Transcripts For KQED PBS NewsHour 20170301

Sreenivasan all that and more, on tonights pbs newshour. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by moving our economy for 160 years. Bnsf, the engine that connects us. Xq institute. Supporting social entrepreneurs and their solutions to the worlds most pressing problems skollfoundation. Org. The lemelson foundation. Committed to improving lives through invention. In the u. S. And developing countries. On the web at lemelson. Org. Supported by the john d. And catherine t. Macarthur foundation. Committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. More information at macfound. Org and with the ongoing support of these institutions 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 President Trump is looking to move ahead tonight, in the wake of his address to congress. He won praise today from republicans, while democrats warned, his more moderate sound belies his real intentions. Wall streets reaction to the president s businessfriendly tone was euphoric. The Dow Jones Industrial average shot up 300 points to close above 21,000 for the first time. The nasdaq rose 78 points, and the s p 500 added 32. Well take a closer look at what the president said and what comes next, after the news summary. Sreenivasan theres word the president s revised travel ban will no longer include citizens from iraq. It had been one of seven nations included in the initial ban, thats still tied up in federal court. The Associated Press also reports Syrian Refugees will no longer be barred indefinitely, under the revised order. And, it drops any explicit exception for christian and other religious minorities in muslim nations. The white house now says the new order will come in the next few days. Woodruff tornadoes ripped across part of the midwest last night, killing three people and damaging more than 100 homes. The National Weather service says it had reports of more than 20 twisters. Some of the worst damage came in illinois and missouri. This morning, illinois Governor Bruce Rauner surveyed extensive damage in the town of ottawa. We got to count our blessings this could have been way worse. The warnings systems worked well, people were notified, and its wonderful the way the residents in the community helped each other they got to elderly residents, gave them a warning that tornadoes were coming. People got into their basements. Woodruff forecasters say about 95 Million People are in the path of the same storm system as it moves east. Sreenivasan meanwhile a staggering statistic out of chicago the windy city had no measurable snow during january and february, for the first time in 146 years. While in california, theres been so much snow, that a five yearlong drought may finally be over. Crews already measured the states snowpack once, and did so again today, after one of californias wettest winters on record. Woodruff in afghanistan, twin taliban bombings, and a lengthy shootout, killed at least 16 people in the capital, kabul. More than 100 others were wounded. In the first attack, a suicide car bomber targeted a police station, touching off a gun battle that lasted hours. Later, an attacker on foot blew himself up outside the Afghan Intelligence service. Sreenivasan the United States today delivered a sharp rebuke to the u. N. Human rights council, over israel. Washington has long argued the 47nation body unjustly focuses on israels treatment of palestinians. In geneva today, u. S. Envoy erin barclay said the council has an obsession with israel that undermines the groups credibility. The United States will oppose any effort to delegitimize or isolate israel, not just in the human rights council, but wherever it occurs. When it comes to human rights, no country should be free from scrutiny, but neither should any democratic country be regularly subjected to unfair, unbalanced and unfounded bias. Sreenivasan the critique comes amid reports the Trump Administration is considering quitting the council altogether. Woodruff back in this country, the u. S. Senate easily confirmed montana congressman ryan zinke as secretary of the interior. The 55yearold republican and former navy seal has pledged to revitalize the countrys national parks. He has also said he will resist efforts to sell or transfer federal lands. Sreenivasan and danish toymaker lego announced it will honor five pioneering female nasa scientists in an upcoming figurine set. The collection will feature Computer Scientist margaret hamilton, mathematician Katherine Johnson of Hidden Figures fame, astronauts sally ride and mae jemison, and astronomer nancy grace roman. The set will be released later this year or early 2018. Still to come on the newshour President Trump lays out his vision for the country now, what policies will take priority . Raid in yemen; baltimores approach to battling the growing opioid epidemic, and much more. Woodruff we take a longer look now at President Trumps speech last night. He promised action on a long list of priorities, including obamacare, the border wall, public works and regulatory reform. And all of it, in a more disciplined, upbeat way than before. Lisa desjardins reports on the day after. Reporter the president called in Republican Leaders for a white house lunch, hoping to build on momentum from last nights address. It begins as of now, and we think were going to have tremendous success. Reporter Vice President pence took that theme on a oneman media blitz, with 11 interviews on his public schedule. What the American People saw last night is the president that i serve with every day broad shoulders, big heart, reaching out, focusing on the future. Reporter praise came from Top Republicans in congress as well. The president made clear last night, hes ready to work with congress on policies that can actually move us forward. Hell find many partners in congress excited to get those things accomplished. Reporter high on that list, repealing and replacing obamacare. Texas senator ted cruz, a former republican primary rival, lauded mr. Trump for his broad outline. The principles hes focused on are exactly the right principles more choice, more competition, lower costs, lower premiums. Reporter but democrats say there was no real substance, and they accuse the president of misleading the public with statements like this obamacare premiums nationwide have increased by double and triple digits. As an example, arizona went up 116 last year alone. Reporter in fact, while its true arizonas premiums have gone up by that