captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> nawaz: good evening, i'm amna owaz. judy woodruff is. on the newshour tonight, the pardon power-- the president issues another round of controversial pardons while complicating congressional efforts towards a new covid relief bill. then, at the last minute, dgotiators from the unite kingdom and the european union finalize a brexit trade deal, four years in the making. plus, in the time of an economic crisis, a crucial time for giving and what it means to organizations that serve those in need. and, a nation divided-- we step back for the long view ohow the u.s. is being transformeby the pandemic. >> one of the striking things about this year is that the partisan divides that have shaped our politics for so long clearly also shaped ur culture r way of processing reality. >> nawaz: all that and more on

tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding f the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> the kendeda fund. committed to advancingrestoratid raaningful work through investments in tnsformative leaders and ideas. more at kendedafund.org. >> carnegie corporation of new york.

nnovations in education, democratic engagement, and the advancement of international peace and security. at carnegie.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: and individuals. >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from vthwers like you. k you. >> nawaz: this christmas eve has been athing but quiet in washington, after president trump's surprise announcement that he does not support the covid relief bill passed by congress.u. th house of representatives met briefly today and rejected two proposed revision to increase directec

for individuals and to remove foreign aid. without trump's signature, millions of people hoping for economic assistance this holiday season will be left waiting. on saturday, pandemic unemployment benefits are set to expire. and on monday, the government will run out of money. the house and senate will return early next wk for a planned override of trump's veto of a defense bill. meanwhile, president trump is spending christmas eve in florida, but he continued his flurry of pardons late yesterday. just this week, he has more than doubled his acts of clemency from the previous four william brangham picks up the story. >> brangham: that's right na. president trump added 29 new pardons and commutations last night and there were many familiar names, including charles kushner, the father of the president's son-in-law jared.we ther also pardons for two major figures connected to special counsel robert mueller's russia probe-- former campaign coairman paul manafort and trump idant roger stone.

those two joined three others from that investigation pardoned in the last month. for reaction, i'm joined by andrew weissman. he was the lead prosecutor for special cousel robert mueller's investigation. andrew weissman, very good to have you on the "newsh we have now five individuals who you and your colleagues helpnv t who were all guilty of lying or obstructing this investigation, and now they have been pardoned by the president of the united states. i mean, this has got to be a relarively dark pe for you. >> well, that's an understatement. i spent 20 years at the career people there are trained to apply the rule of law, and what we're seeing now is the pardon power being used to undermine the rule of law. and with paul manafort, he didn't just lie to the government, he engagedin tens of millions of dollars in bnk

laundering, he objected justice by tampering with witnses while he was out out on bail in a criminal case. so this is not an upstanding citizen, and i would ask viewers to think about, if you wee exercising the pardon pow and trying to meet out justice to the most diserving applicants for a pardon, are these the people you would choose? you know, corrupt politians, corrupt law enforcement officials, people who have committedurd, healthcare fraud defendant who committed billions of dollars in healthcare fraud? these are really sort ouof ageous exercises of the pardon power by the president of the united states. r orter: i mean, this has got to impair all, in some way,

y future special counsel, special prosecutor who is trying to investigate the president or allies of thesident, this has got to make my job in the cult if icredibly diffi simply know that with a nudge nudge and wink wink the president can sial to people, i've got your back, you don't have to worry about what these prosecutors doo you? >> absolutely. that, i think, is exactly the right point, which is to focuswh onat the precedent is here, as bad as it is in tms of what ow.president is doing n we had to deal with the dangling of pardons, andhat is trying to thwart this incentives people have to cooperate. the way that investigations are made is people come in and tell you the truth and they know that if they don't do that and they lie, they have committed a crime, and they could be prosecuted. but if you de pardons and then, as we've seen in the last two das, make good on that dangling, it really undermines

the ability of a nation that upholds itse as a natio laws to actually say the president is not above thelaw because de facto he's newsing the pardon power to make himself above the law. >> reporr: you have suggested recently tt these pardons could, in fact, backfire on president trump. can you explain, how would that happen? >> well, you know, it's an ecinteresting phenomenon se, while the pardon power in the constitution is incredibly broa one thing that is not clear is whether the presint himself can pardon himself.an so while he pardon paul manafort and roger stone, it's not at all clear whether he can do that with respect to his ownm past c. and what you can look at today as sort of the final act of his

