JUDY WOODRUFF: Good evening.
I'm Judy Woodruff.
On the "NewsHour" tonight: President Trump's conflicting statements sow confusion on how
the White House views the threat of Russia to U.S. democracy.
Then, we explore what we know Moscow is doing now to disrupt this year's elections and U.S.
efforts to secure the vote.
Plus: As carbon changes the ocean's chemistry and makes it harder for shellfish to grow,
researchers turn to plants for a solution.
BETSY PEABODY, Director, Puget Sound Restoration Fund: What we're trying to do is deliberately
grow kelp within a specific area and thereby remove CO2.
JUDY WOODRUFF: All that and more on tonight's "PBS NewsHour."
(BREAK)
JUDY WOODRUFF: More whiplash at the White House today over Russian interference in U.S.
elections.
It came as President Trump appeared to dismiss the threat, and denied that he ducked confrontation
with President Vladimir Putin.
DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: There's been no president ever as tough as
I have been on Russia.
JUDY WOODRUFF: The president used a Cabinet meeting to insist he's been firm with Russia
at the Helsinki summit and beyond.
DONALD TRUMP: I think President Putin knows that better than anybody, certainly a lot
better than the media.
He understands it and he's not happy about it.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Then came a potential new bombshell, when a reporter asked Mr. Trump if Russia
is an active threat.
QUESTION: Is Russia still targeting the U.S., Mr. President?
DONALD TRUMP: Thank you very much.
No.
QUESTION: You don't believe that to be the case?
DONALD TRUMP: No.
WOMAN: Let's go.
We're finished here.
JUDY WOODRUFF: That seemed to contradict the director of national intelligence, Dan Coats,
who warned last week that Russia is, indeed, still trying to penetrate the American Democratic
process.
DAN COATS, U.S. National Intelligence Director: What's serious about the Russians is their
intent.
They have capabilities, but it's their intent to undermine our basic values, undermine democracy,
create wedges between us and our allies.
JUDY WOODRUFF: It was left to White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders to say just
what the president meant by his answer today.
SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, White House Press Secretary: I had a chance to speak with the
president after those comments, and the president was -- said, thank you very much and was saying
no to answering questions.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Sanders also said repeatedly that Mr. Trump is focused on election security.
SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS: We're making bold reforms to try to fix this and make sure it
never happens again, because we take it seriously and because we recognize that our election
systems are incredibly important and is certainly a cornerstone of our democracy.
JUDY WOODRUFF: All of this after Mr. Trump appeared to accept the argument of Russia's
President Putin on Monday that Moscow didn't interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
That touched off a storm of bipartisan criticism, and, yesterday, Mr. Trump claimed he simply
misspoke in Helsinki.
DONALD TRUMP: In a key sentence in my remarks, I said the word would, instead of wouldn't.
The sentence should have been, I don't see any reason why I wouldn't or why it wouldn't
be Russia.
JUDY WOODRUFF: After that, some Republicans, like Senator Bob Corker, chair of the Foreign
Relations Committee, had seemed ready to give the president the benefit of the doubt.
But then came his comments today.
SEN.
BOB CORKER (R), Tennessee: I don't know what it is about the president's relationship with
Putin that causes him to doubt, to trust him over our intelligence community, but it's
really damaging morale.
It's baffling I think to those of us who have concerns about the integrity of our elections.
SEN.
CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY), Minority Leader: He's walking back the walk-back.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer lambasted Mr. Trump's Tuesday clarification
as weak and said the president would need another walk-back after what he said today.
And he called for the U.S. translator in the Trump-Putin one-on-one meeting to testify.
SEN.
CHUCK SCHUMER: The translator works for the federal government, works for the taxpayers,
and may be the only person who can accurately report what President Trump said to President
Putin behind closed doors, what concessions were made to Vladimir Putin.
We want to know, did the president make concessions that hurt tour national security?
What did he agree to?
JUDY WOODRUFF: In a series of tweets this morning, the president boasted that his summit
with Putin was a success.
He wrote that -- quote -- "So many people at the higher ends of intelligence loved my
press conference performance in Helsinki."
And he declared that Russia had offered to assist U.S. nuclear talks with North Korea.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also talked up progress at the summit, sitting next to
the president today.
MIKE POMPEO, U.S. Secretary of State: We can now begin to have important dialogues to put
that relationship in a place where we reduce the risk to the United States from threats
from Russia.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But adding to the ongoing furor, Mr. Trump, in an interview that aired last
night, appeared to question again the reason for NATO and its bedrock pledge to mutual
defense among allies, designed with Russia in mind.
QUESTION: Why should my son go to Montenegro to defend it from attack?
Why is that?
DONALD TRUMP: I understand what you're saying.
I have asked the same question.
Montenegro is a tiny country with very strong people.
QUESTION: Yes, I'm not against Montenegro.
DONALD TRUMP: Yes, right.
QUESTION: Or Albania.
DONALD TRUMP: No, by the way, they have very strong people.
They have very aggressive people.
They may get aggressive, and, congratulations, you're in World War III.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Members of both parties are now demanding that top national security and
diplomatic officials testify before Congress and disclose any deals Mr. Trump may have
struck with Putin.
Secretary Pompeo will be first up.
He testifies at a Senate hearing a week from today.
And, late today, CBS News released part of their interview with President Trump where
he claims he told Vladimir Putin that the U.S. will not tolerate election interference.
Here's part of what he told anchor Jeff Glor.
JEFF GLOR, CBS NEWS Anchor: Do you hold him personally responsible?
DONALD TRUMP: Well, I would, because he's in charge of the country, just like I consider
myself to be responsible for things that happen in this country.
