hari sreenivasan: good evening. i'm hari sreenivasan. judy woodruff is away. on tonight's "pbs newshour": russian presidentvladimir putin will not expel american diplomats in response to sanctions imposed by the obamaadministration. we look at what lies ahead for u.s.-russianrelations in a trump presidency. also ahead: the best of 2016 in music, a yearof innovation and stunning comebacks, but also great loss. ann powers, npr: one great thing about whenwe mourn these singers is that we also always
celebrate and archive their work, and we'reseeing that. hari sreenivasan: and it's friday. david brooks and david corn are here to analyzethe week's news. all that and more on tonight's "pbs newshour." (break) hari sreenivasan: russian president vladimirputin today slammed u.s. sanctions and the expulsion of russian diplomats over electionhacking attacks. but he said moscow will not toss out u.s.diplomats. instead, he invited the children of americandiplomats to holiday parties at the kremlin.
and in a statement, he said russia will planfurther steps to restore relations, based on the policies of the trump administration. later, the president-elect tweeted to say:"great move on delay by vladimir putin. i always knew he was very smart." we will return to the putin response afterthe news summary. and in the day's other news: a fragile cease-fireappeared to hold across syria, despite sporadic shooting. diana magnay of independent television newsreports. diana magnay: it's not as though there's nofighting today.
this is a regime airstrike earlier on nearthe city of hama, but nothing so severe that the deal's off yet. walid moallem, syrian foreign minister (throughtranslator): there is a real opportunity to reach a political solution for the crisisin syria that ends the bloodshed and establishes the roots for the future of the country. diana magnay: with the front lines quiet,people in opposition areas went back onto the streets, just as they had done in theearly days of the revolution, not that everyone here remembers those days, but the refrain'sfamiliar: a syria without assad, even if the outcome's as unclear as ever.
man: if you say that if we are happy withbeing assad in power, of course we will not be happy. and i can make sure for you that all thosepeople who are refugees now either inside syria or outside syria will not be back tosyria unless assad goes away from his position as president of syria. diana magnay: that will be up to the russians. aleppo was part of this deal, struck betweenturkey and russia in two months of back-and-forth talks. with aleppo now chalked up for the regime,it's now up to putin to see what pressure
he can bring to bear on syria's presidentbefore talks next month in kazakstan, if this cease-fire holds, and that's a big if. along its border, turkey is expanding itsfacilities for refugees, to house the tens of thousands freshly displaced from aleppothrough this bitter winter and beyond. russia and turkey pitching themselves as regionalpower-brokers, guardians against terror, bringers of peace, high stakes if they fail, but theinitiative now is with them. hari sreenivasan: back in this country, anorth carolina judge blocked a republican bid to strip the incoming democratic governorof some of his powers. republicans passed the statute after roy cooperwas elected.
it takes away his control of election boards. cooper sued today, saying the law is unconstitutional. the judge stopped it from taking effect onsunday, pending a review. new numbers confirm that fatal shootings ofpolice rose sharply in 2016. the national law enforcement officers memorialfund reports 64 were shot and killed in the line of duty, up 56 percent from last year. the total includes 21 officers killed in ambush-styleattacks in dallas, baton rouge and elsewhere. a winter storm socked new england overnightand, today, the region's first strong nor'easter of the season.
some areas got as much as two feet of snow. near-white-out conditions hit maine, wheresnow fell at the rate of three inches an hour in some places. the storm knocked out power to more than 100,000homes and businesses. and wall street closed out a winning yearon a losing note. the dow jones industrial average gave up 57points to finish at 19762. the nasdaq fell nearly 49 points, and thes&p 500 slipped 10. but for the year, the dow gained more than13 percent; the nasdaq rose 7.5 percent; and the s&p was up 9.5 percent.
still to come on the "newshour": u.s.-russiarelations after president obama imposes sanctions; david brooks and david corn take on the week'snews; a year of triumph and heartbreak for music fans; and much more. we now turn back to the latest in u.s.-russiarelations. for insight into putin's reaction to the obamaadministration's leveling of sanctions against russia yesterday, we turn to andrew weiss. he was director of russian, ukrainian andeurasian affairs at the white house national security council staff. he's now with the carnegie endowment for internationalpeace.
so, what do you make of putin's reactions? andrew weiss, carnegie endowment for internationalpeace: vladimir putin is an opportunist, and he loves being the center of attention. so here he has got the entire world talkingabout his incredible magnanimity in not returning the favor by expelling u.s. diplomats or respondingto these sanctions. a couple of months ago, when putin was talkingabout the hacking scandal, he basically said, a few years ago, no one talked about russia. now that's all people want to talk about. they say bad things, but it's good for us.
it's all very pleasant. hari sreenivasan: and do any of the sanctionscreate deterrents enough for russia to stop doing what they have been doing? andrew weiss: establishing deterrents fora country like russia to deter it from conducting offensive cyber-operations against the unitedstates is practically an impossible task. what you can do is, you can expose, you canname and shame, you can hit a few key individuals or key institutions, like the obama administrationdid yesterday, that might sort of expose what russia is doing, provide public education,especially on the eve of important european elections.
that's what governments are doing around theworld, is they're trying to say, we know what the russians are up to. we can explain it to our publics. and hopefully it will not have the effectit had in the united states. hari sreenivasan: what is the invitationsof the diplomats' children to the kremlin holiday party? what is that trying to fix? andrew weiss: i think it's cheap theatricsat this point. it's basically a stunt.
