judy: good evening. i'm judy woodruff. on the "newshour" tonight, high stakes. congress enters its final push to approve controversial legislation ahead of the midterm elections. then, after the storm. puerto rico's inability to quickly restore power after hurricane fiona exposes the fragility of the island's energy grid, despite large-scale investments. and fighting disease. global leaders pledge billions more dollars to combat hiv, tuberculosis, and malaria after the covid pandemic caused major setbacks. >> for the first time in the history of the global fund, we saw reversals of hard-won gains across all three diseases.

judy: all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the "pbs newshour" has been provided by -- >> fidelity dedicated advisors are here to help you create a wealth plan, a plan with tax sensitive investing strategies, planning focused on tomorrow while you focus on today. that's the planning effect from fidelity. ♪ >> the kendeda fund. committed to advancing restorative justice and meaningful work through investments in leaders and ideas. more at kendeda fund.org. carnegie corporation of new york.

supporting innovations of the advancement of international peace and security. at carnegie.org. and with the ongoing support of these institutions. >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. judy: this has been a dramatic day for the united nations security council, with the war in ukraine taking center stage. leading players on opposite sides of the conflict came face-to-face for the first time since russia's invasion last february.

they waged verbal battle as the shooting war claimed more casualties. nick schifrin has our report. nick: in a war that russia says only targets the military, today the target was a ukrainian hotel, and residents of separation have lost help. >> for me, it doesn't matter anymore. it doesn't matter if it kills me. i have nobody to bury me. nick: at the same time in new york, the security council held an unusually senior-level meeting that antony blinken called existential. >> one man chose this war. one man can end it. because if russia stops fighting, the war ends. if ukraine stops fighting, ukraine ends. nick: the diplomats discussed russian horrors, including a mass burial site of 400

ukrainians. among the exhumed, a soldier. >> i do where one t -- i do wear one too. many of us do. and russia should know one thing. it will never be able to kill all of us. nick: russian foreign minister sergey lavrov walked in 20 minutes after blinken finished and said moscow considered the war necessary. >> the decision to conduct the special military operation was inevitable. ukraine prepared to play the role of anti-russia, a staging ground to create a threat to russian security, and i are sure you that we will never accept this. nick: and russia is now escalating the war politically, printing ballots for what nato today caed sham referendum, asking occupants of ukraine whether they wanted to join russia. and militarily doubling the number of troops already in ukraine. online videos show siberian

recruits heading to the front, part of a mobilization of 300,000 reservists. many appear to be trying to flee. multiple border crossings are backed up, including this one to russia's neighbor georgia. >> it looks like a lot of people want to leave, so it has all become a bit of a mess. lots of cars. nick: but today, both sides celebrated a prisoner swap. british, american, and more than 100 ukrainian soldiers, as well as pregnant ukrainian women, freed from russian captivity in exchange for a well-known politician close to putin and russian soldiers. but both sides said even the war's largest prisoner exchange will not stop the fighting. for the pbs newshour, i am nick schifrin. judy: in iran, there have been more protests after a young woman died in the custody of islamic morality police. she had been accused of wearing her headscarf too loosely. in iran, crowds torched vehicles and police stations overnight.

the associated press reported at least nine people have died in the unst since the weekend. iran's president dismissethe protests today as "acts of chaos." the u.s. announced sanctions on the morality police. bermuda is bracing tonight for a close encounter with hoa kane hurricane fiona. the storm is on track to pass just west of the island nation before heading to the atlantic provinces of canada. meanwhile, puerto rico faced and extreme heat alert today and most of the population still had no power. four days after fiona made landfall. we will return to this later in the program. republicans in the u.s. senate today blocked action on requiring advocacy groups to disclose big-money donors. democrats wanted to identify those who give $10,000 or more. they argue that so-called dark money has subverted democracy. republicans said the bill would encroach on free speech rights.

meanwhile, the house of representatives approved four bills on public safety and policing. they include more funding for local police departments, as well as mental health services for officers. democrats and republicans were largely divided on the measures. >> democrats actually have solutions in these four bills. real ideas that have been publicly available for months to make our streets safer and reduce crime. republicans are the ones talking about defunding and abolishing the fbi. >> democrats, who are in full control of this body, have had two years to show their support for law enforcement. only now, only now, when faced with an impending election, are democrats beginning to feign support for our men and women in the blue. judy: prospects for the bills are unclear in the senate. there is word that fraud in handling pandemic jobless payments may be three times as bad as the initial estimate. the u.s. labor department's inspector general reported today that scammers may have stolen $45 billion in emergency

unemployment benefits. the initial estimate a year ago was $16 billion. in economic news, average interest rates on 30-year mortgages hit nearly 6.3% last week, the highest since 2007. and on wall street today, stocks lost more ground as central banks worldwide raised interest rates to fight inflation. the dow jones industrial average slipped 107 points to close at 30,076. the nasdaq fell 153 points, more than 1%. the s&p 500 slid 32 points. ill to come on the newshour, melinda french gates discusses her foundation's ongoing push for global gender equity. a new book by two veteran journalists takes a look behind the scenes of donald trump's presidency. a palestinian comic stars in a new tv series based on his life as a refugee living in houston. plus, much more.

