captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening, i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight, the road ahead-- the president celebrates passage of the massive infrastructure bill, but the status of the remainder of his agenda is uncertain. then, tipping point-- world leaders struggle to take meaningful steps to combat the ever worsening global climate crisis. and, taliban takeover-- afghanistan's future looks bleak as the economic freefall and dire food shortage hit the poorest hardest. >> ( translated ): there is hunger back home. we have food but very little. we just put something small in our stomachs. there is no work and no money. >> woodruff: all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour.

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>> woodruff: the united states is fully reopened to most travelers tonight, for the first time since before the pandemic. vaccinated travelers from canada and mexico were once again allowed to cross the borders today. across europe, people lined up for flights to the u.s., including, to chicago, where commerce secretary gina raimondo welcomed the change. >> america is open for business again we are open for business again on a global stage and you will see a real shot in the arm to the economy because of that, to a part of the economy that has been hardest hit. >> woodruff: the u.s. move came as the official global count of covid cases passed 250 million. the actual figure is believed to be even high. this was also the deadline for federal workers to get vaccinated. and, los angeles began requiring proof of shots to enter most

businesses. we'll focus on vaccine resistance, later in the program. the u.s. today charged two hackers, a ukrainian and a russian, in a string of major ransomware attacks. they allegedly shut down the world's largest meat processor, paralyzed an east coast oil pipeline and froze businesses and local governments. the u.s. and 16 other countries were involved in the enforcement operation. crowds of migrants stormed poland's border with belarus today, escalating an ongoing confrontation. polish authorities say thousands of people on the belarussian side tried to cut through razor wire fences. polish guards used chemical sprays to turn them back. poland charges that belarus has created a migrant crisis to retaliate for european sanctions. at the u.n. climate summit, former president obama urged world leaders today to put aside politics and take action.

in glasgow, scotland, he said developed nations must do what's needed to cut carbon emissions. he criticized two major powers, in particular. >> it was particularly discouraging to see the leaders of two of the world's largest emitters, china and russia, declined to even attend the proceedings. and their national plans so far reflect what appears to be a dangerous lack of urgency. >> woodruff: we'll return to the climate talks later in the program. u.s. and iraqi officials say iranian-backed militia forces carried out sunday's drone attack on iraq's prime minister. mustafa al-kadhimi was slightly wounded. security was ramped up across the capital after the attack. tensionsave escalated since pro-iranian militias lost ground in october elections. nicaragua's president daniel ortega is being widely condemned after he won a 4th consecutive term on sunday. he had jailed many of his

rivals. his supporters celebrated overnight when tallies showed ortega getting 75% of the vote. the opposition mostly boycotted the balloting. back in this country, the u.s. supreme court will consider whether to allow a class action lawsuit over f.b.i. surveillance after 9/11. the justices heard arguments today from muslims in california who say they were spied on because of their faith. the government says the suit would jeopardize state secrets. on wall street today, stocks edged higher, closing at record highs again. the dow jones industrial average gained 104 points to close at 36,432. the nasdaq rose 10 points. the s&p 500 added four. still to come on the newshour: the biden administration's vaccine requirement is blocked in federal court. questions remain following multiple deaths at a massive houston concert. tamara keith and amy walter

break down the latest political news. plus much more. >> woodruff: the bipartisan infrastructure bill, a key part of president biden's legislative agenda, passed congress last week and is headed to the president's desk to be signed into law. the one trillion dollar plan will bring historic investments to roads, bridges and public transit, as well as other major projects across the country. joining me now on all this, someone closely involved in the push for infrastructure, secretary of energy jennifer granholm. , secretary granholm have good to have you with us again. thank you for being here. a lot of parts to this legislation. and i want you to remind the

audience of just a few of the major parts of this. where the public may see something in the near term, and maybe in the next six months? >> well, certainly, there are different parts of this legislation that will go quickly. and some that will take a little bit more time to develop. the ones that will go quickly are the ones that are pursuant to formula, things like weatherization assistance which goes to the states and they have a formula for doling it out. perhaps the road funding which you have heard about, the imrij funding which you've heard -- bridge funding which you've heard about. but also judy, there are things that are mid term that will be, for example, transmission grid, which we are going to need to triple the amount of electricity on that grid, to get to the president's goals of 100% clean

