury -- amna: appearing virtually before on antitrust, the titans ofittee tech, leaders from amazon, google, facebook, and apple answered accusations that they're too big and too powerful. >> many of the practices useieby these comphave harmful economic effects. they discourage reneurship, destroy jobs hike costs, and degrade quality. simply put, they have too much power. amna: amazon faces questions over giving its own products an advantage on its massive online marketplace. apple is accused of it harder for app store rivals to compete. facebook iaccriticized for iring potential rivals, like whatsapp and instagram, and google has been alleged to use its search anddvertising systems to squash its competition. today marked the first timeef amazon ceobezos has bezos founded amazon in 1994. today, it's worth more than $1.5 trillion, and accounts for 38% of all online retail sales in the u.s.

he defended that growty. >> we compete againstis large, estad players like target, costco, kroger and of course walmart, a company more than twice amazon's size. 20 years ago, we made the decision to invite other sellers to sell in our store, to share spent billions to market,ate we and maintain. amna: tim cook took over at apple in 2011. today, it's the most valuable company in the world, at $1.6 trillion. in the hearing, cook portrayed his massive company as an underdog >> our goal is the best, not the most. in fact,we do not have dominant market share in any market or any product categor where we do business. amna: mark zuckerberg founded the social networking site facebook in today, more than 3 2004. billion people use facebook-owned platforms at least once a month. and it's worth $665 billion.

ockerberg called the grow apps like instagram, "an american success story." >> it was not a guarantee that instagram was going to succeed. the acquisition has done wildly well largely because not just because of the founders' talent, but because we invested heavily in building up the infrastructure and promoting it and working on security a working on a lot of things around this. and i think this is an an american success story. e na: sundar pichai has led alphabet and goonce 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 providing users the most >> relevant information -- the most relevant information. we rely on the trust from users to come back to google every day. amna: for more than a year, the committee has investigated the companies, through more than a million documents and hundreds of hours of interviews. washington state congresswom pramila jayapal cited one of

those interviews in a question to bezos. >> a former amazon employed in thrty sales and recruitment told this committee , quote "there's a rule but , there's nobody enforcing or spot checking. they just say don't help yourself to the data. it's a candy shop everyone canny have access toing they want." do category managers have access to non-public data about 3rd party products and businesses? >> here is what i can tell you. we do have certain safeguards in policy, we expect people to followhat policy to the same way we would any other. it's a voluntary policy. as far as i am sure, -- as far as i am aware, no other retailer as that. >> so there is no actual enforcement? so it's voluntary and there's no actual eorcement. i amna: and, while the hearing's that amna: and, while th hearing's answers the questions. stated purpose was antitrust -- >> i will just cut to the chase. ch's out to get

conservatives. that i not a suspicion. that is not a hunch. that's a fact. amna: some republicans on the panel focused on what they call censorship of conservatives by big tech.n congressm sensenbrenner of wisconsin. >> conservatives a consumers, too. and the way the net was put gether in the eyes of congress is that everybody should be able to speak their mind. amna: zuckerberg pushed back. >> frankly, i think that we've of the companies that defends free we do hane community rds around things that you can and cannot say. hena: on the other side of aisle, congressman jamie raskin, a maryland democrat, asked what platforms are doing to combat hate speech lid election me. >> is there nothing that can be done about the use of facebook to engender social division in america? >> since 2016, thereofave been a loteps that we've taken to protect the integrity elections. we have hired, i think it does more than 30,000 people, to work on safetweand security. 've built up ai systems to be able to find harmful content, including being able to find

more than 50 different networks of coordinated, inautheic behavior basically nation states , trying to interfere in : elections. amill, there was bipartisan concern the four tech giants are exerting too much influence. >> i'm concerned that you've used amazon's dominantonarket positi to unfairly harm competition. >> google buys up companies for the purpose of surveilling americans, and because of google's dominant, that domince, users have no choice t to surrender. amna: and withoution from congress, that influence is unlikely to wane.ve let's nto a few of the issues raised at today's hearing. we turn to dipayan ghosh. he leads the digital pms and democracy project at the harvard kennedy school. he also worked at fa, leading their efforts to address privacy and security issues, and later advised the obama white house on technology policy. and before we begin, we should note for the record that the chan zuckerberg initiative iera fuf the newshour.

