SUMMARY:Five years ago on Friday, extremists marched in Charlottesville, Virginia in a violent demonstration that forced the city and the nation to confront the growing threats of white supremacy and domestic terrorism. Laura Barrón-López visited the city to see what's changed and how residents think President Biden and the country have reckoned with what they witnessed that summer.
SUMMARY:Lawmakers Thursday continued to assemble their picture of what went wrong on January 6. An internal watchdog testified about his ongoing review of U.S. Capitol Police, and shared his initial conclusions about why their defense failed that day after a pro-Trump mob stormed the building. Congressional correspondent Lisa Desjardins has the report.
MY OPINION:No matter what others say, what happened at our U.S. Capitol on 1/6/2021 is Insurrection, plain and simple. The people who did this were driven by the lies of the psychotic, self-centered, Fascist Donald J. Trump and his Four Horsemen.
It has not escaped me that these people are threatened by the changes in America especially since the election of President Obama. Their version of America of white privilege and supremacy has changed, especially since non-white (both actual and those who do not identify by skin color) citizens now out number 'white' citizens. They are angry, but that does not give them a right to attack our democracy and 'The People's House.' These people need to be caught, arrested and charged under law.
SUMMARY:The nation on Wednesday witnessed a grave breach of its democratic traditions. For the first time in American history, supporters of the losing presidential candidate have forcibly disrupted the official counting of electoral votes. John Yang reports.
SUMMARY:In a historic and tragic day, lawmakers returned late Wednesday to continue certifying electoral votes in the 2020 presidential election, a process that was disrupted by a chaotic scene, as protesters broke into the U.S. Capitol. One woman was fatally shot by police in the violent intrusion. Lisa Desjardins, Yamiche Alcindor and Amna Nawaz join Judy Woodruff to break down the latest.
SUMMARY:Hours after a pro-Trump mob broke into the U.S. Capitol Wednesday, the President continued to make false claims about the election results. Mary McCord, former acting assistant attorney general for national security at the Department of Justice [DOJ]. She now teaches at Georgetown Law School, and joins Judy Woodruff to discuss some of the extremist elements of his base.
SUMMARY: The fallout from a day of fury in Washington was still very much in the air on Thursday. While Congress has confirmed Joe Biden's election as President, many questions linger about the assault on the U.S. Capitol and about what price President Trump might pay. John Yang reports.
SUMMARY:Rep. Madeleine Dean, a Democrat from Pennsylvania and a member of the House Judiciary Committee, is among a growing number of lawmakers calling for President Trump’s Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove him from office, or for Congress to impeach him again, and this time convict him. She joins Judy Woodruff to discuss.
SUMMARY: There were serious questions Thursday about security in and around the Capitol and why there weren't better preparations ahead of time. William Brangham reports.
SUMMARY:Questions continued Thursday over President Trump's actions -- about how he stoked the mob at the Capitol and whether he's a danger as he continues to hold power.Kevin McAleenan was acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security under the Trump administration until November 2019. He joins Amna Nawaz to discuss how he sees this moment and the road ahead.
SUMMARY:The treatment of the violent mob at the Capitol by law enforcement versus the heavy-handed tactics employed on peaceful protests over racial justice has been widely talked about since Wednesday. Amna Nawaz spoke with Ibram X. Kendi, director of the Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University, to learn more.
SUMMARY:For years American adversaries argued democracy is too messy to be trusted, and Wednesday’s events gave them new ammunition. But while many U.S. allies lauded that democracy has prevailed after Joe Biden was certified as the next President, some were worried about the fragility of freedom. Nick Schifrin reports on reactions to the Capitol attack from around the globe.
SUMMARY: The chaos that engulfed Washington, D.C. this week has taken a tragic new turn. And with it, momentum is building to oust a sitting President in the final days of his term. Lisa Desjardins and Nick Schifrin join Judy Woodruff to discuss.
SUMMARY: Momentum is building on Capitol Hill for impeaching President Trump for the second time. House Majority WhipRep. James Clyburn, a South Carolina Democrat, joins Judy Woodruff to discuss bipartisan calls for impeachment and the integrity of democracy.
SUMMARY:Was it an insurrection? A coup? Should we call it domestic terrorism? Or just a peaceful protest gone awry? As a battle of politics becomes a battle for words to describe what happened in the capital and on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021,Christopher Booker speaks to Joanne Freeman, a history professor at Yale University about why words used to describe the event today will shape its history.
SUMMARY:The January 6 attack on The U.S. Capitol was the staggering culmination of years of political division and misinformation. Now, as debate rages over if President Trump should be held accountable for inciting the riot, President-elect Biden prepares to take the helm of a deeply divided country in a matter of days.Former CBS anchor, host of the Big Interview with Dan Rather, and author of the new book “What Unites Us,” joins Hari Sreenivasan to discuss how we move forward.
SUMMARY: Condemning the Capitol Hill riot, President George W. Bush and Senator Marco Rubio likened it to political upheavals in “Banana Republics” and the “third world.” But Lucia Dammert, a Wilson Center Global Fellow and Professor at the University of Santiago of Chile objects to the comparison to the Global South -- adding that the U.S. has played a key role in sparking the turbulence, especially in Latin America.NewsHour Weekend’s Ivette Feliciano reports.
SUMMARY:According to the FBI, hate crimes are on the rise in the U.S. Studies also suggest white nationalist and white supremacist ideologies are spreading.Derek Black was raised in a household that espoused such beliefs, but during college, his views gradually evolved. Special correspondent Charlayne Hunter-Gault talks with Black about his journey and the best way to help others find a similar path.
Guilty pleas last week by two prominent members of the Rise Above Movement [RAM] came after pledges to fight federal charges and claims that those jailed were political prisoners punished for their controversial views.
This story was co-published with Frontline PBS.
