Transcripts For KQED PBS NewsHour 20240713

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Thank you. Woodruff the reopening of america is now in full swing, from auto plants to theme parks. It is happening at different rates in different states, as the National Death toll reaches 93,000. Stephanie sy begins our coverage tonight. Reporter a new phase in the fight to breathe life into an economy ravaged by covid19. As of today, all 50 states have taken varying steps to reopen. In texas, where only minor restrictions remain in place, children are back at daycare, and Youth Programs have opened, ahead of the summer break. Its been really good to bring back normalcy for the kiddos. You know, were ally excited to get everybody back, but were really trying to make sure we do it the right way and safe way. Reporter by contrast, in new york, it is far from business as usual. Retail stores are stilclosed to the public, only now beginning to offer curbside services. And public parks, like this one in brooklyn, are getting creative about how to distance new yorkers eager to bask in spring weather. The park basically just put down some circles to help people just see what six feet apart looks like. So its easy for us to chill and not be worried about that. Reporter starting tomorrow, the state will also allow religious services with up to ten people to resume. In orlando, florida, tourists roamed around stores and restaurants inside disney world as the theme park began welcoming patrons. Visiting a nursing home with Vice President mike pence today in orlando, republican Governor Ron Desantis defended his decision to open faster than others, and he denied that an expert was fired for refusing to manipulate data to support his decision. Weve succeeded. And i think that people just dont want to recognize it because it challenges their narrative. It challenges their assumption, so theyve got to try to find a boogeyman. Maybe it says there are black helicopters circling the department of health. If you believe that, i got a bridge in brooklyn id like to sell you. Reporter for weeks, states have taken steps toward lifting lockdowns, with mixed messages coming from federal authorities. After much delay, the centers for Disease Control and prevention has quietly released a 60page document with guidance on testing and reopening, but it generally steers clear of language on mandatory rules. It includes cleaning and social distancing recommendations for bars and restaurants; suggests staggered shifts and physical barriers to prevent contact in the workplace; and calls for limited ridership on public transportation, with required face coverings for transit workers. Scols in areas that meet certain metrics for lower virus transmission are encouraged to space desks at least six feet apart, conduct daily temperature screenings, and serve lunch in the classroom, if they reopen. Notay left out of the c. D. C. Document, any mention of how places of worship should resume activity safely. Overseas, another glimpse of what moves toward normalcy mig look like came from south korea, where High School Students returned to class for the first time today. But as more countries move to loosen restrictions, in geneva, the World Health Organization warned the pandemic continues. In the last 24 hours, there have been 106,000 cases reported to w. H. O. , the most in a single day since the outbreak began. Reporter the head of the w. H. O. Said while the virus may be slowing in developed nations, poorer countries are now seeing more infections. For the pbs newshour, im stephanie sy. Woodruff and another top story today the firing of the state Department Inspector general steve linick, who had an active investigation ongoing of the secretary of state mike pompeo. The secretary answered reporters questions today, and our reign Affairs Correspondent Nick Schifrin joins me now. So, nick, what did secretary pompeo have to say . Eporter pompeo denied everything the reporters asked him reled to steve linick, and he actually joked that he should have fired steve linick in the past. Senior officials who are politically appointed around pompeo have told me that they consider letic a bit of a partisan hack, in their words, and pompeo, today, tried to turn the tables, instead, pointing the finger at the top democrat on the Senate Foreign rewhraitions committee, who is trying to investigate why pompeo fired lentic. This is all coming through the office of senator menendez. I dont get my ethics guidance from a man who was criminally proscated. Case 15155, new jersey Federal District court. Reporter for the record, it is not only menendez investigating the firing, it is also House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman elliott angle and other democrats. But democrats sid respond to pompeo in a statement accusing him of firing lentic as lentic was investigating pompeo and said the secretary was use dig version tactics by attempting to smear me. Woodruff so, nick, as senator menendez mentions, lentic investigating pompeo, what do we know he wa investigating . What do we know about that . Reporter so congressional officials tell me that lentic was investigating personal matters related to secretary of state mike pompeo and his wife susan, whether they had improperly used either political appointees or even Diplomatic Security officials to basically run errands for them. And an official said that theres beenn undercurrent of those accusations the last few years and i should say, judy, ive spoke ton former c. I. A. Officials while pompeo was direct of c. I. A. And they said they heard some of same things. Today pompeo said he didnt know whether the investigation into the personal matters existed but, at the same time, denied the underlying substance behind them. I have no sense