AMNA NAWAZ: Good evening.
I'm Amna Nawaz.
Judy Woodruff is away.
On the "NewsHour" tonight: To meet or not to meet?
U.S. officials continue to make plans in North Korea, but will there be a summit?
Then: It's Politics Monday -- the political blame game over immigrant families being separated
at the border.
And on this Memorial Day, remembering the women in uniform -- a look at the only memorial
telling the stories of the nation's fastest growing group of veterans.
CHIEF MASTER SGT.
LISA ARNOLD, U.S. Air Force: I feel like I carry a proverbial shovel with me because
the path has been dug, but I dig a little bit deeper and a little bit further for the
next person.
AMNA NAWAZ: All that and more on tonight's "PBS NewsHour."
(BREAK)
AMNA NAWAZ: For many Americans, today is a day of solemn remembrance for those killed
in military service.
President Trump paid tribute during a Memorial Day service at Arlington National Cemetery
outside Washington.
He laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and thanked the families who've lost
loved ones in service to their country.
DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: The heroes who rest in these hollowed fields,
in cemeteries, battlefields, and burial grounds near and far, are drawn from the full tapestry
of American life.
They came from every generation, from privilege and from poverty.
They were generals and privates, captains and corporals, of every race, color and of
every creed.
AMNA NAWAZ: Several former military leaders criticized President Trump today for tweeting
that fallen troops would have -- be -- sorry -- -- quote -- "very proud" of how the country
is doing under his administration.
Retired Army General Martin Dempsey, a former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, responded
-- quote -- This day, of all days of the year, shouldn't be about any one of us."
New efforts are under way to put a U.S.-North Korean summit back on track.
Officials from both sides met Sunday along the border between the Koreas.
Another U.S. team headed to Singapore, the potential summit site.
Meanwhile, South Korean President Moon Jae-in says he may meet again with North Korea's
Kim Jong-un, after holding talks on Saturday.
We will have more after the news summary.
The Florida Panhandle is bracing for flash flooding and possible tornadoes from the storm
named Alberto.
It made landfall this evening near Panama City, with heavy rain and sustained winds
of 50 miles an hour.
The storm emptied beaches in much of the state, as high winds swept up the surf.
It's expected to move north in the coming days.
A powerful storm hit Oman and Yemen this weekend, leaving 13 people dead in its wake.
It was the strongest recorded cyclone ever to hit the area, with winds of 110 miles an
hour and flooding that swept people away in their cars.
Oman got three times its annual rainfall in just two days.
The people of Colombia now face a presidential run-off, with the future of a peace deal with
rebels in the balance.
Conservative Ivan Duque easily led Sunday's first round, with leftist Gustavo Petro in
second.
Duque ran on overhauling the 2016 deal that ended five decades of war with the FARC rebels.
Petro, a former mayor of Bogota, supports the deal.
IVAN DUQUE, Colombian Presidential Candidate (through translator): We are ready for a clash
of ideas and proposals, a high-level debate where we can air our differences, so that
Colombians at the ballot box define the country's direction, because I'm sure that hope will
overcome class hatred.
GUSTAVO PETRO, Colombian Presidential Candidate (through translator): The sort of political
forces that are surrounding Duque appear to have a ceiling.
In contrast, we, the forces of free citizens, have no limits.
You can be sure we are going to win, and change the history of Colombia.
AMNA NAWAZ: The run-off is set for June 17.
Former President George H.W. Bush is back in a hospital, this time in Maine.
The 93-year-old was admitted Sunday with low blood pressure and fatigue.
He'd been staying at his summer home in Kennebunkport.
Mr. Bush spent 13 days in a Houston hospital after his wife, Barbara, died in April.
And an immigrant from Mali has won French citizenship for saving a child in Paris.
Mamoudou Gassama met today with President Emmanuel Macron.
Amateur video on Saturday showed Gassama climbing four stories to reach a 4-year-old boy who
was clinging to a balcony.
Gassama recounted his actions, today.
MAMOUDOU GASSAMA, Saved 4-Year-Old Boy (through translator): No, I didn't think twice.
I just climbed up and thank God.
God helped me.
The more I climbed, the more I had the courage to climb up higher.
That's it.
AMNA NAWAZ: The video of Gassama's heroism went viral on social media, and he was quickly
dubbed Spider-Man.
Still to come on the "NewsHour": will the U.S. and North Korea be successful in reviving
plans for a summit?; political stakes -- the president blames Democrats for immigrant children
being separated from their parents; honoring the millions of women who have served in the
United States military; and much more.
Over the weekend, the pace of diplomacy with North Korea has picked up in an effort to
revive the summit between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
Foreign affairs correspondent Nick Schifrin reports.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Amna, thank you.
Two U.S. teams are trying to resurrect the summit.
One is in Singapore, working on logistics.
The second met with North Korean officials in North Korea.
That team is led by veteran diplomat Sung Kim, currently the U.S. ambassador to the
Philippines, and also includes Assistant Secretary of Defense Randall Schriver and Allison Hooker
from the National Security Council staff.
These meetings come after another extraordinary show of friendship between North Korean leader
Kim Jong-un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in.
They met this weekend on 24 hours' notice, their second summit in just the last month.
President Moon is the man in the middle pushing both sides toward the summit.
And to talk about all this, I'm joined by Patrick McEachern, a State Department officer
focused on East Asia who is currently on leave at the Woodrow Wilson International Center
for Scholars.
Thank you very much for being here.
PATRICK MCEACHERN, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars: It's a pleasure to be
here.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Last week, a senior White House official said that June 12 is -- I'm quoting
him here -- "like in 10 minutes," suggesting it was impossible to get the logistics ready
by June 12.