obstructing justice. in other words, he's carried through, as you menthtioned, wih angling by saying, you know what, if you just keep quiet, you will get a pardon, and now we're seeing it done. so the new attorney general, when he or she is named and confirmed, is going to be on his orer plate the issue of ccether to hold the former president toount in the way that, frankly, other nations around the wor hold their leaders to account. so it wouldn't be unusual to do >>ean, there is a big "if"em that. dded in there as to whether or not whomever joe biden selects as attorney general choosesto go down that route. if you were still in the d.o.j., o you think knowing all the political and so psychic turmoil that the country went wt thugh, would you encourage the new a.g. to pursue this, to keep

this case going? >> i think i would. i by nois means say s an easy decision, but we're supposed to be a nation that believes in the rule of law, and if the president of the united states is alled to obstruct justice and there are no consuences, as you mentioned it's not only unfair with respect to this president, but thbut -- but th precedent set is rely terrible. important for people to knowh is which is, when paul manafort was convicted by a jury in the eastern distct of virginia, the one juror who spoke out said it would be a huge mistake to pardon him, and she said, i voted for the president, but i left my maga hat in my car because i understood that i had ta on anath to uphold the law and follow the fac and renr a true and fair verdict, and i think that is real lesson for

all of us, including the next attorney general, to decide on how to deal h the kind of corrupt behavior that we have seen, and i really don't think, in many ways, that you can move on until you do deal with what's happened and don't sweep it under the rug. >> reporter: lastly, in just the short time we have left, it's hard not tonotice that attorney general william barr's last day was yesterday now weve a deputy attorney general for the remainder to have the president's term, do you think these pardons had anything to do with that timing or not? >> i don't know the answer to that question. suspect the answer is no, and i would hope that e new attorney general, in the very few days that he has remaining to him, acquits himself well in

the honor of the department of justice. >> reporter: andrew weissman, very good to have you. thank you very buch. >> nice here. >> nawaz: following nine months of tense final negotiations, britain and the euroan union have at last hammered out a post-brexit trade deal. the agreement will ensure that britain and the 27-nation bloc can continue trading goods without tariffs or quotas, after the u.k. leaves the e.u. on new year's day. and it paints a clearer picture of britain's future four-and-a- half years after its residents voted to exit the bloc. >> we've taken back control of our laws and our destiny. >> nawaz: in london today, british prime minister boris johnson cebrated the breakthrough. >> we have today resolved a

oestion which has bedevil politics for decades and it is up to us, all together, as a newly and truly independent nation to realize the immensity of this moment and to make the >> nawaz: the trade deal between britain and the e.u. averts a caoticnd costly break-up on new years day-- the deadline to complete the separation brits voted for in 2 e6. in brusselopean commission president, ursula von der leyen, marked the moment with relief. >> it was a long and winding road. but we have got a good deal to show for it. it is fair, it is a balanced deal, and it is the right and responsible thing to do for both sides. >> nawaz: negotiators worked through the night, with last- minute wrangling over fishing rights in britain's coastal waters. the deal sets the terms for more than $900 billion dollarofin trade, freuotas and tariffs. but, it new bureaucracy, with paperwork

and inspections for every item sold across the bord. 27th sides still need to ratify the deal, and al.u. countries will need to sign off. in germany, the bloc'sst economy, chancellor angela merkel said a decision would come quickly. >> nawaz: and french president emmanuel mron tweeted that" european unity and firmness have paid off." if approved, today's agreement will end the years-long divorce, disentangling economies still dependt on each other. for more on the breakthrou between the united kingdom and the european union we turn to robin niblet the director of the british think tank chatham house.ni robiett, welcome back to the "newshour". we should say many people have tried and failed and tried and failed to reach a deal. what was it about rightow? how are they able to get this across the finish line? >> they were able to get it across the finish line because they had to by the 31st of december, otherwise, the u.k. would have dropped outf the

market arrangements from a year ouago and we have had chaos at the borders, which would have been bad for the u.k. but also for the rest of the european union and the many countries thu. rely on the market. the u.k., in a way, becomes one of the e.u.'s biggest trading partners outside of the single market. so they had to get the teal done. -- deal done, which is why most analysts reckon some compromises will be made and we get that. >> reporter: deadline is a does this mean in practicalat terms for citizens of the e.u.,s brcitizens, everyday life there, what does the deal mean? >> for most british citizens, it will make no difference whatsoever, they won notice anything. the part of the world in the u.k. that will be affected by this will be business and, in particular, those businesses that export to the european pnion, to continental europe, that incluticularly the car business, for example, 75%