of what investigations were taking place inside the inspecialty generals office. Couldnt possibly have retaliated for all the things. Ive seen the various stories that someone was walking my dog to sell armso my drycleaner. I mean, its all just crazy. Woodruff and, nick, there is another question out there and thats whether the Inspector General lentic was also looking lentic was looking into arms sails to saudi arabia. Reporter 100,000 people died in that war and its led against saudi arabia by a houthi in yemen and the saudis are armed by u. S. Weapons, authorized by u. S. Officials. The sales were at first blocked by republican senator and then menendez but they restarted when the administration declared an emergency that they had to get the arms sales and last summer angle and other democrats called for an investigation into that emergency by steve linick, the i. G. They pointed out why did you need to call an emergency if the arms werent going to get there for two years . Today we heard from speaker of the house nancy pelosi who brought up that accusation. They declared a fake emergency in order to initiate the sales, and then and that may have been part of the investigation. Thats what im very concerned about. Reporter we know that steve linick was investigating that declared emergency. Pompeo ce cleaned to be interviewed as part of that investigation but answered written questions about it. One official says Senior State Department officials have been briefed about the investigation but we dont know what the results were. Woodruff nick, one more piece of context here. We know steve linick was the fourth Inspector General in the Trump Administration to be removed just in the last six weeks. Reporter yeah, this is part of an argument that President Trump has made against these Inspector Generals. He was asked about steve linick on monday and he indicated he did not care what steve linick had been investigating, only that steve linick was appointed by obama and pompeo wanted him gone. I said who appoied him . They said president obama. I said, look, ill terminate him. I dont know whats going on other than that but you would have to ask mike pompeo. Reporter the irony is congressional officials and officials inside the Inspector General Community Tell me that steve linick entered the i. G. World through a republican senator Richard Grassley and his first high profile investigation was into Hillary Clintons email server. They also tell me steve linick wasnt particularly aggressive against the Trump Administration nor, for that matter, were any of the Inspector Generals that trump has believed in the last few weeks. Republican and democratic officials are trying to figure out hether they can create some kind of forcause removal in order to protect inspecto insper general, but these officials im talking to say this is a fivealarm fire side the Inspector Generals community. Current Inspector Generals are scared, the mood is negative, and the idea that inspect generals are there to speak truth to power, thats being eroded. Woodruff so important to report on this, and i know the reporting will continue. Nick schifrin, thank you very much. Reporter thank you. Woodruff in the days other news, a Tropical Cyclone blasted india and banglade, killing at least 14 people and destroying homes by the hundreds. The storm surged out of the bay of bengal into a densely populated region thats been beset by the covid19 pandemic. Pounding indias eastern coastline, the strongest cyclone in over a decade. Winds reached 100 miles per hour, knocking down trees and damaging metal roofs. Today in new delhi, Indian Officials said they are working to restore roads. translated all teams are on the ground, all teams are outsidin the cyclone area, and woodruff in neighboring bangladesh, riverbanks overflowed. Yesterday, local officialsegan mass evacuations. Initially, they were not willing to evacuate, because they were weighing between the risk of cyclone, at the same time also the invisible risk of covid19. Reporter Snigdha Chakroborty is the bangladesh country director for catholic relief services. She says the cyclone is another they do not have income. They do not have homes. They also lost their crop in the field. So basically it is a devastating situation and painful situation that they will have to live with now. Reporter nearly three Million People have been evacuated from their homes, and are hunkering down in cramped evacuation centers, where social distancing is impossible. For thousands of Rohingya Refugees in southern bangladeshs coxs bazar, the only protection they have are plastic sheets to cover their homes. As heavy rain hit the refugee camp today, residents worked to prevent flooding. Nearly 10,000 people in Central Michigan have been ordered out of their homes after foding breached two dams. A river and connected lakes have topped record levels that were set in 1986, and theyre still rising. Today, debris including a camper floated down the river, and only street signs were above water in downtown midland. Governor Gretchen Whitmer said the flooding is expected to peak tonight. If youren an impacted area, please evacuate. This is going to be hard, but we are anticipating several feet of water across this area. And so, while were in the midst of a global pandemic, its really important that to the best of our ability, we observe the best practices to keep ourselves and our families safe. Woodruff midland is home to dow chemical, and the flooding is already encroaching on the companys main plant site. U. S. Marshals in massachusetts have arrested two men accused of helping former nissan c. E. O. Carlos ghosn flee japan. They allegedly smuggled ghosn to lebanon in a box last december. He was facing financial misconduct charges, but said that he