amount, the president ignored important context that arizona is an outlier, with increases four times the national average. On immigration, some republicans say theyre encouraged by mr. Trumps comments ahead of his speech, that hed consider a legal status for some undocumented immigrants. Hes showing some willingness to embrace a more practical immigration proposal. I want to give him credit for that. Any time he moves into the land of practicality, i want to encourage him, because thats what its going to take to get a bill passed. Reporter but in the actual speech, there was no mention of legalizing undocumented immigrants. Instead, the president spoke of crimes by immigrants and his plan to crack down on the undocumented. By finally enforcing our immigration laws, we will raise wages, help the unemployed, save billions of dollars, and make our communities safer for everyone. Reporter that claim, too, was challenged. Democratic congressman Keith Ellison of minnesota spoke with the newshour last night this speech seems to blame undocumented immigrants for a crime. It indicated that clamping down on immigration was actually going to increase wages and make our economy better. The fact is, theres no facts that support that. Reporter several of the president s statements were declared inaccurate by factcheckers today. Also getting attention, the generallypositive tone of the speech. Democrats and republicans should get together and unite for the good of our country, and for the good of the American People. Reporter but Democratic Leaders say its all a facade. You cant just talk the talk, mr. President. You have to walk the walk. And on issue after issue after issue, we havent seen anything, or negative things, for the working class. Reporter the president and congress both soon will see pressure for action increase soon. House republicans have said they want a Draft Health Care bill by the end of this month. At that point, trump will be just one month away from the end of his first 100 days. Woodruff last nights president ial address relayed an ambitious agenda. But how much of it will take shape, and does President Trump have enough support on capitol hill to find success . Joining me to discuss all of that are dan balz of the washington post; and npr congressional reporter susan davis. And we welcome both of you back to the program. Dan, im going to start with you. We just heard Lisa Desjardins talk about this was a different tone coming from the president. You wrote about that today in the washington post. It was a change from what weve been hearing. It was a dramatic change from what weve been hearing and i looked back to the inaugural address, which was described by so many people as dark or dystopian, the phrase american carnage being one that leaped out at people and has stayed with people, a very downbeat view of things in the state of the nation, the state of the world. The substance of last night was not significantly or materially different from what hes talked about all through the campaign and his inaugural address, but the tone was so much different. He talked about unity repeatedly. He talked about cooperating with democrats. He talked about a spirit of american renewal. And it was it was a speech that was certainly aimed at reassuring his Congressional Republican allies that he will be president ial, iful, going forward, that he will be serious about trying to get these things done, and that hell not be seeking to create diversion and digression and controversies. Whether hes able to stay with that, we dont know. I mean, this was only one speech, and we know the history of donald trump is that there are moments when he you know, he goes in directions that even his staff doesnt want. But for that hour in the House Chamber last night, he was the donald trump that a lot of elected officials have wanted to see for a long time. Woodruff and sue davis, it was a confidentsounding speech, as if he expects these things to happen. How much of what hes done and what he said hes going to do so far has actually taken effect . Well, lets start with the two Top Priorities for congress that we know, health care and taxes. And his remarks in the speech last night its like they could have been written by House Speaker paul ryan. And the house has been saying theres no daylight between us. The president is fairly erratic. He has tweeted Different Things on positions at different times that have contradicted the speak experk they saw the speech as incredibly reassuring, as dan said, not only that theyre on the same page but president used the moment to shoe leadership to build the case for these conservative ideas. Republicans say health care is on track. They expect to see a bill within weeks, not months, and they saw the president s speech last night as an almost tacit endorsement of this plan thats emerging from the house. Fight thats going to be really interesting is that there is a group of conservatives in the senate namely, rand paul of kentucky, ted cruz of texas, and mike leigh of utah who are could be a force on this, saying it is not conservative enough. Were going to see this really interesting test of conservatism and the conservative conservatit bedeviled past leaders in congress and donald trump, and who is going to win out this fight. And i talked to rand paul today, he said what is emerging from the house he will not vote for. Sreenivasan woodruff s can ball, to what extent are they prepared for that kind of pushback from people in their own party. I think they are prepared. Theres been pushback for some time. There is not only opposition from conservatives on capitol hill. There is division among the governors on what to do with medicaid. If you have a state that expanded medicaid you have one view, and if you didnt, you have another view. There are divisions. I think the Administration Today feels that as a result of the speech, people who have been reticent to support him or openly hostile to what is taking shape in the house might be a little more amenable to working with the administration. Secretary price from h. H. S. , and the Vice President , mike pence rgoing to be the point people from the administration. I think one question is to what extent the administration will, in fact, put down a proposal and move toward congress or wait for congress to really do it and then come in at the end . I think congress would like the president to lead as effectively as he can in part, i think, to try to create the consensus that doesnt exist