Last year, when federal authorities arrested and charged four members or associates of a white supremacist gang for their roles in the infamous 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, the men and their supporters struck a defiant tone.
The men proclaimed their innocence, and their backers described them in social media posts as “patriots” and “political prisoners.” The gang, known as the Rise Above Movement and based in Southern California, set up an anonymous tip line for people to share evidence that might exonerate the imprisoned members, and it established a legal defense fund, with donations taken via PayPal and bitcoin.
But in the following months, the men, one after the other, have pleaded guilty. Last Friday saw the final two guilty pleas, including one from Ben Daley, 26, one of the group’s leaders. He was joined by Michael Miselis, 30, a former Northrop Grumman aerospace engineer. The men pleaded guilty to conspiracy to riot.
“These avowed white supremacists traveled to Charlottesville to incite and commit acts of violence, not to engage in peaceful First Amendment expression,” U.S. Attorney Thomas T. Cullen said in announcing the guilty pleas. “Although the First Amendment protects an organization’s right to express abhorrent political views, it does not authorize senseless violence in furtherance of a political agenda.”
The Rise Above Movement and its role in the violence in Charlottesville in 2017 and at rallies in other cities was the subject of reporting by ProPublica and Frontline, work the authorities have credited in taking action against the men. Federal prosecutors in California are pursuing charges against four other RAM members, including its founder, Robert Rundo.
The plea documents filed during Friday’s court proceedings in Charlottesville lay out a detailed narrative of what the authorities say were RAM’s repeated acts of violence two years ago.
The narrative chronicles RAM’s combat training and the visual evidence capturing its members attacking protesters, including in Charlottesville, where, the authorities spell out, they “collectively pushed, punched, kicked, choked, head-butted, and otherwise assaulted several individuals, resulting in a riot.”
In pleading guilty, the authorities said, Daley and Miselis admitted their actions were not in self-defense.
In the contemporary white supremacist scene, RAM had positioned itself as the violent vanguard of the movement, a successor to the volatile and hyper-aggressive skinhead gangs that were prevalent during the 1980s and 1990s. Since its formation in 2016, the group has recruited several members of the Hammerskin Nation, the largest skinhead gang in the country, which has been tied to numerous killings, including the massacre of six Sikh worshippers at a temple outside Milwaukee.
Though RAM has eschewed the skinhead style — combat boots and bomber jackets — in favor of a more mainstream look, its members have embraced the bloody tactics of the Nazi skinhead gangs.
Miselis, a onetime engineering student at UCLA, was fired from his job at Northrop Grumman after ProPublica and Frontline exposed his membership in RAM. In a companywide email, then-CEO Wesley Bush said he was “deeply saddened yesterday to see news reports alleging that one of our employees engaged in violence as part of the Charlottesville protests.” Miselis held a government-issued security clearance while at Northrop, a major defense contractor, though the company has so far declined to say what projects Miselis was assigned to.
Rundo, who was living in Orange County at the time of his arrest, has also portrayed the federal prosecutions as a miscarriage of justice. “The rioting charges brought against us have not been used in 70 years,” Rundo said in a jailhouse interview posted on YouTube in February. “This has little to do with rioting and all to do with censorship and silencing anyone that they deem too radical by today’s standards.”
In the interview, Rundo blamed the media for demonizing RAM and described the group as a self-improvement club for white men.
Rundo has pleaded not guilty, and he could be headed to trial.
The RAM prosecutions have become something of a cause celebre for the racist right. Augustus Invictus, a fringe political figure and attorney, has set up a legal defense fund to solicit donations for the RAM members facing charges. “The federal government has taken an absolute political hard line against the right wing,” Invictus said in a 53-minute YouTube video discussing the case. The video has generated more than 22,000 views and nearly 700 comments, most of them sympathetic to RAM and many of them racist, anti-Semitic and Islamophobic.
One of RAM’s most infamous supporters is Robert Bowers, the Pennsylvania man accused of murdering 11 congregants at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh last October. Shortly before the massacre, Bowers posted a message decrying the RAM prosecutions on Gab, a far-right social media platform. Bowers has pleaded not guilty in the unfolding case.
SUMMARY:Violent hate crimes are on the rise in the U.S. and across the globe. As a result, the ways in which hate groups use social media to threaten, galvanize and radicalize are drawing new scrutiny, including from Congress on Tuesday. Amna Nawaz reports on the Capitol Hill discussion and talks to Kristen Clarke of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a national civil rights organization.
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to analyze the week's news, including hate and tragedy in New Zealand, President Trump’s aggressive and “reckless” rhetoric and the latest updates from the field of 2020 Democratic Presidential candidates.
Judy Woodruff (NewsHour): And with that, we turn to the analysis of Shields and Brooks. That is syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.
Hello to both of you.
We're going to get to politic in just a moment.
But, David, I want to start with this terrible massacre at two mosques in New Zealand. We just talked to our guests it.
What does it say about — I was going to say about where we are in terms of tone. What does it say about us as a human race right now?
David Brooks, New York Times:Well, we're seeing a culture cry in pain and rage and alienation, a culture that's divided, that is isolated, where people are lonely, committing suicide at high rates.
And one of the things some lonely people with existential angst do is, they turn into fanatics. And that's been the case all through history. And we're just at a moment of just cultural pain. And you get these horrific outbreaks.
Some of it is gentle, relatively gentle, screaming at each about politics. Some of it is really bad, the suicide and the murder rate, the opioid rate. And some of it is horrific, which is these mass shootings that we see across Western society.
And it's just the definition of our cultural moment. And the thing that Kathleen Belew said, I think, is worth repeating, that it's a movement.
Judy Woodruff: Right.
David Brooks: And it used to be a movement or even a terror army was a group of people who had some internal structure and internal structure and institutions.
But now they're radically decentralized webs organized by the Internet. And so, just because they have never met anybody — each other doesn't mean they're all part of one thing. And they are part of one series of fanatical ideas.