could not expect a fair trial in japan. Israel is under new pressure to abandon plans for annexing parts of the west bank. The top u. N. Envoy for the middle east said today that it would deal a devastating blow to any hopes for peace. And palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas announced that all agreements with israel and the u. S. Are void because of the annexation threat. Back in this country, the u. S. Supreme court barred the Immediate Release of secret grand jury testimony from the russia investigation. House democrats had sued for access to the material. But the court denied that request at least until early summer. That all but guarantees the documents will not be released before election day. Former vice esident joe biden accused President Trump and his lieutenants of abusing their Law Enforcement powers. The democratic president ial nomineeinwaiting spoke via video link to Columbia Law School graduates today. Last night, he rejected mr. Trumps claims that he and former president obama acted illegally to push the russia investigation. This is his pattern diversion, diversion, diversn, diversion, diversion. Dont speak to whatever the issues before us are. My god, obamagate. Come on. This is so venal, so petty. The greatest crime . I mean, my lord. Woodruff meanwhile, the president condemned plans for mailin voting in michigan and nevada, and he threatened to withhold federal funds for the states. The number of babies born in the u. S. Has fallen to a 35year low. The centers for Disease Control and prevention estimates 3. 7 million births last year, down 1 from 2018. The decline has been trending for more than a decade. And on wall street, stocks bounced back from tuesdays losses, led by the tech sector. The Dow Jones Industrial average gained 369 points to close near 24,576. The nasdaq rose 190 points 2 and the s p 500 added 48. Still to come on the newshour the Trump Administration continues deportation of Migrant Children despite the pandemic. Brazils former president on the countrys chaotic response to the coronavirus. An inside look at Predictive Modeling and why new infections from covid19 are so difficult to foresee. Plus, much more. Woodruff the coronavirus is changing life as we know it in the u. S. , including the Trump Administrations immigration policy. As john yang reports, one big shift is in the treatment of Migrant Children and teenagers. Yang judy, the New York Times reports that in march and april, shortly after they reached the border, the Trump Administration deported more than 900 Migrant Children. Thats much sooner in the process than before. Its part of a new, steppedup Border Security policy that the departmentf Homeland Security says is intended to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Caitlin dickerson covers immigration for the New York Times, and joins us now. She joins us from her home in new york. Caitlin, thank you so much for being with us. Whats the difference between the way these children are being treated now and the way they were being treated befe the pandemic . Sure. So, historically, when a child or a teenager, anybody under 18, arrives at the american border without an adult guardian, they were allowed into the country and taken to a pretty lengthy process in which they were assigned a social worker, they were sent to a shelter that was specifically designed to house children, and that social worker helped determine whether or not they have a legal case to remain in the United States. If the child isnt or doesnt qualify for one of those Legal Protections that our country offers, then they are returned to their home country, but only after a safety plan has been put into place, so the American Government makes contact with family in the home country and makes sure that the child has a safe place to go back to, which, as you can imagine, is especially important, when a child is returning to a dangerous country. Both of those things arent happening now. So rather than being allowed into the country, children are being returned right away. And even those kids who were already in the United States before this steppedup border enforcement began, when those kids are being depored, its more quickly and without the safety plan ahead of time, which means some kids have ended up back in home country, their family doesnt know theyre there till they arrive and the child may not have anywhere to go. Reporter you start your tale with a 1yearold boy who is about to set across the rio grande with a stranger, not his family. Can you summarize what happened to him. So, right. Gerson is 10. He had been in mexico with his mother since last october. They fled because of his mothers partner who had been abusive to themmenned withheld food and hit them. They went to mexo, like so many other families. They filed for asylum in the United States but were enrolled in the protocols of the Trump Administration, requiring the Asylum Seekers to wait on the mexican side of the border till their cases are adjudicated. That didnt feel safe enough to gersons mother. Many migrants who were waiting on the mexican side of the border have been subjected to kidnapping and extortion. Its very dangous. They were living outdoors in a tent camp. So his mother decided the safest thing she felt to do was to send her 10yearold son across the border alone so he could go live with his uncle in houston. But that didnt happen. She didnt realize this Trump Administration policy has been implemented and she heard nothing from her son for six days. When she finally did hear from him, he learned he was back in honduras and without any of his family being informed. Reporter whats the Trump Administrations rationale for the new policy . So this policy came down through an executive order invoing the power of the