thank you, amna. this latest attack has once again raised questions about how to prevent these kinds of tragedies. and here in washington, a bipartisan group of lawmakers met today to discuss what, if any, potential solutions could earn the necessary 60 votes in the u.s. senate. carl hulse is the chief washington correspondent for "the new york times." he joins me now from capitol hill. carl hulse, welcome back to the “newshour.” your piece that you wrote this morning was headlined, why republicans won't budge on guns. and you quoted a comment from north dakota senator carl -- i'm sorry -- kevin cramer. tell us about that exchange and what he said. carl: well, senator cramer -- i give him credit for being pretty forthright -- was engaged in a discussion, said, well, i'm not -- i don't want to take things off the table. i'm going to consider things. and i asked him, i said, what would happen to you, how would your voters respond if you backed gun control? and he said, they would probably throw me out o

amna: good evening. i'm amna nawaz. on the "newshour" tonight, the cost of covid -- americans reflect on hardship and loss as the united states approaches one million deaths from the coronavirus pandemic. then, joining the alliance -- russia's war agnst ukraine prompts finland's leaders to seek nato membership as soon as possible. and -- judy: i'm judy woodruff in charlottesville,irginia, where we are thinking about the legacy of “newshour” cofounder jim lehrer, and having a conversation about political polarization and democracy in crisis. prof. milkis: the system is in dire straits when each side think the other side is an existential threat to american democracy. amna: 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 landscape has cha

amna: but how will you care for them?> i had a woman earlier who thanked me for my stand on the supreme court issue. she said she and her husband were able to adopt four children many years ago whose parents did not want them. and had abortion been available, those children wld not have been living and thriving. we are going to take care of the children in the state of arkansas. amna: if i may, from a resources standpoint, your system is overwhelmed. you had a 14% increase in the last two years of kids in the foster care system. not enough families to take them in. is there a plan in place? >> certainly there is. that is why i am serving as the attorney general and running to be the next lieutenant governor of arkansas and supporting my dear friend, sarah huckabee sanders, is the next governor. we will have the resources necessary to take care of our kids and give them the education they need, to make sure that we take care of those in foster care. i have worked in the foster care system. what those children need our love

amna: has it gotten easier?and i said the day that it becomes easy for me to tell my story about jei is a day i need to leave this and not ever be in it again. because that means i become numb. and once you become numb, how can you be a caring individual taking care of survivors? you can't . then you're just a robot and doing the things that you think you should do instead of really ouowing the compassion that they going? sandy: jessi. jessi was a very caring young lady from the time she was old enough to toddle through nursery school. she was the 1 -- her teachers would always say she's the one that goes over to comfort the kid that's crying or goes over and welcomes the new kid. and she was always that way through her entire life. when she moved to colorado and somebody would call her and say, you know, i have a friend that's moving to colorado.he you know, right before she was killed, there had been horrible wildfires outside of denver. and she was like, you know, mom, these people are going to have clothing

amna: that's right. two days after the massacre here at robb elementary school the pain is still very raw and real for so many here. those mourning the loss of those 19 children and two teachers. but authorities are starting to fill in some details about exactly what happened and when, even as there are a number of details they still cannot or will not answer. a couple of key details they revealed today for the first time, the biggest question was how did the gunman get into the school in the first place. officials say it aears the door was just unlocked. they have been sharing details that they are going through video and additional interviews. they say that detail could change but right now that is what they believe to be true. the other thing they mention is despite earlier reports that the gunman as he approached the school building was confronted by and engaged by a school resource officer, and armed police officer, officials today say that was not true. there was no engagement, no confrontation out

amna, thank you very much. as we have been hearing, the shooting in texas has renewed calls for more gun regulations. but congress remains gridlocked on the issue. democratic senator chris murphy represents the state of connecticut, where the deadliest elementary school shooting in american history happened in 2012. and senator murphy joins us now from capitol hill. senator, thank you for being here. you stood on the senate floor yesterday. and you said to your fellow senators -- and i'm just quoting -- what are we doing? you said, why are we spending all this time running for the senate if your answer is, as the slaughter increases, we do nothing? have you heard any answers from your fellow senators? sen. murphy: this is a moment that compels us to action. i mean, my question was sincere. i don't understand why you spend all this time trying to be a member of the world's greatest deliberative body if you're just going to sit back and let the slaughter continue without answer. i have been engaged all day today

amna: what about what other states are doing? understand how your state is prepared if this were to be overturn. other states are working to codify and welcome people who are seeking abortion care services into their states. would you go after arkansas residents who go to other states to get those same kind of abortion services? >> we will have to look at whether or not those states allow those practices. i'm quite frankly appalled when i see nevada and new york and their attorneys general and state leaders saying abortions are going to be on-demand in our state. we are ready to take care of a pregnant person. as the mother of a three-year-old baby girl, there is no such thing as a pregnant person. only women get pregnant, and i am appalled that they are advertising they are going to be alive and well. that is a public policy discussion to be had in those respective states. that is what this decision is about, whether or not we will adhere to the constitution and put the power back to the respective states. amna: leslie rutledge

