captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> oodruff: good evening, i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight, farewell, 2020-- we look back at the toll of the pandemic and the still difficult road ahead. then, a deadly encounter-- minneapolis police fatally shoot a man during affic stop prompting unrest a questionsst, about transparency. plus, america abroad-- wee examine ump administration's foreign policy legacies and the challenges facingresident-elect biden's team. >> you have a mixed bag, but the kind of have to come in and itso actions will dictate whether the gains will be maintaed or whether the loss of leadership

is going tbe just devastating. >> woodruff: all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> the kendeda fund. committed to advancing restorative justice andor meaningfulthrough investments in transformative leaders and ideas. more at kendedafund.org. >> carnegie corporof new

york. supporting innovations 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 ur pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: the pandemic year of 2020 is winding down tonight, in somber fashion. as the new year arrives, covid- 19 has claimed more than 1.8 million lives worldwide.

the total includes almost 345,000 in this country. jeffrey brown has our report.>> brown: it's aew year's eve like never before: how it feels, how it looks, and definitely how the world is celebrating. in australia, fireworks lit upe the sky abdney harbor, butis th time without a crowd that in years past, reached one million people. fireworks in melbourne were canceled. ( ringing bellng ) bells n the new year in erkyo, japan where a small number of peoplein attendance. gatherings were discouraged as the covid outbreak is ed to explode in the coming days. anbeaches in rio de janeir brazil will close tonight. covid deaths in brazilhe second highest in the world, the first being the u.s. in europe, where covid are also rampant, a much quieter new years eve is expected, with most

firework displays canceled. hafalgar square in london been closed off to the public. and, parts of england entered the strictest stage of lockdown today in an effort to curb the spread of virus. >> if that is what the government want to do then we have got to follow it. be honest we have been lockdown for so long we are all used to it now. >> brown: in berlin, germany, police enforced a ban on celebrations and fireworks sales.fl angela merkel ted on the s ndemic in what was most likely her last new yeae speech. >> ( translated ): what a year is behind us. risky, and unusualctiveehavior behavior normal. the year of the pandemic, 2020, was a year of learning. >> brown: in france, somece 100,000 pofficers patrolled streets to enforce anp 8:. curfew and prevent people from gathering. any covid cases caon as few if

usual crowds gathered in auckland, new aland, to watch e annual new year's eve fireworks display. as well as in taiwan, where fireworks shot out from taipei's largest skyscraper state tv in north rea also showed large crowds watching performances and fireworks. the tightly controlled country has given no indicion of how widespread covid-19 is there.an meile, here at home, the iconic ball will drop in times square in new york, but for the trst time in decades, the site will be closed othe public. the countdown will be televised, but only the production crew and selected front line workers an their families will be in attendance. firework displays in las vegas and san francisco are also canceled this year. >> brown: for most, then, a new enars eve like no other, t a year like no other. for the pbs newshour, i'm jeffrey brown. >> woodruff: president trump is

spending new year's eve in washington, after returning early from his mar-a-lago resoro inrida. he arrived at the white house this afternoon, but took nos questid gave no reason for coming back a day before he had planned. president-elect biden spent new year's eve privately, in rehoboth beach, delaware. nebraska senator ben sasse llshed back today against republicans trying to delay president.oral votes for on facebook, sasse called it a "dangerous ploy" driven by those he branded "institutional arsonists." missou senator josh hawley and several house republicans plan to object when congress counts the votes on wednesday. the house and senate are expected to dismiss e objections there was no movement toy in the senate stalemate over increasing covid relief checks from $600 to $2,000. republican majority leader mitch mcconnell again blocked a vote

on the issue. he argued too much aid wouldo to well-off families, and he called it "socialism for rich people." >> our colleagues who purport to be the champions of vulnerable americans now say what struggling people reallyeed iso for congressop focusing on targeted relief for them specifically, and instd send thousands of dollars to people who don't need the help. >> woodruff: democrats and their allies rejected those claims. vermont senator bernie sanders noted that no one making more than $75,000 will get a check.al >> vir nothing goes to the very, very rich. overwhelming majority of those funds go to the middle class, the working class, low income people, who in the midst of this paemic are in desperate economic condition. >> woodruff:here now appears be little chance of senate action before thcurrent congress ends on sun amid the senate debate, the u.s.

