mark shields and david brooks analyze a week of new names proposed for the coming trump administration, as they remember john glenn. all that and more, on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> xq institute. >> lincoln financial-- committed to helping you take charge of your financial future. >> the ford foundation. working with visionaries on the frontlines of social change worldwide. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: and individuals. and friends of the newshour. >> 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: the president-elect has been out and about again today, taking his victory celebration to two more states. at the same time, he's mulling more names for his administration. baton rouge, louisiana was this afternoon's destination for the trump "thank you" tour. he used it to stump for republican john kennedy in a u.s. senate runoff election tomorrow. >> if you go to the polls, he's going to win. if you don't go to the polls, he's not going to win. and if he doesn't win, i've got myself a problem in washington because you know we have-- it's pretty close. >> woodruff: a kennedy win would give the g.o.p. 52 seats in the senate next year. mr. trump also met today with the leader of the republican house majority, speaker paul ryan, before leaving new york. >> we had a great meeting to talk about our transition. we're very excited about getting to work and hitting the ground running in 2017, to put this country back on track. >> woodruff: with that in mind, the president-elect is pressing to fill out his cabinet. according to reports today: representative cathy mcmorris rodgers of washington state is the choice for secretary of the interior; and the president of investment bank goldman sachs, gary cohn, will head the national economic council. he would be the third goldman alumnus in a top trump administration post. but former new york mayor rudy giuliani removed his name from consideration for any post. he said he wasn't interested in anything other than secretary of state. >> i'm here today for one main reason: to say thank you to the great, great people of iowa. >> woodruff: last night, in des moines, the president-elect appeared with his pick for ambassador to china, iowa governor terry branstad. >> with terry on our side, i know we will succeed in bringing our jobs back. and i also know that china, who's been so tough and so competitive, and, frankly, dealing with people that didn't get it. but i'll tell you what, we're going to have mutual respect. >> woodruff: meanwhile, mr. trump indicated today he may ban pentagon officials who work on weapons programs from ever taking jobs with military supply companies. tonight, the president-elect's focus is on grand rapids, michigan, the fourth stop on his so-called thank you tour. also today, final figures showed the trump campaign raised about $340 million for the primaries and general election. hillary clinton raised $580 million. in the day's other news: the white house announced president obama has ordered a full review of cyber attacks during the presidential campaign. a number of democrats have complained that russian hacking was aimed at aiding donald trump, but, a presidential spokesman said: "this is not an effort to challenge the outcome of the election." the u.s. senate struggled today to finish a spending bill that would fund the government for four months. coal-state democrats delayed the measure, as a federal shutdown loomed at midnight. they demanded the bill extend benefits for retired coal miners for a full year, while republicans urged them accept a shorter extension, for now. >> my intention is the miner benefits will not expire in april next year. as i just said, i'm going to work with my colleagues to prevent that. but this is a good time to take "yes" for an answer. >> woodruff: the bill would keep the government operating through late april. the president of south korea was impeached and stripped of her powers today. park geun-hye is implicated in an influence-peddling scandal that's brought millions of people into the streets. our chief foreign affairs correspondent margaret warner has the story. >> reporter: roars of celebration erupted in seoul as news of the impeachment reached the streets. thousands of protesters had camped outside parliament, anticipating the vote to strip president park geun-hye of her powers. it won support from both the opposition and park's own party, leaving her to accept the inevitable. >> ( translated ): i deeply apologize to our citizens for causing such a big national confusion amid national security and economic concerns due to my carelessness. >> reporter: park's impeachment is the culmination of a months- long scandal that sparked enormous public outcry. it stems from accusations that she granted special favors and access to choi soon-sil, a long- time confidant. she's also accused of arranging for choi to receive classified documents. choi has been indicted on charges of using her influence to bully businesses into donating nearly $70 million to her charity. president park denies any criminal wrongdoing, but her standing in public opinion polls has plunged to just 4%. the drama has raised concerns that north korea-- with its active nuclear weapons development program-- might try to take advantage of political troubles in the south, where nearly 30,000 u.s. troops are stationed. >> we're going to continue to meet all our alliance commitments, especially with respect to defending against the threats we've seen emanating from north korea. >> reporter: for now, president park's duties will fall to the prime minister, while south korea's constitutional court decides whether to uphold her ouster. for the pbs newshour, i'm margaret warner. >> woodruff: a dutch court convicted anti-islam lawmaker geert wilders of hate speech today. the judges found wilders illegally targeted the moroccan minority in the netherlands with