JUDY WOODRUFF: Good evening. I'm Judy Woodruff.
On the "NewsHour" tonight: President Trump's pick for secretary of labor, Andrew Puzder,
withdraws from consideration, as a number of Senate Republicans join Democrats in opposition.
Then:
DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: Papers are being leaked. Things are being
leaked. It's criminal action, criminal act.
JUDY WOODRUFF: The president slams intelligence leaks amid new reports that his aides were
in repeated contact with Russia during the campaign.
Also ahead: In another dramatic shift, with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu by his side,
Mr. Trump opens the door to dropping U.S. support for a two-state solution in the Middle
East.
Plus, scientists fight back, the nationwide effort to protect environmental data in an
uncertain political moment.
BRENDAN O'BRIEN, Programmer: If we have the foresight to back the stuff up now, we may
be -- maybe later generations will thank us.
JUDY WOODRUFF: All that and more on tonight's "PBS NewsHour."
(BREAK)
JUDY WOODRUFF: President Trump's Cabinet in the making is reeling tonight from another
body blow.
Andrew Puzder withdrew today as the nominee for labor secretary, two days after National
Security Adviser Michael Flynn resigned under fire.
Our Lisa Desjardins is at the Capitol, where she's been covering this story.
Lisa, what happened?
LISA DESJARDINS: Well, it was Republicans. They didn't have enough Republican votes to
pass this confirmation -- to have this confirmation happen. And it was fast-moving today, Judy.
Just this morning, John Cornyn, who is in charge of the vote counting for Republicans
here, told reporters he will be confirmed. Just hours later, they didn't have the votes.
Why?
I spoke to one of the senators, Jeff Flake, who wasn't yet a yes vote, and he said the
main problem was Puzder's revelation that he had hired an undocumented worker and had
failed to pay back taxes until he was nominated. Flake told me, Judy, for a labor secretary,
you just can't ignore that.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, Lisa, with Puzder now out of the picture, we're hearing from Republicans,
from the White House that they think Democrats are slow-rolling all the rest of the president's
Cabinet nominees. Where does all that stand?
LISA DESJARDINS: That's right. This is the slowest confirmation process in history, but
Democrats point out that, in fact, many of Trump's nominees did not get their paperwork
in as quickly as in the past.
Let's look at where we are right now in the general. So far, the Senate has confirmed
12 of President Trump's Cabinet nominees. One has been withdrawn, as we mentioned, Mr.
Puzder tonight. Judy, that leaves eight more Cabinet nominees waiting in line to go through
the Senate.
The next one is (AUDIO GAP). There was a hiccup on Mick Mulvaney just today, as Senator John
McCain of Arizona said he, a Republican, will oppose him. Looks like he will have the votes,
but that's not something -- they want all the Republicans on board his nomination. They
don't have them.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, Lisa, we know that's not the only set of issues that's roiling Congress
right now. The aftermath of the departure of General Flynn at the White House is certainly
still drawing reaction.
What are you hearing about that?
LISA DESJARDINS: Another wild day. Until just three hours ago, the main issue dominating
the news up here on Capitol Hill about the Trump White House was Russia.
After a tumultuous 24 hours, President Trump ignored reported contacts between campaign
advisers and Russian intelligence. Instead, at a news conference with Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu, he went after the media and those giving the media information.
DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: Papers are being leaked. Things are being
leaked. It's criminal actions, criminal act, and it's been going on for a long time -- before
me. But now it's really going on, and people are trying to cover up for a terrible loss
that the Democrats had under Hillary Clinton.
LISA DESJARDINS: Meanwhile, Mr. Trump also defended ousted National Security Adviser
Michael Flynn. The initial concern surrounded Flynn's phone calls with Russia's ambassador
last year, but after revelations that he misled the White House about those calls, Flynn was
forced out this week.
DONALD TRUMP: I think he's been treated very, very unfairly by the media -- as I call it,
the fake media, in many cases. And I think it's really a sad thing that he was treated
so badly.
LISA DESJARDINS: The president got no direct questions during the news conference about
the new turn in the story, and ignored shouted questions afterward.
QUESTION: Mr. President. can you guarantee that nobody on your campaign had any contacts
with the Russians? Mr. President, any questions on Russia?
LISA DESJARDINS: That followed a report in The New York Times that aides working in the
Trump campaign had -- quote -- "repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials
in the year before the election."
Reporter Matt Apuzzo worked on that story.
MATT APUZZO, The New York Times: It's really the volume of those calls that really caught
U.S. intelligence by surprise, because they didn't see anything like that in other countries.
And, of course, it's the timing that's the issue. Is there collusion between the Trump
campaign and the Russia hacking efforts?
They don't have evidence to back up, you know, any charges of collusion.
LISA DESJARDINS: While the White House said relatively little, Capitol Hill was abuzz.
Democratic senators canceled their schedules to hold a quickly convened meeting. Their
leaders emerged calling for an independent counsel at the Justice Department.
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY), Minority Leader: And the reports of constant contact between
the top officials in the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence are chilling. I have
been in Congress for a long time. I have never seen anything like this.
LISA DESJARDINS: Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer is pushing for three things: preservation
of all White House e-mails and records dealing with Russia, public testimony by Trump officials
like Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn, and for Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a top
Trump supporter in the campaign, to recuse himself from any Russia-related probe.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi:
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), House Minority Leader: It just points to the need for us to have
an outside independent commission, nonpartisan commission outside, with subpoena power to
find the truth and what this means to our national security. The president is flirting
with danger.
