Transcripts For KQED PBS NewsHour 20240714

Screwed. Nawaz all that and more onni toghts pbs newshour. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by life wellplanned. Learn more at raymondjames. Com. Text night and day. Catch it on replay. Burning some fat. Sharing the latest viral cat o you can do the things yu like to do with a wireless plan designed for you. With talk, text and data. Consumer cellular. Learn more at consumercellar. Tv babbel. A Language Program that teaches reallife conversations in a new language, like spanish, french, german, italian, and more. Babbels 1015 minute lessons are available. An app, or re information on babbel. Com. And with the ongoing support 6of these institutions anindividuals. This program was made possible by thcorporation for public broadcasting. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Nawaz clashes tocked hong koay, as antigovernment demonstrations crippled the busy International Airport for a second day. Scuffles broke out when riot police armed with pepper spy and batons confronted prodemocracy protesters inside the terminal. Jonathan miller of independenti teon news has our report. Reporter midnight hong kong time, and the proteshotors forced the cancellation of all outbound flights for the second day running, became suddenly agitated as a thin blue lineentatively entered the arrivals hall, terminal one. Laser pens blinded the officer who were immediately forced to retreat. The blackshirts thought for a moment theyd seenf. He police of then the riot police arrived. Initially they picked off individuals. Some were beaten, then cuffed omene riot policeman be immediately trapped inside the doors to the terminal. You see him attempting an arrest, then hes set upon. He loses, th is beaten with his own baton. The intensy of the mistrust and hatred that habuilt up, exploding. The cop pulls a hand gun but nshows restraint; he does fire. Hes finally rescued. Rh beijingetoric of no leniency, no mercy still echoing round hong kong, a city in the throes of chaos and escalating violence and now gripped by fear of what china might do. At 12 40am, the protestors surrootund her suspected police spy and cuff him with plastic cable ties the editor of a chinese communt party paper, the englishlanguage global times, tweeted that fu geo is one of his hong kongbase reporters. There is an ugly mmetry to all this. It followed other violent incidents on sunday in which Hong Kong Police fired tear gas into underground stations, chased and beat fleeing protestors, and, across the harbor, shot a young female protestor in the eye with a baton round. Carrie lam, the probeijingpo tical leader of the semiautonomous territory, held a News Conference this morning. translated hong kong hau becomeafe and unstable, violence, not matter who commits it, is pushing hong kong onto a road of no return. Reporter this is chinas Counterterrorism Force and tellingly, the protests kong were yesterday described by beijing as emerging terrorism. Hong kongers watch anxiously; as srrie lam sticks to her g, they know its big brother beijing whos calling the shots. Nawaz that repor mt from jonathler of independent television news. Also tay, the u. S. Announced its delaying tariffs on some chinese goods until december 15th while removing other items from its tariff list altogether. Oe duties had been set to into effect next month on products including laptops, cell phones, and video game nsoles. President trump was asked about the timing of the delay beforepa ing for an event in pennsylvania. Were doing this for christmas season, just in case some of the tariffs would have an impact on u. S. Customers. So buar theyve had virtually none. Nawaz planned 10 tariffs on about 3 billion in other chinese goods will still be imposed. Word of the tariff decision sent stocks soaring on wall street today. The Dow Jones Industrial average gained 372 points to close at nearly 26,280. The nasdaq rose 153 points and the s p500 added 42. Scrutiny intensified today of thmanhattan jail where acced sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein was found deadn saturday. The Justice Department said the two guards assigned to watch epstein have now been placed on administrative leave. The jails warden was also temporarily reassigned, pending the outcome of both the f. B. I. D Justice Department investigations into epsteins death. A coalition of 29 states and cies filed a lawsuit again the Trump Administration today to stop a ruleioasing restri on coalburning power plants. The trump rule rolled back an obamaera regulation that set limits on Carbon Dioxide pollutios. From power pla the outcome of the case could set a precedenfor how future administrations can fight Climate Change by restricting pollutants. Most of the southern u. S. And parts of the midwest were under heat advisories and warnings today, from texas to south carolina. The tripledigit heat wave was most intense across arkansas, tennese, mississippi, louisiana and alabama. But some relief is o the way. The National Weather service said an approaching cool front will help reduce the hean and humidityme areas tomorrow. Cbs and viacom have agreed to reunite. Theyll merge their networks and the paraount movie studio in the face of growing competition from streaming Services Like tflix. The combined company is mated to have 28 billi in revenue. The merger is expected to be completed by years end. And, new report out today finds child care costs in most states exceed federal subsidies for lowincome parents. Thats according to the Inspector General for the department of health and human services, or h. H. S. Ec each statees how to allocate funds from an 8 billion National Block grant, meant to offset child care costs for over a million children. Ta but manys set their payment rates much lower than recommended. H. H. S. Has now put 33 states on watch to ensure they comply with equal access requires. Ment still to come on the nshour what we know and what remains hidden about the shadowy russian haclear program. The multiple sexuassment allegations