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HARI SREENIVASAN, PBS NEWSHOUR WEEKEND ANCHOR: Sometime soon, you could have your face scan as you board an overseas flight. It’s already being tested at a handful of American airports with two airlines, Delta and JetBlue, directly participating. The Department of Homeland Security sees the system as a tool to catch immigrants overstaying their visas.

But as the program expands, it will take photos not just of foreigners but U.S. citizens as well. This raises security, accuracy and privacy questions.

Joining me now from Houston to discuss this is “Associated Press” reporter Frank Bajak.

Frank, first of all, just lay out this experiment or lay out how this is rolling out for us.

FRANK BAJAK, REPORTER, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS: Well, interestingly, it’s not really an experiment because the Department of Homeland Security says it intends to go ahead with this at all high volume airports beginning in 2018.

Now, this is a program that started out as applying only to what they call non-immigrant foreigners. And that’s 50 million people who visit the United States annually to make sure that they’re not overstaying visas and to keep better track of that. Congress has not explicitly approved this for U.S. citizens, but Customs and Border Protection, which is part of Homeland Security, says that they can only do this if they do it for everyone, including U.S. citizens.

SREENIVASAN: What happens to this information? Say I take my photo or the airlines take my photo or CBP gets my photo, where does it go?

BAJAK: First of all, every U.S. citizen now has in their passport a little chip that has the biometric information. It has their biographical information, where they live, et cetera, their birth date. And it’s got a photo which is encoded in that chip. It can use that information to compare it against say outstanding arrest warrants, basically if someone is wanted for a crime.

The government says it’s not going to retain this information. It’s not going to keep record of this information but the Border Patrol official I spoke to said that they’re not precluding that in the future, they could retain that information.

SREENIVASAN: What about the accuracy of these images, these image recognition. Let’s say you get caught in kind of a face scan trap and there’s a flag but it’s a case of mistaken identity.

BAJAK: Well, facial recognition technology is steadily improving over the years. And it’s now, the best of it, is at 90 percent to the 5 percent accuracy. However, the experts that I talked to said that there are apt to be mismatches.

If there is a mismatch, what can happen? First of all, it can cause travel delays if you’ve got — if you’re boarding an international flight with 500 passengers, you’re looking at up to 50 people who are going to get stopped and have to go through a manual check.

But the issue is also on that mismatch, what if I’ve got an identical twin who is a wanted fugitive. Well, is that going to flag me?

SREENIVASAN: I know in the past, there are some concerns that these algorithms aren’t very good at identifying or misidentifying women or people of color because of the samples that they use.

BAJAK: Indeed that’s true. In fact, there’s a researcher at MIT Media Lab who looked into this and who says there is a bias against people of color because of the selection in tests that’s been used. But I think that the bigger question that concerns the privacy experts is, it’s very easy to quickly now compare these two, the face prints of tens of thousands of people from other databases instantaneously and I think this is the worry.

SREENIVASAN: Frank Bajak from “The Associated Press” joining us from Houston today — thanks so much.

BAJAK: Thank you.

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HARI SREENIVASAN, PBS NEWSHOUR WEEKEND ANCHOR: One year ago today, our top story was the failed coup attempt in Turkey by renegade soldiers trying to topple President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Since his security forces stopped the coup, Erdogan has cracked down on perceived opponents with tens of thousands of civil servants losing their jobs or going to jail.

Today, his government fired 7,000 more, as Erdogan attended a national unity march in the capital of Ankara and unveiled a memorial to 250 Turks who died in the coup. In the past year, Erdogan officially expanded his executive powers in a referendum approved by a majority of voters.

Soner Cagaptay, from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, has written a new book called “The New Sultan: Erdogan and the Crisis of Modern Turkey.” He joins me now from Washington.

So, in this one year period, what’s happened to Turkey?

SONER CAGAPTAY, WASHINGTON INSTITUTE FOR NEAR EAST POLICY: Turkey has actually not become more democratic unfortunately, although the coup was presented. It has become more authoritarian and less democratic, and that is primarily because initially going after coup plotters, President Erdogan has then used the post-coup powers, state of emergency given to him to go after his other opponents. Turkey’s an extremely polarized place with half of the country adoring Erdogan and the other of the country that basically loathes him and Erdogan has targeted anyone in that drew group that loathes him that not only includes members of the Gulen movement where Erdogan believes is aligned with the coup effort but also liberals, leftists and Kurdish nationalists.

SREENIVASAN: Erdogan will say, listen, I’m in a rough neighborhood, there are people in parts of my country that want to split off and break off. I’ve had terrorist attack happening on my own soil. I need this power. I need to consolidate it. And his — that message has sunk in with his supporters.

CAGAPTAY: It has. And, of course, Erdogan has a bright side as well, that he has delivered economic growth, which is why the conservatives have been around him. But he also has a dark side which is that he has cracked down on opposition and eroded democratic checks and balances.

The problem is while half of the country loves him, the other half of the country that despises him will never fold under him. And the risk for Erdogan is that he knows as I explained in “The New Sultan”, he knows that he cannot continue governing Turkey the way he likes so long as it’s democratic, and that’s why it looks to me and other analysts that he’s taking steps to end democracy in Turkey. For example, he just said that state of emergency put in place after the coup will be extended indefinitely until there’s peace and welfare in Turkey. How do you measure peace and welfare? So, that means it’s basically permanent. And for the 40 million Turks who oppose him, that’s not acceptable.

So, I fear that if he ends democracy, there’s even a risk for that half that opposes him who will now think they cannot vote him out. That some elements of them, maybe youth elements of them might even radicalized. So, Turkey’s polarization could get even worse as a result of these policies.

SREENIVASAN: How much of Erdogan’s position is bolstered by the crucial nature of Turkey in the fighting in Syria or in the Middle East? I mean, it seems that there’s some pretty huge allies that are counting on Turkey’s support.

CAGAPTAY: I think Erdogan basically knows that the United States and NATO allies need Turkey to continue to fight ISIS, and he basically gets a hall pass in that regard. Despite his democratic transgressions, he’s still invited to summits and meetings. But there’s only so much Turkey can continue when this polarized environment, even though Erdogan might receive open arms from outside dignitaries because of the fact some of the opposition groups are violent and radical and in fact terrorists such as the Kurdish groups, PKK, and therefore going forward, he’s going to have a violent challenge coming from the right. And he has adversaries in the region, including Russia, whom he opposes in Syria, which has historic links to Kurdish group which could easily undermine moving forward.

SREENIVASAN: All right. Soner Cagaptay from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the author of the new book, “The New Sultan: Erdogan and the Crises of Modern Turkey” — thanks so much for joining us.

CAGAPTAY: Thank you. It’s a pleasure.

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NICK SCHIFRIN: This is the season of Russia’s discontent. Under President Vladimir Putin there’s been a tacit agreement that people enjoy their lives and stay out of politics. Now, many Russians are deciding that bargain’s no longer worth it.

ALEXEY KOTOREV: Until recently, people were thinking politics were somewhere far away. But now people understand politics hits close to home.