Is it impossible at this point to get those logistics ready?
PATRICK MCEACHERN: I don't think so.
Look, in your intro, you noted how the North Koreans and South Koreans were able to set
up a summit and execute it within 24 hours.
It might take the United States a little bit longer to execute these sorts of things, but
I don't think unrealistic that we should be able to get it done by June 12.
The real challenge, I think, won't be so much the logistics, but the policy preparations
that are going on right now.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Right, so the policy preparations are happening, presumably, as far as we know,
in North Korea, in these conversations that are ongoing.
Do these teams that are meeting, do they have to agree on an agenda, do they have to agree
on a document that the president, Trump, and Kim Jong-un would sign together, or is it
even less than that?
PATRICK MCEACHERN: I think it's -- they need to agree on some sort of agenda.
What are the two leaders going to try to accomplish when they meet in Singapore or wherever they
might decide to meet in the end?
And this isn't really an effort to try to tee up some sort of a peace treaty or a detailed
road map, I think, to denuclearization.
I think a successful summit would mean having a general road map of the way forward for
denuclearization and what sort of reciprocal concessions the United States would have to
make.
And I think that that's what our team in North Korea is trying to hammer out right now.
NICK SCHIFRIN: So that's what a lot of experts seem to want, to slightly lower the expectations.
But President Trump has not lowered expectations.
They have been quite high.
At one point, he was saying that the summit could create peace, regional peace and stability.
So, do you think the expectations need to be lowered?
PATRICK MCEACHERN: Well, I think it's appropriate for both sides, natural, the two sides go
into a negotiation looking to have their maximum demands possible, and then they narrow differences
from there.
So I think that's where President Trump is coming from in trying to say, you know, he
wants to see denuclearization right away, but that that doesn't mean that that's the
only thing that he's willing to accept.
NICK SCHIFRIN: So there's a divide on denuclearization, how quickly that may happen.
We may see that play out in the summit.
The other main variable that is going to -- that we're going to see, of course, is the level
of security guarantees that North Korea asked for and that the U.S. is willing to give.
We heard President Moon say over the weekend the North Koreans have real concerns about
those security guarantees.
So what kind of security guarantees does the North want to hear from the U.S. in order
to reciprocate with quick denuclearization?
PATRICK MCEACHERN: Well, the two sides will each define their own demands.
And so, for the United States, we get to define what we mean by denuclearization, because
that is -- is our demand of the North Koreans.
By contrast, the North Koreans get to define what they want in terms of security guarantees,
and we try to find where a match is between the two.
And while there's been a great deal of speculation as to what the North Koreans are going to
request with respect to security guarantees or economic pressure relief, the fact remains
is that Kim Jong-un hasn't articulated that to us yet, and so we really just don't know
exactly what they are going to be looking for.
NICK SCHIFRIN: We saw these images, extraordinary images.
To think that we have had two summits between President Moon Jae-in of South Korea and Kim
Jong-un of North Korea.
Does their relationship, does that help push along the summit, but could it also threaten
the alliance between the United States and South Korea?
PATRICK MCEACHERN: I think it absolutely pushes along the U.S.-DPRK summit.
I think Moon Jae-in has really done an extraordinary job of trying to bring the United States and
North Korea together.
But, at the same time, he very firmly recognizes that his treaty ally is the United States,
and that the reason why he's meeting with the North Koreans is because they're South
Korea's enemy.
They're the ones that are pointing 8,000 artillery tubes at the South Korea capital.
So, Moon Jae-in is not really caught between North Korea and the United States.
He's really firmly on the American side, but trying to broker a constructive peace forward.
NICK SCHIFRIN: But some people are concerned that there could be a divide between what
South Korea has the priority, for example, of ending the Korean War once and for all,
and the U.S. priority of denuclearization.
PATRICK MCEACHERN: So, it's always natural that allies are not going to see things 100
percent the same way.
But the United States and South Korea have very tightly aligned interests and values.
And I think that will overwhelm the differences.
And the United States and South Korea have met a great deal.
You have noted that the president was just here in Washington.
Their national security adviser, their foreign minister have all visited Washington very
recently in order to make sure that there is no daylight between Seoul and Washington
moving forward.
NICK SCHIFRIN: OK, Patrick McEachern, thank you very much.
PATRICK MCEACHERN: Thank you.
AMNA NAWAZ: North Korea remains a focus of Washington politics, but there is also growing
attention on immigration and immigration enforcement.
And that's where we will begin this Politics Monday, with Amy Walter of The Cook Political
Report, Susan Page of USA Today, and, from Santa Ana, California, Cindy Carcamo, a reporter
who covers immigration for The Los Angeles Times.
Amy and Susan, thanks for being here.
I want to get to a little bit of breaking news we have had just as we have come on air.
We have just learned Representative Thomas Garrett, a Republican from Virginia, has announced
that he's struggling with alcoholism and he's not going to seek reelection.
So, Amy, give me a sense of what this means, what we know about his district, how it changes
the landscape ahead.
AMY WALTER, The Cook Political Report: Yes.
This is a district outside of Charlottesville.
Garrett was one of the members of the Freedom Caucus.
And only recently there was a report -- I think it was in Politico -- that outlined
the challenges that many of his staffers were having.
This was a very demanding boss asking them to do things that were completely inappropriate,
including at one point cleaning up -- this was in the story -- that the dog would come
into the office and have some problems that would need to be taken care of.
But he announced in something of a rambling press conference last week that he was going
to come back for sure and run for reelection.
The news today is then not that surprising, given all the stories that have come out since
that press conference.