welcome to the newshour. thank you for being here. i think it is fair to say there is no and reach of these big companies. but when it comes to concentration of power, to theom detriment oftition, what new information did we learn today about their business practices and their behavior? >> the good thing about today is that both democrats and republicans on the committee really got into the details about how these compies work, how their corporate strategies work. forde instance, botcrats and republicans tried to pin down how facebook d google and amazon and apple went through corporate development, went through decisions about they strategize with the app stores, how they mhought aboutgers and acquisitions, and all that really serves to support the imperative of holding thesean

cos accountable on competition issues. we learned quite a lot today. anchor: there is this politicale di we just reported, democrats digging in on those accusations of anticompetitive behavior, some repus at least focused on what they a calling censorship of conservatives on these platforms. even president trump weighed in during the hearing, tweeting, "if congress doesn't bring fairness to big tech, which they should have done years ago, i will do it myselwith executive orders." as you were watching t hearing unfond seeing tt massive gap between the lines of of that?ing, what did you me >> there is no dbt, you are spot on, there is this divide. democrats have been coming at the issue of antitrust and market competition from different angles. democrats have cared more about economic eity, discrimination, racism, bias, these types of

things. whereas republicans, inclung president trump andis former attorney general jeff sessions, have been thinking more about content-related speech issues and in particular,ti onservative bias. these are allegations tech companies and many experts have wholly rejected. i will acknowledge, certain publicans on the committ have been asking we did, technical questions about the market power of these companies, particularly representativeor armstrong of dakota. but largely,is we have seen to more bipartisan action. anchor: there were a couple of lines of questioning i would like to get your take on the one in particular against facebook's congresswoman jpapal.washington

and sheed af facebook was trying to overrun instagram even as it was trying to buy inagram? >>u do pyour competitors? >> we haveerinly adapted features others have let in, as others h features that --pted >> i'm not asking about others, i'm concerned about you, mr. zuckerberg. how many competitors did facebook conduct copying? >> congresswoman, can't give you a number of companies. anchor: we know that facebook went o to acquire instagram for abou$1 billion in cash and stock. but this allegation thatzu erberg was threatening to overrun the company, bire ac, or we will run you over with our own product, is that what happened here? >> is fair to assume that what

happened. i am not privy to mark ckerberg' specific thoughts, nor was i either t of two founders of instagram, but i think it is fair to assume that the company didut pressure on instagram, andried t really get at understanding what it's business model was, how it was trying to engage people, a certainly tried to copy some of its features, which to be fair to mark zuckerberg, essentially acknowledged. ti think i is a problem and the reason we see it happening over and over aga, you know, there were similar themes around westerns asked of amazon apple and google as well -- similar themes around questions asked of amazon and apple and l, these aw companies that have dominated a huge swath of the digital ecosystem today. that if they are copyibe small, woul rivals, that really

presen serious challenges to innovation in the long run. anchor: and there is the issue of copying products and there is the issue of pushing your own product over your rivals. there was another rival -- there was another exchange between amazon's jeff bezos and congressman jamie raskin, asking about whether amazon pushes its n products over rival products. he was asking specifically about the alexa voice service's that exchange. >> alexa make up 60% of smart speaker market. when i ask aelxa to play my favorite song, prime music is the default ayer. is alexa trained to sell amazon products? >> i am not sure it is trained in that way. i'm sure ere are cases where we do promote our own products.

business.ommon practice in it would not surprise me if alexa doesometime promote our products. anchor: is this just good business, promoting your product on your platform? er is that anti-competit behavior? >> what internet companies have waited into is a situation where they didn't quite recognize their market -- have waded into is ahe situation where didn't recognize their market power. we have seen amazon as a monopoly, we have seen this with facebook, we have seen companies spy on rivals, try to copy them, wood-b rivals wereertheir competitors might -- try to understand how there woukld-b rivals might try to attract consumers and tried to suppress

them. and those are things that are really damaging to competition, innovation, and the price to consumers. there is no doubt amazon has really screwed with the markets, and attempted to shut down smaller companies at their expense and to b amazon'sefit. at that is precisely what this committee really needs to get the bottom -- get to the bottom of with this whole investigation. anchor: very briefly, it seems every time big tech comes under scrutiny by congress, they asked this question, do the laws we have in place that define antitrust keep up with the problems presented by big tex today? >> i don't think they -- by big te today? >> i don't think they have kept up. we have antitrust policy enforcement regimes in pedce in the untates.

