captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening, i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight, getting the vaccine-- the biden administration will lift patent protections in order to help get shots to parts of the world in desperate need. then, madam speaker-- we discuss prospects for the president's ambitious agenda and other hot button issues with house speaker nancy pelosi. plus, still banned-- facebook's oversight board upholds the decision to suspend former president donald trump from the platform, but leaves the door open for him to return. and, crisis in brazil-- covid infections and deaths skyrocket as hospitals are overwhelmed and an investigation is launched into the brazilian president's

handling of the pandemic. >> it was a sequence of mistakes that accumulated and ends up with what we're seeing now. many more deaths than what we should see and hospitals not about to collapse but completely collapsed already. >> woodruff: all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us.

>> supporting social entrepreneurs and their solutions to the world's most pressing problems-- skollfoundation.org. >> the lemelson foundation. committed to improving lives through invention, in the u.s. and developing countries. on the web at lemelson.org. >> supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions:

>> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: the united states has declared support for waiving patent rights to covid-19 vaccines in order to speed production in hard-hit countries. the biden administration made the announcement late today, as the world trade organization opened talks on the issue. we'll get details, right after the news summary. calls are growing in india for emergency measures to stop the explosion of covid-19. that follows a record 3,780 deaths in the last 24 hours. long lines formed outside vaccination centers today, and the indian supreme court ordered officials to show a plan for getting oxygen to hospitals in new delhi.

the centers for disease control is projecting that u.s. covid infections and deaths will decline dramatically within two months. but, officials also warned today that virus variants could reverse the progress, if vaccinations slow and people abandon safety measures. >> we are not out of the woods yet but could be very close. all of us are getting fully vaccinated and continuing our prevention efforts can help us turn the corner on the pandemic as early as july and set us forward on a path toward a more normal lifestyle. >> woodruff: also today, a federal judge in washington threw out a national moratorium on evicting renters during the pandemic. he ruled the c.d.c. over-reached in imposing the measure last september. it was to have run through june. the u.s. justice department immediately appealed the ruling. facebook's oversight board has upheld the suspension of former

president trump's account. but the panel also said today that making the ban indefinite was unreasonable. it gave facebook six months to reconsider. the company says it suspded mr. trump for incing the january 6th assault on the u.s. capit. we'll delve into this, later in the program. republican leaders stepped up calls today to oust liz cheney as number three republican in the u.s. house of representatives. the wyoming congresswoman backed impeaching president trump over the capitol assault, and she denounced him this week for calling his election loss, "the big lie". as the g.o.p. infighting intensified, president biden weighed in at a white house event this afternoon. >> it seems as though the republican party is trying to identify what it stands for. and they're in the midst of significant, sort of a mini- revolution.

i think the republicans are further away from trying to figure out who they are and what they stand for than i thought they would be at this point. >> woodruff: in his own statement, mr. trump called cheney a "warmongering fool." hendorsed one of his loyalists, elise stefanik of new york, to replace her in the house hierarchy. police in san francisco have arrested a suspect in the latest of a series of attacks on asian americans. two women, 65 and 85 years old, suffered stab wounds at a bus stop, tuesday evening. the alleged attacker was arrested several hours later. the u.s. birth rate fell four percent last year, the most in nearly 50 years and due in part to the pandemic. c.d.c. numbers show pregnancy declines in nearlyll races,

ethnicitys and age groups. the overall birth rate is now the lowest in more than a century. and, on wall street today, the dow jones industrial average gained 97 points to close at 34,230. the nasdaq fell 51 points, the s&p 500 added three. still to come on the newshour: the biden administration now wants to waive patent protections to speed production of vaccines globally. hospitals are overwhelmed as covid infections and deaths skyrocket in brazil. one on one with u.s. hse speaker nancy pelosi. facebook's oversight board upholds the decision to temporarily ban former president donald trump. and much more.