LISA DESJARDINS: Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers are watching closely. Senator Lindsey Graham
told FOX News today that, if there were inappropriate contacts, Congress should launch a bipartisan
investigation.
For now, Republican leaders are signaling they don't want any new investigations. On
MSNBC, House Speaker Paul Ryan endorsed the Intelligence Committee investigations already
under way.
REP. PAUL RYAN (R-WI), Speaker of the House: Russia has been trying to meddle with our
country in our last elections. That's established. We know that. No one has -- no one has made
evidence, no one has made the claim that evidence exists that Donald Trump or his people were
in on it, were involved in that.
LISA DESJARDINS: The issue is made more difficult for Republicans by the large number of unknowns
and unanswered questions about relationships between Russia and the Trump world.
Again, Matt Apuzzo of The New York Times:
MATT APUZZO: Was anybody in Trump world aware of or colluding with Russian efforts to hack
Hillary's advisers or the DNC and influence the election? What were these people talking
to senior Russian intelligence authorities about? Were they knowingly talking to people
in the intelligence world?
One of them, Paul Manafort, told us he never knowingly spoke to anybody in Russian intelligence,
and said, you know, it's not like these guys are wearing badges.
LISA DESJARDINS: As for the Kremlin, Russian spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters today,
"Let's not believe anonymous information."
Now, there does seem to be some potential bipartisan agreement. Senators, Democratic
and Republican, that we talked to today seem to agree that they want to have Michael Flynn
come to the Capitol to testify in public.
When could that happen? I asked Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr, and he said he hasn't
been invited yet because -- quote -- "We don't even know what we would ask him yet" -- Judy.
JUDY WOODRUFF: All right, Lisa Desjardins at the Capitol.
Meanwhile, our own John Yang is at the White House.
Now, John, it was noted -- and Lisa just reported this -- the president today, when asked about
Michael Flynn, went out of his way to praise this man who essentially he just fired yesterday,
and we were told he'd lost faith in him.
JOHN YANG: That's right, Judy.
He made it sound as if the press had fired him. And Sean Spicer, the press secretary,
said that there's no contradiction between admiring a man who served his country in the
military, but losing trust in him.
He also went after the media, calling it fake news. We asked Sean Spicer, if it hadn't been
for the stories, would Michael Flynn still be in the job? He said no, because he had
misled the vice president, never mind that the vice president only learned about that
from reading it in the newspapers.
Asked what was fake about the stories, Sean Spicer responded, "I will have to get back
to you on that."
JUDY WOODRUFF: Now, John, we know separately that -- now I'm trying to remember what you
and I were going to talk about -- separately -- oh, I know -- about the successor to General
Flynn. What you have learned about that?
JOHN YANG: Indications are that the leading contender is former Vice Admiral Bob Harward.
He's a former Navy SEAL. He was a deputy to the current defense secretary, James Mattis,
when then-General Mattis ran Central Command for President Obama.
I'm told that an announcement could come as soon as the end of this week.
JUDY WOODRUFF: John Yang reporting for us from the White House, thank you.
In the day's other news: The Russians rejected any notion of returning Crimea to Ukraine.
Just yesterday, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said President Trump expects exactly
that. The Russians annexed Crimea in March of 2014, and, today, the Foreign Ministry
in Moscow said, "We never give back our territory."
U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis issued a pointed warning today to NATO allies on defense
spending. He said they will have to do more, or run the risk that the U.S. will -- quote
-- "moderate its commitment to the alliance."
Mattis attended his first NATO defense ministers meeting in Brussels and argued President Trump's
case that the allies share more of the burden.
JAMES MATTIS, U.S. Secretary of Defense: It's a fair demand that all who benefit from the
best defense in the world carry their proportionate share of the necessary costs to defend freedom.
And we should never forget, ultimately, it is freedom that we defend here at NATO.
JUDY WOODRUFF: The Trump administration wants NATO members to meet an established target
of spending 2 percent of their economic output on defense. The U.S. spends more than 3.5
percent.
In Malaysia, police arrested a woman in the apparent assassination of Kim Jong-nam, the
estranged half-brother of North Korea's supreme leader. Malaysian news accounts say two women
splashed a chemical on him at the Kuala Lumpur Airport on Monday. U.S. and South Korean officials
say they were North Korea agents. Meanwhile, an autopsy on Kim's body began today at this
medical institute in Malaysia. That's despite North Korean objections.
The European Union's Parliament approved a landmark trade deal with Canada today after
years of negotiations. Supporters at the Parliament, in Strasbourg, France, argued that the deal
will counter rising protectionism, while, outside, hundreds of protesters warned it
will do more harm than good.
ARTIS PABRIKS, European People's Party: We made now a very historic trade deal between
the best partners in the world, actually, which we can find, because I really believe
that, apart from Canada, there are very few who match the standards of common values outside
the European Union.
WOMAN: It's a threat to democracy, a threat to human rights, a threat to the environment.
And I suppose that what we can do now from here is to put pressure on our governments,
put pressure on our MEPs to do their job, you know? And it's not over. It's not over
until it's over.
JUDY WOODRUFF: To be fully implemented, the trade deal will also need approval from various
regional and national parliaments across Europe.
China formally announced today that it has granted President Trump a 10-year trademark.
He now has the exclusive right to use his name for building construction services there
through 2027. Mr. Trump already has 77 trademarks in China. He has been trying to gain this
one for the last decade.