and they do reasonably well with certain mketplaces, certain consumer markets, b the digital economy is something totally different. we are dealing with a new currency in the form of people's attention in people's personal information.ou anregulatory regime has not stayed in line with that. it is way behind where the digital economy is tod. with this hearing being the start to a broader conversation out how we need to develop a stringent regulatory regime for the digital economy, through privacy and transparency and data portability and competition, and potentially even conditions on orders and, acquisitio we are going to see these companies having their feet held to the fire.

than committee see to it i think, in the long run. anchor: that was our guest from the digital democracy and platforms project at the harvard kennedy school. thank you, for your time. >> y tha for the conversation. ♪ judy: in an interviwew released -- judy: in an interview released today, president trump said he had not challenged president vladimir putin over russian efforts to pay the ualiban to ki. troops in afghanistan. nte two leaders spoke just last week, for the setime in recent months. as nick schifrin administration also cemented with american forces in europe.

nick: president trump often questions and criticiz the u.s intelligence community, and praises russian president vladimir putin. and when he spoke to pin on july 23, he did not raise the intelligence community's investigations into russian payments to the taliban attack us troops, as he told axios on hbo's jonathan swan. >> we discussed numerous things, we did not discuss that,o. >> and you've never discussed it with him? >> i have never discussed it with him, no. i would, i'd have no problem with it. >> but you don't believe -- it's because you don't believe the intelligence, that's why. >> everything--younow, nobody ever brings up china. it's always russia, russia, russia. nick: former intelligence officials tell pbs newshour the taliban received russian military intelligence money to officials debated the target u.s. service me intelligence, and commanders say the bounties did not likely rebulting deaths. it was an increase in russian support to the taliban, as already detailed in 2018 by then top commander gen. john nicholson. we've had weapons brought to this headquarters and given to us by afghan leaders and said,

this was given by the russians to the talibanwe know that the ssians are involved.n, >> john nicholormer head of forces in afghanistan, said--and this is when he was working for you--that russia was supplying weapons to the taliban. isn't that enough to challenge over the killings of us soldiers? >> well, we supplied weapons iaen they were fighting ru, too. you know, when we were, when they were fighting--fge taliban, innistan, >> but that's a different era. >> well, it'a different-- i'm just saying-- >> but--t >> i'm jsaying, we did that too. nick: in 1979, the soviet union invaded afghanistan to prop up an unpopular communist government. the united states supporteanand armed afighters known as mujahideen, who targeted soviet troops. in 2001, the united states was attacked, and waged war in ghanistan because that's where , 9/11's planners plotted. is inaccurate, says doug lute. >> the equivalence here is inappropriate because the situation is exactly reversed fromhat it was 30 or 40 year ago. nick: doug lute is a retiredte lint general, appointed by president bush to coordinate the afghanistan and iraq wars, and by president obama to be nato

ambassador. he said both his former bosses, would have demanded more information about the bounty program if the intelligence was and responded, even if the intelligence was uncertain. >> it's unimaginable to me that the president has that this has been public for weeks, and obably available to the president for many weeks before that, and yet he has done nothing to include not even , raising it in multiple calls with president putin. nick: today president trump added he would be "ry angry" if the bounty his administration story were true. has sanctioned russiel officials fotion interference and chemical weapons attacks. but he has also reverted to moral equivalence on russia erfore. >> putin is a ki >> there are a lot of killers. have a lot of killers. what, you think our country is so innocent? nick: another presidential instinct and priority, reducing u.s. troops overseas. today, the administration announced it would withdraw nearly 12,000 trps from sermany, and bring half home. secretary of defark esper said thousands of service members would move toward russia's borders, and enhance deterrence. >> we're following in many ws the boundary east, where our

where our newest allies are, so into the black sea region. we talkeabout additional forces into poland, and i think there are opportunities to put forces into the baltic that's why it's the strategic laydown that enhances deterrence, strengthens the allies. nick: but just minutes before, president trump said the decision was punishment for germany's failinto fulfill its promise to spend 2% gdp on defense. or>> so we're reducing the because they are not paying their bill. it's very simple. they are delinquent. nick: today a senior ally to german chancellor angela merkel said the reduction would weaken nato. and the unit that will rurn to the u.s. is the most capable >> it is in itself the most flexible deterrent package that is in place today. so to remove it from germany and move it to the united states does not provide the same reassurance as having americanin soldiers live urope, be there 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

nick: but reassuring western european allies, and overcoming bipartisan concerns about troop drawdowns and his relationship with vladimir putin, have never been president trump's top priorities. for the pbs newshour, i'm nick schifrin. ♪ judy: it turnsutthe coronavirus crisis has a menacing medical side effect that's receiving littlen attentus far, the secondary bacterial infections it causes. that and that in turn raises aueconomic issues that areng a crisis in the antibiotics industry. economics correspondent paul solman has the story, part of our regur series, "making sense." >> how valuable was the company? >> $1.4 billion. >> and today? >> a little over $8 million.

