Woodruff all that and more, on tonightsbs newshour. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by fidelity investments. Consumer cellular. Financial Services Firm raymond james. Johnson johnson. Supportinsocial entrepreneurs and their solutions to the worlds most pressing problems skollfoundation. Org. T lemelson foundation. Coitted to improving lives through invention, in the u. S. And developing countries. On the web at lemelson. Org. Supported by the john d. Md Catherine Arthur foundation. Committed to building a more just, verdant and peacef world. Ndmore information at macfrg and with the ongoing support of these institutions this program was made possib by the corporation for and by contributioyour pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Woodruff the National Outcry to end Racial Injustice has expanded tonight from proteststs in the strto appeals to congress. The setting was a u. S. House hearing, headlined by the younger brother of george floyd, who died in Police Custody last month. Congressional correspondent Lisa Desjardins begins our coverage. Desjardins one day after burying his brother george, Philonise Floyd walked into the u. S. Capitol with a message, pleading for justice and action. Im tired. Im tired of pain. Pain you feel when you watch when you watch your big brother, who you looked up to for your whole life, die. Die begging for his mom. Stop. Ereo ask you to make it desjardins he appeared committee, now working on a bill aimed at Police Brutality and racial profiling. Yd george f death sparked nationwide protests and conversations around policing d race. Philonise floyd was one of 12 panelists at the hearing. Another, angela underwoo jacobs, also grieving. Her brother, patrick underwood, washot and killed in oakland, california protests last month while he was wking aa federal officer and guarding a federal building. She too called out racism by some, but also pointed to blindu violence tha stop. Im wondering, where is the outrage for a fallen officer that also happens to be African American . Desjardins Houston Police chief art acevedo hoed the thought that most Police Officers are good, and that there is an urgent need for reform. There is no denying that changes in policing must be made. We must acknowledge that law enforcements past containsst utional racism, injustices and brutality. Desjardins but somean republitnesses, like darrell scott, regularly seen at evts with President Trump, were cautious. I gree with the fact that Police Reform, or better yet, poce revision, should be enacd. But it has to be one that is sensitive to the stress, tension, pressure and paranoia that policing produces. Ons. E will now proceed under ths desjardins the question round, often the most heated, was largely sober and serious. Asked why his brother died, floyd said officer derek chauvin, who pressed down on George Floyds neck, km. D i think it was personal, because they wor the same place. So, for him to do Something Like that, it hado be premeditated. Desjardins authorities have not yet indicated that chauvin had a personal motive. Also at the hearing, republicans pushed back at the idea of defunding the police. If you beeve we should defund the police, would you please raise your hand . I didnt see anyone here raise a hand to defund the police. I certainly didnt see any of the republican witnesses do that. St desjardins some pane objected to how the question was asked, and said the idea of moving funding into Mental Health care and mmunity programs is good. The setting itself wastr rdinary, in an auditorium in the capitol visitors center, to allow for social distancing. This, days after Congressional Democrats introduced their Police Reform legislation. Senate republicans are trying to outline their own plan thiswe , with South Carolina senator tim scott leading the effort. The pressure on them is not just national. Today, it was personal, from heartbroken families. Floyd pointed to how his brother died. You donto that to a human being. You dont even do that to an animal. Li hi mattered. All our lives matter. Black lives matter. I truly hope you take your positions, your offices, so seriously you thnt to work to and collaborate, because if you cant get it right, tre is no hopf for the rest. Woodruff and lisa joins me now. Lisa, what a hearing. So you reported there about thetimes having made public their legislation, the proposed legislation on Police Reform. Tell us more abwhat the republicans are looking at. Reporter right now the republicans dont have a firm outline that heyve made public but we know, blind closed doors, they are talking about some they seem to be hovering over a w common themes, at least the senate republicans. Lets look at those in a graphic here, judy. First of all, one of those blocking choldz, we know thats something democrats want to do as well. Also repub a registry of debts and mistreatment of police. Thats a tricky b topcause some of them feel states should be governing that but th is on the tape table for them. Also antiwhrirching legislation, legislation that has been blocked by a republican up until now, ra paul, buthe seems to be, perhaps, working with this group find a way to get on board. Also a National Commission on criminal justice, that idea from republicans would be similar to the 9 11 commission in scope. It could take severamonths o come up with recommendations. Judy, i want to talk about whatf r, doesnt seem to be in their legislation but is a heated debatamong republicans, a couple of ideas particularly about whats called policecalled immunity, which is basically couroom decisions that have held that police have a kind of immunity from being prosecuted in many