NICK SCHIFRIN: 38-year-old Alexey Kotorov and his neighbors had considered themselves apolitical. But they launched these protests when the City of Moscow planned to evict them from their apartments to knock them down and build high rises. As always, police presence was strong. But some Russians’ fear of their state seems to be fading, and faith in themselves, rising.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Do you think you can make a difference?

ALEXEY KOTOREV: We can change things if we stay together. We need to stay active. It’s very important right now to recreate civil society. For the last five years, civil society has almost disappeared.

NICK SCHIFRIN: In the 1960s, the former Soviet Union built Kotorev’s apartment complex as inexpensive housing…

NICK SCHIFRIN: So this is your home?

ALEXEY KOTOREV: This is my home.

NICK SCHIFRIN:…for people like him to have their own space. Inside, it’s nice…with a view of the Moscow River. Kotorev accuses local officials of wanting to seize valuable land to get rich.

ALEXEY KOTOREV: Now’s a very important moment. The people are starting to unite to show the government their point of view.

NICK SCHIFRIN: The man most responsible for creating that unity is Alexei Navalny. The 41-year-old lawyer is the country’s most prominent opposition politician…on a crusade against corruption. He calls the ruling United Russia Party, “the party of crooks and thieves.” In March, he posted an hour-long YouTube expose about mansions, yachts, and land that he says were corruptly acquired by Putin’s Prime Minister, Dmitry Medvedev.

ALEXEI NAVALNY: Medvedev can steal so much and so openly because Putin does the same, but on a greater scale. The system is so rotten, there’s nothing healthy left.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Navalny’s been fighting Putin for six years. In 2011, he sparked massive protests ahead of a parliamentary election he called rigged.

ALEXEI NAVALNY: It’s very simple: Power to the people.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Two years later, he ran unsuccessfully for Moscow mayor against the Putin-backed incumbent. Today, by using YouTube Navalny circumvents state-run media and maintains a huge following. This video has 23 million views.

ALEXEI NAVALNY: This is our country, and these swindlers are stealing our money. Everyone should fight however he can.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Tens of thousands of people answered his call. On March 26 and June 12, Russians launched the largest unsanctioned protests in a quarter century. They were held in 185 cities. Nearly all the protesters were young and motivated to speak out by corruption. “Putin’s a thief,” they chanted. “Police, join the people,” they say. “Don’t serve the government of monsters.” Police declined their invitation…and arrested 17-hundred protesters across the country, including Navalny. He was sentenced to 25 days in jail for organizing an unsanctioned rally. He was also arrested and jailed in March. And back in 2014, he was convicted of a felony — defrauding clients of a shipping company he helped his brother, Oleg, start. Oleg remains in prison. Alexei calls his brother a hostage, and the charges fabricated. But his conviction means, legally, he can’t run for office. That hasn’t stopped him from campaigning for next year’s presidential election.

ALEXEI NAVALNY: We do not owe the government anything. It is the government who owes us. They build an authoritarian regime that doesn’t give anything back.

NICK SCHIFRIN: His rallies are unusual in a country where retail campaigning is almost unheard of. The crowds are young and he talks like them.

ALEXEI NAVALNY: They think we have no right to ask questions, that we have to shut up and listen. They tell us, [BLEEP] you and we have to say, oh, ok, we’re very sorry. But no, we have gathered here to say we’re going to ask these questions and we’ll obtain the answers.

KIRIL KOZLOVSKY: His anti-corruption message resonates with me. And I think that he’s a very charismatic politician.

NICK SCHIFRIN: 23-year-old Kiril Kozlovsky — and anyone in the crowd who wanted one — got a photo with Navalny. Kozlovksy promptly posted it to his profile on VK, Russia’s equivalent of Facebook. Koslovsky acknowledges that Putin has brought relative prosperity to Russia. He’s not even old enough to remember the political and economic chaos that Putin helped end when he came to power in 1999.

NICK SCHIFRIN: What would you say to your parents or grandparents who say, “Look, things were a lot worse for us before President Putin?”

KIRIL KOZLOVSKY: In the 18 years that have passed he and his team could have done a lot more to help the situation, a lot more to make it better. And he didn’t. So, he’s to blame for this.

NICK SCHIFRIN: In Cheboksary, 375 miles east of Moscow, the local government made sure no one in the city center would rent space to the Navalny campaign, so his gatherings often take place on the edge of towns, like this apartment complex. Semyon Kochkin is the local campaign manager.

SEMYON KOCHKIN: We were rejected by all the landlords, by all the hotels, even the international hotels. Even construction fields rejected us.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Kochkin says he’s been targeted personally. Last year on VK, he posted a clip from comedian John Oliver’s HBO program, “Last Week Tonight.”

JOHN OLIVER: “Scamming ISIS is the best thing anyone did on Earth this week!”

NICK SCHIFRIN: The video shows banned ISIS symbols, and Kochkin was arrested for extremism. He took a selfie in the back of a police car. He accuses the government of exploiting anti-terrorism laws to silence Navalny’s campaign.

SEMYON KOCHKIN: We are constantly fighting with the authorities, and it’s always one-sided. Because when it comes to election season, they make it impossible.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Local police also arrested 35-year-old Andrei Usipov. He’s the local orchestra’s first violin. On March 26 he joined the Navalny protest. And a week later, police interrupted a rehearsal to take him to jail. I asked him if he thought he’d be arrested for protesting if Navalny were President.

ANDREI USIPOV: I am absolutely certain this would not happen, because under Alexei Navalny, the country will be more open. Alexei is for transparency, and only with transparency can we overpower corruption.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Arrests are only one way the Russian establishment pushes back. State TV portrays Navalny’s protests as an existential threat to Russia’s stability. Listen to what the country’s most popular anchor said last month:

DMITRY KISELYOV: They use people to provoke the crowd and make the situation spiral out of control, achieving chaos. First in one square in one city, and then they plunge the entire country into poverty and—I’m afraid to say—civil war.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Government-run high schools force students to watch a video comparing Navalny to Hitler…accusing him of being a fascist and trying to undermine the state. But for the first time in a generation, young people are rejecting the government’s talking points. In a classroom 2000 miles from Moscow, students posted a video of themselves challenging a government-funded school teacher, who called Navalny’s supporters freaks, and defended corruption.

LECTURER: If there is no corruption in a state, it means that nobody needs this state.

STUDENT: So you mean you like it when they steal from you?

LECTURER: So? People steal everywhere.

STUDENT: But it is not normal.

LECTURER: Every student should mind his own business.

STUDENT: And a lecturer should mind his own business.

NICK SCHIFRIN: The pressure on Navalny himself is sometimes physical. Last year, members of the pro-government Cossacks doused Navalny with milk…and beat up his staff. In April, a state TV channel showed an assailant after he sprayed Navalny with green dye and chemicals. Navalny’s right eye needed surgery. Navalny accused the Kremlin of organizing the attack.

ALEXEI NAVALNY: Even if I look like this, does that mean that we will accept money’s been stolen and used to buy yachts? I don’t think so.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Navalny’s poll numbers remain low, but he’s changing public opinion. 2/3rds of Russians now identify corruption as the country’s number one problem. President Putin avoids responding to Navalny substantively. But the Navalny effect means at a town hall in Moscow, where questions are usually screened in advance, this teenager dared to ask Putin about corrupt officials undermining the public’s faith in government.

