captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening. i'm judy woodruff. on the "newshour" tonight, tragic aftermath. the number of confirmed dead rises to 22 as rescue workers continue to scour the rubble of the surfside, florida, condo collapse. then, leaving afghanistan. the u.s. military hands over a critical base after 20 years of war, leaving the future of the country in question. plus, at the extreme: widespread drought raises concerns of another dangerous fire season as the western u.s. struggles to recover from last year's blazes. >> if we try to attack this problem like we always have, assuming that it's the same problem, we will not find

success. and if the environment we're operating in changes, and it obviously has, then we have to change, too. >> woodruff: and it's friday, david brooks and jonathan capehart break down the supreme court's ruling on voting rights and the criminal charges for former president trump's business. all that and more on tonight's "pbs newshour." >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> bnsf railway. >> consumer cellar. >> johnson & johnson. >> financial services firm raymond james.

>> the john s. and james l. knight foundation. fostering informed and engaged communities. more at kf.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and friends of the newshour. >> 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 death toll rose to 22 in the collapse of that condominium tower in surfside, florida. the number of missing dropped from 145 to 126 as some turned up safe, and officials removed duplicate names.

crews kept working today, after recovering two more victims overnight. the mayor said one was the seven-year-old daughter of a miami firefighter, a discovery that hit all of them hard. >> last night, was uniquely different. it was truly different, and more difficult for our first responders. these men and women are paying an enormous human toll each and every day, and i ask that all of you please keep all of them in your thoughts and prayers. >> woodruff: as the work continued, officials also kept an eye on "elsa," the first atlantic hurricane of 2021. the storm hit barbados today in the eastern caribbean. it could reach south florida by early next week. the u.s. economic rebound is showing new strength.

the labor department reports a net gain of 850,000 jobs in june-- the most in ten months. average hourly wages rose 3.6% from a year earlier as businesses offered incentives to workers. the unemployment ticked up slightly to 5.9%, possibly due to more people entering the labor force. the world health organization warned today that the delta variant of covid-19 has opened a dangerous new phase in the global pandemic. it's spreading in nearly 100 countries, and infections across africa are doubling every three weeks. in india, where the delta variant first appeared, the official death toll topped 400,000 today. the true total is believed to be far higher. the delta variant is also spreading in the u.s. as the fourth of july weekend arrives. more than 47 million people are expected to travel for the holiday, but a third of all u.s. adults are not yet vaccinated. at the white house today,

president biden said that means too many people are still at risk. >> i am not concerned there's going to be a major outbreak, in other words that we're going to have another epidemic natiwide. but i am concerned. lives will be lost. >> woodruff: at the same time, the president welcomed what he called "a summer of freedom." he will host a white house cookout for more than 1,0 people on sunday. we'll talk to the u.s. surgeon general, dr. vivek murthy, later in the program. the u.s. military all but completed its withdrawal from afghanistan today, departing bagram airfield after nearly 20 years. the withdrawal is running well ahead of president biden's deadline, of september 11. he said today it's up to the afghan government to unify in the face of rapid taliban advances. in iraq, a widespread power outage fueled outrage, with temperatures hitting 118 degrees.

it affected millions from baghdad south to basra. at friday prayers, men hid under parasols and carried signs blaming the government. officials did not confirm reports that militants cut a major transmission line. back in this country, an independent review commission formally recommended that outside prosecutors-- not military commanders-- handle sexual assault cases. president biden endorsed the proposal. he did not address calls in congress for outside prosecutors to handle all major crimes in the military. and, on wall street today: three major indexes all hit record closes, helped by the june jobs report. the dow jones industrial average gained 152 points to finish at 34,786. the nasdaq rose 117 points. and, the s&p 500 added 32. still to come on the "newshour," on the ground in afghanistan as

the u.s. military leaves after 20 years of war; the u.s. surgeon general discusses the threat of new covid variants and the vaccination effort; widespread drought raises concerns of another dangerous fire season for the western u.s. plus much more. >> woodruff: for more than a week, rescue teams have worked tirelessly to clear and search the rubble of that collapsed condominium building in surfside, florida. as amna nawaz reports, they face daunting challenges. >> nawaz: judy, rescue efforts resumed late yesterday, after a 14-hour pause over concerns