energy by 2035. the broadband infrastructures, every single state will get $100 million, to build out broadband, especially areas that don't have it now. i think you'll see erection of charging stations for electric vehicles across the country. there will be between 250,000 and 500,000 electric vehicle stations again in areas that the private sector hasn't already taken action along highways for example or in rural areas or in poorer areas where there are not a lot of electric vehicles yet but could be. so there's a lot to love in what we're seeing and i'm, you know, very enthused by the bipartisan nature of this and the fact that we seem to actually have a deal, which is great. >> woodruff: and it took several months but here we are. i'm asking you about when americans are going to see results from this, because we know many americans increasingly worried about the price of gas,

about the cost of goods that are being shipped, to the so-called supply chain problems and it caught our eye that the white house said over the weekend that this will ease supply chain issues. making these belong overdue improvements. how exactly is that going to happen, when are prices going to come down in connection with this legislation in a way that americans can see that, touch it? >> yeah, i mymean first of all we know that a plot of the mismatch between supply and demand is the world and the economy coming out of covid. the convictioner that we can see that everybody is vaccinated the quicker we can get back to normal, right? 15 nobel economists said, the the vex in our ports and in our airports, in our railway syste.

there is no doubt there will be some natural evening out of prices and flairgs inflation, as we get out of this covid but it will take a while before that settles down. >> woodruff: the administration says this is going to have an effect on prices. i want to ask you about the criticism that the bill is not as effective as it might have been if it hadn't had to have been watered down. the bipartisan support, you mentioned watering down in this built, we know there will -- in this bill, we know there will be more whittling down on the build back better bill, that congress has not passed yet. how much difference do you think all that compromise which you had to make is going to make in the effectiveness of this legislation? >> honestly, judy, this is especially with the two pieces,

these are such historical investments in our country. but just the infrastructure bill alone. i mean it is the kind of investment that we have not seen in generations. so we're very positive about it. i mean in all cases, compromise has to happen. and the president has always said that compromise is not a dirty word but he feels very good about the combination of things that came out in this bill. for example, one thing we didn't talk about is making sure we remove lead pipes from older building stock across the country so that children are not lead poisoned or the investment in resilience for communities that might be adversely experiencing the impacts of these extreme weathered events. we want to make sure that we've got not just a grid that's resilient but seawalls et cetera to protect communities from what we are seeing on climate change. so there is really a lot in this bill that is helpful to everyday citizens that they are going to

start to see the in near term and then it is a multibe-year bill so it will stretch out over a few years. but again this is to build the future, the bones, the infrastructure of our nation. that will happen over several years and that is i think a very good statement about us setting -- us being set up for competitiveness in the 21st century. >> woodruff: quickly and finally, you are the secretary of energy and i want to ask you about the concerns for price of gasoline, home heating oil with the cold winter coming, people are going to be dealing with that. you said in an interview yesterday, the president is looking into the edge stroo papetroleum reserve. he's looking at that. judge he want to be sure that people are not adversely affected by fuel costs or costs at the pump. as every president is frustrated

they can't control the price of gas, oil is sold on a global market, controlled buy cartel, that cartel is opec. but this is short term issue and he's doubling down on the long term vessmentsdz, so we are not disproportionately reliant for fossils fuels. he is looking at whatever short term tools he has to be able to relieve the pain that people may be feeling at the pump. the american rescue plan put a lot of money, $4 billion into low-income heating and home energy for propane, for natural gas, for home heating oil, for this winter. so there is a lot of money that went into that. that went to the states to be able to relieve people. the question of the pump is one that we're going to learn more about tomorrow, judy, when our energy informationing agency

will put out it's short term projections for the next couple of months. >> woodruff: and we will be watching for that, the secretary of energy, jennifer granholm, thank you very much. >> you bet judy, thank you. >> woodruff: as we reported, negotiators from around the world are meeting in glasgow for a second week, all part of the u.n. summit aimed at getting new commitments and actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. pressure has been building on the streets this weekend, and today, there was a call for meaningful change beyond the rhetoric of these gatherings. william brangham is there for us all week and joins me now. >> so hello william, we know you just arrived in glasgow yesterday. tell us in the time you've been