The question is whether or not Democrats can make this a real race.
Part of the reason this race was competitive was that Garrett himself had a number of controversies
and he wasn't a particularly strong fund-raiser.
But it also points to the fact that Republicans now, this would be something like their 30th-something
-- I can't remember the number total -- of retirements on the part of Republicans, which
is the highest number we have seen -- you have go back to the '30s -- of retirement
from Republicans.
Any time there's a open seat, it's much harder for the party to hold on to it.
You want to have an incumbent there.
AMNA NAWAZ: How hard is it for the party?
(CROSSTALK)
SUSAN PAGE, Washington Bureau Chief, USA Today: Amy, I just looked up the number.
AMNA NAWAZ: Go ahead.
SUSAN PAGE: Forty-fourth.
AMY WALTER: Forty-fourth.
AMNA NAWAZ: Forty-fourth.
SUSAN PAGE: Forty-fourth House Republican choosing not to run again, some of them running
for other offices.
Some of them are retiring.
(CROSSTALK)
AMNA NAWAZ: That's a remarkable number.
SUSAN PAGE: It's a big number.
And it's a sign that -- we aren't sure how good a year this is going to be for Democrats.
AMNA NAWAZ: Yes.
SUSAN PAGE: But Republicans who are serving in the House have decided it's going to be
a very good year for Democrats running against them.
Even in this district -- Trump carried this district by 11 percentage points last time
around.
So, it's a Republican district, but it's not so overwhelmingly Republican that you couldn't
imagine in a good Democratic year Democrats winning it.
AMNA NAWAZ: So, let's look ahead a little bit now.
We're a bit of a bye week when it comes to primaries.
I know we often talk about what we learn from the primaries we're keeping an eye on.
Look for back for me, Susan.
What have we learned in terms of trends moving forward?
How does that inform the eight states that will have primaries next week?
SUSAN PAGE: One thing that's struck me is kind of the nature of the two parties.
The Republican Party that we have seen in these primaries is Trump's party.
This is Trump's Republican Party.
You see almost no Republican candidates who are running for office this fall criticizing
the president.
Some talk about him more than others.
Some embrace him more closely than the others.
But there is almost no criticism of Trump among Republicans what are running for office.
And in the Democratic Party, this is Bernie Sanders' Democratic Party, not for Bernie
Sanders in particular, but Bernie Sanders and his more progressive stance has really
taken hold.
Bernie Sanders' candidates, the candidates endorsed by Our Revolution, his group, the
group affiliated with him, have not done so well in contested elections.
But the whole party has moved to the left.
And you look, thinking about the elections, the primaries coming up next week, the big
one in California, Dianne Feinstein, fifth term, she's clearly moved to the left in response
to the energy of the party being on the progressive side, including now saying she opposes the
death penalty.
That's quite at odds with the position she's taken in the past.
AMNA NAWAZ: Amy, what are you watching this week?
AMY WALTER: Yes.
There's another theme, in the addition to the ones that Susan mentioned, which is women,
and especially Democratic women.
So, my colleague David Wasserman looked at all the primaries that have taken place thus
far.
We're about a third of the way through primary season.
There were 65 races on the Democratic side that featured at least one woman and one man
and no incumbent.
And women won 70 percent of those.
There is not a similar trend going on, on the Republican side.
They have only won -- Republican women who are not incumbents have only won about 20
percent of their primaries.
California, which is coming up on June 5, lots of women running, close to 30 women on
the ballot.
Obviously, they're not going to all win, but that's going to be very important.
And the most important thing about -- to watch for California is this thing called the top
two primary.
This is a new law that was put in place after 2010 in order to make the primary more open,
encourage more people to come and vote and, theoretically, even in a very conservative
or very liberal district, give voters a chance to get maybe a more moderate member of that
reigning party.
In this case, the challenge for Democrats is, because they have so many candidates,
the top two vote-getters -- and that's how this process works -- the top two vote-getters,
regardless of party, go on to the general election.
The top two vote-getters in some of the most important districts Democrats are looking
at to win in November may end up with two Republicans in November, shut Democrats out
completely.
That would be a very big blow Democrats' chances of taking the House.
AMNA NAWAZ: California will be one to watch, one to watch for sure.
(CROSSTALK)
AMNA NAWAZ: I want to talk about something else that could be making headlines later
this week, if not later this week, certainly in the weeks and months to come.
And that is immigration.
The president was tweeting about it over the weekend.
He tweeted this -- quote -- "Put pressure on the Democrats to end the horrible law that
separates children from their parents once they cross the border into the U.S."
He went on to talk about catch and release, lottery and chain migration, and, of course,
building the wall, which has been a signature promise of his as well.
But this -- this issue of separating families at the border, Amy, walk me through a little
bit, because this left a lot of people scratching their heads.
What does that have to do with the Democrats?
AMY WALTER: Right.
Well, and that tweet together, it also conflated two issues, I think, which is reporting that
had come out recently about unaccompanied minors, children who had come by themselves
into the country, and about 1,500 of them that can be -- were not located.
Right?
Of the 5,000 or so that were put either into foster care or given to family members, they
couldn't locate 1,500.
That is different from this conversation that the president tweeted about, about separating
families.
This is actually a Trump administration policy specifically outlined by the attorney general,
Jeff Sessions, at the beginning of May.
He is quoted as saying, "If you don't want your child separated different from you, then
don't bring them across the border illegally."
And other members of the administration saying that this program of taking families and putting
the children and unaccompanied children in a different place from their parents was done
as something of a deterrent, as a way to say to potential border crossers, don't do it,
this is the consequence of that action.