today. Woodruff and then, sue davis, theres immigration, where i happened to be at a lunch with the president yesterday where he was talking about he liked want idea of an immigration bill, if he could get the two sides to compromise. He didnt talk very much about comprehensive Immigration Reform last night help. He talked about the wall, and we know theres that travel ban, renewed version of that. But what is the . Ood what are the attitudes on the hill about immigration . Heres what we know is going to happen. In a couple of weeks hes going to send a request to Congress Asking for undetermined amounts of billions of dollars to Start Building that wall. But comprehensive Immigration Reform hasnt really been part of the conversation on the hill. It was not part agenda outlined by Mitch Mcconnell and speaker ryan at the beginning of the congress. I talked to the speakerrers office today that said its not necessarily at the top of the agenda but if the president decides he wanted this to be a priority he has tremendous power to make it a priority and upend what the congressional schedule is. I think on that another where i think congress is trying to take the lead on things Like Health Care and taxes, on immigration, i think theyd like to see the white house be a little bit more assertive and outline specifically what the president would like to do, specifically because on that issue was such a core center point hifs campaign. Woodruff just finally to the two of you, and i hate to ask you to do this quickly, but dan baulz, the president mentioned tax reform only briefly last night, taxes at all. What does the atmosphere look like . What are the realities in terms of getting tax reform done d. N. A. This year . It will be very challenging. Just simply getting the Health Care Bill through will be potentially a administration. On taxes, they dont have a plan at this point. And health care will have to go first. Taxes will have to follow. There are questions about what he realliments to do. He provided no details of that last night. He provided some principles on health care at least. On tax reform and tax legislation, he offered nothing of substance beyond a kind of generalized notion of what he wants. Woodruff did you pick up exwog that, sue . I see the faits of health care and taxes linkedly. If the repeal and replace effort falls apart, i think tax reform falls apart. Reand he will replace, if theyre able to get something to the president s desk, i think that increase the chances they can move on taxes this year. I dont think they can be seen as separate tracks. I think they have to move together. Woodruff it is an ambitious agenda. Extremely. Woodruff were talking here, and we didnt mention infrastructure. We thank both of you for talking to us, dan balz of the washington post, susan davis of npr. Of, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Woodruff more than a month after a controversial American Special operations raid was launched on a moonless night in yemen, questions persist about how that mission was authorized; what it accomplished; and how its been explained by the white house, and by the president. Margaret warner begins our coverage. Ryans legacy is etched into eternity. Reporter democrats and republicans alike rose to their feet last night for carryn owens, widow of Navy Seal Ryan owens, who was killed during a raid in yemen. Ryan died as he lived, a warrior and a hero, battling against terrorism and securing our nation. Reporter the Trump White House says the raid was planned by the pentagon during the Obama Administration, and President Trump gave the goahead during his first week in office. The pentagon says it was to be an intelligencegathering mission against alqaeda in the Arabian Peninsula one of the militant groups most feared branches. But a gun battle erupted, and owens was killed, reportedly with as many as 30 civilians including children. The president last night, said defense secretary mattis told him the mission generated vital intelligence. They got tremendous amounts of information. Reporter but others question that claim, and last month, republican senator john mccain suggested the raid was a failure. Mr. Trump, in turn, charged such criticism only emboldened the enemy, and white house Spokesman Sean Spicer echoed his boss i think anybody who undermines the success of that raid owes an apology and does a disservice to the life of chief owens. Reporter the seals father, william owens, refused to meet with the president when his sons remains were flown home. Instead, he told the miami herald that mr. Trump should not hide behind his sons death to prevent an investigation. The president again deflected criticism in an interview aired yesterday on fox news, saying he followed the militarys advice. Well, this was a mission that was started before i got here. They explained what they wanted to do, the generals who are very respected. This was something they were looking at for a long time. Reporter today, South Carolina republican Lindsey Graham offered this advice dont oversell results. The only sin i think a commander in chief can make is exaggerating successes and not understanding the challenges. Reporter for the pbs newshour, im margaret warner. Woodruff and joining me now from the white house sebastian gorka, he is Deputy Assistant to president donald trump. He advises the administration on National Security issues. Mr. Gork athank you for being with us. Picking up on what we heard from senator graham, did the president fully understand the challenges involved when he seend off on this . , of course, he did. Hes the commander in chief. He takes his job very, very seriously. If you look at the way hes treated law enforcement, if you look at the way hes treated the military, this is a man who fully understands the burden of leadership and the responsibility he has as the commander in chief. Woodruff well, he suggested in that interview with fox news yesterday that he did it mainly because the generals suggested that he do it, that they recommended it. Is that the case . We dont give our internal playbook away. Thats what the last administration did. Thats how people get in big, big trouble. These are classified operations by our tier one operators. So he acted and made a decision based upon the best advice of our military. Thats the way it has to work, judy. Woodruff well, my question is, mr. Gorka, because we just again, looking at that fox interview, referring to the generals, the president said, they lost ryan. Does