we have had a pattern of harassment of u.s.personnel in moscow that goes back several years. people's apartments are broken into. diplomats are followed. children are bothered. this has been i think an extreme period, avery unusual period of cold war-style pressure against our people stationed in moscow. hari sreenivasan: so, really, even in thismoment, he sees the long game. andrew weiss: putin looks ahead and i thinksees continued opportunities.
he has a new u.s. administration taking officeobviously on january 20. president-elect trump has been saying allsorts of flattering things, including as recent as this afternoon, about how brilliant putinis, what an effective leader he is. he has seen all sorts of western leaders basicallydisappear from the scene, most obviously barack obama, who has been a nemesis for him. so if he looks ahead, he sees russia's gotthe upper hand in syria, he's transformed the battle on the ground inside syria. he sees a weak ukraine. he sees western europe divided, a weakeninge.u.
he has got, i think, a sense of wind at hisback and more confidence that the more audacity, the more surprise, the more the west is goingto back off. and a lot of the kind of aggressive russiantactics we have seen are aimed at exactly that, be intimidating, be unpredictable, andyour enemies will back off. hari sreenivasan: there was some dissensionamong the ranks. early in this morning, you started gettingalerts on your phone that said foreign minister lavrov wanted to go ahead and retaliate bykicking out u.s. diplomats, and then within minutes, vladimir putin has said, no, notgoing to do that. andrew weiss: i think the russians have reallygot -- you have got to hand it to them.
they have become masters at the art of surprise. just, i guess, about 14 months ago, you hadpresident putin was coming to the u.n. general assembly. he was going to be basically isolated, notget any meetings. they announced their dramatic military interventionin syria. and then russia was as at the center of attentionand there was a showdown between obama and putin in new york. this is part of that same script. it's part of the playbook where if you forcesurprises on people, you invade crimea, you
start a covert war in ukraine, suddenly theworld has to respond to the facts that you're creating. hari sreenivasan: what are the prospects forthe relationship with the united states? andrew weiss: well, we don't know. president-elect trump has talked about howhe's going to reset the reset, he's going to team up with russia to "knock the hellout of isil." those are what explains that are sort of thecore interests that might unite the united states and russia. i'm personally rather skeptical that he'sgoing to be able to have those kinds of quick
wins. there have been many efforts over the pastyear or so between the obama administration and the russian government to find some waysto cooperate on the ground in syria. we have serious definitional challenges, wherethere are groups that the united states has supported on the ground in syria that therussians want to basically paint with one big brush and say, oh, they're all terrorists. so, i think it's going to be very hard, giventhe corrosive mistrust between the two governments. there's basically no trust left between thenational security establishment, the career people who will be serving under a president-electtrump and their russian counterparts.
it is going to be very hard to build thattrust out of the barren landscape that they're inheriting. hari sreenivasan: what does that win in syriaor isil, what is the cost of that? is it crimea? is it ukraine? andrew weiss: we don't know. and so far the price that russians have beentalking about in their communications with the united states are exorbitant. they're saying the united states should recognizethe annexation of crimea.
they're saying the united states should paya penalty for the imposition of economic sanctions after the shoot-down of a civilian airlinerover eastern ukraine in july 2014. these are outlandish demands. and i think it would be unusual to expectthat the trump administration is somehow going to grant those wishes. hari sreenivasan: are there concerns thatthe trump administration doesn't see the multiple dimensions of vladimir putin? andrew weiss: well, i think we just don'tknow. we know that this is a president-elect whohas very little foreign policy experience.
he's tapped a neophyte to be his secretaryof state, rex tillerson. these are people who have records in the businesscommunity. they have got i think a lot of credentialsin that area. but for the issues that have been at the heartof u.s.-russian relations over the past two-and-a-half decades and which have created so mentiontension and so much built-up resentment and mistrust, it's not something that they havereally had to deal with. hari sreenivasan: you called rex tillersona neophyte. he's a neophyte to government, but not necessarilyto foreign affairs. technically, he might be the person with themost connections to russia in the trump administration.
andrew weiss: there's no doubt that rex tillerson'saccess and accomplishments in russia are dramatic. he's come from a period of working in russiaat the highest levels going back to the late 1990s. he knows putin personally. he knows putin's top advisers personally. that's all obviously a real asset. the question is, does he know a lot aboutthe imf treaty, does he know a lot about the harassment of u.s. diplomatic personnel, doeshe follow syria closely? my sense is those are issues that he has nothad to delve into in great detail.
hari sreenivasan: andrew weiss from the carnegieendowment for international peace, thanks for joining us. andrew weiss: thank you. hari sreenivasan: next to the analysis ofbrooks and corn. that's syndicated new york times columnistdavid brooks, and "mother jones" washington bureau chief david corn. all right, david brooks, let's start someof the unilateral steps that president obama has taken just in the last few weeks. we are talking about everything from the russiansanctions to the u.n. security council condemnation
-- or allowing the u.n. security council togo forward in the condemnation of the israeli settlements, preserving large swathes of land. as the paper of record, the new york times,said, is this about boxing trump in? david brooks: i guess a little. but what can be done by a president can beundone by a president. what's sort of remarkable is that, especiallyin the israel and the russia cases, you have got a u.s. citizen, donald trump, siding witha foreign leader against the u.s. president. there is a reason why president-elects havetried to remain mute during their transitional periods, relatively, because you just don'twant to be for somebody -- some other country
against your own government, and especiallywhen you're about to take the helm of that government. and there will be a lot of permanent peoplewho are just going to be stuck there who are now in a war between the president-elect andthe guy they're currently serving. hari sreenivasan: david corn, does this violatethe spirit of that smooth transition that both gentlemen had that photo-op in the whitehouse? david corn: well, president obama is stillpresident until january 20, and the world keeps turning. now, the republicans wanted to call his presidencyover last february, when he nominated merrick
garland to the supreme court. the u.n. sanction vote came up. it wasn't scheduled by obama. and a lot of people think he should have respondedto the russian hacking of the u.s. elections weeks ago, months ago. so these happened on his watch. there's nothing wrong with him dealing withit. the trump side now seems to be whining thathe's violating the smooth transition and trying to delegitimize trump.