that parts of the building that remain standing could fall and endanger workers. weather issues, including heavy rain and lightning storms, have also slowed or halted work in recent days. and now, as we reported earlier, hurricane elsa is on course to reach the florida coast this weekend. all this, as rescue workers continue their mission around the clock. we turn to michael fagel. he served as a safety and logistics officer after both the oklahoma city bombing in 1995 and the world trade center attacks on september 11, 2001. he now teaches disaster management and has written a number of text books on the subject. welcome to the newshour, thank you for being with us. we are on day nine now, the terrible news they pulled the body of a seven-year-old daughter of a miami firefighter from the rubble there. help us understand for the rescue workers doing the work right now, what is it like? what's going through their minds? >> they are on pure adrenalin right now. these folks are working 12 hour

shifts or not longer, and even when they stop to rest, they don't rest. they're still doing 100 miles an hour. these people are dedicated to try to find every person that they can and they just don't want to stop. >>nawaz: no survivors have been pulled from the wreckage since the hours after the collapse last wednesday. they are still on a search and rescue mission when does that turn to search and recovery? >> when it changes to recovery will be when the on the ground commanders decide. could be several days. remember it was 11 days with mexico city and it was eight days with haiti, so they are unified every commanding and that's a decision that's going to be hard to make because nobody wants to give up. >>nawaz: at that side there is the collapsed tower and also a north tower a hundred yards away, that was built at the same

time. fema has said they will temporarily relocate residents of that building if they wish to leave but they haven't been ordered to evacuate. i wonder from your experience, what your take is, should those residents leave that other building? >> i know when we did other evacuations if you have the opportunity to leave while it is safe, i'd highly recommend to do so. i'm not a engineer but variation engineers have suggested there may be similar conditions. so if i was given the opportunity to evacuate i would. >>nawaz: as we mentioned hurricane elsa is now threatening the coast. give us a sense of how that's changing the rescue on the ground? >> with the wind and weather, those situations will certainly exacerbate the issues. crews will work as long as they can as safely as they can but when a beam moves six to 12 inches all those things add to the tire prlem that must be evaluated minute by minute.

>>nawaz: i wonder too if you would weigh in on this because obviously the safety of the workers is the foremost of everyone's minds right now. but what about the long term safety? i think back to the rescue work whoars were there after 9/ and many of them inhaling the dust and afterwards. about the long time health of those workers at surfside. >> absolutely. it is something that will rear its ugh reply head at very unknown times. i tried to keep people safe when i was at ground zero, i succumbed to cancer ten years later, you just don't know. i lost a kidney. these people need to be monitored so careful,ly. they need mental health support as the well. don't be afraid because the long term effects of critical incident will last for them for their lifetime and for their

families. don't ignore it. maud michael fagel, i wonder if you have a brief message for those on the ground, what would that be? >> don't give up. don't panic and stay safe. and please, please, obtain medical attention and mental health support. don't be afraid. it's okay. >>nawaz: that is michael fagel, joining us today, our thoughts remain with those people and those rescue workers down in survesdz, florida. thank you for your time. >> you're welcome. >> woodruff: a generation of american military presence in afghanistan is nearing its end. but what comes now? here's nick schifrin. >> schifrin: the sprawling hub of american operations in afghanistan for nearly two decades, bagram airfield, is now in the hands of the afghan government.

defense officials say all american forces outside of the kabul airport and embassy, have left the country. president biden today suggested the country's challenges, are now the afghans' problem. >> we have worked out an over the horizon capacity that we can be value-added but the afghans are going to have to do it by themselves with the air force they will have to maintained. i'm not going to answer any more questions of afghanistan. look, 4th of july. i'm concerned that you guys will ask me questions i will answer next week when i miss the holiday weekend. i'm going to celebrate it. >> schifrin: our jane ferguson joins me from kabul. jane, talk about the mood in kabul, how does the government feel, how does the city field? >> 96, they've spent the last couple of months trying to make

sure they could secure the u.s. funding, the $4 billion a year forking av security forces. but they have more concern, whether or not they can hold any more ground towards if taliban. the president here ghani seems andersoninglseclude he from the palace. there soont sense of panic, people are getting along with their daily lives but, world war i the taliban could come back here or whether they could see more of a civil war taking place a new phase in this war. don't forget nick, the vast majority of the population here in ooftion are too young to remember taliban rule. their parents and grandparents remember taliban rule, many people deeply fear a return to that andn turn you're seeing a huge amount of them trying to get out of the country. there is also the important topic of what will happen for