that mean he does not accept responsibility . , of course, it doesnt. And i find it quite churlish when the media focuses on half a sentence here, half a sentence there. Why would you even posit that of the president . Its really unbecoming. Woodruff so, the president accepts, in effect, the buck stops with him . , of course, he does. Hes the president. This is a team effort, nevertheless. Nobody goes into battle alone, but he is the commander in chief. Woodruff we also heard the president say that the raid was highly successful, that it generated a large amount of intelligence that will be valuable, useful for the administration. But we also know that there are a number of news oh,s reporting that senior officials saying that is not the case, that there is not valuable intelligence from that raid. What are we to believe . Is that the same kind of sources that reported all kinds of fallacious things inside the white house . The sad truth sjudy, since i started working here six weeks ago, i find that more than 50 of the more sensational things i read are wholly fallacious and unfounded. Its easy to make up unnamed sources, but the fact is life is a little different from what you would read in the main stream media inside the white house. Woodruff what do you say to the American People who would ask why is the u. S. In yemen in the first place . Oh, very easy, very, very easy. As the president pointed out yesterday, we are facing a global threat. It is radical islamic terrorism, another great synonym is the global jihadi movement, and the glad yemen or another country that doesnt have adequate governance is not potentially connected to the threat, and the United States is, again, a very, very dangerous concept. These arent just events occurring ability or 10,000 miles away. Remember, omar martin, as he slayed 49 americans in the nightclub, stopped to dial 911, not to call an ambulance, judy, but to swear allegiance to alagdaddy in the meeft. Thats how real the war is from the streets of aleppo to orlando. Woodruff iment to pick up on the frailz you used radical islamic terrorism. We heard the from the of president say that last night, but it is has been reported that the new security adviser, general h. R. Mcmaster has advisedly the president not to use that term in effect because it suggests that all who believe in islam as a faith, that theres some strain there thats connected to terrorism. How does it a, the reports are, again, false. Its fake news. Not true. You need to talk to general mcmaster, who i talked to yesterday before the speech. Its not what he said. And, again, how does the phrase radical islamic terrorism link all the believers of a faith to terrorism . If i said radical christian terrorism, does that mean i as a catholic are a terrorist . Woodruff im just trying to understand. So youre saying the president is not suggesting that there is something inherent in all of islam that is at odds with western values . That wisconsin asinine. Of course he didnt. We are dealing way version of islam, with criminals, mass murderers, people who are on slave markets, that use a religion, use a seventh century at viftic version of it to justify their actions. I have to tell you, the idea you can separate jihadi terrorism from islam is with exact plea what got us in the mess we are in today, with isis controlling territory in multiple countries. If you talk to muslims, as i do ive trained hundreds of muslim officers from our partner nations when i was in the defense department, they will tell you, judy, this is a war inside islam, for haefort islam. We are not at war with islam. That is a very dangerous idea. But we know that our muslim allies are fighting a war for the heart of islam. Ask the jordanians. Ask the egyptians. They understand the rel vanls of jihadist ideology in this war. Woodruff sebastian gorka, who is a Deputy Assistant to President Trump. I thank you very much. My pleasure, any time, judy. Sreenivasan now, views on the raid in yemen and the decisionmaking process behind it. We talk to two men with intimate knowledge of the process that authorized the use of military force during the Obama Administration. Colin kahl was Deputy Assistant to the president and National Security advisor to the Vice President during the Obama Administration. He is now an associate professor at georgetown university; and andrew exum was Deputy Assistant secretary of defense for middle east policy during the Obama Administration. He also served in the army form 2000 to 2004, in afghanistan and iraq. Colin, let me start with you. We heard the president say, this was a mission started before i got here. You were in the rooms where the mission was discussed in the Obama Administration. What did the Previous Administration leave for President Trump to pick up . For years, the United States has been taking military action against this group, a. Q. A. P. , al qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, predominantly through drone strikes, air strikes. What came to the white house shortly before christmas was a proposal from the pentagon to expand the authorities and resources to allow special Operations Forces to more actively engage in direct raids to go after compounds, like the one that we saw in january. But a couple of things i think are important to note. First, they never briefed a particular raid. They didnt say, were going to go after a particular target or a compound on this night or this day. Instead they asked for a broad set of authorities to do this type of thing. And importantly, when the deputies convened, kind of a subcabinet level of government, convened in early january, they recommended that this decision get deferred to the Trump Administration so they could run their own careful process, and president obama agreed on that, that he would make no decision whether bwhether to do things like this and instead trump should do his own process. Instead, trump had a dinner party and decided it over dinner. Woodruff gl youre saying the category of raids was what was discussed, not this specific raid. We heard reports perhaps they were waiting for a moonless night, and it couldnt have happened in the Obama Administration in last few days. I will defer to andrew who worked in the pentagon on this one, but my understanding is there were a number of conceptes of operations that were bounces around the pentagon for a long time and this raid may have been one of them. It was never brought across the river to the white house. And as it relates