bor department reported another 787,000 americans filed lafor unemployment benefit week. that was down ,000 from the previous week, but it was still nearly four times higher than a year ago. wall street has closed out a year that saw deep losses, and then, spectacular gains. the dow jones industrial average rose 197 points today to another record high: 30,606. the nasdaq was up 18 points, and, the s&p 500 added 24, also reaching a new high. for the year, the nasdaq shot up 43%. the s&p surged 16%, and the dow china's president is lauding his country's economic progress, despite the ndemic. xi jinping said today that china the first major economy resume growing this year, and he touted efforts to fight rural

poverty. >> ( translated ): facing their sudden coron epidemic, we wrote the epic of our fight ac gainst the epideth concerted efforts and perseverance. o after a yehardship, we can understand more than ever the significance of a community with a shared future for mankind. >> woodruff: the international monetary funestimates china's economic growth at 1.9% thisje year, but, ps it will hit eight percent next year. back in this country, a major winter storm moved out of texas and oklahoma and headed east. forecasters warned it could dump spawn tornadoes asllidesces, and with warmer air. another storm system dpped heavy snow across the upper midwest. for the first time, a woman will serve as chaplain of the u.s. house of representatives. retired rear admiral margaret kibben was named to the position today by speaker nancy pelosi.

she is former chaplain of the u.s. navy and marine corps. general and pennsyttorney governor dick thornburgh died today. as governor, he was praised for his handling of the three milela nuclear accident in 1979. he also worked to pass the and advocated for those witht, disabilities, after his son suffered severe brain damage in an auto accident. dick thornburgh was 88 years old. still to come on the newshour: minneapolis police fathoot egman during a traffic stop after he aly fired first. infections and deaths from coasd-19 continue to increas e world greets a new yea the critical runoff elections in georgia with ctrol of the u.s. senate at stake. and much more.

>> woodruff: city officials in minneapolis are keeping an eye on local reaction tonight to t fatal shooting of a man by a police officer there. the man was killed during what police say was an exange of gunfire after a traffic stop last night. it's the first police killing in the city since george floyd's death in may. special correspondent fred de sam lazaro has the story. and a wa this report includes graphic images of the shooting. >> reporter: dozens of protesters gathered overnight at the scene of the shooting in south minneapolis. the demonstrations were tense but mostly peaceful. some people built a fire in the middle of the street, as temperatures dropped into the teens. immediately after wednesday night's shooting, details were sparse. minneapolis police chief medaria arradondo:

>> m.p.d. officers w conducting a traffic stop volving a felony suspect suitial witness statements indicate that thect involved in this felony stop red first at minneapolis wilice officers who then exchanged gunfir the suspect. the subject of the stop was pronounced deceased at the sne by medical personnel. >> reporter: authorities didn't raovide information on the suspect' or the crime he allegedly committed. but family members and local news reports identified him as dolal idd, a somali man in his 20s. late this afternoon, police released one body camera video from the shooting showing multiple shots being fired. the shooting happenro just a mile where george floyd was gilled after bein >> reporter: the shootinged happ just about a mile from where george floyd was killed after beinrestrained by officers in may. that incident touched off

nationwide unrest over police violence and racism in the u.s. in a statement late wednesday, minneapolis mayor jacob frey said: "events o past year have marked some of the darkest we know a life has been cut short and that trust between communities of color andisaw enforcemenragile. g must all be committed to justice, and keepihe peace." floyd's killing led to a push for big changes in the minneapolis police. earliethis month, the city council cut about $8 million dollars, about four percent,en from the depars budget. meanwhile, the city has seen a dramatic increase in violence this year, including an uptick in mders and a rash of carjackings. and an exodus of offers from the police department o rced the citying in help from other agencies. just a few minutes ago, the mayor and police chief ended a news conference with the police chf saying thaiet he bels the suspect was being pursued in a weapons investigation, that,

in fact, the subject, in the chief's opinion, shofirst in that exchange, and that a weapon was recovered at the scene. that scene being investigated by the state bureau of investigation of criminal investigation and not the police department. both men indicated that they had met with the family of the young man before sharing the vide publicly, they shared it with the family first, and both men pleaded for calm in a city with frayed nerves on this the final night of an exhausting, exhausting year, in minneapolis. in st. paul, minnesota, i'm fred de sam lazaro for the pbs "newshour". >> woodruff: since the first c reporte of covid a little more than a year ago, the pandemic h taken a devastating