And what's interesting is how they wink and nod to each other through their statements in their Internet or through their statements in their manifestos. And so they're quoting — this guy was quoting somebody — the guy in the Pittsburgh synagogue. And that's just a scary form of movement.
Judy Woodruff: For them, it's all of a piece, Mark, even though they don't have a leader.
As David said, Kathleen Belew was saying a moment ago, this is — they're all about eliminating everybody who isn't white.
Mark Shields, syndicated columnist: Yes. No, I agree, and I was struck by Kathleen Belew's remark that it's a white power movement and a social groundswell.
And I can't help but think that the amplification and strengthening of this institution or this movement has occurred through the Internet. The idea that if somebody held those beliefs in the past, there was almost a sense of isolation, because they were so widely unacceptable to most people.
But now you get ratification, you get validation, because you can talk to people, whether it's somebody who is going after Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston or the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh or in New Zealand yesterday going after Muslims at prayer.
And it truly is — it's worldwide in its movement. And it's obviously not based on anything other than that sense of anger, resentment, alienation, and hostility.
David Brooks: It should be pointed out the tendency to go after houses of worship is not an accident.
Mark Shields: No.
David Brooks:It is a form of anti-religion. It's faith or a movement of hatred.
And this has not been the first time in history that we have had this, and so you get these war — moral wars. Somebody pointed out that, when the printing press was first created, people thought it would herald in an age of peace, because we could all talk to each other through the written word. And we got hundreds of years of religious war.
And so open communication can have these horrifically negative effects. And Ryan O'Lieber (ph) said back in the '50s that existential anxiety, if you don't know what your moral purpose is, you turn into a fanatic, because this sort of white or black or any kind of racial power movement gives you a very clean moral logic. You know what your purpose is in the universe. And you have a clear enemy you can go kill who are inhuman.
And so it cures all your existential anxiety, because suddenly everything is literally black and white.
Judy Woodruff: But you don't really right now, Mark, have an effort to condemn it, to say this is wrong.
I mean, it's on the margins.
Mark Shields:No, we all know it's wrong. I mean, it is.
I mean, but how do you confront something that is almost subterranean? I mean, it's not something that we run into, most of us, in our carpool or daily.
There was just one moment yesterday on Capitol Hill, when the most powerful Democrat in the country quoted the most popular Republican President of the last century.
And I would just like to read it. And it just said, thanks to the — quoting this President: "Thanks to each wave of new arrivals to this land of opportunity, we're a nation forever young, forever bursting with energy and new ideas, always leading the world to the next frontier. If we ever close the door to new Americans, our leadership in the world will soon be lost" — Ronald Reagan's last speech to the American people.
(CROSSTALK)
Judy Woodruff: Nancy Pelosi.
Mark Shields:And it was quoted by Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, at the luncheon for the Irish Prime Minister yesterday, Donald Trump sitting there as she said this.
But, I mean, wow. I mean, it's just one of those moments you say, we are not who we were.
David Brooks: Yes.
And it's an assertion that what joins us across race is more important than what divides us.
Mark Shields: Yes, exactly.
Judy Woodruff: Well, we're talking about — you made the segue to President Trump.
And I was going to ask this in the context, David, of the 12 Republicans yesterday in the Senate who went against the President on his emergency declaration on the border.
But what has come up in the last day or so is a comment the President made in an interview with Breitbart News, the right-wing Web site. And he said — and he was condemning Democrats and saying they were the left. He said it's tough.
But he went on to say: "I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, support of the Bikers for Trump. I have the tough people. But they don't play it tough, until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad."
I'm contrasting that with what President Reagan said.
David Brooks:Yes, again, he left out the Brownshirts. It is classic authoritarianism. It's almost Mussolini-like.
I happen to think it's compensation. As a friend told me, a friend of Donald Trump's told me that he's terribly afraid of confrontation in person. He will do it over the Internet, but he won't do it in person. And so he needs to project toughness.
And he admires toughness in the Saudis and Putin, in the North Koreans. And that's his highest virtue, but it's something of a blustery front, which is typical of bullies.
Mark Shields:Reckless beyond belief. I just — I can't believe it. Words matter, especially the words of a President.
And he's not talking to Breitbart or any particular group. Whenever the President speaks, he's speaking to all of us and for all of us. And this was criminally reckless. It was almost sanctioning, if not condoning, any act of violence by one of his supporters, armed supporters, against a political critic, a political opponent, saying, I understand it.
I contrast — I just contrast it with the words of a Reagan or a Kennedy or any other President.
Shooter's manifesto said Trump "Symbol of renewed white identity." Just think about that and Trump's lack of total condemnation of white supremacy.
Excerpt
SUMMARY:Christchurch, New Zealand’s second-largest city, was the site of horrific carnage Friday, as a gunman stormed two mosques during Friday prayers, killing at least 49 people and injuring dozens more. Police arrested the alleged shooter, who cited other mass killings as inspiration. Amna Nawaz reports on what New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern called one of the country’s “darkest days.”
SUMMARY:Deadly terror attacks in New Zealand Friday caused global shock, but the extreme anti-immigrant, white supremacist ideology of the suspected Australian gunman is not new. Judy Woodruff talks to Humera Khan of Muflehun a nonprofit fighting hate and extremism, University of Chicago’s Kathleen Belew, and Matthew Knott of the Sydney Morning Herald about the scope of this malignant "social movement."
REMINDER: The internet, especially social media, allows the spreading of ideas good AND bad.
SUMMARY:The gunman accused of killing 49 people at two New Zealand mosques Friday live-streamed the attack, emailed his manifesto to media outlets, and shared his racist and hateful messages online. Charlie Warzel opinion writer-at-large for The New York Times and Joan Donovan of Harvard University, join Hari Sreenivasan to discuss changing technology and the media's role and responsibilities.