Back in this country, nearly 3,000 workers at Boeing voted on whether to unionize their
plant in North Charleston, South Carolina. It is a key test for unions trying to organize
in factories across the South, where most workers are non-union. The vote at Boeing
involved the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.
And, on Wall Street, stocks rallied again on upbeat news about consumer prices and retail
sales. The Dow Jones industrial average gained 107 points to close at 20611. The Nasdaq rose
nearly 37, and the S&P 500 added 11.
Still to come on the "NewsHour": I talk to a former Trump adviser accused of having ties
to Russia; the president's evolving approach to Israel; and much more.
The swirl of questions surrounding General Flynn's resignation as national security adviser,
and the new reports of regular contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia, has Democrats
on Capitol Hill, as we heard, calling for an independent investigation.
One of them is Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota.
I spoke to her a short time ago, and started by asking what questions she has.
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D), Minnesota: Well, I believe this is much more than the resignation
of one national security adviser.
You already had the Trump campaign chairman step aside because of contacts with Russia,
and now this new report that there were multiple contacts between people in the campaign and
Russian intelligence people. So, that's why I think we have to get to the bottom of it.
This is about a fundamental concept, and that is a free democracy that should be free from
foreign influences. And we already have had our 17 intelligence agencies tell us that
there's been an attempt to influence our election. And now we're finding out that these contacts
were ongoing.
So, we need to know, who did Flynn work with? Who did he talk to? What did he talk about
to the Russian ambassador? And, also, why was this happening? I think that's the biggest
overriding question for our national security. Why was the Trump administration so eager
to placate the Russians and make friends with them, when they have done so many horrific
things, including invading countries that are our allies?
JUDY WOODRUFF: Do you have information beyond what's been reported in the press about that?
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR: Well, I will say, when I was out with Senator McCain and Graham in
the Baltics and Ukraine and Georgia, I spent a significant amount of time with President
Poroshenko in Ukraine.
I don't have the classified information for you to share, but I do have just my experience
of learning that 10,000 people were killed there, of seeing that these cyber-attacks
have been happening for years, where it's really the modus operandi of Russia, where
they have infiltrated Estonia's system, Lithuania's system.
This is what they do. They try to bring down these democracies with cyber-attacks.
JUDY WOODRUFF: How do you think this should be investigated? We know that the Senate Intelligence
Committee, the bipartisan Intelligence Committee, is looking into this. Are you prepared to
leave it at that, because some Democrats have said that it should be an outside, independent
commission?
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR: I think we can do both at the same time.
The Intelligence Committee is important because they're going to be able to get underneath
the surface with classified information. Hopefully, they can declassify some of it. And then,
secondly, this independent commission -- I was one of the early sponsors of this bill
and announced it with the leaders of the bill, because I think you need an 9/11-type commission
to really look at what happened, so that you can also make recommendations so it doesn't
happen in the future.
I think we can do both things at once.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Why do you need an outside commission? I mean, I talked yesterday with
Senator Mark Warner, who, of course, is vice chairman of that Intelligence Committee. He
said, at this point, he thinks that the Intelligence Committee itself can handle it.
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR: Well, Senator Warner and I are very good friends. And I have full faith
in his leadership and those of the other senators on the committee.
But the advantage of starting this up, which will, by the way, take a much longer period
of time, is that you can put in place some experts that can look at this really from
a different perspective. And that's like the 9/11 Commission did. What happened, and what
steps can be taken, so we can protect our democracy and others in the future?
JUDY WOODRUFF: You also were telling me, Senator Klobuchar, that you and other Democrats want
to see the new attorney general, Jeff Sessions, recuse himself from any investigation going
on inside the government. Why?
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR: Well, there's actually a specific rule on this, Judy.
And it says, no DOJ employee may participate in a criminal investigation or prosecution
if he has a personal or political relationship with any person or organization substantially
involved in the conduct that is the subject of the investigation or prosecution or would
be directly affected by the outcome.
Senator Sessions, who have I worked with extensively on the Judiciary Committee, while I have had
a good working relationship with him, he has made it clear that he's not going to take
on cases where there's conflicts.
While he hasn't said that about this case, I don't know how you get around it. He was
an early supporter of President Trump. He was involved in the campaign. Flynn was involved
in the campaign. And I just think it's better that he recuse himself, as does Senator Feinstein
and many other members of the Judiciary Committee.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Senator, one other thing. I'm sure you know President Trump is saying that
so much of this is fabricated by the news media. He's saying the news media is blowing
this out of proportion, that the facts just are not there to bear this out.
And he's more upset about the leaking on the part of the intelligence community than he
is about what the leaks purportedly show.
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR: You know, he has every right to go after that leaking. As you know,
President Obama did that as well, although, as Senator Corker said yesterday, President
Obama ran a pretty tight ship.
And there are more leaks going on than we have during the -- practically the entire
Obama administration. So, the president has a right to look into that.
That is not the big story here, though. The big story here is that the national security
adviser resigned after only 26 days, and that, in this sea of problems with Russia and the
fact that we have got to stand tall with our allies, and that we have 17 intelligence agencies
-- no one is making that up.
Then you would have to discount the clear evidence from 17 intelligence agencies of
the U.S. government that this had actually occurred.
It occurred. It's a fact. And the only question now is how we respond to it.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, we thank you very much.
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR: Thank you, Judy. It was great to be on.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And now we turn to a former member of the Trump campaign foreign policy
team, among those alleged to have been in contact with Russian officials.
Carter Page manages an energy investment company, and he joins me now.