toll in the u.s.; far worse than in many other developed countries. the numbers are almost t c large to fulprehend. n 3,800 deaths recorded just yesterday, on one day. an avera of 2,300 plus deaths cumulative death trgerek, and a than the population of cits like pittsburgh, st. louis or lexington, kentucky. all while the country is averaging more than 183,000 new casey recently. we close the year with some perspective from donald mcneil, who has been covering this times."c for the "new york back to the "newshour". we did want to speak with you because you have been looking at this terrible pandemic for the entire year. as you look back on 2020, how does this pandemic come into focus for you? >> worst year of our nationalfe n my lifetime. i mean, i'm not old enough to

remember 1918 spanish flu or the depression or world war ii, but other than that, i ca a time when this many people have suffered all around the world all at the same time, and both thefear and death, as you would experience, in a war and economic crushing, as you experience in a recession. so it's been just awful. >> woodruff: donald mcneil, we keep asking this questn, the united states has, what, 4% of the world's population and, yet, we have almost a quarter of al cthees in the world. how did it come to this? >> leadership failure is the short answer. you know, donald trump might have been the hero ofhis pandemic, and we might have gotten out of i looking pretty great. i don't think uld have ever had the kind of total lockdown and defeat of the paem that

china managed because americans are too ornery to go along with those kinds of lockdowns, but had we -- we had a few -- we had a few weeks, even more tha europe did. we got dinged by the virus mid january in seattle but we didn't have a big outbreak in new york until the virus probably arrived in february multiple times had we picked up the lessons from italy, which saw that things were out of control and locked down really tightly, had the president and everybody around him taken everything very seriously and said, look, you know, get indoors the way the italians learned to do, stop travel, ado masks as was done and let's unleash america's industrial anda phrmaceutical might and release a vaccine, we have probably on the order ofld germany level of deaths, if we d had that kind of leadership

and that kind of determination to take on the virus. d but dn't. we lost it all in denial, we didn't have tests for tw mons because we didn't know where the virus was, we could have avoid lockdowns outside of new york if we knew where the virus was, and wewere a headless chicken in the early days and have been playing catch up and the denial is continued to this day. the president launched these weat vaccines and hast taken one. druff: and now that we have a vaccine that's beginning to be available, it's not available to as many people as we thought it would be. we're going into t 2021 withfewr people vaccinated than had been forecasted. how hard, how toz is it goin be to ramp that up? we're not getting very clear explanations of what the problem is. operation warp speed is moving the vaccine to the state depots, but then just sortofdropping

it off and saying, okay, governors, take it from here, thwhich is the waye federal has led a lot of things -- get your own p.p.e., find your own ventilator, get your own vaccine out there and we're not giving you enough money to do . thisas supposed to be the easy phase. giving vaccines in hospitals and nursing homes ought to be easy.o you have of people who know how to stick needle also in people but we're already struggling. i worry about what's going to happenhen we have massive nursing homes needing vaccines. we don't have a clear idea, but we need to get to about a million vaccines a day in order to reach the goal of vaccinating 80% of this untry by, you know, mid to late ne year, and we're nothing close to a million we're 100,000 or so right now. so it's a real problem. >> woodruff: a lot of people

wonder, with differen ton, which in washi there will be under presidenelect bin starting in a few weeks, how different i mean, can decisions be made regarding the testing, with regard to decisions made at the state, with regard to attitudes about taking the virus seriously? how much sho that things will be different, starting on january 21st?ur >> i'mthe attitude from the top will be very different. i'm sure there will be scientific giensz. when you have 200,000 new cases a day by the time joe biden gets into office, it will be very hard, king kanut can't stop is it waves, you can't stop cold weather and you can't stop the virus from spreading unless caerybody changes what they do. yot declare a federal mask mandate, thos l are stas.

so i'm not sure how much a change in attitude is going to make'm difference, and not sure that he will be able to speak to the trump base, which is where the pandemic has been hitting in this third wave very hard. the people who've denied wearing masks in the midwest and dakas and places like that are being hit hard, not the same people being hit in the first wave in the cities.e sos to find people who can speak to those groups and convince them they have to prott themselves and accept the vaccine then he has to roll out the vaccine.e hopefully,n tae money from some budts- there's always a bloated budget somewhere in the federal government -- and rothute into getting the vaccine into people's arms. yo>> woodruff: i'm askin this because i think some people believe that, with a change in leadership, we will begin toee some dramatic or at least noticeable changes. but it looks like with hospitals overflowing in california and other states, more people th