>> woodruff: the president's announcement that the u.s. will waive patent rights for covid vaccines is a major change. and it comes after a call in this country and internationally for much quicker and larger assistance by the u.s. for the rest of the world. william brangham looks at the potential impact of this decision and the reaction to it. >> brangham: judy, countries are meeting at the world trade organization on the question of waiving these patent protections. the u.s. said it will engage in these talks tomorrow. it comes as less than 10% of the world's population has been vaccinated so far. and the disparities are enormous. the richest countries are getting vaccinated about 25 times faster than those with lower incomes. global demand is far greater than global supply. madhavi sunder is associate dean for international and graduate programs, and a professor of law at georgetown university law

center. she joins me now. thank you very much for being here. i know you had pressed for this change as well. there was a lot of publi pressure on the administration to do so. make the case, why is this the right move? >> well, it's not just the right move, it's appropriate, it's necessary and it's coming not a moment too soon. basically, patents are limiting the supply of these incredibly vital covid 19 vaccines. in order to achieve global herd immunity, experts estimate we need 11 million doses. right now in terrace of just looking at licensed suppliers for these vaccines, we're talking about just over 3 billion doses that we have pathways to see produced. without access to this patented technology, that could be available much more broadly to manufacturers around the globe, we're not going to get anywhere near those numbers that we need.

tthe great news in the u.s. is president biden is aiming for herd immunity in the united states by july 4, that's 70% of our population vaccinated. but now in terms of the rest of the world we're at .2% of low and middle income countries having received the jab. this is necessary for us to end this pandemic once for all. >> reporter: even if you put aside the moral case, which you're saying is a very strong one that did we should provide these, there is also from a public health standpoint, given these variants and how much they're spreading, that there's a public health argument to make that we need to put this fire out globally. >> oh, absolutely. this is what a pandemic is. not one of us is safuntil all of us around the world are safe. and, so, our success here at home will be terribly undermined if we don't attend to this incredible need around the world. and let me just add one more thing -- this is an

unprecedented move, but we have been here before. a century ago, the united states government broke the wright brothers patents in their airplane flight technology because it was critical to our war effort in world war i. and we're at that point of incredible need in terms of our national security and, as you say, global public health. so i'm so happy about this news, and we just hope that europe and others will join in supporting the u.s. in pushing for these -- waiving these patents on these vaccines. >> reporter: as you might imagine, the pharmaceutical industry is not happy about this. a representative of pharma, the pharmaceutical trade group, put out a message saying this move will not save lives and, quote, the biden administration has taken an unprecedented step that will undermine our global response to the pandemic and compromise safety. what do you make of that

argument? >> well, i'm really concerned to hear them raising concerns about safety. i mean, we have generic producers of medicines and vaccines around the world, especially in india. for example, the india is called the pharmacy to the developing world, and they have for decades provided safe and effective medicines for not just the low and middle income countries but the united states, too. so i think it's really irresponsible to raise questions about safety. now, of course, we have to deal with those questions even in our own country, so they're important, but when we're dealing with real issues like vaccine hesitancy, i think we have to be very cautious about that and recognize that in fact we have extremely reliable and safe and effective generic producers of drugs and vaccines around the world. in terms of their other concerns, i think they're concerned about the effect of this waiver on incentives. but this was a very unusual --

the production of the covid 19 vaccines is an outlier because it's a result of enormous investment by u.s. government and taxpayers. the moderna vaccine was paid for 99.9% by taxpayers because to have the critical need and urgency. so this isn't a case of just a private company going it alone. this was a critical public-private partnership, and the biden administration h right lil recognized that this vaccine technology which we not only paid for but, in fact, are researchers at the national institutes of health, their basic research is actually fundamental to the moderna vaccine. so we supported the critical research that made this vaccine possible, we paid for the vaccine, and, so, the biden administration now is rightly recognizing that we need tose this technology in . in order to help ourselves at

home we need to be helping others around the globe to get vaccinated and that's the only way to end this pandemic once and for all. so these vaccines need to be produced as soon as possible. >> reporter: all right, madhavi sunder, thank you so much for joining us, from georgetown university law center. >> thank you so much for having me. snrssments >> woodruff: brazil's supreme court formalized a criminal investigation last week into president jair bolsonaro's handling of the pandemic. it could eventually lead to his impeachment. at the same time, brazil's death toll from covid-19 continues to spiral out of control. the country just passed 400,000 fatalities since the beginning of the pandemic with no significant slowdown in sight. with support from the sloan foundation, special

correspondent simon ostrovsky and producer charles lyons bring us the first of two reports. >> reporter: with a universal healthcare system, a long history of successful mass vaccination campaigns, and the delayed arrival of the coronavirus to its shores in 2020, brazil had ample expertise and time to prepare for the covid19 pandemic. these are the grim scenes unfolding in hospitals around south america's most populous nation as they reach the point of collapse. crowded waiting rooms and crowded i.c.u.'s. a medical staff that's barely able to keep up. the situation in this municipal hospital in sao paulo is typical of the situation in hospitals around the region and around the country. this is a neighborhood hospital. originally it had just seven i.c.u. beds but they've

increased that to 94. 94 beds isn't nearly enough. >> now the symptoms are much worse, much faster. and we have almost 50% of the patients are below 50 years. that didn't happen last year. >> reporter: dr. maurucio beskow staffs the hospital's newest covid ward with 20 i.c.u.s. he told newshour it was the worst medical catastrophe he'd witnessed over his 20-year medical career. >> this hospital is 100% covid. the disease is very, very hard on the patients. they die very quickly sometimes, sometimes two or three days, and they are dead.

