captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening. i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight: facebook under fire. a former employee testifies to congress, the tech giant harms children, weakens democracy and lacks accountability. then, high stakes. president biden hits the road, aiming to sell his trillion dollar spending bills to moderate democrats by persuading voters in a key swing state. and, return to campus. universities nationwide begin another school year amid the covid pandemic, facing tough decisions and hoping to avoid major outbreaks. >> this year, the difference is, we, at least, even though we're walking a tightwire, we've got a safety net which is the vaccine.

>> woodruff: all that and more, on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> pediatric surgeon. volunteer. topiary artist. a raymond james financial advisor tailors advice to help you live your life. life, well-planned. >> for 25 years, consumer cellular's goal has been to provide wireless service that helps people communicate and connect. we offer a variety of no-contract plans, and our u.s.-based customer service team can help find one that fits you. to learn more, visit www.consumercelllar.tv. >> johnson & johnson. >> bnsf railway. >> b.d.o.

accountants and advisors. >> fidelity wealth management. >> 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 individuals. >> 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: a one-time facebook employee has painted a damning portrait of the social media

giant. at a u.s. senate hearing today, frances haugen charged that the company puts profit before people, harms children-- and lies about it. she said nothing will change unless congrs forces action. we will get the details, after the news summary. the senate is headed for a new confrontation over raising the federal debt ceiling. democrats said today that they are willing to pass it on their own tomorrow, to prevent a national default. but, republicans are insisting on a more complicated process, and vow to block anything short of that. their leaders spoke outside the senate chamber. >>e do not have the luxury of using a drawn-out, convoluted and risky process. we could prevent a catastrophic default with a simple majority vote tomorrow. if republicans will just get out of the damn way, we could get this all done.

>> i implore them one more time not to play russian roulette with the american economy. we've been down this path before, when we did not have a divided government, and the party in the majority got the job done. >> woodruff: meanwhile, president biden ventured out to michigan to push his infrastrture and social spending bills. democratic moderates and progressives remain at odds over the measures. on the pandemic, johnson & johnson asked the f.d.a. today to allow boosters for its single-shot covid vaccine. and, astra-zeneca requested authorization for a first-of- its-kind antibody treatment. it's meant to prevent infections in immuno-compromised people. the coast guard now says something dragged a pipeline that spilled oil off southern california over the weekend. a section of the line was moved about 100 feet, and divers found a 13-inch gash. they are investigating whether a

ship anchor did the damage. the coast guard also confirms that it did not investigate initial reports of an oil sheen on friday. its officials cited lack of evidence and darkness. in france, an independent commission estimates that 330,000 children were sexually abused in the country's roman catholic church over 70 years. today's report said some 3,000 priests and an unknown number of others were involved. in paris, the leader of french catholic bishops said they are appalled at the finding. >> ( translated ): what has been brought to light is frightening, and it has to be completely brought to light. and so i ask forgiveness with all my heart, d i am well aware that to get this forgiveness, we still have to work, with regard to the immense number that were implicated. >> woodruff: leaders of victims groups said the report shows cover-ups that allowed mass crimes. the nobel prize for physics will be shared by three scientists for work related to

climate change. japan's syukuro manabe, based at princeton university, and germany's klaus hasselmann created models that predict global warming. georgio parisi of italy decoded complex behaviors that can help explain forces of nature. in china, doubts over huge debts in the real-estate sector intensified today, when a mid-size developer missed a $205 million payment. markets werelready fearful that real estate giant evergrande group will collapse under $310 billion of debt. wall street fought its way back, as tech stocks recouped some of monday's losses. major indexes were up nearly 1% or more. the dow jones industrial average gained 311 points to close at 34,314. the nasdaq rose 178 points. the s&p 500 added 45.

and, a russian actor and director blasted off today, to mke the world's first movie while in orbit. they launched from kazakhstan, along with a russian cosmonaut. later, they docked with the international space station, and will spend 12 days aloft. the movie is about a surgeon who has to save a crew member in space. still to come on the newshour: california governor gavin newsom discusses pre-kindergarten, the oil spill, and the president's imperiled agenda. how universities nationwide plan to avoid covid outbreaks on campus. veterans of russia's war in afghanistan reflect on the american withdrawal. plus, much more.