DANILA PRILEPA: How are you planning to solve this problem?

NICK SCHIFRIN: Putin responded:

VLADIMIR PUTIN: You read your question. Did you prepare it yourself, or did someone put you up to it?

DANILA PRILEPA: Life prepared me for this question.

NICK SCHIFRIN: While he’s inspired the younger generation…some fellow Putin opponents criticize Navalny for being a nativist. Six years ago, he released videos comparing immigrants who work in Russia to cockroaches. Navalny stands by the videos and says he wants to appeal to nationalists. Which is why he rarely criticizes Putin’s muscular and popular foreign policy in Ukraine and Syria. Navalny turns down interview requests — including ours — and tries to keep the focus on corruption.

NICK SCHIFRIN: You save your harshest criticism of the President for his domestic policy, obviously not his foreign policy. In fact you don’t talk very much about his foreign policy. Is that because you agree with most of it?

ALEXEI NAVALNY: I don’t talk a lot about foreign policy, because here everyone is interested in wages, income, and bad roads.

NICK SCHIFRIN: He tries to feed populism to an audience that’s hungry. He highlights government corruption to people who feel they have nothing to lose. And he’s trying to convince a generation — and perhaps the country — that politics requires participation.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: The week is ending the way it began, with new disclosures about the president’s son and his meeting with a Russian lawyer.

It turns out at least one more person was at that session than previously known.

John Yang begins our coverage.

JOHN YANG: President Trump returned from his quick Paris trip to face new questions about whether his campaign sought damaging information on Hillary Clinton from the Russian government.

Among the uncertainties? How many people were at the June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower? Today, a new name emerged, Rinat Akhmetshin, a Russian-born Washington lobbyist and Soviet army veteran. He met with Donald Trump Jr., Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, campaign chairman Paul Manafort, Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, music promoter Rob Goldstone, an acquaintance of the younger Trump who helped set up the session, and an interpreter.

Donald Trump Jr. had not disclosed the additional people.

SEAN HANNITY, Host, “Hannity”: So, as far as you know, as far as this incident is concerned, this is all of it?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP JR., Son of Donald Trump: This is everything. This is everything.

JOHN YANG: It’s also not clear just when President Trump was told of the meeting. This week, he told Reuters that he had only learned of it just two or three days before that.

But aboard Air Force One on his way to Paris, the told reporters, in fact, maybe it was mentioned at some point.

Kushner has revised his security clearance disclosure form at least three times to add as many of 100 more foreign contacts. That’s drawing the ire of Democrats like House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

REP. NANCY PELOSI, D-Calif., Minority Leader: I also called for the revoking of the security clearance of Jared Kushner. It’s absolutely ridiculous that he should have that clearance.

JOHN YANG: And Mr. Trump is adding to his legal team. Washington attorney Ty Cobb becomes special counsel to the president and will oversee the legal and media response to the Russia investigation.

For the PBS NewsHour, I’m John Yang.

JUDY WOODRUFF: For more, we’re now joined by Julie Pace. She’s the Washington bureau chief for the Associated Press, and she took part in a phone conversation with Rinat Akhmetshin earlier today.

Julie, thank you very much for talking with us.

So, Julie, what is known about Rinat Akhmetshin?

JULIE PACE, Associated Press: Well, Rinat is a person who is actually fairly well-known in Washington.

He’s a lobbyist who has worked on issues with ties to Russia, a bit of a character, a bit of a fixer on these types of issues, not this sort of backroom, shady character who doesn’t have a profile.

If you work in these circles in Washington, he’s probably someone that you have run in to. He’s been on Capitol Hill before. But, despite that, it is certainly unique that he would end up in a conference room at Trump Tower in the middle of a presidential campaign.

JUDY WOODRUFF: I heard the word fixer associated with his name.

Why is his name surfacing only now? We learned about this meeting days ago.

JULIE PACE: That is the perfect question on this, why now? Why is it that we have had so many different explanations about the purpose of this meeting and the participants of this meeting?

It’s kind of baffling if you’re thinking about this from a political strategy. This is sort of politics 101, that if you are in a crisis, if there is something controversial that’s happened, it’s best to get all of the information out. Take the hit in one lump, as opposed to dripping that out, in this case, over the course of a week.

So, there has been no explanation as to why we’re just finding out that he was a participant, other than the fact that he was willing to get on the phone with us today and disclose this information and talk to us at some length.

JUDY WOODRUFF: But it sounds like now he is talking to the press. Is there anything more to be learned about this meeting than what’s already said?

JULIE PACE: I think there is.

The big thing that all of the participants have said is that in the end, nothing came out of this meeting. One of the things that Rinat told us today, though, is that the Russian lawyer who was in the meeting actually showed up with some documents in hand, and they were in a plastic folder.

He professed to not know the content of those documents. I think that that’s one question that we need to answer. What were those documents, who were they specifically given to, who took them out of the room?

But, more broadly, I think that it’s worth pressing participants in this meeting about whether anything did come out of this. Given the fact that the explanations have changed so much, I really don’t think we should be taking explanations on face value at this point.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, Julie, there’s also this question now — and we heard it mentioned in the report — when President Trump himself learned about the meeting. Initially, it was that he had just learned about it a few days ago, but then I guess he said something different in that conversation with reporters.

JULIE PACE: I think this is — again, timelines keep shifting when it comes to this meeting.

What the president initially said is that he only knew about it two or three days before. One of the reasons why there are so many questions about this, though, is that Jared Kushner and his advisers said that this is something that they discovered and put on a disclosure form a few weeks ago.

So, this was known to people in the White House prior to this past weekend, when the reporting started to come out. And given the closeness of the president to his family, and given the fact that the Russian investigations and every little detail about these investigations is so critical right now, it is hard to imagine that this is something that would be kept from the president for so long.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, finally, Julie, you mentioned Jared Kushner.

There have been a number of stories this week about turmoil, ongoing turmoil inside the White House, fingers pointing in different directions, and some of the White House staffing being upset with Jared Kushner. What is that about?

JULIE PACE: Well, this has become a bit of pattern for this White House. When something goes wrong, you start having people turn on each other. The finger-pointing gets pretty intense.

And, in this case, you have a situation where you have someone like Jared Kushner, who is a senior adviser to the president, but operates in pretty rarefied territory because he’s also family. He is the one person whose name has come up in relation to the Russia investigations who is currently sitting in the West Wing.

And for some of the folks who are in there right now, the fact that he is in that situation and still remains a protected adviser, it’s pretty irritating to them. And they worry about their interactions with him.

Whenever you have a special counsel investigation that revolves around the White House, you have staffers that have to get lawyers, staffers that are pretty — staffers that are fairly well-paid having to get pretty expensive lawyers.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Right.

JULIE PACE: This is not a comfortable situation for anybody in there.

