PBS NewsHour; February 19, 2021, 6:00pm-7:00pm PST

Ready for anything. Oh we're ready. Ready. Good evening. I'm Judy Woodruff. On the NewsHour tonight, state of emergency. Texas continues to struggle in the wake of devastating winter storms. As millions remain without drinking water, and power is slowly restored, then getting the vaccine. Public health officials try to rebuild trust among indigenous Americans as the COVID inoculation campaign accelerates. We recognize as Native physicians that degree of distrust in our communities. However, we are dying at much higher numbers to, in order to continue to protect our communities, we have to take this vaccine up. This Friday, David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart consider Republican infighting, the legacy of Rush Limbaugh, and President Biden's first month in office. All that and more on tonight's PBS NewsHour.

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more at kf.org. And with the ongoing support of these institutions. And friends of the NewsHour. This program was made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you. Thank you. The lights are back on in much of Texas tonight, but for millions, the water isn't working. It is the latest crisis in a grinding week of winter storms that have now claimed at least 70 lives. We turn again to Stephanie Sy to begin our coverage. After long days in the dark, the power has largely been restored in communities across Texas

that endured bitter cold. I don't know when he's going to go off again. If it'll go off, I don't know. So immediately when the lights came on, I'm hurry up and made a pot of shrimp gumbo and warmed up. State grid operator said today their system is finally back to normal operations nearly a week after some 4 million customers lost power. That number had fallen more than 90 percent by this evening. But there was no end in sight for a debilitating water crisis. Pipes that burst in the frigid temperatures have led to a shortage. 14 million people have been affected, many of whom are now having to boil their water before they consume it. The temperature in the house was 33 degrees and now the power is back on, so it's warm, but we don't have any water. So I'm here to get water. I've been to several different stores and no one has water. Houston's Delmar Stadium hosted a bottled water drive-through distribution today. I'm gonna sit here until I mean, I have no choice.

All the stores in my area are out of water. Only four-year-old Trent Helt echoed that experience, speaking to us from Arlington outside Dallas. A main pipe burst has cut off water to his residence since Monday. It's been interesting to say the least. We haven't been able to shower... We had to buy multiple, multiple packs of water to either wash dishes or to bathe with. To flush the toilets, we were scooping the snow up and we were boiling it to melt it down. And that's how we would flush the toilets at our house. You're probably really tired of the sponge baths. Must definitely. I cannot wait to take an actual shower. Meanwhile, President Biden promised a major disaster declaration for Texas to expedite much needed resources and he plans to visit the storm ravaged states soon. If in fact, it's concluded that I can do it without creating a burden for the folks on the ground while they're dealing with this crisis, I plan on going.

But we'll know that, we'll make that decision probably the beginning next week. As calls for accountability grow louder, Bill Magnus, the president of Ircott, which manages the state's power grid, said today his agency is open to new ideas. They're subject to policy makers and leaders and, you know, how they want to operate. And if they're seeing that there's something that's really got to change, from, you know, looking at the totality of what we did, we'll certainly try to change it. We're taking the other action we're told to do to manage the issues that they're seeing. Texas Senator Ted Cruz also faced calls for accountability. Texas has gathered outside his Houston home after it was revealed he'd flown to Cancun as the state was reeling from the storm. He flew back Thursday. It was obviously a mistake and in hindsight, I wouldn't have done it. I was trying to be a dad.

Elsewhere across the south, water issues are also plaguing other states that were hit by wintry weather. In Mississippi, nearly all of the 161,000 people in the city of Jackson were without water today. And in Tennessee, the Memphis International Airport was forced to cancel all of its flights because of low water pressure. We head back to Texas now, where the water outages are severely impacting operations at hospitals, already stressed by the pandemic. Joining me now is Dr. Esmaeil Porsa, president and CEO of Harris Health System in the Houston area. Many of its patients are uninsured and underserved. And Dr. Porsa, thank you for joining us on the NewsHour. So I understand that one of your hospitals this week was so desperate for water. The fire department had to be called, where they then distributed water directly from a hydrant. What happened and how are things now? Well, thank you, first of all, for having me and I want to start as always, but thank you all the health care providers and nurses and everybody else is to take care of our patients

in our hospitals. You're correct. A couple of nights ago, one o'clock in the morning, I was notified that the water pressure inside of a water towers that supplies water to the hospital in addition to our HVAC system that controls the humidity and the temperature of our hospital was rapidly running out of water. It was a desperate situation. I was told that in few hours, if it could not replenish the water to our water tower that we would have to actually evacuate the patients out of the hospital. So I was able to call the city. The city was great in responding very quickly to send a fire truck to the hospital. They were able to, as you mentioned, able to connect the fire department using a host of water tower and slowly bring the water up. The water hydrant, unfortunately, was facing the same issue as the rest of the systems here in Houston, Texas. The water pressure was extremely low, but it was enough to buy us time so that during