>> this is the "pbs newshour" from weta studios in washington, and in the west from the walter cronkite school of jrnalism at arizona state university. judy: less than 50 days out from the closely-fought midterm elections, the u.s. house of representatives has passed a bill to make it harder to overthrow an election. meanwhile, yet another government shutdown deadline looms. our lisa desjardins is following it all. hello, lisa. what are we, more than a year and a half since the attack on the capitol on january 6. congress is now moving on bills that would essentially shore up strength in the presidential election process. bring us up-to-date. lisa: we have just seen the first vote on this idea of trying to reform this antiquated 1887 electoral count act that is vague and left this opening

potential he legally for former president trump to make the argument perhaps the election could be overturned inside congress. so let's talk about what exactly the house passed yesterday. in this bill, it would first of all clarified that the vice president has no substantive role at all in certifying the final vote or outcome of the election. it would raise the objection standard so it would be one third of the members of each chamber. right now, it is just one member of each chamber. it would sharply limit the grounds on which any member of either chamber could object. it would be exceedingly narrow cases. in fact, the objections we saw in 2020 and years pass from democrats would no longer be able to stand muster if you went with this bill. what is interesting, these ideas do not reflect any kind of political candidate, party. they are not about former president trump or president biden. we did see a partisan divide here. only nine republicans voted in favor of this bill.

these are the nine right there. some of our viewers might recognize. all nine of them are not returning to the capital. they have either retired or lost primary races. you see that for republicans, and i have this reporting for my sources, president trump has made this a test of loyalty. what will happen next, the senate has a bipartisan version of this idea. it is a little bit different, but it is close enough. i think after the midterm elections, we will see a final version of this reform move or the in congress. judy: interesting it is taking so long. different subject, government funding runs out september 30. lo and behold, here we are again. they have not come to an agreement. there is an issue standing in the way. it has to do with energy projects and something called permitting reform. explain. lisa: lots to cover here. this is about the future of energy in this country and the future of the environment, including how this country tackles climate change. it is also about senator joe manchin, who said he had an

agreement thatis reform idea would me it into the end of the year funding bill that is coming up. his bill would have a two year on environmental reviews. sometimes that goes on for many years right now. it would allow for some projects to be declared having national interest. it would clear the way for a project in virginia, the mountain valley pipeline, which he has been trying to get through. this bill -- environmentalists say this would help the fossil fuel industry, but it would also help extend transmission lines, electric lines, which is good for renewable fuel. we wanted to talk to an activist in west virginia. listen to the debate, senator manchin's version of why this is needed, and this activist on why it goes too far. >> no matter what you want, whether it is transmission, pipelines, hydropower dams, more often than not it takes too long, drives up costs. you can double your costs within a five to six year period.

double what the original costs may be. >> for an environmental review to be done thoroughly and adequate, you need to allow time for the scientists to get out in the field and actuly assess what's happening on the ground. they need to be able to collect baseline data to ensure that there are no impacts to water resources. so you really can't fast-track that environmental review process. lisa: autumn has said there are already problems with this pipeline in the state. it runs down through west virginia into virginia. but what this is about is how the federal government handers energy and how it handles the land. judy: so we've got just a week, over a week barely, to get government funding figured out. lisa: senator manchin said this most be in the bill -- this must be in the bill. he doesn't have the votes. republicans say they are not on board. democrats say that it is too conservative.

i think what is going to happen as it stands right now, this portion of the bill will likely be removed. we will see where we are on tuesday and wednesday of next week. but if that does come out, it does clear the way potentially for a funding bill. we may be talking about money for ukraine and other issues, dollar amounts, but this looks like senator manchin just doesn't have the votes he needs. judy: as we said, we are just days away. i know you will be watching. lisa desjardins, thank you. days after hurricane fiona swept across puerto rico, americans there are dealing with intense heat, a water shortage, and a difficult history that has left the territory short on electrical power and crucial needs. william brangham has our coverage. william: they've spent hours lining up for gas and waiting for drinking water, driven in by the truck load.

