captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> woodruff: citigroup agrees to a $7 billion settlement with the justice department for it's part in causing the country's worst financial crisis since the great depression. good evening, i'm judy woodruff. gwen ifill is on assignment. also ahead this monday, a newsmaker interview with the united states' just-departed middle east peace envoy martin indyk, on the roots of the latest violence between israel and hamas, and what can be done to end it. plus, british comedian john oliver on the importance of fact-based joke telling. >> if a joke is built on sand, it just doesn't work, or it collapses, its very, very

important to us that we are, we're solid. >> woodruff: those are just some of the stories we're covering on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> and the william and flora

hewlett foundation, helping people build immeasurably better lives. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: secretary of state john kerry and his counterpart from iran worked in vienna today, trying to find a breakthrough in talks on iran's nuclear program. kerry met one-on-one with iranian foreign minister moahmmed javad zarif twice during the day, for several hours. there was no indication of any real progress. the u.s. and five other nations are trying to reach an agreement with tehran before a july 20th deadline. >> woodruff: a full audit of afghanistan's presidential run- off begins this week, under a

deal brokered by secretary kerry over the weekend. last month's election was marred by allegations of fraud. now, the united nations will oversee the review of some eight million ballots. the rival candidates, abdullah abdullah and ashraf ghani, have agreed to accept the outcome of the new count. in nigeria, a new video surfaced from the leader of the boko haram militants, the group that kidnapped 200 school girls in april. in it, the group's leader claims responsibility for attacks that the government never reported. >> refinery, yes. you people try to hide it. a woman sent by allah bombed the refinery. you said it was an ordinary fire? i ordered the bomb to be exploded and you say it's fire. if you hide it, you cannot hide from allah. >> woodruff: the militant leader

also mocked president goodluck jonathan and the outcry over the girls' kidnapping. he offered again to trade them for fighters held in nigerian jails. the u.n. security council has approved sending humanitarian aid to parts of syria held by rebels, even if the syrian government objects. today's vote followed increasingly dire reports about the suffering of civilians. currently, all aid has to go through damascus, and the great majority winds up in government- controlled areas. u.s. army sergeant bowe bergdahl returned to active duty today, after spending nearly five years as a taliban prisoner in afghanistan. he was assigned to administrative duties in san antonio, texas, where he's had counseling and treatment for the past month. the army is still investigating allegations that bergdahl was captured after he deserted. the wrecked italian cruise liner costa concordia was painstakingly re-floated today, off the tuscan coast. the day-long operation took place more than two years after the vessel struck rocks and

capsized, leaving 32 people dead. sally biddulph of independent television news reports on today's exercise. >> reporter: with each passing hour, a few more cabins of the costa concordia are revealed. almost imperceptibly, the huge vessel starts to float again in the biggest salvage operation in history. today the ship is being slowly lifted from the man made steel platform constructed beneath her by pumping air into the huge metal containers welded to her sides. she will then need to be fully checked before being towed by tugs to deeper water. there, under anchor, more air will be pumped into the containers to raise her to a fully floating position. the luxury cruise liner went down off the coast of tuscany two and half years ago. she'd sailed too close to the island of gigio where rocks ripped a hole in her hull. 32 people died in the ensuing chaos as the ship capsized.

the concordia's captain, francesco schettino is currently on trial for what happened. until last september the vessel rested unmoved on its side until salvage experts righted her in a huge engineering operation. the process to now float her is an even bigger challenge, her final journey will be to the port of genoa where she'll be stripped down and scrapped at the end of this month. >> woodruff: the ship's captain is charged with manslaughter and with being among the first to abandon ship. he's currently on trial. he announced this evening that he would become leader of the house of commons. the surprise move is part of a cabinet reshuffle that conservative prime minister david cameron plans to explain tomorrow. in the church of england,

england, lay leaders voted today to let women become bishops. the measure had the support of the archbishop of canterbury and of british prime minister david cameron. two years ago, a similar measure failed to get the required two- thirds majority. wall street got the week off to a strong start. the dow jones industrial average gained more than 111 points to close at 17,055. the nasdaq rose nearly 25 points to close at 4,440. and the s-&-p 500 added nine, to finish at 1,977. still to come on the newshour: citigroup's penalty for selling risky mortgage securities; martin indyk on the recurring chaos in the mideast; fighting flares along the russia-ukraine border; john oliver on turning the news into comedy; reflecting on the impact of the 2014 world cup; and, remembering nobel-prize winning novelist nadine gordimer who died today.