>> woodruff: as we reported earlier, facebook is under fire tonight following testimony by a former employee before a u.s. senate committee. she alleged that the company too frequently turns a blind eye to potential harm, for the sake of profit. facebook denied that in statements to the newshour, and said it is working to make its platforms safer. william brangham has our report. >> i'm here today because i believe facebook's products harm children, stoke division and weaken our democracy. >> brangham: armed with a trove of internal company doments, former facebook employee frances haugen implored senators to rein in the social media giant. >> the company's leadership knows how to make facebook and instagram safer, but won't make the necessary changes, because they have put their astronomical profits before people. congressional action is needed, they won't solve this crisis without your help. >> brangham: haugen appeared

before the senate commerce subcommittee on consumer protection. the hearing centered on how facebook-- and especially its photo-sharing app instagram-- targets and impacts children, particularly teenagers. >> kids who are bullied on instagram-- the buying follows them home. it follows them into their bedrooms. the last thing they see before they go to bed at night is someone being cruel to them. or the first thing they see in the morning is someone being cruel to them. >> brangham: haugen said facebook's own internal research proved that its products have negative impacts on kids-- including that, for one in three teenage girls, instagram makes negative body issues worse. >> facebook knows that they are leading young users to anorexia content. >> brangham: in an exchange with republican senator dan sullivan of alaska, she pointed to the scale of the problem for teens. >> we're gng to look back 20 years from now and all of us are going to be like, "what in the

hell were we thinking?" when we recognize the damage that it's done to a generation of kids. do you agree with that, ms. haugen? >> when facebook made statements, has made statements in the past, about how much benefit instagram is providing to kids' mental health, like "kids are connecting who were once alone," what i am so surprised about that is, if instagram is such a positive force, have we seen a golden age of teenage mental health in the last ten years? no. we've seen escalating-- >> we've seen the opposite, right. >> we've seen escalating rates of suicide and depression among teenagers. >> brangham: for its part, facebook has rejected these criticisms, and says its internal research about instagram has been taken out of context. facebook spokesperson andy stone said on twitter today that "@franceshaugen did not work on child safety or instagram, or research these issues, and has no direct knowledge of the topic from her work at facebook.” but last week, amid criticism in response to some of these revelations, facebook paused a

plan for a new "instagram kids” feature for those under the age of 13. haugen resigned from facebook in april-- fed up, she said, with the company's inaction. today, she laid ultimate responsibility on facebook founder and c.e.o. mark zuckerberg. >> in the end, the buck stops with mark. there is no one currently holding mark accountable but himself. we are responsible for the organizations we build. mark has built an organization that is very metrics-driven. it is intended to be flat. there is no unilateral responsibility. the metrics make the decision. unfortunately, that itself is a decision. and in the end, if he is the c.e.o. and the chairman of facebook, he is responsible for those decisions. >> brangham: throughout the hearing, facebook came under bipartisan scrutiny, as the senators found rare common ground criticizing the social media juggernaut. >> the damage to self-interest and self-worth inflicted by

facebook today will haunt a generation. >> facebook is not interested in making significant changes to improve kids' safety on their platforms, at least not when that would result in losing eyeballs on posts or decreasing their ad revenues. >> brangham: facebook also rejects the claims that its endangering its users to maximize profit. in a statement, facebook's director of policy communications, lena pietsch, said, “we've invested heavily in people and technology to keep our platform safe, and have made fighting misinformation and providing authoritative information a priority. at the hearing, haugen didn't recommend breaking up facebook, but called for increased federal oversight. >> if you split facebook and instagram apart, it's likely that most advertising dollars will go to instagram, and facebook will continue to be this frankenstein that is endangering lives around the

world, only now there won't be money to fund it. >> brangham: in the past, facebook has repeatedly said it backs smart regulation of social media companies, and today disputed much of haugen's testimony, pointing out she was a junior employee. facebook's pietsch said,“ we don't agree with her characterization of the many issues she testified about. despite all this, we agree on one thing-- it's time to begin to create standard rules for the internet. while today revealed a clear bipartisan consensus for action, there's no timetable for when that might occur, or what shape it might take. for the pbs newshour, i'm william brangham. >> woodruff: as we reported, president biden spoke in michigan today on the need for his infrastructure and social spending plans, as negotiations over both bills are underway on

capitol hill. yamiche alcindor talks to two leaders in michigan about what the state needs, and the potential impact of the biden agenda. >> alcindor: here to talk about the president's pitch, i'm joined by nick proctor. he's the mayor of howell, and attended the president's remarks. and, congresswoman lisa mcclain. she represents the northeastern part of the state. thank you so much both of you for being here. mayor proctor, i want to start with you. president biden only got 38% of the vote in the 2020 election losing badly to former president trump. a lot of your residents did not support him. you yourself said that you did not vote for president biden but you do support his infrastructure plans. talk to me about how you square, how your residents feel about president biden with your support for his infrastructure plans. >> well, thanks for having me. i kind of view this a little differently. it's not who we voted for or who we didn't vote for. the city of howell and its communities were excited to have a visit by the president. he's our president, he's all of our president, and we were very

happy he came here to pitch his build back better program. as the president said in his remarks today, this is not a partisan issue on infrastructure. i mean, we all use roads, we all turn on the water and expect our water to be treated. so this is not a republican, democrat or independent issue, this is truly an american issue. so, yes, i do support the build back better program, i think most people wou. the key is how it's going to be paid for, and i think the president was very clear on his plan and how that would be paid for. here in howell, we have, you know, about $45 million in capital and infrastructure needs, so, you know, the bill is very large, it's big. we don't know what would come to the ste of michigan or to livingston county or to howell, but if it passes, we're hoping to be able to apply some of that