insults, and incited others to discriminate against them. wilders called the verdict "totally insane." his party narrowly leads in polls ahead of national elections next march. in syria, thousands of civilians fled the fighting in eastern aleppo, as the army closed the noose on rebel fighters. heavy air bombardment and ground fighting raged again. syrian military officials claimed they now control about 85% of the rebel enclave. meanwhile, the u.n. general assembly approved a non-binding resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire. the world anti-doping agency reports that russian cheating on drug tests is even more sweeping than already known. findings released today say it involves more than 1,000 russian athletes in more than 30 sports. the agency concludes that the cheating, and cover-up, go back to at least 2011, and the report's author says russia corrupted the 2012 london olympic games on an "unprecedented scale." >> for years, international sports competitions have been hijacked by the russians. coaches and athletes have been playing on an uneven field. sports fans and spectators have been deceived. it's time that this stops. >> woodruff: the head of russia's anti-doping commission called the report "out of date," pointing to reforms taken since the cover-up was first discovered. back in this country, a federal jury in charleston, south carolina watched the videotaped confession of dylann roof. the self-described white supremacist is accused of shooting nine black church members to death in june 2015. the f.b.i. recorded the confession. on it, roof says "i had to do it because somebody had to do it." that sweeping recall of takata air bag inflators will end up affecting 42 million vehicles in the u.s. the national highway traffic safety administration issued the new projection today. it also said only 12.5 million of the inflators have been replaced so far. the devices can explode with too much force and spew metal shards. and, wall street rallied again, for more record closes. the dow jones industrial average gained 142 points to finish near 19,757. the nasdaq rose 27, and the s&p 500 added 13. still to come on the newshour: the real world effects of fake news stories online; a boot camp where female recruits seeking combat jobs must meet the same standards as men; the housing crisis that contributed to the oakland warehouse fire; plus, mark shields and david brooks analyze a full week of news. >> woodruff: this was a week where the problems of so-called "fake news"-- often just a name for an out-and-out lie or unproven claim-- were evident once again, and this time, led to alarming consequences. hari joins us from our new york studio tonight with a look at the latest concerns and the beginning of a periodic series on the subject. >> sreenivasan: viral conspiracy theories masquerading as news spread at incredible speeds throughout the election cycle across social platforms like facebook, reddit, twitter and 4chan, but on december 4 came a very real measure of their impact. a 28-year-old man from north carolina man entered comet ping pong pizza in washington d.c. armed with an assault rifle, claiming he wanted to "self- investigate" a fast-spreading theory. >> edgar maddison welch, seen edgar maddison welch, seen here with his arms up, was intrigued by the totally false conspiracy theory that the pizzeria was part of in a child-abuse ring led by hillary clinton and her former campaign manager. after aiming at an employee, and discharging a weapon, he surrendered to authorities. luckily, everyone inside escaped unharmed. this week, more fallout from what has been dubbed as #pizzagate: the trump transition team removed michael flynn jr., the son of the man president- elect trump wants as his national security adviser, after it became clear that flynn jr. was retweeting this and other conspiracies. hillary clinton, herself the target of other lies spread over the web repeatedly-- weighed in during one of her few public appearances since the election. >> it's now clear that so-called fake news can have real world consequences. this isn't about politics or partisanship. lives are at risk, lives of ordinary people just trying to go about their days, to do their jobs, contribute to their communities. >> sreenivasan: technology companies like facebook and google say they are working to tackle the proliferation of fake news. one way has been to decrease the incentives for advertising that appears on these sites. sheryl sandberg, the c.o.o. of facebook, on thursday's "today" show: >> we've taken important steps, but there is a lot more to do. we know people don't want to see hoaxes on facebook and we don't want to see hoaxes on facebook. >> sreenivasan: according to a buzzfeed news investigation, many fake news sites are built purely for profit, sometimes even created by opportunistic teens in far off places like macedonia, regardless of the content, because more clicks lead to more dollars. what is motivating the rise of fake news, and what tools are tech companies developing to stop its spread? as part of a series of conversations, i'm joined by mark fisher of "the washington post," who wrote one of the deeper dives on how the comet ping pong story spread so fast, and how it almost ended in tragedy. mark, this is one of the first stories that i think drew a connection for people that virtual hoaxes have real-world consequences. >> well, they absolutely do. we saw this when a gunman walked into the pizza place that was the subject of this false rumor about a supposed sex ring that hillary clinton and john podesta, her campaign chairman, were running in a residential pizza place in washington, d.c. we traced this to patient zero, looking back to how and why did this spread, and what we found was a combination of people who had a profit motive and people who were really quite innocently running across this story and deciding that it was concerning to