To lead. We have been focusing on hiring support staff for our students, additional social workers, school psychologists, speech pathologists, behavior specialists. 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 secretary of state Rex Tillerson made a rare and unexpected appearance in front of News Reporters today, commenting on tensions around the world. He said neither he nor President Trump were happy with new sanctions Congress Imposed on russia. And on north korea, tillerson said the United States options are limited and that the u. S. Is looking to apply peaceful pressure on pyongyang. And were trying to convey to the north koreans, we are not your enemy, we are not your threat. But you are presenting an unacceptable threat to us, and we have to respond. And we hope that at some point, they will begin to understand that, and we would like to sit and have a dialogue with them about the future that will give them the security they seek. Woodruff the secretary of state also acknowledged some differences he has with President Trump, including over the iran nuclear deal, also known as the joint comprehensive plan of action, or j. C. P. O. A. He calls late at night, on the weekends, when something comes into his head and he wants to talk. He may call me at any moment, at any time. But it is a very open relationship, and its one in which i feel quite comfortable telling him my views. And he and i have differences on views on things like j. C. P. O. A. And how we should use it, but i think, if were not having those differences im not sure im serving him. Woodruff tillerson brushed aside speculation that he is frustrated and looking for a way out of the state department. The u. S. Senates Top Republican left open the door slightly for another attempt to repeal and replace obamacare. G. O. P. Health care overhaul legislation failed by a 51to49 vote last week, but Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell said his party is still examining its options. He did, however, reject President Trumps call for republicans to change senate rules and reduce its 60vote threshold to eliminate filibusters. I mean, its pretty obvious, that our problem on healthcare was not the democrats. We didnt have 50 republicans. There are not the votes in the senate, as ive said repeatedly to the president , and to all of you, to change the rules of the senate. Woodruff meanwhile, the republican chair of the Senates Health committee wants to pass a oneyear extension of federal payments to insurers. President trump has threatened to halt those payments, but democrats and others say the move would hike premiums. Majority leader mcconnell also said today that the debate on raising the nations debt ceiling could stretch until september. The Treasury Department says that september 29 is the last day it will be able to pay the governments bills. The white house says that it is important to raise the debt ceiling as soon as possible. The senate has confirmed Christopher Wray as the next director of the f. B. I. Senators okayd the former Justice Department official overwhelmingly, 92 to five. He takes over the agency after President Trump fired james comey in may, amid the investigation into russias election meddling. In pakistan, lawmakers have picked a new Prime Minister, but the length of his term is uncertain. Shahid Khaqan Abbasi is a loyalist of nawaz sharif, who was disqualified as premier last week for concealing assets. Abbasi won an overwhelming majority in parliament, but he represents a ruling party that wants him to serve only until sharifs younger brother wins a National Assembly seat, and can take over. translated whether i am here for 45 hours or 45 days, i am the Prime Minister and i am not here to keep the chair warm, rather i am here to work. I will do the work of 45 months if i remain for 45 days. The process of democracy is back on track. It was not derailed. No one ran away. No one broke off from the party. Woodruff abbasi also dismissed the corruption allegations against sharif, and said the pakistani people dont accept his disqualification. At least 29 people are dead in afghanistan, after a Suicide Attack at a shiite mosque. It happened in the western city of herat, during evening prayers. A local lawmaker said he was told one attacker fired on worshippers before blowing himself up, but it wasnt clear whether there was a second attacker. Back in this country, President Trumps comments on policing have come under fire from the head of the Drug Enforcement administration. Last week, mr. Trump suggested that officers do away with practices like protecting suspects heads as theyre put into police cars. But in a weekend email to his agency, the acting d. E. A. Director Chuck Rosenberg said the remarks condoned police misconduct. On wall street, banks and Technology Companies pushed stocks higher today. The Dow Jones Industrial gained 72 points to close at 21,963. The nasdaq rose 14 points to close at 6362, and the s p 500 gained six points. Still to come on the newshour President Trumps role in how his sons meeting with russians was explained to the public. A lawsuit surrounding a debunked fox news story. Arizona senator jeff flakes new book faulting the president and scolding his own Republican Party. And, much more. Woodruff the white house played defense again today after new information surfaced monday night on the administrations handling of donald trump jr. s meeting with a russian lawyer during the 2016 campaign. The latest story suggests the president personally intervened. Lisa desjardins begins our coverage. The president weighed