paul: highly touted biotech startup tetrapse pharmaceuticals in watertown, massachusetts. we first visited three years ago, reporting on the scary risa of dy drug-resistant bacteria and fungi, so-calle" "superbugs," which infect, according to the cdc, some 3 million americans a year, and kill tens of thousands of us. the goodews, there were dozens of scientists in this lab alone, working on several promising new antibiotics like xerava, which soon after our visit won the gold medal for medications, fda approval. now, it may seem strange to focus on antibiotics during a viral pandemic, since antibioticdon't kills viruses. >> y're on the ventilator right now. paul: but ny covid-19 patients , secondary bactery fatal infections. so we returned to tetrapse earlier this year, before masks and social distancing were mandated, to see how the antibiotics industry was progressing. the results were shocking.

this lab is completely nonfunctioning. i notice even the dust here. >> yeah, we had to let all of our research go. paul: all of your research! >> all of our research is gone, yes. paul: all the scientists, la off. instead, ceo larry edwards had a skeleton staff trying market and sell xerava, and kee tetraphase from going out of business a fate that's now , befallen two of the twel companies that, over the lastde de, also won fda approval for new antibiotics. you were in one of those companies. >> i was in one of those companies yes. , narr: erin duffy was chief -- paul: -- paul: erinuffy was chief scientist at melintacs therapeutitranslating the company's nobel-prize winning research, >> orbactiv prevents the cell from expanding and multiplying. : paulto new, super-bug slaying antibiotics.

>> that company s now filed chapter 11. paul was the drug llat it was : g promising? >> wrye had four romising antibiotics. there were all for serious infections in the hospital. paul: it's simply amazed me. while anviral research is booming, the antibiotics market isn bro, at the worst possible time, says infectious disease specialist helen boucher. >> we kn that with t regular flu, influenza, our patients sometimes develop what we call secondary bacterial infections. et to usact, when they in the hospital, that's often the dire consequence and that's how we lose patients. ul the same is now proving : true of the coronavirus pandemic. according to a recent paper, half of those who died from covid-19 in china also had drug resistant bacterial infections.

ander thus, a furhat as more cause of concern that as more and more covid patients become , seriously ill, antibiotic resistance will inevitably accelerate. >> going on long enough, covidta 19 and hospneumonia will drive resistance. paul dr. john rex is a retired : pharma executive. >> we are seeing people hospitalized for extended mes. and that's a setting where you're going to use a lot of antibiotics. paul you mean because : antibiotics are being used for the patients of covid for a secondary infection or to prevent it, that means resistance building up more quickly? >> absolutely. any given bioticn -- any gi antibiotic, you could think of it as having a relatively finite lifetime. resistance develops to everything. >> so this need to have a robust renewable pipeline of antibiotics has really never been greater. >> doctors like alan see thll needhe time in their patients, like lar heart transplant last august, followed two months later by a bacterial infection. >> a case of klebsiella, which is one of the more highly drug resistant organisms outhere.

paul so drug resistant, it's : sometis called a nightmare bacterium. withntravenous ertapenem (one -- >> it had come back. what we thought was gone just so of been hiding. if you are limited to one or two drugs and they don't work, then what do where's your options? ,ul: today after six months of , nearly continuous iv treatment, he now seems healthy. but he says, >> this can happen to anybody. i personally know a gentleman that never got out obed after surgery. he just literally got an infection and was gone within a week. paul a new knee, a c-section, : a even cut now can put you at risk, not ceo larry edwards to mention ventilators. ceo larry edwards cites a university of washington study that puts the number of deaths due to druresistant microbes at up to 162,000 americans a year, more than triple the cdc's estima , may be misreporting.