So, certainly, as the leader of a country, you would have to hold him responsible, yes.
JEFF GLOR: What did you say to him?
DONALD TRUMP: I'm very strong on the fact that we can't have meddling, we can't have
any of that.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And "NewsHour" White House correspondent Yamiche Alcindor joins us now.
So, Yamiche, you have gone from the president saying in Helsinki that he was inclined to
believe Vladimir Putin to then saying he misspoke, and then the back and forth today, and now
this comment that he holds Vladimir Putin personally responsible.
What do we understand at this point about what the president believes?
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Well, based on his conversation with CBS News, he's saying that he does hold
President Putin personally responsible for election interference.
But, at the same time, he is contradicting the intelligence communities, who have said
over and over again that Russia meddled in the election, that Putin ordered it personally.
So, he was saying, I'm kind of responsible for things that happen in general in the United
States, much like Putin is responsible in general for things that happen in Russia.
I suspect that there are going to be a lot of people who listen to the president's comments
to CBS News and say he's still not being as forceful as he needs to be.
I think it's also important to note that the president didn't walk back other things that
he said during the press conference.
It wasn't just the wouldn't and wouldn't and -- would and wouldn't.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Right.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: It was the fact that he said that the FBI and DOJ were having a witch-hunt,
that they were having this probe that was hurting U.S.-Russia relations.
He didn't say that he takes that back.
He also didn't say that he takes back that Putin offered this strong denial and that
he basically was taking him at his word.
That was something that he didn't walk back.
So, while the president is saying that there were clarifications that need to be made,
he isn't changing all the things that happened at the press conference that I attended.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, one question I know that you still hear conversation about is, it's
not clear, because, at one point, it does -- it did sound or -- and may still sound
as if the president is equating the U.S. intelligence community in terms of its credibility with
Russia's President Putin.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Well, I asked Sarah Sanders directly that question.
I questioned her on this idea of whether or not the president was having a false equivalency.
I said, specifically, after Charlottesville, in Virginia, when that young woman was killed
while she was protesting neo-Nazis, the president got a lot of backlash for saying that there
was violence on both sides.
Then, in Finland, before the world, the president said both parties, both Vladimir Putin and
U.S. intelligence agencies, had their issues when it comes to the Russian election interference.
And why is he putting them both on -- on equal playing fields?
Sarah Sanders said, one, that it wasn't fair to put Charlottesville and Russia on the same
-- compare them at all, that they shouldn't be compared.
She also said that the United States and the Trump administration take election interference
very seriously and that they're looking into this.
That said, the president did back up and didn't backtrack from when he said, when he said
both parties have issues with the way that Russia interfered in the election.
He's not taking that back.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And, finally, just quickly, how are Republicans handling this?
I know some of them are giving the president still the benefit of the doubt.
Others have come out in a way they have never come out before and questioned and even criticized
him.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Well, there are some Republicans, like Senator Rand Paul and Congressman Collins,
who are coming out saying that the president -- that they agree with the president, that
they have issue with the Mueller probe, that they question whether or not Russia interfered
in the way that the intelligence community says they did.
And then you have people like Newt Gingrich, who said that he was happy that the president
came out and clarified himself.
And then you have Senator Lindsey Graham and you have Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina
both saying that the president needs to be way more forceful.
And these are both Republicans.
The Republicans have not pushed back on this president very much.
But these two people and other Republicans are saying the president needs to get this
right, and he needs to get this -- and he needs to be more clear about this.
The other thing that's happening, Democrats are using this to fund-raise.
Just -- the DCCC just today said that they raised -- they raised just in June $15.2 million.
James Comey is also coming out urging people to vote for Democrats.
Of course, that's a former FBI director who President Trump fired.
So Democrats are seeing this as a way to win in the midterms.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee raising money.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Yes.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Yamiche Alcindor, the story continues.
Thank you.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Thanks.
JUDY WOODRUFF: In the day's other news: A federal judge has ordered a Russian woman
jailed without bond on charges she infiltrated American political groups and aided Russian
intelligence.
Maria Butina is formally accused of being an unregistered foreign agent.
Prosecutors argued that she's a flight risk.
Her lawyers called the charges overblown.
The European Union hit Google with a record fine of $5 billion today for allegedly abusing
its corporate power.
Regulators said the U.S. tech giant forced smartphone makers to use its Android operating
system to install Google's search and browser apps.
Google immediately announced plans to appeal.
We will have a full report on this later in the program.
In Thailand, 12 young soccer players made their first public appearance since they were
rescued last week from a flooded cave complex.
Neil Connery of Independent Television News has our report.
NEIL CONNERY: Looking happy and strong after all they have endured, the 12 boys and their
coach rescued from the flooded Thai caves.
The Wild Boars football team speaking for the first time.
Adul Sam-on, who's 14, spoke of the moment British divers found them.
ADUL SAM-ON, Rescued From Cave (through translator): I didn't know what to say to him, I said hello,
and then he said hello back.
It was a miracle.
He said, how are you?
How many are there of you?
MAN: How many of you?
Thirteen.
Brilliant.
NEIL CONNERY: The boys considered swimming out when sudden rains flooded the caves.
They had no food until they were found nine days later, surviving only on dripping water.
BOY (through translator): I tried to go underwater and dig to see if we could get through, but
all I could feel was sand and rocks.
We couldn't get out that way.
NEIL CONNERY: Titan, the youngest member of the team, at 11, talked of how hungry he was.
CHANIN "TITAN" WIBRUNRUNGRUEANG, Rescued From Cave (through translator): I tried not to
think about food.
I didn't think of my favorite meals.