in, as any father would, based on the limited information he had. Reporter what did the president know, and say, about his sons meeting with a russian lawyer . The Washington Post reports that President Trump was more involved than the white house and his attorney originally let on. This starts with the trump tower meeting last summer, that included donald trump jr. , trump soninlaw jared kushner, and russian attorney natalia veselnitskaya. Flash forward a year. Kushner and his wife ivanka trump, at the g20 summit, learned the New York Times is about to report the story. They huddled to craft a response, and agreed to lean toward transparency. According to the post, they wanted to be truthful, so their account couldnt be repudiated later. But the post reports that on air force one flying back to the u. S. , the president overruled his advisors. The post writes that the president directed that trump jr. s statement to the times describe the meeting as unimportant and unrelated to the campaign. He wanted the statement to say that quickly was contradicted by trump jr. s own emails, showing hed promised damaging Campaign Material on hillary clinton. The post story of the president s role in his sons statement conflicts with what his lawyer said last month. I do want to be clear. The president was not involved in the drafting of the statement and did not issue the statement. It came from donald trump, jr. Reporter white house spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said today that the president did not dictate anything, but did weigh in. And, she maintained, he never misled. The statement that was issued was true. There are no inaccuracies in the statement. I think what the bigger question is, everybody wants to make story about misleading. The only thing i see misleading is a years worth of stories that have been fueling false narrative about this russian collusion. Reporter what is true or false remains a question for investigators. At least one Senate Committee plans to interview donald trump jr. Next month. For the pbs newshour, im lisa desjardins. Woodruff and now to walk us through some of the legal questions raised by the Washington Post report, we are joined by peter zeidenberg. He was a federal prosecutor for nearly two decades, and was a deputy special counsel involved in the investigation into the Valerie Plame leak. Peter zeidenberg, welcome to the newshour. Now that the white house has confirmed that the president was involved, weighed in, as the press secretary said, in this statement by donald trump, jr. , to the public, what effect does this have on this investigation . Well, its going to generate a lot of interest im sure from the special counsel who is going to want to know who was involved in that whole process. Everyone on that plane who was weighing in, whether they were actually physically on the plane or, according to the post story, they were opening or calling in, so all those people, the special counsel is going to want the interview and find out what was going on. Woodruff how much does it matter, peter zeidenberg, that the White House Press secretary said today, yes, the president weighed in as a father would, but then just a few weeks ago the president s attorney said, no, the president didnt have any involvement in this . Well, you know, lying to the public is not a crime. But what is going to be of interest is the motivation behind this. Now, the administration keeps saying that this meeting was inconsequential, its a nothing burger, who cares, but the account of it they dont want to tell at least from a prosecutors standpoint, the question being well, why are they trying to divert attention to what was really happening, or why are they misleading about what was really going on with this . I mean, the whole thing highlights the problem with having, from a lawyers perspective, having subjects conversing about an investigation while its ongoing. Woodruff does the fact that we now know that the president himself appears to have been part of this conversation, part of a decision about what to say and that the version changed over the next few days, does that have a material effect here . Well, it could, because by all accounts this is a potential on structs of justice investigation involving the president , involving, for instance, the firing of james comey. So this incident in and of itself is not illegal. Its not illegal to lie to the press or to lie to the public. But youre looking for motivation if youre a prosecutor, and youre looking for trying to weave together a narrative of facts, and its suggestive that there is a coverup going on about a fear of what would happen if the public were to find out about this case. And thats how the firing of james comey would fit into that. Woodruff so a narrative. So if someone is asking, was there a legal line that was crossed, whats the answer to that . Well, its not so much that theres a legal line crossed. Its just another piece of evidence, another piece of the puzzle from the prosecutors standpoint. Woodruff so if you are Robert Mueller and youre working on this, what are your questions . What other questions are you going to have right now . Well, youre going to want to know how this story evolved and what the perspective of all the different people were. Theres a whole question that because all these people and the way they had this conversation, its probably not a privileged conversation as opposed to if they were just speaking with their own counsel. So again, it paints a picture which is really. It may not be true, but from a prosecutors standpoint, whenever