captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llcc good evening. i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight: biden agenda battle. speaker pelosi announces a key vote will take place today on the president's infrastructure bill, as the fate of its passage remains in limbo. then, gaining momentum. the latest u.s. jobs report shows hiring accelerating, another sign that the economy is recovering from the pandemic recession.re plus, taliban takeover. reporter jane ferguson is back on the ground in afghanistan, as the country faces a dire economic and humanitarian crisis. >> the world food programme, the w.f.p., says that 14 million people in this country cannot feed themselves, they don't know where their next meal is going to come from. that's out of a country of 38 million. >> woodruff: and, it's friday. f

jonathan capehart and gary abernathy consider this week'shi surprising election results, and reflect on the life and legacye of colin powell. all that and more, on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connectsbn us.

>> fidelity wealth management. >> johnson & johnson. >> financial services firm raymond james. >> b.d.o. accountants and advisors.vi >> 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. d >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.th an >> woodruff: for most of today,

capitol hill has been in limbo. the key question-- do democrats have enough votes to pass a trillion-dollar infrastructure bill and move forward on a larger social spending plan?la lisa desjardins begins our coverage. >> desjardins: for president joe biden, today was supposed to bring two hard-fought wins. >> the number-one priority should be seeing congress pass these bills. >> desjardins: house democratic leaders said they would hold votes and pass two biden agenda bills, that total nearly $3 trillion. to nudge wobbly democrats, biden went to the hill last week, made phone calls overnight, and was blunt this morning. >> i'm asking every house member-- member of the house of representatives-- to vote yes on both these bills, right now. send the infrastructure bill toi my desk. send the "build back better" bill to the senate. >> desjardins: but instead, a group of moderates caused a hard stop, refusing to vote on a usually-simple motion to adjourn.

at least four democratic lawmakers, including representatives stephanie murphy, kurt schrader, jared golden, and ed case, demanded another cost estimate of the larger "build back better" bill before voting for anything.hi thrown into limbo were two mega- bills. one, the infrastructure deal: a bipartisan, roughly $1 trillion package with money for roads and bridges, public transit and clean drinking water. and the other, the "build back better" act. it's supported only by democrats, with $1.75 trillionit for childcare and housing, climate change, and strengthening the a.c.a. moderates have waited months fo a vote on that first item, infrastructure, including congressman josh gottheimer, who told newshour this in september. >> you can't hold one up, this infrastructure bill, while you're working on the other one. that just doesn't make sense for the country.

>> desjardins: today was onlyas the latest quicksand moment for house speaker pelosi, who last week had just gotten the other h end of her caucus, progressives, on board. >> this is professional. let's do it in a timely fashion' let's not just keep having postponements. >> desjardins: this wasp progressive caucus chair pramila jayapal a few days ago. >> with the text, with the votes, we are ready to say we trust you, mr. president. with new divides today, pelosi signed on to a new plan, separate the bills, vote on infrastructure tonight and vote toed a vans but not ultimately to pass build back better yet. >> we're in the best place ever today to be able to go forward. >> reporter: that move towardd moderates, again, was a progress for progressives like jared huffman who says both bills go or neither. >> this has been a bit of a curve ball, this latest development, and it's unsettling and disruptive and, you know, i hope we can get back on that original track.

>> reporter: timing is alsoac a factor at the capitol with the house and the senate scheduleded to be gone next week. >> woodruff: lisa joins me from the capitol. it is dizzying.g. bring us up to the moment. is either one of the bills goini to come up for a vote? >> i thought the exact same words. everyone is lost in the lights here. that's the right question, judy, yes.ye the majority leader steny hoyer for the democrats in the house i asked him is infrastructure coming up for act vote, he tolde a short time ago 100% they will vote on the infrastructure billu tonight. let's take a look at the houseou floor right now. they're still stuck in the middle of a paste vote. this i a procedural vote. it's not substantive, but the fact they have been stuck on this vote for such a long time tells you they are still working out the mechanics of what's ahead. judy, i think it will be a late night but we expect both these votes, sort of a procedural vote

on the build back better bill but the vote on the major infrastructure we expect tonight.to blows is rolling the dice here. it is not clear to those of us outside her office that she has the votes to pass that infrastructure bill tonight because so many democrats including p -- pramila jayapal, others progressives said they don't want to vote on it. the infrastructure bill is bipartisan. it'sbi a political matter. not clear if pelosi is going to succeed or not. >> woodruff: tell us more about who>> had problems today d why. >> reporter: right. the moderates had a couple of concerns. waswe talked about before the cost of the bill. they simply didn't trust the initial cost estimate, they want the other from the congressionar budget office. but the biggest are managerser ander status for undocumented