there what do you see, what are you hearing? >> well, judy as you mentioned we landed here and there were enormous protests over the weekend. they thought almost 100,000 people on the streets on saturday. here inside the conference hall where i'm standing, it's late and most everybody has left but here it's been the combination of high end diplomat meetings and trade show conference feel to everything. the whole goal as we've discussed is about getting world leaders to commit to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions so the planet doesn't warm to a dangerous degree. complicating all of that is a "washington post" investigation that dropped this morning. that indicated that many nations around the world have been gross reply overstating how much emissions reductions they've been doing. they've been using all sorts of complicated data and the "washington post" breaks all that down. the issue is if this whole conference is about getting people to put down very specifically how much they will

reduce their emissions, if as the post reports that a lot of this is based on dubious data that really complicates matters here. >> woodruff: so william when it comes to galvanizing nations we know that former president obama was there. i spoke to the conference today, urging countries to step up. tell us how was he -- how was his message received? >> that's right, e former president's speech got initially something of a standing ovation here in the hall. he got forward and said, there have been real roadblocks to progress. he acknowledged that there is still an enormous amount to do but this cop has already had some real substantial progress. that said, we talked to some activates who came into the -- activities who came into the hall today and mentioned that he and other western leaders are playing lip service to action instead of taking concrete

steps. i talked to one caves re acres ofsa. >> we are in the situation because of empty promises, they prioritized themselves and the economies over the plan the he and the people. they've always been putting profit over people. and why would this be any different? >> the former president took on these critisms head-on. he acknowledged that there had been as he called them imperfect compromises and that all the past victories were not full victories. but that said, he said to these activists very directly, i want you to stay angry, i want you to stay motivated but keep pushing us world leaders to do better. so far they have been heeding his wishes. >> woodruff: interest being that the former president is engaged in this. william you will be there for the rest of the week and be reporting for us, thank you very much. >> you're welcome judy.

>> woodruff: this weekend, a federal appeals court in louisiana temporarily blocked the biden administration's requirement that millions of private sector workers get vaccinated against covid-19, or get tested weekly. the new rule, formally introduced just days ago, has led more than two dozen states to file multiple legal challenges. john yang has the story. >> yang: judy, a three-judge panel of the fifth circuit court of appeals in louisiana agreed on saturday to block the new rule. the judges said they took the action because "the petitions give cause to believe there are grave statutory and constitutional issues with the mandate." alan wilson is the attorney general for the state of south carolina, which is one of the plaintiffs. mr. wilson, thanks so much for joining us.

tell us why you joined this action, this challenge to the role? >> the very reasons that the fifth circuit court of appeals stated, the great constitutional issues are at stake here. 24 states signed a letter to the administration, two other states by the way, did their own letters, 26 states in all sent a letter to the president saying what you're doing between executive dictate is unconstitutional. you are expanding the rights beyond what congress determined it. osha does not have the right to put this fracts into fek. >> i want to be clear on what this argument is about and what it is not about. as i understand it and correct me if i'm wrong, it is not about whether or not people should get the vaccine. it is about whether the

government, through oh shaz, missile administratively should order employees to do this. >> absolutely. many of my colleagues including myself are already vaccinated. this is not whether this is good policy, it is about the role of government. osha was created 50 years ago to protect employees who operated in certainly occupational fields from dangers and hazards inherent in that particular field. it wasn't created to protect employees from some general future threat that might exist in the world. what they're doing is is basically expanding the authority of osha beyond what congress originally gave it, this is a violation of separation of powers. they are violating the administrative procedures act through an arbitrary and capricious rule. the standards are created so you could have 99 people in one building who don't have to

comply because they are under 100 and you can have two people in 50 states, 50 state offices have to comply, because they are 100-employee company. so the standards are arbitrary and capricious and the a result is beyond the scope of the authority that was given to osha. >> again this is because it is an administrative act. if this had been a law, if congress passed a law, would you be taking the same position? >> it depends. first off let's start with this, states have general police powers we call it, congress has only been given certain powers in the constitution and if congress were to pass a law that fell under one of those authorities and they had the authority to do this we would be having a very different conversation. i personally feel like it's a bridge too far for congress to pass some kind of general health care police authority to the states. but if they were doing it through their spending authority or their interstate congress