women here. i've spoken for those who run women's sherltsd across the country. they have had to evacuate many of those serlts, areas that have fallen to the taliban. those who have been helped because they are coming from abusive situations or released from jail or have children,ment of those don't have any other place to go, dpleez into government areas which as you well know are becoming smaller and smoouler. >> schifrin: and those fears outside of kabul are not only local militias fiedings. >> a huge uptick in violent by the taliban and the tactics are fairly clear. they want to take rural areas between the major cities. essentially, choking off those cities and for now, they've managed to take many districts across the country, and part of the tactic as well is to draw

the andsf, the average security forces, government security forces into fighting on way more fronts than they can really manage to do so, to draw them into nighing radios did country and stretch them thin across many different areas. to respond to that, the government is handing out weapons to civilians, essentially militias across the country, to try to get them to go out to support the average security forces. they fight the talibanext to the average army. theyafghan army. way back during the 1990 civil war, they are being handed guns by the government and told to protect their own areas, other areas that are under threat of falling to the taliban. can. >> schifrin: as u.s. service members are leaving, so are u.s. contractors who have been servicing afghan request

helicopters. jane how important is that? >> air support for the afghan security forces is absolutely essential. loss of that could tip the balance of four. we've already seen at least one unit of afghan special forces being killed by the taliban because they didn't have any backup. can. >> schifrin: and finally jane the u.s. is also figuring out how to do in terms of future air strikes, how to get afghan translators out of the country. how important is it that the u.s. finalize those details? >> there are so many questions as you said nick. will the u.s. military prevent taliban from marching on major cities or even kabul? will the civilian or the special immigrant visas for the contractors, the interpreters who worked with the afghan mill trit go through? i had dinner with one of those

former interpreters who has been denied his application for a visa, he knows that the americans are flying out and time is running out. that means lack of answers for thousands of them across asks. >> schifrin: our jane ferguson tonight in kabul. thank you very much. >> woodruff: as we reported earlier, health officials are sounding the alarm this holiday weekend, that covid-19's highly transmissible delta variant is causing an increase in coronavirus cases in the united states. and its greatest threat is to those who are unvaccinated. i spoke about this a short time ago with the u.s. surgeon general, dr. vivek murthy. >> woodruff: dr. murthy, thank you very much for joining us. we see the reporting that the delta variants is now in all 50

states. how prevalent is it? >> well judy it is quite prevalent. it is all ownership the country, double beingvery two weeks. it will quickly become the dominant variant in the united states. it is highly transmissible, perhaps the most transmiss icial to date. the vaccines appear to be effective against delta variant, if you are vaccinated you are in good shape. you have a high degree of protection. myorry is for those who are not vaccinated because this ergs tends to spread even more quickly among other variants in the unvaccinated. and i worry like places in missouri and idaho. >> woodruff: that suggests that the biggest worry is going to be no those places, whether it is rural areas or urban. those sedates where there is a lower vaccination rate.

are we looking at sort of two different pictures of the country here where people -- where there's a high vaccination rate and a low varks nation rate? >> well judy right now we are a divided country in terms of vaccination rates. we have some parts of our country that have 70%, 80% vaccination rates. we have others that are below 30% in parts of their region. so i'm worried about that. because that means that there are some parts of our country that are at significant risk, while others ar relavely safe. and what we don't want to see is a scenario over the summer and in the fall where we have surges, in those rgions where we have low vaccination rates. but i fear that that is where we are headed unless we can quickly increase vaccination rates. that is one of the reasons judy that the administration is also putting together a surge effort to help build teams that can go to areas 92 have been hard-hit by either microsurges or that have low vaccination rates and

can bring a series of resources to them with snidges to expanding testing to vaccination administration to technical assistance to help their technical support and get their assistance to them like monoclonal antibodies. >> woodruff: the administration has tried a number of different tactics to get people to get vaccinated. our poll shows that 28% of americans say they do not plan to be vaccinated. how do you change the minds of people who are just dead-set against it? >> well, judy one of the things i learned during my time practicing medicine and working with patients from a wide variety of backgrounds and points of view, is that you really have to understand where people are coming from. what their concerns are. ad also who they trust. you know we're a big country. people trust different

