Its going to take a lot of work. Woodruff 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. And the william and flora hewlett foundation, helping people build immeasurably better lives. Supported by the rockefeller foundation. Promoting the wellbeing of humanity around the world by building resilience and inclusive economies. More at 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. Woodruff more for defense, less for most domestic programs. Thats the message from the white house as it works up a spending blueprint for the coming year. John yang begins our coverage, from the white house. Yang meeting with the nations governors today, President Trump outlined a spending plan to fulfill his Campaign Promise to dramatically beef up the pentagon. This budget will be a Public Safety and National Security budget. And it will include an historic increase in defense spending to rebuild the depleted military of the United States of america at a time we most need it. Yang the president wants to hike defense spending 10 , to 603 billion, for the budget year beginning october 1. Budget officials said mr. Trump will also seek increases for Law Enforcement and First Responders and money for the border wall. Were going to do more with less and make the government lean and accountable to the people. We can do so much more with the money we spend. With 20 trillion in debt, can you imagine that . The government must learn to tighten its belt, something families all across the country have had to learn to do unfortunately. Yang to avoid adding to the deficit, mr. Trump wants to cut domestic spending by the same 54 billion he wants to boost military spending. Officials said virtually every federal agency will see cuts along with major cuts for foreign aid. White house budget director Mick Mulvaney yes its a fairly small part of the discretionary budget but its still consistent with what the president said. When you see these reductions youll be able to tie it back to speech the president gave or what the president has said previously. Yang budget officials said proposals for taxes and entitlement programs like Social Security and medicare will come later. Mr. Trump met today with Top Health Insurance executives to talk about repealing and replacing the Affordable Care act. We must Work Together to save americans from obamacare, people know that and everyone knows that at this point, to create more competition and bring down the prices substantially. Yang that was echoed by republican governors like rick snyder of michigan. This is a time for reform, to broaden the issue from beyond coverage to how do we do better quality, better Cost Containment for the long term and ultimately its about compassion. Were talking real people here. Yang democrats, led by National GovernorsAssociation ChairmanTerry Mcauliffe of virginia, warned that ending obamacare would create major funding gaps for medicaid. At this point we have not been provided any information that we want, other than we want everybody to have health care. We want to make accessible and affordable to all. The devil is in the details. I think the rhetoric of the campaign has hit the reality of governing. Yang the president promised his address to Congress Tomorrow night would include a big statement on rebuilding the nations roads and bridges. White House Press Secretary sean spicer said the president would talk about solving real problems for real americans, like creating jobs and ending urban violence. In addition to the 10 reduction in Pentagon Spending next year. Mr. Trump will ask for 30 million more for the pentagon this year. Not clear how they will pay for that. Judy . Woodruff john, 30 billion is not church change, where will they come up with that . Not only that, theyre in the supplemental appropriations request will ask money for the first down payment to build the border wall with mexico. If they dont want to add to the deficit which they say they wont, theyre going to have to find offsetting cuts somewhere else because the president says hes not raising taxes. Woodruff we know, as you just reported, there were concerns among democratic governors to the changes to obamacare, but over the weekend concerns express bid republicans, too. Thats right. This is one of the complications the president talked about. A number of republican governors like john kasich of ohio used obamacare to expand medicaid coverage, medicaid, the program that takes care of healthcare for the needy. In ohio, he added 525,000 uninchiewrd meme to the medicaid role. If the medicaid goes away, they will either have to find the money elsewhere or push people off medicaid roles neither which is politically palatable. Woodruff john yang reporting for us from the white house. Thank you. In the days other news, the senate moved to confirm the president s nominee for commerce secretary. Billionaire investor wilbur ross has said the administration will work quickly to redo nafta, the north American Free trade agreement. Meanwhile, the nominee for navy secretary, philip bilden, withdraw last night. He cited trouble in separating from business interests. The Army Secretary nominee, vincent viola, withdraw earlier this month over similar issues. More bomb threats were called in today to Jewish Community centers and day schools in at least 11 states. All appeared to be hoaxes. The threats follow the weekend destruction of more than 100 headstones at a Jewish Cemetery in