SUMMARY:Christopher Paul Hasson, a Coast Guard officer and self-proclaimed white supremacist, is facing drug and weapons charges after federal agents discovered a stockpile of firearms and ammunition at his Maryland home. Also found was a list of his apparent targets, including Democratic politicians and journalists. Amna Nawaz talks to the Anti-Defamation League's Oren Segal about the threat.
SUMMARY:New York Times columnist David Brooks and Washington Post deputy editorial page editor Ruth Marcus join William Brangham to discuss the week’s news, including the anniversary of the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the politics of racially charged rhetoric, the implications of Tuesday’s close elections, the EPA moving away from global climate change efforts, and more.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM (NewsHour): Now we turn to the analysis of Brooks and Marcus. That’s New York Times columnist David Brooks and Washington Post deputy editorial page editor Ruth Marcus. Mark Shields is away.
Welcome to you both.
So, we — as we were just hearing, this weekend is the one-year anniversary of the spasm of racism that we saw in Charlottesville.
David, I’m curious. The President, we saw what his reaction was a year ago. And since then, he’s continued a steady stream of racially charged rhetoric, criticizing immigrants, linking them with crime and MS-13, criticizing NFL players.
In this past year, is it your sense that anything has changed in that regard?
DAVID BROOKS, New York Times:No, not with Donald Trump.
White identity politics has been his calling card for a long, long time, maybe stretching back generations of the Trump family.
The Institute for Family Studies did this study asking how many people, how many Americans actually sympathize with what the alt-right stood for, what the people in Charlottesville stood for. And they identified three core beliefs.
The first was, do you have a strong sense of white identity, [1] do you have a belief in the importance of white solidarity, [2] that all white people should stick together, and [3] you have a sense of white victimization, that whites are often the victim of discrimination?
And 6 percent of Americans share those three beliefs. And so that’s pretty much a core set of people who have high — one would say, a high degree of white identity, verging into racism.
And so that’s a group of people who can be whipped up. And then there’s a large group that share one of those things.
But, to me, Donald Trump’s main failure is constantly whipping up that sense of white identity. Not many even Republicans 20 years ago thought that being white was a strong part of their identity. But now it’s like 55 percent. And so he has stirred that up.
And then the second problem is, you just can’t have a party that’s basically all white, because when you overlay our racial problems with our political problems, you get instant poison.
And so the failure to do anything about that is by itself a gigantic problem.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Ruth, do you see any good news in that, in that just 6 percent — I know it is — does seem like an enormous number of people identifying with white supremacy — but maybe there’s a silver lining there?
RUTH MARCUS, Washington Post: Well, I do see some good news in the response of the American people in the last year.
The first good news was the response to Charlottesville and to the President’s response to Charlottesville, where almost — most people, in fact, many people in his administration, some publicly, recoiled at the President’s assertion that there were fine people on both sides.
I think we have seen in recent months a kind of slow-motion version of Charlottesville, as people have recoiled from the family separation policy and its racial overtones.
We are better as a people, even despite that 6 percent, than our President. The bad news is that, as David said, the President has not been chastened — and, as you mentioned — the President has not been chastened in the last year. He has just continued to do what he has done all along.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: You mean he hasn’t suffered political repercussions?
RUTH MARCUS: He hasn’t suffered political repercussions. And he has gone on his merry, very ugly way.
And it’s not the 6 percent that I worry about. It’s the people who do not think of themselves as racists, people who think of themselves as decent people, wouldn’t subscribe to those extreme views. But there’s a way in which the President’s rhetoric about S-hole countries, about animals, and his actions, like family separation, just legitimize and kind of encourage a belief in some people as lesser than others, and allowing comments like Laura Ingraham’s comments just the other day about immigrants to be viewed as somehow more acceptable than they were before Donald Trump.
And one last thing. The numbers bear it out. There was a recent poll; 57 percent of people thought race relations have got — think race relations have gotten worse under Donald Trump.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Gotten worse.
RUTH MARCUS: Fifty-seven percent.
Need to point out, 37 percent thought they got worse under Barack Obama as well, but…
DAVID BROOKS: Right. Right.
Yes. Well, I certainly think they have gotten worse. Even measuring by segregation levels in the schools, we’re much more segregated at schools, residentially, and then the political thing that’s tearing — on the Laura Ingraham comment…
WILLIAM BRANGHAM:This was Laura, the FOX News host who basically went on a diatribe the other day, saying that it is undeniable that America is changing, and it’s largely due to demographics, and that these open borders, and the Democrats seem to celebrate it, and it’s a catastrophe for the country.
DAVID BROOKS: And nobody asked us. And she said it’s legal immigration and illegal immigration.
So it was a pure play of, we used to be white, and now we’re less so. That — basically, that…
RUTH MARCUS: It’s not too subtle.
DAVID BROOKS: Yes.
And so I suppose I’m perfectly willing to have a debate about immigration, but when it’s constantly accompanied by racial superiority and race — and us/them thinking, and racial cries, you can’t even have that debate.
The inquiry begins after a ProPublica and Frontline investigation and as a congressman calls on Department of Defense to better police its ranks.
This story was co-published with Frontline PBS.
The U.S. Marine Corps said it has opened a criminal investigation into the activities of Lance Corporal Vasillios Pistolis, 19, identified as a violent white supremacist in a recent report by ProPublica and Frontline.
Stationed at North Carolina’s Camp Lejeune and assigned to the 2nd Marine Logistics Group, Pistolis has associated with an array of neo-Nazi organizations, including the National Socialist Movement, the Traditionalist Worker Party; and Atomwaffen Division, a clandestine group that aims to incite a race war, according to interviews and an analysis of video and online postings. Pistolis is under investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, or NCIS, which typically examines felony-level offenses involving Navy or Marine Corps personnel.