of u.k. car exports go to the pharmaceuticals, agriculture, fisheries. for those folks, you will have lots more border restrictions, evenw ith this nedeal, even with zero tariffs, zeoro qutas, you will have all sorts of standards and rulations that will not be automatically accepted. so exporters will feel se pain, and consumers may feel a little bit of the impact of e price. i think the other part is anyone taking a holiday.a going to , you're going to have to have a visa waiver and you will have to worry about health insurance, all stsor things like that. obviously, if you want to work in the e.u., you can't do it as a brit. you can't go over there and look for a job as e.u. citizens could do in the u.k. up until now. all of thais over. you won't feel it day to day, but it will be a different relationship. >> reporter: so this still needs to be ratified by both thn europarliament, the british

parliament. i have to ask, history is what it is, is there any chance this falls apart? >> i don't think so. the british parliament, you meow, went through the agony of being unable to to any alternative other than brexit, despite, in else sense, taking over -- in essence, takingover control from the theresa mae government a year ago. they failed. sven the lab department i desperate to get this done and banging on about europe.d stop the e.u. has bigger fish to fry. they haveo worry and covid, russia, the new relationship wi the biden administratio they do not want the brexit hanging over int 2021. so i am 98% confident there dea will get do both sides. >> reporter: 98%, we will takeat indeed. robin niblett, director of the british think thank hatham

house, thank you. >> my pleare. >> nawaz: innehe day's other , the covid-19 death toll in the u.s. topped 328,000, asrn cali became the first state to surpass two million infections even so, millions of americans are traveling this christm in spite of warnings from public heal experts. delta and united airlines announced passengers flying to the u.s.rom the u.k.ust present a negative covid test before departing, to prevent the spread of new, highly contagious covid varits in britain. those airlines don't have similar test requirements forin flights wihe u.s. a powerful winter storm in the midwest is barreling toward the east coast today, bringing heavy snow, damaging winds, and dangerously low temperatures. blizzard conditions in minnesota, nebraska, and the dakotas closed highways d grounded flights on this busy

holiday travel day. forecasters warnedarts of that region could see wind chills plunge to 40 degrees below zero. ethiopian forces killed 42 armed men accused of massacring ahe village inestern part of their country yesterday. state-affiliated media reported the military also seized bows and arrows as well as other weapons from the attackers, who had torched homes and killed more than 100 villagerser yey. the government also deployed more troops to the area to re- establiscalm amid rising ethnic tensions. tsat least 20 african migr trying to reach europe by boat have died off the coast ofce ral tunisia. their boat sank in the mediterranean sea while en route to italy. crews rescued five sur. the tunisian navy is seahing for as many as 20 other missing passengers. a provincial court in pakistan has ordered the release of the key suspect in the 2002 murder of american journalist daniel pearl. ahmed omar saeed sheikh, a british-born pakistani man, was acquitted of killing pearl

earlier this year. but he was held ile pearl's family appealed that ruling. the family's attorney said sheikh will return to prison if his acquittal is sucssfully overturned by pakistan's supreme court next month. back in this country, ocks managed modest gains on wall street in today's shortened holiday trading session. e dow jones industrial average climbed 70 points to close at 30,200. the nasdaq rose more than 33 points, and the s&p 500 added13 christmas eve religious services bdd celebrations were far more d this year, due to the covid-19 pandemic. at the vatican, pope francis celebrated mass in the nearly empty saint peter's basilica with some 200 faithful; a much different scene from t thousands who usually attend. and in the west bank, a lockdown in bethlehem muted festivities at manger square in the traditional birthplace of jesus.

>> christmas is a holiday that renews hope in the souls, and therefore, despite all the obstacles and challenges due to the coronavirus and due to the lack of tourism, the city of bethlehem is still looking forward to the future with optimism and will celebrate christmas in all its human and religious meanings. >> nawaz: some churches around the rld were forced to hold their midnight masses earlier in the day to abide by loca pandemic curfews. stilto come on the newshour: a crucial time for giving and what it means for groups that serve those in need. stepping back to conder how the u.s. is being transformeby overlapping crises. despite the pandemic, the entrepreneial spirit is alive and well. and much more.