but coming from trump, who pushed the racistbirth conspiracy theory for years against barack obama, i think obama has been verymuch a gentleman. and he has a lot of reason to just not evenbother to deal with trump. hari sreenivasan: how different is this fromprevious presidents on their way out? is it fairly traditional to leave an exclamationpoint at the end? david corn: well, it's kind of. and i think, depending what is happening -- whengeorge w. bush left, he left barack obama two raging wars. and the biggest fight he had was inside hisown government about whether or not to pardon
scooter libby. and he was sort of consumed fighting withdick cheney about that, and didn't do a lot i think externally. and i think he was focused on trying to, froma national security perspective, bring obama and his people up to speed, so they couldtake control of these wars. bill clinton had the controversy with pardonswhen he was walking out the door, marc rich and others, that certainly tarnished his reputation. but i think obama is just doing what he shouldbe doing at this point. hari sreenivasan: david brooks, it almostseems like there is a first 100 day strategy
and at the end of four or eight years thelast hundred days, to do all the things that you wish you could have done, but this ison your way out. david brooks: yes. that is not abnormal. if you look at regulations that come out ofwhite houses, even republican white houses, there is a ton right at the end as they tryto jam everything in at the end. that's reasonably standard. but there certainly is a pattern of administrationsthat have good transitions, george w. bush to barack obama, and administrations thathave really bad transitions, i would say eisenhower
to john f. kennedy. i would say this is beginning to look likea bad transition, as they begin to argue even at the presidential level, which is more orless unprecedented. hari sreenivasan: let's start talking a littlebit about russia. will the sanctions that we have imposed keepthe russian hackers out? david brooks: no. no. it's so disproportionate. they interfered in our elections, and we likepenalized a few of them.
whatever they're doing underground, we don'tknow. no, this is going to be a big issue. and i have to say the obama -- the trump positionis, a, mystifying, but, b, doomed. he has a nice little putin romance going onright now. i think we're going to get out the hankies,because this is going to turn into an ugly relationship within a year or two. the things that make them similar -- theirmachismo, their expansionary braggadocio -- is going to turn them i think into bitter anddangerous enemies. we will look back on this moment where wethought putin and trump were sort of close
as a moment of bitter irony, when they getinto a schoolyard display against each other, amping up each other's worst tendencies andputting the two countries in some sort of scary position. that's just my feel of how things are goingto get in the next year. david corn: that may be the best-case scenario. i don't necessarily see things going thatway. i still am mystified, to use your word, aboutwhy trump is out there tweeting praise of vladimir putin these days, and still kindof denying and dismissing whether the hacking happened or the seriousness of it.
and people out there keep asking, what isbehind this bromance? before the election, i reported on a storyabout a counterintelligence officer from another service sending reports to the fbi sayingthat his sources in russia were saying that moscow tried for years to cultivate and co-optdonald trump. i'm not saying that happened. i'm saying i hope the fbi took a strong look,because it is really hard to believe that a president-elect would be so callous in howhe approaches this issue and so dismissive of the seriousness of it. and so maybe he will turn on putin, as yousuggest, but maybe there is something else
there in which he is enamored with putin forsome reason that we really don't understand yet. hari sreenivasan: what about the president-elect'sposition that we have got to move on, these are all essentially ploys to try delegitimizemy win? david corn: well, i think he should be delegitimizedfor many reasons. and his response to this hacking is also causefor delegitimization. but to say we should move on, when the bedrockof american democracy, the sanctity of our elections, has been messed with, just raisessuspicions. it would be so easy for him to say the obviousthing: this is terrible.
we're going to look into it. and then we're going to try to prevent thisfrom happening again in the future. but his denial of it happening or its seriousnessshows that there is something really amiss from his end of it. hari sreenivasan: david brooks, what happensin that conversation with intelligence officials that donald trump said he is going to takein order to get to the bottom of this or get to a common set of facts? it's already a fairly tense relationship withthe intelligence community. david brooks: of course i don't know what'sgoing on in that meeting on in the mind of
donald trump. but i do know one of the things presidentobama was struck by was how much time he spent on cyber-security as president. it was one of the big surprises as president. and one of the things he said was that, inthe years ahead, the next president will be spending even more time. and cyber-security isn't a thing that goesaway after this election. it's a constant flow. and russia has a very sophisticated, advancedattack on u.s. businesses and u.s. government
and u.s. institutions. and it's not like donald trump is going tobe walking away from this. he will be spending a lot of time on it, ifhe's any sort of normal president. david corn: well, maybe, but we don't know. he keeps dismissing the seriousness and eventweets out or puts a statement saying, you know, computers, it's kind of complicated. you know, a lot of things happen. it remains to be seen what he is serious abouton any policy level. hari sreenivasan: well, speaking of policylevel, one of the things that we saw was that
the u.n. security council was allowed to goforward with the condemnation of israeli settlements, that the united states didn't use its vetopower. right move? david corn: i think it's a policy that's verydefensible, in that, right now, the settlements are a complete obstacle or a threat to a two-statesolution. now, i think netanyahu and the far right ofisrael don't believe in a two-state solution, and they just can't come out and say it yet. now, donald trump's designated ambassadorto israel has said that quite clearly. but if there's no two-state solution, thenisrael is on the path to being an occupying
nation without full political rights for allits inhabitants. and, you know, there have been other israelileaders who have talked about the prospect of a form of apartheid in israel. so, i think the obama position and the majorityposition of american jews and a lot of americans is a two-state solution. settlements get in the way of that. if they're not stopped soon, there is no prospectfor that type of solution. david brooks: now we disagree. i think it's a completely indefensible policy.