the day, we were able to actually purchase several thousands of gallons of water that was delivered to us through the trucks to maintain our operations. And as the temperatures rose and as the water pressure is improved, we were able to actually maintain. We are holding steady right now. The issue is no longer the water. The issue is the people coming to our emergency rooms, hours, in addition to other hospitals in this area because urgent care clinics are shut down. The main issue right now is our dialysis patients, having a historic number of dialysis patients coming to our emergency room seeking treatment because private dialysis centers have been closed for the entire week. So even before this week, hospitals were already dealing with a surge of COVID patients in many cases, are you at capacity at this point?

Are you having to turn away any of these dialysis patients coming in or anyone else? Well, we are at capacity. We have been at capacity. As we mentioned at the beginning of the conversation, we are the safety net hospital for Harris County, the largest county, the most populace county in Texas. So we have been at capacity almost from the beginning of the pandemic, we continue to be at capacity, the situation has not done any better. What has happened actually since the start of last week or this week, is that the patients who are ready to be discharged can't be discharged home because they also lack power and water. So we have our inpatient units getting backed up even more than what they have been, they have been more than 100% capacity for a few days now. But to your question about turning people away, we do not turn anybody away. We have not had to turn anybody away. We have more than 20 or 30 now patients waiting for dialysis treatment in our emergency rooms. Unfortunately, we are only able to provide so many services as you may know dialysis is

not a quick thing. It takes at least four hours for each treatment and we only have so many machines and to make the matter even more dire is the staffing. Our staff are not immune to everything else and not in the community. So they have the same issue with loss of water, loss of electricity, busted pipes, damaged ceilings. So it's all adding up to become the perfect storm in an already really bad situation. Well, Dr. Porsa, we certainly are glad that you have at least the water you need for right now and that the temperatures are warming up. We wish you the best to you and your staff. Dr. Esmail Porsa, President and CEO of the Harris Health System joining us from near Houston. Thank you. Thank you. In the day's other news, the White House confirmed that the Arctic storm has set back

COVID vaccine shipments, extreme conditions delayed delivery of six million doses and closed vaccination sites in some places. But in a virtual briefing, presidential adviser Andy Slavitt said he is confident of catching out. Now, as weather conditions improve, we're already working to clear this backlog. 1.4 million doses are already in transit today and we anticipate that all the backlog doses will be delivered within the next week, with most being delivered within the next several days. President Biden toured a Pfizer vaccine manufacturing facility today in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Earlier, he pledged a total of $4 billion to help buy vaccines for poor countries. The United States is, once again, part of the Paris Climate Accord that became official

today. Following an executive order by President Biden, his administration has promised to set a new target for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. President Trump took the U.S. out of the Paris Accord last fall. In another break with Trump policy, the U.S. has begun allowing in the first of thousands of asylum seekers from Mexico. They had been waiting there for months or even years, while their cases are decided. The policy change affects some 25,000 migrants, initially, a few hundred a day are being processed. President Biden appealed to the world's democracies today to tackle new challenges or risk becoming relics. He addressed the Munich Security Conference via video link and called for action on economic troubles and the pandemic. He also pledged a new American approach to NATO in his first major global appearance since taking office.

I know the past few years of strain and tested are transatlantic relationship, but the United States is determined to re-engage with Europe, to consult with you, to earn back our position of trusted leadership. The President charged that Russia is working to undermine NATO and that China is using coercion and economic abuses to gain dominance. The U.S. Justice Department is alleging a broader conspiracy among the far-right oath keepers militia in the storming of the U.S. Capitol. Six more people were indicted today. They allegedly plotted to use military-style tactics in a bid to block Congress from certifying President Biden's election. The U.S. Capitol Police Force has suspended six officers in the wake of the Capitol attack. Today's announcement says that they are among 35 officers being investigated for how they responded to the assault by extremist Trump supporters. Social media videos appear to show some officers escorting rioters into the Capitol.

Ride-sharing giant Uber has lost a major court fight in Britain. The country's Supreme Court ruled today that Uber drivers are, in fact, workers entitled to minimum wage and benefits, rather than independent contractors. Last year, Uber defeated an attempt in California to treat drivers as full-fledged employees. And on Wall Street today, stocks barely budged. The Dow Jones industrial average gained just one point to close at 31,494. The Nasdaq rose nine points and the S&P 500 lost seven. Still to come on the NewsHour, health officials tried to rebuild trust of vaccines among indigenous Americans. The U.S. military grappled with a rising epidemic of sexual assault within its ranks. David Brooks and Jonathan K. Hart on Republican divides and President Biden's first month in office.