against celebrated operatic tenor Placido Domingo. How Online Casinos target gambling addicts andhe devastation it wreaks on their lives. Plus much more. Nawaz an explosion at a remote site. Shifting stories fm the russian government and nuclear officials. Public concern about radiation exposure. Were not talking about chernobyl 33 years ago. Were talking about two russian litary accidents near the arctic circle, one just last week. Our William Brangham has the details. Reporter somber crowds lined the streets of sarov today,wi beariness to funerals cloaked in mystery after a Nuclear Reactor explosion at a nearby missile tting site killed at least seven scientists. Owe final death toll is un. Harussian nuclear official been slow to disclose details. But with lg faces, they admitted thursdays blast at the sa testing site was a tragedy. translated a chain of tragic incidental events and uncertainties led to this happenin although, after a preliminary analysis, we have seen the testers were fighting to get t situation under cont succeed. Ely, they did not Authorities Say they will evacuated the town. Gamma radiation there is four no 16 times greater than background levels. Analysts believe the accident involved a near nucle powered Cruise Missile, the kind russian translated a real technologic breakthrugh is the creation of the advanced strategic missilsystem with a totally new combat equipment, programming cruise unit, its testing was completed successfully. Reporter moscows push for new Missile Technology is aimed at outsmarting Defense Systems the u. S. Is building, and this resurgent arms race has cost other lives. Just last month 14 russian sailors died after an explosion on one of their nuclea submarines. The people who were killed were all very high ranking, and thatsl ot typica have so many highranking officers on a submarine. As relations between the United States a russia get worse, the russians are stepping up all these kind of traditional cold war behaviors. A so, were seei kinds of new systems and new systems often have problems. So its its sad that these people keep dying, but this is kind of what an arms race looks like. Reporter these developments come as a major u. S. Russia arms control treaty is seto expire in 2021, and after the u. S. Dr wi from the intermediate range Nuclear Forces treaty, saying tharussia was in violation of that agreement. On top of that, with western sanctions mounting, the russian economy and putins Approval Ratings are both declining. Moscow has also been erupting in enormous protests, as russians took to the streets to compin about the kremlins tight grip on destic politics. Police turned violent as theyed arrestore than a thousandis demonstrators eekend who were out demanding more open elections. Brangham for more on what these military mishaps and protests mean, we turn to angela stent. She directs the center for eurasian, russian and east European Studies at georgetown universitys schsel of foreign ice. Nsr latest book is putins world russia ag the west, and with the rest. Angela stent, welcome back to the newshour. I wonder if you could. Iths e anything else that you can tell us about russias testing or this accident that neap around this missile . I think no more than what we already heard on the broadcast, whicinis they really are g the minimum amount of information, but because of chernobyl and because of what happened 33ears agthe russian people are very suspicious when they heard about this. This is why there waa run on a dine immediateer they heard rumors. I think most american specialists wl say the u. S. Tried to develop a Nuclear Powered Cruise Missile and gave it up in the 1960s. N its just ot practical. Its, as we heard, lying a flying chernobyl, a so we dont really know what the russians do or dont have. We do know that last year Vladimir Putin, as you said, demonstrated a picture, a video of this missile, which can evadm u. Sile defenses andna y landed in florida and dropped something on why at suspiciousoked like maralago. The russians are trying to develop weapons that cn totally evade the elaborate missile Defense Systems that the u. S. Has been creating. Brangham with this secretive shifting story, tightlipped response from variousrussian officialsis that what were just supposed to expect when this kind of military mishap occurs . Well, we have never seen anything else from the russians. When the kursk submarine sank, there was a total blackout on r a long time. They are not good about giving out Accurate Information or at least enough information to try and save their population from needless radiation and other effects. I myself was in moscow during the chernobyl explosion, ani know how frightening it was fo f everyone ure out what was happening, where the radiation was, and ths pattern doesnt teem to have changed. Brangham amidst these two different accidents that have happened, you are also seeing this seeming escalation in the arms race between russia and the u. S. Can you give us a sense of the lay of the land with regard to arms control and armlos deent between the two nations . Certainly. So as you said,the treaty on intermediate range Nuclear Forces is dead since august 2nd of this month. So neither the United States nor russia abound by that, and we will both now be developing new classes of intermediate range missiles. Our defense secretary has said that we will. Place theypcould be deployed i. Thats if well have any akallis or them. The russians have also said theyre developing a new class eapons. I think the real thing to watch is the new sta treaty regulating strategic nuke lower weapons. Its set to expiren 2021. It could be extended for five years just by mutual, agreement but our National Security advisor john bolton says he regards these kinds arms control agreements as antiquated and useless and, in fact, he said in a speech two weeks ago that he didnt really see anyo reasontend this new start agreement. So what were talking about is in 21 we could be in the situation, if this new start agreement isnt extended, where