ever i i.c.u.s, we're still in for rough times ahead, aren't we? >> absolutely. and unless peple get scared -- there are some hints, you can see looking at the maps today at cases are dropping in places like the dakotas a minnesota and around the upper mid wes. i think they got scared about what happenedound thanksgiving and the hospitals got filled. if the s ear cauople to protect themselves better we'll do better. but got to see if tt happens and how mr. tru handles it when the e he's out of office. if he's mockic the efforts, it may thwart the new administration's effts to do better. >> woodruff: i know it's impossible t to boil it down to one thing, but if there's onepe thinople should be thinking about as we close out this year and go into ae new oneut this pandemic, what do you think

it would be? >> get the vaccine and protect yourself until you do. my dghter who works at a hospital in los angeles got the vaccine yesterday. i'm thrilled. it will be quite a while before i do, but i'm very happy for her and hope everyby else gets the same thing soon and they protect themselves till then and let's hope next year is better than this one. >> woodruff: for sure. in the meantime, as you say, everybody stay as safe as we possibly can. wear mks, keep socially distanced, don't gather tonigh on new year's eve. donald mcneil with the "new york times," we thank you very much. >> thank you for inviting me. >> woouff: we wish you and all the st. thank you. >> happy new year.

>> woodruff: we're now just days away from the final elections of the 2020 campaign: two critical runoffs in georgia thawill determine control of the u.s. senate. today is the final day of in- person early voting in the state and more than 2.8 million people have cast ballots so far. for an update on what's at stake, i'm joined by stephen fowler. he is a political reporter for georgia public broadcasting and ballot box" podcast.round: stephen fowler, welcome to the "newshour". i guess the news today is that senator david perdue is quarantining after being expose to covid. where does that leave this contest? really, all the caes haveeeks, been criss-crossing georgia, trying to squeeze out every vote that they can get, and david perdue announced today that he, one of his campaign staffers tested positive for covid 19. he and his wife both tested negative today but out of an

abundance of caution will be quarantining. the last day of early voting is today and the next big day is tuesday january 5, but the night before, perdue and senator kelly loeffler are supposed to headline a big get out the vote rally in north georgia headlanded by president donald trump. it's unclear whet wr david perdl be in attendance, you don't want to happen days before the biggest election. >> woodruff: no question, complicating factor, president trump, he has been critical of the governor of the state and others who didn't want to challenge the victory of joe biden, in georgia. it's put the tw senators, you were telling us, in very much of a box. thousand is that workine esident's been tweeting about georgia. how do you see th president's role rig now in this race? >> president trump has put perdue and loeffler between a on the one hand, you have

president trump attacking georgia's elections, attacking the republican governor, the republican secretary of state and claiminghat the election was rigged rigged and there was fraud and that people shodn't trust the outcome. on the other hand, you have plenty of voters that are turned off by that kind of rhetoric and are saying that they're going to stay home and that they're not going to participate in this election or they're going to vote for the democrats becae the democrats aren't trying to undeine democracy. so perdue and loeffler have been capture enough of georgia's republican base in this runoff by siding with the president and calling for our secretary of e,ate state to resign, but, at the same they have to try to remember that georgia is a very, very purple state right now, and they can't turn off those morates by making falsef claimslection fraud. >> woodruff: and we have been reading about concern among hepublicans about what t president's going to say when he is in georgia.

but let's talk about the democrats today, big turnout we've seen throughout the early voting period rit up through today. at does that tell you in terms of these long lines, stephen fowler, and where they are? >> well, redy, tare three key constituencies to watch for in georgia, one is what you're seeing right now in suburn atlanta. those are the votedders that -- voters that voted for joe biden in the presidential race that may end up still voting for democrats jon ossof and raphael warnock in this election, and metro atlanta isurning outs in full force. another one to watch is down in southwest georgia, the black be of georgia where e's a large african-american democratic population, they have been turning out in force a well, coming very close to the general election levels. in fact, some of e early voting data that i've looked att suggest there are about 3% of the electorate is higher --

there's about 3% more african-american percentage of voters in this election than in the general election, which is a good sign for democrats, and the fina one is up in northwest georgia, the republican base, where turnout is lagging behind, and republicans hope that a big election day surge cn counteract this huge democratic early vote. >> woodruff: and that's a challenge without president trump on the ballot. >> that's righ without president trump on the ballot and with president trump saying don't trust absentee by mail voting or georgia's election system in the voting machines which are, frankly, the only two ways to vote. >> woodruff: that coupled, as you say, with the remarkle turnout in communities where laack voters are turning out in e numbers is something everybody's watching. but very quickly, stephen fowler, to what the candidates are saying, we've seen the republican candidates going after the democrats, calling them radical liberals, and we're seeing the democrats push lak.