and the family, i think, is the worst part because at the moment the patient comes into the hospital, the family can't see the patient anymore at all. >> reporter: from big cities like rio de janeiro and sao paulo, to remote river communities along the amazon, over 400,000 brazilians have died of covid since the pandemic began here last year. it's a death toll second only to the united states. many brazilians blame this man: the country's right wing populist leader jair bolsonaro. here he is speaking in november just as the disastrous second wave was getting underway. >> ( translated ): everything is about the pandemic nowadays. we have to stop with this. i'm sorry for the dead, i'm sorry, but we're all going to die one day. everybody here is going to die. it's no use running from it, running from reality. we have to stop being a country of sissies. >> reporter: marcia castro is a brazilian researcher and chair of the department of global health and population at harvard's chan school of public health.

>> the president of brazil was very similar to what donald trump used to be when he was the president. they both deny the importance of the virus, they both completely ignore the science, they both had behavior of going out, hanging out, shaking hands not using masks so completely against what had to be done and they also were both against lockdowns. >> reporter: the country's top leadership allowed the virus to spread unhindered in the name of the economy and with the belief that so-called herd immunity could end the pandemic. >> it was a sequence of mistakes that accumulated and ends up with what we're seeing now. many more deaths than what we should see and hospitals not about to collapse but completely collapsed already. >> reporter: the city of manaus, deep in the amazon, was where the health system collapsed first and hardest. it became so overwhelmed that doctors ran out of oxygen and

many covid patients simply suffocated to death. according to jorge kalil, the head of clinical immunology and allergy at the university of sao paulo school of medicine, it became a breeding ground for a new highly infectious variant called p1. >> in manaus, for instance we had many people that had already the disease so we had partial immunity. when you have partial immunity, you can select mutants that can, you know, escape from the immune response. >> reporter: david almeida has only been the mayor of manaus for a few months. when the virus encountered a large number of people who had previously been infected in his city, it evolved to become even more deadly. >> ( translated ): i took office on the first of january.

at the peak of the pandemic, we were burying over 200 people per day, one day we buried 213 people. >> reporter: what lesson does manaus have to teach the world about the effectiveness of the so-called herd immunity concept? >> ( translated ): the emergence of a new variant happened exactly because of the great proliferation of the virus, in which the virus became more resistant to the treatment that there are onlywo paths to solving the pandemic issue: social distancing and vaccination. >> reporter: but brazil is lagging behind the rest of the world. one of the reasons is brazil's president, who was offered 70 million pfizer doses last summer and declined to sign a contract, alleging that the american pharmaceuticals giant refused to take responsibility for potential side-effects. >> ( translated ): if you turn into a crocodile, it is your problem. if you turn into superman, if a woman grows a beard, or a man starts speaking in a high voice, they want nothing to do with it.

>> reporter: only now, over a year into the pandemic, brazil's federal government has finally entered the global scramble for vaccines. the change of heart came after bolsonaro's popularity tumbled as tens of thousands of graves were added to cemeteries like this one in major cities across the country. with space running out, gravediggers who can barely keep up with the pace, exhume older bones to make way for the deluge of covid dead here in são paulo. even so, there are still millions of bolsonaro supporters who seem phased by nothing. they argue that the lockdowns hurt the economy and that the science behind mask wearing is unproven, echoing rhetoric that the president himself has used throughout his tenure. >> it's sad to see what's going on in the economy in brazil.