Surgeon General to prevent people from entering the United States because of the threat of a serious disease or illness, and were talking about the coronavirus pandemic. Important context to note here is this idea of using the Public Health authority to shut down the border is not something that originated as a novel response to this unprecedented pandemic. Its actually something that stephen miller, President Trumps chief advisish on immigration, had come up with years ago, shortly after President Trump took office. Hes been looking for a way to implement it and he got that opportunity with the coronavirus, as my reporting has shown. Reporter some House Democrats are saying this violates u. S. Law, with this new policy. Whats behind that argument . What theyre talking about is the trafficking victims protection act, a decades old law designed to protect this very population were talking about, kids who come to the United States on their own, and its not hard to understand why special protections have been put in place, when you think about what its like for someone as young as a 10yearold to be traversing International Borders on their own. They really are targets for exploitation of any kind. It doesnt always happen, but because of the vulnerability they face from people who may want to kidnap them or may want to extort their families for money and do a number of things, this law was created to try to prevent that from happening and to give them two opportunities, actually, really, they are entitled to apply for asylum, to try to win protection in the United States, and to basically make sure theres no provision of the Immigration Law that could offer them protections before theyre sent home and its designed to ensure that when the United States sends them home, theyre not put in harms way. Reporter caitlni dickerson of the New York Times, thank you so much. Thank you. Woodruff President Trump counts brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro as an ally and kindred spirit. But not en their closeness prevented mr. Trump from saying yesterday that hes considering banning brazilians from traveling to the u. S. The Coronavirus Crisis in that country is one of the worlds most dire by several metrics. Bolsonaro is also coming under attack by a popular former brazilian president , who is reemerging on the political scene after being released from prison. Amna nawaz spoke with Luiz Inacio Lula da silva late last week. Nawaz in late 2019, former brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da lva known widely as just lula walked out of prison after 580 days, and stepped right back onto the political stag translated today, im a guy that doesnt have a job. A president without a pension, not even a television in my apartment. My life is totally blocked. The only thing im certain of is that i have more courage to fight than before. Nawaz his top targets . The current president of brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, and his allies, whom lula claims wrongfully convicted him of corruption in 2017. A conviction hes now appealing. Today, the focus of lulas criticism is bolsonaros mishandling of the covid19 pandemic. translated we have an invisible enemy which we do not know. We do not have the medication to cure it, and many leaders such as the president of brazil and the president of the u. S. Are not treating it seriously, with the necessary precautions to face the pandemic. Nawaz to date, more than 18,000 brazilians have died of covid19, and the virus is running rampant through vulnerable communities the sprawling, crowded urban areas known as favelas and among indigenous communities in the amazon and other remote regions. The death toll in latin americas largest country is now the sixthworst in the wld. The total number of infections ranks third globally. But experts believe the government is likely vastly underreporting the number of cases, and fear what will follow. Do you believe that brazil will become the next global epicenter for thisandemic . translated i think brazil runs the risk of becoming the next epicenter of the pandemic. The country alone has more people contaminated and deaths than all of south america. The problem we have in brazil, and this is my present concern, is that the pandemic is beginning to reach the poorest places and peripheries throughout the country. Nawaz like President Trump, president bolsonaro downplayed early concerns over the virus. He clashed with health officials, firing his first health minister, who criticized his approach. His Second Health minister stepped down after one month on the job. And hes peddled misinformation, leading both facebook and twitter to remove his posts saying that the drug hydroxychloroquine was working in all places. Bolsonaro whos so far been unable to make good on his promise to fix a faltering economy has also pushed for brazilian businesses to reopen, mimicking President Trumps message. translated people are dying they are im sorry, im sorry. But more will die but much, much more, if the economy continues to be destroyed by those measures. Nawaz and just like trumps supporters, bolsonaros backers have taken to the streets, in defiance of local social distancing orders. translated president bolsonaro likes to copy, to repeat President Trumps actions. That is, president bolsonaro believes President Trump is a higher being, so he simply copies everything trump says. And bolsonaro does not discuss the pandemic. He discusses any topic, he offends the supreme court, native indigenous people, blackswomen, congress, senate, the opposition, governors, mayors, but he does not take care of the pandemic. Nawaz in recent weeks, though, lula has escalated his attacks, saying in one recent interview that Brazilian Society has the right to remove