let's just -- push back.st le listen to a short clip of each side. >>adical liberal waffle waffle, radical liberal raphael warnocl radiberal raphael warnock, from radical liberal ralph ralph. >> hear's the bottom line, kelly loeffler has beenicampa with the klansmen. kelly loeffler has been campaigning with a klansmen, and, so, she is stuping to these vicious personal attacks todi ract from the fact that she has been camigning with a former member of the ku klux klan. >> woodruff: that comment yesterday from jon ossof who, of urse, is running against david perdue, the kelly loeffler comments which we put together were from a debate a few weeks ago, but it gives you a sene of the flavor of this contest. >> the key to trying to define the opposition from both democrats and republicans is the short and sweet phrases, you know.

the one debate vid perdue did conduct with jon ossof, he kept calling him a his radical socialist tendencies over and over again. so the republicans are trying to paint ossoff and warnock these liberal, out of touch politicians that aren't good for georgia, and ossoff and warnock are trying to paint perdue and loeffler as crooks who don' have georgia's best interests at hearts and are out of touch with kreality. so t message also that we're seeing there are really resonating oboth sides wit this turnout that we're seeing and with the closing messages of this campaign. >> wuff: you were telling us, stephe stephen fowler, thisa state georgia has voted red, sent mostly republicans to washington. so, for the demrats to be holding their own at this point is somewhat remarkable in the >> well, to the outsiders, perhaps, but in georgia, for the st two years, it's been something building.

the demographics of georgia have changed in the last c decade. there have been a million or so voters who have come in in metro atlanta alone, 2 million in the state overall. in the 2020 governor's race where abrams lost to ian kemp, the democrats invested in parts to have the state that didn't normallyget a lot of attention and put grassroots campaigns and door knocking and canvassing and slowly started to eat into the margins there while ramping up operations in metro atlanta y d that's oilt up for the at least two years where you've got competitive infrastructure and you've got democrats showing up in force and ultimately putting about 12,000 votes ahead toive joe biden the electoral votes. >> woodruff: it is two races the nation is watchg very closely. stephen fowler is georgia public broadcasting, thank you so much and happy new year. >> thank you.

>> woodruff: this week the u.s. military began drawing down in somalia, as part of president trump'vow to reduce overseas deployments. some 700 u.s. troops he been training somali forces. but now they will ve to do that mission from elsewhere, and as nick schifrin rep somalis fear that will leave them vulnerable. >> schifrin: along africa's east coast somali forces are learning to lead the fight. their trainers are american, equipping them to defend their own country, from al shabab. the early 2000s, al-qaed linked shabab, or "youth," has killed thousands across somalia, and sought to createn islamist government. they've also attacked over the border in kenya, including killing two u.s. soldiers earlier this year on manda bay base, as seen in these propaganda photos.

>> this morning we will recognize the soldiers of the danab special forces. >> schifrin: the somali troops trained by u.s. special operations forces, were somalia's own elite unit, the danab.he >>.s., everybody knows their capabilities in the military and they bring really the best to train and advise our forces. and it has been very beneficial. >> schifrin: 37-year-old col. ahmed abdullahi sheikhto command the danab. he says he grew close to his u.s. officers through training, meoring, and advising. >> you build a bond. so working together s been very beneficial for the somali itrces, especially the sec >> schifrin: but u.s. special operations forces arnow leaving. the u.s. military released photos of a rrier strike group and its 5500 sailors off the coast of somalia, protecting some 700 u.s. troops as they withdraw to neighboring onuntries , and consolidat u.s. bases. ending the train and equip program is self-defeating, abdullahi says. >> my biggest issue with this,