This is the PBS NewsHour from WETA Studios in Washington and in the West from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University. Native Americans have been among the hardest hit by COVID-19, but a history of medical mistreatment led some indigenous leaders to brace for challenges in vaccinating their communities. Special correspondent Fred De Sam Lazaro reports on those efforts. On a frigid morning in Minneapolis, a sign of progress in the fight against COVID-19. Inside a former Dollar Tree store, residents waited for doses of the Moderna coronavirus vaccine. The effort was run by the Native American Community Clinic, which serves thousands of indigenous people in the area. Although native lands are predominantly in very remote settings, the majority of native

peoples in the United States actually lives in cities. This South Minneapolis neighborhood has one of the densest urban native populations and is a concerted effort to vaccinate the elderly. Still like 67-year-old Elsie Budrow, an enrolled member of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, she spent most of her life going back and forth between Minneapolis and the reservation in northern Minnesota. That is, until the pandemic hit. Everybody's kind of keeping to themselves, which is very hard because in the Native community, you share a lot with your family, and that hasn't been able to happen. So when Budrow found out she could get the vaccine, she leapt at the opportunity. I'm like everybody else kind of scared of it, but my own common sense tells me that it's safe to get it, and it's going to help in the pandemic. Nationwide indigenous people have experienced the highest death rate from COVID-19, nearly

twice the rate of white Americans. That's partly because native people have higher incidents of diabetes, heart disease, and asthma, conditions related to poverty that can exacerbate a coronavirus infection. Anthony Stately is the executive director of the Native American Community Clinic or NACC. Establishing herd immunity, getting 70-80% of our population vaccinated is going to be really, really important. Many communities are losing their elders. Those are the people that hold the knowledge of our culture and our language, things that are really important to us, that are as important to our health and well-being as is medicine, as is food, as is water, and all those other things. Stately has tried to spread the word about the vaccine on a Native American radio show. The difference between taking the vaccine and not taking the vaccine at all is that, you know, if you take the vaccine, you have some percentage of chance of being immune to it or to have some protection. It's personal for Stately, who was hospitalized with COVID.

The first night I got there, I just cried because it sort of hit me like a ton of bricks that I had to say goodbye to my children. I didn't know if I was going to get home. At the end of December, NACC held a small ceremony where it vaccinated its first group of community elders, hoping to infuse the medicine with good spirit and protect their people. But for Stately, the vaccination push comes with a challenge. Native people, we have this long history of not being treated very well by the medical establishment and the research community. And so I expected that elder people would be ambivalent about accepting the vaccine. That described Stately's cousin Roxanne Flamond, who stopped by recently for a visit. I'm going to Phoenix. You are? Dang, in the middle of a pandemic, no less. How are you going to pull it off? I'm going to wear two masks and a shield. So you don't think you might want to take the vaccine before you go or? No.

No, that's not going to happen. Flamond, who's 67 and has underlying health conditions, is concerned about having an allergic reaction to the shot, a side-effect scene and a relatively small number of cases with the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. In the beginning, I had conspiracy theories, you know, and I said, I'm going to wait until everybody to see what everybody else does, and if they're dropping my flies, I'm not getting it, you know. But also the fact that, you know, our historically, you know, the government has not really treated our people, you know, fairly. In the 1970s, the Federal Indian Health Service sterilized thousands of indigenous women without their permission or after coercing them. Roxanne Flamond says she was one of those women. I was coerced in signing papers to be sterilized, and I didn't know. I was 19. I believe what the doctor said. The history also includes the abuse of Native Americans in scientific research, and it dates

back all the way to the 1700s when British colonizers gave tribes blankets contaminated with smallpox. So when Flamond first heard about the COVID vaccines, I was like, well, is this another smallpox infested blanket just in a different form? For providers in indigenous communities, a big task now is convincing patients that the government's response this time is appropriate. Dr. Mary Owen is president of the Association of American Indian Physicians. We recognize as Native physicians that degree of distrust in our communities, and we recognize the reasons for most of us having lived in and continuing to work in our communities. However, it is so important that people recognize that we are dying at much higher numbers and the government is actually getting this one right by getting us the vaccine as they should be. So in order to continue to protect our communities that are dying, our community members who are dying at disproportionate amounts, we have to take this vaccine up.

