SUMMARY: Russian President Vladimir Putin unleashed a pointed verbal attack on the U.S. while speaking with special correspondent Ryan Chilcote in Moscow Wednesday. He called concerns about Russian meddling in the upcoming 2018 elections “insanity” and he criticized some Trump Administration policies. Nick Schifrin talks with special correspondent Ryan Chilcote, who spoke at length with Putin.
SUMMARY: Former Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday he’s “never” seen an administration in as much disarray as President Donald Trump’s, and warned that other countries were “taking advantage” of the chaos in Washington.
“There are certain people who are readily and happily taking advantage of this President,” including China and Russia, Kerry told PBS NewsHour anchor and Managing Editor Judy Woodruff. “I think people all over the world are holding their breath and wondering what’s next.”
Kerry criticized Trump’s foreign and domestic policies, saying the President had a “disdain for fact,” and argued that congressional gridlock and partisanship in the U.S. was having a “horrible effect” around the world.
SUMMARY: Former FBI Director James Comey on Monday criticized a House Intelligence Committee report that found no evidence of collusion between Russia and Donald Trump’s Presidential campaign, saying the FBI had a “basis for investigating” the matter.
“There was a basis for investigating, meaning there were facts to support an investigation” into alleged ties between Russia and members of Trump’s campaign, Comey said in an interview with the PBS NewsHour’s Judy Woodruff. “To say there was no evidence just wasn’t the case.”
Comey joined a chorus of critics who have slammed the report in recent days. President Trump touted the finding on Twitter, repeating his frequent claim that the Russia probe was a “total witch hunt.”
In the NewsHour interview, Comey, who is on a media tour to promote his new book, also defended his decision-making surrounding the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server during the 2016 election.
The former FBI chief said he was trying to “do the right thing” when he sent a letter to Congress less than two weeks before the election announcing the bureau had reopened its probe into Clinton’s emails. Comey said the alternative option — not going public with the FBI’s actions — would have been “catastrophic.”
“We were stuck in the middle of a no-win situation,” Comey said.
Clinton and many Democrats have argued that Comey’s letter to Congress helped Trump win the election. Comey, who was fired by Trump last May, has insisted he wasn’t taking sides in the race.
SUMMARY: Stocks plunged on Friday over fears that the Federal Reserve will accelerate interest rate hikes. The sell-off was driven by news that the economy added a net of 200,000 jobs in January, with wages rising at the fastest pace in more than eight years. Judy Woodruff gets analysis from Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist of Charles Schwab.
SUMMARY: The job market and the economy are growing stronger and at a healthy pace, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen told PBS NewsHour’s Judy Woodruff [on] Friday as she wrapped up her four-year term on a momentous economic day.
The day started with a solid jobs report showing 200,000 new jobs last month and better wage growth. But the Dow Jones continued plunging during a brutal week, finishing the day down more than 665 points or about 2.5 percent. It capped the worst week for the Dow in two years.
But Yellen was focused on the long-term picture, saying that for “almost all groups in the American economy … you’re seeing plentiful jobs and wages beginning to rise at a slightly faster pace.”
In the NewsHour interview, recorded before the stock market closed, Yellen also warned that stock market valuations are elevated beyond their usual historic levels, including the ratio of price to earnings. Yellen stopped short of characterizing the market’s rise in recent months as a bubble.
Even as the market was dropping, Yellen stressed that the financial system is more resilient now than it was during the financial crisis of 2008. Still, she said, “investors should be careful and, I would say, diversified in their investments.”
Yellen also struck a sober tone on other trends in the economy. She said productivity — a key barometer watched by the Fed — has been weaker than hoped. She also said the pace of new firms being created over the past decade was slower than usual.
SUMMARY: In a wide-ranging interview with PBS NewsHour's Judy Woodruff, former Vice President Joe Biden said he believes the U.S. is closer than ever to nuclear war, adding President Trump "undermines" the office of the President. He also talks about his latest book, "Promise me, Dad," which chronicles his son Beau's brain cancer diagnosis and death, and his own decision not to run for President in 2016.
SUMMARY: In his first American television interview since becoming Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres sits down with Judy Woodruff to discuss why the world needs a United States that is engaged in issues of security, development and human rights, plus opportunities for reforming the U.N., the importance of protecting refugees, the struggle to end the bloodshed in Syria and more.