for the First Time Since 1972, since president nixon went to scow and signed a similar agreement with boston brezhnev,s will be the first time we wont have any agreement that regulates the Nuclear Arsenals of the worlds two Nuclear Superpowers who between them control 9 of t worlds nuclear weapons. Brangham shifting gears a tiny bit,we saw these protests erupting in moscow over what seemed like somewhat provincial local elections. Does this crack down a this response by the russian citizenry in moscow say anything broader about putin and his hold on power . I think it does. I think this is more than just a swawbl about who will it is on a 45person Municipal Council and regulate taxi lenses i think younger russians who have been out on the seotreet, 50,000e on saturday, realize looking ahead that they have ry little controer their political system. They have very little choice. They understand that even though president putins term doesntpi until 2024, this interagency and the rivalry for power and the questioning about succession, this is already going on, and they would like to have a different syste they would like to be able to have, again, more choice in the isystem. So inot just about a municipal election. Its about the principle of having people who are not af member o the official United Russia Party and who have independesa views have somy in this system. Brangham weve certainly seen here in the u. S. A lot of discussion about russias interference in our last election. Weve also seen russia trying to flex its muscles in europe and the middle east, in syria, and in turkey. You wrote a recent piece where you were trying to get americans to rognize that judo is putins sport of choice, nos t chas a game. What did you mean by that . So what i meant by it, and Vladimir Putin became a judo champion as a young man. He said in an essay it helped himo get out of the rut and the hardscrabble background he had. What i meant by that was tt in judo, even if you are maybe weaker than your opponent, iyof sense their own distraction, if you sense their own weakness, if you can distract them, you can in fact prevail over what would appear to be a stronger opponent. And i think what putin has don very effectively is to take advantage o the opportunities presented to him by distraction in theest by the divisions and by the polarization and by the fact, i would argue, thatunthe ed states did not have a very coherent idea about what it wanted to do after the soviet ion collapsed. When putin came to power in 2000, he had a good idea he wanted to restore russia as a great power. Hes managed to restore russia as ar. Global pla when you look at the fundamentals in russia, g. D. P. M. Which is the size of that of italy, a declining popation, an economy thats overwhelmingly dependent on Raw Materials revenue, hes played a weak hand quite effectively. 0nd hes been in power for years now, and hes seen american president s and other leaders come and h, and e feels that he has the upper hand in many ways, despitee all thse problems. Brangham all right, angela stent of georgetown university, thank you so much. Thank you. Nawaz with more performances than any other opera singer in history, Placido Domingo holds a special place in the performing arts. Domingo is not just one of the ces after aizable career thats lasted nearly five decades. Hes also a leader and performer witheal power. But in the wake of me too, there are now a series of utvelations by the a. P. Ab his alleged personal behavior. Allegations that raise disturbing questions about the use of that por. S, nawaz for decalacido domingo has been one of the biggest names in opera. A multigrammy award winner and one of the iconic three tenors, his star power and industry status are beyond comparey. The 78rold spaniard currently conducts and directs the los angeles opera, and he still attracts sellout crow across the globe. But a new Associated Press report out today says that rise xu fame was littered with misconduct. The story cites nine women, eight singers and one dancer,sa who y domingo harassed them and tried to pressure them into sexual relationshipsver 30 years, often at venues where he held a managerial position. All but one requested anonymity. Patriciaulf sang at the Washington National opera in the late 1990s and 2000s. Domingo was the artistic director there and later the general director. He would come up to me this close and he would say, patricia, do you have to go me tonight . And it was arresting, it was very difficult. Nawaz wulf said she started hidingrom domingo. I dont know how it could have been shoved under the rug as long as it has been its gone on long enough. It needs to stop. Nawaz the womens stories followed a patrn. They say domingo would push for private meetings, under the guise of offering professional advice. That domingo offered them jobs and then sometimes punished t professionalse who refused his advances. Seven of the nine said they felt their careers were negatively impacted wn they told him o. Three said he forcibly kissed them and one said he put his hand down her skirt. In a statement, domingo called the allegations deeply troubling, and aacpresented, rate. I believed that all of myra inions and relationships were always welcomed and consensual. However, i recognize that the when someone comes this close and kind of smiles in a wry smile and says do you have to go home . I think that was pretty clear. There were no misconceptions in my mind. Nawaz none of the women had oncumentation of domingos actions such as messages. But the a. P. Talked to three dozen singers, dancers musicians and others who said they had witnessed domingo acting in a sexually inappropriate way. Nawaz lets further exploo the reactionis news and wider questions about this abuse of power in the field. Peggy mcglone has written about this issue extensively for the washington post. Peggy, welcome to the news hour. Now, the story broke just today, but tell me, what has been the broader reaction within the opera and the Classical Music world . Well, there was