>> woodruff: "we should start praying, i would not be surprised if half of these loans went down." that's what a trader at citigroup wrote in an email in 2007, after reviewing thousands of mortgages bought and sold by the bank. today, the justice department cited those very words as it announced a $7 billion settlement with the bank. the government said citi committed egregious misconduct in the leaup to the financial crisis. of the $7 billion, citigroup will pay $4 billion to the justice department. more than $2.5 billion is set aside for what's described as consumer relief. tony west is associate attorney general for the justice department, and the government's lead negotiator in this case. we welcome you to the program. >> thank you so much. so lay ou>> woodruff: so lay ous what was this egregious conduct and how many people at citigroup were engaged? >> in a nutshell, what we were talking about is citigroup

packaged securities, mortgage loans into securities which they sold to investors. what they didn't tell investors was what the actual quality of the loans were. so you had these mortgage bond deals that had quality that was far less than what citi was representing to investors that they were. >> woodruff: and how many people knew about this, and did the knowledge go all the way to the top? >> well, a number of bankers certainly knew about it. in fact, we know from the evidence that bankers were warned that the quality of the loans they were packaging into these securities was not what they were telling investors they were, but they ignored those warning signs, they ignored their due diligence. in terms of how far up that went, i think certainly enough people in the country knew and enough bankers knew that we felt that we could demand a very high and, in fact, an historically high penalty from citigroup.

>> woodruff: so $7 billion, as we were saying, $4 billion going to just dis. what does justice do with the money? >> that money is a civil penalty and goes to the united states treasury. part of that money will go to fund additional cases in which the government is going to try to recover funds that have been lost to fraud and waste and abuse on behalf of the taxpayers. there's another $500 million that will go to five states around the country to help to replenish some of the losses that pension funds and other state entities suffered because of this. >> woodruff: and then the $2.5 billion set aside for consumer relief, who does that go to? >> that goes to consumers. i think one of the lessons that we have learned from the financial crisis is that it just wasn't investors who were hurt in this debacle. we know that there are homeowners on main street who really suffered because of the conduct that citi and other

financial institutions engaged in, so, as part of any resolution, we want to make sure we're bringing meaningful relief to those individuals. >> woodruff: i'm sure you know there are consumer advocates out there who are saying it's too little too late. we saw today a public citizen. i just want to read a comment, they said "no individuals are being held to account." they said, "the bank is not being charged with any criminal activity." they say the corporation faces no review of its bank charter, business continues in its offices. what do you say to those comments? >> i would say a couple of things. first, this is a civil resolution. it's not a criminal resolution. the very terms of the settlement agreement we have not written off any ability to pursue criminal charges, should the evidence merit that. >> woodruff: so that could still come? >> that's always a possibility out there and something

specifically carved out of this resolution. the second thing i would say is that we know, of course, that no one resolution -- this resolution won't solve all the problems created by the financial crisis, but it is an important step to rectifying some of the harm. i think when you talk about the principle reduction that we have, the rate reduction, refinancing features of this consumer relief, when you talk about the affordable housing that's a part of this consumer relief, i think the potential here is that there will be hundreds of thousands of homeowners and followers who will benefit from these provisions. >> woodruff: but they may not be individuals who were affected in the original instances? >> i think one of the things we've seen is there were a number of individuals who have been affected. you didn't just have to be an investor in order to be hurt by what happened as a result of the conduct of wall street, so it's our belief a lot of these measurers will have victims,