cases. Now, republicans ae talking about whether to include this in their bill or not. Theyre divided. Right now, its not in their bill. One other thing, the concept of noknock warrants for drug cases, that is something that could end up in this republican proposal as well. Woodruff so, lis youe mentioned a few names of republicans involved, what othee blicans is it known are eorking on this and how much urgency do they how quickly do you think we could see something . Reporter you know, i think its really impoant to talk about exactly who is in the room making the decisions on this and, as wep reted, its led by tim scott. If you look at the others on this socalled task force, it is tim scotts fello South Carolinaian lindersoh cary graham, chairman of the judiciary committee, john cornyn texas, shelly of virginia, James Langford of oklahoma. These are all people who are thought to have had spent time t se issues including past and recent criminal justice reform. The urgency and timing is a bit of a head scratcher. The house of representatives, the democrats are taking theirtt bill to com next week, they hope to have a floor vote the following week. So thhouse is on a twoweek trajectory to pass major criminal justice reform. The senate, it isnt clear what thr time frame yet. They hope to have an outline, maybe even legiagative lan this week, but often things take longer in the senate than the house, so were going to have to see. Woo for sure. And lisa, this has been such a wrenching couple of weeks across the country for the american people. We know protests in, what, 700 american cities. I want to ask you, whats the feelinerthon the hill . Talk to members . Cross when you whats the sense of urgency or not there . I think its really changed across this week, judy, talking to senators on monday, i didnt feel that the majority of them, republicans mostly who i spoke, with had a sense of urgency. Some didlike lisa murkowskiem to be taking it in and trying to figure out where to go. Urnlingsnt have th are. I think they do now. Does that mean they can come up with a deal . I dont know. Woodruff finly, lisa, a bit of news coming from the capitol late today having to do with House Speaker nancy pelosi and confederateatutes. Reporter right, this is a fascinating story, judy. The speaker of the house has written a letter to the Group Overseeing statutes in the capitol asking that eleven statutes of confederaen these are who served in the confederacy be removed from the capitol. These rticular statutes have been selected by states, theyre part of the nationalatuary hall collection. Each state selects two people. Most of these statutes were selected in the begf inninge 20th century, but these, again, are confederates. They include jefferson davis, president of the confederacy, the Vice President robert e. Lee, tse are men whose statutes are in the u. S. Capitol, have been for a long time. The house spear says its time to remove these statutes. Thats a line no one has crossed before. Until now theyve only put the statutesin s prominent locations. One other thing, judy, this doen nolude some who were pro slavery before the confederacy like john c. Calhoun depicted in the capitol four times, including twice outside thete sechamber. That discussion, i think, will continue. Woodruff a lot of people dont realize that. Reporter yeah. Woodruff Lisa Desjardins reporting on whats happening at the capitol. Lisa, thank you. Reporter youre welcome. Woodruff in the days other news, the police chief in mideapolis, where george fl died in custody, took what he dsaid is a first step tow tieeping change. He called off neions with the police union, pending a complete review of the Current Union contract. The chief said he needs the flexibility to get rid of problem police. There is nothing more debilitating to a chief, from an employment perspective, than when you have grounds to terminate an officer formi onduct and youre dealing with a third Party Mechanism that allows for th employee to not only be back in your department, but to be patrolling in your communities. Woodruff the white officer who pinned grge floyd by his neck had 17 complaints against him, but he had been disciplined just once. And in atlanta, two more officers were fired after College Students were pulled and tased during a protest last month. Been dismissed. Ers had already there are calls to investigate w attorney generliam barr for his decision to haveor protestersbly cleared from near the white house on june 1. S some 1,250ce Department Employees made the request today to the departments inspector genel. Meanwhile, crews removed some temporary fencing and barricades from near the white house. Theyd been placed there at the heht of the protests. Also today, President Trump refcted stripping the names confederate generals from military bases in the southern u. S. He said he would not even consider it. But nascar banned the Confederate Flag from all of its stock car racing events and properties. The Federal Reserve says that it will not raise Interest Rates through 2022, as the economy claws back from the pandemic recession. Todays announcement came as the fed projected unemployment will stay above 9 through years end. Chairman Jerome Powell said it is essential to keep rates near zero in a bid to boost growth. As you know, we lowed our policy rate very quickly, quicker than others, to the effect of lowerbound, and we said that well keep it thereth untieconomy has weathered the effects of the virus and is on track to achieve our goals. Woodruff the central bank projected that the economy willo ract by 6. 