swift reaction tod. The los angeles opera announced an outside investigatioand then several organizations, the philadelphia orchestra and the san ansco er canceled upcoming performances with placido. Woodruff theres been some reactioacn anons already taken. One of the commonalities ive taken away was this idea of a Whisper Network when it came to placiddomingo, that it was an open secret among women, he was someone to be avoided. Youve reported in this space for a while is. That anything that had ever come up before. Right that is a Common Thread that weve heard. My colleague and i did a big report last year. We talked with more than 50 musicians about others, not Placido Domingo, but that was a common thing that we hear that women would help each other b sharing what they thought with rumors or other, you know, firsthand experiences, dont be alone with him, dont ride the w elevath him, dont let him walk you to your car, have an escape pn. It was a myriad examples of how to deal with these kinds of people. Nawaz one of the allegations is that he retaliated against women who refused his advances. Help us understand a little bit about how power is distributed. Placido domingo held a number of top managerial positions at a number of organizations. What kind of influence did he exert . These top people have control for reasons like casting, fdaor recommons, especially with Young Artists who are starting out, and we heard this a lot last year, ann and i, where you woulbut want to f someone who could give you tia recommen or sign you up for an audition or get you into the next trainingwo program that d be the next step in your career. And so part of it wa thathere were these choices that had to be made that, you know, that these young women, many of them starting our didnt want to ruin thingsefore they even go going. Ed matt peggy, you report put that domingo was invested and active in a lot of those yog g artist traininograms. You spoke to a woman who participated in one of those. What did she havell you . Yes, she was not to targeted herself, but she said it was wellknown. Its again that open secret in the community. You know, yogu just o about your day knowing that he was going ta unwanted advances or in the story she was telling me, have a very open, Everybody Knows about it, sexipual relationith a young artist. And no one knew what to do about id. And then she hat that sort of creates a culture where people feel like this behavior is acceptable or thereill be no consequences, and then others, maybe people who are not superstar status, then have the opportunity or take advantage of that to do tee things themselves. And she also talked about how that power dynamic, who is going to believe a youngrtist over, you know marriage superstar, sot also part of this equation. Woodruff you mentioned obviously l. A. Theyre investigating. Dphiladelphia has rescin an invitation for domingo to perform there in september. But salzburg austria said he will still be performing there later in august. Peggy, i want to ask you, because y have written about a number of other highprofile eigures in this world, who hav faced similar allegations. What have you learned from their caseshat tell y ou howthese kinds of allegations can be handled in this w you know, it does matter, and it is Different Organization to organization. Last year the Cleveland Orchestra also investigatewith an outside company, and they posted their findingn their website, and not only dithey confirm the allegations that were in our story about william prusel, but they found another musician who was also accused. They fired both of them. But james levine sued after he was fired from the metropolitan opera last yearsuthe of similar Sexual Harassment allegation, and they settlered ntly. Neither side will say what the agreement was. So its hard to say what the aftermath of these things are. Woodruff still remns to be seen. Peggy mcglone of the washington post, thank you so much. Thank you. Nawaz stay with us. U comion the newshour democratic president ial candidate mayor bille blasio of new york on why hes running for the white house. Dd and a history of theft. How one million black farmers in the u. S. Were robbed of their land. Every year, re people are playing games on their phones. And one category, called social casinos, has quickly become a multibillion dollar industry. But new evidence shows Game Developers are targeting vulnerable users, all with the help of facebook and its massive trove of personal data. For the record, pbs newshour t as part ofe conten a business relationship with facebook. From reveal at the center for investigative report Nate Halverson has the story. Reporter suzie kelly is a grandmother from suburban dallas. Five years ago, she and her husband were thinking about retirement. But, all that changed one when she sat down to watch tv. There was a commercial for big fish casino. I thought it was a casinocasino at first, and then i realized it was a game. Big fish casino. Play for fun. Ay for free. Reporter the game she downloaded is part of a rapidly growing industry called social casinos that launched on facebook about ten years ago. These apps bundle together games like poker, roulette and slot machines. S slot machine sound kellys slot machine game was free to play, at first. But, once her free chips ran out, she had to buy more to keep playing. I would say that my spending increased to hundreds of dollars and thousands of dollars within the first month. Reporter how much could you win playing big fish casino . Real money . Zero. Nothing at a. Reporter why . Because they dont pay real money. They only take money, to give you virtual chips to continue t. Play on their reporter fully aware she could never cashut her chips, that first month, kelly still spent nearly 8,000. I just couldnt stop. You know, its like, holy c, what the hell have i done . Reporter nine months after downloading the free game, kelly had spent more than 40,000. I have an addiction. I needed out. Reporter she decided to quit, and emailed the game company. Hlly