>> nawaz: this time of year is a critical one for charities and non-profits that rely on a surge of holiday giving to make ends meet. but this year we've seen the need for their service dramatically grow, especially at food banks where lines are stretching longer than before. for more on the state of giving in america, i'm joined by stacy palmer, the editor of the chronicle of philanthropy. stacy palmer, welcome back to the "newshour". i think it's fair to say the tindemic has had devas economic impact on the country and fla n pise no exception. we found in the most dire scenario nearly 120,000 how badly has the pandemic hurt philanthropy? >> philanthropy is fairly strong. people are givi jeferls but that's not enough to help nonprofits. many have laid off their employees, they can't keep up f with the dema services, so it's a really rough time in the nonprofit world no matter howri

generous ans have been. >> reporter: is there a difference between larger and >> groups of all sare struggling, but it's those small and mid-size groups we count on they barely have any reserves. some have oneo two weeks of reserves. when that financial cushion plays out, they hute to c back so it's scary for nonprofits. >> reporter: we've seen inequality in america grow during the pandemic and millions of amerinicans are strug with lost wages and jobs but the country's richest, over 600 billionaires, added almost a trillion dollars in total net p worth in tdemic. halls that fueled additional giving from the richest amerans? >> we have seen amazing gifts from some of the very wealthiest people. mcnzie scott, former wife of this year., has given $6 billion it's an amazing thing. jeff dorsey of twitter hasiven

very generously, so we're seein those amazing gifts, but, even still, it's not enough to make up for the losses that nonprofits have. they depend on government like a lot of us, the reson they're suffering is because they get their money in so many different ways and this they're not available anymore. >> stacy the need is so great but that need will extend far beyond the holidays when people vare more likely to gie. when folks are struggling, trying to prioritize where and how to give, what uld yor advice be is this. >> almost every nonprofit needs moy now, so you should make the choice of what you care about most in your community. those have us getting stimulus checks maybe on't need them have a little bit of extra money. it's a great thing for us to try to give tointhe peopl our communities who are suffering the most, but think about other causes, mental health groups, arts groups, other kinds of groups we don't thintk about h the food bank lines, they also need your help, so they'll appreciate anything you can give. >> we know that need will be there for many weeks and months to come.

stacy palmer from the chronicle of pilanthropy, thank you joining us. >> thank you so much. nawaz: now, we want to take a step back, for a long view of what this historic year has revealed. in a conversation recorded yesterday, judy woodruff is our guide. >> woodruff: 2020 has been a ar, unlike any within living memory and one that exposed some of our deepestivides, the pandemic has now killed more than 320,000 people in the u.s. and left millions in financial distress. anew this summer aheem erupted killing of george floyd and the deaths of otheafrican americans. all of this happening in the midst of a national election. we're joined now by four peoplto ake a look at thisast year and look ahead.

dr. ooch blackstock is an emergency medicine physician and the founder of advancing health equity, which is focused on addressing racism in health care. yuval levin, editor of "national affairs" magazine and a director institute, a conseeerprise research center in washington. jill lapore is a professor of american history at harvard university, a staff writer at the "new yorker" and an award winning author. and eddie glaude jr. is chair of the department of african- american studies at princetoner unty and an author himself. and we welcome all four of you back to the news hour. we normally at the end of the year, look back at the highs and e lows. t dr. blackstock, i think it's fair to say this year it's beenr a f low and lower. but let'focus first on the pandemic. what is it said to us, do you think, about america's leadership and about who we are

as americans? >> so as we head io this, i would say this dark winter with cases record highs that's increasing, would say that there was a social contract that was broken between this country's leadership and its people. the fact that we have a virus that can be mitigated and other nations have done that much more successfully than we have, has really shown the degree of the lack of leadership here. i've witnessed this firsthand as an emergency medicine physician. i cared for probably up tohis point, thousands of covid-19 patients. i've never been scared to go to work, as i have been this year, scared of what would happen to my patients and also scared of what would happen to me and my family.ha and so i thinks a result of lack of investment in our health care infrastructure asll s our public health infrastructure.

and that's why we're seeing what we're seeing currently. >> woodruff: yal levin, what would you say this pandemic has said about our leadership and >> well, i certainee with dr. blackstock. what we've seen as a failure of leadership and ultimately a failure leadership is a ilure of responsibility. i think up and down the chain. that is what this year has shown us. and one thing that i've certainly learned as someo o who's tried erve the american system of government for a long time, wt's been clearest this year is that the president's responsibility, the responsibity of our leaders ultimately is an obligation to deal with reality. and i think whate've seen again and again this year is a desire to avoid dealing with reality and instead to create alternative alities that might allow our leaders to ignore and deny their obligations. but we face a reality that didn't care what we thoughtt? about it, ri that wasn't going to be swayed by whatever a president might have to say. the virus was what it was, and it required leadership that was willing to deal with it as it