all while an intense heat wave is bearing down on the island. four days after hurricane fiona pummeled puerto rico, over 60% of the island is still without power. gas used to fire up people's generators is one of the most urgent needs. >> first, i went to a bigger gas station, but we had bad luck and the moment i finally arrived, they ran out of gas. so i had to line at another place and spent even more time since this morning. william: without those generators, those without electricity will have little relief from the heat. depending where you are on the main island, puerto rico's redents are facing heat index warnings between 107 and 112 degrees fahrenheit. heat is believed to be a leading cause of climate-related deaths globally. one key prevention strategy is drinking lots of water. but thanks to the storm, more than half a million people are still without water on the island. volunteers and government workers are delivering potable

water in flat bed trucks, and handing out food to those who need it. >> we lost all our clothes, groceries, and everything in the wooden part of the house. william: earlier this week, the head of the federal emergency management agency, deanne creswell, toured the island. fema is pledging to do better this time after being widely criticized for its slow response to hurricane maria five years ago, and that outrage has continued. president biden said today he too realizes the federal response must be different. pres. biden: we are with you. we are not going to walk away. we mean it. william: but puerto rico's governor says it will take days for power to be fully restored to the island. these outages are driving renewed frustration and criticism of the private company, luma, that took over running the electrical grid in 2021. earlier this year, protests erted in the streets of san juan over the constant blackouts people were experiencing.

puerto rico's public power authority, known as prepa, owns the grid, but it went bankrupt. this mixture of public and private control has left luma and prepa blaming each other for the outages, which are tied not just to the storms, but to years of underinvestment and slow rebuilding. this, while residents of the island continue to pay the price. for more on how puerto rico is trying to recover from this storm, i'm joined by yarimar bonilla. she's the director of the center for puerto rican studies at hunter college in new york. yarimar, thank you so much for being here on the newshour. can you just give us a sense -- i know you're in touch with a lot of people on the island. how are people doing right now? yarimar: well, you know, you call puerto ricans after a storm and ask them how they're doing and they' tell you, we're okay. but that just means we're not injured. nothing fell on top of us. that could mean they don't have running water. they're bathing with a bucket,

they don't have electricity, and they're frustrated and they're tired. william: it seems too that there's this sort of connected crises going on. there's just the damage from the storm, but that as we reported knocks out the power and the water, and then you get this incredible heat wave on top of that. yarimar: in some ways, we've become the masters of resilience, but we're also really exhausted by that. and so, i think folks always in puerto rico, we will alws try to be neighborly and have good cheer and have the best spirit. but people are worn down. there has also been increased austerity on the island, and with no real improvements to infrastructure. so this comes at a moment where puerto ricans were already tired of dealing with blackouts, and to some extent, already had all their emergency plans. but i think it's really grinding on people, and it's not as it was what happened with hurricane maria. there was a certain kind of

novelty and everyone was very understanding of the historic nature of the storm. but i think that for a lot of folks, that kind of understanding has run out. william: help me explain something here, that after maria, which did such damage and took so many lives, there was this promise, and allocation of billions of dollars to try to help the island build back better, so to speak. and yet, we saw fiona come in as a relatively weaker storm and still do so much damage. how do you explain that? yarimar: well, that's the existential question. and i think that's what a lot of folks are asking. we had five years to prepare for this. that was a category one storm. why did we not do that? i think part of this has to do with the logic of recovery and of emergency management that hasn't adapted to the era of climate change. so it used to be that a historic storm wouldn't be surpassed for many years, but now the storms

are coming faster. and so we need to adapt our recovery processes, which remain very much bound up in red tape. and so, there's still a lot of folks who just haven't even gotten through the bureaucracy of getting what they needed to recover from maria. and the other problem is that at mes these recovery logics, what they focus on is temporary solutions. so perhaps we need to be rethinking stopgap solutions and band-aids and really invest in the kind of transformative recovery that puerto rico, and honestly the rest of the caribbean, needs. and since they're at the forefront of climate change and the storms are going to keep coming. william: specifically about the power grid, there was again an enmous amount of money and attention after maria to try to build the grid that would stand up better, and yet we still saw even before fiona came blackouts, protests, real dissatisfaction with that

system. why has that been such a sticking point? yarimar: well, we were promised that the grid was going to be privatized and that that was going to bring improvements, but it has not. it has brought increased prices. constant price increases. and it has also brought more and longer blackouts. so a lot of puerto ricans are frustrated because they're paying more, and puerto ricans have a higher energy burden than anywhere else in the united states. they spend 8% of their income on utilities, and they can't rely on those utilities. william: how much of this do you think is tied up in puerto rico's sort of unusual relationship with the united states? it's a u.s. territory and puerto ricans are all americans, as we all know, but yet it doesn't have the same authority and autonomy that, say, a state would. how much of that is complicit in all of this?