build back better money to some of our capital needs. >> reporter: congresswoman, the mayor is talking about infrastructure being bipartisan. you have said you don't support the president's larger infrastructure plans. the white house says its plan would help some 2 million children in michigan and reduce child poverty by some 44%. polls also show americans largely back and support the president's infrastructure plans. why don't you support these infrastructure plans? >> because when you talk about infrastructure, it needs to be just that, which is infrastructure, and when 10% of the bill actually deals with infrastructure -- roads, bridges, waterways -- i would support an infrastructure bill that actually dealt with infrastructure. listen, especially here in michigan, we are in need of infrastructure -- our roads are crumbling, our bridges are crumbling. we definitely need infrastructure, but we don't need all the other pork that is in this bill. and to give you an example, it's

like me saying to my husband, honey, i'm going to take the car and get an oil change. we agree the car needs an coil change, need to continue to maintain the car, then i come home with a new ferrari. that's what this bill is. so let's just deal with infrastructure, and i would be happy to support an infrastructure bill. but i'm not happy to support a bill that is going to burden our children and our grandchildren with more debt that we hve no idea how toay for. >> reporter: and congresswoman, you say this would burden children and has a lot of pork in it. the white house, though, is pointing out that this plan would provide high-quality pre-school to three-year-olds and four-year-olds in michigan. ey're also saying it would provide free school meals. what do you say to the average woman in michigan, the average mother, family in michigan that's saying we are infrastructure, we want human infrastructure and investment into our families as the white house is pitching this?

>> i would say that is not traditional infrastructure, and if you want to talk about those bills in an educational form, i'm happy to do so. but those aren't infrastructure. so i think what the american people need is a little truth and transparency and consistency. so i'm not opposed to talking about those, but let's talk about infrastructure when we're talking about infrastructure, and let's talk about the other things at a later date. >> reporter: mayor proctor, what do you make of what the congresswoman is saying? >> well, i don't necessarily disagree with her. she has probably read the bill. i have not. i don't know what's in it, what pork is in it, what's not truly infrastructure. the president talked today about two separate issues, and that was the physical infrastructure, and then the human investment in that infrastructure. so i focus on the physical infrastructure, that's what our community needs, and, as i said,

we certainly have over, you know, about 45 million in capital and infrastructure needs here. so i'm focused on the physical infrastructure, and i'm hoping congress can move on the physical infrastructure aspect. >> reporter: and, congresswoman, there are folks who would look at the the way you're talking about infrastructure and say, yes, that's one way to look at infrastructure, but the president is expanding it saying, investing in families and healthcare workers should be part of the larger part of infrastructure. why is that wrong when you're looking at families saying we want to have help and child poverty reduced in our state and our city? >> listen, i don't want to make people dependent. want to give people an opportunity to work. i want to give peoplan opportunity for the american dream. we have 11 million jobs that aren't filled right now, 11 million. we have a labor shortage. let's get people back to work and back to school and put the

power back in the people's hands. >> reporter: congresswoman mcclain, mayor proct, i appreciate you both coming on. >> thank you for having us. . >> woodruff: a key focus of president biden's larger spending plan centers around addressing climate change and expanding universal pre-k. i spoke with california governor gavin newsom about these issues earlier today, just after he signed a $123 billion bill that would, among other things, expand pre-k and provide an extra year of kindergarten for some children. governor newsom, thank you very much for joining us on the newshour. you're receiving congratulations right now for defeating this recall, but the challenges don't get any easier. and let's start with one of them-- education. you're announcing today a

major investment in what you're calling transitional kindergarten, similar to pre- kindergarten. tell us why it is worth this major investment. billions of dollars. what are you trying to accomplish? >> i think we appropriately and understandably talk a lot about the achievement gap, but i think we don't talk enough about the readiness gap. people aren't left behind, educationally, as much as they start hind. and i think that's one of the fundamental things we have to reddress as a nation, that if we're going to address the issue of wealth and income disparities, we've got to begin at the beginning, prenatal care. zero to three, the power of zero to three in particular, but also prepare people as they move towards kindergarten, prepare them with high quality intervention. and so we're providing for brand new grade this year to pay for all. it's a long overdue in california, but i think it's foundational in terms of our educational capacity and leadership.

>> woodruff: and governor, you know, even those who like the idea say this is going to be a daunng challenge, to find-- what they're saying is something like 12,500 new teachers to teach these children. this at a time when, during the pandemic-- i read california's lost something like 14,000, mostly women, are teaching young children. how do you find these people, and how do you pay them what would be considered a decent salary? >> it's the right question, and it's a challenge all across the united states. and this is a challenge, pre-existing challenge before this pandemic, of course, highlighted as a consequence of the pandemic. so that's why we put in our budget this year, quite literally $2.9 million, almost $3 billion, to answer that questions. to focus on retention bonuses for hard to teach subjects and low performing school districts, as well as recruitment strategies and professional development.

