tavis: good evening. from los angeles, i am tavis smiley.tonight a conversation with massachusetts senator elizabeth warmawarren. she has led a fight to keep student loans at the are in great. a filibuster defeated that bill. series of decisions that are hurting the economy and those who are struggling to stay afloat. we will pivot to a conversation with shannon o'neil. we are glad you have joined us. those conversations coming up right now. beautiful day and i

can't stop my self from smiling ♪ will on't hear this boy complaining ♪ >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. tavis: the student loan fairness act which would allow students to pay the same interest rate on their government loans as big banks went down to defeat late last week and as of july 1, interest

rates will double to 6.8%. severely hindering the ability of so many in this country to get access to a good education. senator elizabeth moran led the unsuccessful fight to hold student loans at a fair rate. she joins us tonight from washington to talk about the fallout. senator war and, thank you for thank you- warren, for your time. let me start by asking how your sense of how your home state is faring. they're still recovering. where were you the day the bombing happened and what is your sense about how the city and state are recovering? in boston andy massachusetts, it is patriots' day and it is a big celebration. it is a day when we are the world city. i stayed in massachusetts as long as i could

and got on an airplane to fly down here to washington because we had votes late on monday. i stepped off the plane and that there had been a bomb had gone off in massachusetts. i get back to boston and they held this on the runway and they said they closed the airspace over boston and you could not get through on area code 617 two call anyone. and finally got back to boston after a few more hours. it was really tough but i will tie you this. you really saw the worst in a best inf people and the thousands. people in massachusetts, people who were there at the marathon, they ran toward the blast, they were there to help people. loss ofot have more life because we had so many people who are in and helping and giving first aid.

our firefighters, police officers, our healthcare folks, just everybody just performed remarkably. they were all heroes. right now, boston is recovering. we are boston strong and that is how we are doing this. people are coming back. it is hard. .e have had hard losses yesterday was the ninth birthday of a little boy who was killed in the blast and had a birthday mass for him. are still grieving but we are coming back and we're coming back strong. tavis: thank you for answering that. it is difficult to have to revisit those kinds of horrific incidents. i was thinking as you were answering that question, it is one thing for too many of us to live in fear of terrorism. it is quite another to live in

fear of not being able to ever get access to a high-quality education because you cannot afford it. that is a different kind of fear that is palpable across the nation. you are doing in washington as you promised and as we expected you would, fighting for the least among us. your stalwart fight notwithstanding, this thing not turn out the way you wanted it to. on how your postmortem this rate will double on july 1. what happened? >> ok. the bottom line is interest for theich were at 3.4% new loans coming out, the new stafford federally guaranteed loans old double to 6.8%. that is going to be hard. it will be hard on our kids. fundamentallyi think this is wrong. the u.s. government, the

taxpayers, we invest in big financial institutions. we lend them money at less than one percent interest. if congress does not do anything we will be charging our on youre times as much student loans. i want to say this about it. we lost that vote last week. lost it is a relative term. a majority of the u.s. senate voted not to double the interest rate but as you know, the republicans now have the ability to filibuster and that is what they have done and they said they will not let the bill go through. short offew votes being able to break the filibuster but here's the the deal. i am not ready to talk about postmortem. i want to talk about how we keep pushing to get the votes we need. i am ready to come back at this. there are a lot of other people who are ready to come back at this. it is going to take people all across this country saying this matters to me.

we cannot do this to our kids. we cannot be a country that invest in big tanks. invest in our young people who are trying to get an education. let's not call it postmortem yet. we are still in the middle of the fight. that is how i see it. >> i accept that. i do not want to put you into the position of asking you to speak for the opposition. tell me how it is that members who we elect to service in washington cannot understand what american families are going through with regard to trying to get access to an education and allow this rate to double. how is that possible that anybody who has any care or concern for young people and understands the value of a good education could allow this to double? >> it is worse than that. the republicans -- but call it for what it is great republicans

have put on the table their own build. right now if we do nothing, student loan interest rates double. the u.s. government will make $51 billion in profits off the backs of our students. the republicans have said let's do a more market-based approach $16they would add another billion in profits off the backs of our students. that is their bill. they want to drive the cost of even more. the difference between right now where the democrats stand which is let's not double the interest rates, let's try to keep the cost low for our people who are trying to get an education, versus the republicans who are saying let's just make this where they just pay even more. that is the big difference. i will tell you, it is two things. this is about our economy.