institutions, different individuals. not everyone's going to listen to officials from federal government or state government or local government. about 50% of people in polls say that they want to hear from a family member or friend as they make their decision about the vaccine. about 80% of people say they want to talk to their doctor or another medical professional about making a decision. that's whit's so important that we keep focus on this effort to mobilize trusted mefn engineers to help keep people informed in their local communities, whether it's faith leaders, the problem we have is there is a lot of misinformation floating around. two-thir of people unvaccinated believe myths about covid-19 vaccines butter myths such as you can gets covid-19 from the vaccine which is absolutely not true. we're used to the notion that information is power judy but what we learned is that

information alone isn't power. information plus trust is what creates power and in that sense all of us hve the ability to talk to our friends and family, he them get the information they need, help them go to vaccin.gov and help them go to a play nearby and get vaccinated. us that how we can protect the people we love. >> woodruff: in the meantime, is advice is for those who are vaccinated it's okay to go without a mask but for unvaccinated you should still be wearing a mask is that correct? >> if you are unvaccinated you are still at risk. absolutely you should wear a mask. especially if you are in inside settings, if you are fully vaccinated that means two weeks after your last dose of the vac steen science tells us that the chances of getting sick with covid or transmittalling the virus to others is low. and that's why the cdc gave people flexibility to go without

masking, indoors or outdoors, that said, people may make the decision they want to keep wearing mafntion, maybe they live at home who are unvaccinated are maybe there's a lot of spread in their community much covid-19 right nowd and it's okay for people to make those decisions. >> woodruff: is the delta variant dr. murtd now the main reason for people to get vaccinated? >> i think it's certainly the most clear and present reason for people to get vaccinated. not only sit spreading fast judy but what we've learned in recent weeks and months is it's not only recent hospitalizations and deaths that we worry about but increasingly we seize people with what's called long haul symptoms, shortness of breath, fatigue, brain fog, that lasts months after their infection. sometimes even with asymptomatic

infection. if you think,ing i'm not at high risk, it may not be seriously ill. but what weeing worry about even if you don't get hospitalized, you may be at risk for long haul symptoms. these are all more reasons for us to get vaccinated. but the delta variant is one of the reasons to get vaccinated than ever before. >> woodruff:s dr. vivek murthy thank you veryuch. >> and happy 4th of july judy. >> woodruff: you too. >> woodruff: in the middle of an unprecedented heat wave and a worsening drought, western states are bracing for what could be an even harsher wildfire season than last year's, the worst on record. with many residents still picking up the pieces, they worry what's on the horizon.

stephanie sy has this report from southern oregon. >> you can see where this area burned over here. >> reporter: these are the charred remains of a section of the bear creek greenway that burned early in the fire season-- too early. it's bone-dry along the 20-mile trail that runs through jackson county in southern oregon. just a spark in this tinderbox could become another disaster, like it did last summer. >> there's vegetative fuels like this all along the greenway and the fire was just moving rapidly. >> reporter: bob horton was the chief of jackson county's fire district three. when the almeda fire erupted last september, consuming the towns of phoenix and talent and leveling some 2800 structures. >> i remember vividly, like it was yesterday, coming across the radio say we have one chance, one chance, to stop is fire. >> reporter: will clelland, his battalion chief, says the first priority was saving lives. >> the fire that day was forcing us to decide about neighborhoods, not homes or

streets, uh, blocks of streets. >> reporter: which neighborhoods you would just have to let burn. >> yeah, we were forced to decide which neighborhoods we would, we would be passing by and... you know, that's hard. there's... these are real falies. >> i feel that was my last day. >> reporter: beatriz gomez remembers the fire drawing closer-- the ash, the smoke. she grabbed important papers and pack her kids into a van to flee, but soon found herself on a packed road surrounded on all sides by fires. >> he called me and said, "where are you?" i said, "i'm stuck." and he told me-- >> reporter: you said, "i'm stuck." >> i'm stuck in the, the fire. my five-year-old told everybody, close their eyes, because this is bad and everybody's scared. >> reporter: they survived, but lost their house. she, her husband, and their four kids have been living in this cramped r.v., which they were able to buy with their own money and a church donation. these r.v. parks are scattered

throughout the area, filled with displaced fire survivors, many still traumatized by that day in september, which happened to also be beatriz's birthday. are you still scared of wildfires? >> yes. every day, especially last week. we have a small fire close to here. i see the smoke and i look in every five or ten minus when i start to feel the smell, i start-- >> reporter: you start feel anxious? >> and i said, "what did i do?" so i put my papers in the van again and again. i have to run again. my five-year-old daughter told me, i told my mom this smoke, maybe it's carne asada, you don't have to worry. after the fire, i put my kids for therapy. my older son would scream in the night. my daughter, too. and i heard her cry in her sleep. >> reporter: the kids attend schools in the phoenix-talent district where tiffanie lambert