>> woodruff: and you do have is, as i mentioned, thousands of women leaving the workforce, including teachers. this has now become a national issue. as you know, president biden has universal pre-k as part of his big social spending measure that is facing a rough waters at this moment in congress. for some of the same reasons even, i mean, republicans are against it, even some democrats who say it's going to cost too much right now. what's at stake here? >> i mean, it's foundational, i will say this-- as someone that is a very strong supporter of what's going on in washington, d.c., and the president's package-- we're not waiting around for it. every core principle that they're trying to advance in the $3.5 trillion package, california has already advanced, from free community college, to preschool for all, expanding by close to a quarter million under child care slots, and we're focused with a $15 billion package on climate change. that said, even a state, the fifth-largest economy in the

world, as large as california, can't do it alone. and so, all those investments are foundational, fundamental again to our competitiveness and the future. >> woodruff: you mentioned climate governor. of course, california is dealing with this massive oil spill right now off the coast of southern california, and i know there's an investigation underway into what happened, whether a ship dropped anchor in the wrong place. but while we're waiting for that, what do you know about the extent of the damage? >> i just know that it's time to move beyond fossil fuels. i mean, the future is here now. california has five times more green collar green energy jobs five times. it's one -- as one of the largest oil producing states, with ef-5 times more green energy jobs than fossil fuel jobs. if there's a foreign policy in california it's clean energy and low-carbon green growth. i'm proud of or leadership but it's not good enough and it's only punctuated by this

punctured pipeline spewing toxic oil, killing birds and fish, impacting our economy, our public health all at the same time, and, so, all this does is resolve for all of us to do more and do better to extend our nation leading efforts to transition once and for all away from fossil fuels. >> woodruff: i want to ask you more about the national climate picture, governor, but right now as you know there are environmental and consumer watchdogs in your state who say you bear some of the responsibilities for what's going on with this oil spill and others. they point out you've approved over 100 permits for oil drilling off the coast, they say you haven't done enough to clean up, to get these companies to clean up the pipelines that are already out there, how do you answer them? >> we're very proud as the first governor, the first state in america to require all vehicles that are purchased in the state of california by 2035 to be alternative fuel vehicles as first governor to call for the

rejection and banning of fracking in the state of california that hasn't been done before. with eare a large oil producing state. that said, we have an approved an -- we haven't approved an offshore oil license in half a century and we're absolutely resolved and committed to working with the biden administration to do more and better to accelerate our transition. but, look, at the end of the day, we all have to acknowledge our culpability, all of us, in terms of our behavior, the fact that i drove here to school in the central valley, i will be flying to southern california to see the oil spill, all of that, think, has to be reconciled. the fact is our behavior needs to change, we need to change, not just our leaders, and we are resolved and committed to continue our nation-leading efforts. but the critics are right, we don't have time to spare and we have to do more and better and i can assure you having faced down this recall where they wanted to increase offshore oil drilling, the folks on the other side of this recall, that you haven't seen nothing yet in terms of

california's leadership in resolve to address this issue. >> woodruff: just to wrap this up and on back to have the national picture, part of president biden's plan the so-called social spending, there's money for climate change to address it. but democrats -- cetainly republicans but also some democrats who say this money is better spent elsewhere, we don't want to rush to get rid of fossil fuels in this country. how concerned are you the president's effort could end up being killed by those who oppose it? >> i'm very concerned about it. i have four kids. many i kids are likely to live in a world with 8-degree temperatures on average hotter than they are today. and, so, i don't know what more people need to see or experience. if that doesn't wake us up, i don't know what the hell does, and forgive me for using that language, but at the end of the day, all of us are accountable, we are accountable to doing more

and being better. we owe it not only to ourselves but the future of our nation and the world we're trying to live in and i'll close on this. the economic costs of negligent are jaw-dropping. what is it about our country that we don't score tax cuts and we don't score the cost of disasters, we happily pay for those, but how dare we discuss the direct cost of being smart enough to get a return on our investments by investing in prevention and resilience. we want to future-proof this country. the biden administration wants to future-proof america. i'm proud of his leadership, i'm not proud of members of congress right now. >> woodruff: governor gavin newsom of california. thank you very much for joining us, we appreciate it. >> good to be with you.

