plus, pre-school without walls-- a new movement is breaking down the barriers of the classroom and letting kids learn in the great outdoors. >> in a classroom, a lot of the things that you have are static and were designed to be played with in one particular way. the natural environment changes every single day. >> sreenivasan: all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> 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. >> sreenivasan: yesterday we reported on president trump's updated criticism of the neo nazi and white nationalist groups that caused violence two days earlier in charlottesville. that was yesterday. today, in an impromptu news conference originally about an executive order on infrastructure, trump defended his statements from over the weekend and went further. for more on all this, i'm joined by the news hour's john yang. john, at first it was about infrastructure. there were visual aids. there were flow charts. and then... >> yang: it was a remarkable performance. reporters were initially told that the president would not take questions. it was just going to be a statement. but he's described as fuming at the press and the coverage of his reaction to charlottesville, and this afternoon he came out swinging, first on c.e.o.'s quitting white house advisory panels. >> take a look at where their product is made. it's made outside of our country. we want products made in the country. now, i have the tell you, some of the folks that will leave, they're leaving out of embarrassment because they make their products outside, and i've been lecturing them about you have to bring it back to this country. >> he was referring to the merck c.e.o., but there were many other c.e.o.s. >> yang: three c.e.o.s together and the head of another panel, c.e.o.s of intel, of under armour and then the head of a manufacturing alliance. and just a few moments ago richard trumka, the head of the a.f.l.-c.i.o., announced he's quitting, saying mr. trump's repudiate his forced remarks yesterday. >> sreenivasan: he doubled down. this was the person that almost was forced, as richard trumka says. you could see how uncomfortable he was. today he was incredibly confident, sure of himself. this is what he thinks. >> yang: yesterday we are told, especially chief of staff john kelly, pressed for what happened yesterday. they wanted to get this behind them so they could move on to their agenda in september, but the president brought it right back today, back to square one. >> sreenivasan: he was also defending... he took sort of several moments and opportunities to defend the alt right in not so many words by really pointing out there were other good and decent people there and even how he perceived the protests on friday night where those men were carrying torches. >> he also defended why it took him more than 48 hours to specifically condemn white supremacist, neo-nazis and the ku klux klan. >> i didn't wait long. i didn't wait long. i didn't wait long. i wanted to make sure, unlike most politicians, that what i said was correct, not make a quick statement. the statement i made on saturday, the first statement, was a fine statement, but you don't make statements that direct unless you know the facts. it takes a little while to get the facts. you still don't know the facts. and it's a very, very important process to me, and it's a very important statement. so i don't want to go quickly and just make a statement for the sake of making a political statement. i want to know the facts. >> sreenivasan: this is not the same person that tweets within minutes when he's angry about something, he takes to twitter very quickly. he makes statements sometimes too quickly, and here he is sort of saying the opposite, that he's deliberate, that he waits for facts and information. >> sreenivasan: critics have already been pointing out that this is the same man who went to twitter to criticize, accuse president obama of wiretapping him in trump tower without any evidence and make a number over claims without any evidence. >> and even in the remarks about the merck c.e.o. who left the council, it was an incredibly short amount of time, as soon as he left the council, that he sort of took merck through the ringer. >> sreenivasan: yesterday after kevin frazier resigned from the council. he took to twitter and said, "great. now we have more time to secure these ripoff high drug prices, even though at merck frazier has led the way in being transparent about drug costs." he also accused him today of manufacturing drugs overseas. >> sreenivasan: which makes you wonder, why have him on the commission in the first place if you thought these things about him. there's also this eequivalency that he's making throughout this defense in charlottesville. >> yang: he went back to the original statement on saturday, that this was something... he criticized what he called the alt left. >> excuse me. what about the alt left that came charging at the, as you sea, the alt right? do they have any semblance of guilt? [all shouting questions at once] what about the fact they came charging with clubs in their hands, swinging clubs. do they have any problem? i think they do. i'm not putting anybody on a moral plain. what i'm saying is this, you had a group on one side and you had a group on the other, and they came at each other with clubs and it was vicious and it was horrible and it was a horrible thing to watch. i think there's blame on both sides, and i have no doubt about it, and you don't have any doubt about it either. [laughing] >> yang: sorry, but when you see the statement that was constructed yesterday and you see how forthright he is, this is what he believes, and saturday is what he believed. >> sreenivasan: people at the white house have been telling me, talking about the saturday statement, that he saw this as an issue of law and order, that he saw unrest, he saw civil unrest and violence. he didn't really distinguish which side. he saw this more as an issue of law and order, not ideology. >> you know, there was also a fallacy of the slippery slope here, with george washington. >> yang: that's right. he was asked about the whole controversy about removing confederate memorials like the robert e. lee statue