authority, it would be recognizable. they are doing through administrative fiat expanding the administrative authority of an administrative agency, well beyond what congress gave it. they simply cannot do that. >> people on the other side make the argument, the pleltd argument of trying to vaccinate as many people as possible. what do you say to them, what is your response to them? >> this is what i say to people on the left. you may agree with the policy prescriptions of this administration or any government because you happen to like the people who are running it but once you expand the power of any government, especially the federal government, that government entity will never give that power back and one day people you don't agree with and that you don't like will be using the same power, against you. this is about constraining and having limiting principles. constraining the power of the federal government. so if you are a person on the left who thinks this is about protecting the health of society

that's great. i don't challenge your motives. but doing this is violative of the federal government and power the people will never get back. >> point to the private employers who have put mandates on their examine employees, as a state attorney have any problems with that with private employers doing this? >> listen, private employers make people wear uniforms, make people dress a certain way. be th have rules they implement. there is a baste liberty issue on behalf of the private employer. this is the federal government compelling a private employer, they can't do that. a private employer working on their own conceivably could do that. but that isn't the role here. this is the role of federal government involved in the

personal issues of the employees. >> attorney general allen wilson, thank you for being here. >> good to be with you. >> woodruff: it is now nearly three months since the taliban takeover of afghanistan, and the country is collapsing. hundreds of thousands are hungry; millions more are jobless and impoverished; and the hard afghan winter is bearing down. with the support of the pulitzer center, special correspondent jane ferguson sent us this report, beginning in the capital kabul. and a warning: images in this story may disturb some viewers. >> reporter: even in a country grped by catastrophe, this may be its most desperate corner. the few remaining children's wards left operating in afghanistan are flooded with weak, starving babies. the children of jobless fathers and malnourished mothers, an

entire generation fighting to stay alive against the odds. son of sadam written on a piece of tape stuck to this child's chest is all that identifies him. with each shallow breath, his chances of making it grow thinner. this ward is packed: frail, sick babies lined up next to one another in beds meant for one. >> we have a little space, not a lot of space for every baby to have just every baby to one bed. >> reporter: so you put two in a bed? >> two, three or four sometimes in a bed. >> reporter: dr. abdul jabad despairs at the numbers who come and never recover. almost a third don't make it. that means four or five of the babies in this room will die. it's the very crowding that kills many, with weak, malnourished bodies unable to fight off infections from the others. >> we have not a space sterilization process here.

most of the baby take infection from the ward. you see here, two baby in one bed. >> reporter: downstairs in another ward, dr. marwa examines ayaz. the lack of nutrients in his diet has led to a severe skin condition. his father was a laborer and work dried up, leaving his mother with little to give him. in another bed nearby lieslays omid. his muscles have wasted away. at 18 months old, he weighs just over 10 pounds. he should weigh twice that. it took only a few months for afghanistan's poorest to be gripped by hunger once the government collapsed. without the government and it's funding from the international community, the economy is in freefall. millions have lost their jobs within the government and internationally-funded

organizations, and with a taliban authority sweeping to power in august, aid agencies cannot send support to a recognized terrorist group. across town, the newly jobless shuffle forward in line for help from the u.n.'s world food program. many of the men here have never needed to live off handouts before, but these are desperate times. >> ( translated ): there is hunger back home. we have food but very little. we just put something small in our stomachs. there is no work and no money. >> reporter: the distribution is guarded by taliban gunmen. if aid can be dispensed without it going through their government then it can get around sanctions. although the aid that went from u.s. government has been the afghan government to the stopped. there is still some coming from usaid directly to civilians here through the w.f.p., the world food program. people who have come here today are getting two sacks of wheat flour, ten bottles of cooking

oil and a small bag of soy bean. it's not very much, and that's all families will get for the next two months. but it will keep them alive. the levels of hunger across the country are staggering. 14 million people, nearly half the population, need food assistance to survive. leading humanitarians say aid must get directly to the people now, regardless of who is running the country. >> don't politicize food. i don't care which side you are on. everyone should give us what we need to reach the innocent victims of this complex situation. >> reporter: the head of the u.n.'s world food program, david beasley, flew into kabul over the weekend. more than $9 billion of the country's foreign assets have been frozen by the u.s. government to prevent the taliban from accessing them. he says that's morally wrong. >> all i'm doing is jumping up and down, saying, please you must understand that people are dying. if you don't unfreeze them more people are going to die. unfreeze them in such a way that they go directly to the people through organizations like us.