often faceless, nameless victims, but victims nonetheless of the financial crisis. >> woodruff: another critic, dennis callaher of the bert markets group, he said, that amount, the $7 billion, is meaningless without the disclosure of the key information about how many hundreds of billions of dollars citigroup made, how many tens of billions investors lost, how many billions in bonuses were pocketed, which investors were involved and what positions they now have with the bank. >> again, i think it would be a mistake not to think these are meaningful resolutions. what we're talking about is an historically high civil penalty, $4 billion. in fact, it's twice as much as jp morgan paid and, in addition, we're talking about really compensating a number of investors who were lost if they were state agencies, pension funds, charities and the like, and i think we really can't

overlook the potential power of the consumer relief provisions, the power that that has to help rectify the harm that occurred. you know, again, it's not a panacea, but it is an important component to trying to restore some of the damage that has been caused by not only the conduct that we were talking about here in the citi case but other financial institutions as well i. quickly again on the possibility of criminal charges, is that something justices actively are looking at? >> yes, and i don't want to speak in connection with any particular financial institution, so let me just say, generally, we are looking at all aspects. understand, the civil resolution is only one tool, but wherever the evidence leads, wherever the facts lead, we will not hesitate, if that is criminal, to bring those charges. >> woodruff: let me just bring a comment from the other side of the ledger and that is the banks. i know there were several

reports that quoted top folks at citi saying, you know, they really had, as they put it, a relatively smaller share of the market, that they shouldn't be held as accountable as some other large institutions should have been. what do you say to that? >> well, i think the fact will there are some people who say we were too tough and others saying we were too soft, i think that probably means we were in the right place right in the middle. but this market share argument, i know a number of people talked about citi add vansd, the fact is resolutions are driven by the facts and evidence of any given matter in any given case. it's the individual conduct. it's the conduct of an institution that will really determine how we resolve these cases and, so, i'm not saying market share isn't relevant, but the fact is it cannot trump the actual evidence of misconduct and, in this case, given the size of the fine, it tid not.

>> woodruff: tony west, associate attorney general. thanks for talking with us. >> thanks, judy. good to be with you. >> woodruff: now, as the seven- day-old battle between israel and hamas rages on, we turn to a newsmaker interview with a man who tried hard to avert this latest flare-up. newshour chief foreign affairs correspondent margaret warner spoke today with martin indyk, who just resigned as president obama's special envoy for israeli-palestinian negotiations. their conversation came as rockets rained on israel and the palestinian death toll from israeli air-strikes topped 175. >> warner: gaza shook with air strikes and smoke smudged the skyline this morning, as palestinians inspected the damage. at the same time, hamas rockets sliced through the air over israel, as air raid sirens blared and people ran for cover. in the past week, israel's

military has carried out more than 1,300 air-strikes, while hamas has fired nearly 1,000 rockets. and today, something new: hamas launched a drone aircraft over israel's southern coastline, and released this video, apparently showing missiles under it's wings. israel's military shot down the drone, but hamas said the launch demonstrates it's growing power. >> ( translated ): using drones is new in this conflict and it is another component the palestinian resistance is using to fight the war against the israeli occupation. this is an indication that the resistance has only used a limited amount of it's military weaponry against the relentless zionist enemy. >> warner: on sunday, israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu again defended the assault on gaza, and insisted the blame for what is happening lies squarely with hamas. >> you know here's the difference between us, we're using missile defense to protect our civilians and they're using their civilians to protect their

missiles. that's basically the difference. >> warner: meanwhile, three israeli jews, including two minors, confessed today to abducting and burning a palestinian boy alive. an apparent revenge killing for the kidnapping and murder of three israeli teenagers last month. now, the two sides are locked in the worst fighting in almost two years, despite worldwide calls for a cease fire. have made little headway. it's a far cry from u.s. hopes during the obama administration's nine-month push for a comprehensive peace deal that broke down at the end of april. this was secretary of state john kerry, just after the deadline passed. >> we believe the best thing to do right now is pause, take a hard look at these things and find out what is possible and what is not possible in the days ahead. >> warner: martin indyk, a former ambassador to israel and state department official, was the u.s. special envoy for the negotiations. today, he returned to his job as vice president and director of the foreign policy program at