>> reporter: patrick folena is a self-described investor who spoke to me at a small protest camp in sao paulo that was set up by supporters of the president. i've got to ask you, why aren't you wearing a mask? >> i'm not afraid to don't use the mask in the streets. >> people don'seem to understand the severity of the disease. they still are going shopping, they're partying and outside in the streets don't even use a mask. but they don't see what we see here. the patients are suffering a lot. >> reporter: professor kalil said he fears what happened in manaus could lethally repeat in cities across brazil if large numbers of immunized people drop their guard and re-encounterhe virus, giving it the opportunity to mutate again. >> the vaccines that we have so far, mostly based on the original spike protein with no variance.

if you have mutations, is it enough? we don't know. it's a kind of war. so you have your ammunition and then you have the enemy. sometimes ammunition is not enough for the enemy. sometimes it is. >> reporter: that's why it's important for vaccine roll outs to happen as quickly as possible. brazil was once a country that led the world through its accessible and universal health system. no longer. >> brazil has a national immunization program that has also been recognized internationally as being extremely well designed. when we had the threat of h1n1, another epidemic, brazil vaccinated 80 million people in three months. >> reporter: wow. >> okay, so brazil knows how to do it. they have the network across the country to do it. we just need the vaccines. >> reporter: for the pbs newshour, i'm simon ostrovsky in sao paulo.

>> woodruff: president biden's plans to combat cov, create jobs and confront climate change are ambitious. to achieve the goals, they need to make it through congress. key to that success: speaker of the house of representatives nancy pelosi. we spoke earlier today. >> thank you for being with us. let me start, madam speaker, with president biden's ambitious jobs and infrastructure plan combined with his aid for americans families plan, between the two of them, $4 trillion in new spending. this is an amount that has even some of your fellow democrats, moderate democrats unnerved. what are you hearing? >> i'm hearing people are very excited by the president's agenda, and we all want to know how we're going to meet the needs of the american people,

and he has given us a blueprint. when we talk about infrastructure, it has, for the most part, always been bipartisan. hopefully, it will continue to be, but, really, meeting the needs of the american people. and infrastructure has grown. it's no longer roads, bridges and maz transit, it's also high-speed rail, it's water systems, it's issues that relate to broadband and how we reach into rural america as well as urban deserts in terms of broadband, so there are many more things. >> woodruff: as we were saying, the price tag, $4 trillion, unnerving imsome democrats. and the other issue here is taxes. there are a group, again even democrats, who are saying they are not going to be able to go along with what it looks like the price tag is going to be. you're hearing analysts say president biden is going to be lucky to get half of his proposed increases on wealthy

americans, on capital gains, estate taxes, corporations, and you have members saying that they're not going to be able to support this unless it removes the cap on state and local tax deductions, which we know would mainly benefit wealthy americans. do you see a compromise here? >> well, let me just say with all the respect in the world for your -- the glorious that have been bestowed to you in journalism, i do not subscribe or stipulate to any, most of what you have said about where the democrats are. the democrats will support -- i'm talking about the the house of representatives -- what the president is proposing. the american people in a bipartisan way support what the president is proposing, and the fact is the president has said -- and i fully support it and my members do, too -- that nobody making under $400,000 a year will have their taxes

increased, and that includes average joes. now, i myself am strongly for removing what the republicans did on the salt, and i not only sympathize, i support what they are saying. but, again, i don't want people drawing lines. i think one person has said to me he wouldn't vote for the bill. we'll see. >> woodruff: madam speaker, one of the many important issues before the congress right now is police reform. the george floyd act did pass the house, it is now in the senate. there are negotiations underway, involving republican senators, democrat senators, and congresswoman karen bass whom you appointed to work on this. what we're hearing is they may be on a verge of some kind of an agreement that would involve keeping a kind of legal protection for individual police officers, a so-called immunity, but allowing lawsuits against

police departments. if that is what congresswoman bass comes back with, is that something the democrac caucus can accept? >> karen bass has my authority and the authority of our caucus to negotiate for this legislation. may 25th, when the assassination which is clear to all of us happened before our very eyes, it was only about two weeks later that congresswoman bass introduced the legislation. you know why? because the black caucus has been working on this for years, and they were ready, and her leadership as chair of the crime subcommittee then of the judiciary committee that put forth this legislation after like the 8th or 10th of june. by the one month anniversary of the murder of george floyd, the bill passed the house of representatives. >> woodruff: madam speaker, as i said, so many important things to ask you about. one has to do with investigating

what happened on january 6th, when there was a mob that overran the united states capitol. here we are four months later. still, there has been no commission appointed. i know you have made proposals so far. nothing has been agreed to. is it time, as many are suggesting, to have president biden appoint a bipartisan commission, equal number of members on both sides, to investigate what happened? >> no. i think this is something that the congress has to do, similar to the 9/11 commission, and this even more so because the assault was made on the congress, on the capitol of the united states, on our democracy. this is about january 6th. but it's really important for people to understand this -- there is still strong, very strong denial among the republicans, at least i can speak from the house standpoint, of whaactually happened. you see what they're doing with one of their own leaders for