what am i missing here? these are innocent people. it's heartbreaking. i mean... >> reporter: how much does that impact your ability to get food to the people without getting money in the pockets of the taliban? >> we just want to reach the people who are vulnerable, we just want to reach the people that are really marching towards starvation. th isn't complicated. the taliban have told us ¡we will stay out of your way, we will support anything you need to reach the people you need to reach'. i need for everybody on all sides to take that same approach. >> reporter: the taliban has, unsurprisingly, called for the assets to be released to their government. the pressure on the group mounts the longer their leadership is unable to abate the spreading hunger. we sat down with their main spokesman. >> ( translated ): the money that was frozen by the americans is the money of the afghan people. we told the american authorities, international community and europeans. we have told all countries this should never have happened.

the economic crisis can be stopped. also, we are cooperating with the n.g.o.s and requested help from them. >> reporter: but it's not just the financial crisis that is keeping people hungry. the blight of drought has gipped the country, with the national wheat harvest down by nearly a third. we travelled out to herat in the west of the country, where the crisis is most severe. in his hard, parched fields, local famer mohammed asif told us his wheat crop this year was 80% down. he has 125 acres, which would normally employ dozens of workers, supporting hundreds of family members. >> ( translated ): in the past we were self sufficient and relied on ourselves. we had good harvests. this last four or five years the drought is very bad. we have never seen anything like this. we have lost 100 year old trees here. when we have water and a good harvest then we can keep livestock like cows and sheep and chickens. >> reporter: on the day we visited there were only a few people, one of them a child,

harvesting a little saffron. the farmer has not planted this year's crop of wheat yet, the ground is simply too hard without rainfall. in the city of herat nearby, dangerously wasted and thin babies are carried into the main hospital. doctors without borders staff and fund the malnutrition ward, so these children will get some milk and care. but it's temporary. the homes these children came from remain blighted by poverty. mahbabin brought in her only surviving twin baby. at six mths old, she should not be this small. "we don't have enough food. i'm not able to breast feed,” she tells me.“ we feed them with formula, but i cannot afford it.” few inhis country can afford much more right now than the bare essentials. millions cannot manage even that. as the world watches the fallout of afghanistan's sudden

collapse, the failure to build a sustainable, functioning state in the two decades since the 2001 invasion have never been more stark. >> the international community this last 20 or 30 years has done a disastrous job here. 75% of the economy is based on outside funding, i mean hello. coupled by the corruption that was allowed from year to year to year. why do you think the people didn't rise up when the taliban were advancing? because they were like ¡well, which one's worse here?' and so you have got now an economy that was built on a house of cards and everybody's to blame. everybody shares the blame. and if you don't feed the innocent victims of this chaos, well, you are talking about a lot of dead people. >> reporter: after surviving four decades of continuous conflict, hunger could take more innocent lives than war ever did. for the pbs newshour, i'm jane ferguson, in kabul, afghanistan.

>> woodruff: eight people are dead and many others were injured after the astroworld festival crowd surge last friday in houston, texas. tonight, there are more questions than answers about the security measures in place lisa desjardins looks at some of those concerns. >> desjardins: judy, concertgoers began panicking soon after travis scott started singing and some members of the crowd rushed to the stage, here's how one concertgoer described it. >> i just heard from other people like i can't breathe, just people screaming at each other like i can't breathe, people yelling their friends names because they were separated, got lost, they had

nowhere to go, that was the bad part of it. >> desjardins: the deaths have prompted a series of questions about whether travis scott should have stopped the concert completely and whether there were adequate personnel and safety preparations. at least 35 people have sued. steve allen is a lead safety consultant at crowdsafety.org, who has provided security for artists like oasis, red hot chilli peppers and eminem. and he joins me now from southampton, england. steve, we have seen tragedies at concerts before, sadly. but this one seemed rare to me. in that this was a fatal crowd crush at an ongoing concert, which continued. even as that was happening. how rare or unusual does that seem to you? and what do you take away from this? >> very rare. it shouldn't be happening. if a crowd are in distress then there should be procedure in place to immediately stop that show temporarily. >> there are a lot of questions about travis scott. he stopped the show four different times but picked it