“We’re looking into the allegations and do not comment on open investigations,” said Adam M. Stump, an NCIS spokesperson.
Through interviews, photos, videos and the Marine’s own online admissions, ProPublica and Frontline documented his involvement with the various fascist groups and his participation in a string of assaults during last summer’s lethal Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Pistolis also made posts in online chats obtained by Unicorn Riot, an independent media organization.
This is the second time Pistolis has drawn scrutiny from NCIS. He told ProPublica and Frontline he’d been questioned about his extremist activities several months ago by NCIS investigators, but the investigation was apparently dropped. Military sources confirmed the existence of an earlier inquiry regarding Pistolis.
Responding to new reporting on the link between Atomwaffen and the armed forces, Rep. Keith Ellison, a Minnesota Democrat, urged Defense Secretary James Mattis to investigate Pistolis and his fellow neo-Nazis. Ellison also requested that the Department of Defense provide information to Congress about the military’s efforts to discipline white supremacists in the ranks and screen out racial extremists during the enlistment process.
“ProPublica and Frontline identified three Atomwaffen members or associates who are currently employed by the Army or Navy,” wrote Ellison in a letter to Mattis. “The involvement of service members in white supremacist organizations or other hate groups is cause for significant concern, particularly given their combat and weapons training.”
Ellison is asking the Defense Department to respond to his request for information by May 21.
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week's political news, including President Trump's wildly different approaches to his address on Afghanistan strategy and his remarks in Phoenix, his attacks on top Republicans in Congress, and his Pentagon directive to ban transgender people from joining the military.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): The week began with the President's scripted speech on Afghanistan, followed by a raucous rally in Phoenix that helped widen a rift between Mr. Trump and top Republicans in Congress. That's the backdrop as we turn to the regular Friday analysis of Shields and Brooks. That's syndicated columnist Mark Shields, and “New York Times” columnist David Brooks.
Gentlemen, it's so good to see you both together. Welcome.
So, Charlottesville, it's been almost two weeks since the tragedy there. It has risen in the headlines again this week, David. The President's in Phoenix, he makes this passionate speech unscripted, defending the way he handled Charlottesville, bringing on even more criticism.
Are we in the clear now on what this President believes about racism, about white supremacy and all of it?
DAVID BROOKS, The New York Times: I think we're a little clearer on where the Republican Party is. You know, the Trump campaign began really seriously with the Muslim ban. It continued with a series of racial things about the wall. It continued Charlottesville and the reactions. And what's happened is the racial winking and content, the identity politics has become a rising motif in the Trump administration, especially as everything else including economic policy and economic populism has fallen away.
And that's meant the Republican Party or at least some portion of it, and I don't know how big, has become more of a white ethnic party, ethnic nationalist party. That has made life impossible for a lot of people who signed up as Republicans but didn't sign up for this. And we've had fights within Republicans on a lot of different issues on taxes, on wars and things like that.
But this is upon which parties break apart because you can't Republican — if the Republican Party becomes a party aligned with bigotry in some overt way or in any way, you can't be a Republican and try to be a decent person and be a part of it. And I've watched within my friends here in Washington, friendships ending in a way I never really seen before. And friendship ending I think in the evangelical world, friendships are ending.
And Senator Danforth had an op-ed today and Gary Cohn is put in this position. And so, what you're seeing is a hint of a rupture the likes of which I really haven't seen before.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And I was going to ask you both and David brought it up, Mark, this column and today an interview by the former Republican senator from the state of Missouri, John Danforth, saying if the Republican Party doesn't disassociate itself from Donald Trump over his handling most recently of Charlottesville and the race question, but he lists other issues as well, he said the party sunk.
MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated Columnist: Yes. Jack Danforth comes with credentials as a senator, as the Senate sponsor, personal endorser of the only African-American ever nominated to the Supreme Court by any Republican President, Clarence Thomas, who had worked for him. So, he is — he is someone who has certainly street cred on this issue.
Judy, it's quite I think obvious at this point that the President does not understand what the job is. I mean, the job of the President of the United States is to be the voice of compassion, is to be, to provide equanimity in spirit, is to provide magnanimity of view. He, in a scripted, teleprompted address, he can give a coherent speech as he did on Afghanistan, a colorless, energy-less but nevertheless coherent speech as he did for veterans.
But he only thrives, he's only alive, he's only authentic when he unleashes his indictive, when he stirs up the basest instincts of his supporters, and he responds only to cheers, cheers and jeers of those whom he opposes, whom he's still running against some 10 months after the election he's still running against.
So, it's a sad, sad time. It has to be sadder for those who work in this administration to learn as the Quinnipiac University poll, a respected poll, show this week that Americans by two to one believe that Donald Trump is dividing the country rather than writing the country. That solid majority, 3-2, they believe the press, the dreaded media over Donald Trump to tell the truth. And they believe — three out of five Americans believe he is giving aid in comfort to white supremacist, and encouragement.
So, it's a truly sad — I don't — I can only say to Republicans, I mean, it is a time you're going to be asked about this. You're going to be asked where you stood. And what you did on Donald Trump. And I thought Gary Cohn — it only took him two weeks to come to it and —
JUDY WOODRUFF: This is the President's economic adviser, yes.
MARK SHIELDS:Yes, and then he came to the decision of conscience that Janet Yellen made a very candid statement today, recognition statement at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where she announced that she, in fact, the regulations imposed on the big banks after the collapse of 2008, the financial crisis, were necessary, were wise and should not be repealed.
So, Gary Cohn holding on, slimly, perhaps to the hope of becoming chair of the Federal Reserve swallowed his misgivings, and the odor of anti-Semitism that smacked Donald Trump's remarks and agreed to continue as a patriotic man to serve and I guess we could only salute him.