immigrants. frontline d.m.s, moderates are worried that could be an issue they would lose on next year at the polls.. on the other hd, progressives felt moderates could move the goalposts. they felt they could come to the table with earnest, they want the build back better bill. the two sides can't say "i do" to each orr at the same time.m >> woodruff: lisa, i know you've covered president biden and speaker pelosi for many years. what is what's going on today tell you about them and about the democratic caucus? >> reporter: fascinating. speaker pelosi has a well-earne- reputation as being one of the best vote counters and schedulers not just in -yis congress but in any recentce congress, and i think we saw, with this situation, with this close margin, she only has three votes she could lose on anything, that she really overestimated i think her ability to push her caucus. i think there's something else

to realize about the democrats in the house right now, a third of them are relatively new,, they've only been here since 2017, versus pelosi who's been here for decades. that's also a factor for president biden. he operates on sort of an older, i think, senate way of working things out behind closed doorss calmly, and some people i talk to here say, yes, he was involved, but perhaps he should have been less congenial andd really taken more of a stand and really told for example,mp moderates and progressives, you need to vote now, versus placing it on speaker pelosi to do it, which is how he handled it. >> woodruff: lisa, let's step back to understand.st tell us again, where do these bills stand, what needs to happen next for there to be final passage eventually?ev >> the first thing that needs to happen next for the country is everyone to have a weekend break from this story.ry after tonight we will see if the infrastructure bill survives th vote. then on buildback better, we

know that's not going to pass tonight, they won't even vote on that in the house tonight, so we're going to have to wait for democrats to get that costt estimate from the congressionalh budget office, that will take who knows how long, days, could be weeks, that is a potential time cost that could affect theh and in the mean while there still will be more talks withh the senate. i want to tell folks about the large bill. the truth is there's a lot of support for everyone in the house from democrats on buildd back better. that will pass when it comes up, i think. the house has been the easy part. once we get past this, you and i will probably spend time talking about the senate where things are still very tricky on the large bill. >> woodruff: follow the bouncing ball. b i have a feeling you will beil working late tonight, lisa desjardins. >> reporter: the weekend will come. >> woodruff: it will come. lisa, thank you very much.h. >> reporter: you're welcome.

>> woodruff: in the day's other news, the october jobs reportbe showed a new surge of hiring, after the latest covid-19 surge. employers added a net 531,000 workers, and unemployment dropped to 4.6%. president biden hailed the numbers and touted his policies. >> forecasters said it would take till the end of 2023-- to the end of 2023-- to get to 4.6% unemployment rate. today we have reached that rate two years before forecasters thought that was possible. i would humbly suggest that this is a significant improvement from when i took office. >> woodruff: we'll take a closer look at all this after the news summary. pfizer announced strong results today for an oral medication to treat covid. trials show the pill cuts infections and deaths by nearly 90% in high-risk adults. pfizer said it will apply soon for f.d.a. authorization. also today, at least 26 states-t

nearly all of them led by republicans-- sued to block a federal vaccine requirement for large companies. three white men accused ofco murdering a black man, ahmaud a arbery, formally went on trial today in brunswick, georgia. the prosecutor charged that they jumped to conclusions that arbery was a burglar, before chasing after him. the defense argued, they were defending their neighborhood. they spoke in opening statements. >> all three of these defendants did everything they did based on assumptions. and they made decisions in their driveways based on those assumptions that took a youngun man's life. >> there was probable cause to believe a felony had been committed, and that this man was attempting to escape or flee. that's why citizens arrest is in this case. >> woodruff: the case is being heard by a nearly

all-white jury. authorities in mexico are condemning a new eruption of n drug violence along their caribbean coast. 15 gunmen stormed ashore thursday near a luxury resort just south of cancun, and killed two rival gang members. tourists and resort staff took refuge in a hotel and waited for the shootout to end. the attackers escaped by boat. thousands of young people demanded stronger action on climate change today, outside the ongoing global climate summit in glasgow, scotland. the protesters marched,e carrying signs and calling for world leaders to do more. they warned that the summitne is falling far short of what is needed.wh the u.s. state department is moving to heed appeals that it do more on so-called "havana syndrome." american diplomats and intelligence officers have reported hundreds of cases, starting in cuba in 2016. no one has identified a cause. today, secretary of state antony blinken announced a