yarimar: it's hard to say where that begins and ends because it always feels present in every moment of interaction with the federal government. so when puerto rico gets the resources that it needs, a big show is made of the fact that they're getting the basic resources or assistance that they're just entitled to as u.s. citizens, but they don't always get those resources, right? and so the u.s. civil rights commission recently released a report documenting how aid was distributed differently in puerto rico after maria than it was in texas and florida after harvey. so these differences have been documented. and we can only hope that the amount of scrutiny that was brought after maria will help for things to run differently this time around. william: yarimar bonilla of the center for puerto rican studies at hunter college. thank you so much for taking the time. yarimar: you're welcome. thank you.

judy: back in 2015, the united nations made public 17 global goals to end poverty and hunger, increase economic opportunity, and promote gender equity by 2030. those goals were extremely ambitious. and to help world leaders get there, the bill and melinda gates foundation created and funded a so-called goalkeepers project. this week, it pledged another $1.2 billion toward that. but the foundation also reported that the world has fallen far short in its commitments. i spoke this week with melinda french gates. for the record, the foundation is a funder of the newshour. melinda french gates, thank you very much for joining us. this report that you've issued this year, when you look at it, i have to say it's pretty discouraging. the foundation acknowledging that seven years into setting these goals with regard to poverty, malnutrition, health

care, that the world -- and i'm reading it -- is on track to achieve almost none of them. what happened? melinda: well, we were making huge progress as a world pre-covid. so progress on poverty, malaria, childhood deaths. but then covid happened and it really set the world back both from the health shocks and the economic scarring that's there because of what happened to the world economy. judy: is that the whole explanation? melinda: well, it's not the whole explanation, particularly on the one related to gender, as i write about in the report on gender. the disease doesn't care about its biology. it doesn't really care about what gender you are. however, we had so much inequality going on beforehand that it just exacerbated those problems. like for instance, childcare was right here in our face during the pandemic. women couldn't work. the ones who could work online, some could, but many couldn't because of childcare. and it was really, really tough.

judy: in the report, you discuss some new approaches that you argue need to be taken. i mean, can you explain in a nutshell what that would be? because you all are deeply into these issues. melinda: we always learn, and you learn what can work better. i think what we've learned on gender is the world has been talking for a long time about empowerment of women. no, we need to really make sure women are in seats of power. we need to stop working on the symptoms and work on the root causes. the root causes have a lot to do with norms in society, but if and when we get women to the very tops of corporations, the tops of parliaments, they make different policies, they set different agendas than men set. and so, we've got to work on those types of issues. judy: what kinds of different policies would you say woman would move on? melinda: for instance, in rwanda, 60% of the parliament is women. they passed paid family medical leave. in the united states, we still have no paid family medical leave.

that's a tragedy when most dual-income families will tell you that both are working, and if they have children, it is very hard right now to find affordable childcare, much less a woman who lives in a remote rural setting. if she wants to go run her vegetable stall, she's still trying to find, where do i put my children? it's difficult. judy: so how do you make that happen? this is something we've been talking about, it seems to me, for years and years. how do you make it happen? melinda: you get enough people in the house and enough people in the senate who believe this, and you pass the right policy. and it can be done in the united states. it has been done in almost every other high-income country in the world, and many middle income and several low income countries. it's just time something like that passes. judy: that's something we've talked about for a long time. 1992 was supposed to be the year of the woman in american politics. here we are. it's 2022. women are, what, 28% of the house and senate?

people are looking for solutions. what's the solution? melinda: the solution is to fund more women's political campaigns and to help deal with the harassment that happens when a woman goes through political election. that is in the u.s. i would say that's one of many things we can do. but if you talk about around the world, walso need to look at not just putting cash in the hands of women, which was done during the pandemic. thank god cash was put out into societies, low, middle, and high income. but we have to get it into the hands of women and into a digital bank account, because when you do that, she has full decision making authority over the money. she can decide when it's spent, how it's spent, whether it's saved. she can build credit. so we need to help women get along much faster on this curve to actually have the true power in their households and in society. judy: in many of these developing countries especially, do you not still have cultural or religious tradition that requires that the husband, the