bolsonaro. You dont have votes in congress to impeach him, hes unlikely to step down. So what exactly are you calling on people to do . translated i think it is very difficult for any president to continue in office doing what bolsonaro is doing in brazil. He is not governing brazil. He is constantly producing fake news, he spends the nights writing tweets, he does not wear a mask, he goes out to the i think, and society expects, the house of representatives should start an impeachment procedure, to discuss whether this man h the necessary politicaconditions to continue to govern this country. Nawaz i just want to be clear about this, president da silva you are calling for the impeachment process against president bolsonaro to begin. You believe that should start. translated i think that if bolsonaro continues to act irresponsiy as he has been doing, the people will not accept him for three more years. I am not in favor of removing a president every year through an impeachment process, i am in favor of a government that truly governs the country, respecting democracy. Nawaz lula himself has faced some of the same criticism. Despite leaving office after two terms with skyhigh popularity, he was ensnared years later in a massive corruption and bribery scandal. Lula maintains he did nothing wrong. translated for the past four years, i have been asking them to prove any one of the charges held against me. So far nothing has been proven. Nawaz and in another recent twist, the judge who convicted lula was later handpicked as Justice Minister by bolsonaro. And just last month, he resigned, saying the president pressured him to fire the police chief. Even today, lula remains popular among brazilians, and when pressed, would neither confirm nor deny he would run again, when bolsonaros term is up in 2022. But he is still making the pitch directly to brazilians, begging them to once again believe in his Workers Party, known as the p. T. , by its portuguese initials. Why should they believe things would be any better today, at this moment of crisis, under the Workers Party or under you . Under anyone else . translated i will tell you something. First of all, people should believe in the p. T. Because it was the party that brought the greatest social inclusion in brazils history. That is, in 13 years, we did what had not been done in the last 100 years in the country. We invested the most in employment, education, health, electrical power, social improvement for the poor. That is why they should believe. Nawaz a former leader re emerging to fight once again, amid political turmoil and the uncertainty of a pandemic, now settinits sights on brazil. For the pbs newshour, im amna nawaz. Woodruff even as states are trying to reopen the economy, a new pbs newshour npr marist poll found that 77 of americans worry about a second wave of infections yet to come. This comes as computerbased models suggest the u. S. Will pass its own grim milestone by june 100,000plus deaths. That higher projection is arriving even sooner than some of the models estimated just weeks ago. But models are not crystal balls. The work that goes into making them and their ultimate purpose is more complicated than you might be able to tell from the headlines. Miles obrien explains, in his latest report for our series, the leading edge. Reporter we live in a complicated world, filled with more data than insight. Finding a path to clarity is not easy even on a good day. And these are not good days. So how can we take a huge amount of data and make it understandable, so we can see the future . You cant believe every number that comes out. But if we dont try to formulate our thinking about a complex process, then well be running blind. Reporter Betz Halloran is an Infectious Disease modeler. She writes mathematical formulas that define the chaotic, exponential spread of infection. A biostatistician at seattles Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research center, shes part of the team that curates the global epidemic and mobility model, or gleam. The gleam model is a big mobility model that can answer global questions. Reporter gleam begins with the first infection in china and travels down the many paths of exponential growth, constantly calculating who is susceptible; exposed; infectious; and recovered. Seir, or seir. You can structure it in many different ways. But usually, when we talk about Infectious Disease modeling, thats the basic sort of meat and potatoes of whats going to be in a model. Reporter but the model does not stop there. It factors in the entire Global Transportation network, including Airline Schedules and capacity. So the question we were asking way back then was, where is it gog to spread . If it gets into the United States, where would it go first . And once it gets in, then we could use gleam to look at the question of, how much is it going to spread in the different places, where is it going to go first . And then we predicted that pretty well. Reporter halloran and her team did accurately predict where covid19 would first surge in the United States, but as the pandemic wore on, the limitations of the models became more evident. After all, no one really knows how the virus is transmitted, whos likely to get sick and who wont, whos likely to die, who might have immunity. All those questions wont be answered until there is widespread testing. So in the meantime, the models muddle on with sometimes dizzyingly confusing results. One of them, from britains imperial college, predicted two million covid19 deaths in the United States but that assumed no human response, no social distancing. All models are wrong, but some models are helpful, and i think its important to remember that. Reporter nearby, at the university of washingtons institute for Health