showed me hundreds of messages betweenr and big fish casino. And you write to them in the i subject lis all caps cancel account. Right. I wrote, i just cant do this anymore. Ive maxed out my amex twice. Reporter did they close the account . No, sir. Reporter kelly asked big fish casino to delete or permanently n her from playing, nearly a dozen times. The Company Never did. She continued spending, hiding it from her husband. In total, kelly would lose more than 400,000. You know, i had to come clean with my husband. Ok i breath, i remember this, and i said, its like i said, im sorry, chuck. I id, i think we might losi nt want to lose everything. I mean, its absolutely predatory. And it shoulbe unacceptable. Reporter keith whyte is the executive director of the National Council on prblem gambling. He said real casinos would be required to cut her off, or face big fines. T ere are no regulations on social casino games. Those peoe who, like suzie, appear to have very severe gambling problems, or gambling blems, they cant just walk away. Reporter whyte said their helpline is increasingly filled with people addicted to social casinos, and theyve lost serious money. He said social casino games appear to be five times more dictive than traditional casinos. In the u. S. Alone, youre talking well over 100 Million People who report playing somewhat regularly on social casino apps and again, no ones tracking this, because its not being regulated. Reporter last year, social Casino Companies earned more than 5 billion, nearly as much as all the casinos on the las vegas strip. But Companies Like big claim their games are just entertainment, and have avoided y gambling regulations. Its a very highly lucrative but somewhat secretive industry that has exploded across the United States in the past decade. R eporter big fish declined our request for an interview, but sent a written statemepa saying the cny is dedicated to delivering Great Entertainment experiences, and that we strive to ensure that our social games comply with all applicable standards, rules and requirents. I spoke to former employees of these social casinos. None wanted to go on camera, but described a darker side, saying it was widely known some playere were add and their warnings to management went ignored. One player spent so much on the game, e couldnt afford her prescription medicine, and they told me anothers home was in foreclosure. Suzie kelly said thfirst time she tried to quit, big fish called her on the phone, not to cancel her account, but to assign her a personal v. I. P. Host, byron scott, who gave her free chips to keep her from leaving. Where would this relationship with byron scott go . At did it become . This was a daily thing, back and forth. It was like a friendship. And you know, my mother passed away in 2016. They sent me flowers. And they also sent, of course, chips. U ow, to keep me playing. Hi, guys. Reporter we tracked down footagtefrom a 2013 conference of jose brotons, who helped pioneer the v. I. P. System for social casinos. He is speaking on stage to a roomful of Game Developers. Reporter brotons worked for aristocrat, the same company that owns big fish casino. He designed the v. I. P. System to target the tiny fraction of players who will actually pay to play the games. Youve got to think that about 3 of your users are goi to be generating 80 to 90 of the value for the company. Reporter we obtaed leaked Company Documents that show how his v. I. P. System tracks players by their facebook i. D. S, closely monitors their gameplay, and then prods people to keep them spending. They refer to their v. I. P. S as whales, a term taken from e Casino Industry to describe big spenders. Os social casow use Behavioral Analysis software to ickly identify people who are likely to become big spenders. Behaviors like increasinyour bet, or playing frequently, are signals to the companies, and they target these players with heavy marketing, and label them, protowhales, as brotons explained to a roomful of Game Developers back in 2015. We are nocapable of predicting protowhales within their first gaming ssion, so we can assign a very high likelihood that a persons going to be a protowhale. Reporter i show kelly documents outlining the creation of the v. I. P. Program, yeah, bgo. For me, thats like, lets find the weakest person and destroy. Heir Life Reporter does it feel like theyre targeting your addiction . Absolutely. Reporter there is another company profiting from these games. Facebook makes hundreds of millions of dollars selling virtual chips to playe like kelly. Julien codorniou, a facebook executive, spoke at a game conference in 2014 about social casinos. Its the number one cegory on facebook. Its a category that never stops growing. Every year, we see newnies coming up with amazing games, launching on facebook, launching on mobile, making significant money. Reporter facebooks website shows how it tracks people online, and can predict who is likely to spd big by analyzing user data. Facebook helps sial casinos find those potential whales. It charges a premium to nudge players to spend more, to target peoplehose online behavior might be a sign of addiction. Its very good for gamingan cos because they can decide to target on facebook, or on mobile, you know, specific users, or just the whales. Reporter facebook declined to sak on camera, but sent a written statement saying that while they dont build ad s produccific to social casinos, they understand that certain games or procts can impact some people differently, and they are working to understand the long term impact of certain kinds of content. I sam lessa former Top Executive at facebook. He now runs his own vent capital firm. I but ba2012, he wrote an email to his thenboss and close friend, mark zuckerberleg. In wrote that he wasnt proud of their work with slot machine companies. Im fine with it, he wrote. Just not proud of it. Lessin wont discuss his time at facebook, but agreed to speak generally about h are targeting people like suzie kelly. She ended up spending over 