new coordinator of the investigations. >> these incidents have left our colleagues with profound harm. they've experienced serious physical consequences, including persistent headaches and hearing loss. they've also experienced psychological harm, including trauma, anxiety, depression. >> woodruff: this month, president biden signed a bill to improve medical care for those reporting symptoms. boeing has agreed to pay nearly $238 million to settle a shareholders lawsuit over safety oversight of the 737-max. the settlement also calls for a new director with safety expertise, and an ombudsman program. the 737-max planes were grounded for 20 months after two fatal crashes. and on wall street today, stocks reached more record closes after the october jobs report. the dow jones industrial average gained 203 points to finish at

36,328. the nasdaq rose 31 points. the s&p 500 added 17.ad still to come on the newshour: a first-hand look at efforts to address afghanistan's growing humanitarian crisis. nicaragua's leader furthera' dismantles the country's democracy, and tightens his grip on power, ahead of elections. pulitzer prize-winning novelist louise erdrich discusses the importance of indigenous literature. plus, much more. us >> woodruff: as we reported, the latest jobs data showed significant growth across different sectors of the economy, a promising sign of recovery in the wake of theve covid-19 delta variant surge. amna nawaz explains.am

>> nawaz: judy, not only did the government report stronger- than-excted gains last month, but it also found more jobs were created in august and september than had been previouslyus estimated. last month, the private sectorat picked up momentum, with the leisure and hospitality sector adding 164,000 jobs. the professional business sector grew by 100,000, and manufacturing by 60,000. joining us from chicago to explain what this means, is diane swonk, chief economist at grant thorton. welcome back to the "newshour". thanks for being with us. i wonder bigg picture, you see the job numbers growing, unemployment dipped slightly overall when you look atig thes, where are the picture it paintst and where we are in the recovery. >> well, it means we're finally making more progress again towards healing.li we haven't fully recouped allal the jobs lost but we're whittling away at it much moree rapidly and i think we're going to see an acceleration once we go into november and december.

the number of people who actually couldn't work becausese they were ill actually fell by 150,000 between september and october again a sign of the delta wave easing its pressure on the u.s. economy we saw over the summer and even then, as we already heard, the economy was in much more resilient during d the summer. more important to know is how the private sector accelerateder job gains and offs.a.t. declips in education which is a problem but good news they're picking up the baton sector at a critical time when millions have lost the unemployment benefits they had in september and the supplements that generally lapsed september. >> reporter: related to that. labor force participation did remain flat, around 61, 62%, so about 100,000 more people entered the workforce but millions stayed out. that means there are stl worker shortages. a lot of people thought it would change when unemployment again

fits went away and school started back up. how do you look at the the workforce number? >> that is one to have the biggest problems. not only did we have 1.5 million excess retirements above the trend we had seen pre-pandemic during the pandemic, we don't know if the workers staying in the shadow on the sidelines will come back. we lost a lot of workers to hong haul covid as well, over a million workers currently struggling with long-haul covid which is a disability.ic they have not applied for disability yet but they may be something we see going forward. most importantly is the need to provide care, childcare in particular, not only did we see education employment continue ti fall, school districts across the country struggled to try to compete with the amazons and wal-marts of the world to put support staff for many of the after-school programs that make it possibleam for low-wage pares and single parents to actually get back into the workforce.ce that's really a hurdle out there.er we also saw childcare continue

to decline.. so, in terms of employment.t. so that childcare aspect of it, getting women back into thee labor force, though they upticked in their participation a bit after losing ground in september, we're still missing g lot of women hardest hit by the initial layoffs. >> the. >> reporter: the recoveryof has not been equal for everyone. i want to look at numbers fromm earlier this year.ar >> when you look at states with higher vaccination rates versus lower ones and how the recovery is going, according to fitch ratings, an market analysis, between march and august, an increase, 123% of jobs came back. wyoming from march to august, very low vaccination rate of 44%, 89% decrease in the number of jobs. has that trend, higher vaccination rate, faster recovery, has that continued?nt >> well, what we're seeing out there, that is part of the trend, and it's layered on top of the idea that when we have

less fear of con tablen we can congregate more and go to vacation hot spots, travel more, do all the things we want to do, see each other more, we can go and get medical visits we deferred during the crisis. that didn't happen as much during the summer, during the delta wave and those vaccinatioi rates did play a role because they happened to be in places that also were hit hardest byy some of these service sector losses. we are seeing places that do have higher vaccination rates like new york city where people aren't returning as much to their offices. the work from home phenomena has also been a problem of not having workers where the jobs are. the jobs are in the suburbs and vacation hot spots and the workers in urban areas don't have a way to have getting there and if they do the cost of commuting has gone up so much that even the wage gains we've seen at thee lower wage jobs are making it hard for them to apply. >> reporter: we're stillll