Mr. Page, thank you for joining us.
So, briefly, start out by telling us how you knew or know Donald Trump. And what kind of
work did you do on the campaign last year?
CARTER PAGE, Former Trump Campaign Foreign Policy Adviser: You know, I -- it's funny.
You were just talking about leaks with your former -- former interviewee.
I don't talk about the internal works that I did to help the campaign. I -- I was a junior
member of the campaign's foreign policy advisory group, and I didn't -- had -- you know, compared
to other people that were much -- had much more direct interaction with Mr. Trump, who
I never actually briefed or was in any small meetings with.
I went to many rallies with him, but never any direct meetings. So, you know, I think
there's a tendency to talk about a lot of internal dealings in the U.S. government,
as you were talking about.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, let me just...
CARTER PAGE: And I think -- yes.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Let me just move on by saying, but you were a member of his foreign policy
team. We were just talking about that a moment ago.
CARTER PAGE: Yes.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But my first question, then, after that, Carter Page, is to ask you, you're
aware of these reports out there that there were officials in the Trump campaign who were
in repeated contact with Russian officials, Russian intelligence officials during 2016.
Were you one of those campaign officials?
CARTER PAGE: Well, Judy, you know, that -- going back to the question to Sean Spicer about
fake news, I mean, this -- yes, I'm aware of the reports, which I saw on the front page
of The New York Times today.
But I think I can actually answer that question as to why that was fake news. That was just
a regurgitation of old reports, based on the dodgy dossier that the Clinton campaign out
with.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, in other words...
CARTER PAGE: So, yes, I'm aware -- I'm aware of these ongoing public relations attacks
against the administration and people who have supported it. But...
JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, let me just stop and say the reports are citing intelligence agencies.
So, we're talking about the CIA, the FBI.
So, you're saying these agencies are not to be believed, or the news media is making this
up, or what?
(CROSSTALK)
CARTER PAGE: Well, what I'm saying, what I'm saying is, you know, at least last year, they
were responding to false evidence, which is an obstruction of justice, false evidence
given to the Intelligence Committee -- intelligence community by the Clinton campaign.
Now that's pretty well-established, you know, with this dodgy dossier that came out last
month. So, I think it's pretty clear evidence.
And, you know, in terms of it being fake news today, the big front-page story on The New
York Times, I actually sent them a copy of a real dossier that I submitted to the Civil
Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice over the weekend.
And, unfortunately -- to one of the authors of that front-page article -- and that never
got included at all. So, you know, it's -- it's very one-sided.
(CROSSTALK)
JUDY WOODRUFF: We only have a limited amount of time here, so I want to use this time to
everyone's advantage, and ask you, you were in Russia. You have worked in Russia for a
number of years. You clearly know Russian officials.
Where do you think this comes from? Were you in any kind of contact last year with Russian
government officials?
CARTER PAGE: It comes from deep animosity and deep negative feelings against the Russians.
And I think, you know, you just have to look back at the history of the last 70 years,
and it's pretty clear where that originates from.
And Mrs. Clinton and her team did a great job of ramping that up. And it continues to
this day, with the help of the likes of Sally Yates and others that were holdovers from
the Obama administration.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, you're saying -- so, you're saying that that, whatever you -- what you
describe as animosity toward the Russians is not deserved.
We just heard Senator Amy Klobuchar talk about the Russians having the kind of an agenda
that the U.S. could never share, that they're undermining democracies across Eastern Europe.
You don't agree with that view of Russia?
CARTER PAGE: I view it as a two-way street.
And, you know, what I talked about in my speech in Moscow in July, and what President Trump
and President Putin talked about in their initial call, was the concept of mutual respect.
I think, if both sides are acting respectfully and really thinking through and understanding
the other side's perspectives, that takes care of a lot of it.
So, you know, absolutely, there -- you know, the senator is right that there's a lot of
things that need to be repaired. But I think continuing these fake news, fake intel reports
is only going to continue driving us into the gutter.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Did you have any meetings -- I will ask again -- did you have any meetings
last year with Russian officials in Russia, outside Russia, anywhere?
CARTER PAGE: I had no meetings, no meetings.
I might have said hello to a few people as they were walking by me at my graduation -- the
graduation speech that I gave in July, but no meetings.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, in other words, these reports that are citing, in very specific detail,
what intelligence agencies say they have discovered, continuous, repeated contacts between the
campaign and Russia, you're saying that's entirely made up? Is that what you're saying?
CARTER PAGE: Judy, I don't think they said discovered. I think they -- that they're looking
at it.
So, it's a nice way for the enemies of the administration and the enemies of positive
U.S.-Russia relations to keep stirring this negative pot over and over again.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Well...
CARTER PAGE: And, admittedly, they have done quite a good job over the last year. So, I
have to -- I have to hand it to them as excellent politicians.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And are you cooperating with any federal investigators who are looking
into this? Have you been asked, for example, by the FBI or another agency to answer questions?
And if you were called on to go before, say, a Senate committee investigation, would you
be willing to do that?
CARTER PAGE: I have never been asked by anyone in the FBI or any of the other agencies over
the last year.
And I think, yes, I would love to have the opportunity to speak with the Senate. And
I have offered to a few of the senators to speak with them and maybe offer them some
realistic views of actually what's happening in the world. But I think, you know, there's
-- there's a great level of ignorance.
And so one question to ask your other senators you speak to is, have they ever actually stepped
foot in Russia or talked to Russian people? And I think, you know, that's very strong
correlation with the ignorance that you see today...