the brookings institution in washington. i spoke with him this morning, at brookings. thank you very having us. >> thanks. >> warner: after these decades of peace making efforts including your own these eruptions between the israelis and palestinians seem to continue more frequently an ferociously. why is that? >> i think it's something secretary kerry was warning about when he started the whole effort to try to change the dynamic to a positive one which could lead to a resolution to the israeli-palestinian conflict, precisely nature pulse a vacuum particularly in the palestinian arena and if you're not moving forward the vacuum gets filled by very negative dynamic and extremists who basically want to pursue the conflict, so that's what we're witnessing now. so it's horrendous when it happens, but it's kind of indication of the chronic nature

of the conflict that we were trying to break out of. >> warner: what will it take to end this current conflict? >> well, cease fire. that's the most important thing. that has to happen as soon as possible. and secretary kerry and president obama's support is now engaged in that effort and, hopefully, it will be possible to get that in place. i don't think the israelis want to go the next step of a ground invasion of gaza because the big question then is who are they in favor of? they already pulled out unilaterally but got the rockets in return, so they would be willing to stop as soon as hamas is ready to stop the rocket fire, and that's the focus of the activity at the moment. >> warner: so why has israel masked all its tanks on the border and brought all the troops to the border? >> one thing hamas has to understand is there are grave consequences if they don't stop

the rocket fire. that's the signal they're trying to send. but prime minister netanyahu is very cautious when it comes to launching wars and i think there is a general understanding on the part of the public there's a whole world ahead not just for palestinians but israelis if it ends up in a ground invasion so it's important to try to stop the rocket fire before that happens. >> warner: so you're saying it's a block on his part? >> well, it's designed as a threat that if the bluff is called, then hamas will pay the consequences. but the palestinians in gaza will as well, and that would be a terrible thing. >> warner: a cease-fire was doashtd in 2012 and egypt and the u.s. were involved. is that possible today? hasn't the u.s. lost influence

with the parties and certainly hasn't egypt? >> there are things that egypt can do here that nobody else can do, and egypt and israel and the palestinian authority have a common interest in seeing that hamas not emerges the victor and indeed seeing the palestinian authority will eventually take back control of gaza from hamas. >> warner: does the u.s. have the influence it did two years ago? >> yes. i don't think there's any lack of influence on the part of the united states when it comes to trying to affect the party on the other side here, which is israel, but the issue is how do you influence hamas, how do you get hamas to stop. that's where egypt, qatar, turkey can play a role and they're working with all three

to make that happen. >> warner: seems to me you think this will follow the same pattern, ultimately the neighbors will get involved and a cease-fire will be negotiated. you don't see the docker scenario? >> the darker side would be if hamas decides for some reason they want israel to launch a ground invasion and then perhaps susuck them into a conflict whee we'll get the blame for the casualties that are inevitably be caused there. >> warner: in a nutshell, why did the aggressive push we made for nine months fall apart? >> what we discovered in nine months intensive negotiations is the united states was the only party that really wanted to change the status quo, that the two sides, for a whole range of different reasons, were not prepared to take the really painful and difficult decisions

that would have led to a breakthrough to ending this conflict. so you see that same thing playing itself out not just in peacemaking but also warmaking, that everybody wants to kind of return to the status quo because the costs of changing the status quo are very high. so that's, at heart, the difficulty involved here. >> warner: with you have spent your entire professional life working on issues that affect israel's security and viability as a jewish state in that region. are you having any doubts now about that future? i mean, if this palestinian conflict is not resolved. >> no doubt about it, if there's no resolution to this conflict, there's this chronic conflict which only becomes more chronic