4 million jobs of where we were at the peek in february of 2020. diane swonk joining us, chief economist at grant thorton from chicago. thank you so much for your time. >> thank you. >> woodruff: it's been nearly n three months since the taliban takeover of afghanistan, and the country is in economic and humanitarian free fall. our jane ferguson was there in august and, with the support of the pulitzer center, she's now returned to report on the increasingly dire situation. and jane joins me now. jane, so good to see you. tell us, you have been in afghanistan now for over a y we. give us a sense of just how serious this humanitarian crisis is. >> a numberis of factors, judy, have come together to make it an absolute economic free fall

here.he we just returned from harat where drought, wheat reduced more than a third. most people rely on wheat for bread as a staple.e. hospitals are finding their wards filled with tybee sick babies, with mothers who can't feed their babies, with many families that are struggling to feed their families at all. also the aide community largely left. many of the aide organizationsiz are still here but in a much smaller capacity.it people who worked with organizations funded by the international aide communitymu have had their salaries stopped. >> woodruff: jane, in addition to that, there's the issue of terror threats, there was ann attack in kabul last week that left over 2 dozen people dead. give us a sense of the nature of the threat now that the taliban's in control.. >> well, despite the fact that the taliban used to undertakeer

these kinds of attacks on aa regular basis for years in kabul, they now find themselvese having to repel these attacks, that they're being carried out by the afghan version of i.s.i.s. or isis-k as they call it here. tuesday, there was a huge attack in a major military hospitaly here in the center of kabul, and that killed about 25 peoplee including a senior commander within the taliban.. so that was a major victory for i.s.i.s. over the taliban, and only underscores the pressure that the group is under. they're meant to be the group of law and order of bringing an end to this war, that's what they said whenever they entered kabul, but if people here continue to see these attacks, it continues to undermine their grip of power across the country. >> woodruff: and, jane, you were tell usnd it's not just i.s.i.s., there arest other

chlenges facing this new government. >> there are huge challengesen facing the taliban, arguably even larger than the i.s.i.s. threat at the moment.t. existential challenges to their control of this country.. many of the technocrats, most are not back in their jobs. most got on those c-17 flights out of this country. when you go to major government ministries in the huge buildings inth kabul, most are empty.. there are not people here running the country.. added to that is the fact that even if they were here they wouldn't be able toe pay their salaries, and they're only going to come under prior pressure from the public as people face extreme economic hardships and famine. they are also struggling to really build an internationalti entity for themselves, or at least to be accepted internationally. they very much so want to bebe taken seriously diplomatically. however, their moves, since taking over the government heret have not made that easy for the international community.ty

banning girls from school from a certain age, teenage girls are not allowed to go to school, university, you know, forming a government that doesn't represent the various ethnicities in the government, in the country across afghanistan, many of these moves have been seen as isolating them even further from diplomatic communities, and that only cuts them off from the likelihood of aid and finances even further. >> woodruff: sounds like problems from every direction, one can imagine. jane ferguson who is reporting for us back in afghanistan, jane, thank you so much. >> thank you, judy. t >> woodruff: nicaragua is days away from holding an election that the u.s. government calls a "sham." president daniel ortega is seeking a fourth consecutive term, and silencing the opposition before the first vote is cast.te

he has jailed opposition leaders and attacked critical media, and his inevitable victory has implications for the u.s. nick schifrin reports. >> schifrin: nicaragua has become a police state. and for these relatives of opposition politicians who've been detained, the crackdown isd complete. >> there is no democracy. democracy has been demolished. >> schifrin: carlos fernando chamorro is a nicaraguan journalist, now in exile. his is one nicaragua's most prominent families-- now the target of authoritarianism. his mother, violetta, became president in the 1990s byol defeating daniel ortega during his first term. carlos' cousin, juan sebastiaán, was an opposition candidate, before he was detained in june. and, his sister christiana was an opposition candidate beforepp she was detained and charged by ortega's government with money laundering and "ideological falseness." >> he cannot face the leadership that are trying to represent this aspiration of democracy--