that sparked the violence in charlottesville. mr. trump in response brought up the founding fathers. >> george washington was a slave owner. was george washington a slave owner? will george washington now lose his stat trust. are we going to take down... are we going the take down statues to george washington? how about thomas jefferson? what do you think of thomas jefferson? you like him. >> i love him. >> good. are we going to take down the statue? he was major slave own center you know what, it's fine. >> sreenivasan: there has already been reaction. >> house speaker paul ryan tweeted a little bit ago saying that... i've lost it on my phone here, but there can be no moral ambiguity. he was also one praised david duke, former grand wizard of the ku klux klan tweeted, "thank you, president trump, for your honesty and courage to tell the truth about charlottesville and condemn the leftist terrorists in black lives matter and anti-fascists." >> sreenivasan: so these are the people happy with the president and his remarks today. >> yang: our colleague talked to matthew heimbach, he described the head of the traditionalist workers party was described as being ecstatic on the phone. these are actual anarchists, not regular leftist, not your dad yeah's democrats. the talk about violence and commit violence and terror acts on a daily basis. >> sreenivasan: the traditional workers party. he also referenced john mccain as something who was questioning him, and he threw him under the bus at that moment. and then there was this... all i can say is this bizarre promo for a winery that trump owns in charlottesville. anyway, it's fascinating insight into the president. john yang, thanks so much. >> sreenivasan: we've only scratched the surface of the president's press conference, you can watch the whole event on our website, pbs.org/newshour. all of today's comments surrounding the events in charlottesville follow a protest last night in neighboring north carolina. demonstraters in durham tore down a confederate statue outside a courthouse. they attached a rope, and overturned the bronze monument, before kicking it and cheering. the durham county sheriff said protesters will face felony charges. in the day's other news, the death toll from yesterday's devastating mudslide in sierra leone has surged to more than 300. and, the red cross estimates another 600 people are still missing. rescue crews battled still fast- moving waters, as they searched homes ravaged by the floods. survivors recounted the horror of the mudslides in the capital freetown. >> ( translated ): there was a big sound and the ground was trembling and stones started falling. when i came out a stone nearly killed me so i ran out. when i looked back all the buildings were covered with mud so nobody survived from that part of the hill. >> sreenivasan: if you want to hear more about the rescue and recovery efforts in sierra leone, we spoke with idalia amaya of catholic relief services. you can find that on our facebook page, and, separately, monsoon-fueld rains across south-east asia have now killed more than 200 people in nepal, bangladesh and india. the president of argentina today became the latest latin american leader to speak against the prospect of u.s. military action in venezuela. president mauricio macri said force is not "the way to go." colombia's president also said military force shouldn't be considered. macri spoke during a visit by vice president mike pence, who once again declined to rule out military action. pence did say he's confident a "peaceable" solution can be achieved. the president of iran has issued a new threat about his country's nuclear program. president trump says iran has violated the spirit of its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, a pact he has repeatedly wanted to scuttle. but speaking to lawmakers in tehran, president hassan rouhani said iran's nuclear activities could be advanced quickly if the u.s. continues its "threats and sanctions." >> ( translated ): if the u.s. administration is willing to repeat previous experiences, iran will certainly, within a short period, not short on a scale of weeks or months, but short on a scale of hours and days, will return to a much more advanced position than when the talks started. >> sreenivasan: earlier this week, iran's parliament voted to increase spending on the country's ballistic missile program and foreign operations of its revolutionary guard. back in this country, voters went to the polls today in alabama's senate republican primary. it's a race to fill the seat previously held by attorney general jeff sessions. luther strange, who was appointed to hold the seat, is up against congressman mo brooks and former state supreme court judge roy moore. the contest is likely to go to a run-off next month between the top two finishers. president trump has thrown his weight behind strange. the federal government is facing push-back on its attempt to get information about visitors to a website that helped organize protests at president trump's inauguration. the site's provider, dream-host, says it is challenging a request for data on some 1.3 million visitors to the page. a hearing on the matter is scheduled for friday in washington. president trump's threat to stop subsidies for insurers could add $194 billion dollars to federal deficits over a decade. that's according to the non- partisan congressional budget office. it says ending insurance subsidies would force an increase in federal payments directly to individuals. the president has said cutting the payments, which help cover costs for people with lower incomes, would force lawmakers to negotiate on health-care reform. and, on wall street today, the dow jones industrial average gained five points to close at 21,998. the nasdaq fell seven points, and the s&p 500 dropped a point. still to come on the newshour: what the events in charlottesville say about race relations in the u.s. reading between the lines-- an analysis of north korean statements that might signal kim jong un is willing to talk. the growing trend of outdoor preschools, and much more. >> sreenivasan: we return now to the fallout from the violent events in charlottesville, and the rise of racial tensions