when students were having to pay on student loan debt, they do not have money to do other things. put do not have money to up a down payment on a home. it hurts our economy it hurts our economy. what the republicans are proposing is they are saying they do not care. they are saying let's pour more money into the treasury and do it off the backs of our kids. this is not about investing in the future for them. that is what we have to talk about. how do you think we build the future? we build it by investing in our .ids, investing in education the republicans see that differently and this is the kind of fight we have to have and we have to have it in public. you are a sitting united states senator.

this day ands to that is the notion of the filibuster and whether or not the filibuster ought to go the way of the musket in this country or anything else or the model t. how much longer can the filibuster remain a tool to be used and abused on the hill, in the senate? right on that. the point is we have had the filibuster for a long time. it only got pulled out a few times. it just got pulled out in cases where there was a big controversy. now it is being used by the republicans to block, block, block. it is the party of no. it is no on student loans, and no one other things we try to get past. it is even know on trying to get judges appointed to the bench,

trying to get somebody to head up the department of labor, trying to get the people in who would run the national labour relations board and trying to get a the new consumer agency. it is using the filibuster to .lock, block, lock, block that was never what it was intended for. i guess maybe i watch too many old movies but when you watch mr. smith goes to washington and jimmy stewart says i am going to stand up to my he had to stand up and talk about it. put in something and you have to have 60 votes to overcome it. what i would like to see us do is start with some changes to the filibuster. how about make people who want to do it stand up and defend why it is that they are blocking legislation, they're blocking appointments that the

president makes to our agencies, that they are locking judicial appointments. make them stand up and be out there for everybody to see. make them defend it. that is a first step on reforming the filibuster. i would like to see it. we cannot keep doing this in washington where the majority cannot get anything through, cannot do the peoples business. that is not not going to work for this country. tavis: let me close where i began. that is with this notion of postmortem. i have been sufficiently spanked on national television. i will allow you to answer this, at this point, what is it that fellow citizens can do, what is it that you are asking the american public to do to push back on this notion of nothing happening and the student loan rates rising automatically come july 1? >> this is what democracy is all

about. i am down here in washington fighting as best they can and there are a lot of good people who are fighting, who want to see the student loan interest rates held low and i want to say i want to go beyond that and deal with the student death -- out there.s u here is where it takes everyone else. we need people all over this country to put some wind in our sales to make this happen. how can you do that? people can sign the online have theirthey can friends call their senators. you can e-mail and facebook and tweet about it. when you have done it, get your friends to do it and get your friends to do it. when you say to the folks in washington, people back home care about this. people in your home state are calling you and saying to you,

this one really matters to me. that is how we will pick up the votes we need here in the united states senate. this is one of those things, we are all in this together. this is about our values, this is about how we build the future. if you leave that, you have to be willing to get out there and do something about it. get in touch with your senators, a few votes short. we can keep those interest rates low. that gives us a foot in the door to start reforming, to start helping our kids who want to get an education. that is how we build the future. we do this together. tavis: there are a lot of folk like me who appreciate your fight on this issue. as poverty is threatening our democracy. there is no reason why students are to be punished. thank you for your work and as always, good to have you on this program. >> thank you. abouta conversation

mexico. andnversation about u.s. mexico relations. we will do that in just a moment. stay with us. mexico remains a country of contrasts with the drug wars and violence on the one hand and the rising middle class and a solid global economy on the other. despite our shared border and plans of citizens who can trace their heritage to mexico, our perceptions remain rooted in the controversy over immigration reform. shannon o'neil seeks to change that with a text called "two nations indivisible," she is a senior fellow for latin american studies at the council of oreign relations. let me start by asking from your perspective what the administration's intended goals

were for the recent troop of president obama to mexico and whether or not those goals were worthy in your eyes and whether or not they were met. the most is one of important countries for the united states. whether it is the food in our table, the drugs on our streets, an opportunity foris obama to set the agenda for how the new president and new team, and his new team will begin to work together. >> what was accomplished? what was accomplished? >> they set a tone that we will have a focus on economic growtos and talked about immigration briefly and talked about security briefly. any eight of the issues on the table. it then allowed the next day,

the ministers and all the people who will be working on things to begin that process. probably the most important thing is they announced a high level economic dialogue. --ging ministers to bringing ministers to talk. what that does is someone with a lot of history in washington is going to be there to bring together the agencies to coordinate the way we work with mexico. that was a big step forward. > tavis: there are a lot of americans still smarting about nafta. with that in your rearview mirror or as a guidepost, what does that relationship and economically? --nafta gets a really wrap. bum rap.