The effort from Owen and others may be working. A recent survey by the Urban Indian Health Institute found 75 percent of American Indians and Alaska natives are willing to get the vaccine. Encouraging as that acceptance is, the challenge as in so many other communities will continue to be getting enough vaccine and getting it across the vast varied landscape of Indian country. Meantime, Anthony Stately was relieved to learn that by the end of their short meeting, his cousin was considering taking a shot, but Roxanne Flamond insisted she was going to wait at least a few more weeks. For the PBS NewsHour, I'm Fred De Sam Lazaro in Minneapolis. Fred's reporting is a partnership with the Undertold Stories Project at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota. A video posted by a female Marine about sexual assault in the military, rocketed across

the Internet and into the Pentagon press briefing room today. Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin promised to take additional steps to stop such violence. But as Nick Schifrin reports, sexual assault in the military continues to rise, and individual families continue to be ripped apart. When Asia Graham graduated from high school in 2019, she hoped the military would give her and her mother Nicole a better life. She wanted to go in the military and make me her dependent and have me stay in with her for the rest of my life. Anthony Graham is Asia's brother. Even though my mom was a mom, my sister tried to act like a mom. Where do you think that sense of responsibility in her came from? We just raised a wonderful girl. That girl became a woman in uniform. In December 2019, she arrived at Fort Bliss in Texas, an 18-year-old soldier. She was a very, very proud soldier.

In her basic trainings first sergeant loved her and praised her. But she left the military draped in a flag. She'd been found dead on New Year's Eve 2020 in her barracks at age 19. An initial army press release said the Iron Eagle team is deeply saddened by the loss of our friend and teammate. In the second statement, three days later, after a local news report revealed a darker time in uniform. Graham reported she'd been raped by a fellow member of her unit in December 2019. The army said it launched a criminal investigation. Separated her from alleged attacker and offered an encouraged medical help. In Nicole's home, Nicole and Anthony Graham keep a photographic shrine, the happy daughter of a white mother and black veteran, the smiling soldier, the confident girl, the confidence that they say the army extinguished. That same glow that she had about the military, that same happiness wasn't there. And they say what the army claimed to have done to protect her isn't true, beginning

with when she first approached her commanders. She got raped by a fellow soldier in December. She reported it in February. She was told to shut up. And rapist was in her barracks, in her company, and she had to see him. Asia Graham's own words also suggest the army didn't do what it claimed. In a message obtained by PBS NewsHour that she sent to a friend four days before she died, she wrote, I told my non-commissioned officer and he didn't take it that serious. She writes she then told a female sergeant who admitted she didn't speak up in a similar situation happened to her when she first got here too. Graham told others who were more senior, but all they cared about was the army doctrine and cover up themselves. I really was asking for help and therapy, I just feel mistreated. Graham moved in with her brother off base to get away from her alleged attacker.

The siblings had always been close. Anthony saw his sister's descent. She started drinking and taking pills and became self-destructive. She got a DUI. She died of an overdose. But in counseling, Anthony says she was told not to tell anyone anything. They heard her story and then right afterwards they're like, all right, we just need you to shut up about this, don't talk about it to nobody, don't tell nobody about it, we're gonna take care of it. Last month Fort Bliss charged private first-class Christian Alvarado with raping Asia Graham in December 2019, and five months later raping another woman. And three months after that, sexually assaulting a third woman. Per army regulations, he's still on base, on active duty and free. Is what happened to Asia Graham typical? Yes, who's responsible for the soldier's well-being? It's the chain of command. They didn't listen, and in this case, the survivor is dead. Camilla Van Shadley and her husband, retired major general Robert Shadley, are with Never Alone Advocacy, a non-profit that helps military victims of sexual assault.

Over the past decade, the number of reported victims has doubled. From 3,327 and 2010 to 7,825 and 2019, but the actual number of sexual assaults, including those not reported, is estimated to be 20,000. Last year, an independent investigation found a permissive environment for sexual assault at Fort Hood, and a lack of knowledge among commanders on when and how to report sexual assaults. At Fort Bliss, Graham faced the same challenges. They actually are allowing the commands to make choices as to what rules they will follow, if if they won't. And Asia is the perfect one. Four people knew that she had complained. It's not the chain of command's choice to whether to believe or not. Their responsibility is to report it to trained investigators to look into it to get the ground truth. But Shadley says the buck doesn't stop with Graham's unit.

Commander at Fort Bliss should be held accountable in order to send a signal to the command and all the other division commanders, you better get involved. Shadley knows this problem. We as leaders have a responsibility to take care of our soldiers and brace your heart when we don't. In 1996, he commanded the Army's Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland when it became known that drill sergeants had been preying on young female trainees. I have been told by hundreds, if not thousands, of soldiers, that they don't trust their chain of command. This is a force readiness issue. I predict a young leader is going to stand up on the battlefield and say, follow me. And the soldiers are going to say, I don't think so. In a statement to PBS NewsHour, Fort Bliss says it's investigating when Graham originally reported to her commanders and, quote, if, indeed, those leaders took no actions, then failure