democracy and justice. he cannot risk power in a competitive election. so he basically decided to cancel the electoral roll. >> schifrin: in all, this year, nicaraguan authorities haveri detained seven presidential candidates; 39 leaders perceiver as government opponents; ruled major opposition parties illegal; shut down dozens of non-governmental organizations; and raided major media organizations, including chamorro's. >> there is an order of arrest o against myself for being a journalist. we have a new political majority in nicaragua. it was very clear from that moment when people took up then streets, >> schifrin: the majority was born in 2018 protests.rn ortega announced changes in the country's pension system that ignited national demonstrations. the response was brutal. police and pro-government paramilitary groups killed morei than 300 people. >> ( translated ): nicaragua is currently living and suffering a dictatorship, because there are no independent, autonomous

democratic institutions thatat guarantee the rights of citizens. >> schifrin: wendy acevedo has been a human rights activist for 20 years. in 2018, police raided her office, and accused her group of what she calls trumped-up charges. it forced her into exile. she now helps leads a group that documents human rights violations. it's called "nunca mas"-- spanish for "never again." >> ( translated ): never again, because never again do we want dictatorship in our country. never again, impunity. never again, to be forgotten. and one of our main areas of work is the recovery of thee historical memory. so these situations we nicaraguans have experienced, never happen to us again. >> schifrin: ortega's been atbe the center of nicaraguan history for decades. he came to power as a sandanisto guerrilla commander, who helped overthrow a dictatorship, and became president in 1984. after losing to violetta chomorro in 1990, he returned to power in 2006. over time, he consolidated power, muzzled dissent, and

oversaw modest growth. but today, nicaragua is the region's second-poorest countryn 30% live below the poverty line. and, since 2018, there's been a steady economic downturn, aggravated by covid, and two category-four hurricanes that struck within weeks of each other. that helped lead to a mass exodus. in june and july, the department of homeland security says more than 20,000 nicaraguans attempted to cross the u.s. border, the highest number ever. >> this is not sustainable. >> schifrin: tiziano breda is the central america analyst for international crisis group. >> and the country and the government resulting from this one-sided election is unlikelysi to attract and to restore the sort of economic buoyancy that you experienced before.. >> schifrin: the trump and biden administrations imposed targeted sanctions and travel bans on ortega, his wife, vice president rosario murillo, and other senior officials. and just this week, lawmakers

approved new legislation callinl for more sanctions on nicaraguans "responsible for unfair elections. today, a senior biden administration official ia'd the president would avoid signinghe the bill before sunday's election, in order to avoid o giving ortega a justification for future crackdowns. but for a president who's been focused on promoting democracy, sunday's elections is a direct's challenge, breda says. >> it could set a very dangerous precedent in the region, and it could be used by others, like either one of thesese authoritarian, to follow ortega's footsteps if they perceive that the cost of doing that would not be so high. >> schifrin: but the cost hasco been high, for the activists. you've been fighting for human rights for decades. you've had to flee your home. why is it worth it? >> ( translated ): i want a free nicaragua, a democratic nicaragua, that respects human rights.n may my daughter and son live in peace, in freedom. that they can have education, e health, and all the rights that every people should have in any country in the world. and i really believe that this can bring about profound changes

in our society. >> schifrin: but right now, change is not coming. this weekend, ortega will declare victory, and try and entrench his rule even deeper. for the pbs newshour, i'm nick schifrin. >> woodruff: democrats and republicans across the country are examining tuesday night's surprising election results, with an eye toward crafting their strategies for next year's crucial midterm election races.c meanwhile, dignitaries in washington today gathered to remember the life and legacy of former secretary of state colin powell.. here to add perspective on all this, and more, are capehart and abernathy. that's jonathan capehart, columnist for the "washington post," and gary abernathy, an ohio-based writer andd contributing columnist for the "washington post."

david brooks is away. it's very good to see both of you and, gary, you're here from ohio, and we're glad to see o y. >> thank you for having me.. >> woodruff: what a week, as the three of us were just saying. jonathan capehart, you've now had three whole days to think about what happened, what the voters said on tuesday, and what do you think it was? >> so i split it betweenwe virginia and new jersey, with virginia, governor elect glenn youngkin showed it's possible to embrace trump voters but at theh same time keep donald trump physically out of your state. he showed, as i mentioned lasted week, the role of playing on racial fear to drive people out to the polls particularly when it comes to so-called critical race c theory. in new jersey, the near political death experience of governor phil murphy, democrat, to my mind shows the bigger