philadelphia. Interfaith leaders in the city called today for unity. Every time we are attacked by hate in the cemetery or beyond, we come together in solidarity. We will not only defend our particular group. Too many are vulnerable. Woodruff a white house spokesman said President Trump condemns the vandalism and bomb threats in the strongest terms. In the philippines, the military confirmed today that islamist militants linked to the Islamic State group have beheaded a german captive. Abu sayyaf had been holding the 70yearold hostage on a Southern Island since last fall. They demanded 600,000, but the ransom deadline passed sunday without payment. Dozens of shops were ransacked overnight in johannesburg, south africa, the latest in a wave of violence apparently aimed at immigrants. Theres been similar looting in pretoria this month. On friday, hundreds of anti immigrant protesters marched in pretoria. It comes amid claims that foreigners are fomenting crime and taking jobs from locals. Back in this country, theft of opioid drugs has become a major problem at veterans hospitals. The Associated Press reports more than 11,000 cases since 2010. But it says v. A. Staffers were disciplined in only 3 of the cases. A top v. A. Official, dr. Carolyn clancy, told a house hearing today that most of the missing medicine is being lost in the mail. Republican neal dunn of florida was incredulous. Somewhere between once the v. A. Has the drug and once the v. A. Passes it off to another part of the v. A. , the drugs are being diverted . Is that the system . No, this is outside the v. A. s system. So i have to tell you ive just 35 years ive never heard this kind of accusation. Woodruff clancy did say the department is adding inspectors and expanding employee drug testing. Japanese air bag maker takata pleaded guilty to a federal criminal charge today in detroit. The company also agreed to pay 1 billion over faulty inflators. Theyre blamed for at least 16 deaths and 180 injuries worldwide. Meanwhile, in miami, plaintiffs in dozens of lawsuits charged takata and five automakers knew the inflators were dangerous but kept using them because they were cheaper. On wall street today, stocks had a relatively quiet time, but the Dow Jones Industrial average did hit a record close for the 12th session in a row. It gained 15 points to close at 20,837. The nasdaq rose 16 points, and the s p 500 added two. And, theyre still trying to figure out what caused a mixup for the ages at the oscars last night. Presenters Warren Beatty and faye dunaway mistakenly announced la la land as the best picture winner after being given the wrong envelope. Moments later, came word that moonlight was the actual winner. P. W. C. , the company that tabulates the vote results, says its investigating just what happened. Still to come on the newshour, congress grapples with questions over whether an investigation into the trump administrations ties to russia have been tainted. Hospitals brace for big losses if obamacare is repealed. A look at the democrats choice of a new party chair with our politics monday duo, and much more. Woodruff we turn our focus now to claims the Trump Campaign was in contact with russian intelligence officials, and new concerns over how they should be investigated. We still have not seen any evidence of anyone thats from the Trump Campaign or any other campaign for that matter thats communicated with the russian government. Woodruff house intelligence chair devin nunes met reporters this morning, and responded to questions over his committees investigation into whether President Trumps associates had ties to russia during the president ial campaign, or after. Nunes drew criticism after a Washington Post article revealed that the he agreed to talk to a reporter at the white houses request about a New York Times story that alleged Trump Associates spoke with russian intelligence. That story was a little odd, i thought, because if you ask me to contact the white house and said, hey, could you set me up with somebody at d. O. D. Or the intelligence agencies, i would say sure. Woodruff c. I. A. Director mike pompeo and the republican chair of the Senate Intelligence committee, richard burr of north carolina, also made calls regarding the times story, at white house request. Nunes acknowledged the investigation was still open, but said he wanted to be careful not to jump into a witch hunt, comparing it to the red scare of the 1950s. We cant have mccarthyism back in this place. We cant have the government, the u. S. Government or the congress, legislative branch of government chasing down american citizen, hauling them before the congress as if theres some secret russian agent. Woodruff white house Spokesman Sean Spicer echoed nunes, declaring there was no story. Weve heard the same people the same anecdotes and weve heard reports over and over again. And as chairman nunes very clear today, he has seen nothing that corroborates that, so at what point you got to ask yourself, what are you investigating . Woodruff among those still not convinced former president george w. Bush, who told nbcs today show that the questions about links to russia need to be answered. Amid growing calls for an independent investigation into russias attempts to influence the u. S. President ial election, i spoke earlier with senator mark warner, the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence committee. I asked for his reaction to the white house