them and they wanted to know more about it. >> sreenivasan: that's one of the things people will wonder about, how do you not see the falsehood in this or how do you press "share" or how do you end up kind of perpetrating this lie further and further? what were the answers people were giving you? >> you know, i think there is a tendency to dismiss the people who spread these stories as uneducated or simply not understanding the technology they're dealing with. anything but the case. they tend to be quite yietd people who are well connected online. if you look at the diminution of trust across society about government and the news media, people are looking for alternative ideas and sources and are open to these kinds of stories that they find online. once they find them, what i found in talking to the people who spread the message most widely is they were kind of caught up in the fun of this. to them, it was kind of a serious game because they thought they were saving children who were being held in this underground sex ring, but kind of a game where they were really enjoying the hunt and that thrill of the chase is really very similar to what's most satisfying about doing journalism, but without the responsibility part, and that's the part where they say, well, you know, it's reminiscent of wht silicon valley executives used to say years ago that the internet is a self-correcting mechanism. a lot of the people who were involved in this believe that and they're really not keeping it front of mind. the real-world damage such as a gunman showing up to conduct his own investigation. >> sreenivasan: you're describing a large scale game of clue. i'm aging myself by reference to the game. tell us about the people who are doing it for profit. >> some people are doing it for political reasons and some for profit. you find an extraordinary amount of the traffic online about pizzagate, this rumor, was going through odd places -- vietnam, macedonia. what's going on there is that people are setting up sites and setting up bots, which are essentially algorithms used to spread a message or retweet something many times, and they do this because the more people they can get coming to their site, the more advertising revenue they get from the big social media companies. so there is a profit that can be made by taking something, however fantastic or incredible, and putting it out there in such a way that it goes viral, and then all of that web traffic, all of those clicks translate into dollars rest recently facebook and google tried to take a little of those dollar incentives away from these fake news sites. other than that, what else are they and can they do? >> they can do a lot more than they're doing. we look across the ocean to europe where they are doing a lot more under pressure from governments there who don't have our same system of first amendment guarantees and don't have the kind of freedom our internet companies have as a result of the exemption that absolves them from responsibility for the content they have open their sites, that's from the 1996 telecommunications act. in europe, without the legal strictures, there is a different kind of legal system involved where these companies are required to remove derogatory material about people from their sites, and they're having to do that. so they clearly know how to do that. they choose not to in this country in part because it's expensive to have editors and producers going through and making sure the material on their site is responsible. the internet companies tend to say this is not our responsibility, this is a matter for the users to express themselves however they wish. but if you think about the rest of our economy, there is no other product, news product or physical product where the maker says we have no responsibility for what we make. that is just the nature of our commerce. we expect companies that produce things to take responsibility. >> sreenivasan: how does it change the landscape of journalism? there is definitely a line of thought that says just by us labeling this "fake news" instead of lies or conspiracy theories, that we're elevating it to a status it doesn't deserve. the idea of yellow journalism has existed since the late 18 huns. it helped us get into the spanish-american war. >> sure, and conspiracy theories have been around since the dawn of civilization, biblical admonitions against them. it's always been and probably always will be. the problem is probably not the fake news or speech itself. the problem is it's being spread more quickly and widely through technology than ever before and that's the part we haven't gotten the handle on. so for traditional journalism, the role is fact checking, building up our credibility so that people do see that there are places that can be trusted. but we do happen to live in a time when trust is at a relative low, and we've seen this in periods of economic and political trouble in our country after the kennedy assassination and now after the 2008 crash. so during those periods, people do look for alternative source, and that's what's happening now. >> sreenivasan: mark fisher of the "the washington post," one of many conversations we'll be having on this topic. thank you so much for joining us. >> thank you. >> woodruff: last night we introduced you to three female pioneers, young women who are trying to enter the newly-opened combat positions in the u.s. marine corps. these roles had been blocked to women for generations, but not anymore. the question now, will they meet the same rigorous standards as men to serve on the frontlines? producer dan sagalyn and correspondent william brangham continue our story. >> wolff! >> aye, ma'am! >> scream at me! >> aye, ma'am! >> reporter: 18-year-old rebekah wolff is three weeks into marine corps boot camp at parris island, south carolina. she's one of the few young women who want to enter the combat positions that