speaking truth, or because she won't lie, and, so, when we talk about even how we pass our bill, our supplemental to repair the capitol, they're, like, why do we have to fix the windows and doors, you know, like what happened on january 6. so there's denial of what happened then, and then there's denial as to how this has to be the focus of it. >> woodruff: well, you alluded to what the republicans in the house are -- appear to be on the verge of doing, which is removing congresswoman liz cheney from her role as the conference chair in the house, replacing her with new york congresswoman allis -- elise stefanic. what's your take on it. >> well, i don't get involved in their caucus and they don't get involved in mine. i do speak to the fact that liz cheney has been very courageous

in speaking truth about what happened on january 6th, and i salute her for that. but what they're doing there is indicative -- what liz cheney is doing is indicative -- what they're doing to her is indicative of what they're doing about the entire event that happened on january 6th. they're, again, in denial. when we talk about what the architect of the capitol wants to do to strengthen the physical structure of the capitol, why would we do that? why would we do that? all they want to do is compensate for what was spent on the day of. it's really -- i don't want to be a fear monger about this, but nothing less is at stake than our democracy. >> reporter: any comment on elise stefanic? >> that's really up to them. maybe she's more, shall we say, compliant. eth not my business. i don't really know her, and i don't -- as i say, they don't

get involved -- >> woodruff: let me -- well, speaking of elections, democrats are facing a tough landscape in next year's midterms. you have republicans controlling the redrawing of congressional districts in a number of states -- in texas, in florida, in north carolina, in addition to georgia, the first three all gaining house seats. isn't that going to make it exceedingly up hill for your party to hold on to the majority in the house? >> well, the elections are about campaigns, and we are ready. we are ready with our ms -- mobilization to own the ground to get out the the vote with our message of unity for the people, again so proud of what the biden-harris administration is putting forth, and then the money to do this. it would be better to pay for

hrs1 to remove obstacles of participation for people to vote. i think you've heard me say before, but for the benefit of the audience, people talk about, well, in the past, the president'party haas lost seats in the off year -- any assumptions about past elections are obsolete. >> woodruff: a few more things to ask you about, madam speaker. back in 2018, it waseported that you, in essence, agreed as part of a deal with a group of democrats that you would serve as speaker for four more years. that would mean stepping down at the end of this term. but my question is, if democrats are able to hold on to a majority, even a narrow majority in the house, would you consider extending your time as speaker? >> let's take it one step at a time. i myself thought i was leaving in 2016 when hillary clinton would be the president of the

united states, but i don't have any intention of declaring myself a lame duck, but, nonetheless, my husband and my children and my grandchildren are listening, i fully intend -- we want to do some great things in this election, and many -- some of our members are running for higher office, so confident are they that the democrats will prevail, and we are recruiting great candidates to run. and i'll tell you, in about, like, november a year before the election, where i think we are, as you've heard me say before -- a year before, you know, if you're ready, if you have the candidates who you've attracted, who they haven't. >> woodruff: madam speaker nancy pelosi, thank you so much for joining us. >> it's always an honor to be on the "newshour". thank you for the opportunity.

>> woodruff: now we return to facebook and former president trump. stephanie sy reports on the questions around his suspension from the social media platform. >> sy: judy, "punted"-- "kicked the can down the road"-- that's how some critics described the findings of a facebook oversight board. before we dive further into this, we'll remind viewers of what this board is. it is a international group of about 20 individuals from different fields and disciplines. facebook set aside $130 million last year for its operation, including salaries. but the company says it is independent. today, that board said the suspension of former president trump following january 6th was appropriate at the time. but the ban shouldn't have been indefinite. it recommended that facebook uphold the ban for six months, at which point facebook would have to determine whether to let him back on.