it's coming abrupt, coming very sudden and whout any warning. we saw from the after the attack in manda bay that al-shabaab you know pledged that they will keeu the pr on the americans. this decision will embolden them. >> schifrin: and the decision could weaken the three-year-old u.s.-allied somali government, because it precedes upcoming elections, says horn of africa analyst omar mahmood. >> pulling out troops in such a way, especially such a rushed way, can create quite a vacuum. al-shabab very much also watches these developments, uses them in so would very much present this as a victory on their part, that they were able to drivout us ifoops from somalia. >> sn: but critics of the somalia mission argue u.s. n troops a the solution to solving the civil war, and a new strategy was overdue. >> the troop withdrawal could policy, a policy atning of a new achieving some kind of political reconciation and peace negotiations. >> schifrin: salih booker is the president of the center fo international policy, an independent research cr. he says some ashabab fighters

government corruption.ch as others have regional islamiste goals, and thaconflict has no military solution. >> the military victory is out of the reach of the federal governnt, it's out of the reach of the u.s. government. but it's also unlikely that al- shabab can achieve a decisive military victory. and erefore, it's time to change the strategic goal to one of political reconciliation and peace negotiations. >> schifrin: booker argues the nds. military's africa com or africom, has for years overstated the al-shabab threat. >> there is not any clear indication that al-shabab has attempted to organize any international terrorist activities targeting u.s. assets or the so-called u.s. homeland. so again, would say that africom is engaged in threat inflation in order to justify their continuing focus on a misguided strategic goal of defeating al-shabaab militarily.

>> schifrin: but the u.s. military argues the counterterror mission inside somalia is essential aon will carry the u.s. can continue to conesct airstrn somalia, from neighboring djibouti.7 from 2 2015, the bush and obama administrations acknowledged lauikhing 21 airs in somalia. administration lau19.ama the trump administration accelerated that trend, launching in four years, nearly 200 airstrikes from drones. >> there's no evidence that this strategy haschieved the strategic objective and all the opposite, it'squaised enormous tions about the legality of this kind of targeting through airstrikes, raised the question of civiln casualties. >> schifrin: many somalis argue the civilian death toll from u.s. airstrikes is underreported. back in 2017, halima mohamed afrah said the u.s. had the wrong targets.

>> ( translated ): the u.s. in 1992, last friday they killed 10 innocent farmers. >> sonifrin: the current missi ntgan in 2017-- the first regular deploymeo somalia in decades. that effort ended in the 1993 battle that became known as black hawk down. 18 u.s. soldiers died. today, abdullahi fhe danab could be exploited by somali politicians to do their personal bidding. and the relationships the u.s. troop presence created, will be lost. >> by having the u.s. forces based across somalia, they were really the faces you saw. and if somebody have a grievance, they could come to them to talk to them. not exist anymore.ionship will >> schifrin: the withdrawal also comes at a fragile time regionally. in neighboring ethiopia, battles between the nationalnment and a rebellious regional government, led to hundreds of thousands refugees. >> the region is ainderbox. it could easily go up into flames further than it already

is. so the united states should focus not so much on weapons and violence as its ability to project power to solve proems in the region, but on relationships between nations, between peoples. this is a strength the united not using., that it is simply and that it needs to use. >> schifrin: the u.sdrawdown from somalia will conclude before president elect biden takes office. but he will inherit the violent, regional challenges, and those uren't going away. for the pbs news, i'm nick schifrin. dr >> wf: during the early days of the 2016 campaign trailt donamp assured his supporters he would pursue an "ameri approach.oreign policy but what legacy does trump leavd

be what are the main foreign policy challenges facing joe and what is the impact of the everre changing u.s. n policy? to assess all of this i spoke to four foreign policy experts last week. susan gordon served as principal deputy director of national intelligen until august of last year. she spent most of her career before that at the c.i.a. charles kupchan was special assistant to the president on the national security council during the obama adminisation. he's now professor of international affairs at georgetown university and senior fellow at the council on foreign relations. his latest book is: "isolationism: a history of america's efforts to shield itself from the world." rebeccah heinrichs, senior fellow at the hudson institute. she also served on capitol hill on the house armed services committee staff. and sam vinograd has served in the bush and obama administration in several

national security roles, including senior advisor to the national security adviso she's now a senior advisor at the univsity of delaware's biden institute. and we welcome all of you back thank you very mucjoining us. sam vinograd, i'm going to start with you with a pretty simple estion. what is the legacy of president iump and his foreign policy? >> judhink that president trump's foreign policy legacy is really defined by a historic level of systemic incoherence, hycrisy, as well as a unilateralism across the board. on the systemic incoherence front, we have seen a historic number of instances in which the foreign policy estabshment within the administration pursued a bifurcated foreign policy. we had the national security apparatus going one way and then president trump going the other. neat was confusing to ever abroad as well as here at home.