I just thought of plain normal dishes, like fried rice.
NEIL CONNERY: The boys said they will never forget the Thai navy SEAL who died trying
to rescue them.
They have written messages for Samarn Kunan's family.
BOY (through translator): Please rest in peace.
We feel sorry for your family.
I want to say thank you for your sacrifice.
NEIL CONNERY: The boys are now finally heading home, and know there's a bit of explaining
to do.
BOY (through translator): I want to apologize to my parents.
When I get home, I know I will get yelled at by my mum.
NEIL CONNERY: But for now, there's relief and joy for families reunited.
JUDY WOODRUFF: That report from Neil Connery of Independent Television News.
Another migrant tragedy today in the Mediterranean.
Nineteen people drowned off Northern Cyprus when their boat capsized.
The Turkish Coast Guard rescued more than 100 others, and helicopters airlifted them
to Turkey; 25 people were still missing.
A two-year-long state of emergency in Turkey expired tonight.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan imposed it in 2016 after a failed coup against his government.
Since then, authorities have detained 75,000 people and fired about 130,000 public employees.
Now the government plans new anti-terror laws, and Erdogan's opponents charge that he will
use them to stifle dissent.
Back in this country, the state Supreme Court of California has blocked a November ballot
measure to split the state into three parts.
Supporters argue the state has grown too big and too diverse to govern.
But the court ruled that it needs more time to hear questions about the proposal's validity.
The measure might still appear on some future ballot.
Republican Congresswoman Martha Roby has won a primary run-off, defeating a Democrat-turned-Trump
loyalist.
The four-term incumbent in Alabama got President Trump's endorsement, despite criticizing him
as a candidate during the 2016 campaign.
The president took credit for Roby's win in a tweet today.
And on Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average gained 79 points to close at 25199.
The Nasdaq was down a fraction of a point, and the S&P 500 added six.
Still to come on the "NewsHour": the risk Russian hackers pose to the midterm elections;
U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross under fire for his investments; the plant that could
reduce pollution's effects on the ocean; and much more.
U.S. intelligence agencies are unanimous in their assessment that Russia interfered in
the 2016 presidential election.
And senior officials warn of ongoing efforts to do it again in this year's midterm elections.
To examine the threat and what's being done to stop it, I'm joined by two women with recent
and extensive experience focusing on voting infrastructure and Russian meddling in the
U.S.
Juliette Kayyem worked in the Department of Homeland Security in the Obama administration
and led a review of state election systems.
And Laura Rosenberger is director of the bipartisan project Alliance for Securing Democracy, which
is based at the German Marshall Fund and tracks foreign interference in the U.S. and Europe.
During the Obama administration, she worked at the State Department and on the National
Security Council staff.
And a note.
We invited the current Department of Homeland Security to be on tonight's program, but they
were not available.
And I want to welcome both of you to the program.
I'm going to start with you, Laura Rosenberger.
Tell us a little bit about the project.
We heard the man who heads intelligence for the country, Director of National Intelligence
Dan Coats, say last Friday, he said: "Russia has been the most aggressive foreign actor,
no question.
They continue their efforts to undermine our democracy."
What is your project on the lookout for?
LAURA ROSENBERGER, German Marshall Fund: That's right, Judy.
And what we see, actually, is exactly consistent with the kinds of things that Director of
National Intelligence Coats was outlining.
We're looking at trying to understand and expose the full range of tactics that Russia
is using to undermine our democracy.
One of the things we see very consistently is the kind of engagement on social media,
the divisions that they're playing, that they're trying to further divide Americans against
each other, weighing in on hot-button issues.
We're tracking the kinds of messaging that they're promoting, trying to polarize Americans
even further.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, social media, you're monitoring, and what else?
LAURA ROSENBERGER: We're monitoring social media.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Right.
LAURA ROSENBERGER: We're also looking at the ways that that's intersecting with cyber-attacks.
One of the things we know that happened in the 2016 election, of course, was the use
of hacking, combining that with releasing that information, promoting that on social
media.
We're looking out for that kind of activity.
We're looking at the ways that elicit financing and money laundering may be used.
Obviously, what you were talking about with this Maria Butina case is of interest in that
category of things.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Right.
LAURA ROSENBERGER: Trying to understand that full picture of what's happening.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Juliette Kayyem, you are looking at ways to prevent this, these things
from taking place, from harming our electoral system, our democracy.
But what would you add to what Laura just said?
JULIETTE KAYYEM, Former Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary: Well, a couple
of things.
I mean, I think, first, of course, we should anticipate that 2018, the attempts to get
into state and local election systems will be more persistent, better-sourced, longer-term.
So the fight has started now, because the election is very soon.
And I think the other issue is that the failure -- I mean, we need to think about elections
as any other type of critical infrastructure, water, the electrical grid, nuclear system.
All of them are critical infrastructure that makes our systems work, that help us live.
The election system is now part of that.
And the sort of lack of focus by the federal government on this right now, at least from
the White House perspective, and even questions about whether it's ongoing, as we saw today,
really does undermine the tremendous activity on the state and local level.
This is a homeland security issue.
This is being fought, you know, on the street corner, not -- you know, it's not a war abroad.
And so we need to empower our secretaries of state and local officials in ways that
just aren't being done sufficiently right now, given one would anticipate the Russians
want to do it again.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Now, some of the states, Juliette Kayyem, as we understand it, are being more
vigilant than others.
JULIETTE KAYYEM: Yes.
JUDY WOODRUFF: They are beginning -- or working on this.
What are they doing?
JULIETTE KAYYEM: So, there's a couple of things, and I think it's really important for people
to understand that putting the word cyber before security doesn't make it any different
than any other security.
