>> tavis: good evening from los angeles, i'm tavis smiley, as the situation rocks our country, tonight, we'll have a conversation with the nobel prize winning economist. and with more on the great divide, and rerouting the rules of economy. and bill moyer discusses his documentary, called "an american jail" joseph steiglitz and bill moyer in just a moment.

and by contributions to your pbs station, from viewers like you. thank you. for years, joseph stiglitz has been at the top, illuminating our society, good to have you back on this program, sir, from columbia university. >> nice to be back here. >> so the trump budget is now out, at a balance or glance,

what do you make of it? >> well, i think it's pretty much what you thought, slashing basic programs. you know, he ran on a platform of helping ordinary americans, not cutting medicaid. and what we're seeing is his -- so quickly going back on his promise. the one positive thing seems to be sticking with the family leave policy. the kind that one of the things that was a pillar of hillary clinton's platform. >> we'll come back in a second, i hope. let me stay with this first point that you made which is that he with this budget has gone back on promises that he made during the campaign to a significant slice of the base that supported him. what do you make of that, number one? and how long before that base figures that out? >> i think it's a clear pattern of demagoguery that was so clear

in the campaign. it was very clear when you pointed a cabinet made of plutocrats you are not going to be focusing on very ordinary americans. and you see it on tax cuts that he is proposing, these are not tax cuts going towards ordinary americans. they're going towards the top. the old theory that we had back in reagan's idea of trickle down economics. you give money at the top, everybody benefits. last third of the century, we pri tried that kind of idea and it failed. it's actually the set of idea that led to the enormous increase in equality over the last third of the century. >> what do you think his budget will affect, which you wrote about and talked about now for many, many years? >> well, i think it's going to probably increase it in almost every dimension.

you know, when you cut back on the basic -- not only the basic safety net, the basic services on which americans depend. education, health, something that doesn't get as much attention as even the environment. because the people who suffer the most from bad environmental policies are ordinary americans and the poor. it pollutes the rivers. it pollutes the air. rich people can have expensive air conditioners. they move from air conditioned houses to air conditioned cars. ordinary people are not so well protected. and they're going to be exposed to the environmental damage that his stripping back on the epa will result in. >> and how do you square his wanting to cut you know so-called entitlement spending with this massive increase in the military budget? >> it makes absolutely no sense. you know, the cold war ended

more than a quarter century ago. yes, we're engaged in a global war against terrorism, but that global war on terrorism is not going to be fought with new aircraft carriers or the most fancy airplanes. you know, it is important to build peace around the world. that is where foreignid comes in so important. and he proposed to cut that as well. so rather than peace building, he is really war building. and war building is not going to make america more secure. we know -- what has happened during the bush era. we spent dozens, tens of billions of dollars on weapons that did not work against enemies that did not get, in alignment with a safer america. >> one could believe that the president has been wounded of late given all of these controversies he has had to endure. that is why i said one could say

that. >> i say that. >> if you say that and agree with that assessment, do you think the wounds he suffered will in my way stop him getting through the budget he has presented now? >> well, i think his chances of getting the budget as presented is very, very low. there are too many -- special interests, including in the republican party. he wants to cut back agricultural subsidies, most of which go to rich farmers. well, the republican party has been the real supporter of those subsidies to those rich farme s big pharma is where there ought to be cuts in health care spending. but it's not likely that with the republican party in the pocket of big pharma you will see those kinds of cuts. so what is going to happen is that when congress and that swamp that he is refilling,

promised to drain but actually appointed more lobbyists than has ever been seen in washington, i think the likelihood that you will see anything like the budget that he has proposed to merge is very, very low. but still there is a danger. there is a danger that there will be a tilt, a tilt in the direction, and very dangerous direction in which he is proposing to go. >> fair to call this budget reverse robinhood? >> i agree, yeah, that's right. especially when you cut programs intended for ordinary americans, poor americans. and give more money to the rich and to the industrial complex and the military industrial complex. it's money going to the top and it's coming out of the well being of ordinary americanins. and you know worsening that great divide that has been growing bigger and bigger and

the irony was it was that divide, which provided some of the impetus for his election. >> these are two separate issues i know, but i wonder if there may be a link in your mind that you want us to prepare for this conversation that is to go beyond the budget. and that is the conversation on taxes, we know it's just a matter of time they put their attention on this tax plan they want to put forth. any thoughts on that before the debate we know is coming? >> i think from what we can see, the broad outlines and the one page is all you can see is a broad outline. it was not a real plan. it will be money to the very top, a tax cut for corporations who already have been so successful in avoiding the taxes which they really ought to pay. a tax cut for the very, very rich. even his own secretary treasurer