for years have been shut to women. she wants to be an air-defense gunner, to shoot stinger missiles. but first, it's the basics of knife fighting. ( whistle ) >> marine corps! >> we see how slashing right down the center of their chest, right? >> yes, sir! >> right down the center of their chest, understand that. >> reporter: these early weeks of boot camp are tough. recruits are still getting used to the rigors of marine training. they don't sleep much, and many haven't been away from home for this long. recruit wolff admits she's having a hard time. i know it's still early in your training. how do you feel like you're doing? >> i feel like i could do better. i was a lot better at home. but probably because i get a lot more sleep and i eat a lot more than what i do here. >> reporter: what have you been telling mom and dad? >> in all honesty, i tell my mom and dad that i want to come home. and that i can't wait to see them. >> reporter: if you could choose, would you go home right now? >> no, sir. i came here to become a marine. and i'm going to leave as a marine. >> reporter: we met two other female recruits, who also want to go into these newly opened combat positions: 21-year-old victoria golab-meyer wants to be a combat engineer. >> the fact that there's so many women now that are, excited to try it and know that women have a place somewhere. it's worth fighting for, to say the least. >> reporter: and 18-year-old lacey elkins wants to operate a tank, or an amphibious assault vehicle. >> i like to experience new things, and i don't like being comfortable. comfortable just kind of sets you nowhere. >> reporter: as we reported previously, the marines did not want women serving in certain combat positions, arguing it would make them a less effective fighting force, but they were overruled by the secretary of defense. so the marines say orders are orders and they're now working hard to integrate women. one thing they've done is to establish physical standards for each combat position, and they are the same for men and women-- one standard that everyone has to meet. >> this is physically demanding stuff. you know, we're talking carrying heavy loads. we're not riding around. we're walking. the marine corps infantry is light infantry. and the load is heavy. >> reporter: general robert neller is the commandant of the marine corps, the service's highest military officer. he says equal standards for men and women is an important step to making integration work. >> it doesn't matter who you are, where you're from, how much money you've got, color of your skin, your religion; nobody cares. there's two types of people in combat: those that can, and those that you worry about. that's it. >> reporter: and if women pass those standards and meet all those requirements, you're not worried about them? >> no. they're marines. do your job. >> how quickly you move, how directly translates into their survivability. >> reporter: combat veteran sergeant cody morris oversees basic warrior training at parris island. he says equal standards are crucial, but he worries they won't last. he echoed a concern we heard from many: that if enough women don't pass these standards, they will be lowered. >> i guarantee the transition, and being able to mesh together, would be a lot easier if we knew that, oh, you completed a 20 mile hike, with this much weight, and this much time, and so did i. and that's what most important to the people that i know. it isn't so much that you're a male and i'm a female and you're this and you're that. it's that the mission is hard, and i need everybody to be able to accomplish it, not just to meet some diversity criteria. >> reporter: we talked with some current marines who say, okay, these jobs are now open to women, and somewhere down the road there's road there's going to be some pressure brought to bear on the corps to lower those standards to guarantee that more women get into these jobs. is that going to happen? >> not on my watch. i've heard the secretary of defense and the secretary of the navy say we're not going to lower the standard. we've established the standards, they know what the standards are. if any standard we set was causing high attrition or high injury rate of anybody, that's probably something you want to look at, but right now that's not the case. >> reporter: so far, of the 12,000 women who've enlisted in the marines in the last three years, only 150 have chosen to apply for these combat jobs. and of those, only 53-- about one in three-- passed these tougher standards. the rest failed, dropped out or are still in training. more broadly, women also get injured more often than men at boot camp, and drop out at double the rate of men. to some, this is evidence that putting women into combat roles is a bad idea. this woman spend 27 years in the marine. she et cetera a magazine for the marine community. >> women break down at a much greater level than our counterparts. that's reality. can a woman carry the same loads as a man? loads in iraq and afghanistan were 70 to 80 pounds, the full battle gear and more in some cases. you know, how long would i have lasted with something like that? the issue is when did my body start to break down. >> i would say if there's one woman out of a thousand who can make that move and move into the ground combat job, then why should she be denied that opportunity? >> retired lieutenant colonel kate commanded the platoon in paris island but fired for creating a "hostile climate." she said she was trying to improve recruit training. she said the reason so many women drop out and fail to pass the new standards is the marines haven't raised the bar high enough for women. so you would argue that it's lowered expectations of women over the years that has driven this disparity, not some inherent inability on behalf of women? >> absolutely lowered expectations for females, and what i would say is there is a lot of data to