AMNA NAWAZ: Let's get a little bit more on this from someone who covers immigration specifically.
Cindy Carcamo joins us from The Los Angeles Times.
I want to ask you now.
There's obviously a lot of attention being paid to these two stories, these immigration
stories, over the weekend, continuing into today.
One, the family separation issue at the border, and, secondly, this issue of up to 1,500 lost
or missing children.
Can you help us shed some light on those two stories and what we know to be true?
CINDY CARCAMO, The Los Angeles Times: Yes.
Well, I think we have to kind of take a step back in regards to why it is that we're at
this point now in regards to the new policy by the Trump administration.
For a long time, it's been a misdemeanor to cross the border illegally, but now what they're
doing is, they're actually prosecuting or referring to prosecution a lot of these people
who are crossing illegally or who are asking for asylum at a non-port of entry.
So, essentially, what's happening is, while these people are being -- like, the parents
are being referred for criminal prosecution, the children are being placed in separate
housing.
And, beforehand, that really wasn't happening as much.
There were incidents of that, but this is going to be an ongoing policy for the Trump
administration.
So I think that that, we're talking about in regards to separation of families, and
that's what a lot of people are up in arms about.
But I think we have to remember that there's always been this law on the books.
And simply what the Trump administration is doing is, they're enforcing this law.
In regards to conflating these two things, in regards to unaccompanied minors that came
in 2014 and so forth, you're seeing on social media a lot of these pictures of children
in these cage-like conditions.
Actually, a lot of those photos are from 2014 taken during the Obama administration, when
children were coming unaccompanied, and there were so many of them that they didn't know
where to house them.
So, actually, I did a tour of one facility in Nogales, Arizona, where there were all
these children sleeping on mats in this warehouse kind of facility.
And they were caged.
So, I think we have to understand that, even though we're under a different administration,
you did have similar policies beforehand, not the complete separation of families, like
the Trump administration is doing now, but you did have families in family detention.
You had children who were in detention.
So, I think we do have to remember that you had a similar situation happening beforehand.
Maybe it wasn't, like, policy, but it was happening in some instances, where people
were separated along the border, and also families who were kept together, but they
were kept in detention.
Actually, the Obama administration brought back family detention.
So, I think we have to keep that in mind.
AMNA NAWAZ: Cindy Carcamo from The Los Angeles Times, thanks for joining us here in studio.
Susan Page and Amy Walter, thanks for being here.
AMY WALTER: You're welcome.
AMNA NAWAZ: Stay with us.
Coming up on the "NewsHour": a Canadian experiment that guarantees a basic income; from the "NewsHour"
Bookshelf, "The Soul of America," how Americans survive in the time of turmoil; an Iraq War
veteran asks us all to reflect on the real meaning of Memorial Day; and the powerful
symbolism behind an incredible display of red poppies.
On this holiday: Individual stories of service and sacrifice often get lost in the headlines.
Tonight, Judy Woodruff reports on a memorial dedicated to the three million women who have
worn the uniform on behalf of the United States.
JUDY WOODRUFF: This gathering of military women is not the kind of event that captures
much attention each year, when members of the Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues
gather to pay tribute to outstanding soldiers, Marines, airmen and sailors, at the Women
in Military Service for America Memorial at the entrance to Arlington National Cemetery
outside Washington.
And each year comes a refrain, that more should be done to commemorate their contributions.
Newly nominated Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert Wilkie:
ROBERT WILKIE, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Nominee: Unless we know the story and the
sacrifices of our in uniform, we cannot understand the sacrifices made to make this a more perfect
union.
JUDY WOODRUFF: To really know those stories, the Women's Memorial is trying to register
every woman who has served in the U.S. armed forces.
So far, their count is 265,000, or only about 10 percent.
Women are the fastest growing group of veterans.
They have served in a variety of roles dating back to the American Revolution and, as of
2015, are cleared for all combat roles.
Women vets or their family members have to opt into the register.
There is no automatic government database that the private memorial can access.
Major General Dee Ann McWilliams, president of the Women's Memorial Foundation, says the
more names, photos and stories gathered at the 21-year old memorial, the richer the overall
story of women's military service.
MAJ.
GEN.
DEE ANN MCWILLIAMS (RET.), President, Women's Memorial Foundation: This is the only memorial
to women in the world.
This is the place where the story of those women can be told and shown to the public.
JUDY WOODRUFF: She told the story of one son who found his mother's entry, and only wished
he had made the effort sooner:
MAJ.
GEN.
DEE ANN MCWILLIAMS: He came into the memorial, pulled his mother up, and there was this picture.
He had never seen his mother in uniform.
And he got on FaceTime and showed his mother that she was registered, and then took her
on a tour of the memorial.
And when I met up with him, he was crying, because he never brought his mom here.
JUDY WOODRUFF: The register is housed in the memorial's education center that showcases
more than 240 years of American women's service with the military, from the cane of Dr. Mary
Walker, the only woman in history to receive the Medal of Honor, to the World War dog tags
and Victory Medal belonging to Helene Coxhead, who joined the Navy at 18 and said those were
the best years of her life, to a display on women POWs in World War II, and a photographic
accounting of the growing and varied roles women played during the Vietnam War.
There's a special exhibit honoring Jessica Ann Ellis, a combat medic in the Army who
died at age 24 when an IED blew up her vehicle in Baghdad 10 years ago this month.
She earned a Bronze Star and Purple Heart as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
And amidst the memorabilia, visitors can see close to 7,000 yellow ribbons suspended from
the ceiling honoring every fallen service member killed in theater since September 11.
Eighty-eight-year-old retired Brigadier General Wilma Vaught, who joined the Air Force in
the 1950s was one of the earliest women to make the rank of general officer.