400,000 playing a slot machine game. Yeah. I mean, it sounds disgusting. Right. Go you know, werg to have to live in a world where both very, very good people, and very, very bad people have better tools. Reporter do we want hyper targeted ads from Beer Companies to alcoholics . We want hypertargeted ads from casinos to gambling addicts . In no, of course we dont want those. Right. Like, no thinking person is like, thats great. Bu then the question is, okay, lets be really clear, what rule do you want to write . Right, and how are you going to enforce that rule . Reporter suzie kelly joined a lawsuit la year in the state of washington, where big fish casino is based, arguing that the game constitutes illegal gambling, and she is asking for her money back. She is now getting help for her gambling addiction, and says she no longer spends money on big fish. St but, she il dealing with near financial ruin from the game. If you could go back in time to that moment when you were about to download the app, what would you te yourself . Dont do it. You dont know this until you play this game, but youve got a pr. Lem if you have an addiction, youre screwed. Reporter and there is nothing stopping companies from ntinuing to target peoples addictions. For pbs newshour, im Nate Halverson with reveal, in plano, texas. Nawaz if you have spent hundreds or ousands of dollars playing a social casino game on arcebook or a mobile device, reveal wants to rom you. To share your story, go to revealnews. Org whale. Nawaz we continue our series of conversations with 2020 president ial candates. Last week, Judy Woodruff sat down with new rk city mayor bill de blasio to talk about his run for the democratic nomination. Woodruff mayor bill de blasio, thank you for being here. Thank you, judy. Woodruff why are you running . I ask because there already some 20 people in the race when reu announced that you we going to jump in. And frankly you already got a big, complicated job. I do havejo a bi thats one of the reasons why im running. To take on the role of president , byou bett ready for it. I have what has often berien ded as the second toughest job in america. Its a big place, a tough place, the most diverse place on earth. We got prek done. We lowered crime while getting rid of things like stop and frisk that were dividing us. We did the 15 minium wage, a lot of fundamental wages. I know i can make change. And iem running beca have this fundamental belief that hats happened over the last years since the election of road rage is the country is less and less servg working americans more and more serving the very few, the wealthy and the big corporations. We have to fix it. We have to put working people first again. I can do it. D i hae it in new york. I want to do it for the whole country. Woodruff you clearly are a candidate with progressive ideas. There are already two other prominent progressives, Bernie Sanders a elizabeth warren. They are running well ahead of you in terms of recognition and support. I why not lea to them . Judy, i think very highly o both Bernie Sanders and elizabeth warren, but i remind you its six months until anyone even starts voting. We ve a long way to. And what i bring to the table is Something Different. Both of them are ry fine legislators. Im someone who is running one of the biggest,t mosmplex places on earth and has been able to make real change for everyday people. That experience, that ability is different from other candidates. T people. Esp you can share values with them but still bring Something Different to the t ile. Whm concerned about is the democratic party, at this poinst there big debate, whats the heart and soul of our party . I say we need to be a no we need to be a progressive party. We need to show people were not about the status quo. I think folks are mteore sted in action than words. Im able to say, look, you want to know who i am . Look at what ive done for 88. 6 Million People. Woodruff you mentioned a minimum wage. Yobrought that up in the debate the other night. We noticed that the governor, Andrew Cuomos aid, one of them eeted after you said that that you had zero to do with the statewide 15 minimum wage. An you raised the minimum wage for new york city workers only after workers in other parts of the state of new yk thats not accurate with all due respect to that. We proved the wage for city workers and for nonprofit organizations that were funded by thcity before the state of new york acted. That was one of the things that spurred the state of new rk to act. I stand by that statement. We did it on a very big scale. When the 15 minimum wage idea first came out and got currency, i supported it from thbee nning. A lot of other democrats hell back and said it wasnt realistic. I fought f from the beginning and helped to achieve it. Woodruff anotherer economted question. You delivered what many people would say is a memorable line at the debate. At one point you said you planned to tax the hell out of the wealthy. Yes. Woodruff what exactly does that domean . Wher it start . Look, the reason i was dro atic about it isy, we near a dramatic problem where the rich have gotten richer to such a pointnow that the top 1 have more wealth than the bottom 90 combined. It keeps getting worse. In fact, the last big action on taxes was a huge giveaway to the wealthy and corporations. So i said tax the hell, because i want to make it very clear, we cant just do this incrementally. We need to go back to the tax levels associated with those llknown radicals, j. F. K. And dwight d. Eisenhower. The plan i put out, and you can go to taxthehell. Com, the plan makes very clear, we should ha a 70 income tax rate for the wealthiest individuals. Woodruff starting at whatco . At 2 million. And we should we should peal the trump x cuts. We should repeal the loss of state and local tack deductibility. At needs to go back to the way it was for 100 years. It was fair, we need to put it back. For the wealthiest americans who have benefited for four decades from favorable tax policies and all sorts of