Essentially, what you want to do is avoid the single point of failure.
You do not want that one access point that is going to bring the system down.
So, what we have learned over time is, cyber-defenses are the same as physical security defenses.
You want a layered system.
You want to control access to information.
You want to isolate more essential information.
You want to make sure your vendors are taking security seriously, because there is a private
sector component.
(CROSSTALK)
JUDY WOODRUFF: Vendors, meaning what?
I'm sorry.
Vendors, meaning who?
JULIETTE KAYYEM: I'm sorry.
Third-party -- third-party vendors.
So a lot of these election systems, the ballot boxes, the electrical boxes, are actually
owned -- are actually run and owned and operated by other companies -- by companies, essentially.
So there's a private sector component to it.
So I think that if we can just sort of take the sort of mysticism of cyber, you know,
sort of out of this, and just say, how would you want to set up a security system, this
is what states are doing.
And they're also, obviously, educating their election personnel to ensure that, if anything
were to happen on Election Day, that they have a quick response, are able to protect
the system.
Essentially, it just gets back to, you do not want to have a single point of failure.
You need the layered defenses.
And we know how to build them.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Laura Rosenberger, clearly, the Russian know that the U.S. is on guard
at this point.
They were successful to a degree in 2016.
This year, they must be trying different things.
What do you see that is different or better or more sophisticated from them now?
LAURA ROSENBERGER: Yes, that's absolutely right.
One of the things that Dan Coats has said is that we think they will be learning lessons
or that they have learned lessons.
And we think that they're adopting those as they're looking at new ways to divide Americans.
So some of the things that we seen is them weighing in on things like the NFL protests,
whether it was, you know, good or bad, appropriate or not for NFL players to be taking a knee
during the national anthem.
We saw accounts on Twitter that have now been identified as ones that were created by the
Internet Research Agency, but were pretending to be Americans, accounts that had tens of
thousands of followers, weighing in on both sides of that issue.
We have seen social media accounts that we now know were operated by the Internet Research
Agency in Saint Petersburg weighing in on issues like the MeToo movement.
We have seen them weighing in on things like Roseanne Barr's racist comments.
So we see these kinds of activities basically trying to stoke tensions within America.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And you mentioned a minute ago, Juliette Kayyem, that you're still waiting
for the federal government to do more to pull this together.
The White House is saying they are working on this.
The Department of Homeland Security says they're working on this.
So, what more needs to be done from Washington and in the states?
JULIETTE KAYYEM: I think that's right.
So, I think we need to view this as a threat to any other critical infrastructure.
We do not leave transportation security to the states and locals.
We distribute money.
We have actually oversight from the federal perspective.
And you have a focus from the federal government.
Now, that may be true from the agency side.
Department of Homeland Security is clearly working with state and locals in this regard.
But until we begin from the White House and president's statements to understand that
this battle to protect our systems has begun already, as Dan Coats has said, you're not
going to get the focus that you need to on the state and local level.
And we need to treat it that way.
We need to treat this as a critical infrastructure threat, just like we would if a foreign entity
went after our electrical grid.
We wouldn't say it's Nebraska's problem, it's, you know, Washington's problem.
We would say, you know, this is a national security problem.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And do you see just quickly, Laura Rosenberger, the federal government
weighing in, monitoring this as it needs to?
LAURA ROSENBERGER: I think there is activity being done to monitor this.
It's not as it needs to.
Similar to what Juliette just described on the cyber-security side, on the disinformation,
information operation side, this is a challenge that requires working across different parts
of the federal government, working with the private sector, with the tech sector.
This is a really complex problem that requires a whole bunch of people coming together.
That requires political leadership from the top.
And that, unfortunately, is what we're missing right now.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And, of course, the alarm bells couldn't get any...
LAURA ROSENBERGER: Couldn't get louder.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Any louder than they are, given what Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence,
has been saying.
(CROSSTALK)
LAURA ROSENBERGER: Yes.
JUDY WOODRUFF: All right, I want to thank both of you.
Clearly, we are going to continue to watch this story, as important as it is.
Laura Rosenberger, Juliette Kayyem, thank you both.
JULIETTE KAYYEM: Thank you.
LAURA ROSENBERGER: Thanks, Judy.
JUDY WOODRUFF: President Trump promised to drain the swamp, as he put it, when he was
running for office and since he was inaugurated.
But a number of top officials in his Cabinet and administration have come under sharp scrutiny.
One Cabinet head that's getting more attention of late is the secretary of commerce, Wilbur
Ross.
Amna Nawaz has a look at the ethics concern about Mr. Ross' own finances and meetings
while in office.
AMNA NAWAZ: Judy, last week, the acting director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics sent
a letter to Secretary Ross criticizing the commerce secretary for failing to fully divest
stocks by January 15, 2017, 18 months after Ross agreed to do so.
The letter stated -- quote -- "Your failure to divest created the potential for a serious
criminal violation on your part and undermined public confidence."
Ross has since admitted to inadvertent errors and announced he has finally sold all equity
holdings.
But questions about the timing of Ross' actions as secretary related to his personal wealth
remain.
Dan Alexander of "Forbes" has been covering the story.
And his reporting was cited by the Office of Government Ethics in that letter last week.
He joins me now.
Dan Alexander, welcome to the "NewsHour."
I want to ask you about some of your latest reporting.
You looked specifically at Secretary Ross' calendar, specifically the time between February
and November of 2017.
Those were his first few months in office.
What about that time raised red flags for you?
DAN ALEXANDER, "Forbes": Well, we started looking through it.