to the moonless night issue, a pentagon spokesperson said that issue did not become relevant until after january 20, when they then asked for the authority to do the raid to trump. And importantly, thats why i think its extraordinarily unfair to our men and women in the Armed Services for trump to surkt as he did on fox yesterday, that somehow this is the militarys fault. Hes the commander in chief. The buck stops with him. Sreenivasan andrew exum, fill in that blank there. From the pentagons perspective. I think thats an accurate accounting of the way things were presented to the Trump Administration and to the Obama Administration before the before the trump inauguration. I think that we in the Obama Administration those are of us who served in the Obama Administration need to be very careful as we criticize the process that the Trump Administration used to approve this. First off, to approve this raid, it would have gone through several hurdles just through the department of defense before being presented to the president. When we in the Obama Administration brought these options to the president , it followed a very deliberate interagency process. Its what worked for president obama. Just because weve seen, quite frankly, a lot of a lot of mess in the Trump Administration thus far in their first month, i think we have to be careful about saying we had all the answers during the Obama Administration. I think colin would agree with that. This president s going find a decisionmaking process that works for him. What happened in yemen may cause him to rethink the way in which he approved this raid. Because you can always delegate authority. You can never delegate the risk. Ultimately, youre going to own that, as dr. Gorka mentioned from the white house. Sreenivasan an drew, you recently wrote that blame the president is both inappropriate and counterproductive. You also described sometimes the process can be pral tis intoois analysis. It can can take a very long time. No, thats right. Colin remembers at one point in the waning days of the Obama Administration, i think we were debating at the cabinet level the movement of three helicopters from iraq to syria. Now, there are obvious, you know, political implications of anything you do on the ground. But at what point do you delegate authority down to your commander on the ground i think is the key question . The reason why i think putting the putting real blame on the Trump Administration here is dangerous is because you have the benghazi effect. You remember when the republicans used benghazi and what happened there as a cujil to beat hillary clinton, and without, you know their effort was and it was successful, it must bealded to weaken her as a political candidate. But it also had a Chilling Effect opt bureaucracy. It makes the bureaucracy risk averse, and, quite frankly, thats not something that we want from our diplomats. Its not something we want from our special operators. We want them to be graestles. We want them to take risks. And when we elevate the blame, when something goes wrong, all the way to the president ial level, we just have to be very careful about how we do that. Sreenivasan colin, why does it take so long . What kinds of input factor into a decision like this . Look, i think that the Obama Administration can be criticized for too much micromanagement of the pentagon. I think, you know you know, the question is did they swing the pendulum too far in one direction . But i worry that President Trump in the first big decision that came to his, in this case dinner table, as commander in chief, he swung the pendulum all the way back in the other direction. Look, what president obama insisted on is every time the militarimented to come forward to ask for authority to significantly escalate, especially to put Ground Forces into a conflict environment where people can die both our Service Members but also civilians and others that we needed to have a careful, deliberatative process. It didnt have to take weeks. It oftentimes takes a couple of days. But it works its way through, and you get the inputs from all the various agencies. The question i have with trumps decisionmake process here is not that you have to do it exactly the way we did it. He just had dinner with secretary matis and general dunford and a hand full of close advisers and was briefed about the expraid made a decision. And as a consequence, he didnt have the full benefit of his intelligence officials, of his state department, and that is a recipe for making mistakes and costing people their lives. Sreenivasan andrew exum, what about the idea when there are different agencies, different people weighing in on it, theyre theyre going to think about political consequences, things perhaps a commander in the field might not think about because for him or her they see a much different objective. Its a veiled point and want way colin described things, i think hes right that the pendulum swung back. I wouldnt say it went all the way back because, again, the decisionmake process in this raid would have gone through a very rigorous process, and the pentagon would have been blessed off by all the pentagon Senior Leaders before it would have been presented to the president so it wasnt completely without rigor. But i think what colin is describing in terms of bake down the risk, that does happen in a deliberative process like that. The key question is opportunity cost. In the Obama Administration, we had a very deliberate process that in many cases served the president and was what the president desired. It drew down a lot of political risks as well as the physical risk to the operators on the ground. The question is was there an opportunity cost . The nature of these raids is they go after timesensitive targets. So do you lose opportunities the more that you hold things up in washington . I think thats want key question. And where colin and i may disagree but i think we do agree is that there has to be a balance. Its just a matter of where you strike that balance. Sreenivasan andrew exum, colin kahl, thank you both. Woodruff stay with us. Coming up on the newshour the successes and struggles of two of the worlds Fastest Growing businesses; and, a plan to once again send humans to the moon. But first, the nations Opioid Crisis. Overdose deaths are on the rise across the country; in 2015, surpassing gun homicides for the first time. One of the hardesthit states is maryland, where the governor today declared a state of emergency to fight