settlements are an obstacle to peace and toa two-state solution. there's no question about that. they are about the fifth or sixth most importantobstacle right now. the fact that there could be an isis westbank, the fact that the palestinian government in gaza doesn't even acknowledge israel'sright to exist, the fact of constant terror, delegitimization campaigns in the palestinianschools, these are all much bigger facts. and for the obama administration to focuson this one fact, almost, not to the expense, but to diminish some of the others which aremuch more important, is to cast all the blame on israel and to take the u.n. policy towardisrael, which has been longstanding, and sort
of surrender to it. netanyahu, bibi netanyahu, froze the settlementsand offered to go toward a two-state solution. the palestinians didn't take him up on it. historically, we have had a series of theseoffers. and the settlements themselves are not thekeystone here. and it seems to me myopic and bizarre thatat the last moment, the obama administration would surrender the whole balanced array ofpolicies that are obstacles to peace and focus on the one that is most detrimental to israel. david corn: well, i think john kerry's speechwas not just about settlements.
it was about the whole large path to peaceand what's been happening to it. and it was one of the -- i think one of themost thorough policy statements that you have seen from any secretary of state on a contentiousissue. so, i think that it's not just myopia. the vote obviously was not scheduled by theadministration. i'm sure they would rather it had not happened. but i think they also wanted to send a clearsignal, because they don't believe netanyahu is serious about a two-state solution. and the rapid expansion of the settlementsis something that actually could be stopped,
and may not even be up for negotiation, butwould be a good unilateral move on israel's part. hari sreenivasan: what about the choice ofdavid friedman as the ambassador? what does that do to the situation? david brooks: well, that just shows how polarizedthe whole situation has become, because the obama administration has focused the onuson israel and the settlements. and then the trump potential administrationapparently is pro-settlement, and almost against a two-state solution. so we have got two polar opposite israel policies,which really break what had been a pretty
decent bipartisan consensus that we have gotto have a two-state solution, we sort of know what the border is going to look like, wesort of know what east jerusalem is going to look like. and no administration has ever said, as theobama administration sort of implied, that israel wouldn't have access to the westernwall, to the east jerusalem. and that was also in the resolution. and all administrations have not really goneon the u.n. train. and so what we're seeing is a complete bifurcationto two wrong israeli policies. hari sreenivasan: all right, finally, stayingin the neighborhood, does it matter that the
u.s. is not a part of whatever this cease-firein syria is at the moment? david brooks: i think it matters, in that,if you withdraw from the game, you're out of the game. and we have withdrawn from the game. and we said assad has to go. he's going to stay. so we're out of the game. and they don't have to deal us in when itcomes to finding a solution. but that was our choice.
that was our choice to withdraw from thatparticular game. david corn: we were behind two cease-firesthis year, one in february that lasted a few months, and one in september that lasted abouta week. we have no idea how long this is going tolast. there's a great possibility that some on therebel side will start fighting amongst themselves, because some of the rebel groups, the morefundamentalist, are not part of the cease-fire. so, if there is anything that stops the fightingand stops the civilian casualties, that's a good thing now for a pause. but i'm not very optimistic this is goingto last.
and i do think john kerry has tried awfullyhard to work with russia and others to have a lasting, significant cease-fire. hari sreenivasan: all right, david corn of"mother jones," david brooks of the new york times, david and david, thank you very much. david corn: happy new year. david brooks: thank you. hari sreenivasan: happy new year. stay with us. coming up on the "newshour": another lookat the newest edition to the national mall:
the national museum of african american historyand culture; and songwriter josh ritter opens up about the doubt he feels on stage. but first: a broader look at music and someof the best work of this past year. as we say goodbye to 2016, we also finishour week-long series on the best of arts. jeffrey brown is our guide once again. jeffrey brown: of all the popular art formswe have talked about this week, delving into the huge and diverse world of music necessarilymeans touching on just a slice of the large pie. two music critics are here to help us withsome of their own best of the year.
ann powers of npr and mikael wood of the losangeles times. welcome to both of you. ann, let's just start with -- a few albumsreally dominated the year. we might as well start there. ann powers, npr: absolutely. well, beyonce's "lemonade" was a multimediaphenomenon with the visual side, a wonderful album and people talked about it all year,very political album. right next to that was david bowie's "blackstar"as equally lauded and celebrated. of course, we lost david bowie this year.