problem that the national democratic party has. governor murphy is popular inul new jersey, he was running onn the president's agenda, basically, and the fact that he squeaked it out says that folks in new jersey are tired, seemingly, of the dysfunction of democrats arguing with each other over bills, not being ablg to show they can get anything done. >> woodruff: we saw more g of that today.ay >> still going on today. >> woodruff: right.. so the party has to figure out how to reach those voters that glenn youngkin reached, be able to talk to them,ou but also show the country that they're competent, that they are worthy of being entrusted with governing. >> woodruff: gary abernathy,, what messages do you think the voters were ---- >> well, you know, a lot of democrats are saying that the message was we need to do more,, we haven't done this, we were punished for not passing these bills we promised we were going to pass.g i think it's the opposite.e. i think voters were saying weg don't like what you're doing.

now, there are two different things here and the democratsts try to tie them together, the infrastructure bill and the build back better bill, two different things. the infrastructure bill has tremendous bipartisan support,ip they should pass that tonight and show they're doing something not just politically but the country needs thiss infrastructure bill. but people thought, we have to remember, the 2020 election was a referendum on druch. it was not about issues, it was not about what biden was promising to do, it was we either want more trump or killing him out, they voted to kick him out, the majority did, but they thought they were getting a safe alternative with joe biden and he turned out to be a guy who's been much more aggressively liberal with the bernie sanders wing than peoplee were voting for. one key thing from the exit polls on the -- the edison exit polls that i think "the washington post" used and other networks, said that trump is still unpopular in virginia.in

seven out of ten voters thought youngkin's policies and ideas were much like trumps.s. didn't hurt him a bit, he won. people were okay with trump's policies, they just didn't like trump. >> woodruff: what about what the democrats are offering? i hear the two of you saying different things about whether americans want what the democrats are debating and still haven't been able to pass yet. >> i think that's the problem, they still haven't been able toe pass it. if you tease out every little thing out of both the infrastructure bill, which we know the bipartisan support, but even what's in the build backld better act, last i checked, so many things in it, but if you tease out the individual pieces, they have popular support.rt it's just that, if you're going to go for it and you've got the house and you've got the senat and you have the white house, to the larger american public who doesn't follow the stuff the way we do, sit back and think why department you get anything dont if you have all three branches,e and this is why this is such a

problem for democrats and the president. >> woodruff: what i hear you saying, gary, is even if they pass this other piece of legislation that that may not help the democrats. >> i think that it hurts them. again, i'm going to say, jonathan and i were disagreeingg on this, but the message tuesday was we don't like the direction you're going. the democrats, really, if they stopped to evaluate what happened tuesday, they would be better off sitting and lettingti joe manchin lead the discussions while bernie sanders and alexandria ocasio-cortez sit to the side a bit and listen.te because i think marchen, to his -- manchin has a pulse on where america is at now and, no, the democrat party doesn't have to become the republican party, but joe manchin is a pretty centrist democrat who's tryingo to wave the red flag and ring the warning bells and no one's listening to him yet. >> the democratic party in the

build back better plan, for instance, would love for there to be paid family leave. and i get conservatives look at paid family leave as paying people to stay home instead of looking at the domino effect of what it means in order for a family to not risk their job in order to stay home for whatever -- for whatever reason -- grieving the loss of a parent, a new child coming into the family, there are economic benefits that the americann people want, the earned incomear tax credit for children, anyn, number of things. i don't think it's that thet american people don't want these things and that these aren't, you know, a grab bag of things to just give away. they have a benefit for theth long-term health and security, economic and well being of this country. >> ico think americans do want lot of those things, and they do poll as popular item by item, but americans love ice cream. if you did a poll, you would find out almost 100% of americans love ice cream. i

it doesn't mean they approve of spending trillions of dollars to give everyone free ice cream. not everyone can have things that everyone would say, gee,, that would be nice, but there comes a point in time where we say we don't have the money, whether we're talking 6 trillion, 3 trillion,ri 1 trillion, it doesn't exist.. the american people know that doesn't exist, too. yes, we would love to have these things, but do our great grandchildren pay for it? >> woodruff: another analysis from james carville, longtimee stratist on this program wednesday night, jonathan, essentially said this "woke business" has gone too far, the focus on injustice in our society. does he have a point or not? >> he has a point up to a point. i understand where james carville is coming from. i heard the quote in full and in context, i get where he's coming from, but what he's done is he's