the epidemic. But for more than a year, the city of baltimore has been training everyday citizens in how to use a lifesaving antidote an approach thats catching on across the country. Newshour producer Pamela Kirkland visited baltimore to find out more. Excuse me, sir, are you interested in Narcan Training . Reporter each week, City Health Workers hit the streets of baltimore, handing out an emergency medication that brings users back from the dead. This is the medicine. It reverses overdoses. Reporter naloxone brand name narcan comes as a nasal spray or injection, and works by blocking the brains opioid receptors. In a city with 24,000 active heroin users, overdoses and now, increasingly this emergency antidote have become facts of life. They just fall out. I lost a friend of mine that was at 25 years old. Ive just seen so many young people getting hooked on the opioid, or better yet, the fentanyl. And its definitely a killer, reporter in maryland, deaths from opioids which include heroin, fentanyl and prescription painkillers doubled between 2010 and 2015, from 504 to just under 1,100 people a year. Meanwhile, heroin deaths alone more than tripled. And in just the past three years, deaths in baltimore from fentanyl a synthetic opioid far stronger than heroin are up 20fold. We have an epidemic of people, fellow residents in our city, who are dying from opioid overdose. Reporter in late 2015, dr. Leana wen, baltimores health commissioner, and a practicing emergency room physician, issued a Standing Order for naloxone to all 620,000 city residents. What that means is that, if somebody goes through a very basic training and we do trainings everywhere, including on street corners, in jails, in public housing, really anywhere that people are. As long as they get that training, they will immediately get a prescription for naloxone, and even get the medication in. Reporter just one dose of naloxone can bring someone back. Residents can buy it at a pharmacy only 1 for medicaid recipients. And thanks to a 2015 Good Samaritan law, theres no risk of prosecution if citizens intervene and the victim dies. Ive used narcan four times since the state start on all the i keep them in my bag. I always keep them in my bag. Reporter john harris works on one of the Health Departments vans, which traverse the city offering sexuallytransmittedinfection screenings, clean needle kits and naloxone training. He knows what addiction can do to a person, having spent 16 years addicted to heroin. But he sees Something Different today. There was a lot of fentanyl at first, we were hearing about. All different types, its really becoming more complicated and dangerous. Reporter since january 2015, the Baltimore Health Department Says over 20,000 naloxone trainings have been completed and at least 800 lives saved, and many more states and municipalities across the country have moved to make naloxone more accessible to the public. But not everyone believes this is the right approach. We are selling it to the public as if its the answer. I mean, its an amazing drug, no doubt about it, but it doesnt change the behavior of the addict. Reporter for 25 years, mike gimbel was baltimore countys director of substance abuse. Now, hes a consultant for maryland Addiction Recovery center, a private Treatment Facility outside the city. And like john harris, gimbel is in recovery. Heroin is the devil. Its the devil it makes you do things you would never do you in your life. It took a middle class, good jewish kid like me, and had me robbing my own parents carrying a gun thats what heroin does. Thats how powerful heroin is. Reporter he argues that the city and state are spending too much time and money on Narcan Training and outreach, and not enough on longterm recovery. And as a sign this approach isnt working, he points to the citys rising overdose fatalities up 68 for the first threequarters of 2016, over the same period the year before. Sometimes, by having narcan so available, it actually reinforces the addicts behavior. Why should i stop using heroin when, if i overdose, narcans going to save my life . Why should i stop using heroin when theyre going to give me a clean needle . Wheres the motivation to stop . Its not there. Its not there. So sometimes, yeah, we dont want to see people die, but sometimes watching someone die and watching what happens with overdose and death wakes up a lot of addicts. Its just a First Responder tool, thats all it is. Reporter timmy hall was with the Baltimore Police department for 24 years, where he routinely saw opioid overdoses. He says officers often use narcan to revive the same drug users over and over again. A lot of times they get upset with you when you bring them back. Because they feel like you wasted the money they spent you know, thats the feeling that they wanted, and you took it away from them. Reporter but hall doesnt see an alternative. As a police officer, your first job is to protect and serve, you know, and what officer would want to sit there and watch somebody die, if they got the tools to save somebody . Narcan, to me, is a great tool. Its just a First Responders tool. Reporter the Health Department attributes the continued rise in overdoses and fatalities to a rise in far more powerful drugs hitting the streets. Dr. Wen says theres no evidence that denying naloxone to overdose victims helps users end their addictions naloxone is just one tool in this fight. We are just treading water if all were doing is saving someones life right now. We also know that we have to get them the second part, which is access to long term treatment. That its a combination of medications and some treatment, including with methodone and buprenorphine, psychosocial treatment like counseling, and then other services are important too, including housing. Reporter of course those all cost money and political will. Marylands republican governor, larry hogan, proposed a slate of measures to fight the Opioid Crisis including limits on how its got to get better. And i believe it will get better. I dont think perfection exists in anything, but i do believe baltimore has done a lot of good work, will do some more good work, because we are saving lives. We are. Reporter saving some lives, amid a growing epidemic. For the pbs newshour, im Pamela Kirkland in baltimore. Sreenivasan now, two high flying Companies Whose value has soared and are the subject of intense scrutiny uber, and the Parent Company of snapchat. For uber, its about the culture and leadership of the ride hailing