support that conclusion. >> as proof, jermano says she was able to dramatically improve female marksmanship at paris island. >> we were able to take an initial qualification rate of 67% for the women compared to high 80 and 90% for male workers. we were able to take that low percentage and bring it to under 92% in less than a year, and not through any extra training, it wasn't through any pre-recruit training, screening, it was strictly through changing the expectation that women could shoot and they should be expected to shoot well. >> jermano says those high expectations should trickle down to better recruits as well as recruiting stronger women to begin with. >> we have to look for a better product. america has to look and give us what we're looking for here and that's a college athlete. >> sergeant major angela manis says the marines are setting high standard and have started a new initiative to recruit stronger women. >> so when we have a solid foundation coming here already with muscle already attached to her body, it's not going to be that difficult to get her trained to the level that we need her. >> a few weeks after we first met the three recruits, we checked back at boot camp. >> ssomething eats different sie the last time i saw you. >> yes, i became a united states marine. >> brangham: congratulations. thank you. >> brangham: trieft first class lacy elkins passed her combat test with flying colors, some of the highest scores in her platoon. she will now train to operate amphibious assault vehicles. after completing the grueling two-day crucible attend of boot camp, this private received her marine insignificance any. i can't in this emotional ceremony she officially becomes a u.s. marine. shealso passed her combat fitness test and will move on to be a combat engineer. but recruit rebecca wolf still had to pass her test and today is the make or break day. to get into her chosen combat job, she has to run half a mall in a certain period of time, press a 30-pound ammunition can over her head at least 60 times in two minutes. right after there's a timed course that involves crawling on all fours, running with 60 pounds of weight in her hands, and carrying another recruit on her back. all this against the clock. >> $329. wolf didn't make it. her scores were close but not good enough. (band music) >> three weeks later, wolf still graduated and became a u.s. marine, but she's now been assigned to a different non-combat position. instead of shooting stinger missiles, she will be coordinating the movement of equipment, supplies and people. for the pbs "newshour", i'm william brangham in paris island, south carolina. >> woodruff: and william joins me now. william, a remarkable story here. let's talk about rebecca wolf. she goes through boot camp, finishes, graduates but doesn't qualify for combat. how disappointed was she? >> initial by, she was very, very disappointed. the day she failed, she was crushed. now she says she's not so crushed. it's important to say rebecca missed this test by just a hair. in those drills that we saw her doing, that ammo can lift, she missed it by one. the long, extended race at the end, she missed that by 22 seconds. ten days hater, after that test, she was back home, out of boot camp, she was diagnosed with bronchitis and said she had been feeling sick all along. so she was disappointed initially but now she's a marine, proud to have gotten through boot camp which is no small feat and she is going on to be trained in north carolina now. >> the marines don't care if you're sick? >> the marine ethos is suck it up. life is hard, boot camp is hard, tough it out. >> so this entire exercise, allowing women to qualify for combat in the marines, this was ordered by the secretary of defense under president obama. we know very well that donald trump has expressed a different point of view, his incoming defense secretary general james mattis is not a believer in women in combat. what is expected here? i mean, how much could this whole thing change? >> that's the $64,000 question. i think all the women who are in the marine corps and marine community more broadly are looking closely at what will happen. the secretaries of defense under obama pushed for this order and against the resistance of the marine corps. now we have a new secretary of f defense and what one ordered, the other can do away with. general james mattis himself, being a former marine, is strongly against this position. he thinks it is weakening the marine corps. he likened it to a football team to take on 10, 15, 20 perfemale players and go ahead and play. he said everyone would laugh at that idea but that's what you're asking the marine corps to do. he's strongly against it. whether it's overturned, he is not a fan. >> woodruff: you talked to so many women going through boot camp, william. what do you think their reaction would be if the defense department says we're going to undo -- or if the marines undo this? >> i think there would be an enormous amount of disappointment amongst the female recruits and marines we spoke to. they went into it, want to serve their country, saw this as a final barrier this was breaking and deeply proud to take on these jobs. people outside the marine corps, for instance kay jermano who we talked to, said it would be a huge blow to the morale of women and reinforce the idea that exists in some corners of the marine corps that women are second-class citizens. others think they will not want to take the fight on, they'll simply let the standard stay high and not that many women will make it through and the policy will just continue. >> woodruff: it's been a remarkable look inside something we almost never get a chance to see, and i know we're going to continue to follow this, william brangham, thank you. >> brangham: thank you. >> woodruff: a week after the deadly fire at an artists' warehouse space in oakland, california, known as the ghost