man of the family, be on board before a woman does something like that? melinda: but women will also tell you that once they get a bank account and once they start to have a little bit of money, things change in the household with their husband because the husband is very interested in having that income for the family. so his view of her changes. her view of herself changes. if it is in india, her view of her mother-in-law changes. so there are absolutely different cultural norms, tricky ones in different countries. but i will also say, you know, we have cultural norms in the united states. we saw bias in the united states about having women in positions of power. so we have to look at those cultural issues around the world and work in very place based ways to make and create change and we can. judy: and in terms of the united states and electing more women to congress, we looked at this. money is part of it, but it's also many women reluctant to step into this very contentious line of work, and especially now

when our politics can be, ankly, just so raw and ugly. melinda: it's true. it's difficult times. but i also know that women are stepping up. and women can also decide they're going to vote, and we are seeing record numbers of women signing up to vote in this upcoming midterm election. i don't think that's any surprise. so there are lots of ways you can stand up in our society and use your voice and use your power and your decision making authority to change things. judy: last question about the gates foundation. $53 billion, i think is right, in assets. you have an enormous potential ability there to make a difference. when the foundation was started, it was you, it was bill gates. the two of you were married, you are no longer married. how is that working? will you be able to continue to do the kind of works you've done in the past? melinda: well, we've had the institution now for over 22 years. my values are baked into that institution. we've been doing this work for a long time. i would say you know, the good

news is even during the difficult times behind the scenes, we showed up and did our best, and i know that i have this goal of showing up and doing my best every single day and i still given that we could am. work even when times were difficult, and we've been working well together even during the pandemic in the last year, i don't expect anything to change about that. judy: melinda french gates, we thank you very much. melinda: thanks, judy. on but the united kingdom is a judy: alongside the united nations general assembly meeting this week, there is a push to increase funding for the global fight against infectious diseases, including aids, tuberculosis, and malaria. most countries, led by the u.s., have signed on. but the united kingdom is a holdout. as special correspondent dr. alok patel reports, with government budgets tightening, there is concern that lifesaving

programs might be scaled back. this story was produced in a partnership with the global health reporting center. >> this is a story full of big numbers. around the world, more than 600,000 people are infected with malaria every year. nearly 40 million are ving with hiv. and nearly 2 billion people are infected with tuberculosis, nearly one in four people on earth. this is not to make you feel hopeless, but to understand the scale of the challenge. >> we work across around 120 different countries. >> peter sands is the executive director of the global fund, in new york for a final fundraising push. >> we work with governments, we work with civil society. we work with the private sector. most crucially, perhaps, is we work with the people and communities who are most directly infected. >> the fund emerged from the

special u.n. session on aids in 2001. major backers, including the gates foundation and the u.s., british, and french governments, saw themselves as filing a crucial, unmet need. since its founding, the fund has poured more than $55 billion into programs that pay for medicines, training health workers, and preventive measures like mosquito nets. >> since the global fund was created, we have saved 50 million lives. >> 20 years ago, fewer than one percent of africans with hiv, were being treated with antiviral medication. by last year, that number was up to near 75%. driven by international aid, including more than $100 billion from the united states. money that came to the global fund, and later, through pepfar, the u.s. program to fight hiv in africa, which eric goosby led from 2009 to 2013. >> it wasn't until 2002 that there was a first response that took money that wasn't right

there in the country and made it available to put it toward a response. >> south africa is just one country that relies heavily on the global fund for programs like hiv prevention. >> people don't want to beeen at the clinic because everybody knows that if you go to this door, you are hiv positive. >> until just recently, zanyiwe mavubengwana worked as a community engagement counselor at a clinic in masi, south africa. she heelf tested positive more than a decade ago, a diagnosis that ended her dream of becoming a doctor. >> i'm into helping people and making a difference in their lives. that was my goal. and i almost had a scholarship. but then, life happened. life happened. >> but for two decades, zanyiwe has been able to raise a family, and keep working, thanks to

life-saving antiviral medication. >> first and foremost, antiretrovirals are miraculous. >> linda gail bekker is one of the world's top hiv experts. >> those individuals, young people, would be dead today if they hadn't been able to access antiretrovirals and stay on those antivirals. >> and yet, dr. bekker says this success is now in jeopardy, a casualty of shrinking budgs and fallout from the covid-19 pandemic. >> we took our eye off the ball and we are paying the price for that. >> the global fund put more than $4 billion into fighting covid. but it also put a major strain on resources that has yet to be made up. hiv cases have continued to decline during the pandemic, but more slowly. and in sub-saharan africa, fewer people have been able to access treatment. tb and malaria suffered even bigger setbacks. >> for the first time in the history of the global fund, we