so it was an interesting mix of a young artistat the top of her game and an elder making a final statement. jeffrey brown: mikael wood, let's start tofill out your list here. give us a few of your -- what stood out foryou. mikael wood, the los angeles times: beyonceand bowie are both on my list. you have also got the young country singermaren morris, who was doing a lot of interesting things, sort of taking country into an old-fashionedway, but also making it very contemporary at the same time. you had a couple of great hip-hop recordsfrom kanye west, who everybody knows, of course,
but a younger rapper too from chicago calledchance the rapper, who made a sort of gospel rap record that's very personal, but alsosort of clearly situated in his hometown and all of its various struggles, really interestingrecord. jeffrey brown: all right, so, ann, i madeyou start with the ones everybody knows. but fill out a little more of your top fivelist or so. ann powers: well, speaking of country singers,there's a wonderful young singer out of nashville, margo price, who made a very traditional countryrecord called "midwest farmer's daughter," with contemporary verb and voice. and that's one of my favorites of the year.
jeffrey brown: that has a good title, too,right, "midwest farmer's daughter." ann powers: yes. she is a midwest farmer's daughter. and jack white's record label third man putit out. so, it is country and cool. i really love chance the rapper, which mikaelmentioned. also, beyonce's sister solange knowles releaseda very beautiful, introspective album called "a seat at the table" that again reflectedthe political moment in a very different way. if beyonce was forceful and out there, solangewas quiet and thinking and meditating and
dreaming. and that was actually npr music's number onerecord of the year. jeffrey brown: well, mikael, so we're talking. i want to bring in performances. we're talking mostly about recordings. but is there a performance or two that stoodout for you this year? mikael wood: i think beyonce at the superbowl was -- just sort of blew everybody... jeffrey brown: she's inescapable, isn't she,in this conversation, right? mikael wood: oh, she's the essence of inescapability.
i mean, think of it like this. it wasn't actually's beyonce's super bowlthis year. it was coldplay's. jeffrey brown: that's right. mikael wood: and all anybody remembers isbeyonce, which shows you how she stole the show. i think adele's tour as well. i saw her here in l.a. and what an interestingtour. in a year when pop was technologically forward-lookingand engaged with politics, here comes adele
with just a super old-fashioned show. i saw her in the same week that i saw barbrastreisand. and the two had some very -- real similarities. she's standing on the stage with a sort ofsmall orchestra. she wears one dress throughout the night. there's very little spectacle. she's just standing there singing these incrediblesongs and making a huge impact with all her tens of thousands of people who came to seeher, just an outlier, but also so interestingly old-fashioned.
jeffrey brown: ann powers, some performancesyou saw? ann powers: well, actually, along similarlines to adele, i think the dixie chicks' comeback was a huge story of the year, again,not a technological, futuristic show, but a triumphant return of a band who had, ofcourse, been somewhat banished from country music after their lead singer, natalie maines,had made some remarks about then president george w. bush. they have come back, roaring back. i saw them play here, a hometown show, tensof thousands of people, mostly women, singing along.
and of course, the dixie chicks, because igot to mention her again, brought beyonce on at cma awards to do beyonce's song "daddylessons," and that was maybe the televised moment of the year, really just a super womenpower moment. jeffrey brown: what about -- mikael, i willstart with you on this -- that when you think about trends in the music world, and, again,beyonce, we will have to mention her, because this continuing evolution of the distributionof music, she was part of that this year, but other people, too. mikael wood: yes. no, streaming, this -- 2016 was the year thatstreaming became the dominant sort of way
that people are experiencing music, at leastyoung people. and you saw that with record after record,whether it was kanye, whether it was beyonce, whether it was rihanna, whether it was drake. people were finding out about music and listeningto it, engaging with it through streaming. we will sort of see where that takes everything. we will sort of see what that does to theway people listen. but there was just absolutely no doubt thatthat was the dominant distribution model this year. and, also, it leads to all kinds of interestingconversations about, you know, various exclusives.
the singer frank ocean, for instance, youcould only go to one place to hear his record, which just sort of changes the whole economyof pop music, which i think is going to be huge in the next few years. jeffrey brown: and, ann, finally, just theone thing you alluded to with the passing of david bowie, but this was a year in whicha number of major musicians, major stars were lost. ann powers: absolutely, bowie's death at thebeginning of the year. of course, the greatest musician of my generation,prince, died this year, and we're still feeling that.
leonard cohen, we lost, and many others, thesoul singer sharon jones, guy clark, merle haggard here in the country world in nashville. but one great thing about when we mourn thesesingers is that we also celebrate and archive their work. and we're seeing that. there is more david bowie material availableonline than ever before. so, though he is lost, his music lives on. and we are preserving it as fans. and that, to me, is a great legacy.
jeffrey brown: all right, music of the pastand of 2016. ann powers of npr, mikael wood of the l.a.times, thank you both very much. ann powers: thanks so much. mikael wood: happy to do it. hari sreenivasan: as we close out 2016, wehave been thinking of the loss of our friend and colleague gwen ifill. and one of her favorite stories of the pastyear was the opening of the widely acclaimed national museum of african american historyand culture. here's a reprise of that story, gwen in thefield doing what she loved to do and having
fun in the process. take a look. joyce bailey, museum donor: we can see shehas her camera right there. that was one of her photographic days. gwen ifill: joyce bailey's legacy turned outto be worth more than money. her mother, lois alexander lane left her atreasure trove from the museum she created, the harlem institute of fashion, costumes,dresses sewn and worn by slaves, celebrities and by civil rights icons. one of the things i think people are surprisedto know, or to remember, is that rosa parks
was a seamstress. joyce bailey: yes, she was. she was actually carrying the dress that themuseum now has on the day that she was arrested. it's a beautiful yellow with brown stripesin it. it's beyond belief. you really just have to see it. gwen ifill: beginning this weekend, thousandsof people will stream into the brand-new national museum of african american history and cultureto see elements of bailey's collection and countless other priceless items.