and the periodic eruptions of violence that just create huge problems for both sides. so beyond that, the question is, as you asked, what is the future of israel as a jewish democracy if it doesn't find a way from separating and making peace with the palestinians? the demographic dynamic is such that israel will sooner rather than later have to choose between being a jewish state, because there will be a minority of jews in the area israel controls, and being a democratic state, and that's a choice that israel should never want to have to make. >> warner: so is the israel we have known in danger of disappearing or being destroyed? >> i don't believe it's going to disappear or be destroyed, either one of those. i think it's going to morph into

something else over time, and the dilemmas are going to be very difficult to resolve. they're only getting more difficult to resolve over time. the window is csing that the alternative of sticking with the status quo is not sustainable unless both sides are prepared to absorb huge costs and a future that looks like what we're witnessing on a daily basis today. the two sides have to decides the status quo is not sustainable. it's not good enough for us to say it. then, when they're ready to change, ready to make those gut-wrenching compromises, then the united states will be with them. >> warner: thank you. thank you. >> woodruff: next, to ukraine, where tensions are growing again along the border with russia.

in the last 24 hours, the two countries traded new accusations amid ukraine's battle to re- assert control over regions near that border. >> woodruff: fighting flared in eastern ukraine today as government forces pressed the offensive against pro-russian rebels. the rebels have lost half the territory they once controlled, and been pushed back into the cities of donetsk and luhansk. the military re-captured several more villages today. in luhansk, broken glass and debris littered a damaged schoolhouse, and nearby apartments showed floors of shattered windows. >> ( translated ): they've been shooting from all the sides. i have small children, so we put them into a bathtub and laid down on the floor, listening to shattered windows falling and people around screaming. >> woodruff: but as ukrainian forces advance, tensions with russia have erupted anew. kiev blamed the russians today for shooting down a ukrainian

military transport plane. no one aboard was injured. on sunday, a cross-border shelling attack reportedly killed a man on the russian side of the border. moscow accused ukrainian forces, but a ukrainian defense ministry spokesman pointed at the rebels. >> ( translated ): the information that it was done by ukrainian servicemen is a complete lie. we have many examples of terrorists carrying out provocation shootings, including into russian territory, and then accusing ukrainian forces of it. >> woodruff: ukrainian president petro poroshenko went further, charging that russian officers are fighting alongside the rebels. he claimed the russians and their allies are feeling the heat. >> translated ): all incidents on the state border, all, without any exceptions, are caused by us having them by the throat. we now time after time see their columns, intercept their

columns, use artillery, aviation to destroy those columns. >> woodruff: in turn, russia formally asked that outside european monitors visit several border towns affected by the fighting. >> woodruff: for more on ukraine, we turn to new york times reporter sabrina tavernise, who is in donetsk. i spoke to her a short while ago via skype. thank you for talking with us. tell us about the ukrainian military aircraft that went down. >> reporter: so it was kind of middle of the afternoon. there's a big dispute about it. ukraine is accusing basically a very sophisticated anti-aircraft missile of shooting it down from russian territory. tugs hasn't -- russia hasn't responded to that claim but a number of military analysts are saying that's pretty unlikely that the most likely scenarios that rebels in this eastern

ukrainian area shot the plane down. it's close to the border, sort of in a field. it's unclear how many people were aboard. it was a cargo plane, but a spokesperson -- a spokeswoman, actually, for the rebel government told me this afternoon they've actually taken five hostages. >> woodruff: that's been impossible to verify, right? >> yes. ukrainians haven't said anything yet about whether there were hostages or not, but it seems likely as there wasn't a high body count at the plane. i had a colleague who actually was at the plane and didn't see -- saw one body, but that was it. >> woodruff: now, sabrina, you are also in the to you of luhansk today several hours away. what did you see there? >> so that was very interesting. it's the scene of a very intense