saw reversals of hard-won gains across all three diseases. >> we have to recognize that there are 29 million people accessing antivirals today. if their antiviral therapy stops, their disease comes back and it comes back in full force. >> a halt to these programs could lead to drug resistance and renewed spread of disease. >> we see the impact of tb, hiv, and malaria coming back in full force. not having a global fund at this point would be beyond devastating. >> in the region, tb, malaria, and hiv are all among the top 10 killers. it is home to more than half of the 38 million people around the world who are living with hiv. women make up nearly two-thirds of new cases. >> because also power differentials mean that they're

not able to request safer sex measures. >> despite all zanyiwe's efforts, her daughter, tiny, was diagnosed with hiv just last year. >> i was quite disappointed, i must say. i felt like a failure. it's like i did not do as much as i would have done. >> and now, tiny is seriously ill with tb. her partner just died of it. and zanyiwe, pregnant herself, is caring for their baby, who also has tb. >> i think the hardest part about it, it's that women are not empowered. >> kele motshabi is hiv negative and signed up for an hiv vaccine clinical trial because she's afraid, and says she can't rely on her boyfriend to practice safe sex. >> we are made to think that we cannot say what we want, we cannot express our feelings, we cannot get what we want, because we are women. it's like we are strengthless, we are powerless, we don't have anything to say.

we cannot say anything. >> it pisses me off. it pisses me off. >> to help these women and billions of people around the world, peter sands says a revitalized global fund is critical. >> the global fund is two-thirds of global funding for malaria. we're over three quarters of global funding for tb, and we're a quarter of global funding for hiv. so if we want to beat these diseases, if we want to save those lives, then we have to hit this target. >> still, a focus on individual diseases is not enough, says eric goosby. do you think it's still the right approach to focus on three diseases? or do you think it is beneficial to focus on health care systems as a whole? >> well, i've been a disease specific person my whole career, but i have seen enough and i believe know enough to say that it really is about a health system and your ability to

strengthen that system so it can deal with any disease. and we need to do it more and more, again and again, not just for three diseases but really for all diseases. >> the future for kele, zanyiwe, and others like them may depend on how much world leaders take that message to heart. for the pbs newshour, i'm alok patel. judy: investigations of the january 6 capitol attack are still underway. but as husband and wife reporting team, peter baker of the new york times and susan glasser of the new yorker explain in their latest book, to understand what happened on january 6, 2021, it is necessary to understand what happened on

january 20, 2017, the day president donald trump took office, and all the days in between. and that is the focus of their book, "the divider," which is out this week. we welcome you to the newshour. this is an eye-popping book literally from the first page, when you lay out the premise that the attack was the inexorable culmination of a sustained four-year war on the institutions and traditions of american democracy. peter, that is a stunning statement about the president of the united states. >> it really is, but that is the case here. january 6 was not an outlier. it was predictable. if you pay attention to everything he was talking about, trying to turn the institutions of american government into his own personal instruments, the justice department, the military, and all these efforts basically lead up to this moment where he is refusing to accept the democratic election in which he lost. to understand that, we have to

understand what he was doing for four years. nobody has gone back to take that look. judy: there is so much to ask you all, but a lot of the book is about the division between the people who were around trump, the people who were in essence trying to protect the country and worried about the country, and others who were enabling him. what is a good example of one of those who wasorried more about the country than they were about president trump? >> you are right, and the complication is in that faction red and, the enablers sometimes were also the resistors. also, the enablers were people who facilitated trump. without them, donald trump would have been some angry old dude shouting at the television in between golf games. but there was a group in particular of national security officials who defined their roles as protecting the nonpartisan traditions of national security. and this is a through-line that

goes through to the beginning of the trump administration. he called people like jim mattis and john kelly "my generals." he had clashes with them. he extraordinarily told john kelly, his second white house chief of staff, why aren't you like the bleeping nazi generals in world war ii? kelly said, what are you talking about? he said they were totally loyal to hitler. kelly said, no, they were not. they tried to kill hitler three times. but he defined it as service to the country as service to him personally. you go forward to 2020 and his clash with the chairman of the joint chiefs mark milley. for me as a reporter, getting a hold of milley's resignation letter, in which he called the president of the united states a threat to national security, he said you're doing great and irreparable harm to the country, it is still mind blowing. judy: was there one point when you felt the country came closest to coming o the rail?