there is this, an airplane flown cross-countryto the museum once piloted by the all-black tuskegee airmen, the casket of 14-year-oldemmett till, lynched in 1955 for whistling at a white woman, the writings of abolitionistfrederick douglass, shackles discovered on a sunken ship that brought hundreds of slavesto america, and from a south carolina plantation, a fully restored slave cabin, the dress mariananderson wore when she sang at the lincoln memorial, and costumes from "the wiz," theall-black broadway musical based on "the wizard of oz," donated from joyce bailey's collection. this is as an amazing place, chockful of theexpected and the expected. one thing missing, major artifacts from thereverend martin luther king jr.
his family apparently decided to hold ontosome of the most famous memorabilia, including the bible that president obama used to takethe oath of office in 2013. in any case, it fell to museum director lonniebunch and his band of curators to sort through what turned into a rush of donations. lonnie bunch, director, national museum ofafrican american history and culture: but, when i saw them, i said, we are going to tellthat story. and i just love, from "the wiz," i just lovehow they look. i just think they're so distinctive. they obviously speak volumes about geoffreyholder.
gwen ifill: the designer. lonnie bunch: the designer. and, plus, they're just so beautiful. gwen ifill: it was a big moment at the time. lonnie bunch: absolutely. gwen ifill: from sobering memorabilia likerebellion leader nat turner's bible, to 20th century musical memories, chuck berry's cherryred cadillac, and parliament funkadelic's iconic mothership, here lit up and sheathedin plastic in preparation for the opening. lonnie bunch: during concerts, it would comedown, and george clinton would get out.
so it'd be this notion that he was from anotherplanet. (laughter) gwen ifill: which he kind of was. lonnie bunch: which he still is. gwen ifill: the $540 million project, a centuryin the making, and the first green museum on the national mall, captures the sweep ofafrican-american history. so, what do we have here? lonnie bunch: this is one of my great treasures. what i love is what my staff is able to find.
and this is a playbill from newcastle, england,in 1857 that is from ira aldridge's career. ira aldridge, the great black thespian thatcouldn't get jobs in the united states as a great actor, classical actor, had to goto europe. gwen ifill: othello, who everyone now thinksof as a character always played by a black actor. lonnie bunch: exactly. but it was always in blackface. gwen ifill: galleries are devoted to breakthroughsin sports and performance. lonnie bunch: the joy of prince, and i lovethe michael jackson fedora.
i just capture that. and, obviously, the "soul train" costume. gwen ifill: "soul train" costume is a littlealarming. lonnie bunch: well, it is, because we thoughtthat was cool. gwen ifill: we. i don't know about we. gwen ifill: speak for yourself. gwen ifill: this is cool. bunch, a former president of the chicago historicalsociety, shepherded the project to completion,
wooing congress for half the money, and solicitingprivate donations from millionaires like oprah winfrey and philanthropist david rubenstein. but he also appealed to individuals, families,churches, fraternities and sororities, who handed over gems like james baldwin's inkwelland malcolm x's tape recorder. advance tickets flew out the door, 5,000 ofthem in 18 minutes one day. on this journey you have been to get to thispoint with this museum, what has been the biggest surprise for you along the way? lonnie bunch: i think i have been stunnedby the excitement and the way people really care.
there are times i will walk in an airportand people will just sort of give me the thumbs up, or i will walk down the street and churchladies will come to me and say they're praying for me. so, i think the fact that this means so muchto so many people has been the biggest surprise gwen ifill: as with other smithsonian museums,one building cannot begin to hold its collection. conservator antje neumann has helped preservethe collection at the museum's facility in a washington suburb. antje neumann, conservator, national museumof african american history and culture: there's always the balance between preservation andexhibition, and allowing the public to see
the national treasures, and then also balancingthat with preserving it for future generations. it's lovely to have a place to highlight thestruggles, the causes and the progression that many people and the contributions manypeople have done in this country. gwen ifill: it falls to neumann to repairshaquille o'neal's size 20 shoe, to prepare a stool from muhammad ali's gym, to restoreworn pages of the first book of black poetry, and to spiff up funk singer bootsy collins'bright yellow leather costume. antje neumann: it just needs a bit -- a littlebit of cleaning in order to make it ready for presentation, as it has been used a loton stage. gwen ifill: collins' outfit occupies a placeof honor inside the new building, which is
a work of art itself. the corona, the signature exterior feature,is made of 230 tons of bronze-colored aluminum panels, 3,600 in all. lead architect phil freelon oversaw the building'sstriking design. phil freelon, lead architect: many of thebuildings on the mall are marble, granite, concrete, lighter in color. this building has a variation in how it appears. so, on certain days, in certain lighting conditions,it can be very vibrant and bright. and other times of the day or in the evening,it is darker.
so there is this interesting dynamic of changingappearance of the building. gwen ifill: within view, the washington monumentand even a glimpse of the white house, which michelle obama famously noted was itself builtby slaves. bunch says this makes race an integral partof the american experience. but, in this country, we are so nervous abouttalking about race, about engaging. we keep having national conversations aboutrace, and it seems that this building itself is a big conversation. do you -- did you encounter along the wayany resistance to the notion that we talk about americans only by race?
lonnie bunch: i think there was fear thatwe would be a place that might be divisive, that people wouldn't want to talk about race,and that we would force them to talk about race. i think there was a great concern that, wouldthis just be a museum by black people for black people? and i think we had to counter that, both bythe kind of stories we told, by the way we tried to say, this is a story of america throughan african-american lens. gwen ifill: joyce bailey's mother could nothave foreseen this day, but she did see the value of preserving black history.