And Jared Kushner, given his relationship and his position in the West Wing, is taking a lot of the heat internally.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Meantime, we have seen some Democrats on Capitol Hill, some of them saying he should step down, others saying he should have his security clearance taken away.

Julie Pace with the Associated Press, we thank you.

JULIE PACE: Thank you, Judy.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: And in the day’s other news: The U.S. military announced the death of Abu Sayed, head of the Islamic State group in Afghanistan.

It happened Tuesday in a drone strike on ISIS headquarters in Kunar Province in Northeastern Afghanistan. A Pentagon statement says that several other militants were killed as well.

At least seven people died today in Egypt in a pair of attacks that bore the hallmarks of Islamist militants. Five policemen were killed in a shooting south of Cairo near some of the country’s famed pyramids. Later, two German tourists were stabbed to death and four others wounded at a Red Sea resort hotel.

In Jerusalem, Arab attackers struck at Israeli police today in one of the holiest sites of both Islam and Judaism. Three gunmen killed two police officers before being shot dead themselves.

Chief foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Warner has the story.

MARGARET WARNER: A security camera captured the opening of the assault, gunmen coming from behind to attack two Israeli officers, then, a running gun battle, seen on cell phone video. Police gave chase, and one attacker jumped up and lunged at an officer before being shot himself.

MICKY ROSENFELD, Israeli Police Spokesperson: We can confirm that there was a terrorist attack that took place. Three terrorists used an automatic weapon and a knife in and around in the area.

MARGARET WARNER: All this at the holiest site in Jerusalem, the Temple Mount to Jews, the Noble Sanctuary to Muslims.

The ancient complex includes the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the Western Wall surrounding part of it.

All three assailants were identified as Arab citizens of Israel. Relatives say they were devout Muslims who frequented the area often.

Israel police quickly closed the site, a move rarely taken since the Six-Day War in 1967, when the Israelis captured East Jerusalem and its Old City from Jordan. Previous closures have provoked rioting by Palestinians.

Today, Muslims had to pray outside the shrine after the closure canceled noon prayers at Al-Aqsa. The grand mufti of Jerusalem had called for Palestinians to defy the closure.

MOHAMMAD HUSSIEN, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem (through interpreter): We have to enter the mosque to attend the Friday prayers. Al-Aqsa Mosque is our mosque, so it is not allowed, under any circumstances, to be prevented from reaching the mosque.

MARGARET WARNER: Israeli police detained the Mufti for several hours.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas telephoned Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to condemn the attack. But he also called for reopening the holy site. Seeking to ease tensions, Netanyahu quickly issued a statement that the status quo on access to the site will be preserved.

But the leader of the militant Islamic Jihad movement in Gaza City welcomed the attack.

KHALED AL-BATSH, Leader of the Islamic Jihad Movement (through interpreter): Jerusalem is an Arab and Islamic land, so when the Zionist enemy seeks to turn it into a Jewish temple, one of our people will come out and stand in the face of this plan and confront it as it happened today.

MARGARET WARNER: In the end, Israelis and Palestinians were left to bury their dead amid fears that the attack is a harbinger of more violence to come.

For the PBS NewsHour, I’m Margaret Warner.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Back in this country, the U.S. Justice Department says that it will appeal directly to the Supreme Court, after a federal judge dealt another blow to President Trump’s travel ban. The judge in Hawaii ruled last night. He said the list of bona fide relationships that allow entry to the U.S. must include grandparents, among others.

A federal appeals court ruled today that county commissioners in North Carolina violated the Constitution by starting meetings with Christian prayers. The Fourth Circuit case is also likely headed for the Supreme Court. The ruling says prayers at public meetings are not inherently unconstitutional. But, in this case, no prayers from other faiths were permitted.

President Trump today pushed Senate Republicans today to approve a revamped health care bill. In a tweet, he said — quote — “Republican senators must come through as they have promised.”

Already, Rand Paul and Susan Collins have said that they will vote no. That means GOP leaders cannot afford to lose another vote.

The president spent much of his day taking part in France’s celebration of independence. This year, Bastille Day coincided with the 100th anniversary of America’s entry into World War I. Mr. Trump joined President Emmanuel Macron at a military parade in Paris, complete with a flyover.

Macron thanked the U.S. for its role in what the French commonly call the great war.

PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON, France (through interpreter): We have also found sure allies, friends who have come to our aid. The United States of America is one of them. That is why nothing will ever separate us. The presence today of the American president by my side, Mr. Donald Trump, and his wife is a sign of friendship which has endured time.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Macron later traveled to Nice, France, to mark one year since a terror attack there killed 86 people.

Former President Jimmy Carter is back building houses, after being released from a hospital in Canada. He became dehydrated yesterday while working on a project for Habitat for Humanity. Today, he returned to the work site in Winnipeg, Manitoba, smiling and wearing work clothes. Mr. Carter is 92 years old.

And on Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average gained 84 points to close at 21637, a new record. The Nasdaq rose 38 points. And the S&P 500 added 11, also reaching a new record high. For the week, the Dow and the S&P were up 1 percent. The Nasdaq gained 2.6 percent.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: Now we continue our series Inside Putin’s Russia.

There may be no more consequential relationship for the United States than with Russia. Both nations possess world-ending capacity, and may be at the most critical moment since the end of the Cold War.

Tonight, we explore the bilateral relationship, the tension and how Russians see the United States.

Again in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, special correspondent Nick Schifrin and producer Zach Fannin start their report in Moscow on Victory Day.

NICK SCHIFRIN: On Russia’s most patriotic holiday, Russians of all ages remember what they consider their finest moment. They mark the anniversary of victory in World War II by honoring the dead.

Kiriginov Naimovich’s grandfather fought the Nazis. He says Russia and the U.S. were once allies, and should be again.

KIRIGINOV NAIMOVICH, Moscow Resident (through interpreter): We really want to love you and be friends with you. We are waiting for you to finally meet us halfway.

NICK SCHIFRIN: For Russians, it’s the U.S. who’s unwilling to come halfway. Many here believe President Trump wants to improve things, but is being blocked by what Dimitry Schyukin calls the American establishment.

DIMITRY SCHYUKIN, Moscow Resident (through interpreter): Trump wants to do something, but he’s forced to follow the general political line.

ALEXANDER DUGIN, TV Host: Donald Trump is the most right-wing candidate of the Republican Party.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Perhaps nobody expressed more hope in Trump than Alexander Dugin, a right-wing TV firebrand and philosopher who’s helped inspire the Kremlin’s ideology.

ALEXANDER DUGIN: Really, we supported Trumpism. We supported agenda.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Dugin says the Kremlin saw Trump as a kindred spirit who vowed not to meddle internationally.

ALEXANDER DUGIN: We supported this choice of anti-establishment conservative American revolution.

NICK SCHIFRIN: That changed when President Trump ordered a missile strike on Russia ally Syria, and said he felt must respond to a chemical weapons attack.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: As long as America stands for justice, then peace and harmony will in the end prevail.

ALEXANDER DUGIN: We trusted not in Trump as pro-Russian figure. We trusted in Trump realist. And we are disappointed.