second, we had the preside and his national security team inconsistently apply international room rules and u.s. values. people that president trump found to be politically expedient were treated one way and everyone else was treated another. in terms of the hypocrisy, we saw individuals like secretary of state pompeo and others ask foreign leaders to do things that presidentrump wasn't doing here at home. that particularly relates to advancing democratic freedoms tke free and fair elections, freedom press, and the freedom to peacefully protest overall that undermine u.s. credibility abroad and undermine the ability of the president's foreign policy team to execute the policies that they saw fit overseas. >> woodruff: a lot of points think about rebecca heinrich's, what would you say is the president's legacy? >> ihink president trump's

rhetoric sometimes could have distracted from a lot of the policy, good sound policy that came out of his administration. and i think a lot of what he did, this american america first really tralated into a correction of the liberal internationalism that was ongoing, not just the obama administration, bureally before him in the bush administration as well. and what president trump foreign policy did was to reestablish that the united states is not gog to remain the world's preeminent power just by default. we have to fight for it. and then our primary rival is china, and that china, combined with russia, presents a very formidable challenge to the united states economically, militarily, and so that the united states has to fight for that. that became the that the thing that pushed american foreign policy and really established the united stes on much sounder footing, cooperated with also countered iran very

arab allies, whichy youth our see a lot of these great normalization agreements between israel and these arab states, administration reaeatedrump conditions that were conducive to establishing this great these >> woodruff: charlchan, pick up on that. and we've heard the word unilateralism. u have written you've sa that what we're seeing now in president trump may not be so much aoutlier when you compare it to the sweep of america's foreign policy since the founders. >> wl, when he said america first in his inaugural address,g trump was realng back to 1940, the america first committee that formed keep the u.s. out of world war two. and although we've lived in an america that's been very engaged in the world from 1789 when we began life as a federaight up until pearl harbor, the u.s. tended to shy away from engagement.

al were very much connected the world commer, but not strategically. thathanges in '41, then it changes even more after the end of the cold war and after 9/11. and i would agree with what rebecca said that trump was trying to correct for what i see is overreach, overreach, economically., overreach trade deals that didn't work for average americans overreach perhaps in immigration where many americans felt we didn't have control of our borders.th where k trump went wrong p he vastly overcorrected. instead ofulling back, instead of judiciously trying to correct, he took a wrecking ball t the world. america bue institutions he pulled out of the middle east tithout any real strategy. so i think his its politically were correct. the americ people said, hey, let's tap on the brakes, let's pull back fromhe world a little bit. but he went way too far in the implementation.

>> woodrf: sue gordon, it's a lot to ask you to pull all that together. but from your perspective, somee who's worked so closel in the intelligence community for so long, how do you see it? >> so i think sam,ebecca and charles all made great points. one, i think history is going to decide what his legacy is. and president biden is going to have a lot to say about it. i put it his actions in ree bins. i think there's some good clearly the national security work he did to highlight the threat that china posed is going to be one of his greatest legacy. i think you have to say that the middle east, despite the lack of orthodoxy, is a more peaceful place than it was when he took office. certainly the islamic caliphate has been tamped down. and i think north korea, even though you could give it a

utral grade, you do have tore admit that tas been in the last three years no nuclear tests of any weapons. so i think there's some od ther i also think there's some massive failures. i think his work on russia, russia imore brazen. the cyber attack shows it. nato, even though you're seeing more european ntribution, you've almost broken the spirit of it, wther it's going to come along a long. alliances that are so necessary have been really broken, and i think you have a lot of viewers so i think you have a mixed bag, but the biden administration is going to kind of have to come in and itactions will dictate whether the gains will be maintained or whether the loss of leadership is going to be just devastating. a >> woodruf sam vinogra i'm thinking back to what you said and what we're hearing from our other panelists is that there is a rationale for at least some of what president trump has been doing.