and lucy brossard work. the almeda fire arrived on the first day of school last year. >> i looked back and i saw the big plume of smoke, and that is when panic set in, and just hearing where the fire was and knowing that it was getting really close to some of our family's homes and it was some of our most at risk families broke my heart. >> reporter: the fire left one- third of students in phoenix- talent schools suddenly homeless. nine months later, officials >> i mean, our areas are just reaching the end of the cleanup phase. >> reporter: so, when you are looking at the school year starting in the fall, you're still going to have a big percentage of students that are displaced and not in permanent housing. >> correct, mhm. >> reporter: ang them: allan estimate more than 400 families are still displaced. among them: allan shephard's gandkids. with school out for the summer, they cooled off in a kiddie

pool, hastily purchased on a day when temperatures broke all-time highs in southern oregon. like beatriz gomez, he says he had had almost no warning to evacuate, and could hardly save anything. what was most valuable to you that you lost? >> my whole home. and it hurts. what can you do? you stick your chin up and keep going on, try to make it right for these guys. >> reporter: he can't afford to rebuild or even rent. >> i got four kids, you know, even to get into a three bedroom, i'm sure i'll be up around $1,200, $1,300 a month. you know, for me that's not feasible, right. so, that's what i'm saying. i might ha to go off grid again and save enough money to buy a mobile home, you know, and then move it in on a park that i can afford. >> reporter: the hard-hit town of talent still bears the scars of that september day. >> everything on one side of talent avenue, completely

annihilated. >> reporter: dominick dellasala is a longtime talent resident. he has spe years studying climate change and warning of its impact on wildfires. he had to evacuate along with all his neighbors, and feels lucky his home survived. but when he surveys the new construction in talent, he sees how quickly it could all go up in flames again. >> part of me looks at this and says we're not building back better. i mean, this used to be a forest, and it's in these buildings, and it's totally flammable. so, if there's another fire, and we have seen these western towns burn not once, but twice, this is the worst possible way to build a house. >> reporter: a new wildfire season is underway, which threatens to be worse than last year's. >> all of the forecasts have been well above the level of

danger or risk that we would have at this time of the year. >> reporter: fire chief bob horton says they've learned from the almeda fire and other explosive wildfires happening across the west. >> we're getting greater fires of intent, greater intensity and greater frequency of fire. we absolutely have to be more aggressive at managing the risk and just, just more effort and energy put into... hardening homes in the wildland urban interface, and it's the reducing the hazardous vegetation around people's properties. >> reporter: dominick dellasala says the fires are part of“ runaway climate chaos” and without action to address that, future generations face more losses. >> this community has struggled with a lot of grief. it's rebuilding itself. but in terms of the bigger picture, this is all connected. when we change our atmosphere, when we destroy our wild areas, we alter the climate. so, we're seeing fire misbehaving, causing

catastrophic urban fire events. >> if we try to attack this problem like we always have, assuming that it's the same problem, we will not find success. and if the environment we're operating in changes, and it obviously has, then we have to change, too. >> reporter: and change quickly, before the next fire becomes a catastrophe. for the pbs newshour, i'm stephanie sy in southern oregon. >> woodruff: landmark decisions came down this week from the supreme court, u.s. house speaker pelosi finally got a committee to look at the january 6 insurrection and criminal charges came down on the former president's family business. luckily, to help us better understand it all, the analysis of brooks and capehart. that's "new york times" columnist david brooks, and

jonathan capehart, columnist for "the washington post." very good to see you as we head into this july 4th weekend. a lot to talk about. let's start with the supreme court decision. on voting rights. david, it was a decision we've been waiting for, very stark division between how the justices saw this in a lopsided 6-3 decision. how did you read what you saw the from the justices? >> brooks: yeah well this is one of the few, relatively few, surprisingly few 6-3 along party lines. this is an answer to a problem that doesn't exists. there is no voting fraud, all these state rules, we just need them. they are just in service to the trump lie that the election was stolen. the intents of the legislatures in all these places was to help their party. basically a white republican party and therefore they're trying to make it harder for