battle between the ukrainian government and the rebel forces, more intense than the one in donetsk, which is the city everyone is focused on because it's so much bigger. but luhansk is a poorer, gritter version of donetsk. the ukrainians have been showing and hitting rebel positions in a lot of the areas around the edges of the city. the ukrainians say they've made serious advances and taken territory, but i spent a good ten hours today going around the edge of the city and some of the neighborhoods they said they controlled and we didn't see any evidence of ukrainian soldiers or tanks or presence. we did see many, many -- you know, a lot of damage from shelling and a lot of people very angry at the ukrainian military for what they say is imprecise weapons and civilian casualties. >> woodruff: so is it possible to describe the extent of the

territory that the rebels are holding on to? >> you know, it is still substantial. you know, luhansk, donetsk and sort of a large suburb of donetsk is nearly 2 million people, and then a large swath of territory that takes up a chunk of the russian border in the southeast of ukraine. so, you know, the ukrainian military has said that they halved the territory the rebels control. that might be a little bit of an overstatement but they certainly have staken some substantial ground. but they still have a very serious fight ahead. you know, without the ground troops they would need to come in and take control in a more precise fashion, it's appearing, on artillery and shelling, they are inflicting some civilian

damage. >> woodruff: what about claims from the ukrainians there are russians mixed in with the rebels doing the fighting with them? >> it's something we have been following a long time. it's impossible to say whether they're actually commissioned russian military officers. it's not a situation like that, it doesn't seem, but there are certainly many russian passport holders who are among the fighters. how many is unclear but quite a number. >> woodruff: sabrina tavernise, reporting from donetsk. thank you very much. >> you're welcome. >> woodruff: next tonight, a fresh perspective on current news. jeffrey brown talks with comedian john oliver. >> if we let cable companies offer two speeds of service, there won't be usain bolt and usain bolt on a motorbike, there will be usain bolt-ed to an anchor! >> brown: the highly divisive

debate over who controls internet speed and access, so- called "net neutrality," is hardly standard comic fare. >> the point is that the internet in its current state is not broken and the fcc is currently taking steps to "fix that." >> brown: but it's just the kind of policy and political subject that john oliver tackles, often in surprising depth, on his new hbo comedy program, "last week tonight." >> we need you to channel that anger. >> brown: his admonition to viewers to write to the f.c.c. even briefly shut down the agency's comments section of the website. born in a suburb of birmingham, england, oliver studied english and joined a comedy troupe at cambridge university. he performed stand-up in festivals, pubs and clubs around england, before coming to this country and joining "the daily show with jon stewart" in 2006.

eventually sitting in as host while stewart took time off. the new program has probed, poked fun, and raised serious questions around a variety of news topics, from india's elections to supreme court decisions. >> let's talk about the death penalty. >> brown: the weekly format, he says, gives him and his staff, which includes former magazine researchers as well as comedy writers, the time to develop stories, even if it feels like they're hanging on by the seat of their pants. we talked recently at h.b.o. in new york. >> some weeks its been controlled drowning, it's just been reacting and desperately trying to get something on tv. >> brown: controlled drowning. >> yeah, controlled drowning. meaning you eventually drown, but you try and stay above water for as long as possible. >> brown: until sunday, until-- >> exactly, you just get to 11:31, and your head disappears below the surface. >> brown: how do you decide what you're going to cover, what's, you know, we sit down every day, think the criteria of most important, most vital, most

urgent, something like that, what is it for you? >> well, we've been drawn so far, to slightly more off the beaten track, nothing that screams i'm going to be amazing comic fodder. yeah, we've been kind of been drawn to making life difficult for ourselves. >> brown: but these things, india's election, climate change, net neutrality, and i speak as someone whose experiences trying to cover them, those are serious issues, right? >> they are not funny initially, no. there's something about playing with toys that are that difficult, that become more satisfying for us to kind of break by the end of our weeks process. with india's election there was some funny elements to that, but the thing that really drew me to it was this thing is incredible. >> brown: well, and the other thing though, that seemed to come out of that, was you were also struck by, this is a huge thing, and nobody is paying attention. >> well it didn't make any