that came to a head there. i'm joined now by mark potok, a former senior fellow at the southern poverty law center. carol anderson, she's chair of african american studies at emory university and author of "white rage: the unspoken truth of our racial divide." and leonard pitts, jr., he's a pulitzer-prize winning columnist with the miami herald. carol, i want to start with you. i wanted to start on the events of friday night, but the comments of the president today put that in a different dimension. the images that you saw on friday night of people walking with torches on the uva campus versus the one the president saw seem to be a different picture. what came to your mind? >> what came to my mind when i saw the torches and the marching was it reminded me so much of like klan marches in the '20s. it reminded me of the marchs that happened in montgomery as the klan was trying to force african americans to get back on those jim crow buses, to get back in their place. it was a signal of white power and of trying to create black fear. as i thought about it, it was a well... a way of seeing how this toxin of racism and white supremacy has reemerged in a very vir you -- virulent form in american society, and it's been aided and abeded by the kind of politics of dog whistles that have now led to the rise of donald trump. >> sreenivasan: leonard pitts, jr., it seems today when the president was asked about those events, what he saw was peaceful protests on friday night, even though there were some violent incidents that were caught on tape, as well. his world view, whatever it's shaped by, sees something very different than we do. >> well, i think it's hardly surprising that someone who is not part of a group who has a collective memory of klan marches and of people marching with torches with a design to inflict political and actual violence on you, i think it's no surprise that someone who does not have that collective memory would see that in a completely different way. we have a history in this country frankly of seeing white people, white violence and white threats of violence as more benign than we do people of color. so in that regard there's nothing really surprising about him seeing things that way. he's just... he's being who he is and where he's from, and frankly he lacks the imagination to possibly see or even to wonder how these things might be perceived by those who have a memory of having been, you know, threatened by this. >> sreenivasan: mark potok, i remember seeing video of an elderly klansman several years ago saying, "this is going to be the last generation of people who are like me," and he was lamenting it, but the pictures we saw friday night, these were young men with polo shirts and cropped hair. >> i think that's true. this is a new generation of racists who, as carol and leonard both have suggested, were in large part created by donald trump and others like donald trump, people who are in the public eye, who have been normalizing and mainstreaming the ideas of white nationalism in a way that really is unprecedented going back some 50 years in terms of coming from people in high political office and so on. it really has been something to behold. and, you know, today when trump decided that once again double down on the idea that the left was just as bad as the right, i just see that as absolutely 100% not credible. i mean, the man has no authority, no credibility whatsoever, and it was simply trump once again pivoting back to the klansmen, the neo-nazi, the white nationalists and the others who support him. he's absolutely loathe to alienate them. we've seen is that so much through his candidacy and his presidency, his absolutely false claim, for instance, that he didn't know who david duke was and therefore couldn't condemn him. so it's... as carol said, it's the dog whistle game all over again, although it is barely veiled. >> sreenivasan: carol anderson, one of the things that he did today was used the fallacy of the slippery slope to say, well, today it's the confederate monument, tomorrow why not george washington, why not thomas jefferson, who were slave owners themselves? >> i don't even know how to respond to that except to say his inability to understand the difference between people who fought to create the united states of america and people who fought to destroy the united states of america so that they could hold, rape, breed, and sell human beings shows his inability to think, his inability to have any kind of a sense of american history, and it shows again that kind of dog whistling, so that what you do is you create a false narrative, which is what he's doing to create fear that what this left is doing, this so-called left that he's talking about, is trying to destroy america, when, in fact, what you're seeing are the people who are out protesting against the nazis, against the klan, they are fighting for america, they are fighting for the recognition of our humanity, all of our humanity. this is so fundamentally different, and you would think that the president of the united states would be able to understand that. but donald trump does not. >> sreenivasan: leonard pitts, this weekend you wrote in a column that part of this is we choose to lie to ourselves about the racial divide that exists in the country. what did you mean? >> what i meant is that a lot of my white fellow countrymen have chosen a path of intellectual dishonesty i guess would be the best way to put it to deal with what's going on with regard to race right now. i think reason they do that is because it's a lot easier on them emotionally and intellectually frankly than to actually confront what's going on in the country these days and what's going on with african americans. so instead of dealing with that, if you want the think of yourself as a good person, you do not want to therefore think of yourself as part of a racist system. if you're a good person, you're obligated to do something about it and to stand up. so the alternative to doing that is to say it's all these people's imaginations or the alternative is to adopt these spurious claims. one of my favorite, and donald trump i think leads toward this, one of my favorite is, well, there's racism on both sides, which is