>> woodruff: millions of students returned to campus this fall for the in-person college experience, as the delta variant continues to affect parts of the u.s. some schools have strict mandates for vaccination, testing, and masking. in other places, that is not an option. hari sreenivasan begins our latest "rethinking college” series at two of america's flagship universities. first, in arizona. >> sreenivasan: theater course 133 at the university of arizona in tucson is a workout. throw a mask on while shuffling and sliding, and it can be even harder. but sophomores like brach drew and sophia scarsi say it's no problem, if it means getting back in the swing of college. >> i heard someone say that we're, like, also the freshmen, or the second freshmen, because this is our first, more normal experience of college. and for some people, it's their first time coming to campus. >> sreenivasan: and do you feel safe on campus, covid-wise? >> definitely. we still wear masks in my

classes, and it's been great. i mean, anything to be in- person, i would do. >> sreenivasan: for the first time since the pandemic began, college campuses are starting to look and sound once again like college campuses. the football games. the big lectures. the spontaneous hangouts. it's just as president robert robbins imagined it a few months ago, too. well... almost. >> we thought we were heading into last summer with no problems coming in, and then delta happened. so, that's a real concern for us. but this year, the difference is, we at least, even though we're walking a tight-wire, we've got a safety net, which is the vaccine. >> sreenivasan: robbins estimates that more than 70% of the students on his campus are vaccinated. but, he can't be certain.

he cannot require students to tell him. that's because arizona governor doug ducey has banned several mandates related to covid. for higher ed, no mandates for vaccines or testing. technically, no masking mandates either, at least if they're based on vaccination status. the university of arizona and other schools are still requiring them indoors, if social distancing is not possible. they say they are not discriminating against the unvaccinated, if everyone needs to wear one. >> and we've had great compliance. we've had no issues with that. >> sreenivasan: would you like to be able to say, "listen, if you're not vacnated, don't show up here, and don't risk yourself or other people"? >> yeah, i would like to be able to do that, but i can't. so, you know, we're working around the realities that we have. >> sreenivasan: meanwhile, arizona's covid-19 case and death counts remain stubbornly high. as in much of the nation, the delta variant is fueling sickness and death. so robbins, a medical doctor, is using workarounds.

for those who vaccinate, there are chances to win game-day tickets and free parking. gift cards to encourage testing. and, more underground methods, you could say-- like testing the wastewater of individual dorms to spot an outbreak early. >> we know which stream goes to which dorms. >> poop doesn't lie. if the virus is in the wastewater, it emanated from someone. >> sreenivasan: dr. ian pepper leads the center conducting the wastewater testing. it's helped the university pinpoint covid-positive students and get them into an isolation dorm while they're still asymptomatic and less contagious. if the university did not have a system like yours, kind of an early warning, and an early detection system, where would it be? >> shut down. losing $100 million.

we need to keep monitoring, because remember, we're not allowed to mandate testing of students, and so the upper administration is really flying blind without the wastewater data. >> sreenivasan: it's the kind of non-compulsory approach many believe is appropriate at this stage of the pandemic. shelley is chairman of the pima county republican party. she's focused on vaccination and masking requirements, and the university, she says, has already crossed the line on indoor masking. >> everyone has the right to choose. if you want to wear a mask, you absolutely should wear a mask, without any feeling like anyone is retaliating against you, absolutely, we should honor and respect everybody's decision to wear a mask or not. and to vaccinate or not. when you start telling people what they have to wear, what they have to do, i'm never going to be in favor for that.

>> sreenivasan: the belief is widespread enough that at leas 15 states, mostly in the south and west, have barred vaccine or mask maates at public institutions of higher education. at the same time, more than 1,000 colleges and universities have vaccine requirements-- most in states that voted for president biden last fall. on both sides, the rules are being challenged in the courts. jim ryan is president of university of virginia, where 238 students were dis-enrolled for failing to comply with the school's vaccine mandate. >> if you're going to have a policy that requires people to get vaccinated, you need to be willing to enforce it. >> sreenivasan: he says it's no different than the other vaccines universities require. and he feels lucky to be in virginia, where a tough stance is possible. here at u.v.a., 97% of students have shown proof they're fully vaccinated. the rest have received medical or religious exemptions, and

submit to mandated weekly testing. >> if you ask me what is the most important thing to getting back to normal, and feeling safe about it? it is the high vaccination rate. bar none. so, i feel grateful that we have the ability to take the precautions that our medical experts are telling us we should take. >> sreenivasan: for now, students must be masked inside. same goes for professors, unless they're six feet from students and behind plexiglass. the clear-cut rules feel reassuring to sarita mehta. >> i feel, you know, way safer in all my interactions-- in small classrooms, in the stadium that's packed-- knowing that "a," i'm a lot safer being vaccinated, but "b," and just as importantly, the people around me are vaccinated and not at risk, either. and i think that's an important part of it, too. and that kind of ties back to the larger community, we all can count on each other to be safe. >> sreenivasan: but the balae seems off to others. grad student tristan baird was

shocked by the national headlines about his school kicking out students. >> the disenrollment, to me, i just, i don't know. i think it is, it's very authoritarian, and just severe to me. i don't like the idea of saying if you don't agree with this particular health mandate, that you are no longer allowed to come back and finish your degree. >> sreenivasan: still, recent national polls show that students overwhelmingly support vaccine and mask mandates, even on campuses that do not have them. one ominous reason may be that several universities, from texas to california to connecticut, have already reverted to virtual learning for parts of this fall, as covid cases soared. that's why brach drew at university of arizona is not above asking his fellow students to wear a mask, whether it's required or not. >> because we don't want to go backwards. this is for the sake of your college experience. and some girl walked in and i was like, "hey, do you have a