5 this year, but grow by 5 next year. The country continues reopening from the pandemic, but infections are surging again. More than a dozen states arer reporting thghest seven day averages oannew cases yet. Hospitalizations in nine of those states have increased since memorial day. All told, there have been nearly two million coronavirus cases in the u. S. , th 112,000 deaths. A retired federal judge today accused the justicdepartment of abusing its power in the case of michael flynn. John gleeson blasted the governments motion to drop criminal charges against presidt trumps former National Security adviser. The trial judge had asked gleesoto review the motion. Thousted state Department Inspector general says that s t bosses tristop his review of a major arms sale to saudi arabia. An ripts of steve linicks interview by House Democrats were released today. In them, linick also said that he was reviewing secretary of state mike pompeos alleged use of staffers for personal errands. Pompeo responded this morning. Steve linick was a bad actor in the Inspector General office here. He he didnt take on the mission of the state department, to make us better. Thats what i. G. S are supposed to do. Ey ork for the agency heade thatsmy mistake was letting mr. Linick stay here as long as he did. Woodruff linick had been the state departments Inspector General since 2013. Elections officials in georgia are under searing criticism and voting machineed, inhours, tuesdays primary. Amid the confusion, a democratic contest for a u. S. Senate seat remains too close to call. We will get the tails, right after the news summary. And on wall stre, recession fears overshaded news that Interest Rates will stay low. The Dow Jones Industrial average slid 282 points, back below 27,000. The nasdaq rose 66 points, but the s p 500 lost 17 points. Still to come on the newshour what election mishaps in georgia mean for the november vote. Reopening risks. Alabama sees a surge in covid cases. How gardening can offer fresh air, and some sanity, in turbulent times. Plus, much more. Woodruff trouble with absntee ballots, new voting machines, and a Global Pandemic created a perfect storm forin chaoeorgias primary Yamiche Alcindor reports on the challenge voters faced. Alcindor judy, ione of the biggest tests of the voting systems ahead of novemrs president ial election. And some voters in georgia waited more than five hours to cast their ballots. Georgias secretary of state called the problems unacceptae, and puocthe blame on election officials, during an interview with newshour this afternoon dd all of a , we opened up these polling locations, and one of the county election directors said, well, this is the firstha timemy poll workers have actually touched the system today. And so, if you dont provide training and thats really a leadership issue if yodont provide the management and the oversight to train your poll works i know that you had covid, i get that. F alcindo a closer look at what went wrong in georgia, im joined by andra gillespie. Shes a Political Science professor at emory university. S thanmuch for being here. Obviously, a lot went wrong in georgia. What happened with the voting machines, and what do you make of the secretary of state kind of passing off the blame her well, in short, everything that could go wrong did go wrong yesterday. A number of things could happen. E, there are systemic problems with voting in georgia so counties that often had bottlenecks like Fulton County continued to have them. There are reports there are places with large waricanamerican populations that had long it times and perhaps didnt have the saff or machines to be able to facilitate voting. On top of that, we had the problem of covid 19 creating additional procedures to lengthen the time to have voting, to require people to stand outside for long periods of time. And you had this as a new voter system, so people werent used to the system an there were problems setting it up and acclimating the poll workers the system and that was compound bid cothe vid. It would have been hard to have iaces of training andn places poll workers who refused to show up on election day because of their own health and safety and canceled at the blast mute, again, understaffing many reporter sounds like a perfect storm of things going wrong. More than one million mail in ballots were cast. What happened there. Particularly in fulton requested absentee ballots who didnt request them in time to turn them in for the election. So some these people had to stand line as well. Also some members of their staff me down with covid 19, one had to close down the office for a period, and they wewi overwhelmeh the absentee ballot requests and doesnseem like they were able to get a handling on it in time for people to get thir ballots. Reporter looking ahead to the november election, how does whats happening in georgia relate to other states and what lesson should the nation as a this was a dress rehearsal for november. We expect covid will be with us in november and more and more people will want to vote by absentee because its fer and more convenient, and judging by the lines some plpeo experienced in georgia yesterday, some people feel its so the state of georgia and. Other states not used to having most o their electorate vote by mail will have to figure out how to refine the prcesses so voters get their ballots in time, so they are returned in time, so the instructions are clear. So in georgia, specifically, this is a moment of reckoning, a ment where the secretary of States Office and local elected officials need to evalue what went right and wrong with their procedures yesterday, and they need to trto fix as much as possible, and the recriminations back and forth with local sand state officials pointing the finger at each othe