one of the... which is hugely false and for obvious reasons. when people who are white talk about the "racism" they experience at the hands of black people, they're talking about somebody called me a bad name. when i talk about the racism i fear from white people in this society, i'm talking about the fear that one of my sons will be shot and killed by police and then thugfied on cable news. when they talk about racism, they're talking about something that affects the quality of their day. when we as african-americans talk about racism, we're talking about something that affects the quality of our lives. this has been said very clearly for many years, and -- this and other things. but for whatever reason, too many of our white fellow countrymen profess to have difficulty in understanding this. this is what i mean when i say intellectual dishonesty. >> sreenivasan: mark potok, you spent decades tracking this. is this actually increasing or is our perception of it increasing because everything is so much more visible these days? >> i think it is increasing. i think there are many things going on in the world today that are helping to foment this movement. many of them i've mentioned already, cable tv, radio talk show hosts, people like donald trump and some of the really loathsome characters within his administration, but beyond that, i think this country like much of western yiewch has gone through enormous changes. the most obvious is demographic change, the idea that whites will be a minority by about 2043, pardon me, according to the census bureau, but also huge economic changes that are hurting people, very many of them white, who in the past were fairly privileged, have very good factory jobs, made a lot of money and are now in trouble, certainly not in as much trouble as black people or other minorities, but are feeling the hurt. and also cultural changes. i think the most obvious example of that is the idea of same-sex marriage, which seemed unimaginable a mere 15 or 20 years ago, and today it's the law of the land in all 50 states. so i think something real is happening out there. there are huge changes occurring. obviously quite a few white people out there feel that somehow the country their white forefathers created for their white off spring is not the place they grew up in anymore. so, you know, i think you add to that very volatile mix, that very real mix of what's happening in the world a character like donald trump who i think has done just enormous damage to the country in terms of mainstreaming and normalizing these ideas, these very violent ideas, and you find yourself as we find ourselves today in a very scary and dangerous situation. >> sreenivasan: all right. mark potok, carol anderson, leonard pitts, jr., thank you all. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you. tensions in north korea are showing signs of cooling, at least for the day. in washington, secretary of state rex tillerson said the u.s. is interested in dialogue, and in pyongyang, the tone of kim jong-un's messages seem to maintain the same belligerent tone, but reading between the lines, analysts believe his latest statements may also be trying to de-escalate tensions with the u.s. special correspondent nick schifrin tries to decode north korea's propag special correspondent nick schifrin decided to take a look. >> reporter: in his military's strategic forces h.q., a commander in chief studies his options. his generals reveal a plan to test fire missiles near the enemy's strategically important base. the target is on the wall-- the u.s.' anderson air force base on guam. the narrator promises quote enveloping fire. >> ( translated ): us imperialists put the noose around their necks due to their reckless military confrontations. >> reporter: that sounds ominous, but the sentence continues: >> this was the signal that he's dialing things back again. >> reporter: for 33 years robert carlin studied north korea for the u.s. government. he visited the country more than 25 times, and he says kim might be signaling he wants a diplomatic path. >> you can get distracted by language which really isn't important, and read right over what is significant, and how it's supposed to click together. are we in a period like that now? i hope so. >> reporter: often, the west focuses on north korea's hyperbolic propaganda. videos show north korea preparing for war, targeting the white house and being able to destroy the capitol. propaganda aimed at children depict kids destroying a large nosed u.s. soldier. paintings in a pyongyang museum depict a u.s. soldier pulling out a north korean woman's tooth. demonizing the u.s. helps an authoritarian regime rally its population. it might those seem those rallies are preparations for conflict. but on the streets of pyongyang, there is no crisis. so, despite all the rhetoric, north korea seems not to want war. >> they didn't go on alert. they didn't mobilize the population. there's a difference between policy and propaganda. >> reporter: take the july 4 launch. kim celebrated the north korea's first ever launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile. and in a statement, he said north korea would put quote "neither its nukes nor its rockets on the table for negotiations, unless hostile u.s. policy was terminated." >> if you read that, it reads like a negative. but it's not a negative. it's actually-- if you know the history of this stuff-- it's actually a positive. because it's the first time that kim has publicly said, oh, incidentally, there is a possibility that these things would go on the table. >> reporter: that offer of negotiating its rockets and nuclear program has been repeated multiple times since. and it's exactly that offer that some north korea watchers consider a ruse. >> the latest deescalation, illusory as it may be, is a prelude to a provocation. >> reporter: sung-yoon lee is an assistant professor at the fletcher school of law and diplomacy at tufts university. he says north korea acts over the top, so when it seems to behave, it receives concessions. >> north korea, in acting crazy, or funny, even bizarre, i think achieves its strategic goal of getting the u.s. to take north korea lightly, go back to damage control