back up again. he asked people are they okay, people raised hands indicating the they were but we know there was distress at that moment even as the concert continue ed. can you talk about how do you prevent concerts from goi too far, how do you know that a performer knows that a concert needs to stop and what kind of point people need to be in place from everybody on down? >> so at the best laid plans can be in place. but they often fail at the first time there's a major incident, you know, occurring. so for us to have that dynamic situation in situ, show stop team that is a competent team of experts, if you like, that know exact reply what they're doing and can identify a crowd in distress. there isn't yet your uncle putting on a security shirt and saying stand up there and keep an eye on the crowd. this is people you are trusting to identify a life threatening situation. they're involved in it, noise

cancelling headsets communicating with someone on stage. be adjacent to the artist representative who has been fully briefed in advance, on the day of the show safety briefing, and this is to their artist who is going to cooperates and understand their role and responsibility, along with the lighting designer and the frond of house sou engineer. >> when a lot of us hear about something like this. we imagine if we were there, if our loved ones were there and you can almost feel yourself the sense of panic. can you talk about the role of panic in a situation like that? how real is that, how real a situation is that? >> 100% real. people telling me panic was a five letter word that doesn't actually work in crowds. i'm someone who worked with crowds for 30 years. i can assure you if you can can't breathe you will panic. i've seen a plan 300 pounds,

6'6, being elevated off the ploors with sheer fear in their face. partnerric does exist. you can feel a crowd in distress. you can see if a crowd is in distress or just euphoria. the untrained eye looking on a mosh pit and in panic, thinking, there is not. this is what they do. it is about poifg when that crowd is in distress to. >> looking at the pictures and videos of the event this is a huge crowd, 50,000 people and we're not yet out of the pandemic exactly. what do you say, is this a wakeup call to dangers of large events even as some people are now racing back to them? >> i think the risk is always there with live events. and you know, we were always engaged with the artist that had the energetic crowds, oasis for 15, 16 years, seasonal of the most energized crowds i've ever

seen. we managed it. and everyone took it serious. i'm not in any way speculating that this event wasn't serious. there's always a risk. >> something went wrong. >> something clearly went wrong, because you had more than one fatal fatality, more than one injured people. look at the ages of those peoples, they've gone to a concert, go home and be safe and had memories forever but sadly that is not going to happen. there was a number of people in distress for a prolonged period. when you see the video footage of fans getting up onto the stage onts the camera platforms how that wasn't see by a show stop team a management, how that wasn't seen and responded to an4 what's going often from other video footage you're justi1&c @c looking around to the wings of the stage, as if he's looking

for someone, at no point do i see anyone go on stage and speak to travis and say look, we've got a problem. there may be video footage that shows that but certainly not something i've seen and you would certainly expected to see that, someone going on the stage, stop show we have a major heads up acknowledge major situation here. >> these are all important questions and we will follow this investigation as i know you will too. steve allen you're crowd safety expert am thank you for joining us. >> thank you. >> woodruff: last week was a pivotal one for president biden, with highs and lows: the passing of his infrastructure agenda following the democratic defeat in virginia. here to take stock of it all are amy walter of "the cook political report with amy walter." and tamara keith of npr.

>> hello to both of you. yes it was a week of both up and down. it was long in coming amy, the infrastructure bill but it did pass late friday night. in the end how much -- or at this moment how much of a political win is it for the president? >> well, it's certainly a win. you take them where you can get them and it is also a bipartisan win both in the senate and the house. so now the president can go out and members of the democratic party can go out in 2022 and say we worked in a bipartisan manner as we had promised you to pass things that matter. the challenge though is while the president and while the energy secretary come on and say we're going to sell this to the public, the sausage making is not quite done yet. they're still trying to do the build back better bill, that is probably going to -- tam and i have tooukd about this for a while, probably december, most capitol hill reportsers are talking about spending christmas

and new years covering this so there's still a ways for it to go. the other big piece and you rised this with the secretary is, okay how much immediate help is this going to provide to americans who, right now, and this is just a cnn poll, 40% of them saying i don't think the administration is addressing the most pressing problems, or they do think they're addressing the most pressing problems, 60% say i don't think they are addressing the most pressing problems in the country right now. for the white house and for congressional democrats in 2022, those numbers have to to be reversed, voters have to say this administration is focused on the things that they see as the biggest problems. >> woodruff: tam it's what the administration is dealing with but there's this residue, bigger residue of mistrust among democrats on the hill and they are crucial to passing the rest of this. >> right and as amy said, this would not have passed in the house without republicans helping out.