said it was not going to -- whatever tax cut would be mostly at the middle, and he is reneging on what he promised. so it's a tax cut that is another example of more money going to the very rich. and worsening, worsening the problem of inequality in the united states. there is a theory behind this occasionally that they put forward called supply side economics. it's the same kind of theory that ronald reagan put through. it was -- cut the taxes, especially on the top and it so stimulates the economy, especially when you de-regulate that they more than pay for themselves and everybody does better. yes, there is more inequality they say but that is the

politics of envy, even though you're getting a smaller fraction of the pie. the people on the bottom and the middle will get a bigger pie. but the reality is exactly the opposite. what has happened is you will find inequality will go up even more and the economy won't grow in the way that he has promised. you know, almost all economists have said that what he is talking about, 3 or 4% growth rate is pure fantasy. in fact, with his cutbacks on immigration and some of his other policies that are going to lower standards of living in the united states, some of the protectionist policies, i think there is even a risk of a gross slowdown. >> we all know what happened when de-regulation was the order of the day during the clinton era, when robert rubin and larry

summers were running things, and we got into this de-regulation mess, and of course president obama brought some of them back into his administration. i raised this to give a perspective on it, but how concerned are you that we're going to go back to this whole de-regulation system? >> very concerned, i went back to one of the members of the trump administration, and he was all about repealing the dodd-frank, and it was at a dinner and somebody had to ask him didn't we have a crisis in 2008? wasn't that a financial crisis caused by de-regulation? and they just ignored that. and the reality is what we did in 2010 with the dodd-frank was not enough. what we really need to dies

butt -- do is button down, but what they're threatening to do is let it rip again almost a guarantee for another crisis sometime down the line. but that is not what they're focusing on. they're focusing on the money they will stuff in their pocket, knowing that in the end they walk off with the money in their pocket, and the ordinary taxpayers are going to wind up footing the bill once again. >> before trump got elected there was -- i think a strong momentum-building for this fight for 15, to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. and that fight of course is continuingin continui continuing, but there is a guy med trump in the white house. what do you predict for this fight in the next coming years? >> well, i think the fight for 15 is going to have to be carried on like it was carried on before at the level of our communities, city by city across

the country. and it's been an enormously successful campaign, san francisco, seattle, here on the east coast. so i think this is a campaign that is just going to have to continue. we've won the hearts and minds of americans on this fight for 15. now, you know, we're not going to get it through this republican congress. i think the focus needs to be 2018. get a democratic congress committed to doing right by the american working people. and american people. and knock somebody who has li-- somebody who has lied to them the way trump has. >> nobel laureate joseph stiglitz, nice to have you with us. >> nice to be here. >> up next, bill moyers, stay with us. please welcome bill moyers

to this program, the veteran broadcaster, the executive editor of a riveting document called reikers, and brings to you the information on people who have endured rikers island. >> it's gladiator school for year, if you get there and you don't have a weapon to defend yourself, you have an issue. violence rules. predator/pr predator/prey, that never changes. i'm in a situation, that is all i have ever been doing is fighting in the streets. so i'm looking like i'm in the place where i always trained for but just didn't know it. >> the sad part is the alternative to violence is more violence. and when somebody realizes that you are willing to be more violent than they are they are less prone to be violent. >> they taught me to use a level of violence that i could never imagine i was capable of doing.

>> i am heartened, big moyers, by what i think, what i sense and feel is an increase, an untake in the conversation that we're -- uptake in the conversation we're having in this country about mass incarceration, i think i'm right about that. you're not new to this conversation so am i right about this? are there more people talking about it? i want to follow up about this stuff. >> you are right, more people are talking about it and realizing our mass incarceration is a scandal and a stain on the american character. and there is a conversation going on, particularly at the state level. not so much at the national level, yet there was one beginning before the election when several republicans and several democrats were discussing a bipartisan criminal justice reform program. and then of course the election and donald trump and jeff sessions are lock them up and throw away the key type.

revive the drug war, put them away. and that is conflicting, clashing with the cinema that was developing in the country before the election. >> for those of us who know your history, we're on pbs, but we all know your history, i take you back to the days of the johnson administration when there were riots that broke out across the country. you were around when attica happened so you know that this is not again a new reality in this country. when did you first begin to wrestle with this yourself? >> well, when the war on drugs began to produce so many people going to jail, and it was just suddenly an increase, five times an increase in just a matter of years in the prisons. but i've done a number of documentaries over the years on incarceration. i did the very first documentary ever on television about women in prison back in the '70s, and

i have paid attention to it. but rikers island that sits between manhattan and queens, is very visible. i live between them. i paid very little attention until there was a culture of brutality that was developing there. and then after about 15 years some brilliant investigative journalism by "the new york times," "the new yorker" and other approximapublications, bu were built because of necessity, because of the journalists, not the witnesses. so i wanted to do a documentary that would allow the detainees at rikers to tell their own stories in their own voices and words with no filter between them and the audience as you just saw. and that is when we dug into -- found about 100 other former