enlisting u. S. Intelligence Community Leaders and Congressional Intelligence Committee chairs to help counter news stories about the Trump Campaigns contacts with russias intelligence officials. Is my reaction was of grave concern and an awful lot of frustration. We are at the early stages of our investigation. We have bipartisan Intelligence Committee staff, today, working over reviewing basic intelligence. We have been at this now a couple of weeks. Were making progress. For anyone to try to interfere at this early stage of an investigation just makes no sense. Lets take for a moment, even if the white houses position was correct, by asking these figures to interfere and lobby, they then potentially color the results of this investigation. I have no idea why they would try to interfere at this point, when this investigation is ongoing. The good news is, judy, though, that we have heard, ove over the last couple of days, from a number of the members of the committee, democrats and republicans alike, folks like senator rubio and senator collins, who have all said very strongly they continue to support an investigation thats bipartisan, that will follow the facts wherever they may lead, that wont allow outside interference like the white house and others, and as long as weve got a Strong Majority of the committee thats committed to that process, i think were in the best place to go forward. Woodruff what the white House Press Secretary sean spicer said today was this is simply in response to the request from the reporters. The reporters were asking for the white house version, the white house said, in order to give you any corroboration, it was the only way they could do that was to send them to these other officials. One of the things about an Intelligence Committee investigation is that you dont talk about the ongoing processes before you have a finished product. Were really still at the early stages. There are enormts amounts of information that has to be gone through. Weve seen massive russian intervention in the election, weve seen hacking, weve seen a number of indications of individuals affiliated with mr. Trump whove had contacts with russian officials. We need to find the extent of those contact, the content of those contacts. So somehow asking folks to interfere on a press story before this investigation is completed, to me is both inappropriate, improper and, frankly, weakens the white houses case dramatically. Senator , that sounds different from what devin nunes, the house intelligence chair, said today. He said there is no evidence he knows of now of contacts between the Trump Campaign and russian intelligence officials. Judy, the one thing that i think has been made clear is there are ongoin investigations. Anyone that jumps to a conclusion while there are ongoing investigations and tries to make a definitive statement does a great disservice to the american people. There is nothing to more important when we have the potension of a foreign nation not only interfering in our election process but lord knows what else. Woodruff chairman nunes went on to say this should not become a wish hunt. Is that a legitimate concern here . Listen, what the chairman of the house has done by trying to interfere in the investigation really raises huge concerns. As somebody who has to go back and continue to make the case to my democratic colleagues that this investigation is going to be done straight up, in an honest and straightforward way, obviously, chairman nunes actions dont help that cause. You know, if this ends up defaulting into some kind of partisan food fight, at the end of the day what happens is the American Public dont get the answers they deserve. Ive said from the outset, judy, theres nothing ive done in my Senate Career thats more important than this investigation. It has to be done right, it has to be done bipartisan, and it has to follow the facts wherever they lead, and when youve got, particularly, an Administration Like this one which has, unfortunately in the president , disrespect Intelligence Community so many times, its important that the intense Community Feels someone has their back and they can do their job in an honed ant truthful way. Woodruff senator durbin said there needs to be an outside independent commission looking into it. If i find we cant get access to the information we need, yes, i will be willing to call for that. But lets remember, if we were to pass an independent commission, it would require passage of the house, the senate and a significant by this prms dent. Who would say that that independent commission would truly be independent . We would also take thatco commission literally month to get up to speed. We have people working today in a bipartisan fashion, trying to get the facts to get to the bottom of this. I think the American Public deserve answers sooner than late, and my theory is the independent commission, one, would it truly be independent, would it truly get passed and be signed by this president and then it would take literally months to get it set up and established. I think as long as we can continue to do this with the majority of the Intelligence Committee committed to doing this bipartisan, independent, and making sure we get the facts, this is still the way to go. Senator mark warner, the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence committee. Thank you. Thank you, judy. 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