ship, killed 36 people, fire departments around the country are investigating so-called live-work spaces. these are places often inhabited by artists and low-income residents. there's ever less affordable housing today in many metro areas, pushing people to new measures and extremes. and again to hari, who's been working with our team on this story. >> everybody is watching us in all the other cities. it's becoming like a national crisis. >> sreenivasan: in art warehouses across oakland. people are anxious. their way of life is under threat. >> all of the survivors live in a warehouse, or occupy warehouses. and we're all grieving, and people who are survivors are now at risk for losing their home. >> sreenivasan: fears of a backlash from city inspectors and property owners are beginning to materialize. >> this week, my lease holder told me the landlord was scared of people living in our space and has asked anybody living there to move out by january 3. >> sreenivasan: painter and photographer angela scrivani has been living and working in this oakland art studio for the past eight years. she's asking city officials to differentiate between a dwelling that's unsafe versus one that's just not permitted properly. >> a lot of the spaces that i've been in, where we didn't pull permits to build the areas in which we live and work, we built them to code. we know the code. it's such a desperate situation that we were willing to take the risk and hoped that it wouldn't come to this. >> sreenivasan: oakland is not alone in cracking down on buildings not zoned for residents. l.a., dallas, nashville and new haven have all put landlords and tenants on notice to clear out buildings that might be substandard living conditions. baltimore is taking it a step further. que puequeno is a multimedia artist. he had been living in this building known as the bell foundry until earlier this week. on monday, the city evicted him and nine other artists without warning. >> bell foundry is just an example of what's going to happen to, like, more spaces like this, not only in baltimore but in, like, different cities. my next move, hopefully, is to >> sreenivasan: artists could live, work and party at the bell foundry. it was also a sanctuary for the l.g.b.t.q. community and artists of color, according to pequeno. my next move, hopefully, is to find a new safe space for black and brown artists, for black and brown people in baltimore. >> sreenivasan: the bell foundry was never zoned for residential use, and it was unsafe, according to kathleen byrne, who is responsible for permits and code enforcement in baltimore's housing department. >> it was an accident waiting to happen. there were tons of flammables and combustibles as well as debris located and it warranted imminent danger. it wasn't just a matter of not getting the proper permit. >> sreenivasan: even with the wake-up call in oakland, these safety issues are nothing new for baltimore. >> it's probably every code enforcement official's worst nightmare, what happened in oakland, but these are things that we deal with on a daily basis. they're just not in the public eye. >> sreenivasan: the bell foundry's closure has put other baltimore artists on high-alert that their spaces could be targeted. >> i'm terrified. i feel like someone's going to take it away. >> sreenivasan: stewart watson owns area 405, a massive mixed- use space converted from a 19th century factory. watson spent 14 years getting the building up to code. >> the sprinkler system happened pretty quickly. that and the firewalls and the stairwells was within the first couple of years. but the other things have taken time. you know, updating electrical and things like that has taken a long time. >> sreenivasan: it's a process she says must be done to keep artists safe. >> not providing safety for the people who entrust their lives to you is unconscionable. people trust me with their lives and i don't take that lightly. >> sreenivasan: because many artists lack the resources to operate safe spaces, the greater baltimore cultural alliance advocates on their behalf. executive director jeanne howe: >> one of the most frequent calls we get is a search for space of some kind. and we've put together a couple of tools that help match folks with available space. we value these artists and we value their contributions to the city and we want them to be here. >> sreenivasan: robbie kowel has been producing major outdoor music parties in san francisco for 19 years. he says that if cities are serious about retaining their artists, they need to recognize that art spaces are critical. >> these warehouse spaces are the only places where they can afford to not only live, but pay that second rent to actually have a studio to create their work. >> sreenivasan: and he warns that regulatory efforts could drive artists into more dangerous spaces. >> artists will find another place to make art and they will so i would just advise the public officials to concentrate on harm reduction over code compliance. it's a very big difference. >> sreenivasan: that's what san francisco does when it comes to regulating live performance spaces. jocelyn kane heads the city's entertainment commission. >> we are much safer than other cities, where people are somewhat scared to come to government. we have tools that we use in our toolbox to allow people to consider using, like, an out-of- the-box crazy space to do an event that would be unique or different, and then we can sort of guide them through in a way that feels safe to them. >> sreenivasan: kane says that since many artists rely on income from live performances, it's important they have easy access to spaces where they can safely host these events. >> i'm sitting in city hall, i'm a part of government, and i'm trying to be an advocate as much as possible, within the confines of what we call responsible hospitality. >> sreenivasan: stewart watson, owner of area 405 