detainees, got a dozen of them to tell us their stories in full and then we put it together in the arc of the story, the entry into the exit of rikers, you know what is happening, tavis, in rikers is in other jails, here in los angeles, the brutality culture, when you hear people tell their stories you really understand what tom stoppard meant in his play "night and day," saying it's terrible what people do to each other, it's worse what they do in the dark. so they're telling us in their own voices and telling us what it's like to be incarcerated in many of the jails today. >> it's a powerful documentary, a powerful piece, so thank you for that. most of the witnesses in this documentary are people of color, not all, but most of them. many of them poor which doesn't surprise anybody who understands

what our prison system is about in this country. but it leads me to ask, when seen on the network tv like pbs, why is it that you think the country cares? i know that it matters, but why should they care? >> well, they should care, because this is no way to treat people even those who have committed crimes. this is cruel and inhumane punishment to people in our jails, many areas are very expensive, in rikess, it costs $208,000 to keep somebody in a bed there. you can go to harvard for twice that. and the growing incarceration is a sharp edge of american racism. you know african-americans are arrested six times the rate of whites. hispanics, arrested twice the rate of whites. 80% of the people at rikers are people of color. a third of them don't need to be in jail at all because they're

not a threat to society. they cannot get the kind of treatment that they deserve. the brutality in many of our jails, whether california or indiana or illinoisor whe or wh just anti-human. so if we want to clear up american's human rights record, if we want to do right by people we need to revisit incarceration. >> what did you learn about the crime, where it came so institutionalized in prisons? >> because when you lock people up and lock them away, you hire professional guards to watch them. people do terrible things to each other. out of sight out of mind. we can't avoid it any more, because the numbers. 2.3 million people in this country are locked up at any given time. here in los angeles county it's usually 17,000 on any given day,

rikers, 17,000 to 19,000, there are many children who have a parent or more, two parents in prison. that is a scandal within a scandal here. so we just can't ignore it any more. >> i have seen some comments of late by u.s. mayor bill de blasio about closing down rikers and going by it on the inside. how has this been allowed to go on by authorities, who are either concerned about it? >> primarily because the populations of the prisons are african-american and hispanic, they're poor, marginalized, we don't think very often of poor people in this country, it's a general tendency not to take their concerns into consideration, politicly or humanly. so one thing the population of our prisons are people who have been marginalized in the country. there are many others, people who dispose of, get out of sight and out of mind, and it's always been a political issue you know

in this categoryountry. american has a history of puniti punitive policies of punishment. so a lot of people are relieved when criminals are sent away, locked up and the key thrown away. but the other thing, tavis, our jails and prisons have become warehouses for people who are mentally ill. back in the '50s, president kennedy ended the mental institutions and wanted the residents of those people to receive care and treatment everywhere. we wanted to develop establishments, a number of them alcoholics and addicts, they don't need to be in prison, they need treatment and help in overcoming their addiction and disease, and they don't get it so we lock it up. >> let me offer this as an exit

question, what do you hope the takeaway is for those of us who see this document? >> i hope they see the kind of reforms going on here in california. we need to reform bail, many people cannot afford bail whether or not they're arrested so that is why they're held in holding pens. rikers ce to -- penetrated the consciousness of new yorkers when a 17-year-old was arrested for allegedly stealing a backpack. he was sent to rikers to be held. he was -- he was not sent to trial. so he stayed three years. he was sent to solitary confinement when he kept protesting and he was brutalized by the guards, he got out of solitary confinement. went back to his cell, tried to commit suicide. so for trying to commit suicide they put him in solitary confinement again, he finally

got out at 20, he was released, a year later he took his life. marvelous young journalist wrote a profile of that story, his mother could not afford bail. that is why they held him. and he took his life. that story really woke new yorkers up. still we had not seen the faces and heard the stories of the detainees at rikers which is why we did this documentary. i did this research, we could not find one documentary that allowed inmates and detainees to tell their stories. usually they're edited stories, and there has been a terrific reaction. you mentioned the mayor wanting to close rikers in ten years. that recommendi -- recommendatin came from a state supreme court justice and they came to the

conclusion that rikers should be closed. a number of inmates who don't need to be there and distributed in other areas. the mayor heard about it, he got ahead of it. he said we can do it. it will take us ten years, but it has to be done in less than ten years. >> well, thank you for doing this and for all the other brilliant work you have done over the years. >> thank you, tavis. >> you want to check it on your local listings. that is our show for now, thank you for joining us. and as always keep the faith. >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. >> hi, join me for a conversation with david grant, on one of the most horrible murders. that is next on tavis, we'll see you then.

and for contributions to our pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

-today on "america's test kitchen," julia and bridget share the secrets to foolproof oatmeal cookies. adam reviews prep bowls with bridget. lisa reviews the best pie carriers, and elle makes julia outstanding ultra-nutty pecan bars. it's all coming up right here on "america's test kitchen." "america's test kitchen" is brought to you by the following -- fisher & paykel. since 1934, fisher & paykel has been designing