have seen trade between mexico and the united states almost quadruple to half $1 trillion worth of goods that goes back and forth. the more important amount is what is going back and forth and that has transformed. today for everything that comes in from mexico, made in mexico, almost 40% was made in the united states by u.s. workers. jobs on the side of the border and that side are tied and it is pieces and parts moving back and forth. when we think about partners in trade, china or brazil or even the european countries, less than four percent was made by u.s. workers. in an era of globalization, the reality of globalization, mexico is by far and away the best hardener for u.s. workers. >> may be the best in comparison to china. those americans who happened to be smarting are smarting partly because they believe that the numbers indicate we got the

short end of that stick. the relationship with mexico may be better than in comparison to some other country. what do you say to those who think we still got the short end of the stick? all this confidential data on economic flows and information. they'll find that multinational companies, instead of reducing the number of jobless by off shoring or near shoring, the create two new jobs here for every 10 jobs they create abroad. these companies are creating jobs. we see movement. some plants closed and others opened. one interesting example in the state of the union, president obama, the only mention of mexico is ford was bringing jobs back at that is not what has happened. ford has created jobs here in the last two years but the way it has been able to do that is

by creating jobs in mexico. by opening factors in mexico and having factories here working together they are able to make ford cars more competitive globally and increase the time and create jobs on both sides. particularly with mexico. >> the so-called reward, talk to you -- talk to me about how that has impacted the relationship. >> when you look at mexico today, many things have changed in good ways. the economy has changed, politics has changed, there is a democracy. socially it has changed with the rising middle class. what has changed for the worse is security. numbers of deaths rise to almost 70,000 people. this is related to the drugs back and forth and organized crime more generally. one of the biggest markets is the united states. the problems are transnational.

what we have seen over the last five or six years is the solution being more shared. the u.s. and mexico are working more closely, there's more resources going to mexico but there is more than the money. there is more cooperation back and forth between law- enforcement agencies and like. this is a real change over the last five or six years before we worked with mexico, we are cautious about working together. theee more cooperation on security side. that will be a long-term change. not something that will change overnight. newounghey haven't president. these young guys are meeting at in mexico. weeks ago tell me more about how the political winds are shifting and changing in mexico impact in us in this relationship. >> what we have seen is the

pre.n of the they have come back. there is some that worry it will bring back authoritarian tendencies and others that see it as a new party. whatever you think, where it lands on this, mexico itself has changed. the executive and the legislative branch works and the president has to negotiate with congress. congress is made up of three different parties. they are good at negotiating with congress. the supreme court is stronger. in many ways.nged what we see under this new president, when he has come out of the gates with is a very ambitious economic agenda. he passed several economic reforms and had other ones on the plane, especially energy

and tax reform. this could mean a lot of good things for united states because of how tired we are economically. if mexico does well among so too will the united states. part of theirst question is what is happening on their side and what is happening on our side of the ledger. there is this reform debate happening. more broadly speaking, many of orhave been chagrined troubled by the fact that we treated latin america like our backyard and we have to get better about that. and yet that is not an tied to who the players in washington. obama to thing for behave in a particular way. you referenced how attitudes are shifting in congress about how we treat mexico and our neighbors to the south. pre-k's it is not the state department that runs the

relationship my it is congress and other divisions of other departments that matter. it doesn't matter, some of the things that matter for mexico to fall out on partisan lines but not everything. groups that have support immigration and others that are a bit more wary. dividessome of this infections instead of straight along party lines but issues will matter very strongly for mexico and where they go as the future. so world trade and the border and how we will improve the infrastructure. all those will matter for mexico and our relationship. tavis: how do we best navigate this on the road ahead? >> what we need to do is take mexico as a partner and not see it as a problem which we often do. there is so many things, what benefits mexico will benefit us. if companies are working on

both sides of the border, they can increase their problems and unemployment. immigration, if we work today to resolve some of the problems, that could make it through -- people easier both sides. mexico has a part played. if we work together we will be at or at strengthening that relationship and leading the pass- letting the bad quickly. "two: the book is called nations indivisible." from tonight.ow thanks for watching. and as always, keep the faith. >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. tavis: hi, i'm tavis smiley. join me next time for a conversation with merle evers williams. that is next time.

we will see you then. ♪ it's a dutiful day and i smilingop my smelelf from ♪ you won't hear this boy complaining ♪ ♪ ot a beautiful day ♪ >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> be more. pbs.

% hello, i'm becca king reed. welcome to "this is us." this week we are coming to you from the vision quest ranch in salinas. this is the home for retired actors, animal actors and tonight you'll get a chance to meet some of the monkeys, big cats and, yes, african elephants who live here. we will also introduce you to a salinas man who has an incredible tale of valor and survival, an artist of another sort. he has spent the past 35 years recreating san francisco in toothpicks. stick around. % ♪ this is us ♪ this