basilly said to the base of the democratic party, who cares what you think? he calls it "wokeness." it's not wokeness to want to be treated fairly by testify police. it's notpo wokeness to want law enforcement to not view you instantly as a criminal, instantly as a bad guy. it's not wokeness to demand that our nation's history be taughtt and reflected accurately.el that's not wokeness. at a minimum, it's asking for dignity and respect. and, so, for someone, a democratic strategist like james carville to say those things basically to the base to have t the democratic party -- to the base of the democratic party is really unfortunate because i think we can talk about these issues of injustice and talk about how to move the countryry forward together. these don't have to be two

separate conversations. >> woodruff: this is a larger debate that's been out there, gary. with a lotty agree of what jonathanjust said. i think we can talk about the role of slavery, the role of racism in this country, and we should do more of that. i agree with that. but there doesn't have to be -- i think what happens is, with the wokeness, what a lot of us think of as the wokeness, the cancel culture, is that we have to create villains.la we have to demon eyes. -- demonize.e. to lift one set of people up, we have to demonize another set. >> i understand where the concept comes from of demonizing people. to and am who i talk associated with and related to, we're not about demonizing anybody. what about, hey, could you recognize for a hot minute what we go through?? could you recognize that there

was ae clip of a youngkin supporter saying, well if young people just, you know, treat the police with respect when they're stopped everything will be okay. no, that is not true.no that is not true. and, so, you know, for -- untill someone like her is able to see that perspective, we're always going to have this problem. >> woodruff: like that young person. >> we tend to, on all things when we're talking aboutut critical race theory, which is not being taught in schools, it's a theory that a lot of people would like to have taught. >> it's taught in law school. yeah. but there have been pushes to get it more into curriculums. >> that's a larger conversation. >> woodruff: that's a largerer conversation. >> but there are -- it's like one extreme or the other. you know, we need to talk to recognize more about what, as ii said, slavery and ace and racise

played a role throughout history in the building of this country and do that honestly, and white people shouldn't be afraid to say, you know what? we really haven't done that well and we need to do a better job of that and recognize it, but without making us feel like the villains for doing it. and i think there is a lot of that. there's a lot of emphasis on white people need to feel a certain amount of guilt over this and we need to get past that. >> woodruff: i want you to make ayo comment and then i want to bring up something.ng >> sure.>> i'm not asking for guilt, but i do think white people have to get over feeling villainizedin just even when the word "race" is used in a sentence, that's all. >> woodruff: it'ss a conversation we should continuee to have next friday. but speaking of all this, someone who i think represents what black americans have meant to this country was memorializer today and that was, of course,

colin powell. there was a service for him. he was remembered as someone whw was an example for generationsns to come, someone who worked across party lines.n in just a few words, jonathan, what is his legacy? we should we take away from this man? >> he was a statesman. he wasa a warrior statesman. he was the best ofsm this count. when he was thinking of running for president in the '96 election, i was a young editorial writer at the "new york daily news," i was a big fan of president clinton, but the idea that a black man would run for president and had a chance to win left me a little conflicted because he was a walking role model of who we should be as americans but also walking role model for me, a young black man. seeing a blackman like him walking through the carters of power as if he was walking in

the parkn dr. through the corridors of power as if he was walking through the park. we need more colin powells. >> i can't improve on that. to me, colin powell representedn a very classy person, conducted himself with class. even when he was upset or angry about something, even in his criticisms of people, it was done with style and class, which is why i think he was so widely admired across the divide. >> woodruff: well, we remember him fondly today. >> yeah. >> woodruff: gary abernathy,y, jonathan capehart, thank yout, both. >> thank you, judy.ou >> woodruff: a new novel by pulitzer-prize winning author, and minneapolis resident, louise erdrich flects on that city's upheaval in 2020, amid the pandemic and the

police killing of george floyd. jeffrey brown has this look, as part of our ongoing arts and culture coverage, "canvas." >> brown: another day in the life of >> another day in the life of a small independent bookstore this line in minneapolis is a bit unusual. it has a confessional and a canoe overhead. it specializes in native american literature and subjects. there is a ghost who hovers in this section. a customer who died but refuses to leave. the ghost story is fiction, titled "the sentence". >> i was always going to write a book about a ghost in a bookstore aired why wouldn't you? why wouldn't you want to write about a haunted bookstore.