in baltimore, hopes more artists will also be able to invest in safe spaces. >> i want artists to buy places. i want them to fix them. i don't want them to think that living in places that are not fixed up is okay. >> sreenivasan: and that's just what que pequeno is climbing toward. for the pbs newshour, i'm hari sreenivasan. >> woodruff: and, to the analysis of shields and brooks. that's syndicated columnist mark shields and "new york times" columnist david brooks. welcome, gentlemen. so let's talk about the trump cabinet. we know rudy giuliani's out. took himself out of consideration, they said. but we've got several names, mark, of people who are in at labor, at the e.p.a., h.u.d., small business, and they all seem to be people who don't necessarily agree wit with whate mission of these agencies has been during the obama administration. what are we to make of them? >> they're very personal choices by donald trump. ben carson is a world-renowned pediatric neurosurgeon, 400 surgeries a year. surgeon general, now housing and urban development, and he's owned several houses, he's lived in a house. i don't know what the other qualifications are. particularly interesting to me was, after he met president-elect with al gore, probably the most prominent environmental voice in the democratic party, he chose oklahoma attorney general scott fender. when you think of the preservation of america, you immediately think of oklahoma -- >> woodruff: be careful, my birth place. >> it's not a vanguard state in environmental protection. it has been very big on fracking. it said 907 earthquakes in the last year which is more than in the last 35 years, under a 3.0 magnitude. i think general pruitt is certainly a skeptic. maybe david can figure it out. >> woodruff: pattern? i rise to the defense of oklahoma. >> woodruff: thank you. the beauties of tulsa created the trump phenomenon in the first place. first, agencies and these issues, whether environmental or labor issues, it's a tradeoff and democrats and environmental agencies tend to be more sensitive to environmental harm and republicans tend to be more sensitive to business harm. it's a different set of priorities and legitimate. trump has picked the more extreme versions of all republicans so far. the more aggressive. i think the thing to watch out for is i could totally pin a scenario where trump runs an authoritarian regime, i can totally paint a scenario where he has no control over his own government, in part because of his attention span problems, and in part because running an agency is very hard. cabinet secretaries often have no control over their agency and it becomes doubly hard when you're out of opinion with the people who work in the agency and becomes triply hard, as i think may happen, a lot of people will leave the government. a lot of people are weighing do i really want to serve here? and others, i'm a career person, respect the process, but i don't feel comfortable working here anymore. >> that's a credible point. i wish once when they pick a secretary of labor, they would say, gee, who's the best boss in america? who has great relations? >> woodruff: he runs two food companies. >> and he's been -- his relations with workers are not a hallmark of his career. he's been very successful in maximizing profit, but there is no particular -- >> woodruff: his name is andy puzder. >> andy puzder. aaron feinstein, when the mill burned down, the first thing he did was to keep all his employees on the payroll for 60 days while he rebuilt on the spovment he didn't take the insurance or go offshore. dan price? seattle, gravity payments, cut his own salary by 90% to give everybody a $70,000 minimum. it would be nice to have somebody who cares about workers. puzder has been successful franchising hardy's and karl cal juniors but he doesn't have a relationship with the workers. >> the question is there are four or five billionaires in the trump cabinet. do we think that's the way it's going to be? >> he likes his fellow billionaires, assuming he is one. i think populist movements are not against self-made billionaires, in particular. the trump movement is not hostile to professional wrestling. what they tend to be suspicious of the professionals and what they see as the managerial class. if you pick a lot of people that wean to harvard, worked in the academy and media, then i think his supporters would be restless. but they're sensitive to people, i think, who are looking down upon them, basically the professional class, so i don't think it's entirely inconsistent or out of spirit of the movement to have these type people. >> woodruff: mark. i count nine millionaires and a plumber in his cabinet, eisenhower did. the goldman sachs is probably overly represented considering it was part of the vast conspiracy of hillary clinton to rob the united states of its sovereignty, according to candidate trump, and now he's finding the personnel supplying for his administration. >> woodruff: the other thing we saw a little bit more of this week, david, was this continuation of donald trump tweeting criticism of boeing aircraft over the cost -- what he says may be the cost of the new air force one and then getting into a spat with a local union president in indiana who had said, you know, you're not really going to be saving as many jobs at the carrier corporation as you said you were. >> a friend of mine who's a political strategist in town said half my conversations are about the dissent of fascism in america and maybe that will happen and half about policies on how to reform healthcare. the trump administration could go off in both directions. we could see something authoritarian, looking more like ukraine or russia than here, and the tweets are one of the tell-tale signs of whether we're going off in that direction. if he's just tweeting about a union guy, he's just being the bully we've seen, but if he's using the the power of the