Metrics and evaluation, they built a much simpler model that started with a specific question in mind did the Healthcare System have the capacity to treat a surge of covid19 patients . Chris murray is the director. He and his team wrote a model that, unlike many others at the time, factored in the human response to the pandemic. If you ignore the behavioral response, youre going to massivy overshoot. And so, i think it is a reasonable strategy to try to look at models, like the economists do, which build in how individuals, local government, State Government are going to respond to the problems as they unfold. So im sure youre interested in seeing all the states. Reporter producing speedy statebystate results, with consistently lower projections, the university of washington model was frequently cited by the white house in daily coronavirus briefings. And i think if you ask chris murray, he would say. Reporter but the model initially assumed there would be Widespread Adoption of social distancing restrictions in the u. S. Once it became clear that wasnt happening, the Modeling Team went back to the drawing board, releasing a new version on may 4. It now uses mobility data gleaned from cell phone usage to better understand how well people are complying with the expert advice. As a result, that models projection for the total u. S. Death toll by august 4 from covid19 instantly went from about 72,000 to 134,000. Its sensible to try to look at a wide array of models and try to look at how, do they tell you the same story, are they converging . Its very confusing, i think, for many decisionmakers to navigate through some of the models. Were going to start off with this weekend. Reporter weather forecasters are some of the most adept at navigating the inherent uncertainties of modeling. Going to have some travel problems. Reporter after all, its been 70 years since they first ran a model through a computer to create a forecast. Its been steady improvement ever since. Its now possible to reliably forecast seven days in advance with 80 accuracy. But with a novel virus, there are so many unknowns. And, weather models do not have to account for human behavior. Marshall shepherd is director of the Atmospheric Sciences program at the university of georgia. Its very important when consuming these coronavirus models and weather models to consume the uncertainty that we know is inherent. But we have a way to get around that in weather, called ensemble modeling. Reporter ensemble modeling, meaning combining the predictions of many different models. Its a crucial tool that has greatly improved forecasting the weather. And in the past three years, seasonal influenza as well. Ni reich is an associate professor of biostatistics at the university of massachusetts amherst. Working with the centers for Disease Control and prevention, he leads a team that builds ensemble models to improve predictions of the spread of the flu. I dont think any one model should be viewed as gospel truth. When you just use one model, you end up with a too strong reliance on one particular set of assumptions and one particular viewpoint, and this is why its really critical to consider multiple models together. Reporter the influenza models are informed by up to 20 yrs of experience with the viruses and the accuracy of the models. Reich and his team have now built a covid19 ensemble model. But it, of course, does not have the benefits of a long backstory. We do have hundreds of years of theory about how to build mathematical models of Infectious Disease, but have they ever been tested in real time in this way, with all of the data sources that are available to us . No. Were building this car as its careening down the highway, and were learning about these models as we go. Reporter Infectious Disease modelers are scramblg to figure out where we are headed, depending on the decisions we make. If we take the time to better understand what the models can and cannot do, maybe we will do the same as we search for the path back to normalcy. For the pbs newshour, im miles obrien. Woodruff throughout this entire crisis, questions continue to be raised about why the federal government was not better prepared for such a challenge. As William Brangham tells us, those questions include how the Trump Administration views the role of government and Civil Service broadly. Brangham thats right, judy, most peoe would agree that the scale and speed of this pandemic would have taxed the abilities and resources of any government or any president. But the Trump Administrations approach has come under some intense scrutiny. We connect now with two writers who have looked closely at this response. Yuval levin is the director of social, cultural and constitutional studies at the American Enterprise institute. Hes the author of a time to build how recommitting to our institutions can revive the american dream. And, george packers recent articles in the atlantic look at the Trump Administrations response to this crisis. He is also author of a recent book on the diplomat, richard holbrooke, and before that, author of the unwinding, an inner history of the new america, among other books. Gentlemen, thank you both very much for being here. George packer, to you first, you have written that the seeds of the administrations response were in some ways predictable, given the way the administration viewed the role of the government preseeding this crisis. Can you explain that a little bit more . I think trump spent the first three years of his administration almost in combat with his own government, his own bureaucracy, rooting out people he perceived as disloyal, placing cronies and sycophants in key political jobs, and creating an atmosphere of fear and of chill among the career Civil Service so that, by the time