othe benefits, we have to rebalance things. I can tell you, you talk to folks all over amerhea, that society is not fair, thats dangerous reality we have to solve. Woodruff were not worried that people in the middle class, he says hes only going to tax the werich, bu know what that means. I would say look at what i have done ive worked very consistently on behalf of working and middleclass peoplth the fact i stat tuts kwo, i think youll find this all over this country. Folks look at the status quo. They know its brokenwe. Ill not fix it with half measures. We have to do something really strong to rebalance e equatio many this country. Youve had an upanddown ip with the new york city police. And youre now with the unions. I want to be clear. The rank and file are 36,000 people with all sorts of different views, but wit som of the unions. True statement. Woodruff you have not called for the firing of officer pantaleo, who was responsible in the chokehold death of erirnc r. What do you say to those people . So one, the cy of new york was told by the federal Justice Department soon after the tragedy of eric garner, and i know the family. Theyve gone thrgh hell. Its a horrible tragedy. It how old not have happened. We cant let it happen again were focused on making sure there never is such a tragedy again in new york city. We have changed the way we police profoundly. Implicit bias training, deescalation, all sorts of things to make sure it never happens again. But the federal Justice Department told us, do not proceed with a departmental trial, because the Justice Department wanted to do it way they wanted to do it regarding criminal charges. I will tell you in retrospectthi ght i was dealing with an honest broker in the Justice Departmented. That pronot to be true. Five years passed. I said we would never make that mistake again, and god forbid there is another tragedy, but heres why i do not issue an opinion. A Police Department judghi this is som you wouldnt have assumed in the history of new york city, under todays nypd, a Police Department judge said officer pantaleo st be terminated. We have two weeks now just predurally it goes to the police commissioner. I believe this has been a fair, open, transparent process that will yield justice. My voicing nof an opin only complicates it and prolongs it because that culled lead the a ndurt case arolong this case for a long time. We got to close this capture for thgarner family and our city and our nation. We have to close this chapter with justice. Woodruff mayor bill de blasio from new york city, thank you very much for joining us. Thank you very much. Nawaz when it comes tors unnding financial inequality in this country, economists often point to e absence of africanamerican generational wealth as a principal factor resources passed from parent to child. As john yang reports, for many africanamerans, one source of the problem goes back decades. Yang over the past cenamtur, africaicans have lost millions of acres of farms they owned across the sout its a trend propelled not just by economic forces, but by white racism and local white political and economic power. Its not just a legacy of the jim crow south, either. Most of the losses have occurred since the 1950s. That history and its lasting effects are the subjects of the cover story of the September Issue of the atlantic magazine. Its written by vann newkirk, whos a staff writer at the magazine. Van, thanks for joining us tonight. What is important about this story . Why did you want to tell this story . What is important, you think, that people should know from itw well, rightthe country is in the middle of a lot of debates over the racial wealth gap, over the status and Economic Prosperity or lack thereof of africanamericans here, and also abouton repara perhaps. And i wanted to, with this piece, recenter the conversation on the south, on n ack folks in the south who often get left outis conversation. On one of the places where the deficit has be the most extreme. And thats in farming, and then the ownership of land. An you call this, as the headline, is the great land robbery. What happened . Give us an idea of what happened. So, what happened was, during pretty much after the middle of the 20th century, federallyfunded farm programse, theyput out there to give small and middlesized farmers loans to support farms, to keep them going through bad ecomic times. They systematically disenfrancsed and also discriminated against black farmers. So they didnt get the loan amounts. They were denied loans that they were entitled to. And often, theseocal u. S. D. A. Programs were used as bully pulpits, or forces tually push black farmers off their land. Yang some of this was actually accelerated or exacerbad as a result of the civil rights movement, that this was a reaction to the civil rights movement. Ig rht. So, most of the u. S. D. A. Funding was actually leveraged through locallelected boards. And guess who could not vote in the south . So what would happen is, these boards were dominated by the segregationists, and if you were a black farmer who needed moneyr to grow rops, next year, one of the ways they could ensure you never joined thec. N. A. Or never went out to vote or to march against segregation was to hold that money in their hand and say, youre not getting this mon unless you toe the company line. And so what they did to black farmers who didnt do that, who did go out and join the n. A. A. C. P. And these organizations, they took their money from them. Yang and you ao talk about the lasting effects of this, not only the loss of sort of family wealth, but also the political effects. Right. Mississippi, alabama, south carolina, these were states th were, if they werent majority black going into the Great Depression and beyond, or close to being about half black. And what you saw, what prompted the great migration that saw millions of black people leave the south, was a fact that a lot of them had their landlen maybe, and i think this is probably what happens. If they hold onto that land, if theyre