presidency to back up the tweets and coming down on people he doesn't like using the power of the presidency, then we're seeing something new and different. it's too soon to tell whether he'll do that but that will be troubling if he does that as president. >> woodruff: what do you think? >> cyberbullying, emphasis on bullying, going after chuck jones, local 1999 of the steelworkers, is punching somebody who's a lot less important and putting them not only as the object of ridicule but open threats that chuck jones has received as a consequence of the president-elect doing this. and he just doesn't seem to grasp or understand mr. trump, the imagine city and the power of the office. i think bob dallik, the presidential historian, very respected, said this behavior is beneath the dignity of the office, and it really is. and i don't think he grasps it and understands it. the boeing thing being one example where you can move stock by just an idle comment. but it's intimidating, it's silencing, it has a chilling effect and decidedly unpresidentle. >> woodruff: david. to a lot of people, it seems like an active presidency, that he's being active on behalf of the american people. the carrier thing, i hated it as a policy matter, but at least he's saving jobs. obama never did any of this stuff. people have a different idea what the presidency should be. >> i'm talking about tweeting against an individual. like jeff cnn, terrific reporter, holding him up to ridicule for doing his job. >> woodruff: hari did an interview earlier in the show, mark, about we call it fake news and we were just sitting here saying that doesn't do justice to what's going on, it's lies out there. general michael flynn who has been chosen to be the president's national security advisor, his son was actively repeating some of the stories that were completely false about a pizza place in washington being a place where there was a pedophile ring going on involving hillary clinton and her chie chief of staff. a man from north carolina. this was all in the news last week, a manny north carolina comes to washington and shoots it inside. >> my ten-year-old granddaughter frances, i attended her tenth birthday party there in the back room of the ping-pong. it has great pizza, very popular place. it's a total fab ricase. it's worse than a fabrication, it's a slur and liable. alex jones is involved in this, the radio personality, talks about hillary clinton murdering young children. i mean,eth just has to be front. i thought mark fisher did a great job in "the washington post" and with his interview with hari in shooting it down. but if you're going to spend all your time shooting this stuff down, judy -- >> yeah, somebody wrote a story about me where i allegedly called for donald trump's assassination, and it was a long 1500 word, very carefully written piece where i allegedly gave an interview to a radio station that doesn't exist and it was like being in an alternative universe in a novel, like some other novel where sund sund -- where suddenly the effects hit me in real life. what's troubling is the professionalism with which it's done and how distrust of the media leads to extreme naivety where people believe anything. >> woodruff: we're always used to people stretching in truth in journalism, but it's beyond the pale. john glenn, we lost a great american hero yesterday. what did he represent to this country? >> 23 years of marine jet pilot, combat pilot, 149 missions and two wars. first american to orbit the earth at a time when the united states was reeling. more than that, it gave the country a lift and most of all, all he was about, he was everything he seemed to be and more, h he was the genuine article. the thing, judy, to remember about john glenn is that he had had the ultimate in praise and national attention. he was an icon. all he wanted to do, he didn't need validation or an ego fix, all he wanted to do was public service, and he did it and he was a great senator and great american. >> good midwestern decency. >> woodruff: we thank you and remember john glenn. >> woodruff: and a news update before we go. incoming senate minority leader chuck schumer said, despite opposition, senate democrats will provide enough votes for a spending bill that avoids a government shutdown. later tonight on "washington week," why president obama launched an investigation into hacking of the 2016 election, and how the report could cause problems for the trump administration after the inauguration. that's tonight, on "washington week." on pbs newshour saturday, how attitudes about war have changed over the last 20 years. and that the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. have a great weekend. thank you, and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> lincoln financial-- committed to helping you take charge of your financial future. >> bnsf railway. >> xq institute. >> supporting social entrepreneurs and their solutions to the world's most pressing problems-- skollfoundation.org. >> and the william and flora hewlett foundation, helping people build immeasurably better lives. >> 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. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org ♪ this is "nightly business report" with tyler mathisen and sue herera. record week. stocks have their best week since the election. will it usher in the return of the retail investor. >> shakeup. the ceo of coke steps down. now the new ceo must figure out how to tackle a number of major challenges. picking stocks. our market monitor says there are three companies whose shares could rise double digits for the year. he'll name them tonight on "nightly business report" for friday, december 9th. good evening, everyone. and welcome. the rally rolls on. not only did stocks close at all-time highs today, but the three major indexes advanced every single day this week. something that hasn't happened in five years.