NICK SCHIFRIN: The disappointment and tensions have been growing. Last month, over the Baltic Sea, a Russian jet flew within five feet of a U.S. Air Force reconnaissance plane. That same week, a NATO jet shadowed the Russian defense minister’s plane and a Russian jet came up and rocked its wings to demonstrate it was armed.

Last year, the Obama administration accused Russia of hacking the election, and then seized Russian properties and increased sanctions. All of that has led to Russian frustration.

Maria Zakharova is the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman.

MARIA ZAKHAROVA, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman: We were trying to establish normal relationship, normal. Do you know this word, normal relationship? What is wrong with this?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: President Putin and I have been discussing various things, and I think it’s going very well.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Last week, the U.S. took steps toward normalization. Presidents Trump and Putin announced a deal on Syria. Both presidents called their meeting the first step to warming the relationship.

PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN, Russia (through interpreter): If we develop our relations in the same way, there is every reason to believe that we would be able to at least partially restore the level of interaction that we need.

NICK SCHIFRIN: The president echoed that hope. On Sunday, he tweeted he wouldn’t dwell on 2016 hacking, and wrote, “Now was the time to move forward in working constructively with Russia.”

This is not the language other Trump administration officials use about Russia on Syria.

NIKKI HALEY, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations: How many more children have to die before Russia cares?

NICK SCHIFRIN: On Ukraine.

REX TILLERSON, U.S. Secretary of State: We do call on Russia to exercise influence over the separatists in the region, whom they do hold complete control over.

NICK SCHIFRIN: And on Putin personally.

MIKE POMPEO, CIA Director: This is a man for whom veracity doesn’t translate into English.

NICK SCHIFRIN: The one senior administration official who’s declined to echo that criticism is Donald Trump, as candidate and president.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Wouldn’t it be a great thing if we could actually get along with Russia? Wouldn’t that be a good thing?

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I respect Putin. He is a strong leader, I can tell you that, unlike what we have. We have a pathetic leader.

QUESTION: Putin is a killer.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: There are a lot of killers. We have a lot of killers. What, you think our country is so innocent?

NICK SCHIFRIN: And last week in Warsaw, President Trump once again questioned the U.S. intelligence community’s unanimous assessment that Russia hacked the 2016 election.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I think it was Russia. But I think it was probably other people and/or countries, and I see nothing wrong with that statement. Nobody really knows.

SEN. MARK WARNER, D-Va.: At the very least, giving the president all the benefit of the doubt, this is very bizarre behavior.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Democratic Senator Mark Warner is the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

SEN. MARK WARNER: We are seeking to determine if there is an actual fire, but there’s clearly a lot of smoke.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Warner is helping lead the Senate’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and whether President Trump or his campaign colluded with Russia’s attempts to sway the election. We first interviewed him three weeks ago.

SEN. MARK WARNER: It is very strange that any presidential candidate, and in particular a Republican presidential candidate, would parrot so much of the Russian line.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Republican Senator James Lankford is also on the Intelligence Committee.

In some ways, has President Trump aligned himself with the ideals expressed by Russia?

SEN. JAMES LANKFORD, R-Okla.: Yes, he’s pushing out some messages that are consistent with the Kremlin policies. And I would tell you, at every opportunity that I have, I try to articulate very clearly there’s no question that the Russians were trying to hack into our elections, and there’s no question that we should have a strong NATO and that the United States should be a part of that NATO alliance.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Do you believe that he’s not echoing that because the Russians have compromising material on him?

SEN. MARK WARNER: I don’t know. I hope not. But the goal of this investigation is to not only reconfirm Russian intervention and explain that to the American public, but to also see if there were any contacts between the Trump campaign and the Russians.

NICK SCHIFRIN: And just this week, we learned that, last June, Donald Trump Jr. met with lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya and lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin, both believed to have ties to the Russian government.

I spoke to Senator Warner again last night.

SEN. MARK WARNER: This indication that they were willing to accept this information from Russians and it was part of an overall Russian government effort to help Trump and to hurt Clinton, I think this is the first time the American public has seen that in black and white.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Much of this town has been worried about Trump and Russia since he became president. Current administration officials tell NewsHour the White House drafted an executive order that would have lifted sanctions imposed on Russia over Ukraine.

Senior administration officials and the intelligence community successfully lobbied against it. And, this spring, senators passed a bill that would restrict the president’s ability to lift those sanctions. The bill’s not yet a law, but it was designed to be a nearly unanimous message to the president and to Putin.

SEN. JAMES LANKFORD: We believe strongly that what Russia continues to do to be able to threaten Ukraine, threaten its neighbors, threaten NATO, to continue to pry into not only our elections, but other elections, is destabilizing, and it demands a response.

They have yet to have a consequence to what they did in the election time. And they should.

NICK SCHIFRIN: In some ways, the president has fallen in line. On Sunday, he tweeted he wouldn’t lift sanctions on Russia over Ukraine until Ukrainian and Syrian problems are solved. And last week, he also endorsed Article 5, NATO’s collective defense.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: The United States has demonstrated not merely with words, but with its actions, that we stand firmly behind Article 5, the mutual defense commitment.

NICK SCHIFRIN: That convinces many in Moscow that the U.S. establishment is making sure the U.S. remains anti-Russian.

Dmitri Trenin is a former Soviet army colonel who directs the Carnegie Center in Moscow.

DMITRI TRENIN, Carnegie Center Moscow: The United States has been, remains, and will be the power that defines common Western, i.e., U.S.-driven, foreign, defense and security policy.

NICK SCHIFRIN: And given that, Trenin says the U.S. remains Russia’s main adversary. And Russia is simply targeting the U.S. with whatever tool it can.

DMITRI TRENIN: I’m sure that the Russians have been looking at things, have been hacking things, have been using the material that they have hacked. Why are you surprised that you are being hacked? This is a method of espionage. This is what you do. If you can do it, do it. If you can protect against that, protect against it, but don’t whine.

NICK SCHIFRIN: But it goes one step further. Many in Russia look at Washington’s turbulence and see a U.S. they’d considered strong and unified suddenly weakened. And they’re exploiting that weakness in the U.S. foundation.

ALEXANDER DUGIN: It is not so coherent. It is not so stable. And it is vulnerable, I would say. And we seen that. We have seen what we needed to see, vulnerability of American society.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And Nick now joins me in our studio.

So, Nick, that sounds pretty foreboding.

NICK SCHIFRIN: I think it should sound foreboding, because it is.

I think usual Russians really do see a vulnerability in the U.S. They see a lack of unity. And when talking frankly to people who actually know what they’re talking about in Russia, it’s not so much denial that they did it. It is that we did it in the United States last year, and we will keep doing it.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, from talking to them, is there any doubt that they are going to keep on doing it?

NICK SCHIFRIN: No, I don’t think so, mostly because they don’t feel like they paid a price.

The Russian government doesn’t feel like the United States government really penalized them for what happened last year. And, frankly, a lot of American officials here in Washington agree with that. They fault the Obama administration and the Trump administration for simply not following through on some of the things that they feel like Russia should have paid for what they did last year.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Now, you and I talked a little bit about this. You talked to so many experts. Is there hope? Is there a glimmer of a belief anywhere that this can be repaired?