JUDY WOODRUFF: Very quickly, finally..
CARTER PAGE: ... due to the lack of knowledge.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Sorry. Excuse me.
Just very quickly, finally, what should the U.S. relationship with Russia be? You're clearly
arguing for something far more positive than what exists right now.
CARTER PAGE: I'm not saying positive.
I'm saying more practical and realistic and just having a open, respectful dialogue, in
which you really think about the other side and, you know, look to build your own country
up here in the United States through better, positive relations, and not getting swirled
out of control with these ongoing distractions, which are taking away attention from bigger
national security threats and causing disruptions, great -- very unfortunately, for the United
States.
So, I think there's a lot of work to be done. And I think Russia can be a tremendous ally
for helping in that regard.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Carter Page, former foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign, thank
you very much for talking with us.
CARTER PAGE: Thanks, Judy.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Stay with us.
Coming up on the "NewsHour": scientists scramble to back up data they say is threatened by
the Trump administration; and the debate over carrying guns on campus 50 years after a shooting
at the University of Texas.
But now to the president's meeting with Israel's prime minister at the White House today, and
what it means for the U.S. role in the Israeli-Palestinian relationship.
Hari Sreenivasan has that.
DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: I'm looking at two-state and one-state, and
I like the one that both parties like.
HARI SREENIVASAN: With that, President Trump served notice that he is not wedded to longstanding
U.S. support for a two-state solution to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
He spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his side.
DONALD TRUMP: I thought for a while the two-state looked like it may be the easier of the two.
But, honestly, if Israel and the Palestinians are happy, I'm happy with the one they like
the best.
HARI SREENIVASAN: The president urged a wider peace pact as well, involving other Middle
Eastern countries.
DONALD TRUMP: And it is something that is very different, hasn't been discussed before.
And it's actually a much bigger deal, a much more important deal, in a sense.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Mr. Trump also left open the possibility of moving the U.S. Embassy
from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, despite Palestinian demands that East Jerusalem be their capital.
Netanyahu called for the U.S. and Israel to seize this moment, and he laid out his conditions
for peace.
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, Israeli Prime Minister: First, the Palestinians must recognize the
Jewish state. They have to stop calling for Israel's destruction. Second, in any peace
agreement, Israel must retain the overriding security control of the entire area west of
the Jordan River.
HARI SREENIVASAN: The Palestinians vehemently oppose that second element. They also flatly
reject Israel's ramped-up construction in Jewish settlements in the West Bank. That
point elicited this exchange today.
DONALD TRUMP: I'd like to see you hold back on settlements for a little bit. We'll work
something out. But I would like to see a deal be made. I think a deal will be made.
So let's see what we do.
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: Let's try it.
DONALD TRUMP: Doesn't sound too optimistic, but he's a good negotiator.
(LAUGHTER)
HARI SREENIVASAN: Netanyahu later added:
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: I believe that the issue of the settlements is not the core of the
conflict, nor does it really drive the conflict. I think it's an issue that has to be resolved
in the context of peace negotiations, and we also are going to speak about it.
HARI SREENIVASAN: As the two leaders talked at the White House, Palestinian officials
say President Mahmoud Abbas met secretly Tuesday night with CIA Chief Mike Pompeo in the West
Bank city of Ramallah.
Joining me to delve further into the news out of today's White House news conference,
and where the Israeli-Palestinian issue stands at the beginning of the Trump administration,
are Shibley Telhami. He's the Anwar Sadat professor for peace and development at the
University of Maryland. And Tamara Cofman Wittes, she's a senior fellow in the Middle
East Policy Center at the Brookings Institution, and she served as deputy assistant secretary
of state for near eastern affairs in the Obama administration from November of 2009 to January
2012.
Shibley, I want to start with you.
What did both of these leaders get out of this, before they even begin to having conversations?
SHIBLEY TELHAMI, Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development, University of Maryland:
First, domestically.
Mr. Netanyahu is obviously looking back home. He is in trouble in an investigation on corruption.
He is being pressured from the ultra-right. So, he wants to show, at a time when Israelis
are uncertain about where the president is going to, where President Trump is going to
go, he wants to show that he can make a deal with the president, that he can have a working
relationship with him, that he can deliver. It helps him at home.
With Mr. Trump, Mr. Netanyahu is very popular in the Republican Party. In my polls actually,
he's up there with Ronald Reagan as one of the most popular leaders in the world, and
especially among the evangelical right.
So, just by virtue of looking like they're cordial in the photo-op, they both score points
at home. Obviously, they also score points on some issues that we knew they would score
points on, for example, the stated American support for Israeli security, the fight on
terrorism, the Iran issue.
Those are issues where there isn't much difference, at least rhetorically. And those obviously
are the ones that register. But, then, of course, we turn to the more central question
where there will be inevitably some disagreements, the Israel and Palestinian question.
(CROSSTALK)
HARI SREENIVASAN: Yes. That's right.
Tamara Wittes, I want to get to you with that, the one-state, two-state statement by the
president today. The U.S. has always been committed to a peaceful resolution to this,
but why is the president's announcement today so important?
TAMARA COFMAN WITTES, Brookings Institution: Well, look, I think it's always been the American
position, enunciated previously by the U.S. presidents, that we can't want peace more
than the parties themselves, and that the parties have to agree to a solution of their
conflict, and we will support them in doing that.