service, valued at nearly 70 billion. Its back in the spotlight following new video of its c. E. O. Berating an uber driver. More on that in a moment. But first, snapchat is about to sell its stock to the public for the first time. The Parent Company announced it will offer its share at 17 a share, bringing its value to nearly 24 billion. The messaging app is used by nearly 160 Million People each day, and is especially popular among teens and young adults. But there are Big Questions about whether its worth this kind of value. Mike isaac is covering all of this for the New York Times and joins me now. Lets start with snapchat. What is the value that snapchat is trying to sell investors . So snapchats big story is its going to be its next facebook and not the next twitter, essentially. One of twitters big struggles, if you remember when it went public a few years ago, it sort of failed to grow fast enough for investors on wall street, and so, as far as facebook is concerned, their growth was huge, but snapchat just wants to say, like, look, this is the next big social network. You want to get in as quickly as possible on the ground floor of this i. P. O. , and were going to have the success and strength and reach of facebook, particularly with younger users. Sreenivasan how does it plan to make money . At one point it calls itself now a Camera Company. Is it a social network . Is it a Camera Company . Do you make money selling advertisements . Yes, so its primarily advertisements. They have little what are called snapchat disrs and publications like the New York Times will show Different Things inside of their, usually video and photo based and they sell ads against that. And theyre kind of experimenting with other things, whether ecommercerelated things inside the app. And who knows. They have what are called snapchat spectacles which are glasses on your face, and maybe they can make money from that. Im not really sure. Sreenivasan part of the reason it looks like wall street is excited is there hasnt been a big tech i. P. O. In a while. Thats right. I think a lot of investors feel like they missed out on facebook a few years ago, especially when the i. P. O. Went really terribly for the country and now facebook is trade everything on 100 a share. So i think everyone is looking forward to a successful i. P. O. , from a tech company. And it has been aibility. Sreenivasan these two founders have also decided to take a lot of the, i guess voting control of the company. This seems to be the new thing. Mark zuckerberg has a tremendous amount of control over his company. Is this the kind of temp plate the tech c. E. O. S now want . I think so. And i think investors kind of have a sense of trust that the founders tend to know best and whats best for their company. Mark zuckerberg really sort of became the pioneer or aggregate for this approach where, you know, he doesnt really want to hear much of what investors have to say about how he should run his company. And investors are comfortable with that because he tends to be running it really well, and it keeps growing and it keeps making them tons of money. So that might work. Sreenivasan lets shift gears then to uber. Its been in the news recently after a former employee wrote on a personal blog that she has been sexually harassed at the company and covered up. Yesterday, bloomberg released a video of uber c. E. O. Travis kalanick in a Heated Exchange with an uber driver over lowering fares for its black cars service. The argument took place in february. The whole business. What, what . You dropped the prices. On black. Yes, you did. With 20, with 20. How much is the mile now, 2. 75 . You know what . What . Some people dont like to take responsibility for this bleep . They blame everything in their life on somebody else. The e good luck. Good luck to you, too. Kalanick later apologied. He said in a statement, its clear this video is a reflection of me, and the criticism weve received is a stark reminder that i must fundamentally change as a leader and grow up. Thats apartment of the statement. So, mike, why is this apology to the driver and the company so important . If you followed the company for the past seven years, one thing you can say about travis kalanick, hes pretty unapologetic. Hes aggressive. Hes pushed into markets where operating uber was actually illegal. And its been a real noholdsbarred approach to operating a company. So to see him say, i have to be humble. I have to change the type of leader that i am, say real big shift for them and im really curious if he can actually do it at this point. Sreenivasan and this is also a company that is not public yet and when it goes if it gooz the valuations are staggering. 70 billion is currently where its at. Does this call into question, perhaps, the temperament of this individual and whether he is the right person to run such a big, global company. I think thats right. Almost a 70 billion valuation. I think investors as well as employees are wondering, we had this c. E. O. Who got us through the really tough early phases. Can this person lead us through an i. P. O. , where people really want a more even keel . And i think everyone is still asking that question but its not really clear at this point. Sreenivasan this is in the wake of the revelations of a woman who left the company and she had this part of this to say in her blog. It became obvious that both h. R. And management had been lying about this being his first offense, and it certainly wasnt his last. The situation was escalated as far up the chain as it could be escalated and still nothing was done. Shes not talking about travis. Shes talking about one of her managers who she contends was harassing to her, and now theres a large investigation. They say big deal for the company. Yeah, this is you know, this is core to how the culture operates. You know, its very to take it from facebook move fast and break things. Butta some point, do you have to sort of clean things up on the inside and change, especially if you want to go public . And i think theyre really facing that question right now. Its just a question of can you do it and how long will it take . Sreenivasan for a little while there was and there might still be continue ago a delete uber campaign. Did that have an impact on their business . It did. I would say its not a material Financial Impact but i spoke to a number of people watching that go down inside, and, you know, there were hundreds of thousands of people that deleted