She was also the first woman to deploy with an Air Force bomber unit.
General Vaught was the driving force behind the memorial.
BRIG.
GEN.
WILMA VAUGHT (RET.), U.S. Air Force: Sometimes, service in the military takes all you can
give.
All you can give mentally.
All you can give physically.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Chief Master Sergeant Lisa Arnold agrees.
CHIEF MASTER SGT.
LISA ARNOLD, U.S. Air Force: A young woman needs to understand that she can be very successful
because of the women who have come before her.
JUDY WOODRUFF: She oversees development of long-range strategic plans affecting over
250,000 service members and was the first woman to be a command chief in Afghanistan,
leading over 2,000 Air Force enlisted men and women in the war.
Paying it forward is part of her mission.
CHIEF MASTER SGT.
LISA ARNOLD: I look at it as moving the next roadblock out of the way, so the young lady
behind me doesn't have to do that.
I feel like I carry a proverbial shovel with me because the path has been dug, but I dig
a little bit deeper and a little bit further for the next person that wants to join our
service.
And it doesn't matter what service.
We're all sisters in arms.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Another sister with a shovel is Sergeant Major Christal Rheams of the U.S.
Army, who was honored along with Arnold.
Rheams has performed a variety of roles, from aiding humanitarian efforts for Cuban refugees,
to serving as a vocalist in the U.S. Army Band.
Now she's a role model to daughter Aria who wants to be a military lawyer and attends
college on a ROTC scholarship.
SGT.
MAJ.
CHRISTAL RHEAMS, U.S. Army: The stories send a signal.
I think it's interesting to look back and see who's done what.
You know, it would be interesting for my daughter, for example, to be able to look up and say,
you know, that's my mom or my granddaughter or my great-granddaughter.
Or -- you know, it's important for those stories to be told and to be held somewhere.
ARIA RHEAMS, ROTC Student: It's constantly seeing my mom readily go to work and put selfless
commitment just to the country.
That's something I would love to do too.
Like, I would like to be like my mom.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And as women serve in greater numbers, there are reminders of the ultimate
sacrifice, of course, such as Major Marie Rossi, the first woman in military history
to serve in combat as an aviation unit commander during the first Persian Gulf War.
She was killed in the line of duty when her aircraft crashed; 1.9 million of the nation's
20 million veterans are now women.
The memorial organizers say it's important to acknowledge their stories in life and commemorate
them in death.
AMNA NAWAZ: The economy may be doing well by many measures, but, for years, there have
been real concerns over wage growth and the overall standard of living.
So, perhaps it's not surprising that at least one recent survey showed growing public support
for a new government program that would guarantee some income to citizens.
There are small pilot projects of how it could work.
In this reprised report, our own economics correspondent Paul Solman travels to Canada
to see one of the larger programs for our ongoing series Chasing the Dream on poverty
and opportunity.
PAUL SOLMAN: Cheerios, sans gluten, without gluten.
ALANA BALTZER, Ontario: I may not speak French, but I have been in a bilingual country my
entire life, so I know what the French actually...
PAUL SOLMAN: What sans gluten means.
ALANA BALTZER: Yes.
PAUL SOLMAN: A Tuesday trudge to the local grocery store in Hamilton, Ontario.
ALANA BALTZER: Love the organic vegetables.
PAUL SOLMAN: This is the first time 29-year-old Alana Baltzer has been able to afford the
healthy food here at the Mustard Seed Co-op, because, she says, when you're poor:
ALANA BALTZER: It's buy the stuff that you can afford, which is generally quick, easy
and all processed and high in sugar and trans fats and all the other unhealthy stuff.
PAUL SOLMAN: That's all that Baltzer could afford on her $575-a-month welfare disability
check.
But Ontario will now give her $1,130 U.S., no questions asked, as part of a three-year
basic income pilot launched late last year.
NARRATOR: Around the world, people believe that basic income could provide a simpler
and more effective income support.
PAUL SOLMAN: The idea's also being piloted in Finland and California.
Now it's Ontario too.
KATHLEEN WYNNE, Premier of Ontario: How are people's lives changed, and how are they able
to do better in their lives, prevent illness, stay in school, get jobs and keep jobs?
PAUL SOLMAN: Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne.
KATHLEEN WYNNE: We should be looking at different ways of providing support, ways that actually
don't punish people, but actually support people in getting on with their lives and
produce better outcomes.
PAUL SOLMAN: Four thousand randomly selected Ontarians in three communities will get about
$13,000 a year U.S. for a single person, $19,000 for a couple.
In exchange, recipients give up some social supports and the government gets back 50 cents
of every dollar they earn.
DR.
KWAME MCKENZIE,®MD-BO¯ Wellesley Institute: It is definitely the biggest basic income
study that there's ever been in North America.
You don't have to show that you're sick.
You don't have to show that you can't work.
You get it as a right.
PAUL SOLMAN: Research director Kwame McKenzie and his team will analyze the results.
DR.
KWAME MCKENZIE: We're going to see whether it increases your chance of coming out of
poverty.
We're trying to see if it makes your housing stable.
We're trying to see whether it improves your mental health, whether it basically decreases
your use of other services, such as hospital beds.
PAUL SOLMAN: Turns out Manitoba launched a basic income experiment in 1974 that the provincial
government there later pulled the plug on.
DR.
KWAME MCKENZIE: It was an incomplete study.
PAUL SOLMAN: But, long after, researchers studying the data found:
DR.
KWAME MCKENZIE: We have got less health service use.
We have got mental health improving.