people in the other party to vote. i naj that's their intent. the impact is the crucial impact here. what is their disparate impact? i look at the research, i don't look at it legally, but the impact of these voting changes is pretty minimal. over the last 15, certainly not in the day of jim crow, not minimal then, but make it easier to vote or less easy to vote, the impact on actual voting has not been that great. it doesn't strike me as catastrophic. but the final thing to say is even though impact is incremental it is disparate. african americans, latinos, they are not equally shared across all groups. so on the whole, i think the court made a mistake but it's probably not a catastrophic one. >> woodruff: how the do you see it jonathan? >> capehart: john if i agree with david in terms of it not

obeing catastrophic. simply because to another point that david said, this is a solution in search of a problem. as someone said to me once, after i said pretty much the same thing on the show a few months ago, they said that's the wrong frame. because actually, from the republican perspective, the problem is, too many people are voting for democrats. and in particular, too many people of color, i i.e., black people, that is these laws are out there, what might not be catastrophic in terms of the way you view it right now david, but it's really interesting that after african american voters, people of color, e democratic coalition, came out en masse to vote for joe biden, to vote for senators warnock and ossoff in georgia, that all of a sudden there is a voter problem, voting issue that needs to be solved.

and that problem is that too many of those people are voting. and the idea that the supreme court would say well, you know, it's not such a big deal, realla travesty and doesn't do anythig for chief justice john roberts goal of trying to keep the supreme court looking like a neutral player. but when it comes to voting rights, chief justicroberts isn't a neutral player in this. >> woodruff: well speaking about what happened in the georgia vote i happen to beto have a rare and very fortunately had an interview earlier this week with former president jimmy carter in plains, he and his wife roz marin were about do celebrate their 75th wedding anniversary. i asked him, we didn't know at that point about what the court would do but what's happening in georgia these tightening laws, here is part of what he said. >> all over the world, we've

always, ever since the carter center was founded tried to promote maximum involvement among the involvement of the people itself and making sure the votes were count id accurately. all those things were going by the board because of the republican state legislature, who have taken the position that trump has espoused. >> woodruff: and he's saying in other words, the changes, his own cancer center which has monitored elections all over the world was called on to from monitor siations in georgia. you now have a situation what the united states used to happen in the rest of the world is happening here david. >> brooks: earlier in the year i canead ron chernow's fabulous biography. it's hard to read that history

and not look at what's happening today. if you are a legislature of any matter you do not want to be ton side of disparate outcomes along racial grounds. it is just abhorrent. i guess would i disagree with president carter, in that i think 2022 election is going to be a fair election. i don't think we've totally trashed our system and that's why i make the emphasis, when you try to diswriment against people, one of the things that's happened and it's not coming back right, they come back against you harder. when people are trying to perceive the legistures are trying to turn us away, whether that will be still the system long term is an open question. but i think overall we have mail in ballots, we have longer periods we did, 20, 30 years ago. as much as a person can be outraged what's happening our election will be fair in 2022 i imagine. >> woodruff: jonathan, i was

struck by the poll, npr and marris, 99% of the respondents said it was good to show a government ifd before they can vote. >> capehart: sure and you nodz stacie abrams, one of the things in there was voter i.d. stacie abrams came out and said she was fine with it. but that was just a one sentence answer. the fine prints of her annals is, srch fine with voter i.d. the problem denomination when other states demanding only voter i.d. and not other forms of identification and when they demand photo i.d., they put restrictions ton kinds of photo i.d.s that can be presented. you have in some states where a student can't show their student photo i.d. but someone can just show up and show their gun permit and be able to vote.

and that is the issue. that is problem. i don't think it's unreasonable to ask people to prove who they are. the problem can comes in when you start picking and chosing which pieces of identification allow you to exercise your right to votes. >> woodruff: so much to ask the two of you about this week. david, i do want to raise the indictment that new york prosecutors handed down genes trump business and his chief financial officer. my question to both of you is how does this affect former president trump's political fortunes? >> brooks: i guess for me it remains to be seen still. i confess if you asked me how much corruption there was in the trump organization, i would expect way worse than some undisclosed fringe benefits. if that's all it is i would be underwhelmed. that is obably not all it is, as every exphertd seems to be