And, immediately, you can see that there are dozens of meetings with companies in which
Secretary Ross had financial interests or ties to the company.
There are also meetings with foreign leaders that have oversight over businesses that he
owned at the time.
And there are also meetings with sovereign wealth funds that had previously pumped millions
of dollars into Secretary Ross' private equity funds.
AMNA NAWAZ: So, let's look specifically at one day, for example.
May 18, 2017, you detail in your reporting.
It's a busy day for the secretary.
He has meetings with foreign officials, a trade hearing, some calls.
There's one lunch that you hone in on, one that lasts longer than any other meeting.
And it's a lunch with the CEO of a railcar manufacturer called Greenbrier ®MDNM¯Companies.
Why is that significant?
DAN ALEXANDER: So shocking when we saw it on the calendar.
You can see it's listed as lunch with Wendy and Bill Furman.
And if you look at see who Bill Furman is, you can see that he is, as you said, the CEO
of Greenbrier Companies.
And Wendy appears to be Wilbur Ross' secretary of staff.
So, it looks like there are three people in this meeting.
One's the CEO of Greenbrier, one is Wilbur Ross, and the third is -- appears to be Wendy
Teramoto.
Now, at the time, Wilbur Ross had a secret interest in Greenbrier, which he had never
disclosed to ethics officials.
And he had that interest while he was having this meeting.
In addition, Wendy Teramoto also had a financial interest in Greenbrier.
So, you have got three people at the meeting.
Two of them have undisclosed to the public interests in the company that the third person
is running.
What they discussed about is going to be a question that a lot of people are wondering.
The Commerce Department says it was all friendly.
But it's hard to imagine that they didn't get into any business topics at all.
AMNA NAWAZ: And also, as part of your reporting, you mentioned in there you found out Greenbrier
had been lobbying for renegotiations of NAFTA, and then we saw action from Secretary Ross'
office that same day.
Is that right?
DAN ALEXANDER: Yes.
The meeting starts at 12:00 noon.
And, at 11:59 a.m., Secretary Ross puts out a statement that he's going to be renegotiating
NAFTA on behalf of Donald Trump.
And, as you said, Greenbrier had been actively lobbying other parts of the federal government
to make changes to NAFTA at that point for months.
AMNA NAWAZ: So, he didn't disclose the interest in that one company.
He did disclose, however, interest he held in a private equity fund, one whose single
biggest investment is actually a company that builds ship in China.
What's the ethical conflict there?
DAN ALEXANDER: So this is a company you're referring which is called Nautical Bulk Holding.
This is another one actually that he didn't divest originally.
He just -- excuse me -- didn't disclose originally.
He just disclosed he had the fund, but you have to disclose all of the underlying holdings
of the fund.
And that biggest interest, as you said, was to make ships in China.
And, at the time, Wilbur Ross is one of Donald Trump's lead lieutenants in what is now the
ongoing trade war between the United States and China.
So, you have got a guy whose financial interests are positioned to benefit from trade in China
at the same time that he's negotiating over trade in China.
AMNA NAWAZ: Dan, let me ask you this, because we asked Secretary Ross' office for comment.
They pointed us back to that July 12 letter we cited in the introduction here.
And they basically cited a part that said, look, although -- this is the Office of Government
Ethics to his office -- that his actions could have run him afoul of criminal conflict of
interest law, but that they found a review of the calenders, his briefing books and correspondence,
that he wasn't in any such violation of that law.
They also pointed us to a part of their department statement, the Commerce Department statement,
in which they said -- quote -- "The vast majority of the holdings described in the story have
been told by Secretary Ross, and he has committed to sell the remainder."
So does that solve the problem?
DAN ALEXANDER: No, it doesn't solve the problem.
There are a couple of things there.
First of all, the letter was looking at the interests that he held after he had said that
he was going to divest them.
So, that means companies like Greenbrier, which we mentioned earlier.
It doesn't say that they looked at all of his meetings overall.
And there are other meetings with companies in which Ross and his wife had interests at
the time of those meetings.
So those sorts of meetings are the thing that federal investigators would want to look at
as well.
And the fact that he's now saying that he's in the process of divesting some of them or
that he's divested some of them already, that doesn't absolve him of the fact of what he
did at the time that he owned those companies.
So this is not a -- you know, a source-based story.
You can just look at the calendar and look at his disclosures.
You see what he owns.
You see what his meetings were.
And you can see that there's clear overlap.
And people will be looking at that, whether or not he's out of those companies at this
point or not.
AMNA NAWAZ: So, Dan, very quickly, there's a line here obviously between something that
looks bad and something that is bad, right, between unethical and illegal.
Where does Secretary Ross seem to be on the line?
And if there is some larger concern, who holds him accountable?
DAN ALEXANDER: So, there are several different legal issues here.
But with many of the legal issues, the line is whether he was sloppy and made mistakes
in not divesting of these things, or whether he intentionally lied to federal officials,
saying that he had divested them.
It's very difficult to believe that a guy who's known as one of the smartest investors
in the United States could have simply forgotten about, for example, a $10 million-plus stake
that he still held in his former employer.
But that's what Ross says.
And he says that with several other interests as well.
It's hard to get inside people's heads, but that's what people will be trying to do, to
figure out whether those were lies or whether those were a series of mistakes.
AMNA NAWAZ: Dan Alexander of "Forbes," thanks for your time.
DAN ALEXANDER: Thank you.
JUDY WOODRUFF: An increase in carbon emissions are showing up not only in the air, but also
in water.
As Oregon Public Broadcasting's Jes Burns reports, researchers and shellfish farmers
are teaming up to see how marine plants can help stave off the effects of ocean acidification.