was to respond to problems, to learn from failures. and it has to be said that although we're ending the year with some light at the end of the tunnel because of the vaccine, which certainly is a triumph and in part an amecan triumph, we have for the most part seen failure after failure leership class.it comes to our >> woodruff: and professor eddie glaude pick up on that and then i know you've spoken and written a lot about what this year has revealed in terms of our i economquality hand in hand with t inequality in our health care. >> yeah, so in some ways, youwe caan echo dr. blackstone here in the sense that that the social contract has been broken. but it's not just simply, i think, about the leadership class. in somways, the leadership class reflects what's happening in the body politic itself, in our sense of community, right?r lationship with each other, our sense of obligation to each other has brokennd in

some ways is broken, primarilyof because i thinhat can be described as selfishness and greed. so what has been revealed for me really quickly is th the last 40 years of particular political and economic ideology has revealed itself to be bankrupt, that it has transformed us from citize and community with each other to individual persons in pursuit of our own self- interest, in competition and rivalrwith others. so there's no robust conception of the public good, and it evidences itself with liberty becoming a synonym for selfishnes it evidences itself and being more concerned about their moral one case or their stock portfolios than they areith and so there's a sense in which the very ideological frame ofst the 0 years has collapsed right in front of us, and we're searching and grappling for a different way of being together. >> woodruff: and jill lapo a thinkiut that, and that is someone who looks at the arc of history, how does this pandemica fit into ame story?l,

>> w think we really won't know until we get to the other side of it, but i think an interesting question is when did thisistorical moment begin? 40 years ago is a really reasonable point of parture. we can think about 1980 as a real turning point in american politics and in american economic structures. but i think actually, if you look at the quantitative data, we need to go back a little bit further toort of 1968 to 1972, because there if you plot on a graph, you see income inequali begins to rise in that moment and so does political polarization, bothf which have been increasingly increasing consistently since the late '60searly '70s. so what we see now, of course, with the pandemic is tre is light at the end of the tunnel, but there's also a great dl of light been cast on inequalities and asymmetries in american economic and political life that have been gettinworse and worse and worse for decades. so mew we will remember this is whether we rise to the challenge at all or not.es and i there's just one

more thing i might speak to that hasn't been raised yet, coming last year. and that is the degree to which this is a disease that affects the human family, all of us across the planet earth.er and i think e's a way in which the hope that we can find here has to do with, you know, that sensibility that that there is such a thing as a public good and there's the good of humankind and there's the good of our e of the planet as a whole, that maybe there's a way in which that one of the waysse to the challenge of this moment, of course, is to think about theil massive es of our federal government and the lack of t adership that everyone else has pointed to, so to think about this as an opportunity for a kind of spiritual rewal as a human family. >> woodruff: and dr. blackstock, i mean, picking thinking about asymmetry and the human spiritin all this, in the midst of the pandemic, we have the killing of grge floyd of other black americans. brianna taylor, how has that changed the way we've not only

looked at this pandemic, but is this a is this another is this another civil rights movement in this country? how do you see it? >> you know, it's interesting, i being murdered on video by aan police officer to wake up a sizable proportion of the u.s. population. it took a pandemic to reveal racial health inequities that have always been there. and obviously, we're having conversations and a candid, more public way that was had before. i think what we really need to see is pchange. call the social determinants of health, jobs, housing, focus on reinvestment in black communities.at ould be action. we'll just continuith thehen same structural inequities that we currently have.

>> woodruff: we talk yuval levin, about having a national conversationbout these things, but we are a very divided country right now. some of these conversations are not being had around e workspace, every dinner table. how does that affect, do you think, our ability to move this moment?ake advantage of >> one of the striking things about this year is that the partisan divides that ha shaped our politics for so long clearly also shape our culture and our way of processg reality so that whether it is talking about the pandemic or whether it is talking about racial justice and some of what we've seen on our streets this year, you've seen really two sorts of political conversations happening alongside each other, very rarely engaging each other, two realities that have had to face each other. we can hope that the challengesa we face this the enormous deprivation and insecurity that so many americans are facing,

might force us as people, as citizens and force our leaders to confront these realities as one whole. but i have to say, so far, and even in the wake of the election, we've seen the persistence of these twodi separateinct tracks to separate realities that make it so difficult for us to really come to terms with the underlying problems that we as a country are going to have toce >> woodruff: professor glaude, what about tha how possible is it truly for ue to tackle thsues that eu're all describing when are so split? >> we have to tell ourselves the truth. that these two parallel worlds, these two parallel realitiesin one is rootehis assumption that white people ought to be valued more than oths, that there's a way in which a sense of one's own precarity, a sense of one's own economic insecurity, is being displaced onto these others who are in some ways threcipients of a