saying these days. they seem the go against this guy as an attempt too turn him. he's been involved in trump organization numbers fr decades, if they can hit him hard on these untaxed benefits then if he's facing jail time he would be certainly the person who would know tall secrets going all the way to the top of the trump organization. so if this is the beginning of a set of witnesses turning, then i would be surprised and trump would be relatively safe from this kind of indicent. >> woodruff: jonathan how peril owz for former president trump? >> capehart: in terms of his political standing, i don't think perilous at all. one of the truest statements every to come out of trump's trs mouth, i could shoot someone in new york and not be punished, time and time again, this is one piece of the quote unquote and

not a true witch hunt against him. i don't see this hurting him any way with his true believers. >> woodruff: the last thing i want to ask you two abo is something the former president has denounced, and that is house speaker nancy pelosnaming a select admission to investigate what happened on january 6th at the capitol. she tried hard to get a commission, republicans blocked that in the congress in the senate. but now there is a select committee, she's named several members including republican liz cheney who has been critical of the former president. how much can we expect to learn from an organization, i mean from an entity like this? brks we. >> brooks: we're not going to get the dispassionate is result that many people hoped for. we'll get a majority and minority reports.

liz cheney is really a tough person to go against her own leader and accept this appointment from nancy pelosi that means she's really tough. she's decided that it's her point defense the constitution and look into january 6th. more power to her. does he go and get inter-hard-charging fire breathing right wingers who will make fox happy and disrupt the whole works, what else stefafik has become? i imagine he wil gro with the hard chargers and somewhat of a public utility theater. despite the flil elements that we are destined to, i think we'll learn stuff just from witnesses and from the back and forth of politics. >> woodruff: what are your expectations from this jonathan? do you think we'll learn very much? how do you see it playing out? >> i do think we will learn a

lot but the key thing that everyone should keep in mind is that for speaker nancy pelosi who is deeply faithful person, devout complict, her love of the constitution ranks up there as number 2 in terms of her what she strongly believes in and for her as a members of congress -- member of congress, as a constitutional officer, speaker of the house, for her allegiance to the constitution is involleyable. --ing north dakota voliable. i was an affront to her and as speaker of the house. she wants this committee because she wants no know what happened, why it happened so we can all learn how to prevent from it happening again. so anyone who thinks that this is only a pert sedan exercise

doesn't really understand who she is and why she's doing it and more importantly, why she turned to republicanning coming womanly cheney to be on the -- be on that committee. because also someone from the popsing ideologic spectrum cps opposite ideological inspector trup trum. >> woodruff: one way or another, we continue to hear about january the 6th, even as we approach this national holiday, july 4th, we hope you have a good and safe holiday, jonathan ipt cape, david brooks. >> same to you judy. >> woodruff: the closing day of the supreme court term highlighted the power of the new six-justice conservative majority, but the ideological

divide can also reveal the power of a blistering dissent. yesterday, that dissent came from justice elena kagan, who said the majority undermined the voting rights act by upholding two restrictive laws in arizona. she wrote, "what is tragic here is that the court has (yet again) rewritten-- in order to weaken-- a statute that stands as a monument to america's greatness, and procts against its basest impulses." john yang takes a look at another justice who delivered historic dissents while on the court, during the jim crow era. >> yang: judy, the name of a supreme court justice, john marshall harlan, may not be widely known these days beyond law students and constitutional scholars. during his tenure from 1877-1911, the high court enshrined racial segregation in american life. in the biggest of those cases, harlan's vote was the lone

dissent. he alone staked out positions that decades later would become the law of the land. those visionary opinions led him to be known as the great dissenter, which is also the title of a new biography of harlan by peter canellos, the managing editor of "politico." peter, thank you for being with us. what drew you to write about john harlan? >> well, it started back when i was in law school 30 years ago. d, as you know, it's often a dry affair reading legal books, but harlan's opinions immediately, sort of, leapt off the page. here is somebody who is bringing, sort of, a higher pitch of justice to his consideration of the law. it also is striking not only in the race cases, but also in some of these economic cases during the gilded age that his opinion is the law of the land now and not that of the court majority of his era. i want to know why somebody would be so different from their

colleagues at that time and yet be proven right in history. >> yang: he started out as a slave owner. he was born into a slave state, kentucky. he disagreed with president lincoln on emancipation and actually opposed his reelection. so, how does he go from that to becoming this champion of equal rights for freed slaves? >> in the context of kentucky politics, those stances were less resistant and conservative than you would think. there were essentially no republicans in kentucky, he was striving to keep the state neutral and so, yes, he cut deals and rallied very hard to get his fellow kentuckians to stay in the union, and part of that promise was they would be able to make their own decision on slavery. but that's why he was opposing some of the emancipation proclamation and the 13th amendment. nonetheless, after the war, he came to believe that slavery was, in his own words, the greatest despotism of all time.