to act would be unacceptable. But other service members say their leaders also take no action. I've dedicated my life to the military. In a viral TikTok video, a Marine says her commanding general allowed her perpetrator to stay in the service. And this is exactly why [expletive] females in the military [expletive] kill themselves. This is exactly why nobody [expletive] takes us seriously. Today, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin admitted the military has not effectively dealt with sexual assault. We've been working at this for a long time and in earnest, but we haven't gotten it right. I found the video deeply disturbing. I'm going to ask that, uh, that her chain of command make sure that someone is looking out after her needs. Last year, Candidate Biden promised to tackle sexual assault in the military. At a fundraiser, he said commanders should be removed from sexual assault reporting and prosecution decisions. We have to change the culture of abuse in this country, uh, especially in armed services. We have a immediately appointed commission of current and former military leaders, sexual

assault survivors, and their advocates and sexual assault experts, and give them 90 days to make concrete recommendations to me, including on prosecution decisions. But Shadley warns the military may not follow through. And so he urges President Biden to demand results. I believe the president should stick to his word and say, I want you to fix it. If the current leadership isn't going to do it, get somebody in there who will. Back in Nicole Graham's home, what was once pride and hope in Asia's uniform is now regret that she ever allowed her daughter to put it on. I really, really beat myself up that I signed the paperwork for her to go. When they recruit the kids, they say it's a family. What kind of family lets people get raped and not taking care of the rapist. I wish I'd never would have signed the paper. They are victims of a plague that the military is known about for decades, but never cured.

For the PBS NewsHour, I'm Nick Schifrin. And now we turn to the analysis of Brooks and Capehart, that is, New York Times columnist. This is David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart, columnist for the Washington Post. So good to see both of you on this Friday night. It's the first time we've seen you since the impeachment trial last week ended last Saturday, President Trump. Jonathan, it seems almost every day this past week, though, we've been hearing from different Republican state officials about how they were going to punish or censure Republican senators who voted to convict, whether it was Senator Cassidy and Louisiana, Senator Toomey and Pennsylvania.

There's talk that he will be censured. How deep is the animosity toward these lawmakers who voted against former President Trump? I think the animosity is deep, very deep. I mean, these state party chairs, one, might be responding in their own capacity, these state parties in their own capacity, but they are a reflection of the Republican party base. You know, Judy, when I interviewed former R&C chairman Michael Steele back in August of 2016, and I talked to him about the candidacy then of Donald Trump running for President, being the nominee, and he told me then that he thought that the nomination of Donald Trump would hasten the conversation that the Republican party needed to have about who they are, what they value, and certainly about the role of race within the party. Fast forward, Donald Trump becomes president, Donald Trump loses an election, but in the

process, Donald Trump has transformed the Republican party into one that is completely loyal to him. And so people who voted for his impeachment, people who voted for him voted guilty, wanted him to be convicted in the last go round with this impeachment trial, those are the folks who are riling up this super loyal base within the Republican party that is loyal to Donald Trump. And I think what we're going to see down the road is whether these censure votes, whether these reprimands of these Republicans, who I think voted their conscience, whether those actual actually have any political power, meaning bumping them from office in that way. David, how do you see this animosity division inside the Republican party? Well Trump is popular, and when Democrats and the media seem to be attacking Donald Trump,

the Republicans show rally rounds, 78 percent of Republicans say right now they want Donald Trump to play an important role in the future of the party. Underneath that, there are divisions, and they show up between the normal Republicans and the Trump Republicans, and you can ask, who do you feel more loyal to the party or Donald Trump? And there it's about 50-50, and then there's an important split when you ask Republicans, should we work with Democrats? And there again, you see the regular Republicans versus the Trump Republicans, the regular Republicans who seem to be a slight majority, want to work with Democrats, the Trump Republicans do not. I think the party leaders have decided we can't have this fight over Donald Trump. We have to displace Trump with policymaking. And so this week Tom Cotton and Mitt Romney began to work together to create a bill that would raise the minimum wage and fix enforcement of immigration on the border, and they're trying to make the party a regular party, so it's not just a media party, but a party that actually does legislation. And I think that's a pretty promise in a way to try to displace Trumpism. But meantime, Jonathan, you had former President Trump coming out this week, appearing on three

different, I guess, conservative TV channels still talking about how the election was stolen, attacking Mitch McConnell. Is McConnell hurt by this? I mean, I guess I'm asking how lasting is this damage the former president still trying to level? Look, in a battle between senate minority leader Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump, I put my money on Mitch McConnell. Senator McConnell is worried about two things, one of which he has succeeded. Judges was the first one, but the most important thing is power. He lost the Senate majority, primarily because of what then President Trump did that allowed those two Georgia seeds to flip to the two Democrats, Warlock and Ossoff. But also, Senator McConnell wants that majority back. And so that's why I think we saw him on the one hand vote for the acquittal of Donald