tyrannical government that's redistributing wealth fr hardworking folk to lazy folk. i mean, we have to tell ourselves the truth, it seems te and that is in some ways we may very well be experiencing the last gasp of a particular understanding of the country. the demographic shifts that are that have happened are exerting certain kinds of pressures. we're seeing those pressures evidenced themselves in the body politic as well as in our cultural lives. so we're in some ways, we're at a crossroads to invoke a blues metaphor. i and the questi what kind of choice will we make? and i think we're waiting see we're waiting to see what the answer will be. >> woodruff: jill lapore, does ueour history give us any about that? >> i think our history would suggest at there needs to be an in fact, the history of the last year as well, suggests thre needs to be a lot of action at the local level. i mean, each of the speakers has talked about the failure of leadership on the part of the federal government. but we've seen a lot of

tremendous leadership by governors and even by state legislatures. and i think in locov communities ing food relief and doing their own efforts to address racial injtice and begin some of some long overdue steps. i do think you see evidence in different moments of csis in the american past where some conversations that need to be had were really never going to be national conversations. >> woodruff: dr. blackstock, do you see ingredients in the coming political leadership, the biden administration or elsewhere that you think will show show us a wayo work through some of these enormous challenges we're facing? >> i definitely see some promise, i see focus on the science of focus on health, equity and racial equity, but i think that we have to, as usual, and make sure that they keepble

working on these goals of racial justice. look, racism has essentiallyde lack people and other people of color sick in this country by putting them at risk for lness for this virus.ne leadership, but lod state, to start working on efforts to address this. >> woodruff: yuval levin.yo so now two ohave brought up the importance of local leadership looking away from the center. what would you add to that? >> well, i very much agrth. and i thin if you want to be hopeful about america at this point, you would do better to look at our country from the bottom up than from the top down. there are a lot of promising together to try to address challenges that have arisen in the course of the pandemic and that have become clearer in the course of this year in other ways around race and policg and other things. we also have an incoming with very narrow csional come in majorities.

it's not clear yet if the republicans or democrats will control the senate. democrats will narrowly control the house so that whatever their ambitions, the new administration is going to have a lot of challenges and will have to find ways to make incremental progress through various kinds of bipartisan compromises. that's no easy thing now. >> woodruff: professor glaude, is this a time for compromise is, as we just heard from mr. it a time for standing one's ground? w l, it all depends on what the nature of the compromise is, it seems to me that the scalof the problems the country face require requires a major intervention, transformative leadership, bold vision. america is broken, in my view, even though we may we may be able to point toockets at the local level where people are trying to imagine different wayf eing together.

i think fundamentally how we imagine ourselves as living together has kind come apart. and so we need, i think, a boldr vision, a trantive vision right now that i will not put my faith in the fact that it's going to happen in washington, d.c., but we need it. it seems to me we have to figure out a different way of being together if america is going to survive.li that sound an old jeremiad. i know a professor lapore recognizes the nature of the language, but it seems to me that we have to we have to kind of describe the nature of the crisis at that scale. and it seems to me we need both and not either or in terms of the response, both local and national response, not tinkering around the edges that. >> woodruff: and i see you smiling, professor jill lepore. i'm going to give you the last word. >> i couldn't agree more that we need that bold vision and i think we do needt at the tional level, we need a new moral platform on which peoplest

cad. hear, eddie, that,now,o just give that jeremiah to the american people. i mean, i just don't see i agrwh entirely wite we began. the social contract has been broken. that that's an obligation that falls to each and every one of us. >> woodruff: well we could go on and on. but we are going to leave it at that. and thank each one of you. jill lapore, professor eddie glaude jr., yuval levin and dr. uche blackstock. thank you, each one of you. >> nawaz: with the pandemic raging and the nation's economy teeering, this might seem l a strange time to start a business. but is it? paul solman considers this question, asart of his regular series, making sense. >> reporter: 24-year-old saida

florexil, deaf since birth, working at a hothouse for startups in florida. >> my company is imanyco. it advocates for communication accessibility, and delivers a live transcription technology to help people who are deaf and communication.g with >> reporter: in short, an app in real time, tellyou who'sons speaking. florexil lipreads easily. but how do you lip read a group? >> if my head is still that way. and then this perteson st talking... somebody has to tap me and say, 'saida i'm talking this way!' gh reporter: and of course... >> the pandemic now with covid, everyone wearing face masks, i don't even kn you're talking or if you're not talking! >> reporter: rprising, at least to me, is that florexil is one of several million americans who've ted to start a business since the pandemic hit, despitnx the economicties of covid. from april to june: 90000 government applications to start a business.