SUMMARY: As the Republican-led House and Senate seek to help President Trump deliver on many of his campaign promises, Democrats -- led by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer -- plan to make it a bumpy road. Schumer sits down with Judy Woodruff to discuss the president's debut, the challenge of repealing the Affordable Care act, Trump's Cabinet nominees and where both parties might work together.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): Republican control of the House and Senate offers President Trump an opportunity to deliver on many of his campaign promises. But Democrats plan to make that a rocky road.
The main voice of the opposition is Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York.
We sat down at the Capitol this afternoon.
And I began by asking him how he would characterize these first days of the Trump administration.
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER, Minority Leader: It's been bumpy, to say the least.
The rollout, so to speak, at the CIA was really terrible, to stand on sacred ground, people who had given their lives for our country, and then to spend all his time talking about extraneous things that related to himself.
You know, what he has to realize is, he's president, not candidate. Instead of talking about the numbers of people who showed up at his inauguration, he ought to be talking about the number of people he's gotten into the middle class, gotten good-paying jobs.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, already this morning and over the last few days, he started signing executive orders.
One of them has to do with the Trans-Pacific partnership, the trade pact. There was another one on the Affordable Care Act. So they are making some statements, aren't they?
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER: But some of these mean very little.
The TPP was dead long before he became President. If he wanted to do something real on trade, he could have done what he promised to do over and over again in his campaign, call China a currency manipulator. He said, on the first day I'm in office, I will call China a currency manipulator.
That would have done something.
On his ACA, on the Obamacare, he said, keep the good things, get rid of the bad things and obey the law.
They're so locked in a terrible position on ACA. In other words, they want to keep the good things and repeal it, but they don't know how to do it.
SUMMARY: It was a weekend of conflict over facts between the Trump administration and the news media. Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report, Tamara Keith of NPR, and Reuters' Jeff Mason president of the White House Correspondents' Association, join Judy Woodruff to discuss the president's tense relationship with the press and more.
SUMMARY: Outgoing Secretary of State John Kerry joined other Obama administration officials for an event Tuesday at the U.S. Institute of Peace focusing on the importance of a smooth political transition. Judy Woodruff sat down with him to ask about the Trump transition and the problems the world faces today.
JOHN KERRY, Secretary of State: What troubles me a little bit is that people are not separating a remarkable transformation that is taking place globally [and] naturally, from things that we’re really responsible for.
Let me give you an example, Arab Spring. We didn’t start the Arab Spring. We couldn’t have stopped the Arab Spring, particularly with respect to Syria. And I think there are some things that might have been able to have been done.
But that had nothing to do with the red line. And let’s make that absolutely clear, folks. President Obama never retreated from his red line. He never changed his mind about his readiness to bomb Assad to make it clear, you don’t use chemical weapons, never. There’s a mythology that’s grown up around this.
One of the greatest challenges we all face right now, not just America, but every country in the world, is, we are living in a factless political environment. And every country in the world better stop and start worrying about authoritarian populism and the absence of substance in our dialogue, if you call it that.
SUMMARY: As the Obama years come to a close, Vice President Joe Biden sits down with Judy Woodruff to discuss his thoughts on his tenure, the election and the future of the country. They discuss the fate of the Affordable Care Act, evidence of Russian election hacking, President-elect Trump's critique of the intelligence community, the Obama administration’s legacy in Syria and more.
SUMMARY: Hillary Clinton says she's "worried" about the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, and that she can't support it given what she knows at this point. The former secretary of state and Democratic presidential candidate sits down with Judy Woodruff to discuss the major Asian trade pact, gun control, Vladimir Putin and her email.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): Senator Bob Dole, thank you for talking with us.
FORMER SEN. BOB DOLE, (R) Kansas: Thank you, Judy.
JUDY WOODRUFF: You are 91 years young. You have led a remarkable life after those terrible injuries you suffered in World War II. You have gone on to be a very busy man. How are you doing today?
BOB DOLE: Doing great.
I’m in great shape. And I keep busy, which is important.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And you have been gone — as I understand, nine trips to Kansas this year?
BOB DOLE: Nine trips, and we have been in 96 of the 105 counties.
We don’t have any agenda. It’s just a thank you tour to thank the people for voting for me five times in the U.S. Senate. Now, many in the audience aren’t old enough to have voted for me five times. So you meet a lot of new friends.
JUDY WOODRUFF: You have talked a lot about how Democrats and Republicans worked together to do important things.