mask on you?" and she said "oh, yeah, you're right, i don't want to go back on zoom." and i was like, "you're right, that's right. say it again, say it louder, spread that!" >> sreenivasan: for now, drew and his friends are holding their breath that this feeling of a real college experience lasts. they know what it feels like to lose it. for the pbs newshour, i'm hari sreenivasan in tucson, arizona. >> woodruff: as the united states continues to manage the fallout from its withdrawal from afghanistan, in moscow, there's a sense of deja vu. the soviet war there lasted for ten years, from 1979 to 1989. but russian veterans who were there as the u.s.s.r. left, see some essential differences between the soviet and american withdrawals. special correspondent stuart

smith in moscow reports. >> reporter: withdrawals from afghanistan echo throughout history. before the u.s., it was the soviets, who left in 1989-- ten years after they'd invaded on christmas eve, 1979. officially, they had been invited by the socialist afghan government to help fight the mujahideen and set up a 16th republic of the soviet union. partly, because soviet officials worried afghanistan's new leaders would start to forge closer ties with the united states. after a bloody decade and heavy soviet losses, troops withdrew. these paintings-- rendered by those who fought there-- are on display at russia's union of afghan veterans. here, members work to help fighters of moscow's old war, and pass on what they've learned to young russians. >> ( translated ): you see the words, “glory to the soldiers of the fatherland, glory to the sons of the motherland.” see-- this is how we left. and today, the americans just ran away, and that's it. >> reporter: andrey kuznetsov

fought as a paratrooper for the soviet union. when he compares the recent american withdrawal to the soviet one, he sees a stark difference. >> ( translated ): when in 1989 the withdrawal operation was being prepared, it was orderly, and if you watch archive footage of those events, you'll see along the whole route of the soviet army, big celebrations. soviet soldiers were congratulated. there was this unity in peace and friendship, there was rejoicing, and there was no such disgrace that's happening in afghanistan today. >> reporter: the government moscow left in place teetered for three years. then, the country collapsed into a brutal civil war, that ended when the taliban came to power for the first time in 1996. kuznetsov has sympathy for the u.s. soldiers who fought over the past two decades-- one veteran to another. >> ( translated ): our problems are the same. life and chores. you've been used, you've gone through all that, and then comes a new step.

>> reporter: from 1979 to 1989, 15,000 soldiers died, and 35,000 were wounded in afghanistan. it's estimated that more than one million afghans died in that war; millions more fled the country. snapshots of the decade-long conflict are on display at the afghan war museum in moscow. igor yerin has collected weapons, armor, posters, and books to keep alive the memory of his friends and colleagues-- often donated by their families. >> ( translated ): parents often don't have much. some don't even have photos of their children in military uniforms-- only in civilian clothes. because many didn't have the time to get photographed before quickly being sent to afghanistan, where they were killed in battle. >> reporter: but he believes there's a fundamental difference between the motivations of his comrades and those of u.s. troops. >> ( translated ): their "duty" is completely different. don't confuse that. they are mercenaries. they do it for money. we did it out of patriotic duty. >> reporter: in the visitor's book, you can read the comments

of soldiers who came to the museum to seek answers, and compare their experiences in afghanistan. yerin fears the story of russian involvement in the country is not over yet. >> ( translated ): it's unpleasant for us that this all was happening on the border of the former soviet union, because this can grow bigger and spill over, which we wouldn't want. these would mean more victims, a new war, new refugees again. america is very far away, and other countries are very close by. >> reporter: for the kremlin, the change in the balance of power in the middle east means a change of approach is on the horizon. russia has learned painful lessons from afghanistan-- ones which the u.s. is grappling with today. but with the tides now turned, moscow sees opportunity in what it views as america's humiliation. to do that, russian president vladimir putin sees talking to the taliban as a necessity. >> ( translated ): the quicker the taliban joins the family of, let's say, civilized nations,

the easier it will be to contact, communicate, somehow influence them and ask questions. and, if not demand-- remind them-- that civilized relations require obeying civilized rules. in case of disintegration, there would be nobody to talk to. that is a threat to our neighbors and allies. >> reporter: the kremlin insists but the fact that russia is maintaining dialogue with taliban representatives has incensed today's opposition communist party, the diminished descendant of those in charge 40 years ago. >> ( translated ): this is a disaster! i cannot imagine how the taliban organization-- banned in russia! banned in russia! how you can interact with and meet with them? this organization is prohibited by law. how can you meet them? how can you negotiate with them? they cut off heads, they shoot they cut people like animals! >> reporter: at the museum in moscow, american cold war propaganda posters now ring darkly ironic. to many russians, the message