We have got people going back to college and they're getting better, getting better skills
to move forward.
This is a great thing, right?
PAUL SOLMAN: But was it a fluke?
And could the same policy produce like results 40-plus years later?
Well, for Jodi Dean and family, the answer seems to be yes.
Ten-year-old daughter Madison has suffered from both brittle bone disease and epilepsy
since toddlerhood.
Yes, Canada has universal health care, but not for the E.R. commute.
JODI DEAN, Mother: As far as parking goes, we're not covered for that.
That's $25 an emergency visit.
PAUL SOLMAN: How many times has she broken bones?
JODI DEAN: She's probably had at least 70 breaks.
PAUL SOLMAN: How many times a month do you have to pay for parking?
JODI DEAN: Two to three times a week.
PAUL SOLMAN: Basic income now covers, in effect, half the parking bill, a huge relief for someone
who never dreamed she'd be poor, used to volunteer at the food bank, then found she couldn't
live without it.
JODI DEAN: How do you go back to where you just gave that time and tell them now you're
in need?
PAUL SOLMAN: Jodi Dean, like Alana Baltzer, lives in Hamilton, a once-thriving steel city
of 750,000 within an hour of Toronto.
TOM COOPER, Director, Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction: We used to have 40,000
people working directly in steel, and, today, it's probably closer to 7,000.
PAUL SOLMAN: Tom Cooper, who directs an anti-poverty project, claims he's already seen benefits
from the program.
TOM COOPER: Many of the individuals I have talked to who are on the basic income pilot
are going back to school, wanting to improve their opportunities to get a better job.
PAUL SOLMAN: Moreover, he says:
TOM COOPER: There's not the oversight we see in traditional social assistance systems that
requires people to report monthly on their income or their housing status or their relationship
status.
PAUL SOLMAN: While most poor Ontarians didn't make it into the pilot, Baltzer did, and no
longer has to deal with the provincial welfare system.
ALANA BALTZER: You do not have the bureaucracy involved with welfare or disability.
If you get a job, you simply call, let them know, give them the information, submit your
pay stubs, bada boom, bada bing, done
PAUL SOLMAN: And your mom made it on to the program.
Has it made a difference in her life?
ALANA BALTZER: Oh, God, yes.
She's more ecstatic about not having to deal with Ontario Works, the welfare workers.
PAUL SOLMAN: The pilot has even induced Baltzer to lose five pounds since November, more exercise,
more confidence.
ALANA BALTZER: The first time in years I have been able to wear high heels without groaning
in absolute pain and sheer agony.
PAUL SOLMAN: As for the depression she has long struggled to fend off:
ALANA BALTZER: It's nice to not have a full-blown episode because I'm worried about whether
or not I'm going to be able to eat tonight or be able to pay my rent or do something
as simple as laundry.
PAUL SOLMAN: Other pluses?
Well, from the government's point of view, it no longer has to subsidize Baltzer's housing,
so the pilot is costing Ontario less than $700 a month more.
DR.
KWAME MCKENZIE: It's important to measure that and measure sort of use of government
services.
PAUL SOLMAN: But Baltzer attends college in the fall, as now planned, and then gets a
job, government would be off the hook entirely.
DR.
KWAME MCKENZIE: And it's also important to measure whether people are actually generating
wealth, because everybody's thinking often about the cost, but people don't always think
about the possible economic benefits.
PAUL SOLMAN: But, look, say skeptics, basic income will cost a pretty, albeit Canadian,
penny going out, while benefits may never actually flow in.
DAVID WAKELY, Attorney: I don't think the savings are actually going to be there.
So, I think that's misleading.
PAUL SOLMAN: That's local lawyer David Wakely, who says, if the program is extended universally,
it would cost Ontario two-thirds of its annual revenue.
And he doubts recipients will go to school or get a job.
DAVID WAKELY: Where someone can stay home and get a basic income guarantee, this just
serves as a security blanket for them, because they have always got this income to rely on.
PAUL SOLMAN: And as I asked former U.S. union leader Andy Stern, isn't that the time-honored
objection to a basic income?
If you pay people to do nothing, isn't that an incentive for them to continue to do nothing?
ANDY STERN, Economic Security Project: There are always people who are going to stay at
home and take advantage of government programs.
There are a lot of wealthy people and children who are paid to do nothing, and it doesn't
seem to affect them being vital and involved in society.
PAUL SOLMAN: John Clarke of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty doesn't worry about poor people
taking advantage of a basic income.
But he does worry that the program is a move to take advantage of them by laying the groundwork
for the elimination of government-provided social workers, health care, the eventual
privatization of social services.
JOHN CLARKE, Ontario Coalition Against Poverty: So you're shopping for health care, you're
shopping for housing, you're shopping for public transportation, child care, all these
things.
And this is the prevailing agenda at the moment.
And a basic income system takes us in that direction.
PAUL SOLMAN: Moreover, says Clarke, a basic income creates downward wage pressure on the
working poor.
JOHN CLARKE: If you create a situation where low-wage workers are receiving a significant
portion of their wages out of the tax revenues, then the pressure on employers to increase
wages is reduced, the pressure on governments to increase minimum wages is reduced.
PAUL SOLMAN: So how to know then if the costs outweigh the benefits?
DR.
KWAME MCKENZIE: We can all of these theoretical discussions, or we can say let's do a test
and see what actually happens.
What are the costs?
Is it a more efficient way of giving people who need it support?
What are the benefits?
Does it grow the economy or not?
And then we can have a rational discussion based on evidence, rather than just based
on theory.
PAUL SOLMAN: And rather than based on promises of breaking the cycle of poverty, which might
or might not, in the end, be mainly smoke and mirrors.