from july to september: aan millioa half. but really launch a company now? >> i would argue as someone who started nine companies myself, that a recession is actually a fantastic time to start a business. >> reporter: serial entrepreneur ott galloway. >> i've had winners. i've had losers. as i look rough all of them and try and determine the signal the best forward-lookingt is indicator of success. simply put, it was where in thec economle i started the business. >> reporter: booms go bust and busts recover, says galloway now a marketing professor. during the busts, startup costs are low, the unemployed are cheap, and so is commercial real >> this building u be a church built in, i believe, the early 1940s. >> reporter: in veneta, oregon, annie molnar gave me a tour of" the emporium," a brand new marketplace for local artisans.g >> here is my product line... >> reporter: molnar, who sells soaps, partnered with camalich lough, who sells artisanal foods and bakeware. b

they rented thlding for less than half its price, pre- covid. >> the building had been vacant. anwe came in. it was perfect timing. >> reporter: just down the road, amy wells, her husband cameron, and business partner chris archer are turning this abandoned site into "arable brewing company". at $870 a month with an option to buy, and crucially, no overhead. >> we aren't up against the sae struggles that a lot of the other businesses out there are up against right now because we don't have to serve the public currently. we don't have toorry about any of the lockdowns. >> reporter: and of courseon they're bettin post-bust upswing, says cameron. >> if everything works out well with the vaccinei don't think it could work out any better because people areoing to be,re you know, of being socially distance in their house for a year and then some. >> reporter: in other words, pent-up demand for bellying up

e the bar. now if youinking it's a long shot for folks who've never run a business to start a a pandemic, how about the during hurdles saida florexil has faced, since childhood. >> i've never thought that one day i'll be able to do something lis this. i t like other students. i had to spend extra time atw home learning write, learning how to speak clearly. i spent hours, years going toch speeherapy and how to pronounce my name. >> reporter: florexil is saddled with student loans, car payments. but with so many lips impossiblr d because of masks these days, she's hopeful. a and ition... >> one thing i've learned is that a lot of big companies started why not take that opportunity? >> reporter: on the otr hand... >> oh, my gosh. i still think i'm crazy for >> reporter: now some would say florexil is crazy. pandemic aside, half of new businesses fold within five

years, and starting a business in america has become more and more dicey for decades, as evena scott oway acknowledges. >> over the last 20 or 30 years, it's actually a very difficult time to art a business. >> reporter: reasons? one is the increasing market dominance of mega-coanies like amazon, apple and gole, says galloway. >> it is very hard to get funding in an environment that is controlled by huge, dominant invasive species. so i would argue that 's this continued march of monopolies that, if you will, is taking all the oxygen out of the room for small businesses. >> reporter: there's a second reason entrepreneurs often balk: there's more red tape these days, says entrepreneurship researcher sameeksha desai, and pl... >> the city of navigating the business environment and the business process can contributei to people specific decisions not to gpaw or not to nd in a certain way. >> reporter: but mtry would-be enepreneurs are shrugging off these concerns because the

pandem has left them no other choice. molnar and lough opened the emporium because, with the usual venues shut down, they desperately needed somewhere to sell their soaps and. bakewa and florexil started her app because she was a substitute teacher before the pandemic forced schools to close. and when they reopened, students were required to wear masks, which obscured their lips. >> so i knew that was to be very hard for me with a communication, i couldn't do it. >> reporter: scott galloway, as usual, puts it bluntly: for entrepreneurship, he says... >> there's nothing like desperation.li there's nothin need to create a certain level of innovation, a certain level of hunger. >> reporter: of course, success.ion doesn't mean but entrepreneurs are optimists: they have to be. and thank goodness, wrote the famous 20th century economist, john maynard keynes, because.."" if spontaneous optimism falters, leaving us to depend on exthing but a mathematical

ctation, enterprise will fade and die." florexil knows the risks. but along with her optimism... >> i'm scared of missing out,yo know, not doing it. that's my biggest fear.ow so i feel likes the right time. you can't buy time. >> reporter: no you can't. this is pbs newshour paul solman. year, with particular challenges for parents of small children and those frontline s who deliver mail and packages. but still, we look for moments of delight.. here's stephanie sy with a story of just that. >> sy: social distancing may have defined 2020, but it didn't stop spontaneous moments of joy from springing up and making us el connected.

one of those moments was captured on video. avelina whitlow, a toddler in portland, oregon, and her neighborhood mailman dance separated by the window in her family's living room. it's a video that has gotten millions of views, including the thirty times i watched it. and avalina, her father, david, who made the video, and ian simon, their mailman, joins us now. what a beautiful sig thank you all so much for being with us. hey, avelina.

