The e. R. In Alameda County alone, we might be able to save as much as 16 million a year, just on hospitalizations of children. Woodruff all that and more, on tonights pbs newshour. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by bnsf railway. And with the ongoing support of these institutions this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Woodruff President Trump and russias president Vladimir Putin have been on the phone again, and they agreed to step up diplomacy in syria. The two men spoke today for the First Time Since the u. S. Attacked a Syrian Air Base last month. Earlier, putin met with german chancellor angela merkel, in sochi, russia. He claimed again that moscow did not meddle in the u. S. Election translated we never interfere into political life and political processes in other countries, and we would very much like that nobody interfered into our political life and into the political life in russia. These are just rumors used in the internal political struggle in the u. S. Woodruff meanwhile, Hillary Clinton said today that putin certainly interfered to help donald trump and defeat her. U. S. Intelligence agencies and the congress are investigating whether the russians coordinated with trump aides during the campaign. The head of thailands military junta says he is now expecting muchimproved relations with the u. S. They cooled sharply after he seized power in a 2014 coup and became prime minister. But today, he said President Trump assured him in a weekend phone call that thaiu. S. Relations will now be closer than ever before. The president also invited him to visit the white house. Mr. Trump gave out conflicting messages today on the compromise measure to fund the government through the end of this fiscal year. First, in a tweet, he signaled displeasure, and suggested shutting the government down in the next budget fight. Later, though, as he honored the air force Academy Football team, he praised the spending deal, and said this is what winning looks like. This bill is a clear win for the american people. We brought lawmakers together from both sides of the aisle to deliver a budget that funds the rebuilding of the United States military, makes historic investments in border security, and provides health care for our miners and School Choice for our disadvantaged children. Woodruff later, white house budget director Mick Mulvaney said mr. Trump is unhappy with portrayals that democrats won the budget fight. The president is frustrated with the fact that he negotiated in good faith with the democrats and they went out to try and spike the football and make him look bad. It doesnt surprise me at all that his frustrations were manifested in that way. Weve got a lot to do between now and september. I dont anticipate a shutdown in september, but if negotiations, if the democrats arent going to behave any better than they have in the last couple of days, it may be inevitable. Woodruff the leader of senate democrats, chuck schumer, said shutting down the government at any time would be a bad idea. A guilty plea today from a white former policeman who shot a black man to death in charleston, south carolina. Michael slager shot walter scott five times, as scott ran from his car in 2015. A state court jury deadlocked on murder charges, but today, slager pleaded to federal civil rights violations. Under the deal, the state agreed to drop its murder case. No sentencing date was set. In baton rouge, louisiana, in the killing of alton sterling, the incident was voomented and sparked tense protests in that city. A little over a week later, a gunman killed three baton rouge officers. There theres word today that the overall death rate among African Americans has dropped sharply from 1999 to 2015. The centers for Disease Control and prevention reports it fell 25 in that period. However, the overall Life Expectancy for African Americans is still four years less than for whites. Black americans are also far more likely to die of Heart Disease and cancer than whites are. Airline executives found themselves in the hot seat at a congressional hearing today on the issue of overbooking flights. It followed United Airlines forced removal of a passenger who refused to give up his seat this month. United c. E. O. Oscar munoz was one of four Airline Representatives at the hearing. He called the incident a turning point for his company. It will accelerate at least from uniteds perspective and you heard from others this will make us better. Once you sit and are on a seat, we will not take you off that flight. Woodruff republicans and democrats alike warned the airlines to shape up. Committee chair representative bill shuster said Customer Service had better improve, or else. Get together collectively and figure this out. Seize this opportunity, because if you dont, were going to come, and youre not going to like it. Woodruff united reached a settlement with the ejected passenger last week, for an undisclosed sum. U. S. Auto sales tumbled last month. Six Major Companies today reported weaker showings than a year ago. And on wall street, the Dow Jones Industrial average gained 36 points to close near 20,950. The nasdaq rose more than three points, and the s p 500 added nearly three. Still to come on the newshour the ripple effects of what President Trump says, and tweets. The worlds newest country, devolving into war and famine. Does a netflix hit push its portrayal of teen suicide too far . And much more. Woodruff President Trump has given a flurry of interviews in the past week or so, to commemorate his first 100 days in office. And, he made a dizzying amount of news, giving controversial, and at times contradictory, comments