Trump. And then after that vote, excoriate Donald Trump, lay the blame right at his feet. And in doing that, what I think Mitch McConnell is doing is creating an environment for his caucus. And those Republicans running for the Senate in 2022 and 2024, giving them the room to be able to run races that would give them the best chance at winning. And when it comes to Donald Trump, it's all about him. It's not about the party. It's not about policy as David was talking about. It's about him and loyalty to him. And so if you're Mitch McConnell and you are about power, but you're also about doing things that advance the Republican party, you're going to do whatever it takes to push Trump to the side and make it possible for those candidates to come to the fore. So David, who's got more muscle, Mitch McConnell or Donald Trump? And I do want to ask you both about Rush Limbaugh, but McConnell first.

Yeah, I was, I questioned McConnell's strategy last Saturday doing that acquittal vote and then excoriating, Ms. Jonathan said, you know, Napoleon said if you're going to take Vienna, take Vienna. But maybe Jonathan writes it sets the Republicans up for a good run in 2022. And let's face it, that you'd have to think it's likely the Republicans will take the House and Senate that's just the way what happens in midterm elections. The opposition party does very well. And I think McConnell's main goal is to keep really extreme Trumpians from getting Republican nominations in these Senate races and House races. And so maybe he's playing that game just trying to ride this thing out and not try to fire everybody up and fire up the Trumpian base. And David, and just a few words, the legacy of Rush Limbaugh. Well, he changed media. He changed AM radio before Rush Limbaugh hosts tend to be not too opinionated. After Rush Limbaugh on a left-and-right hosts are super opinionated, he changed conservatism from George F. Will and William F. Buckley to what we have today.

So he had a big, positive effect on media, I think, and a pretty negative effect on American conservatism. Jonathan, it was on the media, as David says. It was also on the Republican Party and on conservatism broadly. Right. My relationship when it comes to Rush Limbaugh is more than complicated as someone who was attacked by him many times when he was on the radio. I mourn for his family and the people who loved him. But I quite honestly do not simply because of the corrosive nature of his radio programming and what he did with the power that he had. The corrosive nature that he had on American politics, on American political discourse. And if, you know, legacies can be good and legacies can be bad. And I think for me, personally, Rush Limbaugh's legacy is one that has harmed the country. All right.

Biden, first month in office, after tomorrow, David, what are you seeing so far? And before you answer that, let me ask you both to respond to something, President Biden said at the CNN Town Hall on Wednesday night, reminding us that he's not comfortable yet in this new job. Let's listen. I was raised in a way that you didn't look for anybody to wait on you. And it's where I find myself extremely self-conscious. They're wonderful people, work at the White House. But someone, you know, standing there and, you know, making sure hands me my suit coat. So, David, I guess I should have said not comfortable with the trappings of the office yet. Yeah. I mean, it's so weird being President, every President talks about this. You're never alone. They, Secret Service knows when you go to the bathroom. They know when you're in the elevator. George W. Bush would ride his motorbike or his bike, his mountain bike, up at a training

center, Secret Service Training Center in Maryland. And he would try to ride in front of the agents because he said that was the only time of his week when there were people in front of him and he could look out and sort of be alone. And so it's just very weird being President, I think, very hard. That's sort of President Biden, I think he's doing a lot of sensible things on his own. What's different from the Obama start, and Obama had a bigger Senate majority, Obama passed some big legislation right away, Lily led better week one, Children's Health Care week two, the stimulus package week three, so there was a lot of legislative action. There hasn't been as much from President Biden. Jonathan, how do you see these first 30 days? Well, I see them as terrific. If only because we have a President of the United States who's focused on governing, who's focused on doing things on behalf of the American people, but who is also not focused on being in our faces 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with all manner of vitriol and

nastiness towards his political opponents or even regular citizens. Judy, what I love about that clip you showed of President Biden talking about his not being comfortable with the trappings of the presidency is that's the man the American people voted for. It's a person who for whom service, public service, the emphasis is on the service, but it's also the public, someone other than himself. He is that boy from Scranton, whose family had hard times and he worked his way up to the highest office in the land and the idea that, you know, with this office comes someone who hands him his suit coat in the morning or to David's point, you know, he and his family now are never alone that I think it resonates with the American people because this is someone for whom power is something that's part of the job.

It wasn't anything that he strove for just for power's sake. For him being president of the United States is about helping people. And David, last in a minute, but your thoughts on whether he's getting people behind him? I mean, is it your sense that he's building the kind of public support he's going to need? Yeah. I think he is, actually. He's amazingly done very well at holding the Democratic Party together, which was not natural. I think he's done that extremely skillfully. His approval rating. There really have been not so many errors. One little error about how when schools are going to reopen, but pretty much else, it's a professional organization just as it was a professional campaign. All right. It's only been a month. We'll do this every month, every week. We'll keep asking. How's he doing? How's he doing? Very good to see both of you.