what about that? and what about whether one can look at this as a as an attemp to pull back from what had been an overreach? >> well, i think that president trump certainly felt that there needed to be a review of arexisting u.s. commitmentnd the world. alliances like nato, germany and trump tried to review thesident funding commitments that the united states made in light of what our parers were putting rward. we saw president trump review multilateral institutions, including the u.n. itself, as well as various entities within the united nations. it appeared to be that he was trying to cut overall u.s. funding to these entities. he was successful in some regards. nato allies have increed their contributions to the nato budget. but overall, president trump seemed to be pursuing policies that he viewed as benefiting him or benefiting the united states

and acting alone and trying to pull other countries in with him after the fact. i think that approach was dangerous. our alliances are built around coordinaon, cooperation and discussion, and i don't think that our allies appreciated being told what they had to do. instinctual desire to focus within our borders. so we could see president-elect biden try to undo some of what president trump did with respect to our commitments commitments abroad. >> woodruff: rebecca heinrich'si i woul to turn to what the for president elect biden.ead based on what you're all saying in your own ways, what should president biden's priorities be? where should his focus, his main focus be? >> i think premident trump's stration really laid bare

if it wasn't clear before that china is the number one ge united states, it will be for our generation. we have to understand thst china is cong the united states militarily in the western pacific, economically and diplomatically, and that the united stes needs to fight for american preeminence and with our allies and parers to deter chinese aggression, certainly against taiwan, but thenlso be prepared to fight d win the military contest if deterrce fails. there are a variety of other ways and fronts in which the united states needs to shore up our sovereignty, our indusial base, our technology, our technological edge versus china. and i am afraid that mainly because some of the signaling inming out of the president elect biden's apents, especially john kerry's appointment to leathis climate change envoy, that climate change could be the driving

force versus china and that china then therefore might take a sort of a backseat on these other issues.that would be a gr st point i would make is president trump got into a lot of he was criticized heavily for a lot of the things that he said and did against our allies and some institutions. he pulled out of an arms control. he pulled out of many of those things were right, though, and and he made a lot d points about our allies and partners needing to invest in their militaries to help te world defend against these autocratic regimes. p and sident elect biden, when he becomes president, needs to make sure that he doesn't just go back and try to rejoin enthese bad deals and agre that the russians, et cetera, were cheating . >> woodruff: charlie kupchan do you think there's a chance that that's what joe biden is going to ? i know you've you have told us that you thi one of the first thing that's going to happen is the unilateralism that was such a feature of the trump presidency is gog to go away quickly. >> yeah, i thinkhe most destructive part of trump's

foreign policy has been the unilateralism, pullingf pax, isolating the united states from its key allies, pulli out of the world health organization in the middle of the greatest pandemic since 1918. that just it didn't make any sense. so i think the u.s. on day one of the biden administration, willo back to being a team player. another big change is that democracy will be back. but joe biden will restore a sense of liberal democracy, of republican values to t country. we still have a sitting president who has yet to admit thjust lost the election. most of the world is staring at i think you'll see continuity than change is continued pull back from the and republicans alree it'sats time to end the forever wars, standing up to china, as rebecca was saying, particularly on the

ouade front. and i also thinke going to see biden focus heavily on trying to make the case that for average americolicy works that probably needs more money on this like cyber, on things like global health, on things like climatehange, probably less on defense spending and also more investment in america's middle class, making sure that our trade agreements work not just for big corporations, but also for working americans. touched on some of these thingsu in your remarks a moment ago. but bring finally back to this question of america's role in the world and to what extent does joe biden have a fixed idea in his own mind of what erica's role is in 2021 and in coming years? >> so i think the first thing that i hope the president elect realizes is this is a changed world. there is no going back to before

2016. if i were to say three things, it would be number one, there are few in the world te t can offer adership in these the united states role, our value prion, ourship support for democracies is one.n the second ist in trust and truth that goes all the way from trusted technologies to keeping yo word. there is so much untruth that is governing what we do.

there has to be room for rebuilding the institutions that are actually responsible for g his policies that have been so distant from the from president trump's policies. ar, please stay safe, and seer you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: arn more atanned.ice to help consumercellular.tv ontlines of social change the

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[upbeat music] - hello everyone and welcome to amanpour & company. ea's been an extraordinary that's changed the world as we know it from a global pandemic that shifthe way we live, work and interact with each other, to the most consequential u.s. selection in modern history, to a moral reckoning with racism around the world. so, this holiday season, we're bringing you some of our favorite interviews from this year on all of this and more. here's what's comi up. - this will be a home going celebration of brother george floyd's life. - [christiane] george floyd is laid to rest in houston, his hometown. what next for black lives in america? i ask veteran of the civil rights era, the legendarbroadcaster and thinker, bill moyers and, - [protestererchanting] black live - [christiane] as solidarity protests roll across the world,