This report was produced in collaboration with the public media partnership EarthFix
and is part of this week's Leading Edge series, which focuses on science, tech and medicine.
JES BURNS: Tide is money at Baywater Shellfish farm West of Seattle.
WOMAN: These geoduck are so big.
JES BURNS: The tide flat is exposed for only a few hours a day, and there's work to be
done in the geoduck clam patch, pulling tube.
MAN: These guys are really hard to pull out.
JES BURNS: The tubes kept the clams safe the first two years of their lives.
Joth Davis owns Baywater, part of the Pacific Northwest's $200 million shellfish industry.
He grows geoduck for export and other clams and oysters for local markets on the West
Coast.
But both his business and the industry are in trouble.
JOTH DAVIS, Owner, Baywater Shellfish Company: It's just more difficult to raise oyster larvae
these days than it used to be.
They used to be kind of weedy, and you could grow oyster larvae easily.
Now it's not the case.
JES BURNS: That's because the ocean's chemistry is changing.
It's called ocean acidification.
And it's in part caused by people pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at unprecedented
rates.
The ocean acts like a giant carbon sponge.
And all that extra CO2 causes the pH of the seawater to decrease.
But it's not really the acid that's hurting shellfish.
Baby oysters use certain compounds to build their shells.
The same chemical reaction that lowers the pH of the water transforms those building
blocks into something the oysters can't use.
And the more carbon there is, the more difficult it could become for any sea creature with
a shell to survive; 250 miles south, along Oregon's coast, scientists like George Waldbusser
are discovering a common aquatic plant called eelgrass could make a big difference.
Eelgrass is like other plants that use photosynthesis.
It gets energy by absorbing sunlight and carbon dioxide.
And that could lessen the effects of ocean acidification.
GEORGE WALDBUSSER, Oregon State University: They're the same species of oysters.
On this shell, what we have are Pacific oyster larvae or juveniles.
All these dark areas are individual oysters.
And these have been grown in the eelgrass bed.
And then, on this shell, we have again small oysters, fewer of them, and much smaller that
have been grown not in the eelgrass bed.
JES BURNS: Fellow Oregon State University researcher Caitlin Magel has been stopping
at estuaries in Oregon and Washington, taking random samples from the flats.
She's trying to get a handle on just how much carbon these shallow eelgrass beds are pulling
out of the water by sampling the plants' shoots and roots.
CAITLIN MAGEL, Oregon State University: They have this below-ground carbon storage that
can lead to long-term sequestration of carbon.
JES BURNS: Eelgrass could benefit shellfish growers in different ways.
CAITLIN MAGEL: It could be grown in and amongst, for instance, an oyster aquaculture bed.
Or, in the case of a shellfish hatchery, they could pinpoint where they're drawing their
water in from, so that they are drawing from within an eelgrass bed.
JES BURNS: And that water would have more of those shell-building compounds needed by
the oysters to grow.
Back at Baywater, Joth Davis wants to take the idea of using ocean plants to sequester
carbon to a new, deeper and tastier level.
JOTH DAVIS: We got some fresh sugar kelp.
It's a little tough, but it's definitely edible and yummy.
JES BURNS: A team organized by Davis and Puget Sound Restoration Fund director Betsy Peabody
has been tracking kelp growth at a nearby test plot.
BETSY PEABODY, Director, Puget Sound Restoration Fund: What we're trying to do is deliberately
grow kelp within a specific area, and thereby remove CO2, and measure whether or not that
improves conditions locally.
You could create, in theory, a kind of seaweed filter, you know, a curtain around where you're
growing shellfish.
JES BURNS: Much of the kelp is more than six feet long, and that mass of algae is evidence
of carbon pulled from the water.
JOTH DAVIS: I'm looking at interspersing shellfish in baskets, hanging below buoys, and then
every other line would be kelp.
Between the two of them, we will be able to harvest kelp and shellfish.
JES BURNS: Marine plants aren't likely to provide relief from carbon emissions on a
broad scale.
But for shellfish growers and researchers in the Pacific Northwest, the greener grass
on the other side of ocean acidification is beginning to look more like tide-swept eelgrass
and towering forests of kelp.
For "PBS NewsHour," I'm Jes Burns on Washington's Hood Canal.
JUDY WOODRUFF: The European Union has been taking a tough stance against the giant U.S.
technology firms.
And, today, it announced its most aggressive fine yet against Google for antitrust concerns.
The E.U. has given Google 90 days to make changes.
Google says it will appeal the decision.
But, as John Yang tells us, the E.U.'s decision was made with an eye toward getting changes
that would affect the future of the mobile phone market, search and advertising.
JOHN YANG: Judy, European officials say Google has abused the dominance of its Android operating
system to entrench its apps and services on smartphones.
About 80 percent of the world's devices run on Android.
We asked Google for someone to talk to, but they declined.
Instead, they provided a video in which company CEO Sundar Pichai says Android gives consumers
more choice.
SUNDAR PICHAI, CEO, Google: All of those choices have encouraged innovation and competition,
which in turn lowers cost, so that even more people have access to all the world's information.
JOHN YANG: Earlier, I spoke with European Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager.
I began by asking her about Europe's case against Google.
MARGRETHE VESTAGER, European Commissioner for Competition: This is a case where we find
that Google has put in place three illegal restrictions to cement its dominance in search,
to say, for instance, if you want to have an Android operating system, well, then of
course your users would like to have the Play Store, because they want to have apps.
Then Google will say, you can have the Play Store, but then you have to take Google Search,
you have to take Google Chrome.
And not only do you have to take them, but we will also make you -- we will also pay
you so that Google Search is there exclusively, no competition.