What's changed here is that, for a long time, under President George W. Bush, and then under
President Obama, the U.S. has agreed with both parties that a two-state solution, that
is, independent, sovereign states for Israel and for Palestine, is the only stable, lasting
solution for peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Today, Donald Trump suggested that there might be some other outcome that could deliver a
lasting peace. And that does throw into question the objective of any negotiations.
SHIBLEY TELHAMI: If I may add on this one, just in terms of what is missing here, what
is missing is, when the statement is, it's up to the parties to negotiate, with no reference
to international law or previous agreements or some framework, you're leaving it up to
the Israelis and Palestinians, a very unequal relationship.
They're not going to be able to do this on their own, without reference to what has been
agreed or some ground rule. That's number one.
Number two, the president throws in there the one state. He only gives two alternatives,
two states, one state. Well, if you have one state, it can be only one of two days ways,
not a Jewish state, democratic states for Arabs and Jews, but not a Jewish state, or
an apartheid state.
By the way, if Obama had put that proposal on the table just like Trump stated it, he
would have been attacked from all over the place from the right by suggesting the one-state
solution could be on the table.
So, this one is really interesting, because you have got some agreements both on the left
and right about the impossibility of a two-state, but what they want is something completely
different.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Shibley Telhami, just staying with you for a second, is a one-state solution
a nonstarter for the Palestinians?
SHIBLEY TELHAMI: No, it's not a nonstarter, even though, I think, for many of them, obviously,
they don't think it as realistic. When you ask them, do you think it's going to happen,
most say no.
But if they think they can -- if they can have a full, equal relationship with Israel,
well, of course they would, because, ultimately, that will be a majority. That's not a nonstarter.
But it's a nonstarter if they're not going to have equal relations.
But it is a nonstarter for the Israelis, undoubtedly.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Tamara Wittes, both men said that the goal might be more achievable
if more regional partners got involved. What are the possible repercussions if there are
more people at the table?
TAMARA COFMAN WITTES: Well, look, I think this is an idea that has actually been tossed
around for a while. It's something that President Bush and Secretary Condoleezza Rice tried
to do at their Annapolis conference, bring together the region as a whole, partly to
compensate for Palestinian weakness, and to put more on the table that's attractive to
Israel, in terms of regional security and stability and regional cooperation.
So, in principle, expanding the pie actually does give you more options for resolving the
conflict. In practice, however, the Arab states have made clear over and over again that they
are not going to get in front of the Palestinians in solving this conflict. They are going to
go where the Palestinians are willing to go, and not beyond.
I still don't see any reason to think that that has changed. And so I think this sort
of outside-in approach will last only as long as the Arab governments think that the Palestinians
want it to last.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Shibley Telhami, is there -- Prime Minister Netanyahu started saying
today that basically there are lots of things that he has in common with Arab states, say,
for example, their fear of a more powerful Iran.
Would all of these Arab states, in that shared fear or concern with Israel, would they put
the Palestinian state on the back-burner?
SHIBLEY TELHAMI: First, he's right that there are a lot of common interests. And that shows.
And, obviously, you know, the president of Egypt, the king of Jordan, the leader of the
UAE, they have some cooperative relationships strategically, whether it's on Iran or fighting
terrorism.
And, also, they all have working relations with Trump, and even with Putin, as the president
of Russia. So, in some ways, you have this kind of strategic picture.
But the big elephant in the room is the Israel-Palestine question. It always has been. As Tamara said,
you can put -- if it weren't for that, of course, then you can have it.
Now, what Netanyahu wants to do is to show to the Israeli public that he can build settlements
and not really make the concessions that are needed on the Palestinian issue, and still
make peace with the Arab states. And he wants Trump to help him.
Now, one of the -- that's the way that Arabs have interpreted historically. Well, interestingly,
in the news conference today, look at the body language. Netanyahu was the one to say,
this is essentially my plan that I taught Trump to advocate, instead of letting it even
look like a Trump plan, because his interest is ultimately to send a message at home that
he's the one who is making Trump do it, rather than to have the Arabs have a fig leaf to
come on board.
I think many of them might play with Trump. They don't want to say no to him. They have
their own self-interests to want to play. The Saudis remain a big question. But, ultimately,
I think, when push comes to shove, the Palestinian issue may be just a fig leaf for something
other than Israeli-Palestinian peace.
HARI SREENIVASAN: All right, Shibley Telhami.
TAMARA COFMAN WITTES: Yes.
HARI SREENIVASAN: I'm sorry.
Tamara Wittes, very quickly, you want to wrap up?
TAMARA COFMAN WITTES: Sure.
Just to add, I think that what is really bringing Israel and the Arab states together right
now is a common sense of threat. It's not necessarily a common vision for the region's
future.
HARI SREENIVASAN: All right, Tamara Wittes, Shibley Telhami, thank you both.
SHIBLEY TELHAMI: Thank you.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Almost since the day President Trump was sworn in, members of a loosely aligned
grassroots movement composed of academics, programmers, researchers and scientists have
been archiving government data they fear could disappear.
Miles O'Brien looks in on one of those efforts for our weekly science series, Leading Edge.
JEROME WHITINGTON, New York University: Psyched to see everybody in the room. Really exciting.
MILES O'BRIEN: It's early, cold, and Saturday, and yet this room at New York University is
standing room only. A few hundred volunteers are here to download and save scientific data
created and curated by the federal government.
JEROME WHITINGTON: Without the data, you don't have environmental regulation.
MILES O'BRIEN: Anthropology Professor Jerome Whitington is one of the organizers of this
data rescue event, the eighth in an ongoing, open-ended series which began after the election.