JUDY WOODRUFF: It’s a zigzag course, David. I mean, as both of you said, when the President is reading from the teleprompter, the message is that we reject racism, we reject white supremacy, neo Nazis, but it’s in these speeches where there’s another message that seems to come out. I was just reading the radio address that the White House is going to put out tomorrow from the President. He’s back to the scripted lines, rejecting everything that smacks of racism.
DAVID BROOKS: To his credit, he’s incapable of insincerity and hypocrisy. He can — he can keep up for an hour, for a day, for 24 hours, he’ll say what they want him to say, but then within 24 hours, he’s got to come back to be himself and he’s going to explode beyond those barriers. We’ve seen that again and again and again.
I just think the Trump administration is going to wander into these fields more and more in the months and years ahead, simply because they don’t have an economic agenda, there’s very small chance of tax reform, they don’t have the populist thing they can bring to people. And so, what they have is this ethnic nationalism. And they are frankly going to be helped sometimes by Democrats or by radicals on the left who are going to deface the Thomas Jefferson statute or do something like that. And then that’s it for Donald Trump. He can say they’re defacing Thomas Jefferson.
So, then the identity politics of the left and identity politics play off each other and you get this war of people who think that white and black are the only two categories in life and they should have some sort of political war over this and it begins to look like the Sunnis and Shiites. And as I say, that’s a Republican Party that decent people don’t want to be a part of, frankly.
SUMMARY: Brennan Gilmore filmed the moment when a car plowed into a crowd of protesters in Charlottesville, killing one woman and injuring 19 others. When he made his video public and spoke out to the news media, he became the target of death threats and conspiracy theories. A former foreign service officer and a Democratic campaign aide, Gilmore joins Judy Woodruff to recount his experience.
Update, Aug. 19, 2017:
This story has been updated to include a comment from PayPal.
Update, Aug. 22, 2017:
The name of Taboola's spokesman was removed at the company's request.
Because of its “extreme hostility toward Muslims,” the website Jihadwatch.org is considered an active hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League. The views of the site's director, Robert Spencer, on Islam led the British Home Office to ban him from entering the country in 2013.
But its designation as a hate site hasn't stopped tech companies — including PayPal, Amazon, and Newsmax — from maintaining partnerships with Jihad Watch that help to sustain it financially. PayPal facilitates donations to the site. Newsmax — the online news network run by President Donald Trump's close friend Chris Ruddy — pays Jihad Watch in return for users clicking on its headlines. Until recently, Amazon allowed Jihad Watch to participate in a program that promised a cut of any book sales that the site generated. All three companies have policies that say they don't do business with hate groups.
Jihad Watch is one of many sites that monetize their extremist views through relationships with technology companies. ProPublica surveyed the most visited websites of groups designated as extremist by either the SPLC or the Anti-Defamation League. We found that more than half of them — 39 out of 69 — made money from ads, donations or other revenue streams facilitated by technology companies. At least 10 tech companies played a role directly or indirectly in supporting these sites.
Traditionally, tech companies have justified such relationships by contending that it's not their role to censor the Internet or to discourage legitimate political expression. Also, their management wasn't necessarily aware that they were doing business with hate sites because tech services tend to be automated and based on algorithms tied to demographics.
In the wake of last week's violent protest by alt-right groups in Charlottesville, more tech companies have disavowed relationships with extremist groups. During just the last week, six of the sites on our list were shut down. Even the web services company Cloudflare, which had long defended its laissez-faire approach to political expression, finally ended its relationship with the neo-Nazi site The Daily Stormer last week.
“I can't recall a time where the tech industry was so in step in their response to hate on their platforms,” said Oren Segal, director of the ADL's Center on Extremism. “Stopping financial support to hate sites seems like a win-win for everyone.”
But ProPublica's findings indicate that some tech companies with anti-hate policies may have failed to establish the monitoring processes needed to weed out hate sites. PayPal, the payment processor, has a policy against working with sites that use its service for “the promotion of hate, violence, [or] racial intolerance.” Yet it was by far the top tech provider to the hate sites with donation links on 23 sites, or about one-third of those surveyed by ProPublica. In response to ProPublica's inquiries, PayPal spokesman Justin Higgs said in a statement that the company “strives to conscientiously assess activity and review accounts reported to us.”
After Charlottesville, PayPal stopped accepting payments or donations for several high-profile white nationalist groups that participated in the march. It posted a statement that it would remain “vigilant on hate, violence & intolerance.” It addresses each case individually, and “strives to navigate the balance between freedom of expression” and the “limiting and closing” of hate sites, it said.
After being contacted by ProPublica, Newsmax said it was unaware that the three sites that it had relationships with were considered hateful. “We will review the content of these sites and make any necessary changes after that review,” said Andy Brown, chief operating officer of Newsmax.
Amazon spokeswoman Angie Newman said the company had previously removed Jihad Watch and three other sites identified by ProPublica from its program sharing revenue for book sales, which is called Amazon Associates. When ProPublica pointed out that the sites still carried working links to the program, she said that it was their responsibility to remove the code. “They are no longer paid as an Associate regardless of what links are on their site once we remove them from the Associates Program,” she said.
Where to set the boundaries between hate speech and legitimate advocacy for perspectives on the edge of the political spectrum, and who should set them, are complex and difficult questions. Like other media outlets, we relied in part on the Southern Poverty Law Center's public list of “Active Hate Groups 2016.” This list is controversial in some circles, with critics questioning whether the SPLC is too quick to brand organizations on the right as hate groups.
Still, the center does provide detailed explanations for many of its designations. For instance, the SPLC documents its decision to include the Family Research Council by citing the evangelical lobbying group's promotion of discredited science and unsubstantiated attacks on gay and lesbian people. We also consulted a list from ADL, which is not public and that was provided to us for research purposes. See our methodology here.
The sites that we identified from the ADL and SPLC lists vehemently denied that they are hate sites.