because there were some of the most progressive democrats who just didn't sign on. that said, many members of the progressive caucus ultimately did vote for this bill, knowing that it would decouple it from the build back better the social safety net bill, progressives had tried to have them tied together because they didn't trust the moderates to support the other legislation. president biden said today he thinks the other one is going to pass but yes there are challenges ahead. he's confident he said. this was the thing, this was a trust fall and they will find out sometime before the new year whether the moderates are going to go along. but there is not agreement on exactly what should be in this thing. there's more agreement than there was in the past. and there's also not agreement on just how essential it is. biden sees it as essential for the 2022 can campaign. many democrats see it as

essential. others aren't so sure. >> woodruff: and the white house trying to link to it infrastructure, have to have build back better in order to reach its full -- >> full potential. >> woodruff: potential. and it did play a role amy, a lot of people believe, in virginia. we haven't had a chance to talk to you since we learned tuesday night, the democrats didn't do so well in virginia, it was a republican night. lessons for both sides here? >> yes, some of them they can take with them moving forward. some of them well, they were unique to that specific moment in time. the bok bottom line is, if you oar democrat on the ballot in 2022, and the president is sitting at 43% job approval rating, even in a state that is normally blue like virginia that's a problem. you are in big, big trouble. for republicans though, the idea that a republican could follow the path of glen youngkin and be

able to keep trump at a little bit of distance, thread the needle, i'm with him, i'm not with him, is going to be a little harder to do when you run in primaries. youngkin came out of this convention process so he didn't have that long drawn out process where everybody on the republican side is vying to be the trump acolyte, right? that part, both of those are going to be really important watching as we go forward. >> woodruff: we are trying to make all those connections. meanwhile, tam you were talking to virginia voters to try to get a better idea of what they were thinking. >> the things that stand out, both in virginia and new jersey, where democrats didn't do as well as they had thought, polls stayed closed, the number of days for schools to be open for in person instruction were

fewer. we focused on critical race theory but it is more than that based on the conversations i was having with people and in fact ballotpedia being load at the school board races all over the country where there are anticrt or antimass candidates. >> woodruff: they were all over the country. >> they were all over the country. there is not a strong sweep coming out of the races they followed. a lot of the candidates lost, some of won but a lot of them lost. it wasn't a uniform message except that what one northern virginia parent and republican political consultant told me, is that democrat terry mcawful p--mcauliffe would have won in the fall of 2020 instead of the fall of 2021. >> woodruff: something totally out of his control. >> completely out of his control but the parents were frustrated and looking for an outlet.

>> woodruff: dealing with a lot as parents across the country but interesting amy, to point out these two states which happen to have governor's races this year were ones that had the school issue. >> the school issue and it speaks to the broader issues now. 70% of americans saying we think the country is off off of the right track, that means differently to different people. not because schools weren't open but just how hard it is for the child to catch up. they lost a lot of time. we heard from these same parents, i was talking to one consultant and said, the challenge that their kids are having with their mental health. so there is a lot of stuff going onen for people. they are feeling that anxiety, when you have that and somebody is going to get the blame and somebody is going to offer, you know, the solution or at least the path forward, that's what happens. >> woodruff: take this enormous disruption and then you

make it into a political campaign. >> that's right, there you go. >> woodruff: there you go. amy walter, tamara keith, politics monday. >> you're welcome. >> you're welcome. >> woodruff: and now, a five- decade survey of a photographer who has helped change the perception of his art form. jeffrey brown goes to glenstone museum outside of washington to look at the unusual process behind large-scale works. it's part of our arts and culture series, canvas. >> brown: scenes of interior, hidden life. scenes of almost cinematic drama. but pull back from the frame: the first thing you notice about canadian artist jeff wall's photographs is their sheer size. >> because i was so interested in other art forms like painting and to some extent film, it seemed to me that photographs

were too small, that something in them, in the medium wasn't being released by the conventional formats. and it was exciting. >> brown: an exhibition now at glenstone, a contemporary art museum outside washington, d.c, shows what wall has done since the 1970s to change the conventions of photography-- what they're aiming to capture, how they do that and, yes, their scale. glenstone's director, emily wei rales: >> i think of them as works that straddle different categories. these things are on a scale that you would associate more with cinema in some cases or advertising displays. so they're big, they're brilliant. in some cases, they have light shining from behind them. so the colors are supersaturated, and they glow. >> brown: glenstone is a private museum, fully opened since 2018. it's a 300 acre campus of rolling pastures and woodlands, with interconnected gallery buildings.