the pandemic came, there was a kind of passivity and even absenteeism in big areas of the federal government that trump had seep as serving no purpose yond his own personal political interests. So once he needed a bureaucracy to do things in order to keep the country safe, to protect us, it wasnt there, either jobs were unfilled or people were, in a sense, hiding under their desks because they knew if they said something trump didnt like, he would come after them, and thats been happening throughout the pandemic. Reporter yuval levin, same question to you. You have written there has been certainly a den graduation of expertise and somewhat chaotic decisionmaking process within the white house. Do you think that has also affected the Pandemic Response . I do. I agree with what george has said and i think the way that he put it in his recent pieces in the atlantic has been quite right. But i would focus particularly on the white house staff and the team around the president which expresses the president s own attitude about the relationship he should have to the rest of the government. The white house staff is there to enable the president to receive information in the form of decisions to be made and to process it, to listen to expertise, to make decisions, and the fact is that process has never existed in this white house. There has never been a functional structure of decisionmaking. Thats a problem at any time, but it becomes an enormous problem at a moment of crisis, when you have to have a reliable chain of command, you have to have a reliable process for making decisions and distinctions between whats said in public and private and how the president thinks about his task of communicating to the public in a reassuring way. None of that is happening in an effective way in this administration. What youre finding is a president who is understanding of the job has not been formed by any experience at any level of government. For the first time in our history, we have a president who has not served either as a senior military officer or as a senior public official before becoming president. Instead, he comes into the job as a performer, and he sees himself in the job as a public performer putting on a show. The fact, is in a crisis, the president has to be an inside player, he has to be making decisions and operating the arms of the government from within. This president has no idea how that works, no trust in the rest of the system, and at a time of pressure and crisis, it shows. Reporter george, you and yuval are making the same point, but devils advocate. We have seen other crises affect other administrations. Isnt some flatfooted nepsz and some initial chaos and confusion to be expected, especially when this virus really does, in some ways, trump the severity of those other cr crises . Yes, and in other countries we look to as examples of wellfunctioning democracies, in europe and asia, even the ones that seem to have done well, germany, south korea, theyve made mistakes. Others, spain and italy, have seen results that have been as baas or worse than our i think the difference is what youve all been just describing which is that these are the kind of unavoidable blunders of big, unwieldy governments facet with something very few governments plan for, anticipate and are ready for, and very few politicians have the courage and foresight to get out ahead of facts and listen to their scientists and experts and do things the public might not like even before the public knows theyre doing it. But in trumps case we see a white house thats continually undermined its own administrations response at every step of the way. Its as if, at every moment, when the question is what is the best way to get out ahead of this and minimize suffering and death,rump has done the opposite. I dont know if thats true in any other country in the world, and thats a direct result of his idea of what it means to be president , which i think, in his case, that means to use power to serve his own interests, not to lead the country, not to solve the countrys problems, certainly not to bring the country together, instead, to divide us in his own interests. Reporter yuval, picking up on georges point here, it has been brought up several times that if the president really does see this as primarily a political issue to solve, not a Public Health one, one could argue that the president should have used all the leavers at his wer in the federal government to ramp up testing, to deal with the shortages of protective supplies. Why do you think the president was seemingly reluctant to use the leavers of government if one could argue those might have saved lives and those might have been then strengthened his electoral chances in november . Reluctance doesnt end up being the term. The president has been incapable of using the leavers of power in an effective way. This is a crisis that would overwhelm and has overwhelmedman governments. The question is how do you learn and mobilize over time . That the government was nod prepared in advance is not an indictment. But that we have not learned over by mistakes over two or three months and were basically where we were in terms of our capacity to establish decisionmaking processes that helps us improve over time, its the fault of the Senior Executives in the Trump Administration. No way warned it. Our country has done some things well. The American Public has en willing to mae tremendous sacrifices, many governors an some federal officials have stepped up, buttop has a distaingt role here, a coordinating and reassuring role that he has simply failed to perform, and i dont think thats a decision hes made, i think its just an incapacity thats been revealed and, of course, which was evident in some respects before but becomes especially