“It is not hateful, racist or extremist to oppose jihad terror,” said Spencer, the director of Jihad Watch. He added that the true extremism was displayed by groups that seek to censor the Internet and that by asking questions about the tech platforms on his site, we were “aiding and abetting a quintessentially fascist enterprise.”
Spencer made these comments in response to questions emailed by ProPublica reporter Lauren Kirchner. Afterwards, Spencer posted an item on Jihad Watch alleging that “leftist 'journalist'” Kirchner had threatened the site. He also posted Kirchner's photo and email, as well as his correspondence with her. After being contacted by ProPublica, another anti-Islam activist, Pamela Geller, also posted an attack on Kirchner, calling her a “senior reporting troll.” Like Spencer, Geller was banned by the British Home Office; her eponymous site is on the SPLC and ADL lists.
Donations — and the ability to accept them online through PayPal and similar companies — are a lifeline for sites like Jihad Watch. In 2015, the nonprofit website disclosed that three quarters of its roughly $100,000 in revenues came from donations, according to publicly available tax records.
In recent weeks, PayPal has been working to shut down donations to extremist sites. This week, it pulled the plug on VDARE.com, an anti-immigration website designated as “white nationalist” by the SPLC and as a hate site by the ADL. VDARE, which denies being white nationalist, immediately switched to its backup system, Stripe.
Stripe, a private company recently described by Bloomberg Businessweek as a $9 billion startup, is unusual in not having a policy against working with hate sites. It does, however, prohibit financial transactions that support drugs, pornography and “psychic services.” Stripe provided donation links for 10 sites, second only to PayPal on our list. Stripe did not respond to a request for comment.
VDARE editor Peter Brimelow declared on his site that the PayPal shutdown was likely part of a purge by the “authoritarian Communist Left to punish anyone who disagrees with their anti-American violence against patriotic people.” He urged his readers to donate through other channels such as Bitcoins. “We need your help desperately,” he wrote. “We must have the resources to defend ourselves and our people.”
In 2015, VDARE received nearly all of its revenue — $267,038 out of total $293,663 — from donations, according to publicly available tax return forms that the Internal Revenue Service requires nonprofits to disclose.
Brimelow did not respond to our questions, instead characterizing ProPublica as the “Totalitarian Left.”
Some sites also supplement their donations with revenue from online advertising. For instance, SonsofLibertyMedia.com, which is on the SPLC list, generated about 10 percent of its revenue — $37,828 — from advertising in 2015, according to its tax documents.
The site, which describes itself as promoting a “Judeo-Christian ethic,” and recently posted an article declaring that a black activist protesting Confederate statues needed “a serious beat down,” does not appear to attract advertisers directly.
Instead, Sons of Liberty benefits from a type of ad-piggybacking arrangement that is becoming more common in the tech industry. The website runs sponsored news articles from a company called Taboola, which shares ad revenues with it. Known for being at the forefront of “click-bait,” Taboola places links on websites to articles about celebrities and popular culture.
Taboola's policy prohibits working with sites that have “politically religious agendas” or use hate speech. “We strive to ensure the safety of our network but from time to time, unfortunately, mistakes can happen,” said a Taboola spokeswoman. “We will ask our Content Policy group to review this site again and take action if needed.”
Sons of Liberty founder Bradlee Dean said that he forwarded our questions to his attorney. The lawyer did not respond.
Hate sites can initiate relationships with tech companies with little scrutiny.
Any website can fill out an online form asking to join, for instance, Amazon's network, and often can get approved instantly. Once a website has joined a tech network, it can quickly start earning money through advertising, donations, or content farms such as Taboola that share ad revenues with websites that distribute their articles.
Some companies, such as Newsmax, say that joining their ad network requires explicit prior approval.
But, according to a former Newsmax employee, the only criterion for this approval was whether traffic to the site reached a minimum threshold. There was no content review. Salespeople were told to be aggressive in signing up publishing partners.
“We'd put our news feed on anybody's page, anyone who was willing to listen,” he said, “it's about email addresses, it's about marketing, they don't care about ultra conservative or left wing.”
Dylan Roof frequented a website described by the SPLC as “white nationalist.” He said in a manifesto posted online that finding the website was a turning point in his life. He went on to murder nine African-American churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015. That year, USA Today found Newsmax ads on the site.
SUMMARY: Chief strategist Steve Bannon ended his tenure at the White House Friday, yet another departure in a string of top staff firings. Bannon has been credited with helping President Trump win the 2016 election and has played a controversial role in the administration. Hari Sreenivasan discusses the ouster with Washington Week's Robert Costa.
SUMMARY: It was another turbulent week at the White House, featuring the departure of President Trump's senior strategist Steve Bannon, who promised to wage "war" at figures inside the White House and Republicans from his Breitbart website, and the collapse of several advisory panels. PBS NewsHour Special Correspondent Jeff Greenfield joins Hari Sreenivasan from New York to put the chaos in context.
IMO: These 'people' (using the term very loosely) are American traitors.
Excerpt
SUMMARY: The national fallout continues after three people died and multiple people were injured in the chaos of a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Saturday. The NewsHour's PJ Tobia and Mark Scialla join Hari Sreenivasan to discuss why many see the rally as a turning point, as well as to offer a look at the “Antifa” counter-protesters.
SUMMARY: Hari Sreenivasan takes a deep look at the nation's divide following Saturday's deadly incident during a white nationalist rally held in Charlottesville, Virginia, as well as what the Trump administration needs to do with Vanita Gupta of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, and George Selim, a former Department of Homeland Security official.
SUMMARY: The violent events in Charlottesville, where white supremacist groups came out of the shadows, seem to have brought rising American tensions over race and racism to a head. Hari Sreenivasan gets perspectives from Leonard Pitts Jr. of The Miami Herald, Carol Anderson of Emory University, and Mark Potok a former senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center.