the board also said facebook should set more explicit policies and limits for crisis situations, not arbitrary judgments, and it said the company should act more quickly when political leaders' posts can create harm. john samples is a member of that board. he's a vice president of the libertarian cato institute i spoke with him earlier. so, john, when mark zuckerberg formed this oversight committee he called it the supreme court of facebook, indicating its decision would be a final verdict. but it doesents seem the committee that is delivered a final verdict, when it comes to whether former president trump's account should be banned completely, deleted from facebook or reinstated. why didn't you come to a final decision? >> well, we are like the supreme court in the sense that we are overseers of proper process. so, in this sense, we are being very hard here on facebook, we're saying to them, you would

like for us to make this decision, perhaps, maybe they want us to, i don't know, but we're not going to do this. the proper role both in the american political system and throughout the world with regard to users of facebook is for facebook to make the decision about mr. trump. >> but don't you as a committee make decisions on suspensions and bans and deletions in other cases, why not for mr. trump? why put the onus back on facebook, when your committee consists of legal scholars like yourself, journalists, human rights and civil rights advocates, who better at facebook to make these tough decisions where they have to weigh free speech with potential harm to society and democracy? >> facebook ultimately, in making this decision, is going to be accountable to its users and, indeed, accountable to the larger society, both in the

united states and elsewhere, that where it works. so i think, really, while it seems like we're ducking the issue, perhaps, to some, it's exactly the opposite. we're trying to put the onus of responsibility exactly where it belongs and where people can respond to it in a sensible and really democratic way. >> reporter: but you did decide, in a way, to uphold the current ban on president trump. you basically extended it or recommended the extension of it, right, by six months. that move in and of itself, john samples, is being criticized by a number of conservative political leaders. now, you and your other job, work at the cato institute, which often decries any limits on free speech. so i wonder, how do you respond to those who argue facebook is censoring conservative speech? >> i would say, first of all, we

did not reach the question whether this was a bias decision or political bias against the servers. nat did not come up in this case. i would say on the issue of free speech, yes, facebook is dedicated to that and certainly the board, the people who are on it, have a dedication to that. but both in the united states and throughout the world and according to the international norms, there are limits on freedom of speech, and some of those limits might be described as speech that does imminent harm. that's a crucial word there, imminent, that is, that it causes violence or other kinds of harms, and it's not speculative. it's happening right now. in this case, we were dealing with an incident in which there was a riot going on at a national capitol during a constitutional method of selecting the president. mr. trump poovessed a couple of things, this is only about a couple of his posts on facebook, and facebook taut

that they praised people involved in that riot, and looking at the facts, we agreed that the rules have been violated and they were justified in suspending the account. but they applied a response that itself was not in their legal framework of rules and, therefore, they have to go back and do the job right. >> reporter: i think that many in our country feel there is a problem of misinformation gaining a greater foothold on this society and this democracy because social media platforms and their algorithms are designed to make certain content spread like a virus. this is a problem that a lot of people will acknowledge is before us as a democracy. do you think your committee made recommendations to address that problem? >> we did, indeed, and the advisory will see that it is recommended that facebook go back and look at its own

performance during this period and to see what extent the way the platform is designed or other factors might have contributed to this outcome. i have to say, at the same time time -- and this is perhaps a more personal view but maybe not because free speech advocates are certainly on board -- i'm always a little worried when the term "misinformation" comes up, yes, it does exist and it can do harm, but, often, it's also true that that can be used in a way that would limit free speech. so i think we've got to be looking at that like hawks on both sides of it, and we certainly hope that facebook will and maybe it's already started to look at its own methods and its own rules and, you know, its model for how it might have contributed to the problems we see here. >> reporter: john samples, member to have the faebook oversight board and

vice president of the cato institute, john, thank you. >> thanks for having me. >> woodruff: a new and large form of covid relief has opened in the u.s. just in the past few weeks. the federal government is now offering to pay for all or most of every funeral caused by the disease. lisa desjardins reports. >> desjardins: it is perhaps the least-told cost of the last year: unexpected funerals, half a million of them, from the coronavirus. families have shouldered a huge expense, just to say goodbye from a distance. >> buenas dias. >> desjardins: ...like at the funeral of patricia fernandez in indio, california. the 75-year-old died in january after three weeks on a ventilator. for her daughter sandra, the emotional toll was almost unbearable. >> for days and weeks i woke up thinking, this is just a

nightmare until reity hits and you realize it's not a nightmare. she's not here anymore. >> desjardins: and she's no longer there as the caregiver for sandra's sister, bertha, who is disabled. sandra took over that care, while working as a school administrator. this as the cost of the funeral, embalming and burial reached nearly $13,000. >> it was super hard to gather althat money and stressful. none of us have that amount of money saved up, not for not even half of that. >> to not be able to give a decent funeral and burial to someone who is near and dear to you is outrageous. >> desjardins: the issue raised high-profile concern from senate majority leader chuck schumer and congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez of new york. and in two separate bills, including the american rescue plan, they pushed through tens of billions in help. the benefit is historic: the federal government will reimburse up to $9,000 in costs; about the average for a funeral