there's so much life in a bookstore. a book is so much more than a object. words to our slovenian. height is are filling you with the motion. it's haunting in a good way. >> the story is about a deeper and more painful hunting. the mid-pandemic and the murder of george floyd in south minneapolis and the protest to follow. it's a character with the a native american with her own difficult past. >> this is the book i've written real-time. i didn't know how to handle all this, at all. all i could do was try to keep it very narrowly focused. through the eyes of one incredibly fallible care there.

one woman. >> was a hard to do? was a good escape from what was happening? >> it wasn't an escape. it was the most difficult piece of writing i've done. >> she grew up in the red river valley of north good coda. she's a member of the turtle mountain band of chippewa, a tribal nation near the canadian border. her best-selling writing, novels, children's books and poetry is centered on the experience of indigenous people in the upper midwest. she won the national book award and the 2021 pulitzer prize. it fictionalize her grandfather and their struggle against 1950s termination. the effort by the u.s. government to tear up treaties and take back tribal lands.

she said a walk along the mississippi river is always through stories. >> if you talk about termination, it's technical and boring. if you are seeing it through the eyes of someone who is faced with termination and the extinction of one's standing in the world and once lay way of life and very lives and dependence on the land, then it's different. it becomes not a matter of politics but what matters to a human being. >> the major characters joined a protest with along sense of police brutality aimed at american indians and who were pushed in the cities. >> in real time, minneapolis 2020 feels familiar to them. did it feel familiar to you ask >> in a terrible way. i felt like so many people

dead. a sense of failure. i love this city and people who live in this city and work in this city feel a sense that this city failed miserably. we can't live with this. nobody can live with this. we live in a city that has been divided, red light, so many things that have been handed down through these decades and decades of systemic racism. it all came bubbling up as it would. >> there are more hopeful things embedded in a sentence about the love of books. she loves nothing more than authoring recommendations to a eager reader. also, and especially, there is a portrait. >> native literature lovers right? >> yes.

immersed in their language and their world. setting their own agenda for life. i have four daughters. i was really touched by them all the time. >> one daughter studied and now teaches the native language to young children. >> a deep thing that's happening. my grandfather was the last person in the family who spoke person ihis language fluently. my doubter would have been able to speak with him. he had no one to speak with at some point. but my daughter would have been able to speak with him. speaking the same language. >> the looks door exemplifies a new chapter in american literature. recent years a new generation by native writers. >> that's something i thought would happen. and it started happening and then all of a sudden it just blew up, as they say.

>> the writer and bookstore owner, helped to lead the way. for the pbs news hour, i'm in minneapolis. >> woodruff: at the national cathedral in washington, d.c., >> as we were discussing earlier at the national cathedral in washington, d.c.. family, friends and colleagues of the late secretary, colin powell, gathered to memorialize him. presidents biden, obama and bush and another secretary of state, hillary clinton, where the gas. a handful of people who knew him well shared stories about a statesman, friend and father. >> my heart is sad, for i have

lost a friend. he and i were shaped by different experiences and had different ideas and represented different departme >> my heart is sad, for i have lost a friend. >> he and i were shaped by different experiences and had different ideas and represented different departments. over the past quarter centuries we became close friends. the reason is beneath the glossy exterior of warrior statesman, was one of the gentlest and most decent people any of us will ever meet. powell, colin, c.p. you >> secretary powell, general powell. :, cp, however you knew him. visiting foreign minister from sweden was in. she knew secretary powell's affection for abba. she opened up a full cd set of abba and presented it to him. colo: went down on one knee and

sang the entire mamma mia. >> not long ago he was driving his corvette on the beltway and got a flat tire. a young disabled veteran pulled over to help. a few days later to thank him for his help, my father invited the vet and his entire family over to the house for dinner. i heard it asked, are we still making his kind? i believe the answer to that question is up to us. i hope as a nation, we are still making his kind.: pelle was a great lion with a big heart. we miss him terrible.

>> life that brought so much to all of us. social media giants like facebook have been facing scrutiny about sewing misinformation. we take a look at how misinformation is breadin on apps and the falsehoods and the millions of people who use them.. tickly this community who use the apps that are used communicating with family. read more at news hour. tuesday's election and the latest on capitol hill. join the moderator and her panel on tonight's pbs. i'm judy woodruff. join us online and monday evening. for all of us at pbs news hour, please stay safe and have a good weekend. as changed,

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>> tonight on kqed newsroom. special guest talks about how a diet for a planet can combat climate change. plus campaign contributions for fossil fuel interest and a strike force. we go ice skating in this week's edition of something beautiful. coming from you headquarters in san francisco this friday. hello, welcome to the show aired this is newsroom.