For the "PBS NewsHour," this is economics correspondent Paul Solman reporting, mainly
from Ontario.
AMNA NAWAZ: Tomorrow on the "NewsHour," more in our Chasing the Dream series, with a report
on helping people remain stable after they start work and begin to earn incomes again.
On this Memorial Day, Judy Woodruff is back with the latest from the "NewsHour" Bookshelf.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jon Meacham is best known for his presidential
biographies of Andrew Jackson, Thomas Jefferson and most recently George Herbert Walker Bush.
Last month, Meacham delivered a eulogy during the funeral service for former first lady
Barbara Bush.
"The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels" is Meacham's latest book.
And, Jon Meacham, welcome back to the "NewsHour."
JON MEACHAM, Author, "The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels": Thank you.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Thank you for being here.
JON MEACHAM: Thank you.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, you write that the idea for this came when you had a colleague call
you up after the terrible events in Charlottesville, Virginia, last summer.
JON MEACHAM: Yes.
JUDY WOODRUFF: A woman died in the white nationalist rally.
JON MEACHAM: Right.
JUDY WOODRUFF: What -- how did this get from that to the book?
JON MEACHAM: Well, it kept rattling around in my head that we have been here before.
American history, we tend to think of in nostalgic terms.
And nostalgia is a powerful narcotic.
But in a way, it does a disservice to the past.
It suggests that somehow or another the struggles of the past were not as pitched or as contentious
as our own.
And what we have done again and again in American history is run it very close to try to get
things right.
But we have always managed to get to higher ground.
And what I wanted to try to figure out is, to what extent is this period we're in now,
which feels dispiriting and depressing -- no matter where you stand on the political spectrum,
people are unhappy -- how does this compare to moments in the past where division seemed
to be the rule, not the exception?
JUDY WOODRUFF: Did you find true parallels then?
JON MEACHAM: Well, Mark Twain is supposed to have said that history not repeat itself,
but it does rhyme.
(LAUGHTER)
JON MEACHAM: History's not -- shouldn't be cultural Zoloft, but it can give us perspective.
It can give us a sense of proportion.
At what point should we light our hair on fire?
At what point should -- just to pick an example at random -- should a given tweet really upset
us?
And trying to create that sense of proportion by putting this moment in context with Andrew
Johnson, a president during Reconstruction who issued a state paper saying that African-Americans
were genetically incapable of self-government, or Joe McCarthy, who chased after innocent
people using the media of the day to create this hysterical feeling.
These were moments that were incredibly difficult, and yet we now have a country, even now, for
all our problems, that, by and large, we can be proud of.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, take us inside one of those moments.
I mean, the Ku Klux Klan rising in the 1920s and '30s.
JON MEACHAM: Right.
JUDY WOODRUFF: How did the country grapple with that?
And how did it get through it?
JON MEACHAM: Well, there are parallels, because there was a great deal of immigrant -- anxiety
about immigrants.
There was a great deal of anxiety about global affairs, because we had come out of the First
World War.
And the middle-class, working-class white movement refounded the Ku Klux Klan.
Members of Congress, there were senators, there were governors who were explicitly members
of the Klan.
How did we get through it?
One thing is, Calvin Coolidge limited immigration, so took some of the oxygen out of the fire.
But, also, a free press said, this is not who we are.
Harding and Coolidge said, this is not who we are.
And, ultimately, our better angels prevailed, at least briefly.
JUDY WOODRUFF: You also write -- there are so many other examples.
But one of the principal ones is the Red Scare after World War II, the 1950s, the McCarthy
era.
And Roy Cohn was a figure, someone who, coincidentally, was a mentor to Donald Trump.
JON MEACHAM: Yes, we hope it's coincidental.
(LAUGHTER)
JON MEACHAM: I think, in many ways, the early 1930s and the early 1950s are the most analogous
periods.
The early 1930s, we had a real question about whether democratic capitalism would survive
the decade.
President Roosevelt could have assumed the powers of a dictator if he had been so inclined.
In the early 1950s, Joe McCarthy gives a speech in February of 1950 at Wheeling, West Virginia,
saying, I have in my hand the names of 205 communists.
He didn't tweet it, but he might as well have.
And it lasted about four years.
And what happened was, he understood the media.
He understood how wire services worked.
He understood radio.
He understood television.
He understood how to control the narrative.
Any of this sound familiar?
JUDY WOODRUFF: Yes.
JON MEACHAM: But what happens?
The people in Congress stood up.
Margaret Chase Smith, Republican of Maine, was one of the first.
They ended up censuring him.
And they ended up arguing that America is most herself when we widen the definition
of what we mean by equality, not when we narrow it.
JUDY WOODRUFF: One of the questions one comes away with is, can it really be compared to
today, when you have got this explosion of social media, Twitter, Facebook, and all the
rest of it, just this nonstop environment of news and conflict?
JON MEACHAM: Well, but if you -- imagine if you lived in a pre-print universe.
Having a newspaper come every week or every month seems like a suddenly crowded arena.
Imagine the 1920s, when radio suddenly nationalizes the culture.
Imagine the early 1950s, when television explodes.
I think it's somewhat self-referential and self-defeating for us to think that this is
the worst time ever.
Just because something's happened before doesn't mean it's not happening now, but we can't,
I think, suggest that our problems are insuperable, because they're not unique.
There has always been the struggle in the -- what I call the American soul.
People say, oh, the soul of the country is X.
Actually, no.
In Hebrew and Greek, it means life or breath.
So, in the American soul, we have room for Dr. King, but we also have room for the Klan.