>> they will say that they die due to cancer and underlying factors where a lot of times the underlying factor is the sistant pathogen o bacteria that's killing the patient. paulo why would they be : misreporting it? >> they end up getting it negatively on if they're showing that patients are dying due to a more than likely t patient got that when they were in the hospital. paul so between 50,000 and : 162,000 deaths a yas things stood before the pandemic. look, an obvious tak19way from covis that our market-driven economy didn't invest in the necessary public gosks for a virus tests, ma , 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 p nblem. and it getting better, it just continues to get worse.

paul: ted schroeder is a ceo with a company whose marke value is also cratered despite , its recently approved antibiotic. >> i don't think anyone envisioned that the entire involved in this research would be half of what a single company gowas two and a half years that is not a decline, that is danear collapse. paul at a moment of arguably the : most dire need. plwe will e why in our next report. ♪his is paul solman in boston. judy: finally tonight, power now read this book" conversation.

reporter: in 2014 american cities were convulsed in the aftermath of the deaths of michael brown and eric garner,o the killings that helped catalyze the 'black lives matter' movement. that year, the book: "citizen: an american lyric" was published with prose poems, monologues, and imagery capturing the momen , rough a different lens, the inner lives and thoughts of individuals, the almost casualea racism that pes daily life for so many. author claudia rankine. >> racism is institutional, we know, but institutions are made up of people. cso what are those thousas that lead to the big institutional fai around racism? i asked people who i knew, friends, other colleagues, to just tell me moments where they were going along in their day and suddenly, somebody said or did something that reduced them

to their race. and so i collected these stories, rewrotehem, got to the heart of what i was trying to portray. brown: one of them that stuck with me, it is from a story a man is narrating his own experience as he's being pulled repeating this linimself,eps "you are not the guy and still you fit the description because there is only one guy who is always the guy fitng the description." >> exactly. and that line actually came from the he he said, of course, i person i was interviewing. guy who fit the description and again. and so that became a refrain as

i sort ocrafted that poem. >> you know, several of our readers asked about the form of poems, monologues, you havese, photographs what was your and images. what was your thinkiut how to structure the book? >> >> well you know, i've always , felt that visual artists have been able to portray these kinds of ways in which racm hits the body in ways that were so ccinct. you just saw it, you understood it. and so i i embarked on this collaboration with these the works of these visual artists without even the knong, because i was just requesting the usean omage 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 these moments really sat inside them. >> the book came out in 2014. it was incredibly timely at that moment. how do you look at what is goinw onn light of what you , wrote then? >> well, younow, henry lis gates a long time ago wrote a

book called "the signifying monkey," and he said that erican-american writers w always in conversation with the time, and with each other. and i feel like "citizen" was just the next book that looked at the same dynamic that toni morrison was looking at or frederick douglass was looking at, or james baldwin, obviously. and so if i had published "citizen" in 2007 or 2012 or 2015 or yesterday, it would have the same mirroring, relay effect because those events have been , going on and continue to go on. >> a number of our readers wondered if you see signs of hope now? >> the protests are incrediblet even last ni saw in portland mothers of all races putting themselves in front of

the military, and protecting this country, in sense. and so that that is new. the the intergenerational inter heross race gatherings that we have seen duringuarantine is unprecedented in this country. >> when all of this is going on, when people are in the streets demotrating and and so much happening in the country, what does poetry or literature do? what does it offer? >> i think writers, as culture makers, are in that special place where they are able to sa what is. and that is it. they're not asking for something to happen or needingo create a transaction. they are just saying what is. in a sense, their work becomes a kind of record, but not the record of values, the of

experience. >> "citizen, an american lyric." nk claudia e, nice to talk to you. thank you for being part cf the bob. judy claudia rankine's new book, : "just us: an american conversation" will be published in september. an for our august selection, something very "beijing different paybac" a , geo-politic thriller and crime novel. the author will join us here at the end of the month. and we hope you will j and other readers on our website and facebook page for 'now read this', our book club partnership with the new york times. and that is the newshour for toght. i'm judy woodworth. join us tomorrow evening. for all of us here, thank you and please sa stay -- please stay safe. >> 2 for5 years, consumer cellular is been offering no

contract wireless plans designed to help people do more of wh they like. our u.s.-based service team can find the plan that fits you. to learn more, visit consumer cellular.tv. >> fidelity wealth management. >> johnson & johnson. financial services firm raymond james. the ford foundatio working with visionaries on the front lines of social chang worldwide. ♪ and with the ongoing support of these individuals and ♪institutions. [captioning peormed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy.] ♪

this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and from coributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. ♪ this iros pbs newshour west, weta studios in washington and from our bureau at the walter cronkite schoo of journalism at arizona state university. ♪

♪ >> lidia: welcome to my home kitchen! it is times like these that makes us slow down and think, and i was blessed to grow up and the foin a settingat.ds, where i helped godndma to grow the hat we ate. today, that food i shop for. it's important to remember and appreciate these ingredients, and today, we'll showcase them in all their glory ♪