their uber accounts entirely, and probably hundreds of thousands more that just deleted the app. So it worried uber, and they definitely tried to curb it pretty quickly. Sreenivasan all right, mike isaac of the New York Times, thanks so much. Thanks for having me. Woodruff and now to our leading edge segment for this week a potential return to the moon. Near the end of his speech, the president made a reference to space travel, saying, american footprints on distant worlds are not too big a dream. It was only a line. But whenever a president speaks on the subject, the Space Community is closely trying to read the tea leaves. The sentence leaves a lot to interpretation. But all signs seem to indicate there is renewed focus inside the Trump Administration, nasa and the private sector on a trip to the moon sooner than you might think. Our science correspondent miles obrien is here. So, miles, why the moon after all these years . Aside from the because its there answer, its actually a good destination to go and learn about living and working on an encampment in space. You know, we went to the moon 50 years ago now. We left some footprints and flags behind, but we didnt really learn how to live there on a sustained basis. While nasa would still like to go to mars, theres a lot of things you can learn about by setting up an encampment on the moon. And we have learned in the past 50 years, theres a lot of water ice on the moon. What is water . Hydrogen and oxygen. What is rocket fuel . Hydrogen and oxygen. So you can learn a lot about how to create rocket fuel on location and perhaps push deeper into space. Sreenivasan so this doesnt dnt just spring up as an idea because they couldnt think of anything else . Well, there was one other factor. There was a mission planned at the end of 18 for the space launch system, which is the next heavy lift rocket nasa was working on. One piece wasnt going to be ready, built by the europeans, a service module. Nasa was looking at having to delay or do something bold like in the case of apollo 8. The lunar module wasnt rate expraed we decide to go around the moon. Theyre thinking of putting astronauts on this flight, maybe early 19. And then of send them to the moon apollo style. Sreenivasan and you were telling me miles theres a private sector, elon musk announcing just the other day, two individuals i guess with some extra spending money to say the least. Woodruff have told him they want to go around the moon and come back to earth. Yes. He got a lot of attention for that. He doesnt have a rocket to do that yet. Its just a design right now. Its called the falcon heavy which would have almost the thrust of the mighty saturn 5 of the apollo days. It will fly for the first time, he hopes, by the summer. So saying there are going to be paying passengers on there by 18 is optimistic for sure. We will watch that with skepticism. But to the extent the private sector and the government Space Enterprise push each other towards this destination, a lot of people are pretty excited about it. Woodruff remind us, miles, why was the moon it was on the agenda at nasa for a while but it came off. Politics. Of course we lost the shuttle columbia in 03, and president bush canceled the program and said lets go to the moon, a program called constellation. And president obama sailed were not going too the moon. Were going to mars. And he wouldnt let anybody talk about going to the moon. There were a lot of people who said, we should try the moon first before going to mars but that got shelved during the Obama Administration. Politics now is different, obviously, with the Trump Administration there. And im told the Trump Administration would like to have u. S. Astronauts taking off from aus of u. S. Space port sometime in his first term. So the idea of turning that into a crude mission is gaining a lot of traction. Woodruff there is the question of money. It costs money to go into space. This is a president who has talked about cutting back domestic discretionary spending. Wheres the money going to come from . You know, its interesting. You have to look at the entire Space Enterprise here. Nasa a budget is a little more than 19 billion, but if you look at the budget for the military side of space, its about 40 billion. What if they reconsider this idea headed by the Vice President , and they start look at ways to carve out and eliminate some of the redundancies between the military and the civilian side. There may be some ways, even with nasa cuts, that they can borrow from each other, feed each other technology, as it were, military and civilian, which could be a bit of a force multiplier and could make it still possible. Woodruff interesting, because the president has talked about spending a lot more money on defense. Exactly. So that money might ultimately help nasa. Woodruff miles obrien taking us to the moon and back. Thank you. To the moon, alice. Woodruff thank you. Youre welcome. Woodruff on the newshour online right now aboriginal australian art is the oldest continuous art tradition in the world, stretching back more than 40,000 years. Now, due to a group of passionate collectors and curators, aboriginal australian art shows are popping up across the u. S. , and much of the work is created by women. Take a closer look and find more on our website, www. Pbs. Org newshour. And we have lost another of the greats in public broadcasting. Longtime nightly Business Report coanchor paul kangas passed away yesterday at the age of 79 in miami. Paul retired from the program in 2009. In an earlier era, the Detroit Free Press dubbed paul the Walter Cronkite of business broadcasting. And, we all remember his trademark signoff, wishing you the best of good buys. Paul was a true gentleman, with a great sense of humor. Sreenivasan and thats the newshour for tonight. On thursday, our making sense team looks at the unique Corporate Culture behind the etailing giant zappos. Im hari sreenivasan. Woodruff and im judy woodruff. Join us online, and again right here tomorrow evening. For all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you, and see you soon. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by bnsf railway. Xq institute. Supported by the rockefeller foundation. Promoting the wellbeing of humanity around the world, by building resilience and inclusive economies. More at www. Rockefellerfoundation. Org. And with the ongoing support of these institutions and individuals. This program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org