diplomacy, for the sake of getting north korea out of the headlines for a few months. all along north korea is able to advance its nuclear and missile capabilities. >> reporter: and all along as the u.s. has focused on north korea's military efforts, kim has advanced north korea's economy. that helps solidify his hold on power. >> if you look at the policies that he has followed since he came in in the last six years, they are not erratic, they are not crazy, and they are producing results. >> reporter: on organized and controlled trips, the government shows off prosperous businesses like catfish farms. kim jong un has liberalized the economy so owners of companies like this one can control their own profits. the government also showed off a new luxury shopping and housing district. north koreans gawked at the pyongyang's tallest buildings. a government official said this street, was more powerful than 100 nuclear warheads. >> i hadn't been there previously for 7 years. i was flabbergasted at the change in pyongyang. the growth, the vitality of the city. >> reporter: kim's been called crazy. he is ruthless. but long term north korea watchers see an economy that's improved and messaging, even if exaggerated, that's nuanced. which means despite what it may seem, there is method to north korea's madness. for the pbs newshour, i'm nick schifrin >> sreenivasan: stay with us, coming up on the newshour: could taylor swift's court victory hold out hope for victims of sexual assault. and from the newshour bookshelf, a former f.b.i. counterterrorism agent on the changing shape of terror. but first, a movement to get kids out of classrooms with walls and into the great outdoors is picking up steam. across the u.s., "nature preschools" are seeing a surge. jeffrey brown traveled to midland, michigan to find out why for our weekly education segment, making the grade. >> there's a spider in my net! >> brown: hunting for bugs, jumping off logs, dipping for frogs: it's what kids do, right? in fact, no, many don't. certainly not as part of their education. but in the age of testing,'i screens', and, some would say, excessively coddled children, a new movement of 'inature preschools' is growing and pushing kids outdoors. jenn kirts, a biologist by training, oversees educational programs at the non-profit chippewa nature center in midland, michigan: 1,200 acres of woodlands, wetlands, ponds and meadows. >> in a classroom, a lot of the things that you have are static and were designed to be played with in one particular way. the natural environment changes every single day. the weather changes, the humidity, there's scat left behind, there's new footprints, there's leaves that are chewed today that weren't chewed yesterday. and so there's just a natural curiosity that happens there. and it's something that people have spent time in for generations and generations. all of our existence, kids have grown up outdoors. that has changed in these current generations. students here spend most of the day outdoors, some nature preschools don't even have indoor classrooms. the alphabet and language skills are emphasized, while the lab for other skills is all around. >> when we're dipping at a pond and we're discovering what's there, that's science. that's life science right there. and when we're measuring trees, and kids are then going around and designing things to do those measurements and to figure that out, that is engineering and problem-solving and math. >> brown: and the idea is catching on. nature preschools are seeing a surge in the u.s.: 10 years ago there were barely 20. today, by one count, the number has grown to nearly 250. >> a tadpole is swimming away. >> brown: these three and four- year-olds learned about the life cycle of a frog, and then went to the pond to catch some. >> to see a child touch a frog that looks slimy and ewy and icky for them and they're ok and their hands and shaking and we gently put them in there for them and their face just glows. >> brown: during a week-long summer camp, which closely mirrors the preschool program, teacher kendall cunningham led her charges to a meadow to catch insects and learn about the habitat. >> a lot of the times they say they don't like the insects they don't want to touch them, but they want to watch. >> brown: madison powell is the director of the chippewa nature preschool, with 140 students during the school year and a growing wait list. >> children are so very scheduled, they're not allowed to be bored anymore, they're not allowed to play with things that are dangerous or that are messy. we want them to have those opportunities. we ask parents to look back at their childhood. what are some of the things that you remember? was it climbing a tree; was it being covered in mud, stomping in puddles. and a lot of times it is. and we're living in a society that just doesn't allow children to make many decisions for themselves. >> brown: here, they're willing to push boundaries. we watched as one boy tried to tear down what he thought was a dead tree. first he shook it, to no avail, then tied a rope around the sapling's trunk to bring it down. finally, he and a classmate managed to snap the tree, and now it really was a dead tree! >> they're going to learn something from the whole experience. we can sacrifice a tree. teacher, kendall cunningham explained: >> brown: and the lesson wasn't over. cunningham gave the boys some tools for learning, small saws in fact, used under her watchful eyes. preschool director madison powell. >> we just make sure that we're going with the comfort level of the teachers and the kids. our teachers have maybe a higher tolerance for that because we do see such value in risky play and what that does for their decision-making. we make sure that they're within reach. they're not going to fall within great heights, according to us. great heights for them might be the top of this bench. >> brown: a certain level of risk is allowed. >> it sure is, and it's healthy. >> brown: also considered healthy: going outside in most types of weather. we visited on a very hot day but even on cold winter days in michigan the kids bundle up and head out. parents we talked with hear no complaints. >> they would love to be outside all the time. the