also, his personal association with african-americans, especially the one who was long rumored and believed to be his half brotherrobert harlan, who became a very prominent civil rights figure in ohio, just across the river from kentucky, and with whom he had a long term and very respectful friendship and collaboration. >> yang: you write about robert, you say, if there is a mystery to harlan's story, the solution lies in the person of robert harlan. >> robert harlan is an amazing man. he was a person of mixed race. he was believed to be the son of harlan's father and an enslaved woman. some d.n.a. tests later on suggested that may not be the case, but nonetheless, he was believed to be a member of the harlan family and had a special relationship with john's father. he was in a position to help john marshall harlan when harlan wanted to get on the supreme court. northern liberals were very skeptical of this kentuckian who

came from a slave owning family. though behind the scenes, robert harlan was able to reassure people of john harlan's good intentions regarding african- americans in a time when most people doubted him. and then he went on to become the greatest defender of african-american rights of his time and perhaps of american history. >> yang: you talk about the, sort of the gilded age and a lot of these issues, not just the race cases that, but economic cases that were the, the supreme court sided with the moneyed interests over workers on things like work hours and th sort of thing. you looked at those cases, where did you feel any parallels or were there echoes of the court's direction today? >> one recent vintage that sort of has a little of that air to it is the citizens united case. i think the basic situation during the gilded age was you had a supreme court that was much more conservative than the rest of the country d very much out of touch with what average people were

experiencing. that was the result of having a long, unbroken string of essentially pro-business presidents. harlan was much more in touch with the country coming from kentucky. he was not rich, he understood what was going on, and he was every bit as aggressive a defense, a dissenter in the cases as he was in the race cases. what's amazing to me is today, in all of those cases, the race case, civil rights, voting rights, education and dorsed the separate but equal act, and then in these economic cases, harlan's views prevailed. and in his time he was just one person standing against the crowd. >> yang: his dissent in the, in plessy vs. ferguson, which established the doctrine o separate but equal, was sort of the roadmap for thurgood marshall in brown vs. board of education. and today, harlan is a hero to both sides, to conservative legal scholars and justices on the supreme court and also liberal scholars. how-- talk a little bit about

that. >> conservatives see harlan as a positive figure, as a person who believed in the original intent and plain meaning of the constitution when he stood up for equality in plessy v. ferguson. he was saying equal protection means equal protection. he was also saying the people who passed that amendment intended to create a state of equality for african-americans. liberals, on the other hand, will look at him and say, here's a man who had a real sense of how the supreme court's decisions can affect people on the ground. >> yang: you also say that, that harlan was unique in that his dissents eventually became the law of the land, that there was no there hasn't been as forceful a dissenter. but do you see any parallel or any analog on the court today? >> well, certainly the court, court liberals and a lot of people associated this with the late ruth bader ginsburg, shifted to a position of dissent in the last four or five years. i think that ruth bader ginsburg

in her later years really looked to harlan as an example of which he wanted her, her own legacy to be. >> yang: the book is "the great dissenter: the story of john marshall harlan, america's judicial hero," the author, peter canellos. peter, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: and a quick announcement before we say goodnight. the newshour has launched a new digital series called“ 5 stories" in each episode, host deema zein will recap five captivating stories you may have missed, all in about three minutes. you can find the latest episode every friday on our youtube channel or on our website, that's pbs.org/newshour. stay with pbs, you don't want to miss yamiche alcindor and her panel unpack the criminal charges against the trump organization and top executive. that's tonight on "washington week." and be sure to join us here on monday for my rare, wide-ranging interview with former president jimmy carter, and his wife rosalyn as they prepare to celebrate their 75th wedding anniversary. and that's the newshour for

tonight. i'm judy woodruff. join us on-line and again here tomorrow evening for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you, please stay safe and enjoy celebrating this fourth of july weekend. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> consumer cellular. >> johnson & johnson. >> bnsf railway. >> financial services firm raymond james. >> the william and flora hewlett foundation. for more than 50 years, advancing ideas and supporting institutions to promote a better world. at www.hewlett.org.

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