on topics ranging from north korea to the u. S. Civil war. To try to make sense of it all, we are joined now by our own lisa desjardins; by yeganeh torbati, state Department Reporter for reuters; and, julie davis. She covers the white house for the new york times. And we welcome all three of you to the program. Lets talk first about the president s comments about the health care bill, this replacement bill. Lisa, he was asked some pointed questions over the weekend. Cbs John Dickerson in an interview for face the nation, here is some of that interview. Lets watch. They are worried, are they going to have the guarantee of coverage if they have a preexisting condition or if they live in a state where the governor decides thats not part health care or that the prices are going to go up . Thats the worry the American Medical Association says we actually make coverage completely unaffordable for people. Forget about unaffordable. What is unaffordable is obamacare, john. Im not hearing you say there is a guarantee of preexisting conditions. We have a clause of guarantees. Woodruff lisa, today there are republicans saying this newly reworked legislation does not guarantee preexisting conditions will be covered. Whats going on here. It changed one major vote. Thats fred upton of michigan. He used to chair the committee that wrote health care policy. He says hes now a no vote on the republican plan as it stands now, because he says preexisting crns not protected in this latest version. It seemed that either President Trump didnt exactly understand the latest version or he was talking about not the preexisting waivers that states could get, but perhaps the highrisk pools that theyre hoping states use to protect those folks who have preexisting medical conditions. Woodruff at one point in that interview, julie davis, the president did refer to pools. What do you think was going on there . Well, i think what were hearing is a president who doesnt like to get very steeped in the details of policy, and what he wants to emphasize is his message, which is that he wants everyone to be covered as effectively and as fulsomely as they are under the Affordable Care act. The problem is members of congress have to vote on an actual piece of legislation, and theyre looking at a bill that doesnt do what he says it does. Thats why were seeing this initiative stall yet again, and it sounds like the president s rhetoric is out of step with what it actually happening. Woodruff and as we mentioned, this is to all three of you, mentioned a minute ago in our news summary. There is also conflicting language coming out of the white house today about the spending plan that was agreed to in the last few days between democrats and republicans. Democrats are saying we won the republicans some are acknowledging the democrats got the better of this. The president tweeted this morning and julie im going to come back to you on this the reason for the plans negotiated negotiated between the republicanrepublicans and democe need 60 votes which are not there. Either elect more republican senators in 2018 or we change the rules to 51 . Our country needs a shutdown to fix this mess. He sounds frustrated, julie. He is and we heard from his budget director, Mick Mulvaney this afternoon, he thought the tweets were because of his frustration, but that democrats were acting like they had won when in fact, you know, the president had been negotiating in good faith. Mr. Mulvaney said the fact is, the president did have to come to the table and republicans in congress did and compromise to get a spending agreement through. While most president s would be spending this time saying, we got a lot of what we wanted. It was a good compromise. I showed that i was willing to come to the table. Instead the president started the day really emphasizing how willing he is to sort of spark a partisan conflict in the next goround. So rather than enjoying the fact that he was able to broker a compromise that most people thought it was going to be difficult for him to do. He is now looking forward to the next negotiation and saying, well, im ready to torpedo that one. Woodruff and how is that received on the hill, lisa . That was a big lead balloon on the hill, republicans shaking their heads openly saying none of this makes sense. We dont want a shutdown. It achiefs nothing. And also saying on the senate side, Senate Republican leader Mitch Mcconnell was adamant with reporterres said saying the vast majority of the senate do not want to change the rules. They feel those rules do protect the minority in a way that both parties agree on right now. So hes out of step and there was a lot of head shaking, a lot of question marks about what the president was trying to achieve here. Woodruff i want to bring you in, because i want to share this clip. This is the president s interview yesterday with Bloomberg News when he was asked about north korea and the young dictator, kim jongun, came up. This is an audio interview. Woodruff so hes honored to meet with the dictator of north korea. How is that being received at the state department and abroad . I think the question here is that its not so much a fundamental shifted in u. S. Policy. As youll remember during the 2008 president ial campaign, former president obama said theres no reason why we shouldnt meet with rogue nations in order to advance u. S. Interests. Woodruff thats true. Its really the wording of saying he would be honored to meet with kim jongun, who is someone that, you know, u. S. Officials have said violates his own peoples rights and is is ruling north korea with an iron grip. I think that sort of language, especially coming on the heels