NICK SCHIFRIN: There are analysts in Moscow who think the only thing we can hope is that we avoid war. I mean, there are some people who are that dire right now.

I think the people who are trying to make it better and hope it can make it better are doing what basically President Trump and Putin did earlier in that story we showed, trying to find a lowest common denominator, if you will, trying to find a corner of Syria, for example, where they can work together and use that very small deal to expand perhaps into greater Syria, to expand into a kind of warming of the relationship.

And certainly the people who understand that this relationship has to get better, that’s what they’re trying to do.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, looking for places to make that happen.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Absolutely.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Nick Schifrin, thank you.

It is a remarkable series. Thank you very much.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Thanks very much.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And you call watch all of Nick’s reports from this week’s series on our Web site. That’s pbs.org/newshour.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: The Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo died yesterday in China of liver cancer after years behind bars for his efforts to democratize his homeland.

Liu’s work and his plight brought him global attention, work that enraged the Chinese government. His death brought an outpouring of tributes.

William Brangham has this look at Liu Xiaobo’s life and legacy.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: From Hong Kong to Sydney and around the world, there have been vigils overnight and today.

John Kamm runs a human rights organization based in San Francisco that advocates for political prisoners in China.

JOHN KAMM, The Dui Hua Foundation: A great loss for China. Someone who was committed to nonviolent change is gone. And it’s a great loss for the world.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: He’d been released from prison on medical leave only a few weeks earlier, but supporters say he was denied proper care.

WU’ER KAIXI, Chinese Dissident: The Chinese government brutally killed my teacher and one of the most genuine and conscientious Chinese in the world. I would like to ask the world, world leaders and people around the world, which side are you on?

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: President Trump praised Liu in a statement yesterday, calling him a poet, scholar, and courageous advocate.

China’s government flatly denies Liu was mistreated, and, today, a spokesman condemned the international criticisms.

GENG SHUANG, Foreign Ministry Spokesman, China (through interpreter): Those statements are interference to China’s judicial sovereignty and domestic affairs. Liu Xiaobo is a criminal who was put on trial by China’s laws.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: For decades, Liu was one of the Chinese government’s most outspoken critics. He rose to prominence during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, returning from the U.S. to support the original student demonstrators.

After troops opened fire killing hundreds, perhaps thousands, Liu helped negotiate safe passage for the survivors. He remained in China despite detention and constant surveillance and continued his political advocacy.

In 2008, he helped author Charter 08, a manifesto demanding political and civil reform, and he was sentenced to 11 years in prison for subversion.

JOHN KAMM: Ten thousand people signed that petition. He is the only one to have been sentenced to prison. So, I think he sacrificed there, too.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: But the case gained international attention, and, in 2010, over China’s vehement objections, Liu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Stuck in prison, Liu was unable to attend the Nobel ceremony, so a chair was left empty in Oslo. And a statement he had written for his trial was used as his Nobel lecture.

“Hatred can rot a person’s wisdom and conscience,” it said.

Still, Beijing’s hard line on Liu makes clear that the reforms he sought for decades appear increasingly out of reach.

JOHN KAMM: There’s a major party meeting coming up in a few months. The government and its president and Chairman Xi Jinping will be inclined to be very, very tough. In terms of changing China’s political system, I don’t see it, I’m afraid.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The focus turns now to Liu’s wife, Liu Xia. She remains under house arrest. And calls for her release, including from the secretary of state, have so far gone unheeded.

For the PBS NewsHour, I’m William Brangham.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: But first to the analysis of Shields and Brooks. That’s syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.

Welcome, gentlemen.

So, Mark, welcome back.

MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated Columnist: Thank you, Judy.

JUDY WOODRUFF: We missed you last week.

The Donald Trump Jr. story. We have now learned that he had a meeting a year ago, Trump Tower, with a lawyer who had some connection to the Russian government. How does this change our understanding of the Russia collusion allegation?

MARK SHIELDS: Well, I think it’s fair to say, Judy, that the White House lost any benefit of the doubt that it could claim on this story.

The shoes continue to drop, like it’s a Zappos warehouse or Imelda Marcos’ closet. I mean, it just — each time, they’re amending their story, they’re appending or extending their story.

And so I just think the fact that there were such denials and accusations of a Democratic plot, all of those are gone, and they stand naked and they stand exposed as shams.

I mean, they were actively engaged, at least welcoming Russian involvement in the 2016 election, in behalf of Donald Trump against Hillary Clinton.

JUDY WOODRUFF: David, does this change your assessment of what may have been going on?

DAVID BROOKS, The New York Times: Yes.

My colleague Ross Douthat wrote that any time you give Donald Trump the benefit of the doubt, he always lets you down.

(LAUGHTER)

DAVID BROOKS: And that’s true. That’s true for his business clients and it’s true for those of us who thought, they couldn’t have been some stupid, to walk right into collusion with the Russian meetings.

And yet they were not only that stupid, but I think what is striking to me is the complete amorality of it, that Donald Trump Jr. gets an e-mail saying the Russian government is offering you this, and he says, “I love it.”

And it reminded me so much of some of the e-mails that came out of the Jack Abramoff scandal, that came out of the financial crisis scandal, where they’re just — they’re like frat boys who are gleefully going against the law and are going against all morality. And they’re not even overcoming any scruples to do this.

They’re just having fun with it. And then, in the days since, we have had on — Donald Jr. on Sean Hannity’s show, again, I did nothing wrong, just incapable of seeing that there might have been something wrong about colluding with a foreign power who is hostile with you.

And then Donald Trump himself saying, he’s a wonderful guy, again, not seeing anything wrong, and then even last day lying about how many people were in the meeting, a completely inconsequential lie.

And so we’re trapped in the zone just beyond any ethical scruple, where it’s all about winning.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Beyond any ethical scruple, Mark, is that where we are?

MARK SHIELDS: Yes, I think it’s fair to say that Donald Trump was born without the embarrassment gene or the moral reservation gene.

He just — he doesn’t — when he says that most people would take that meeting, Judy, I mean, this is not — I have been around for a while, and been to the Dallas Fair twice, and all the rest of it. People wouldn’t do that.

In 2000, Al Gore’s campaign got ahold of, was delivered George Bush’s briefing book. They turned it over to the FBI. That’s what you do when you’re honorable in politics.

This isn’t a meeting with a foreign power. This isn’t Canada or the Swiss Family Robinson. This is Russia. This is a country that has supported, propped up the worst of anti-democratic regimes in the Middle East, that has practiced — mistreated its own press, mistreated its own civil society, and economic intimidation of its neighbors, including invasion of its neighbors.

I mean, this is the one country on the face of the earth with the capacity to obliterate the United States. This is serious stuff. And to do it so casually and, as David said, without moral reservation, is — I guess it should be stunning, but, sadly, it isn’t.

JUDY WOODRUFF: But some of the Trump team, David, in their response to this are sounding almost offended that people would even think that they were doing something wrong.

DAVID BROOKS: Yes, well, they just don’t — they don’t get it.