problematic in a moment of crisis like this. Reporter all right, really interesting conversation. Yuval levin, george packer, thank you both very much for being here. Woodruff Truck Drivers are on the front lines of the pandemic, facing lower pay these days and higher risks as they deliver muchneeded food and supplies. Tonights brief but spectacular feares kansas citybased husband and wife truckers chante and ron drew. After ron began experiencing symptoms of covid19 last month, producer Steve Goldbloom conducted a series of interviews with the couple over the course of several weeks. Ron and i are a married couple. We drive a team freight across the cotry. We haul a lot of groceries, a lot of produce, a lot of meats, things like that. Truck drivers, weve always been, like, we dont get a lot of respect, were kind of looked down upon. But people saw how crazy things got when their toilet paper ran out. Can you image if you go to the Grocery Store and thereno food in there . I dont know why theyre not making more of an effort to get personal equipment for drivers. You need us to run so you can have food. Weve got two beds. The bottom bed we leave as a table so we have some place to sit and eat. When im driving, hes sleeping, and when hes sleeping, im driving. I first started experiencing symptoms when i was in phoenix last week. Mostly like, body aches, hurting in my knees, hurt in my elbows. My fever would just spike and i just started, just aching and aching. Hot, cold chills. Hot, cold chills. But i trooped it out, got her done. And then we just went today to get his test, finally. You roll up and then they have you crack your window down and then they just come through the window and squeegee your sinuses. I figured since if rons positive, obviously ill be positive as well. So we figure, save the testing for somebody else. Were both got it, probably. Hopefully well know by wednesday at the latest. I feel horrible. Since saturday, ive not been able to get really out of bed for anything. Ive dropped about 30 pounds. Ive never experienced anything like this, where you sleep constantly. We got rons covid test back and it was positive. I opted at first not to get tested. I figured im probably positive. But then after talking to the nurse, she said its probably a good idea to go ahead and get tested. Im not showing too many symptoms other than just being extremely fatigued. Im pretty sure that ill test positive. Weve been in contact with the company that we are leasing a truck from, and theyve suspended our truck payments for as long as needed. Were probably going to go lay down right now and just rest and recover and hope and pray that nobody else has to go through this. I was tted for covid. I tested negative. Our doctor and the Health Department both told us to go ahead and assume that i had it, since i had all the same symptoms as ron. The doctor told me that theyre getting a lot of false negatives, just with the way that a lot of the people are doing the swab testing. But weve been slowly recovering one morning you wake up, you feel great. You go outside, just do a couple things, and next thing you know youre winded, youre in bed, youre sleeping again for 12 hours straight during the day. Almost 22 days, weve been off work. We got turned on to a resource called st. Christophers fund, which is for Truck Drivers. And they ended up making our rent payment for the month. Thats huge. Which helped a ton. But luckily for us, the company we drive for, they got freight right now. Im glad our first trip is going out to seattle. Its always fun going out that way. Get the wind in your hair, and get the dogs back out at the rest areas, and do what we do best. This thing is no joke. Like, your lung capaci doesnt come back up right away. You still cant taste or smell for god knows how long this is going to be. I still get pain in my knees that i didnt have before. Just dont brush it off thinking, 99 of us are going to get well. Well, youre not going to get 100 well. My advice would be to have compassion for each other, and quit trying to hurry the process of getting back out there and getting back to work, because itll happen. Its just, youve got to listen to the experts. Before the pandemic, i think a lot of people didnt realize where their food came from. Weve heard other friends that have seen signs that people saying, we love Truck Drivers. Truck drivers have never asked for hazard pay. You know, in fact, our rates have gone down since the pandemic started. So were ming less overall than when this first started. We just want to still be able to do our jobs, and i just hope that people dont forget about it as time goes on. My name is chante drew. My name is ron drew. And this is our brief but spectacular take on living through covid19. Woodruff thank you both, and Truck Drivers. And you can find all our brief but spectacular segments online at www. Pbs. Org newshour brief and online, a new pbs newshour npr marist poll out today finds that most americans think it will take six months or longer for daily life to return to a relative sense of normal. Read more on our website, www. Pbs. Org newshour. And that is the newshour for tonight. Im judy woodruff. Join us online, and again here tomorrow evening. For all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you, please stay safe, and well see you soon. 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Org happy birthday, dear hubert. Friends and family call me hubert or just chef. I grew up in france, alsace to be exact, in ribeauville, a beautiful medieval town with less than 5,000 people. We lived on the top floor of my parents patisserie. Can you imagine what i ate as a child . I love cars, bikes of any kind and music, but my first love, besides my wife chantal, will always be cooking