Have a good weekend. David Brooks, Jonathan Capehart, thank you both. As we do every Friday, we take a moment to remember and pay tribute to the lives of five extraordinary people who've died from COVID-19 in this country. Michael and Gwen Elbert were the type of people who appreciated a good Arizona sunset and a sky full of stars. Their knees said the couple eloped to Switzerland in 1967, while Michael was serving overseas in the army. Gwen had grown up in Michigan and returned there to raise her own family. He worked as a stay-at-home mom and a teacher before going back to school in her fifties to become a hospice nurse. Michael was a company man working for Volkswagen for decades.

His niece told us he had a zest for life, loved a good bargain, and was a consummate showman. Together, the Elbert shared a love of singing and family, and their knees said neither ever knew a stranger. Michael and Gwen died eight days apart. Gwen was 76, and Michael was 79. Alejandro Pena Losa Vasquez had a gift for making people laugh. His family told us he was born in Mexico City, and that's where he met his wife, Perla, and earned his PhD in microbiology. He brought his passion for science to the U.S., working at Oklahoma State University for three decades. His son told us his father was proud to be an American, but was equally proud to pass on his Mexican culture to his children. Alejandro was 63. Eugene Marsh had an unquenchable thirst for knowledge that spanned his entire life.

His family and friends told us Eugene grew up in a foster home in South Carolina, and was one of the first African Americans to integrate his all-white high school. He became a decorated Vietnam War veteran. Life eventually took him to New Jersey, where he met his wife Elaine, and started a successful construction company that worked on renovating the Statue of Liberty. His brother said Eugene believed it wasn't enough to climb the ladder. You had to bring people up the ladder with you. Eugene was 71. The small town of Fayette, Missouri was special to Martha Rogers Holman. She spent most of her life there going to college at Central Methodist University, where she was an honor student, homecoming queen, and drum major at. In later years, she became a fixture at University Basketball Games, where she handed out lollipops

to the entire team. And recently, she ran the family farm on the outskirts of town. Her family described her as a grand lady, warm, kind, and fiercely independent, a quality that helped her earn a master's degree in mathematics later in life. Martha was 95. And thank you so much to the family members and friends who contributed these stories. Our hearts go out to you as they do to everyone who's lost a loved one in this pandemic. Trumpet player, composer, jazz ambassador, Wynton Marsalis. One of the country's leading cultural figures is, again, meeting the moment with music. This time, pointing to the founding principles of our nation.

Jeffrey Brown has the story for our Arts and Culture Series, Canvas. It's called The Democracy! Suite, a new composition by Wynton Marsalis, who's kept swinging through the pandemic while linking his art form to higher human values. In the way that we play jazz, we improvise, which means we have freedom. We swing, which means we're forced to share that freedom, and we come from a blues aesthetic and blues idiom, which means that we can look into the face of something that is tragic and not paint the fake smile on it and still be optimistic about the use of our will to come together and make things better for the future. Marsalis wrote The Suite amid the pandemic and recorded it with members of the orchestra

at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York, where he's managing an artistic director. Its first movement is titled Be Present, something he, like all of us, is having trouble with, performing on a stage he's used to, but with no audience. At first it was really strange. Just to put together concerts where we all record at home and we compiled everything. That also was very unusual at first, but now we're acclimated to it. Now you're acclimated to looking out from the stage and not seeing anybody there. You don't want to get too used to that. Marsalis famously grew up in the vibrant world of New Orleans Jazz, surrounded by its traditions and ever-alive sounds. Now even Mardi Gras Parades have been canceled. And the pandemic brought personal loss, the death from COVID of his 85-year-old father, Ellis, himself a pianist, educator, and patriarch of the musical family that includes saxophonist Branford.

My father, and he was alive, his observation at that point, was that if it happens to you, it's no more significant than anybody else. Many people are losing their loved ones. You'll be a part of a collective grief, and it's also a part of the cycle of life. He accepted it like that. He was very large-spirited all the way to the end, the way he lived. So I don't take away any bad feelings or anything left unsaid, and even I was not able to be with him, that still hurts, but you know, we all have this tough time for everybody. Marsalis has long found ways to address the current moments and the past that informs it. His jazz oratorio Blood on the Field set amid slavery won the 1997 Pulitzer Prize, the first for a jazz composition. His new work includes a section titled, Sloganize, Patronize, Realize, Revolutionize. The melody of that song is the chant, Black Lives Matter.