JEROME WHITINGTON: Now, one of the things we're going to accomplish at this event is,
we're going to do a lot of work to get hard-to-access data sets, things that previous events have
struggled to get.
MILES O'BRIEN: They are focused primarily on the essential science used to create environmental
regulations. They worry the Trump administration's anti-regulatory bent and outright denial of
peer-reviewed climate science might put the data in jeopardy.
JEROME WHITINGTON: We're less worried about it being outright deleted and disappearing,
and more worried about it becoming unusable or inaccessible in specific ways.
MILES O'BRIEN: So, they are systematically building a data refuge in the cloud on servers
hosted by Amazon.
Bethany Wiggin directs the University of Pennsylvania program in environmental humanities. She is
an organizer of the data refuge project.
BETHANY WIGGIN, University of Pennsylvania: We have always thought of data refuge as providing
an insurance policy. The situation is quite urgent. Events on the federal level are moving
quickly. The changes being made to programs is happening quite fast. The situation is
very uncertain.
MILES O'BRIEN: Federally funded science has been maligned and cut back before, but the
Trump administration has upped the ante. While no huge data sets have completely disappeared,
some have been made harder to access or even find.
The official White House Web site no longer contains any reference to climate change.
A Trump space adviser threatened to pull the plug on earth science at NASA. Department
of Energy scientists received a questionnaire asking what climate change conferences they
attended and what materials they shared.
And the president's choice to run the EPA, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, sued
the agency 13 times and tried to block Obama administration climate change regulations.
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders grilled Pruitt at his confirmation hearing.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I), Vermont: Ninety-seven percent of the scientists who wrote articles
in peer-reviewed journals believe that human activity is the fundamental reason we are
seeing climate change. You disagree with that?
SCOTT PRUITT (R), EPA Administrator Nominee: I believe the ability to measure with precision
the degree of human activity's impact on the climate is subject to more debate on whether
the climate is changing or whether human activity contributes to it.
MILES O'BRIEN: For his part, Mr. Trump has tweeted that climate change is a hoax cooked
up by the Chinese, and repeatedly criticized federal environmental regulations.
DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: I believe strongly in clean water and clean
air, but I don't believe that what they say -- I think it's a big scam for a lot of people
to make a lot of money. In the meantime, China is eating our lunch because they don't partake
in all the rules and regulations that we do.
RUSH HOLT (D), Former U.S. Congressman: This is Benjamin Franklin's grandson.
MILES O'BRIEN: Physicist and former New Jersey Democratic Congressman Rush Holt is CEO of
the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
It is the world's largest general scientific society, with more than 120,000 members.
RUSH HOLT: When they hear public officials talk about alternative facts, they're aghast.
And when they don't know what a new administration is going to do in support for research, they
get very apprehensive about their ability to continue to do the research that they think
is so valuable.
MILES O'BRIEN: Holt was among the witnesses when the House Science Committee conducted
its first hearing of the Trump era. No one was surprised that the Environmental Protection
Agency was the focus.
The Republican chairman of the committee, Lamar Smith of Texas, is a longtime, staunch
critic of the EPA.
REP. LAMAR SMITH (R), Texas: There is now an opportunity to right the ship at the EPA
and steer the agency in the right direction. The EPA should be open and accountable to
the American people and use legitimate science.
RUSH HOLT: Scientists are fiercely independent. They would resent horribly if they felt their
work was being manipulated. It's not.
MILES O'BRIEN: Also testifying that day, the EPA's deputy administrator under George W.
Bush, Jeff Holmstead. He is a partner at Bracewell, a Houston-based law firm that represents corporate
clients in the energy sector.
JEFF HOLMSTEAD, Bracewell: EPA tends to focus on the science that supports the regulatory
role that it sees for itself, and sometimes doesn't pay enough attention to science that
cuts the other way.
I think it would be valuable to EPA if they had a more balanced perspective on a lot of
these scientific questions that they're looking at.
MILES O'BRIEN: While scientists wait to see what shoes might drop, a rumor mill echoes
across the Twitterverse.
Most agencies are laying low, avoiding controversy in public channels. The EPA's last official
tweet was the day before the inauguration.
Meanwhile, alternative, or rogue, accounts emerge constantly, some apparently authored
by worried employees inside agencies, others by sympathetic, connected outsiders. They
are flares from a science community under siege.
Are scientists in a panic? Is that what it is? What's going on?
KEITH COWING, NASA Watch: They know where the panic button is, and they look at it once
or twice a day.
MILES O'BRIEN: Keith Cowing is a former NASA biologist who founded the watchdog Web site
NASA Watch 20 years ago. He's the proto-rogue, and now he says everybody seems to be joining
in.
KEITH COWING: Nobody has said, shut that database down, take that off your Web site. But what's
going to happen when you have got this giant, bubbling, simmering social media crowd, and
they go from being worried about things that might happen to things that are happening?
There's a colossal hair trigger waiting out there.
MILES O'BRIEN: In the meantime, data refuge is as much therapeutic as it is prophylactic.
Programmer Brendan O'Brien -- no relation -- showed me how they're doing their work.
BRENDAN O'BRIEN, Programmer: The toughest part about this is figuring out what this
all means and to be able to archive it in a sensible form.
MILES O'BRIEN: Data refuge organizers sent questionnaires to 65,000 scientists to determine
how to prioritize the gargantuan task.
So far, they have received 7,500 responses. As they march through the databases, they
are simultaneously developing tools to organize the effort, protect the integrity of the data,
and make an app for widespread use.