My pal Mike Gerson had a good line in his column today. If you make losing a sin, you make cheating a sacrament. And that is true. If it’s all win-loss, then you do whatever you can to win and to make money and to beat the deal.

And so I do think you have entered the zone where they don’t quite see what they have done wrong. But cheating with a foreign company — country is — as Mark keeps saying, is a grave sin.

And then there’s just the scandal management of it, of letting it drip out, letting it drip out today and today and today. And then there is almost just a cluelessness like a color blindness about how the rest of the world is going to go react to this.

And this has been a leitmotif for the Trump administration.

JUDY WOODRUFF: It is the case, Mark, that there was one version we heard over the weekend, and then, on Monday, there was a little bit more, and then Tuesday, Wednesday, then today still another.

MARK SHIELDS: Mm-hmm. No, it is, Judy.

And I don’t know what to think. I mean, drip, drip, drip, comes a downpour at some point. How about the disparaging of the United States intelligence agencies and professionals by President Trump, candidate Trump and now President Trump, whether Russia — you know, I can’t be sure Russia was involved. Yes, probably, but not for sure.

I mean, here they are, the Trump Tower with the people, their names approved on the visitors list for the meeting in the Trump Tower, and pretending they didn’t know it.

So, no, it’s — David is right. In a management sense, it’s just been incredible, Judy. Apparently, it’s hit the president or someone has gotten to the president, because his statement about his son was so sort of homogenized, he’s a quality person.

JUDY WOODRUFF: He said he’s a good boy.

MARK SHIELDS: Good boy, and praised him for his transparency, which is a little bit like, as I’m about to be indicted for tax evasion, say, well, I want to make something clear. I failed to pay my taxes.

DAVID BROOKS: It does open up a bunch of questions, like what were the — this — as the intelligence experts keep saying, this looked like a Russian feeler operation. They just wanted to see what kind of reaction they could get from Donald Jr.

And if they — how do they respond to the signal? And so what else did they do? There must have been other things they did.

The second, was it connected? Donald Trump, as others have cited, gave a speech in which he said, we’re about to have a big set of revelations about Hillary Clinton. Did that flow out of this meeting? And what was the timing of that? Who else was in this meeting? What actually was said in the meeting?

We still really — we have some testimonies, but what documents were brought to the meeting? It means there’s another several weeks of questions. And it gives Bob Mueller a new channel to walk down. It’s just expanding.

JUDY WOODRUFF: The special counsel.

DAVID BROOKS: Yes.

MARK SHIELDS: I would just say one thing about Mr. Mueller.

He has an advantage and a power that nobody else, that none of us in the press has. He has the power of subpoena. And he has the power of a grand jury. And he has the alternative of indictment for perjury.

So, you just can’t keep changing these stories. I mean, Jared Kushner now has amended, as John Yang pointed out at the beginning of the show, point, his number of contacts with foreign individuals and interests, 100. Three times, he’s now had to do so.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Added names.

MARK SHIELDS: And it raises the question, who leaked these e-mails on Donald Trump — I mean, on Donald Trump Jr.?

Did they — is there mistrust? There is distrust, I know, in the White House whether it was Kushner or Kushner’s people, saying that we had to get this out.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, meantime, one thing, David, the president is saying that he wants the Senate to get done is health care reform.

So, we now — a few days ago, we saw this newest, newer version of health care reform that Leader McConnell is saying that he really, really wants his troops to come together behind. But they still aren’t there.

What does it look like?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, it’s interesting when you see the reaction to this latest bill.

Some people say, oh, it shifted to the right. Some people say, oh, no, it shifted to the left. In reality, it short of shifted both ways. It keeps some of the taxes on the rich, which some of the moderates want. It includes some deregulation of the insurance markets, which Ted Cruz and Mike Lee and some of the conservatives want.

So, it sort of moves in both direction. And I give Mitch McConnell credit. This is an incredibly unpopular bill. And it probably couldn’t survive a set of public hearings and scrutiny. And yet he’s got to the point where he’s kind of close to getting it. I don’t know if we will get there. I sort of would bet against it.

But, as an act of legislative craftsmanship, if your only goal is to pass something, then I would say Mitch McConnell has done about as well as you can do by pushing a lot of different buttons and bringing people at least within the ballpark, especially given how unpopular this is.

I still think it’s a bad bill because it does so much to punish Medicaid among a population that can afford it least. But just as a set of legislative craftsmanship, I would say McConnell is like turning all the knobs and getting people sort of close. I would say maybe 40 percent chance that he actually passes something this summer.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Do you think it will go over the top?

MARK SHIELDS: I don’t, Judy.

But I would just point out Affordable Care Act was being fought for 18 months in the Congress. There was always a public case you could make for it. There was much criticism of it, but the public case included that women wouldn’t be charged more than men, that nobody could be denied coverage, that the preexisting condition, people would be guaranteed insurance and access to health care.

There is — and the inside part was done by Harry Reid in the Senate and Nancy Pelosi in the House.

This is all inside. There is no public argument.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Behind closed doors.

MARK SHIELDS: There is no public case that can — Mitch McConnell can make. There’s no public case addressing the — you have two minutes to address the American people, why is this better? Why will this Republican plan be better for Americans? Why will it be better for those who don’t have health care? Why will it be better for the elderly, for the poor, for the quality of health care in the country?

There is no case to be made. It’s all inside baseball. Can you get Dean Heller by leaning on Governor Sandoval in Nevada?

I mean, that is what it has come down to. And, to me, that is a terrible failing. If somehow they do wrangle vote, what have they got? They have got an incredibly unpopular piece of legislation.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Is anybody, David, making a positive case for this?

DAVID BROOKS: Not really. They say the insurance markets are failing, the Obamacare markets are failing, which is somewhat true.

They want — they say we have to have a more market-driven system to shove down costs, which is somewhat true. And so I think there is a public case that could be made. I don’t think they’re particularly making it, which is why it’s so unpopular.

But if we had public scrutiny — say the insurance markets — this thing called the Cruz amendments gives the insurance companies a chance to charge less for some people if they give a fuller benefit for another.

And what that will do is, let’s put the insurance markets into two different systems.

MARK SHIELDS: Exactly.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Right.

DAVID BROOKS: And so the people who are healthy will be paying a low fee. And then the people who are sick would be paying much more.

And so whether you agree or not with the principle, these things actually have to work. And I’m not sure that the way this is written, this will actually even just work as functioning way to run a market, as the health insurance companies have been strongly saying, like Blue Cross and Blue Shield.

MARK SHIELDS: We’re waiting to find out now whether it’s going to be 19 million or 24 million people who are going to …

JUDY WOODRUFF: Knocked off.

MARK SHIELDS: Knocked off health insurance.

I mean, what everyone says about the Affordable Care Act, 20 million Americans who didn’t have it then did have health care coverage.

And, Judy, let’s be very blunt; 12 million of them came through the extension of Medicaid. And this is the starvation of Medicaid, seven years, 2024, and the federal support on the extension of Medicaid disappears.

And so they can talk about money and everything else, but implicit in the Republican bill is there’s a difference in those who are on Medicaid. Somehow, they are takers. Somehow, they are freeloaders. They’re not our fellow Americans who are struggling to get by.