we are clearly focused on january 6. but there were other moments as well. >> that is exactly right. all of 2020 in many ways was a catastrophic year for this country. the manipulation of a public health crisis, a once in a century pandemic, to exacerbate the divisions within american society, to turn something like a piece of cloth worn over the face as a public health measure into a badge of partisan this is a terrible tragedy for the american people, no matter where they live. i think the testing of institutions that we wrote about that existed, donald trump seriously considered in a five hour meeting in the white house after he lost reelection imposing martial law. he did not throw people out of the oval office and say, what are you talking about? he spent hours

contemplating unprecedented steps. we faced a situation that has never before happened in american history, in which a president of the united states refused to accept his defeat and sought to overturn the election. that has never happened before. no democrat, no republican, no president, period. judy: did you come away thinking that if some of these individuals around the president had been -- had more courage in standing up to him that things could have been different? or that no matter what donald trump was going to do what he did. >> that is a great question. one of the through-line's we found, we did all this research after he was in office, but we interviewed 300 people and they felt freer to talk after he left. the through-line was the struggle many of them felt, this moral conundrum, do i stay or do i go? those whwere not true believers. they told themselves the same thing over and over. if i leave, it will be worse because someone who comes and

takes my job will be more willing to do whatever extreme thing he wants us to do that i am trying stop. you can see the difference in january 6. think about john kelly. everybody in some ways is flawed. somebody told us in that white house, there were no heroes. but john kelly, he would have to turn himself in the doorway of the oval office rather than let some of the come in and talk about martial law, whereas mark meadows was called by one of the former republicans the matador because he kept encouraging this effort. i think people do matter and people around him mattered, even if they were not going to change his fundamental nature. judy: you do come away from so much of this looking at if donald trump runs for reelection. what is the country facing? did you come to a conclusion? >> this book is not just a book of history. it is in fact partly a prologue, it could be, if he won again. in some ways, it is a roadmap for where he would go. we interviewed a national

security official who spent time with him in the oval office. this person compared him to the velociraptor in the movie "drastic park," which is to say he learned. not about policy, but he learns to make government work for him after four years in office. this person compared him to the velociraptor who opens the kitchen door where the kids are hiding. he is learning to do it. the point is, in a second term, a lot of things that constrained him in the first term would not be there. he would not hire a john kelly. he would only hire a mark meadows. he would not be captive to the people who are slow walking him or resisting him. he would be much more aggressive and certain of his own ability. and he would not have a reelection to worry about. he could do what he thought was the right thing, or the thing he wanted to do most without being constrained. judy: finally, did you come away with a sense of what you think he will do about 2024? >> peter and i visited and interviewed trump twice in

mar-a-lago for this book. initially, i think we would say we were somewhat skeptical that he would, that he seemed sort of like a very unwilling retiree but a retiree to florida nonetheless. but i think in particular as we have seen these metastasizing investigations of donald trump continue and escalate in the last few months, not only th classified documents investigation, the january 6 congressional investigation and also the grand jury investigation, the new york state investigations, it seems that trump has a sense that actually being a candidate for president might protect him in some way. i also think that donald trump, as we all know by now, cannot relinquish the stage. i think the mere concept that the trumpists, the m ini-me's, people like ron desantis, the idea that trump will fade away gracefully and

let them take over seems very unlikely to me, knowing what we know of donald trump's personality. judy: there is so much to read, to reflect on, in this book, "the divider." it is full of information that americans should know. peter baker, susan glasser, thank you very much. >> thank you so much. >> thank you, judy. judy: a new series on netflix is gaining acclaim for its portrayal of arab-american life rarely presented in popular culture. and for the comedian who wrote and stars in the show and stars in t show co-produced with ramy youssef. jeffrey brown talks to mo am'er, who bases this story on his own. it's part of our arts and culture series, "canvas."

>> i went in there for some legal advice. >> did you kill the one about the muslim immigrant of palestinian descent -- did you hear the one about the muslim immigrant of palestinian descent and his muslim best friend? welcome to the world of mo. >> i don't believe in therapy. it is a scam. you pay some phd $200 an hour when you could talk to god for free. >> i have never seen you get out a prayer mat. >> i don't walk around with a prayer rug all the time. what am i, aladdin? this is not disney. >> the character he plays in this series is an american mashup of cultural collision, comedy, and crisis. some things are sacred, like the olive oil he carries in a small bottle at all times, reminding him of his home land. and don't think of trying to sell him chocolate hummus. >> nobody knows where it comes from. nobody even knows what hummus means. hummus means chickpeas.