in america. for families with multiple deaths, the limit is $35,000. that is for every coronavirus death since late january of last year, and going forward until 2025. >> today is the day. the hotline is open. >> desjardins: ocasio-cortez spread the word when fema opened the program nearly one month ago. but fema has never overseen an emergency death benefit on this scale before. no agency has. they chose to take applications by phone only, to cater to each case. and as headlines showed, it was a rough start. the phone lines crashed almost immediately under the stress of one million callers, including sandra. >> the first day i couldn't get through, but the next day i tried it and after waiting for an hour, i was able to see why it took so long for the call to be answered. >> desjardins: as fema was overwhelmed, funeral directors

like omar rodriguez also became inundated and frustrated. >> for a year, i've just seen one dumb decision after another. >> desjardins: rodriguez works at neufeld funeral home in a du covidnter lt spring. rodriguez says this funeral benefit, even if well- intentioned, is tangled in red tape. for example, families must produce a death certificate that lists covid-19 as the cause. but most death certificates in new york do not list a cause of death at all. >> we're looking for other ways to get causes of death to people and notarized paid bills and all sorts of things. and it's just every one, i guess since they're learning about this program, it's like they're all coming at once. >> desjardins: not a guy to mince words, he says politicians could have avoided this. >> i just wish that these municipalities and the powers that be would consult with those of us that are down, you know, in the midst of all this.

>> desjardins: they say they consulted with like the national funeral homes director group. >> those are guys who haven't touched the structure, haven't embalmed a body, haven't been out in the road. a lot of people sitting behind desks looking and, oh, this is terrible and not really in the midst of what's going on. >> desjardins: by any standard, it is a massive undertaking-- already fema says it's processing over 130,000 applications. >> you gotta be a little bit patient, but at least there's going to be some help. >> desjardins: we asked schumer about the frustration and he stressed that every state and county has a different process for death certificates; that fema is doing its best and that >> tre goi to help people. many of them are poor, many of them are immigrants. work through the status and paperwork here so they can get the relief they need. >> desjardins: fema modeled its covid benefit on funeral aid after natural disasters like hurricane sandy, but that storm's death toll was smaller--

131 people. also getting attention: the $9,000 figure. what did you think when you found out about the size of this benefit? >> i was shocked, to put it mildly. >> desjardins: victoria haneman is a professor at creighton university in omaha who specializes in the rising cost of death care in the u.s. including what she calls“ funeral poverty.” but she says this idea, to pay for any and all covid funerals, is deeply flawed. >> we feel the need to react and provide assistance. but in this case, because we are not means testing, we are also providing assistance to high wealth and high income individuals. so while we want a safety net to assist those in need, a subsidy for all program kind of exacerbates inequities and unfairness. >> desjardins: schumer

responded; he believes people mostly will means test themselves. >> the people who are going to apply are the people who are going to need it. overwhelmingly. >> desjardins: lawmakers seldom pass such an open-ended benefit. it could take months to sort out exactly who uses it. but in the meantime, patricia fernandez' funeral hovers still, leaving her family with memories, including this video, but also thousan in debt. their go-fund-me effort to raise money fell far short. now sandra fernandez hopes a check from fema arves soon. >> so i'm just praying and hopeful that that money comes through and could help me in some way. >> desjardins: even though that take a little bit of your stress away. for the pbs newshour, i'm lisa desjardins. >> woodruff: los angeles in the

early 1970s: a new book argues it was a moment when tv, movies, and music all shifted into a new gear, changing the cultural landscape. jeffrey brown reports for our "canvas" series. >> brown: in the early 1970s, smog blanketed the los anges sky. but thcity below, ron brownstein says, was in a creative churn that would re- shape american society. >> on one level, it was just an incredible constellation of talent. t at a deeper level, i think the pop culture that was created mostly in l.a. in the early 1970s was the bridge between ideas that had seemed insurrectionary during the 1960s and the mass american audience, ideas like greater suspicion of authority in business and government, more autonomy for women, changing relations between men and women, changing attitudes about families and sex, and more inclusion of marginalized groups. >> brown: brownstein is a veteran political reporter and analyst at cnn and "the