amna nawaz is in uvalde tonight. amna, what have you learned?e in uvalde, the more we learn, the worse it gets. officials today laid out the most in-depth timeline to date of what exactly happened during tuesday's shooting, detailing the 78 minutes that passed before a authorities are finally confronted the gunman even as children trapped inside the classroom called 911 begging for help. three days after the deadly rampage that left 19 ouvalde's youngest dead, grief and anger commingle in this tightly knit community. dora: i will never have my baby again! and they need to do something about it! they need to not forget the babies, the kids! amna: javier cazares' daughter jacklyn was killed on tuesday. he was outside the school during the shooting, in disbelief over the police response. javier: they were there without proper equipment, i saw. 15-20 minutes later came with their shields. like, that should have been in their cars, you know, going in, not waiting 30-45 minutes to get in. amna: vincent salazar's 11-year-old daughter layla was one of t

amna nawaz has that.can party has long been the political party of choice for conservatives, but as mathew continuity explains in his new book, the 100 year war for american conservatism, the gop has attracted those with populist views similar to what we see today. he joins us now. the book takes a much longer view of conservatism. it starts in the 1920's, tracking the evolution of conservatism to today. why do you describe this as a war? >> a war is a way of describing really a struggle for dominance between two main groups. intellectual elites on one hand and the populist grassroots on the other. what i found in my 100 year study is that there have been times where these two groups have cooperated, but more often there have been times where they are in conflict. the conservative intellectuals, emwaenntted w aannoteder. usually when it comes to the question of who should be the leader of this movement and this pay. amna: we are in that struggle right now? >> of course. we have been going through this str

amna: it did take you years after that as well.ually went to the police, right, when church officials didn't do anything about it. what happened after that? >> i went tohe police thinking they weren't going to do anything because it had been 20-plus years since it had happened. but, within 24 hours, they were investigating it. and he was arrested and eventually indicted for four sex abuse felonies. at that point, there was a large reckoning happening within the southern baptist convention. a lot of abuse stories had come public. and i believe that it was kind of that moment that this task force and other investigations started to become finally necessary, because the media was finally pushing these stories forward, so they had to do something to address it. amna: anne marie, when you were younger, did you know of other people who had been abused? were these kinds of stories known within the church? >> they weren't. i grew up in small towns in west texas, but i think they were probably happening. it's just not something you talk abo

amna nawaz has more.escribes it, for the past five years and more tha1100 hours of tv, carlson's ratings success has been built by weaponizing "fears and grievances" of his audience to create "what may be the most racist show in the history of cable news.” to help explain carlson's influence, nick confessore, a political and investigative reportert the new york times, and the author of that assessment. welcome back, thank you for making the time. i think it is fair to say part of that ratings success is leaning into an us versus them narrative. he seems to relish the fight and criticism and attention. so much so, when your articles came out he tweeted a photo of , himself gleefully holding up the front page of the new york times. my first question is, why devote so much time and energy to him? are you worried about feeding that narrative? nick: it is a great question. he is a singularly important person on the modern right right now. the inheritor of the maga tradition donald trump seized and rode to the

amna: these have not always been his views.ng career in television, through multiple networks. he had a show on msnbc, on pbs a short-lived show. he had a conservative, libertarian point of view. you said he never has written extensively about when and why his viewshanged, but clues are sprinkled throughout his career. how do you understand the evolution of what brought him to his views today? nick: if you watch his stated views over time, what surprised me, is how far back it goes. in his 20's when he was a rising magazine writer, he was not much of an ideologue, he was more of a humorist. soon after 9/11 he was taking stern views on immigration. at the time, more conventional views against immigration, saying we need better border security after 9/11, a view shared widely at the time. a few years after that on his msnbc show, he said, of course immigration at the southern border is an invasion, how can you deny that? then he bonds out of cable, starts the daily caller, within that magazine, there is debate about traditional r

tim: yes, amna, it's rely fascinating. bill bolin actually leads a church in my hometown in brighton, michigan. and the reason that bill bolin became sort of a celebrity overnight in the community and the reason that his church began to grow so explosively was because he refused to close down his church and comply with government regulations at the beginning of the covid pandemic, before this was really seen as an explicitly partisan political issue. bill bolin and his church decided to make it one, and they really reaped a whirlwind from it. they saw their church grow from about 100 people on any given sunday. and, of course, in another suburb of detroit not far from there is ken brown's church. he has seen in his own congregation a lurch to the right and a real sort of dangerous appreciation for conspiracy theorizing and far right fringe politics. and so ken brown right around the time that this other pastor was sort of exploiting it for the growth and the gain of his church, ken brown decided to do the opposite at his c