SUMMARY: As politicians and influential business leaders weigh in on President Trump's comments on Charlottesville, how is the American public responding? Political correspondent Lisa Desjardins joins Hari Sreenivasan to discuss a new PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll about the clashes and the President's comments, how lawmakers of his own party are speaking out, plus Confederate statues at the Capitol.
The white supremacist forces arrayed in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend — the largest gathering of its sort in at least a generation — represented a new incarnation of the white supremacy movement. Old-guard groups like the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Nations and the Nazi skinheads, which had long stood at the center of racist politics in America, were largely absent.
Instead, the ranks of the young men who drove to Charlottesville with clubs, shields, pepper spray and guns, included many college-educated people who have left the political mainstream in favor of extremist ideologies over the past few years. A large number have adopted a very clean cut, frat-boyish look designed to appeal to the average white guy in a way that KKK robes or skinhead regalia never could. Interviews show that at least some of these leaders have spent time in the U.S. armed forces.
Many belong to new organizations like Vanguard America, Identity Evropa, the Traditionalist Workers Party and True Cascadia, which have seen their numbers expand dramatically in the past year. Most of these groups view themselves as part of a broader “alt-right” movement that represents the extreme edge of right-wing politics in the U.S.
These organizations exhibited unprecedented organization and tactical savvy. Hundreds of racist activists converged on a park on Friday night, striding through the darkness in groups of five to 20 people. A handful of leaders with headsets and handheld radios gave orders as a pickup truck full of torches pulled up nearby. Within minutes, their numbers had swelled well into the hundreds. They quickly and efficiently formed a lengthy procession and begun marching, torches alight, through the campus of the University of Virginia.
Despite intense interest from the media, police and local anti-racists, the white supremacists kept the location of their intimidating nighttime march secret until the last moment.
The next day, the far-right forces — likely numbering between 1,000 and 1,500 — marched to Emancipation Park. Once again, they arrived in small blocs under military-style command. The racist groups were at least as organized and disciplined as the police, who appeared to have no clear plan for what to do when the violence escalated. The racist groups stood their ground at the park and were not dislodged for many hours.
For many of them, this will be seen as victory. “Every rally we're going to be more organized, we're going to have more people, and it's going to be harder and harder for them to shut us down,” said a spokesman for Vanguard America, a fascist group, who gave his name as “Thomas.” “White people are pretty good at getting organized.”
And though police arrested James Fields Jr., a 20-year-old Ohio man, for allegedly driving a Dodge Charger into a crowd of anti-racist protesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and wounding many others, the white supremacists generally avoided arrests.
They also outmaneuvered their anti-racist opponents. On Saturday, a multifaith group met at the historic First Baptist Church for a sunrise prayer ceremony featuring academic Cornel West and pastor Traci Blackmon. The anti-racists, many of them clergy members, walked quietly to Emancipation Park, where they were vastly outnumbered by the white supremacists.
Later, a band of more aggressive counter-protesters showed up at the park, chanting “Appalachia coming at ya. Nazi punks we're gonna smash ya!” These militant “antifa,” or antifascists, were also repelled by the white supremacists.
Given the scale of the protests, the far-right groups suffered few injuries. That was particularly notable given the fact that multiple people near the protests were armed. Throughout the weekend, right-wing and left-wing militias equipped with assault rifles, pistols, and body armor patrolled the streets of Charlottesville. (Virginia is an “open carry” state, so gun owners are legally allowed to tote around firearms.)
Many of the armed men viewed their role as maintaining a modicum of order. A “Three Percenter” militia out of New York state posted itself near Emancipation Park with the intention of keeping anti-racists from disrupting the rally. The group says it disapproves of racism but is dedicated to defending the free speech rights of all.
Blocks away, Redneck Revolt, a leftist militia from North Carolina, watched over the perimeter of a park where anti-racists had gathered, committed to preventing violent attacks by the white supremacist groups.
The presence of heavily armed citizens may have played a role in the decision of authorities to largely stay out of the violent skirmishes between the white supremacists and their opponents.
Those who actually marched included many new to the right-wing cause. The victory of Donald Trump in last year's presidential election has energized a whole wave of young people who were previously apathetic or apolitical, rally organizer Eli Mosley told ProPublica. The President has served as “megaphone” for far-right ideas, he said.
Mosley and his comrades are seeking to draw in as many of these newly politicized young people as possible. “We're winning,” he said. “We're targeting the youth and making a movement that appeals to the youth.”
Some of those who've gravitated to the extreme right milieu are former liberals — like Mosley's fellow rally organizer Jason Kessler — and supporters of Bernie Sanders. Many are ex-Libertarians.
“I was a libertarian,” said Mosley, as white supremacists chanted “Whose streets? Our streets!” in the background. “I looked around and noticed that most Libertarians were white men. I decided that the left was winning with identity politics, so I wanted to play identity politics too. I'm fascinated by leftist tactics, I read Saul Alinsky, Martin Luther King … This is our '60s movement.”
I am Retired U.S. Navy (22yrs) and a Vietnam Veteran. After my Navy retirement I was in the computer related industry, now retired. In 2000 I was a registered Republican and voted for George W. Bush. Six months of having Bush in the Whitehouse forced me to re-evaluate my political stance. I had always thought of myself as a Moderate Republican, but was a Republican by "default" NOT because of close examination of the GOP. Due to what has happened in America since 2000, I now consider myself a progressive, and registered as a Non-Affiliated voter.
*Anti-First Amendment policies that attempt to turn America into a theocracy by enshrining ANY religious belief as law.
* Any attempt to suppress human or Constitutional rights.
* Any law or policy that supports discrimination based on religion, ethnicity, race/color, gender, sexual orientation, or any law that does NOT support Equal Treatment under the law.
*Any law or policy that attempts to suppress Freedom of the Press or Free Speech.
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