some people say, here is read being hummus. this is not hummu, this is read being mash -- this is red bean mash. there is so much comedy to unearth. it is like this constant irritant that happens. >> there you go, it is comedy but an irritant. pain and pleasure at the same time for you? >> that is where the best comedy comes from. if i am not attached to it emotionally, i don't think it resonates comedic lake. >> we made i we made it. >> two netflix comedy specials. >> that was the second time i ever thought my career might potentially be over. the first time -- [laughter] -- was right after 9/11. [laughter] someone named mohammed, i am

like, it is not looking good for me out here. [laughter] >> now mo the series goes further, pushing am'er into acting. in a sensitive, funny, and often painful trail of a family much like his own, parents who left palestine and immigrated to kuwait, where mo himself was born, and in the gulf war fled again, this time for the houston suburb, entering the u.s. as refugees. >> i pinch myself daily. >> on a visit to new york recently, he spoke of recent success, early professional pressure to steer clear of his personal story. >>here was times when my friends, my really good friends in stand up and comedy would be like, my god. they would come in and i would do shows in houston. in a couple cases, just change your name. you are so talented, just change your name. it would be so much easier.

you are so good. they would hurt my heart. what do you mean? do you want me to pretend to be something else? that is the essence of standup. you are talking about acting at that point. you want me to act in my real life? how long do i hold onto this charade? that is definitely not it. >> mo the series takes it on directly. there is plenty of humor, but mo are barely scraping by financially. he finds work on an olive tree form. in real life, his father, a telecom engineer, died young of a heart attack, and mo learns he had been tortured earlier in his life. 20 years income of the family is still waiting for citizenship papers, a painful bureaucratic process. it is a portrait of a fragile in between existence. >> it took me 20 years to get my citizenship. you felt like you were american -- i felt like i was -- and then somebody would tell you, you weren't born here? then they would feel different.

how can you pay taxes and still not have your papers? it is complicated, and that has been my whole life. >> when you think about what story you wanted to tell in this series, how important is that palestinian identity, that heritage? >> it is important to me because it is who i am. i am palestinian. where i come from, these people do exist. it was important to me to highlight that. but it wasn't the main point. it just happens to be the vehicle to deliver all these messages of belonging. if you ever worked paycheck-to-paycheck trying to take care of your family and unable to do it, and you don't have to be an immigrant to rela to the story3 you just have to be connecting with a palestinian family when you are doing so. >> wasn't always obvious to you you could use comedy as a way to look at very serious issues that this series takes on? >> that is a great question. it is so deeply personal to me. i don't know if i can share that.

that is a lot. how do you share that on camera? are you comfortable with this? imagine doing that and it is on netflix. it will go out to every country on planet earth that have a subscription. that is a very hard thing to do and challenging emotionally. however, it is really important to settle into that, to sit in it, breathe in it. >> a serious moment, his mother pushing back against his despair. >> why are you raising your voice on us? what do you want us to do, sit and cry? do you think me and your dad sat outhere feeling sorry for ourselves because saddam took everything we had? >> only players and coaches allowed on the field. >> he goes to the pitcher's mound to extort his young nephew who has given up a homerun. he lives up to his arabic name, osama, or lion. it is all part of a deeply human story. >> you imagine all the things

that had to happen for me to come here and do a series, to end up with a series. my mom fled palestinian and ended up in kuwait. then you had to flee war as a little kid and end up in houston, texas. he goes to a rodeo, sees stand up for the first time. that is what i was supposed to do. four years later, my dad passes away. i am doing standup in english class, my dad's way of getting mean -- my teachers way of not getting me to skip anymore. i think it feels like destiny. >> how surprised are you to be able to get a comedy show? >> i am not going to lie, i look around sometimes like, is it real? this is great. it is really being received so well. i think it is clear that the appetite is really big for some real stories that connect with people in a big way. i am just so grateful. hard work really pays off.

>> mo am'er is waiting to hear if the series will be renewed for a second season. for the pbs newshour, i'm jeffrey brown. judy: it looks like that hard work is paying off. and that is the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. to join us online and again tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you. please stay safe and we will see you soon. >> major funding for the "pbs newshour" has been provided by -- >> for 25 years, consumer cellular has been offering no contract wireless plans to help people do more of what they like. our u.s.-based customer service team can help find a plan that fits you. to learn more, visit consumercellular.tv. >> the ford foundation, working with visionaries on the frontline of social change worldwide.

at with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. and friends of the newshour, including -- and with the ongoing support of these institutions. and friends of the "newshour." this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. ank you. >> you're watching pbs.

. hello, everyone, welcome to "amanpour and company." here is what is coming up. wide spread condemnation as the russian president calls them out and the united nations general assembly, weet more from spain's prime minister then. >> people need to understand how poll lit sized things are right now. >> journalists jennifer speaks