snowsuits that they wear are phenomenal it keeps them so warm they don't even know it's cold. doesn't' even bother them, they love it. >> they would live outside if i let them live outside. and they're extremely curious, they're always asking me questions whether we're playing in the backyard, we're out here for hikes or anywhere outside. >> brown: but will these nature kids be academically prepared for kindergarten? that's the subject of study right now by a michigan state university research team, which followed the children around last year, rain or shine, gathering data with go-pros and conducting interviews to test their skills. lori skibbe, one of the lead investigators, told us the early results. >> what we found is that children at the, here at the nature-based center did just as well on our literacy measures, our language measures, our science measures and some of our executive function measures as children in the more traditional setting. so they learned just as much. >> brown: does that surprise you so far? >> at how similar they are, yes, that surprised me. the rates of learning were fairly equivalent across all of our schools, were pretty much the same. >> brown: and can you draw any preliminary conclusions from that? >> i think you can say the nature-based setting can prepare you for kindergarten as well as a traditional setting, if it's done well. >> brown: that study continues, for now, along with the hunt with for the next insect. for the pbs newshour, i'm jeffrey brown at the chippewa nature center in midland, michigan. >> sreenivasan: yesterday a jury in denver, colorado awarded taylor swift one dollar in damages in a lawsuit over a groping allegation. lisa desjardins is here to explain, lisa? >> desjardins: hari, the one dollar was the amount swift had requested. this was her countersuit, after a radio host sued the singer for defamation when she spoke publicly about the incident. he claimed she cost him her job, but the court sided with swift. the verdict came after four days of testimony, with a photo of the incident as the only piece of physical evidence. it shows former radio station host david mueller posing with 27-year-old swift before a denver concert four years ago. his hand appears behind swift just below her waist. swift says mueller grabbed her bare bottom and didn't let go when she "lurched" away. mueller said he may have touched her ribcage but nothing else, but the jury did not believe him. swift's case and experience is not new. one in five college-age women in the united states, say they've experienced some form of sexual assault, according to a washington post-kaiser family foundation poll. but swift's stature in the music industry, and society give her a position and podium most women who've been sexually assaulted don't have. and with that comes hundreds of young fans following the case's proceedings outside the courtroom, with and millions more on social media. >> i was really happy because taylor swift is one of my role models and when she stood up by being in that courtroom, she's standing up for women all around the world. >> desjardins: swift's attorney says he hopes the case sets an example for young girls and boys. >> not just a win but something that can make a difference for my kid your kids all of us my son my daughters where the line is what's right what's wrong it >> desjardins: after being awarded the one dollar payment swift requested in damages, she put out the following statement. saying: "i acknowledge the privilege that i benefit from in life. in society and in my ability to shoulder the enormous cost of defending myself in a trial like this." swift's victory comes in a year of mixed results for women pursuing sexual assault cases. such charges have ousted fox news host bill o'reilly and founder roger ailes, with while the singer known as kesha has been continually rejected repeatedly lost her attempts to end her contract with a former producer whom she says sexually assaulted her. with an estimated two out of three of all sexual assault cases still going unreported, swift says she hopes to give a voice to "those who feel silenced by sexual assault," and plans to donate to groups that help victims. i'm now joined by maya raghu, senior counsel at the national women's law center, where she focuses on women's issues in the workplace, including sexual harassment. and judy vredenburgh. she is president and c.e.o. of girls inc, an advocacy group that works to equip girls to navigate gender, economic and social barriers in life. ladies, thanks to both of you for join us tonight. maya, i want the start with you. let's talk about our justice system. this was a victory for swift today, but what do we know about any shift in judges and juries in how they look at most victims or most people who bring claims of sexual assault in court? >> well, many people think that survivors of same-sex marriage or sexual assault lie or make false allegations, so it makes it very difficult for victims to come forward and talk about what happened to them. there's a lot of fear, fear for their safety and fear for consequences and retaliation in the workplace or at school. but the truth is that it's very difficult to come forward and report sexual harassment or assault, and there are huge risks for coming forward and doing so. whether people go to the police, whether they report to an employer or to a school, or whether they bring a lawsuit. >> judy, you work with young girls, how much of an issue is this to them, and how certain do they feel about taking a stand in situations like this? >> yes, we asked our girls what are the top issues that you're facing, and 70% of girls give analyst of 12 issues identified as their number-one issue bullying, sexual harassment and sexual assault. so it's a real issue for girls, absolutely. >> do you get a sense that they feel certain about what is acceptable and when they should be advocates for themselves, when they should stand up for themselves? >> yes. girls know when they have been violated, when there's been inappropriate behavior, inappropriate touching, they absolutely know that. i think that a case like this becomes a surrogate case on behalf of all girls, including girls from low-income communities