atlantic." in his new book, “rock me on the wat” his focus turns to a particular time and place, and how cultural change interacts with politics. >> during the 1960s, the networks defiantly almost ignored everything that was happening around them. i say in the book that walter cronkite would spend half an hour every night documenting all of the fissures opening in american society, and then cbs and the other two networks would spend the next three and a half hours trying to erase that from viewers' minds. i mean we were getting beverly hillbillies and petticoat junction and green acres, gunsmoke was still on the air. the closest we got to vietnam was gomer pyle and mchale's navy. but really beginning around 1970 and directly in response to losing younger audiences, cbs in particular reached the conclusion that it had to tear down the wall between the medium and the moment. >> brown: by 1974, the cbs

saturday night lineup included "all in the family," with its generational clash around bigoted patriarch, archie bunker; the unheroic vision of war in "mash," and "the mary tyler moore show," centered on a 30-something single, professional woman. the same forces, brownstein writes, were changing the world of film, with movies like "chinatown" and "nashville" that focused on the underbelly of american life-- its cynicism, corruption, and violence. along the way, he offers compelling individual stories, like that of linda ronstadt >> i think people underestimate how much linda ronstadt was spinning her wheels, how difficult it was for her in the late '60s and '70s. she had a vision in her head of bringing together rock and folk and country and even r&b in a new way, in a way that really didn't have an antecedent on the radio. and all the way through, as she

was trying to coalesce and collect and capture the sound, she had to convince men, white men at every step of the way. and there was an awful lot of, don't you worry your pretty little head about it. >> brown: it does need to be said that the period you're talking about is really, this is a white world. you think about popular culture in america today is far more diverse. >> there is no doubt, i think that this early '70s period is when the door cracks open and you being to see, first the presentation in the medium itself, and so you get "good times" and you get "the jeffersons," and you get assorted other shows that are putting african-americans front and center for the first time. but even as that door cracked open and you were seeing more representation of those stories in front of the screen, the people who controlled those stories were still predominantly men and white men at that. >> brown: underlying it all, the growing buying power of the baby boom generation. raising the question: were the economics more powerful than the

ideals? >> it's an interesting question, right? i mean, the broad social revolution that the left side of the baby boom, the people who fueled all those social movements of the '60s, wanted or anticipated, never happened. but you know, popular culture is kind of like a leak in your roof that seeps into the house. and even though there was a sense that some of these ideals were tamed and there may be something to that, there's no question that the country, the way we lived our lives, was different after these ideas kind of were cemented in popular culture. >> let us take whatever steps are necessary. >> brown: a key point throughout: the link to politics. as brownstein points out, richard nixon won two elections amid the social upheaval of the late '60s and early '70s. >> one of their political weapons is “cancel culture.” >> brown: ...and this interplay continues in our own divided time. in some ways, he believes,

generational cultural change toward inclusiveness is more telling about the country's future than any one election result. >> at any given moment there may be an electoral majority or at least a winning plurality that can be mobilized to say, all right, we're going to stop all this. what you can't do is actually stop it. i think this is the big lesson of the 1970s, is that when a new generation comes along with a different set of values, it is almost impossible to stop that cultural change. i think the same is true today. if you look at kind of the vision of inclusion, not only the acceptance but the celebration of difference that animates so much of the popular culture aimed at young people today, i think that tells you more about what american society is going to look like in ten years than analyzing the election returns in 2020. doesn't mean the left is always going to win elections by any means. but it does mean, i think that

there will be a more inclusive and tolerant vision of kind of who belongs in american society in a decade than there is today. >> brown: the book is “rock me on the water.” ron brownstein, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. newshour, thank you, please stay safe, and we'll see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: our u.s.-based customer service reps can help you choose a plan based on how much you use your phone, nothing more, nothing less. to learn more, go to consumercellular.tv

>> the ford foundation. working with visionaries on the frontlines of social change worldwide. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and individuals. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

. ♪ hello and welcome to "amanpour & company." here's what's coming up. >> what we were trying to do is uphold the international rules-based order. >> the world's top democracies huddle in london. former cia director john brennan talks about the global strife president biden cannot ignore. then -- >> i'm officially in hanoi now. magic. >> remembering anthony bourdain. i talk to his former assistant about finishing the book they started together. world travel, an irreverent guide. plus -- >> my fear of the vaccine is more than my fear of gettinghe illness. >> tapping into the vaccine hesitant and how to reach