shown here is now reversed. and russians know that conflicts have consequences. the failure of the soviet-afghan war helped bring about the collapse of the u.s.s.r. afghanistan leaves an imprint on every foreign power that has intervened there. for the pbs newshour, i'm stuart smith, in moscow. >> woodruff: the united states recently passed yet another tragic milestone: covid-19 has now claimed the lives of more than 700,000 americans. william brangham is back with the author of a new book about the failed u.s. response, and how it can do better next time. >> brangham: as we near two years since this coronavirus first emerged, plenty of questions still remain as to why the u.s. suffered so badly compared to other nations. why did this virus, not only kill so many americans and

cause so much emotional and financial ruin, but why did it divide us so badly? a new book is out that tries to address some of these questions. it's called "uncontrolled spread: why covid-19 crushed us, and how we can defeat the next pandemic," and it's by dr. scott gottlieb. he ran the food and drug administration from 2017 to 2019. and he joins me now. thank you very much for being here. there are so many elements that you recap in this book-- china secrecy, our fixation on focusing on the flu rather than a coronavirus, failures of our stockpile, multiple myriad mistakes made by different agencies. but, one of the failures that you keep hammering over and over again was our recurrent inability to do widespread testing. can you remind us why testing is so important in the middle of a pandemic? >> well, testing was important, particularly in this pandemic, because you had a virus that had a long incubation period, meaning that people could get

exposed to the virus and get sick a long interval after that exposure. so, there was an opportunity to test them and find that they were incubating the virus and get them isolated. and also, people spread the virus when they were asymptomatic, and some people who went on to spread the virus never developed symptoms. so, testing would be a very important tool in trying to control spread under that circumstance. the challenge was that we had prepped for a pandemic involving influenza, and influenza has a short incubation period, and typically, people aren't contagious until they manifest symptoms. so we just never prepared the capacity or the planning to roll out a diagnostic test at scale. >> brangham: and as you also point out, not only did it make it very difficult for us to spot where the virus was, initially, and give us a chance to stop it, but it also then, when we did impose fairly draconian lockdowns, we imposed them everywhere, because we dn't know where the virus was, and where it wasn't. >> right. when you look back at the 2005 planning around a pandemic-- which is really when we started

this sort of modern planning for pandemic preparedness, and i was a part of that. i was in the bush administration at that at that time. but the planning always envisioned that that mitigation would be carried out on a sort of city-by-city basis. because the presumption was, you would know where the virus was spreading. but in the early days of this covid outbreak, noonly didn't we know where it was, we didn't know where it wasn't. and so we implemented those mitigation steps across the whole country. but there were clearly parts of the country where this virus hadn't spread to. but we implemented a full 45-day shutdown of a lot of non-essential business. it's really an extraordinary step. and what happened was, when the virus eventually spread to the south later that summer, the political support for shutdowns had dissipated. people down there said, look, you told us to shut down in the spring. we did it. we didn't have to. and we're not doing it again. and so, without a diagnostic test, we really were blind to the spread and couldn't target the most onerous interventions.

>> brangham: when you-- in your book, the c.d.c. comes under a lot of criticism for its collecting of information, its dispersal of information, its initial botching of these tests. when you look back at our experience in this pandemic, is it the way we built the organization? >> it's the way we built the organization. i mean, the organization really wasn't equipped to respond to a public health crisis of this magnitude. they're accustomed to taking a lot of time, getting very bespoke data feeds, and doing very careful, rigorous scientific analysis and surfacing answers, you know, sometimes weeks, maybe months after an event. they're not the joint special operations command. they're not accustomed to surfacing real-time information and surfacing partial conclusions to inform current policy-making. there was a presumption that c.d.c. had the ball, and they didn't have the ball. no the c.d.c., i don't think, really raised their hand and said, "hey, guys, we don't have this, we need help-- this isn't what we typically do." >> brangham: so, was that a failure of leadership at the top, to recognize that the

organizations we had, in the way they were structured, were maybe not up to the task, and we need to, on the fly, admittedly depl new tools? >> yeah. look, i think it was a failure of leadership at the top. i also think was a failure-- failure of leadership inside the department of health and human services, the leadership there, because they had more proximity to what these public health agencies were and were not capable of doing. and the testing is a perfect example. someone needed to pick up the phone at some point in january and call the major diagnostic manufacturers and say, "hey, guys, this is concerning. we think this may turn into a global pandemic. we need you to start scaling the production of diagnostic tests right now," because the lead time on doing that is four to six weeks. in a best-case scenario, that phone call really didn't get made till the end of february. >> brangham: when you look at this past-- almost two years now, do you have a sense as to why we became so politicized? >> i think that's where political leadership comes in. you have to galvanize the public behind some collective action to