lois alexander passed away in 2007, leavingher daughter with a window into history. but didn't you feel a little emotional aboutletting it go? joyce bailey: i was very happy about lettingit go, because i knew my mother's legacy would continue. gwen ifill: curators think about legacy too. lonnie bunch is still looking ahead. lonnie bunch: i want to make sure that curators50 years from now can tell the story of today, if that's what they want to tell. so, i hope this museum will continue to evolve,continue to change, because it really has
to be a place that is the great convener,that can bring anybody and everybody into a conversation around race. gwen ifill: from groundbreaking in 2012 toopen doors this week, america preserved, america celebrated, right in the nation's front yard. hari sreenivasan: the story originally airedin september, one of gwen's favorites and one of our favorite stories from 2016. we looked at the best books of 2016 earlierthis week, and both our guests agreed a standout this year was a book that examined the cascadingimpact poverty has on housing. jeff is back with this reprise.
jeffrey brown: every year in this country,families are evicted from their homes, not by the tens of thousands or by the hundredsof thousands, but by the millions, that from a new book that explores a huge, but littlediscussed phenomenon in america today. "evicted: poverty and profit in the americancity" follows the lives of eight milwaukee families, black and white. author matthew desmond lived among them in2008 to 2009. he's a sociologist, a professor at harvardand a winner of a macarthur fellowship last and welcome to you. matthew desmond, author, "evicted: povertyand profit in the american city": thank you.
jeffrey brown: eviction is far more prevalentthan most people think and far less part of the discussion around poverty in this country. why do you think that's the case? matthew desmond: i think we focus a lot onjobs. we focus a lot on mass incarceration and welfarereform. but housing has been left out of the debatea little bit. we have focused on public housing, and wehave focused on neighborhoods, but the private rental market, where a vast majority of low-incomefamilies are living, has been largely overlooked. but here is this market that's taking mostof what low-income families are making.
there's a... (crosstalk) jeffrey brown: an incredible amount, percentageof income. i mean, that's really striking. matthew desmond: yes. yes. jeffrey brown: seventy, 80, 90 percent. matthew desmond: yes, that's what i saw wheni was living with families in milwaukee. and we reached a point today that we knowthat the majority of low-income renters are
paying most of what they have just on rentand to keep the lights on. jeffrey brown: i said you followed eight families. pick one person to explain sort of how peoplefall into this and how hard it is to get out of it. matthew desmond: yes, yes. i'm thinking of arlene. you know, arlene was a single mom. she had two young boys. and when i met her, she was living in a prettyrun-down apartment in a low-income neighborhood
and giving 88 percent of her income on rent. and she was facing terrible choices. you know, should i buy food or pay the rent? should i contribute some money to the funeralor pay the rent? and someone like arlene, eviction isn't necessarilythe result of irresponsibility. it's more inevitable. jeffrey brown: they're making some bad choices,but you're showing how it's a kind of -- almost a vicious cycle, right, of the eviction playinginto those choices. matthew desmond: if you're someone like arlenethat's paying almost everything you have to
the landlord, a very small divergence caninvite an eviction. the book opens with her 14-year-old hittinga car with a snowball, you know, and the man jumping out, kicking in the door, and thatcausing the landlord to evict the family. was that a bad choice? eviction isn't just a condition of poverty. it's also a cause of it. it's making things worse. jeffrey brown: you show the rawness of whatan eviction -- i mean, you capture what it looks like.
jeffrey brown: describe that. i mean, take an example of what perhaps struckyou even the first time you actually saw what that's like, when you see everything thrownout of the house. matthew desmond: i remember seeing arleneget evicted in early january. it was the coldest day on record in milwaukee. you know, the weathermen said it would be40 degrees below with the windchill. and seeing a family's things piled on a curb,seeing children forced from their homes, seeing the things taken by movers and put in bondedstorage, and often, kind of, taken to the dump when families can't keep up with thosepayments, it's a violent act, eviction.
it can leave a deep mark. and we know it leaves a mark on families thatexperience it. jeffrey brown: it leaves a mark in terms of,obviously, their budget, but a psychological mark is what you're really documenting. matthew desmond: yes, that's absolutely right. it affects your spirit. you know, we know that mothers who are evicted,two years later have higher rates of depression. we know that suicides attributed to evictionsor foreclosures doubled between 2005 and 2010. so, eviction not only causes you to lose yourhome and your things and your community, but
also has deep effects on the way you see yourselfand your mental health. jeffrey brown: you also got a couple of landlordsto talk to you and let you follow them around. matthew desmond: i thought that was crucial. i thought, if i really wanted to understandhow housing is causing poverty in america, i needed to get landlords' perspectives. i didn't understand why they evicted me, butnot you. i needed to understand what makes them tick. and there is a business model at the bottomof the market. and the one thing i found that surprised mewas that landlords that are operating in very
poor neighborhoods can make a decent profit,an extreme profit in some cases. jeffrey brown: the eviction becomes part ofthe profit, right? i mean, it can be -- it can be beneficialto them to evict somebody, bring somebody else in, not put much into the actual rentalproperty. matthew desmond: that's right. and for some landlords, eviction is costly,and it does take money, but, for others, it's part of the business model. and the short answer to that is, it's moreefficient to evict a family than to keep up payments or to keep up maintenance on yourproperty.