art and nature, sometimes art in nature, as with sculptures by jeff koons and richard serra. its spacious galleries showcase individual artists such as robert gober and other leading figures in contemporary art. >> we like to focus on artists who we consider disruptors, artists that really change the way people thought about art, were innovative either in their ideas or their approach or process or technique. jeff wall certainly falls into this category. >> brown: we were there as the exhibition was being installed, a chance to see the enormous and heavy works being lifted and mounted into place. wall's photographs often have their own built-in light source; a so-called light box, that creates a vivid, back-lit effect, and also turns them into three -dimensional objects, almost sculptural. >> he's not an artist who walks through the world with a camera at the ready. instead, he says, he spends a lot of time ¡not' photographing.

>> i do see things in the world, like any other photographer does. but i don't need to capture it with a machine. i can capture it with my own memory and then engage later in what i think of as a process of reconstruction or construction or composition that leads to the kind of picture i want to make. >> brown: note the word picture. wall prefers that term, seeing his work in the tradition of large scale paintings. a different technology, but the same focus on pictorial composition. sometimes, as in “the destroyed room”, from 1979, he directly riffs on an old master painting. here, delacroix's “the death of sardanapalus.” a famous woodblock print by 19th century japanese artist katsushika hokusai became the inspiration for wall's 1993 wo“" a sudden gust of wind.” >> i immediately thought how modern it was and how instantaneous it was. there's something photographic about what he's caured.

and so it just struck me quite immediately that this was one of those moment where i could do something with that. >> brown: but there's nothing immediate about wall's process: he found a location, brought in actors-- he mostly works with non-professionals-- used a wind machine, and went day after day to shoot, as always with film. he then used early digital- imaging technology to place all those flying papers, even a hat. the process took months to make. >> i did make one innovation, which is i made this guy sort of enjoying-- his hat just blew off. >> brown: yeah, he's got a happy look at the wonder of it all. >> well, he lost his hat! whereas in the original, they're not happy about losing their hats. >> brown: in fact, wall's works are always intricately constructed and composed-- he uses the term "near documentary" for photographs of people at work, or a home eviction in progress. and also when they look deceptively simple-- as in more recent works like the diptych“

summer afternoons,” and three- paneled “staircase and two rooms”. who are these people? is there a story here? wall has his own take. >> i don't write the story, i erase the story. >> brown: what does that mean? >> it means the process of picture making is the exact opposite of narrating it, because what you're doing is, you're stilling the narrative, you're ending it. >> brown: you're stopping it. >> you're stopping it, which means essentially you're un- writing it. it's the viewer that will come back in real time and rewrite the narrative. >> brown: again, the scale adds to the effect, with almost life- sized figures. >> the figures or the objects are the same size th would be if you're looking through a pane of glass into a real space that extends your own. life scale is a kind of magic. >> brown: it's part of the drama, isn't it? that i'm looking at somebody who's almost my size? >> i think so. i think it has a kind of impact that is unique. you can almost feel like you're hovering in someone's life in a way that you can't really do actually.

>> brown: composition, light, and beauty-- even when the scale and subject are smaller, as in one of the most recent works here, titled “mother of pearl”. jeff wall's exhibition is on view into march 2022. for the pbs newshour, i'm jeffrey brown at the glenstone museum of contemporary art in potomac, maryland. >> woodruff: and that's 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.

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welcome to allen pure, what's what's coming up. rebels say they are closing in on ethiopia's capital, how we got here, and what could happen next. then -- >> i obtained thousands of ges of secret depositions, internal nra emails, private documents that let me paint of picture of what really happened behind the scenes. >> inside the down fall of the nra, reporter tim mack tells me how the national rifle association misfired. also ahead. emancipated enslaved people in the confederacy, he was acting against what he himself had said was the constitutional rule. >> harvard law professor noah