BRENDAN O'BRIEN: If we have the foresight to back the stuff up now, we may be -- maybe
later generations will thank us.
MILES O'BRIEN: Scientists are also planning a public campaign to save their enterprise.
On April 22, Earth Day, they intend to march en masse on Washington, an experiment to test
the volatile interaction between pressure, politics, belief, and facts.
Miles O'Brien, the "PBS NewsHour," New York.
JUDY WOODRUFF: This week, "Independent Lens" on PBS is presenting a captivating reexamination
of America's first mass school shooting.
"Tower" includes archival footage, new animation and untold witness stories who unpack the
horror that left 16 dead and three dozen wounded at the University of Texas, Austin, in 1966.
Today, Texas is one of nine states that allow concealed weapons to be carried on public
college campuses, prompting vigorous debate, as we see in this "Independent Lens" extra.
NICK ROLAND, Student: My name is Nick Roland. I'm a Ph.D student here at U.T. Should be
graduating this year with a degree in U.S. history. Went to Virginia Tech for undergrad.
And I was active-duty Army for four years.
My routine is just like anyone else. You know, I get up, eat breakfast. The only difference
is that I put a handgun in my bag before I get on my bike and ride to campus.
So, this is it. I know that it's loaded. It's got the loaded chamber indicator. So, then
I'm just going to place it here.
Once I get to campus, typically going to go somewhere where I can discreetly put my weapon
on my hip. And I'm just going to holster it and then place it right here on my hip.
MICHAEL CARGILL, Owner, Central Texas Gun Works: Campus carry went into effect August
the 1st of 2016, which means that a person with a handgun license can now carry a handgun,
concealed, inside of a building of a college campus.
My name is Michael Cargill. I'm the owner of Central Texas Gun Works, which is a gun
store here in Austin, Texas. I carry a .45, a .38 Special, and a .9-millimeter. I love
it. I like walking to the grocery store. I like going to the movie theaters. I like going
to all those places.
And now finally we can carry those same facilities on a college campus. Woo-hoo!
(APPLAUSE)
(LAUGHTER)
ANA LOPEZ, Student: Hey, how do you all feel about guns on campus?
WOMAN: Weird.
ANA LOPEZ: Come support Students Against Campus Carry.
My name is Ana Lopez. I'm a sophomore at the University of Texas. And I'm vice president
of Students Against Campus Carry at U.T.
Invite your friends to stop by and sign up.
A college campus is somewhere where you should be able to argue with someone and have different
beliefs. And in the presence of guns, my freedom of speech personally is totally stifled.
MAN: The final version is due Tuesday in class?
LISA MOORE, Professor, University of Texas, Austin: I'm Lisa Moore and I'm a professor
of English and women's and gender studies here at the University of Texas, Austin.
The campus carry law makes it really hard for us to do our jobs as instructors. Students
are allowed to bring guns to my classroom. I really consider that interchange of teaching
and learning that happens in a college classroom to be something of a sacred vocation.
It has introduced a level of tension, a level of wariness into the classroom setting that
I just find kind of heartbreaking, frankly.
MAN: Fire.
(GUNSHOTS)
MAN: And this is about their personal safety. They are civilians that are carrying the firearm
for personal protection.
JIM LEHRER, PBS: More than 30 people were shot to death today at Virginia Tech University
in Blacksburg, Virginia. It was the deadliest mass shooting in American history.
NICK ROLAND: I was a senior that year when it happened. It was hard because I really
loved Virginia Tech. And I think it's a really special campus and community. So, yes, it
was shocking, traumatic. It felt like somebody had attacked my family.
Had someone in one of those classrooms been armed, I think it would have made a difference,
certainly. People do deserve to have a fighting chance. And the concealed carry gives them
another option for self-defense in that type of situation.
ANA LOPEZ: I debated with Nick, like, a couple months ago. And I get it. And I can't put
myself in his situation
But causing everybody else to live in fear like you is counterproductive. People often
forget that my university was the site for the first recorded mass shooting in U.S. history.
And that's usually brushed under the rug.
RAMIRO MARTINEZ, Retired Texas Ranger: Here's where some of the bullets hit.
My name is Ramiro Martinez. Back in 1966, I was with the Austin Police Department. Together,
with other officers, we took down the sniper.
Right here is where he died. And, at that time, I started waving the shotgun and hollering
down below, "Stop shooting." But they kept shooting.
I have been asked about my opinion about concealed handgun campus carry. And I'm against it.
So, we don't need young people, who are just a little over 21, probably a little bit immature,
to be carrying guns on the campus.
NICK ROLAND: The reality is, there are vastly more guns in this country than there are people.
We're awash in guns. My solution to that is not to disarm the people that aren't committing
acts of violence. It's to give them a chance to defend themselves.
RAMIRO MARTINEZ: If a citizen had been out here with a gun, and I saw him, and I didn't
know him from Adam, I might have blasted him away. Let the police do the policing.
JUDY WOODRUFF: You can watch "Independent Lens"' "Tower" online at PBS.org/independentlens.
And a news update before we leave you tonight.
The top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee are asking the U.S. attorney
general and the FBI director for a briefing on the circumstances that led to the resignation
of General Michael Flynn. He stepped down this week as national security adviser over
his contacts with Russia during the transition.
And that's the "NewsHour" for tonight. I'm Judy Woodruff.
For all of us at the "PBS NewsHour," thank you, and we will see you soon.
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