you have subjects of an investigation sitting down together, literally, and coming up with a story, what it looks like is obstruction of justice. And thats why attorneys always tell their clients who are under investigation, dont talk about the case with anyone involved in it. Dont talk about it. Woodruff so we hear a lot about how president s are immune from laws that other people are subject to. How do we know at this point whether the president himself could be in any legal jeopardy . Well, we dont know, but from what weve heard, it certainly appears that there is an ongoing case of obstruction of justice. Again, involving comey if not other things. So its. The whole scenario as described in the post story unnecessarily put a whole bunch of people at legal risk for, you know, for no good reason. And whether its the impression is certainly problematic at best. Woodruff peter zeidenberg, the story continues to unfold. Thank you very much. Thank you. Woodruff now an explosive claim and lawsuit, alleging the white house had a role in pushing a false news story about a death in washington, d. C. The story goes back to the unsolved murder of a young staff member working for the Democratic National committee, named seth rich, who was shot early one morning in july, 2016. Its a complicated story. Jeffrey brown is here to help unpack it. Brown earlier this spring, fox news aired a story suggesting seth rich was murdered after he had leaked thousands of emails to wikileaks. In fact, there was no evidence linking rich to the leaks, or his murder to the wikileaks case. Fox news retracted the story a week later. The initial story relied on a former police detective, rod wheeler, whos also a longtime paid commentator for fox news. But wheeler has now filed a lawsuit against fox alleging he was misquoted in the story, and that he was used as a pawn to deflect attention away from the russia probe. Wheeler says he worked with a trump supporter named ed butowsky, and that the two of them met with thenWhite House Press secretary sean spicer, a month before the story ran. He further alleges that the president himself reviewed a copy of the fox story before it was made public. Today, the white house denied his claim about the president. David folkenflick broke this for npr and joins me now. Dave, welcome to you. First, tell us about ed butowsky and what in essence rod wheeler is claiming set this in motion. Well, ed butowsky is an investor Wealth Management consultant outside dallas texas. Hes been an unpaid talking head on fox news and fox business about financial matters and reliable outspoken voice in support of President Trump and his agenda. He announced in february, he goes to the rich family and says, im going to help you afford to have a private investigator solve this mystery of who killed your son and arranges for rod wheeler to do it. He presents himself as a Good Samaritan who says hes struck emotionally by, this but wheeler alleges, and his lawsuit has an extraordinary degree of supplemental material to support it, wheeler alleges that butowsky had an agenda all along. What butowsky wanted to do, working has been in glove with a fox News Reporter named Malia Zimmerman from the outset, that he wanted to prove that seth rich in some ways was linked to the dnc emails and there may have been a coverup and somehow democratic operatives or figures may have been involved in some way in seth richs death. So you have a guy who basically is saying that fox news as a News Organization and a trump backer are working in concert to arrive at a preconceived narrative and story rather than simply following a journalistic effort to figure out what the facts. Are. Brown and hes claiming even more, that this was coordinated perhaps with the white house, this meeting with sean spicer and the allegations that President Trump himself might have looked at the script or known about this story. Right. Lets disentangle what we know from what we dont know. What we know is it is confirmed all three men, sean spicer, at that time the White House Press secretary, ed butowsky, the investor and backer, and rod wheeler, the investigator, all say that they were there april 12th at a relatively brief, maybe ten, 15minute meeting, excuse me, april 20th, this meeting at which butowsky and wheeler unpack for sean spicer what it is theyve learned in this investigation. And sean spicer told me last night that he took the meeting as a courtesy, that butowsky was a friend from republican circles and that he was happy to give him an ear for a brief meeting. Butowsky says it wasnt really a meeting about that at all, he was simply trying the help wheeler see if he could find a job, something both wheeler and spicer say is not true, but what is clear is from the emails and voice mails and texts an other materials subsequently is that butowsky invokes the white house, invokes powerful people and, yes, even inadvocates the idea that President Trump has read drafts of the fox story before it goes to fox news site and on the air. While thats not been proven, but its certainly the Pressure Point from butowsky that wheeler believes is true. Brown to bring it up to date. Butowsky now says to you some of those texts or the claim of a connection to the white house was a joke or was a put on or he was overplaying it. And the white house, as i said today, says there is nothing to that. Nothing to the connection with President Trump. You know, butowsky in person comes off as a guy who says, oh, were friends, were pals, we joke, we tease, thats all this was. Wheeler was joke about wanting to work at the