of his interview last week, one in which he said theres a potential for a major, major conflict with north korea, causing a little whiplash within the bureaucracy, especially the National Security briewrs here in washington. The state department, the pentagon, the treasury department, theyre all looking for signals from the president as to sort of what their talking points and what their policy should be and its a little bit contradictory at the moment. Woodruff lisa, on the hill again, you have so many members looking to see how the president speaks about these very sensitive international National Security question. There is no lack of reaction to this. Of course, as expected, democrats said this was a problem, but many republicans did as well. Senate Foreign Relations chairman bob corker told reporters the president s iphone needs to be taken away. John mccain, Armed Services chairman went farther. He said he thought this was disturbing. So it is both serious and to some degree people arent taking the president seriously as well. Thats a problem for him. I did speak to one source in trump world who spent a lot of time with the president who said hes a disrupter, and people should realize hes trying to find a solution, so he is both hot and cold at the same time. Washington doesnt know how to deal with that, and thats what were seeing right now. Woodruff the last excerpt i want to share with the audience brings up the civil war, and im going to come back to you, julie, on this one. The president was talking this is in an interview he did a couple of days ago with sirius radio with celina zitro, and president Andrew Jacksons came came up. Lets listen to that. Woodruff tow, julie davis, we know president Andrew Jackson died 16 years before the civil war started. The president was trying to clean this up a little bit on twitter this morning. What are they saying at the white house . Well, i think as with many of his tweets, they werent professing to know exactly what he meant when he made that comment. I think one of the more charitable explanations was he was talking about the nullification crisis when want Southern Nations wanted to secede and he was against that. Historians point out that this is a president who is really not steeped in the details of history, even sort of the broad outlines of history, the way many president s have been. Again, hes not interested in the details, so much as hes making the point, Andrew Jackson is a populist, who he said he very much admires and sort of wants to fashion himself after. The question surks Andrew Jackson was also a slave owner, and to the degree he might have been suggesting that there miefng a solution short of the civil war that would have ended the conflict but preserved slavery or some element of it, that had people really concerned, and that had both historians and other analysts just sort of scratching their heads like why would you mack a point like that . Its just one of those comments that left i think a little bit more of a mess than he intended. Woodruff so yeganeh torbati, the civil war, obviously they dont have to worry about that any more at the state department, but they do, obviously, consider the way the president uses language and the way he speaks about and his knowledge of american history. What do th the diplomats you spk with say . There is some concern that our allies and the rivals abrawrkd u. S. Allies and rifles abroad are somewhat behind closed doors a little bit mocking of some of the things that President Trump says, and u. S. Diplomats sort of just have to grin and bear it. Theres not much they can really say either in defense or sort of an explanation because theyre not really sure themselves what the president might be getting at. Theres a broader question of when he makes these kind of contradictory remarks or remarks where hes sort of whip sawing from sort of statement to statement. You know, do the rank and file, do the werecrats within the National Security agency, do they know which direction to follow when theyre trying to set the agenda for meetings . Theyre not quite sure right now because they usually get their signal, their policy signal from the president and its not clear right now. Even if tillerson and mattis are quint their messaging, the pentagon and the right hand may not know what the left hand is doing, and thats sort of the concerns diplomats have right now. Woodruff its a reminder that every word out of the president s mouth has repercussions on capitol hill, elsewhere around the executive branch, julie and yeganeh, around the world, not just in the Diplomatic Community here but literally around the globe. Yeganeh torbati, julie davis, lisa desjardins, we thank you. Okay, thank you. Thanks, judy. Woodruff last night, we brought you a look at the brutal civil war ravaging south sudan, and the lives it has scarred. Tonight, another calamity afflicting south sudan a famine, caused by drought and man. The United Nations estimates 40 of the countrys people are at risk. Again in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on crisis reporting, special correspondent Jane Ferguson reports. Reporter she studies with focus and poise. Rebecca looks like a typical student next to her classmates in thoahnom school, in a remote area of south sudan, but few of them have been through what she has endured. Her family fled for their lives when government soldiers raided their village. They survived by hiding in swamps for two weeks. translated when we fled our village, we were 28 people, when we got here, we were 24. Two were shot and two died of hunger. Reporter one of those who died was her 13yearold sister. Rebecca watched her grow wea