But you have also talked about the Senate doesn’t work that way anymore. How much do you think it has changed? How different is it today?
BOB DOLE: Well, it’s hard to criticize the Senate, when I was there for 28 years, but it does seem to be more confrontational, not as much bipartisanship.
I go back to the time when Ronald Reagan told me one day, he said, Bob, I’m going to send this legislation to Congress, and I want 100 percent. And then he said with that little twinkle in his eye, well, if you can’t get me a 100, get me 70, and I will get the rest next year.
So, he believed in compromise and working together. And I just don’t see much of that now.
SUMMARY: Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state, senator and first lady, joins Gwen Ifill for an extended conversation on international concerns like the crisis in Iraq and upheaval in Ukraine, as well as the state of economic recovery in the United States, why Democrats should be embracing health care reform and the reason she's waiting to decide whether she'll run for president in 2016.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And we are joined now by the man tasked with protecting the country from future terrorist attacks, among other things.
As Secretary of Homeland Security, Jeh Johnson oversees some 240,000 workers, spread across 22 government agencies. In addition to counterterrorism, he’s responsible for everything from border security, to immigration and customs enforcement, to natural disasters.
Secretary Johnson, we welcome you back to the NewsHour.
JEH JOHNSON, Secretary of Homeland Security: Thank you, Judy. Good to be here.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So we’re now 12-and-a-half years past 9/11. How much safer is the United States today than it was then?
JEH JOHNSON: Well, I think we have come a long way since 9/11, which happens to be my birthday, so I remember the day well. I’m a New Yorker. I was in Manhattan on September 11, 2001.
We have come a long way in terms of our counterterrorism efforts. I think we have learned how to do a pretty good job at detecting a number of terrorist threats to the homeland. But we have to be vigilant in a number of respects.
Al-Qaida is now a much more decentralized entity, with affiliates. And we have to always be vigilant in terms of potential homegrown threats, the so-called lone wolf. And we saw an example of that with the Boston Marathon bombing last year.
So we have got to be vigilant on a number of fronts. I still believe that counterterrorism needs to be the cornerstone of the Department of Homeland Security’s mission.
GWEN IFILL (NewsHour): Now; a conversation with former President Bill Clinton about economic growth, inequality, health care, and foreign policy.
I sat down with him earlier today in Washington as part of a fiscal summit run by the Peterson Foundation. And the economy was naturally the place to start.
Here is a portion of our nearly hour-long conversation.
I’m going to plunge right in, because one of the interesting conversations we have been having lately in Washington and around the world is about inequality. It’s back again.
I went back and looked at a conversation we had on this stage three years ago, and we were talking about it then. Why do you think now? Why is Thomas Piketty (see post on book) suddenly such a big deal?
FMR. PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON: Well, first of all, it is severe constraint on growth for the country.
And it is evidence of a loss of social mobility. The median real middle income, adjusted for inflation, is still slightly lower than it was the day I left office. And the cost of education and health care and other things has gone up.
The average walking-around person is having a pretty tough time. And it’s also really put a crimp in the whole idea of the American dream, that, if you work hard, you can do better than your parents did.
SUMMARY: Former President Jimmy Carter sits down with Judy Woodruff to discuss Russia’s annexation of Crimea, progress and limitations of working with Israel for the Obama administration and his own commitment to fight discrimination and violence against women and girls around the world. Carter has written his 28th book, “A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence and Power.”
JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour): One of the most talked-about and controversial books of the new year went on sale today. Its author, Robert Gates, has served eight presidents, held key posts at the White House, was head of the CIA and secretary of defense under Presidents George W. Bush and Obama.
The book, "Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary of War," sparked a frenzy of headlines ahead of its official release for his public criticism of the administration he recently left.
I spoke to him earlier today. He was wearing a neck brace after falling at his home last week.
Secretary Robert Gates, welcome to the NewsHour.
SUMMARY: As the Clinton Global Initiative kicks off its annual meeting, former President Bill Clinton joins Judy Woodruff to discuss the mall attack in Nairobi, prospects for a Syrian deal, politics of health care reform and gun control, plus the potential for a presidential bid by his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour): We turn now to our newsmaker interview with former President Bill Clinton, who kicked off his annual meeting today of the Clinton Global Initiative today.
I sat down with him at the site of the gathering in Midtown New York.