amna nawaz looks at what the investigation found. amna: judy, between 1819 and 1969, thousands of native american, alaskan native, and hawaiian native children attended these u.s. government schools, part of a system of over 400 facilities spread out across 37 states or then-territories. more than 500 children died while attending. kids as young as four were forcibly removed from their families, transported across the country in some cases to schools where they were banned from speaking their language, forced to do manual labor, and suffered physical and sexual abuse. secretary of the interior deb haaland spoke today about her own connection to those schools during a difficult and emotional press conference. sec. haaland: the fact that i am standing here today, as the first indigenous cabinet secretary, is testament to the strength and determination of native people. i am here because my ancestors persevered. i stand on the shoulders of my grandmotr and my mother. and the work we will do with the federal indian boarding school initia

amna: just incredible. you also share words that were never spoken because the person didn't live long enough to deliver them. and there's one example i want to ask you about. you tell the story of a speech that president mationinas.misinfor deliver in r campaigns and he planned to call out, as you quote him, voices preaching doctrines wholly unrelated to reality, which really hits home right now. your book says that some of these words, if delivered, could have rewritten history. what do you think would be different if kennedy had spoken these words? jeff: this is a really interesting one. because to the extent people remember it, they think of it as a foreign policy speech. they remember that he said, we're the watchman on the walls of world freedom and that it was. however, if you read the speech carefully, he also says that watchmen shouldn't just be looking outside the walls of the us, has to be looking inside as well to these voices wholly unrelated to reality. and so i think several times in this boo

amna: it's not all politics and policy, though. you do include the story of director barry jenkins, the man behind the 2017 film moonlight. i think everyone remembers that academy awards ceremony where they announced the wrong film had won best picture. the wrong staff and cast went up there. then they said, no, really, it was moonlight. barry jenkins had intended to deliver a powerful speech about that film that he never got to deliver because the moment was lost to the flub. jeff:xactly. here we have this moment and he was going to talk about what the wind meant and he was going to talk about sething he experienced on the set that brought it home for him. he tells the story of how in filming the movie in liberty city, miami, they had to come in and bring in lights so they could film at night. and in a lot of poor neighborhoods like this one in which he grew up, there wasn't light. and bringing in the light brought out the children. and at one point during the filming, he looked over to video village, where all the monitors and ed

amna: good evening. i'm amna nawaz.shour" tonight, the cost of covid -- americans reflect on hardship and loss as the united states approaches one million deaths from the coronavirus pandemic. then, joining the alliance -- russia's war against ukraine prompts finland's leaders to seek nato membership as soon as possible. and -- judy: i'm judy woodruff in charlottesville, virginia, where we are thinking about the legacy of "newshour" cofounder jim lehrer, and having a conversation about political polarization and democracy in crisis. >> a political system is in dire straits when each side think the other side is an existential threat to american democracy. amna: all that and more on

amna nawaz explains. >> the republican party has long been the political party of choice for conservatives as matthew ntinetti explains in his new book, "the right - the hundred year war for american conservatism", the gop has also historically attracted those with populist views, similar to what we're seeing today. matt continetti joins me now. why as? >> a war is a struggle for dominance between two main groups. intellectual elites and the populist gssroots. and what i found in my 100 year study is that there have been times where these two groups, the elites and the populists, have cooperated. but more often there have been times where they're in conflict, where the conservative intellectuals, the conservative movement, wanted one thing and the populists wanted another thing. usually when it comes to the question of who should be the leader of this movement and of this party. >> we're in that struggle right now, too. >> oh, of course, yes. we've been going through this struggle in many ways since 1992 over which direction the republican party should take. should it be more nationalist?

amna nawaz is there and begins our coverage.orter: today, the community of uvalde, texas is reeling. one day after some of its youngest members were killed by a gunman at rob elementary school. >> this does not feel real. it's unbelievable. reporter: 17-year-old jared hernandez said his friend's siblings were among those killed. his little brother, a second grader, survived. >> he was in shock when i saw him. i have never seen him like that. he was just scared. reporter: has he talked to you out what it was like or what he heard or saw? >> at the moment, he was at lunch, he was going back to his class. i asked him if he heard anything. he just said he heard screaming and gunshots firing. reporter: the uvalde attack is now the nation's deadliest school shooting it -- since 2012 when people were killed at sandy hook elementary school. residents are grappling with grief rippling across this tightknit community 85 miles west of san antonio. >> my heart is broken for the parents here in uvalde. never thought something like this would

judy: later tonight on pbs, you can watch the season three premiere of 'beyond the canvas' hosted by amna nawaz. the show features interviews and profiles with some of the brightt stars in music, art, literature and more. tonight's episode focuses on the art "all around us." here's a sneak preview, >> we revisit artists changing the world around them. >> i don't think i have ever been as nervous as a director. >> for most people, the communities are underrepresented. >> latinos have changed the sport. judy: watch the first of this season's five episodes, staing tonight on most pbs stations check your local listings. and online right now, follow live coverage of the primary election results for key congressional and gubernatorial races in nebraska and west virginia that at pbs dot org slash newshour judy: and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. join us online and here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you, please stay safe and we'll see you soon. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by architect. beekeeper. mentor. a raven financial