In this episode of Brains, Black Holes, and Beyond, Senna Aldoubosh and Noelle Kim sit down with Josh Leeman, a graduate student in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department.
disruption that began with the peaceful transfer of power. i, donald john trump do solemnly swear this american carnage stops right here and stops right now. reporter: donald trump became president of a deeply divided nation. a country that couldn t even agree on how many people were there that day. photographs of the inaugural proceedings were intentionally framed to minimize the enormous support that gathered on the national mall. reporter: but our year of unrest is just getting started. by february, many believe we might be on the brink of war after north korea lobbed a missile over the sea of japan. the first global crisis for president trump. they will be met with fire and fury. reporter: by the end of the year, the north koreans successfully tested a missile that could reach anywhere in the u.s. terrorists continued to wage their war, cars and trucks
baseball practice. steve scalise, congressman in leadership was among those who was shot. reporter: not a country music concert in las vegas. a storm of gunfire raining down upon an innocent crowd. reporter: not even a church in rural texas. it was rapid fire. boom, boom, boom, boom. reporter: but killing even more people than guns this year, america s opioid epidemic. he said you have a nickname for this street. morgue avenue. in 47 minutes there was already nine deaths on the street. hundreds of white nationalists clashed with counterprotest yourself. reporter: deep divisions as white supremacist protested against the removal of confederate statues. this driver came plowing into a crowd of counterprotesters. people went flying in every direction. the president unfiltered and
vladimir putin s outmaneuvering of the united states in the 2016 election leads us to the precarious state we re now in. the former u.s. ambassador to nato warned in the article, quote, the russians are on to something, they will find a weakness and they will be back in 2018 and 2020 with a more sophisticated and targeted approach. joining us now to discuss this and the day s other news, hans nicholls and former national security department reporter josh leeman. let me ask you first of all what your response to this campaign has been. washington has described it as a piecemeal response, what does it look like? the more that we have learned over the last year or so about the disinformation campaign, the more evident it becomes that there really was a blind spot for the u.s. intelligence community and this wasn t something that cropped up last minute when the russians decided they wanted or didn t want a certain candidate to win, but there was a concerted long-term
defiant. there is blame on both sides. i have no doubt about it and you don t have any doubt about it, either. reporter: nature showed her ugly side this year. harvey s eye cut through here. in august, hurricane harvey made landfall, drenching texas. we have nothing. nothing left. reporter: irma, jose and maria came next to make this one of the most intense hurricane seasons on the books. parts of puerto rico still without power. another storm named harvey erupted in october. sexual harassment allegations spanning almost three decades from actresses ashley jud and rose mcgowan to young female assistants looking to start careers in hollywood. reporter: harvey weinstein s dramatic fall unleashes an avalanche of shocking charges against powerful men. thousands of women posting me too and everyone wondering who s next. what an amazing moment right now for the city of houston. reporter: but there was some good news this year. the houston astros won the world