# >> i think it means everything. for someone lose, it means a it meant a lot to me and my family and it certainly means a lot to ava. >> reporter: can you tell me how the last nine months have been for you and your family? >> it's been an incredible i think just like everybody else, our whole -- all of our daily activities were -- kind of came to a halt. i lost tsiness that i had. i was at the end of some pretty majoschooling.i didn't work for, and, you know, now i'm back to work three-quarter t med things seem to be looking up a little bit. of this video and, so, hoping ut keep that going. >> reporter: and ian, whatt abu? what's been your personal struggle throughout all of this? >> i have been pretty lucky that i still get to work every day. i work a lotsix, sometimes seven days a week.

the school is shut down, my wif can't work, our son's autistic so she's got to ay howith him and do the laptop schooling, try i to keep him focused. >> david, i think any parent would want to capture this deon but you also put together a montage of different days when you sayavalina dancing with ian. what inspared you to put the video out to the world? >> throughout the pandemic, i htually made a lot of videos of my daughter, sove a ton of these videos, and some of theme etty sweet, others are just kind of fun. this one was too sweet not to share, and i kind of thought this wouldreally make soe people cry because it made us cry when we watched it together, my wife and i.h so ight the world needed something to feel good about, and ian was o huge paf that, obviously. that's how it made me feel is happy and i'm really glad that everybody else felt so happy

when they watched it. i think they feel how i feel when i watch her dance. >> reporter: and what about you? what kind of reactions have you gotten since the video has been out there? it's gotten millions of views. >> i get messages from people alover the world, thanking me. it's very inspiring. one lady started doing meals-on-wheels, and he were first week on route she started dancing the food up to the door. i know a lot of the messages, i tear up, so heart warming. >> rtoorter: i just wante thank you guys for sharing that video and bringing joy to l of us that have been blessed to see it. ian simon and david an avalina whitlow, thank you so much anday happy hol >> same to you. thank you so much. >> thank you so much for putting it out there. >> bye.

>> nawaz: finally tonight, we continue a newshour tradition. each year, we have asked the department of defense and its defense media activity agency to spread a little holiday cheer and record service members singing a christmas song. from members across the services, here is little drummer boy. ♪ come they told me pa rum pum pum pum ♪ a new born king to see pa rum pum pum pum ♪ our finest gifts we bring pa rum pum pum pum ♪ to lay before the king pa r♪ pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum ♪ so to honor him

♪ when we come pum ♪ i am a poor boy too pa rum pum pum pum ♪ i havnoift to bring pa rum pum pum pum ♪ that's fit to give our king pa r pum pum pum, ♪ rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum ♪ shall i play for you pa rum pum pum pum

♪ i played my drum for him pa rum pum pum pum ♪ i played my best for him pa rum pum pum pum, ♪ rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum ♪ then he smiled at me paum pum pum pum ♪ me and my drum come they tolde >> nawaz: and that'she newshour for this christmas eve. m amna nawaz. join us online and aga here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you, pstay safe, and see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs

newshour has been provided by: >> architect. mee-keeper. or. a raymond james financial advisor tailors advice to helpfe you live your life, well-planned.r >> consucellular. >> the ford foundation. working with visionaries on the frontlines of cial change worldwide. >> the alfred p. s foundation. driven by the promise of great ideas.

>> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: and friends ofhe newshour. >> this program was made possible by the corporatn for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your p station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by c newshour productions, captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.g >> you're watching pbs.

[intense classical music]] - hello everyone. and welcome to amanpour and company. here's what's coming up. - we have done an amazing job and it's rounding the corner. - what's he dog? nothing. he's still not worrying masks. r] - [amanpfter head to head town halls, who will voters trust to take care of america's health amid this pandemic. andy slavitt ran medicare and medicaid for preside obama and he'll join me.hen, - peace cannot be imposed, desire for peace needs to come from within. - [amanpour] turniswords i, war reporters as peacemakers. gary knight and robin wright join me with an ambitious new project. plus, - i will tell you, i fear that we may see worse before we see better. - [amanpour] the national guard story you might not know. how his forces are helpingis people keep food on the table.