and you can do that because families are sostrapped, they're giving so much of their income to rent, that if they call a buildinginspector or report a housing problem, landlords can evict that family, not because retaliatoryevictions are legal, but because you can, at any time, evict a family who are behind. jeffrey brown: you also write about your ownexperience in doing this, right? matthew desmond: right. jeffrey brown: trying to see how they live,almost trying to live as they live. did you feel satisfied in the end with whatyou were able to do? because you also write in the afterwards ofhow heartbreaking a lot of this was to see,
and even the personal toll it took on you. matthew desmond: i learned not only aboutpain and denial of basic human needs, but i also learned about humor, and strength andcourage in the face of massive adversity. and it did have an effect on my life, personally. but i think the stories that i write aboutalso buoyed me, you know, and left me with a deep sense of thankfulness and just an impressionthat people that i met in milwaukee refuse to be reduced to their hardships. they're so much more than that, but the extentof poverty in our cities today is reducing people born for better things.
jeffrey brown: let me ask you, finally, aboutwhat should be done. you do, at the end, advocate for a few things,including creating a kind of universal housing voucher. what would be the single most important thingyou would like to see happen? matthew desmond: i think we, as a nation,need to figure out, do we believe that housing is a right in this country? and i think that we should answer yes, because,without stable, decent housing, everything else falls apart. and i think taking this program that's alreadyworking, housing vouchers, so instead of paying
88 percent of your income to rent, arlenewould only pay 30 percent of her income, and she could take that voucher anywhere she wants,as long as her housing isn't too expensive or too shoddy. that would fundamentally change the face ofpoverty in america today. we could make evictions rare again, and decreasefamily homelessness, but only if we, as a country, kind of accept the fact that housingis central to human flourishing and economic mobility. jeffrey brown: all right, the book is "evicted:poverty and profit in the american city." matthew desmond, thank you so much.
matthew desmond: thanks for having me. hari sreenivasan: songwriter josh ritter didn'tmake our critics' list of the best of 2016, but he also had a good year, on tour and recordingmusic for the movie "the hollars." we caught up with ritter in washington playingat the 9:30 club in our latest edition of imho: in my humble opinion. josh ritter, musician: i have been writingsongs and playing music for almost 20 years. i began in my childhood bedroom, moved toopen mics and then to opening for larger artists. and now i get to play my own shows in venuesaround the world. i'm not rihanna, but i have always consideredmyself to have
a healthy, growing career. i get to make the music i want to make with the people i want to make it. i have sold out some theaters you have heardof. and my family and i are able to live a comfortablelife. enjoy this time, those close to me say. it's all happening for you. and yet, at the strangest moments, i findit impossible to do anything of the sort. in the middle of a show, sometimes in themiddle of applause itself, i find myself certain
that my wonderful audience will suddenly realizethat i'm a fake and that my music has been terrible all along. will their collective come during the showitself, causing a slow hemorrhage of silhouettes passing through the exits never to return,or will people be kinder, stay dutifully to the end and then shake their heads softlywith friends as they trail down the street? what of my band? what of the people i work with? how long until they see that i'm a sham? it's thoughts like these that rob joy fromthe very moments when joy is most abundant.
so, here is how i'm trying to approach suchthoughts these days. i'm trying to remember that, while i'm anartist, i am many other things as well. i'm a father and a partner, a brother, sonand friend. these are all roles that i will fill, evenif the bottom suddenly falls out of my career. i think about my heroes, folks like leonardcohen and neil young and radiohead, who have followed their inspiration to forbidding places,making some of their finest, most adventurous work without reassurance of any kind thatit would be appreciated or understood. self-doubt is a very persistent and difficultfeeling to overcome. often, i find it impossible to write becauseof it.
nothing feels correct. nothing feels new. perhaps i don't have anything to say, so ishouldn't say anything at all. during this time, i try and surround myselfwith the unfamiliar, movies, books and music that i don't normally listen to. in those moments, when i fear that i'm losingjoy to mediocrity, self-delusion and doubt, i'm trying to open up my heart to the future. i don't know what will happen in my life. i have no idea what will become of the nextalbum, the next show, the next song.
all i know is that with the future comes thechance for many great and wonderful things to happen. it is that future to which i must turn. it's hard work, but i'm trying hard. hari sreenivasan: on the "newshour" onlineright now: poet shelley girdner had had a very tough year when her poem "new year'sday" suddenly came to her, offering her a blank page to start over. head there to hear her read that poem on ourweb site, pbs.org/newshour. as the obama presidency comes to an end, webegin a series for the first two weeks of
january, "the obama years," a look back athis terms as president, the accomplishments and the failures. we start on monday, reviewing his effortsto preserve america's natural lands and waters by turning them into monuments. washington post white house bureau chief julieteilperin puts obama's actions into context. juliet eilperin, the washington post: thepresident has tried to broaden the definition of, what is american history and what is ourhistory? and so he really has focused on recognizingareas that, for example, recognize everything from black history, to lgbt history, women'shistory, and native american history.
hari sreenivasan: our look at the obama yearsstarting on monday. tonight on "washington week": more on howthe obama administration's actions against russia and the war of words over the stalledmiddle east peace process have created tensions between the outgoing president and the president-elect-- later tonight on "washington week." on "pbs newshour weekend" saturday: a warreporter grapples with ptsd after extensive time covering the war in iraq and the aftermathof terror attacks -- tomorrow night on "pbs newshour weekend." and we will be right back here on monday,when we start our series "the obama years." that's the "newshour" for tonight.
have a great weekend. thank you, and good night.
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