And last but not least, if you do something else, if you have a line of phones where you
will do another Android version or something else, well, then you cannot use any of your
-- our products on any of your phones.
And this, of course, limits innovation, limits choice, and makes it more difficult for rivals
to present new things to us as consumers.
JOHN YANG: In addition to the fine, you're asking for changes to Google's business practices.
What are they?
MARGRETHE VESTAGER: They have to pay a fine of 4.34 billion euros.
And they have to stop their illegal behavior.
They have to put a stop to the infringement in an effective manner, and they have to go
so in 90 days.
At a minimum, they have to change the contracts, because you find these contractual restrictions
there.
And now it is Google's sole responsibility to make choices to make this happen.
JOHN YANG: Google says that its Android operating system has expanded the choice of phones available
around the world.
They also say that some of the phones come pre-loaded with come competing apps, apps
that compete with Google's apps, and that users can download other rival apps.
What do you say to that?
MARGRETHE VESTAGER: Well, we all download a lot of apps.
This is why, if you have an Android phone, you like the Play Store, because you want
to download games, or weather apps, or traffic apps, or whatever is your liking.
But there are some sort of very fundamental apps that we all like.
And when it comes to search, and when it comes to the browser, well, we might download something
else, but the fact is that we don't.
Only in 1 percent of users have downloaded another search app, and only 10 percent of
users has downloaded another browser app.
So, you see, even though we might do it, we don't, because when it's there, out-of-the-box
experience, we just start using it, and we don't think about that we could do something
else.
And this is why competition is very far away, if you first have done something illegal to
make sure that the out-of-the-box experience is the Google experience.
JOHN YANG: Android is already so dominant with the smartphones.
Are these actions going to make a dent in that?
MARGRETHE VESTAGER: That, of course, remains to be seen, because Google now will have to
make sure that they stop the infringement in an effective manner.
And that will mean that those who produce the phone for us now have a free choice as
to what apps to put on the phone when we have the out-of-the-box experience and open it
and find a new phone that we have bought and look forward to, so that we have more choices
when it comes to search apps, when it comes to browsers, when it comes to what version
of an operating system would be the new and better version of an operating system.
I think that you find a lot of gifted people out there, people with skills, with ideas,
of course, to challenge our idea of search, to challenge our idea of what is a browser,
how should an operating system work, because this is why Google became so big, because
they challenged the way things were.
And that's, of course, the point in competition.
JOHN YANG: The fine the E.U. has imposed is, of course, a record for the European Union,
but it amounts to only less than about 1 percent of Google's annual revenues.
Is that really going to make any difference?
MARGRETHE VESTAGER: We have a set of guidelines to help us calculate the fine, so that the
fine is the reflection of the duration of the illegal behavior and the seriousness and,
of course, also, to some degree, the size of the company.
And we always, of course, try to be proportional, so that you have the illegal behavior, and
then you have the level of the fine to reflect that.
JOHN YANG: I have seen you referred to as the person that Silicon Valley fears the most.
There is a sense there that you are taking a very aggressive stance toward the digital
companies in Silicon Valley.
Is that fair or accurate?
MARGRETHE VESTAGER: I'm here on a very simple mission.
And that is to make sure that European consumers, they can enjoy the benefits of a fair competition,
competition on the merits, choice, innovation, affordable prices.
And, as you see, lots of U.S. companies are doing great business within the European Union
because they have great products.
Consumers like them.
And that I very much encourage, because success is a good thing, only you shouldn't misuse
your success and start doing something illegal, because then consumers lose trust.
JOHN YANG: Of course, this comes at a time of heightened tensions, trade tensions between
the United States and the European Union.
The president of the United States even called the European Union one of the top enemies
of America.
How do your actions fit into that context?
MARGRETHE VESTAGER: Well, we live in a world that seems to be more and more unpredictable.
And the thing is that I think it's important also to do the predictable things.
And it is predictable, because we have done this for decades, that, if you're if the European
market, and you're doing something illegal, and we can prove it, well, then we will come
and we will take a decision and impose the fine on you, and say you have to stop this.
This is a predictable thing.
We have done that for 60 years by now, and we will, of course, continue doing that.
JOHN YANG: European Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager, thank you very much.
MARGRETHE VESTAGER: It was indeed a pleasure to be with you.
Thank you very much for having me.
JUDY WOODRUFF: This week marks 100 years since Nelson Mandela's birth.
The longtime prisoner under apartheid and later president of South Africa was a giant
of the 20th century, a man who led his country to a new democratic future.
He set a political and a moral example recognized around the globe.
Mandela stepped down from office in 1999, and he died in 2013 at the age of 95.
Jeffrey Brown has more on a new book that offers insight into Mandela's remarkable story.
JEFFREY BROWN: Nelson Mandela told much of his own story in the 1994 memoir "Long Walk
to Freedom."
A follow-up volume was published just last year.
Now comes a different look at the man, again in his own words, "The Prison Letters of Nelson
Mandela," 255 letters written over the more than 27 years he spent as a political prisoner,
from 1962 to 1990.
My colleague Charlayne Hunter-Gault was there the day Mandela was released and covered him
and the epic-making events in South Africa in the years that followed, and joins me now.
It's, first of all, nice to see you again.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Nice to be here again.
JEFFREY BROWN: You know, what emerges from these letters that we perhaps didn't know,
this man who was both private and public?
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Actually, Jeff, I think that we get into the interior man, some
of the pain that he went through, some of the principles that he continued to stand
for, no matter the terrible conditions under which he and the fellow prisoners lived, and
then the love of his family, starting with Winnie and his children, and the larger family.
So it's things we never heard before.