who wouldn't have the resources to fight for themselves, and it says to girls that it's not acceptable. you can stand up and speak out when you feel something that is not right. >> maya, a few minutes ago you mentioned two terms, "sexual harassment" and "sexual assault." this was a case of sexual assault is what taylor swift was mentioning. but i wonder about definitions here. sexual assault is a very broad term. that could mean anything from groping to rape. how are we defining that as nation right now, and is that helpful? do we need to talk about this in more clear terms? >> absolutely. i think that's one of the reasons that this case is so important, because it is continuing a conversation that we had earlier this year with the other high-profile sexual harassment and sexual assault cases we've been hearing about, and it's helping people understand that these sorts of behaviors and crimes exist on a continuum. i think a lot of people when they hear about sexual assault, they immediately think of rape. but they're not thinking necessarily about groping, as you pointed out, which is incredibly serious. but it tends to be minimized and people might say, oh, it was nothing or don't let it bother you, when, in fact, it's incredibly traumatic. i also think we tend to separate sexual harassment and sexual assault. sexual harassment is in the workplace, it's at school, but it's not criminal, but actually, if sexual assault or groping or rape occurs in the workplace or at school, that is sexual harassment. >> that's the language. i do want the talk about resources. obviously taylor swift is a woman of wealth. she has power in her industry, and she acknowledges that she has privilege. what about the girls that you work with, everyday women, when they encounter something like this, what is the reality for how they could handle this? do you think they would end up in the same situation with taylor swift necessarily, or are there more barriers for them? >> i believe that taylor swift is a role model, but they have role models among themselves. there are girls who are abused, assaulted, every single day, and creating a safe place where those girls can come forward, tell the truth about what happened to them, and be emboldened to tell the truth to power, to not accept this is really important. and so we create at girls inc. safe places where girls can openly share what they're dealing with and get the support they need to come forward and not allow that to happen to them in the future and certainly not to blame themselves. >> maya, are different women treated differently? are there barriers for women, even those who decide to come forward, when they are going to court, when they are dealing with the legal system or at the workplace? >> absolutely. there are all kinds of barriers. some of them are overt. they might be discriminatory. sometimes they're subtle or implicit biases. there's also economic barriers to coming forward, as you pointed out. taylor swift is a wealthy person who could afford to bring a lawsuit, but that's definitely not the case for many, many survivors, and if you're working a low-wage job and supporting a family, coming forward and reporting sexual assault and then losing your job is devastating for the entire family. and what ends up happening is that people are forced to stay silent about this situation, and it becomes the price that people have to pay to keep a job or the stay in school. >> do you see more women reporting in workplace situations or no? >> i would say definitely in the last couple years we have seen an increase in people reaching out to us for information and assistance about sexual harassment and sexual assault. i think the conversation in this country and the last couple years because of high-profile cases has certainly inspired and empowered many women and men to come forward to talk about what's happened to them and seek justice, and more importantly, also started thinking about how do we hold perpetrators accountable and make sure that they're bearing the consequences for this behavior, because otherwide it will be impossible to prevent this from happening in the first place. >> judy, briefly i talked to a mother and a 13-year-old who told me they had different reactions. one was not surprised that taylor swift came out ahead. she felt most time victims win. the mother felt differently. very briefly, is there a generational shift going on here? >> yes, i think the public is ahead of the institutions, and young people understand that this is not appropriate behavior. this is not something to hide about or feel ashamed about, but to speak out about. so i do think there's a change, and we're seeing the public not accept unhealthy touching, a violation of respecting the dignity of every person. it's not acceptable. and title ix enforcement in the schools is very important. sexual harassment happens at schools, and that's not acceptable, and we have to make sure that that enforcement is real. >> judy vredenburgh from girls inc., and maya raghu, thank you also for joining us. >> thank you. >> sreenivasan: now, a look at the state of global terrorism. it comes from ali soufan, a former f.b.i. counter-terrorism agent who identified the 9/11 hijackers. he details the evolution of terrorism in this newest addition to the newshour bookshelf, "the anatomy of terror: from the death of bin laden to the rise of the islamic state." he recently sat down with margaret warner. >> warner: you write in this book that the night osama bin laden was announced to have been killed you were home alone. and then instead of feeling jubilation you felt troubled. why was that? >> i was happy that we finally got him and a lot of my colleagues and friends that i know sacrificed so much, some of them their lives, you know, finally can rest, you know, knowing that he's dead. but also at the same time i kind of was troubled that we are now not fighting an organization anymore. the terrorists, the threat, mutated to a message. he accomplished something way bigger. he had a message that was spreading around the muslim world and around the arab world. unfortunately, on may 2, 2011, we killed bin laden but we did not kill his message. his message lives. >> warner: now the