JUDY WOODRUFF: We are going to have to leave it there on that note.

Mark Shields, David Brooks, thank you both.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: The Copenhagen Jazz Festival ends this weekend in Denmark’s capital. The organizers claim it’s the world’s biggest such event, and that Denmark has now become the epicenter of global jazz.

Some of the American musicians there express envy that this quintessential American music now thrives abroad, thanks to Danish government investment.

Special correspondent Malcolm Brabant is based in Copenhagen and he brings us all that Danish jazz.

MALCOLM BRABANT: The streets and squares are alive to the sound of improvisation, as the city stages 1,400 concerts in 10 days, leading to claims that Copenhagen is now the jazz capital of the world.

JORGEN FJELSTRUP, Scandinavian Old Stars: It’s a kind of music you can make swing. We like the swing feeling,, so that’s how we perform it.

MALCOLM BRABANT: Drummer Jorgen Fjelstrup fears that, like Viennese waltzes, traditional jazz will soon be consigned to history.

JORGEN FJELSTRUP: Everything has its time. I think 5 percent of the people knows or likes this kind of jazz, mainly my age I think, so it will die with us.

MALCOLM BRABANT: But in Copenhagen’s meat-packing district, the boundaries of jazz are being expanded in a way that’s attracting international attention.

Drummer Emil De Waal.

EMIL DE WAAL, Drummer, Kalaha: To me, jazz is a very open genre. To me, jazz is a very alive genre. And what we’re trying to do here is to make jazz work together with electronic music. I can’t see a world without improvisational music. So, I’m really optimistic.

MALCOLM BRABANT: Grammy-winning drummer Victor Jones has joined a distinguished list of American musicians who’ve moved to Denmark because of its rich jazz culture.

VICTOR JONES, Drummer: They have an audience that understands the music, which in America, it’s pretty difficult to find an audience like that. What’s good about here is that they also teach it in school. In America, they just don’t have it in school and they just don’t have it on TV, so here I am.

(LAUGHTER)

MALCOLM BRABANT: Six times’ Grammy-winning saxophonist David Sanborn laments a lack of investment in a culture that America invented.

DAVID SANBORN, Saxophonist: You have a different dynamic over here. And in Europe in general, the arts are funded by the governments, which you don’t get in America and even less so now. So I think that there’s a certain institutional respect for what this music means to the world. Consequently, it fosters great Danish jazz musicians.

MALCOLM BRABANT: Such as pianist Niels Lan Doky. He learned his craft among legends in New York, and now runs a successful jazz club in Copenhagen.

NIELS LAN DOKY, Standard Jazz Club Musical Director: In New York and America in general, it’s difficult to experiment and develop new products, because the pressure to be profitable is so high, so bottom-line-oriented, that they need to play it safe, established names, and you don’t see the kind of experimentation and diversity that we have here.

MALCOLM BRABANT: In Denmark, the jazz gene pool is being revitalized. Lan Doky’s protege, 19-year-old Amanda Thomsen, has chosen jazz over other genres.

AMANDA THOMSEN, Singer: Jazz surprises because, yes, you can do what you want in jazz and improvise. You can create all the time, so every song is new every day.

MALCOLM BRABANT: Jazz may be thriving here, but the common perception that jazz is incapable of standing on its own two feet financially also applies here.

Festival organizers say that subsidies from central and local government, as well as private foundations, are essential, because, without them, this festival wouldn’t be on such a grand scale.

Curtis Stigers says that jazz will always struggle because its art takes precedence over commerce.

CURTIS STIGERS, Singer/Saxophonist: I’m very, very, very lucky. I make a living playing jazz music. I have to come to Europe to do it.

We are the red headed stepchild of the music business. We are a niche market. But the people that love jazz, they’re willing to pay, they’re willing to suffer a little bit to hear this music and to support it. And I’m grateful for that.

Charlie Parker played pop songs. He just turned them into jazz tunes. And that’s what we have to do, as opposed to just listening to Miles Davis and saying, that’s jazz.

MALCOLM BRABANT: Here’s another dimension, liturgical jazz.

Anders Gadegaard is the dean of Copenhagen Cathedral.

ANDERS GADEGAARD, Dean, Copenhagen Cathedral: When you add this jazz tone, it becomes much more vital for people, and it becomes easier for us to proclaim the gospel, so to speak.

MALCOLM BRABANT: The jazz mass was written by bassist Chris Minh Doky, brother of the pianist.

CHRIS MINH DOKY, Bassist: If you take an old song from the Danish song tradition that’s 300 years old, there’s a reason why it lasted 300 years, because the melody is really good.

If you just take the melody and set it free and don’t constrain it in any boxed-in way and just present it as is, with a contemporary harmonization and presentation, you will hear that this melody is universal. It’s basically the same as hearing a pop song from the ’50s that turns into a jazz standard.

MALCOLM BRABANT: The claim that Denmark is the epicenter of global jazz may be disputed, but this congregation proves beyond doubt that the spirit is strong.

For the PBS NewsHour, I’m Malcolm Brabant in Copenhagen.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: Author Gayle Tzemach Lemmon usually reports for us from the other side of the world, covering stories such as the refugee crisis and child marriage.

Tonight, she shares her Humble Opinion about something closer to home and much more personal.

GAYLE TZEMACH LEMMON, Author: School choice. Those two words spark a whole host of emotions from people across the political spectrum.

As a kid, I never heard the words school choice uttered. But they did indeed shape my childhood. You see, my mom was a single mom, a union Democrat who worked at the phone company during the day and sold tupperware at night, at least on the nights when she wasn’t studying for her college degree.

She frequented yard sales, grocery-shopped with double coupons, and knew her way around the Marshalls layaway window. And she lied about our address, so that I could attend what she judged to be the best public elementary school in our area.

In a number of states, that is seen as a felony. In fact, parents across the country regularly face jail time and huge fines for what my mom did, really. Parents are facing prison to give their children possibilities, possibilities that area given for upper-middle-class and wealthy families, families that can exercise their own school choice because they have the means to choose what and where is best for their kids.

As a kid, it didn’t occur to me that using a baby-sitter’s address or an address where my dad used to live before the bank took his property back was wrong. It was what was required, do-it-yourself school choice to make more choices down the road possible.

And it worked. The good school my mom got me into, gave me a great start for the rest of my education. I went to a good college. From there, I had the privilege of becoming a Fulbright Scholar, and that helped lead me to Harvard Business School. But along the way, I saw just how narrow the funnel that leads to the nation’s elite institutions truly is.

The thing that strikes me now is that all that I have had the privilege of learning and doing and undertaking since then is because I had a mom who understood that education was the best anti-poverty vaccination she could give me and the best shot at class mobility she had to offer.

For many moms and dads, school choice is not an issue, it’s not partisan. It is about possibilities and a chance to give kids the springboard they need to vault over class barriers and toward the best future they can build.

And that future is something in which every one of us has a stake.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, we thank you.

The post Why school choice should be about possibility — not partisanship appeared first on PBS NewsHour.