JEFFREY BROWN: Let's start with that part.
We have pulled some excerpts from some of these letters.
And I want to start with one that is very personal.
This is from after he got a photo from Winnie.
NARRATOR: "April 2, 1969.
All that I wish to say now is that the pictures has aroused all the tender feelings in me
and softened the grimness that is all around.
It's sharpened my longing for you and our sweet and peaceful home.
All of these have come back again as I examine the portrait."
JEFFREY BROWN: So, the grimness, but also the tender feeling.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: It is so clear throughout that his love for Winnie was undiminished,
and his caring for her and the children in ways that you didn't see particularly in "Long
Walk to Freedom."
These are very intimate moments when he's writing to her.
JEFFREY BROWN: You talked to him in 1990, and I want to show you a video excerpt of
that where he's talking about how he coped with that.
NELSON MANDELA, Former President of South Africa: We decided to fight back right from
the beginning.
Nobody would order us to run.
We refused to do that.
And we said that the (INAUDIBLE) must stick to regulations and wouldn't do anything outside
the regulations.
JEFFREY BROWN: Now, this goes to this -- the resistance that he and other prisoners, their
acts of resistance while in prison.
That comes through in the letters, too.
There is another excerpt that I want us to listen to now which goes to that.
NARRATOR: "July 12, 1976.
It's futile to think that any form of persecution will ever change our views.
Your government and department have a notorious reputation for their hatred, contempt and
persecution of the black man."
JEFFREY BROWN: That's from a letter to the minister of justice, keeping up the resistance.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Well, absolutely.
What was amazing was that he would write these long letters to the minister of justice, to
the head of the prisons, and it would be very legalistic almost, you know, because he had
studied to become a lawyer, although it took many years in prison for him to finally earn
his degree.
But he would write these long letters that were legalistic, but at the same time, they
were impassioned about the things that he was complaining about.
Like, he demanded that the prisoners be released and that they stop being treated in terrible
ways that they were.
One man was once put into a hole, and you could only see his head like this.
Now, and Mandela was often put in solitary confinement himself.
But he let the prison authorities know that their heads were, in effect, bloody, but unbowed,
in terms of why they were there.
JEFFREY BROWN: There is that.
There is that strength, but also coming through is a kind of painful powerlessness, right,
of having to deal with, of not being able to be there.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Well, sure, because this comes out, again, most forcefully and
poignantly when he wasn't able to go to his mother's funeral.
And he talked from his heart about how pained he was that they wouldn't allow him to go.
JEFFREY BROWN: We have another excerpt I want to listen to, which is, again, to Winnie,
as she was about to go on trial.
NARRATOR: "November 16, 1969.
You're engaged in a contest with an adversary who possesses vast resources and wealth and
means of propaganda and who will be able to give facts any twist he considers expedient."
JEFFREY BROWN: So here he is offering advice prisoner to prisoner in a sense.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Well, he was actually demanding that he be allowed to come and represent
-- help represent her.
JEFFREY BROWN: And to her and to everyone else, the eye on the goal never wavered, right,
this future that he envisioned?
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: What's amazing is that -- what I found amazing about the letters
is that, from time to time, he would talk about, when I see you or when we get together
again.
And I asked Max Sisulu, who is a son of one of the prisoners with Mandela, Walter Sisulu,
was he just psyching himself, or did he really think he would get out?
And he said, look, those guys focused on their vision of the future, and they were willing
-- they were prepared to die.
And so this helped to keep the vision alive.
It wasn't that he thought he might get out, but his vision for the country was something
that kept him going.
JEFFREY BROWN: Here's one more excerpt that goes to that.
NARRATOR: "August 1, 1970.
One day, we may have on our side the genuine and firm support of an upright and straightforward
man holding high office who will consider it improper to shirk his duty of protecting
the rights and privileges of even his bitter opponents in the battle of ideas that is being
fought in our current today."
JEFFREY BROWN: So, he's saying, one day, we may have such a man.
And it turned out to be -- he turned out to be, of course, that man.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Well, you know, it's hard to know whether he thought he would ever
be, but he certainly laid down the principles that he believed in as a person who was fighting
for a free South Africa.
I mean, he talked about how he visualized a world where there would be no famine, no
war, no racism.
JEFFREY BROWN: You know, we think about this long arc.
He was, of course, released.
He became the president of a democratic South Africa.
You and I have talked about this.
I was there just last year looking at that legacy.
And that legacy, by a younger generation, is still questioned, right?
How much change has there really been?
How much change did he and his generation really effect?
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Well, I have heard that the younger generation are, you know,
complaining about what he did and didn't do.
And it reminds me of a point in the book where he talks about how a younger group of prisoners
were brought in after these older guys had been there for a while, and they were all
up in the air about, how come you didn't do this, and why aren't you doing this?
And he eventually won them over.
And I'm sure that someone with the principles of Nelson Mandela and the commitment today
could address some of the lingering problems in the country, because...
JEFFREY BROWN: Because they do exist.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: They exist.
And, as Martin Luther King often said, and I'm sure Mandela believed this, the arc of
the moral universe is long and involves a lot of struggle.
But, in the end, it bends toward justice.
JEFFREY BROWN: All right, the new collection is "The Prison Letters of Nelson Mandela."
Charlayne Hunter-Gault, nice to talk to you.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Jeff, it's great being with you.
JUDY WOODRUFF: It's great to be looking at Mandela through the eyes of Charlayne Hunter-Gault.
And that's the "NewsHour" for tonight.
I'm Judy Woodruff.
Join us online and again right here tomorrow evening.
For all of us at the "PBS NewsHour," thank you, and we'll see you soon.
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