sense, it didn't make any sense to me, that the largest exercise in democracy in the history of humanity was not interesting enough to cover. >> brown: and what work goes in, is there a lot, is it research, is it reporting in a sense? >> no, it's reporting in no sense, no it's a lot of research, there's a lot of reading around it. >> brown: so you are concerned about getting it right? >> yeah, definitely. oh, absolutely, because you cant-- >> brown: that got you, i mean, you really care about that. >> for sure, because you can't, if a jokes built on sand, it just doesn't work, or it collapses. it's very, very important to us that we are, we're solid. >> brown: net neutrality, got a lot of attention. did it surprise you that you had even the power to get people to respond, and to write to the f.c.c.? >> yeah, i don't know if i really have any power, but it was surprising that people paid attention to it. >> brown: but you do have a

certain amount of power. >> a certain amount, that certain amount i think is tiny. i have no moral authority, i'm a comedian. >> brown: it's always interested me that jon stewart has often had to tell people, "hey, we're a comedy show, were not a news program." >> yeah, he's right. >> brown: right, but there is this blurring, is there not? > not in our minds. i mean i cant speak for him, but no, we're comedians. i think that becomes more a sad commentary on news than it does on us, though. the only responsibility i feel as a comedian is i have to make people laugh, if i don't do that, and im sure that i often don't, then i have failed. >> brown: when did you first decide that you wanted to focus on current events? >> when you do stand-up, you're just concerned with trying to leave with some semblance of human dignity at the end of your performance. once you learn how to make people laugh, then you get to

choose exactly how you want to make them laugh, and so then you can get to make jokes about things you actually care about, so rather than doing anything to make people laugh, you can then say like oh, well, maybe i'm interested in talking about, you know, my life, or about politics, or about sports, you know, you can direct your comedy. you kind of, you can control it better. >> brown: does being british, an outsider, help you in looking at american politics, and journalism, and culture? >> i think being an outsider in general always helps you in comedy, i think it helps to have an outsiders eye, and so i have an outsiders voice, you know, as soon as i start talking i don't belong here, and i think that helps in a way. >> brown: and are you finding yourself more american? >> that is a good question. i certainly love it here, and i

love living here, and i see this as my home, kind of physically and emotionally, so yes, i guess, i have kind of fallen in love with this country, i would really like to vote. when i got my green card it was a, it was a really emotional moment, and i was not expecting that to be the case. i nearly cried, again nearly, i'm british, nearly crying is, "oh my goodness." >> brown: but if you get your citizenship, you'll be bawling? >> then i'll cry american tears, you know, like the kind you guys always cry at the olympics, that's always thbritish view, if you talk about americans watching downton abbey, and thinking, "god, what is wrong with you people," british people generally watch americans going to the olympics and saying, "oh, for goodness sake." >> brown: pull yourself together? >> pull yourself together, you won, alright, for goodness sake,

sack up. >> brown: john oliver, thank you. >> oh it's a pleasure, thanks. >> woodruff: there's more online, where john oliver tells jeff why "downton abbey" reminds him a bit too much about his own childhood. you'll find that on art beat. >> woodruff: it had to end sometime, and yesterday's final game of the 2014 world cup in brazil provided a thrilling conclusion to what, by all accounts, has been a memorable contest. overnight, germany celebrated its 1-0 win over argentina in extra time, it's fourth cup title overall and first since 1990. the victory came after mario gotze knocked the ball down with his chest and then kicked it into the far side of the net. meanwhile, brazil is beginning to come to terms with its team's devastating losses and the high costs of hosting the cup. in the u.s., record high t.v. audiences may signal a new level