able to make money in the south and have vote in the fsouth and have some type stake in the future of their kids living in the south, perhaps those three states at least stay majority black. What happens to the Electoral College if we have three majority bck states . What happens to the senate . You know, those are big questions. Yang you told the story through, in part, through a woman in her 60s. Now shes the Third Generation of her family to be working the same farmland. The family was able to hold onto cois land. Her name is lena white, and lets take a listen to a little bit of what she told your its o me that my children know what my ancestors went through, first to be where we are and who we are, because im a Firm Believer that if we dont know our history, then we repeat the mistakes over and over again. Yang knowing your history. Says that families were denied their history by having their farm land taken away. Talk about that and the other effects of this, the impact it has on families. Well, i talked to dozens of farm families for this story d the reason why lenas particular story and character got to me is because she is a historian. This is in her bones. She was to build a museum in the delta to honor not just her father and grandfather, but all the other farmers who came before her. I think she embodies the idea that what were talking abouts heret just money, not just the access to land, but the ability to put down cultural roots, to have a place to call your own thats history, right . Thats a thing that i do not believe we quite understand p its lost whple are forced to move, when they are denied the ability to own the land under eir feet. They are denied a bit of their history. These people who live in tla delta now, b folks who live in the deltaow, they are in this place that was built with their hands anwork, that they are part of but not allowed to actually hold any part of. Yang youre also talking to serve out a lot of this land through various transactions is now held by Pension Funds by venture capitalists by hedge funds. You seem to hint that you think these transactions were somehow unethical . I believe that its possible through totally ethical means at this point. So many decades away from the yiginal theft, to receive the land legitimatel know, if you buy it from somebody who owned it and they dont have t lineage of the land, they dont know where it came from. Thats a legal purchase. What i try to make the point of th the piece is that it probably doesnt matter w an individual company got its land portfolio in a place where predominantly black folks lived and worked and should own the land. Doesnt really matter. Th got it, individual plots of land, ethically or legally. What matters is that at some point, the land was en unethically and was taken away from these black folks illegally. What is our legal, ethical, moral responsibility as a people to rectify that . Yang well, i really ask. You talked about reparations earlier. How should we be thinking about rectifying this . I do not believthe current reparations debate and it is a qullmeaning and wellintended effort to try antify every single thing that was done to black people since slavery. Thats an amazing effort, and i believe over the last five to n years, there have been people doing work that folks have not been able to approach. 150 years on quanty, in terms of a dollar amount, i think that approach, though, has lost the focus on land and Land Ownership and collective Land Ownership in some ways. And the sentimental and cultural and generational meaning of attachment to a place, and having mobility be by choice instead of by being forced out. I think thats a dimension that should be added back to this conversation. The original promise of reparations was a land grant was 40 acres and a mule people didnt love it because it. Had certain monetary val they loved it because it gave them a place to call home ngforever, gave them someto give to their children. Not just money, but a sense of belonging, a place they can put their namen and thats i do believe the current reparations debate isle missing a liit. Yang vann newkirk. Its cover story, the great land robbin the September Issue of the atlantic. Thanks so much. Thank you. Nawaz on the newshour online right now, the Supreme Court plans to hear one gunrelated case in its new term beginninerg in octbut two pending cases could have far wider impact on the current gun debate if the justices addothem to theiet. Learn more on our web site, www. Pborg newshour. And thats the newshour for tonight. Na im awaz. Join us online and again here tomorrow evening for all of the pbs newshour, thank you and see you soon. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by babbel. A language learning app that uses speech recognition daily 1015 minute lessons are voiced by native speakers and are at babbe babbel. Com. Consumer cellular. The ford foundatig n. Workth visionaries on the frontlines of social change worldwide. E carnerporation of new york. Supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, and the advancement of International Peace and security. At carnegie. Org. And with the ongoing support 6of these institutions and individuals. This program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. And by contributns to your pbs station from viewers keliou. Thank you. Captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org access. Wgbh. Org youre watching pbs. Ooh. Pati narrates sometimes when i travel i find the best experiences are the ones i least expected. Loreto, Baja California sur. It might not be the busiest destination on the baja peninsula, but it is one of the oldest. The spanish built Mision Loreto here in 1744. For a tiny fishing village, loreto has a lot to offer. Im getting little history. The clamenhave been made for cturies. Is before the spg lias a matter of fact the indigenous left their shells. Ati a gigawoah bur and umething completelynexpected i found the best pizza in all the baja peninsula. Mmm in my kitchen, im inspired by the sea of cortez