And every era is defined by which side of that -- of that dichotomy wins out for a given
period of time.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Everyone would agree the country is deeply divided right now, no matter which
side you're on.
JON MEACHAM: Yes.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But there are a lot of people who believe this president, this presidency
is exactly what they wanted.
JON MEACHAM: Their cares and concerns cannot be dismissed.
I wrote this book not because American presidents in the past have always risen to the occasion,
but because the incumbent rises to it so seldom.
And I do think there is -- there are lessons to be learned here.
I wish the president and those who serve him would realize that posterity rewards the presidents
who reach beyond their base, who try to unify the country, and not simply cater to a given
audience and a given predisposed set of supporters.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And, finally, how much does it matter that this is a president who, I
think many of the people around and say, has not paid that much attention to American history?
JON MEACHAM: Oh, I think he's paid almost none.
I had one conversation with him, and it was it was like pulling teeth, except pulling
teeth might have been more fun.
All I can say is that he's living in a house where there are portraits of people.
Someday, his portrait will hang there.
And what I would hope we would do is, as he walks down those hallways, if he looks up
from his phone, he would realize that he will want to be seen in a warmer and better light
than he is right now.
And, as Winston Churchill once said, the future is unknowable, but the past should give us
hope.
So I think we have to hold on to that hope.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Jon Meacham with another book.
This one is "The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels."
Thank you.
JON MEACHAM: Thanks, Judy.
AMNA NAWAZ: Kevin Powers signed up for the Army before finishing high school and went
to basic training the day after he graduated.
He was in Iraq for a year.
And when he returned home, he managed to some of what that experience was like in his critically
praised novel "The Yellow Birds."
Powers says it's hard to record what you are truly thinking and feeling in combat because,
in many ways, you aren't doing either.
Much of the fighting happens on instinct and adrenaline.
That's the situation so many Americans still face and, in Powers' Humble Opinion, what
we need to remember tonight.
KEVIN POWERS, Author, "A Shout in the Ruins": If you're watching this today, perhaps you're
taking a break from a family barbecue, or maybe you have just returned from shopping
for some much needed item that this weekend's sales have allowed you to purchase.
I hope the extra time with your loved ones is rewarding, and the long weekend a satisfying
break from the challenges of work, or school, or parenting.
But I humbly ask you to consider the following.
Fourteen years ago, I spent Memorial Day looking for IEDs in and around the city of Mosul,
Iraq.
I had only been in country for a couple of months.
My unit had not yet suffered its first casualty.
But, as summer began, the purple fingers of Iraqi citizens casting their votes felt like
a cause worth facing that danger for.
But, soon enough, something shifted.
Attacks increased in both intensity and frequency over the summer.
And by the time autumn came around, several members of my company had been wounded, some
seriously, and some terrifyingly so, especially when you knew you had to go back outside the
wire again the next day.
I will admit, I was scared pretty much all of the time.
But I did my job to the best of my ability, and I still believed that we might all make
it home together.
But that's not how war goes.
Close to Christmas, as 2004 was coming to a close, our unit lost two young men.
Their names were Sergeants Nicholas Mason and David Ruhren.
They were both 20 years old.
I grieved for them and their families then, and I still grieve for them today.
And I would ask you to consider the fact that since our current wars began in 2001, as of
mid-May, there have been 6,957 others to grieve for.
Just a month ago, a young man from Colorado was killed in Afghanistan.
It's hard to believe that, when I came home from Iraq in 2005, he was 9 years old.
So, today, I would ask you to take a moment to ask, how many more names might be added
to the long list of those we will be asked to remember next year, and to also remember
the thousands of veterans, actively serving men and women, and grieving families, their
fallen brothers and sisters, for whom Memorial Day doesn't just fall on the last Monday in
May, but on every single day of the rest of their lives.
AMNA NAWAZ: And now to our "NewsHour" Shares, something on this Memorial Day we want you
to know.
The Poppy Memorial arrived on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., this weekend, commemorating
all of the American service members who have died since World War I.
VICE ADMIRAL JOHN BIRD (RET.), U.S. Navy: It's 133-feet-long, containing 645,000 poppies,
each representing an American service man or woman killed in combat since World War
I.
In World War I, a Canadian officer visiting a comrade whom he had lost in a grave site
saw poppies growing up among the crosses.
He penned a poem, "In Flanders Field."
Three years later, an American woman, Moina Michael, wrote her own poem, "We Shall Keep
the Faith."
And in that, she said we should never forget the fallen.
And she recommended wearing a poppy, as I'm doing.
So, from that day forward, the poppy has been the symbol of the fallen.
The memorial is located here in a ideal location on the Mall, surrounded by the Vietnam Memorial,
the Korean Memorial, the Lincoln, the World War II Memorial, so that Americans can see
the connection between those memorials and 645,000 lives lost.
When you think about our history, and you think that World War I was the war to end
all wars, and we have had World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and our men and women in service
are in combat right now, I think that has a lot of significance on both sides, the tragedy,
as well as the inspiration that they're willing to fight for their country and, if necessary,
die.
We need to stop and think about what Memorial Day means as Americans, the men and women
that made the ultimate sacrifice so that we could be free.
AMNA NAWAZ: On the "NewsHour" online right now: Two women veterans who are poets share
how writing has helped them heal from PTSD.
Read their poems and more on our Web site, PBS.org/NewsHour.
And that's the "NewsHour" for tonight.
I'm Amna Nawaz.
Join us again here tomorrow evening.
We will leave you tonight with the sounds and images from this Memorial Day, as we continue
to remember and honor those who have given their lives in service to this country.
For all of us at the "PBS NewsHour," thank you, and good night.
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