of interest in the "beautiful game." for these and other takeaways, we're joined by tommy smyth of espn, who called the games on radio and matt futterman of the wall street journal. he's still in brazil. we welcome you both to the "newshour". so let's talk first about germany's win yesterday. matt futterman, how big an accomplishment for them? >> this is a huge accomplishment for them. it's something they have been working on for about a decade, now, since the current coach and the former coach really decided to remake germany from a very sort of tactical, sort of laboring, defensive-minded team into this attacking machine that is just absolutely relentless, has some of the greatest athletes in the world playing for it. they have been close in the last few big tournaments and finally got where they wanted to be last

night. >> woodruff: tommy smyth, what do you think put germany over the top and did the other teams even come close? >> no, the other teams didn't come close. brazil got the loud knocked out of them by germany, 7-1, and they were the host nation. they were the team who just said let's just give them the cup, we don't even have to play for it because they were the favorites. but germany, when they went back to the convention, the german team kept coming at you and at you. keep in mind, the man who scored the winning goal is only 22 years of age and to win the world cup in south america, no european nation has ever done it and doing so they beat brazil and argentina, to south american powers, couldn't be better for the germans. >> woodruff: was it all close when it was all said and done?

>> i think it was close. a goal in the 113th minute of actual time, that's the way the workups have been going in the last few years, into actual time. that's pretty close. at the end of the day, you look at the resume of seven games germany played, it was a pretty impressive show they put on and, obviously, we'll be talking about it for 50 years the 7-1 blowout of brazil on their home soil. >> woodruff: tommy smyth, what are these games going to be remembered for overall? how good have they been? >> i would say, in my opinion, this has been the best world cup i've ever seen and, mind you, i've seen a few. i have been around for a while for these world cups. it had controversy, great games, great players, surprise results. the u.s. got a great run. for 100 years we'll talk about the 7-1 shellacking of brazil by germany. the fact that we've always said football is a game you run

around after the ball for 90 minutes and the germans won. they ran for 120 minutes and the germans won again anyhow. >> woodruff: what's your amazing takeaway, matt futterman? >> i think brazil proved some things to the world in pulling this off. up until the last minute, there were questions about to whether the event would happen, whether the stadiums would be finished, whether the infrastructure would be finished. i think brazil surprised a lot of people and that is a huge, huge accomplishment for a country who will host the olympics in two years. there were a lot of questions about that in may. i would say there are a lot fewer questions about whether the olympics will come off especially now we're into july. >> woodruff: how does brazil come out of this? clearly a huge disappointment for them in terms of their loss,

but in terms of pulling off the game themselves, does that in some way make up for the loss? >> in some way it makes up for the loss, but, you know, the people weren't feeling very good about the world cup because of the money it was costing and the people are feeling even worse now because, a, the money it cost and, b, how badly their team played because football, soccer, call it what you want, is everything in brazil, and they wanted a good result. they didn't even get a good result in the third-place game. so i would say that brazil is feeling pretty bad about it, but to the rest of the world, they can hold their heads high. they did a fantastic job of hosting the world cup. >> woodruff: matt futterman, you're still there. what are brazilian people saying? we know there have been -- there's been a whole lot of conversation since the game during and since the game's ended. >> well, the first thing they're saying is thank god argentina didn't win because they're their big rival and that would have

been the ultimate nightmare if argentina had won on bra brazin soil. they say they're upset. i think this loss to germany will spark a conversation about what brazil needs to do to regain the confidence and prominence in world soccer thatt it had the last 100 years. nothing happens by accident in sports anymore. brazil needs to cultivate the talent it

bank on it, better than forecast earnings out of city group lists the financial sector and lead the dow to a fresh intraday high. the city's numbers set the tone for a big week ahead. >> how cyber criminals are lying in weight in your hotel. what business travelers and anyone else needs to know. >> and bang for your buck. why more of your 401(k) dollars are actually working for you and not your plan. all that and more tonight on nightly business report for monday july 14th. >> good evening everyone, corporate deal making and city group earnings lifted stocks on wall street today. the flurry of news boosted ci