try to get some consistent-- adherence to these kinds of measures. and we didn't really have that. there was a sense in the white house-- and i was in touch with the white house a lot over this time period-- that uncontrolled spread was inevitable, and there wasn't really much we were going to be able to do about it, and the interventions were going to be costly without much benefit. and i simply disagree with that. >> brangham: your book is full of examples of things that we ought to do better-- from better surveillance, to how we should treat this as a national security threat, which it so clearly is. lots and lots of good suggestions going forward. how confident are you, though, that when this crisis passes, we will actually take those lessons on board? because, as you well know, and as you write in the book, that history keeps showing us that the lessons of pandemics get forgotten the minute the virus dissipates. >> look, i'm hopeful, given the impact that this pandemic had on our public health, the fact that it crowded out all our other national priorities has changed the course of history. i'm hopeful that we're going to recognize the devastating costs

of sars-cov-2 and make-- take steps to make sure this doesn't happen again. and that really needs to be our goal. you know, we haven't engaged that discussion yet. and that's surprising to me. you know, it could be the fact that we're just in the throes of the current pandemic. so, it's hard to reflect on how to prevent the next pandemic. but i don't think it's too early to begin that discussion. and you don't see that happening in earnest. you don't see commissions being created. you don't see congress working on legislation. that needs to start sooner rather than later, because i think we get too far out from this, some of those lessons learned will be lost, and maybe some of the sort of public support that we need will start to dissipate. >> brangham: all right. the book is called "uncontrolled spread: why covid-19 crushed us and how we can defeat the next pandemic." dr. scott gottlieb, thank you very much for being here. >> thanks a lot. >> woodruff: priti krishtel started her career working with low-income communities in india,

where she saw her clients suffering, and even dying, because they couldn't afford the lifesaving medicines they needed. now, krishtel is advocating for a more equitable healthcare system. tonight, she gives her "brief but spectacular" take on the importance of building a global system that works for all. >> 13% of americans say they've lost a loved one in the last five years because they couldn't afford their medicine. and that number is twice as high for people of color. >> when covid hit, i think a lot of people were taken by surprise, and for us in the access to medicines movement, we've been on the front lines of every epidemic and pandemic of the last 30 years. and we knew what was coming. we knew that governments were going to invest billions of dollars of taxpayer money on research and development for covid vaccines, and therefore

companies would make exorbitant profit off of taxpayer-funded research, while most of the world would not have access to the vaccine. we're 18 months in. less than 1% of low-income country populations have been vaccinated. and there is no plan. i grew up with a dad who worked in the pharmaceutical industry as a scientist. every time he made a discovery, he would get a patent, and then that patent would get framed and go up on the wall in our house. patents are supposed to be a reward given to inventors, and in return, we, the public, are supposed to benefit from that invention. but what we're seeing today is that companies hire armies of lawyers to represent their private interests, and file hundreds of patents. the monopolies get longer and longer, and the companies keep hiking the prices, and it's

americans who are crying out for relief. they can't afford the medicines. people are rationing, they're going without. in many cases, they are dying. we live in a hierarchy of health. some people are going to get medical products first, and some people aren't going to get them at all. we saw that with covid, when the tests and the treatments first started coming out. that's how the system essentially works. a more just and equitable system for pandemics would ensure that in every region of the world, we could develop, manufacture vaccines and other medical products and get them to every country who needed them as quickly as possible. and that's what's going to be needed, not just for covid in the next three years, but for every pandemic that is yet to follow. we could save twice as many lives if we worked collaboratively instead of competitively. and,s variants continued to emerge, we are going to start

to really be faced with that hard truth that none of us are safe until all of us are safe. my name is priti krishtel, and this is my "brief, but spectacular" take on the importance of building a global health system that works for all. >> woodruff: you can watch all our "brief but spectacular" episodes at www.pbs.org/newshour/brief. and that is the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. join us online, and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you, please stay safe, and we'll see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> the landscape has changed, and not for the last time. the rules of business are being reinvented, with a more flexible workforce, by embracing innovation, by looking not only at current opportunities, but ahead to future ones. resilience is the ability to pivot again and again, for

whatever happens next. >> people who know, know b.d.o. >> fidelity wealth management. >> johnson & johnson. >> consumer cellular. >> financial services firm raymond james. >> bnsf railway. >> carnegie corporation of new york. supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, and the advancement of international peace and security. at carnegie.org. >> the target foundation, committed to advancing racial equity and creating the change required to shift systems and accelerate equitable economic opportunity. >> 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. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> you're watching pbs.

hello, everyone and welcome to "amanpour." here's what's coming up. >> it's harming the world and it's important the people know about it. s a bombshell investigation uncovers hidden financial dealings of the global elite. a lead journalist lifts the lid on the pandora papers. then -- >> i don't trust that they're willing to actually invest what needs to be invested to keep facebook from being dangerous. >> morshocking revelations from a facebook insider. could a whistleblower's allegations change how the company does business? and a new novel sparks old fashioned literary frenzy. author jonathan at the crossroads. plus -- >> i was standing just overwhelmed with the weight of