world has been focused for the last five years or so on islamic state. >> yep. >> warner: major move to get rid of their territorial caliphate. when that's accomplished, what then? >> see, we forget that the islamic state basically was a branch of al-qaeda that used to be al-qaeda in iraq. so when it comes to the message, it's the same message of osama bin laden. they differ at what stage they are in their plan. are they in stage two, where they just need to create chaos and manage that chaos? or they are in stage three establishing a caliphate. isis decided that they are in stage three and established a caliphate and prepare a final confrontation with the west. but today, as you mentioned, we see isis dwindling. we see that terrorist organization, with all their bravado, losing their territory and going back from a protostate to an underground terrorist organization. i think most of the people who joined isis, most of the people but they're still believers in what bin laden started back in the early '90s. so i am not-- i won't be greatly surprised to see some kind of a merger between these two organizations under the flag of the message of osama bin laden. and i think his son hamza, today, is trying to be the person who claims-- >> warner: the next bin laden >> exactly. >> warner: and you, in almost a novelistic way, look at bin laden or zarqawi, who was the head of al-qaeda in iraq, or baghdadi, the head of isis. was there a common thread among them? >> well yeah, absolutely, and the common thread is their own belief. anyone who doesn't believe in their way is an infed dell regardless. if you're a muslim or in the a muslim, it does not matter. almost 95% of the victims of this form of terrorism are victims. >> warner: now you mentioned hamza, osama bin laden's son, who, by my count, would be, what, 27 years old? >> 28, yeah. >> warner: so you think he's the coming face of al-qaeda? >> i think they are preparing him to be the coming face. i mean he has been a face of al- qaeda since he was a child. he was always featured in the propaganda tapes of al-qaeda. at the age of 13 he was the voice of firy poems in the presence of his dad about al- qaeda and about jihad. so many of those old members of al-qaeda fondly remember him. hamza, he recently put five or six messages, but only in the last message al-qaeda announced him to be, which indicates a promotion. before they used to call him brother muhajed in the previous so we know al-qaeda is putting him in a leadership position. let's go back to the threat to the united states. case, how can the west, which has been at it for 16 years already, confront that? >> i mean look, we're not seeing, you know, organizational threat anymore. i think the boundaries, you know, between isis, al-qaeda, you name it or whatever >> warner: their affiliates. >> all the affiliates-- it's kind of very blurry. i think we have to focus on the message, not on the organization. i think the threat of terrorism mutated since 9/11. however, it shifted from being an organization to a message with affiliates across the muslim world. and these affiliates are gaining a lot of strength because of the civil wars that exist in places like syria or iraq or libya or somalia, you name it. so i think what we need to do, number one: is to find political solution and diplomatic solution for these conflicts. without solving the conflicts in these areas, it's going to be extremely difficult to diminish the threat. second: we need to force countries in the region not to use sectarianism in their geopolitical struggle against each other to garnish influence in the region. third, we need to fight the narrative by exposing the hypocrisy of an organization that claims or a message that claims the united states and the west are at war with islam, but they kill more muslims than anyone else, blowing up mosques, >> i don't think governments can do the job, in the in the united states and not even in the muslim world, because governments don't have the credibility. there are a lot of things governments can do. we need to encourage civil organizations to stand up and speak against these extremists. 16 years after 9/11, we still don't even know what to call the enemy rather than form a comprehensive strategy. that's what i try to do in this book. i try to write a novel with real characters with the hope that the american people understand the threat that they are dealing with. and i hope in a small little way i'll be able to contribute to better understanding of the threat that we all continue to face 20 years later. >> warner: ali soufan, "anatomy of terror from the death of bin laden to the rise of islamic state." thank you very much. >> thank you. and, a news update before we leave you tonight: a federal court in texas has struck down two of that state's republican-drawn congressional districts. a three-judge panel ruled lawmakers drew the districts to undermine the influence of hispanic voters. the court said the districts must be re-drawn before the 2018 elections. and that's the newshour for tonight. on wednesday, miles o'brien previews the solar eclipse that's expected to travel coast to coast across the country next week. i'm hari sreenivasan. join us on-line and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> you were born with two >> carnegie corporation of new york. supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, and the advancement of international peace and security. at carnegie.org. >> and with the ongoing support 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 (instrumental musisic) >> hi, i'm jim west, and i'm going to take you on a journey to one of the most enchanting destinations in the world, the italian region of tuscany. we'll work side-by-side with master artisans learning the art of florentine paper marbling, painting frescos, crafting leatherworks. we'll meet a master of embroidery who collaborates with fashion's royalty, watch a mosaic artist create a masterpiece, and step inside the studio of modern day sculptors. all this and more as we travel to the lovely italian region of tuscany! (instrumental music) >> everything we do with our hands when we put passion behind it creates a craft. and crafts have a tendency to ignite our souls.