We have some sections where the horns improvise together, like the trumpet and the trombone, play a solo and share space. If you take the way we share the space, the way that we repeat what it is that we're playing, and the conclusions we come to. In the language of instrumental music, it's evocative of what we're feeling of a deliberateness and ultimately of an optimism. I want as much as possible to try to communicate to you all the holistic nature of this experience. Marsalis continues to teach in top music schools and run his annual, Essentially Ellington program for high school students around the country. We joined him for that in 2011. Last year in the time of pandemic, it was held remotely.

And in a time of killings of more Black men and women and protests in the streets, young students had questions that went well beyond the music. Today's America, we have reached a renewed period of civil unrest. Do we as musicians specifically jazz musicians hold roles in our responsibilities in regards to these movements today? In answer, Marsalis points to the work of young musicians like John Batiste, who performed in the streets during last summer's protests. One of the new suite's movements is dedicated to him. I love to see them active because in my class, the beginning of every year, I always ask students, what does the United States Constitution do? What is it designed to do? I'm always looking for them to say it's a document is designed to level the playing field for everyone through a sophisticated system of checks and balances. One, two, three. It's important for us as artists to be engaged with our way of life as jazz musicians because that's the tradition of our music. That's the question you ask in class, right?

That's not a musical question. Or is it? Well, you know, it's a musical question because when they don't answer it, I always say, if we don't know what our Constitution does, what chance do we have of figuring out what jazz is? The Democracy! Suite is available on streaming sites and the Jazz at Lincoln Center website. For the PBS NewsHour, I'm Jeffrey Brown. Wonderful conversation. The one and only went in Marsalis. And on the PBS NewsHour online, how do you capture the enormous human loss to COVID-19? One artist says the key is to remember the individual. Read more about the installation she built in Washington, DC, and how she's helping it live on virtually. That's PBS.org slash NewsHour. And that's the NewsHour for tonight. I'm Judy Woodruff. Join us online.

And again, here on Monday evening, for all of us at the PBS NewsHour, we hope you have a good, safe weekend. Thank you. Good night. Major funding for the PBS NewsHour has been provided by... Consumer Cellular Johnson and Johnson, BNSF Railway. The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, for more than 50 years advancing ideas and supporting institutions to promote a better world at Hewlett.org. Supporting social entrepreneurs and their solutions to the world's most pressing problems. Skoll Foundation dot org. And with the ongoing support of these institutions. And friends of the NewsHour.

This program was made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you. Thank you. This is PBS NewsHour West from WETA Studios in Washington and from our Bureau at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University. You're watching PBS Here's a classic movie quiz, 1988's Guerrillas in the Mist, stars Sigourney Weaver as naturalist Diane Fossy.

The film earned her an Academy Award nomination, how many times has Weaver been nominated for an Oscar? If they don't go, I don't go. Three, you provide the popcorn the catch in the TV, will provide great movies like Guerrillas in the Mist. The winner of two Golden Globes, Saturday night at 8. On Masterpiece, I don't want Christmas ruined with an ugly argument. I thought that was the point of it. Staying for the wedding? Always a little too heartbreaking. I couldn't be happier for Helen. This time tomorrow we'll be married. And the rest of our lives. You look very festive. Every year he hands out oranges to the kids. Oh no. Will it? Are you okay? All Creatures Great and Small, the season finale on Masterpiece. James and Helen bond over a new litter of puppies, Sunday night at 9. Here's tonight's lineup on KQED, made possible by your support. Anywhere you look, so much has happened, you're surrounded by your family again.

I think I was born to shake things up, yes. I scare some people at competition. I feel like you're making history. There's lots of people who can bring down the house. This is really, really important that we get to write our future. KQED celebrates Black History Month with programs that share the African-American experience. For show listings, visit KQED.org slash heritage. We're celebrating Black History Month on KQED. Singer, dancer, activist, poet, and writer Maya Angelou takes us on an intimate journey through

her life and our world. For the caged bird sings of freedom. She was big and she had the voice of God. I am your mother. I'm your auntie. I'm your teacher. Meet the extraordinary Maya Angelou. And still I rise. On American Masters. A remarkable life tonight at nine. KQED thanks our members and community partners for their support. Xfinity home includes professionally monitored home security so customers can keep an eye on things. The most important thing we can do is to make sure that we have strong international institutions and that nature remains a strong alliance, both militarily and politically.

Because I'm always afraid of those people who try to predict exactly what will happen in the future. Those people are always wrong Welcome to G-Zero World, I'm Ian Brummer. And today we are taking a close look at NATO, asking the big question, is the decade's old military and political alliance still relevant or has it become a cold or relic? The world has changed dramatically since NATO was formed and so have the biggest threats to peace and stability. No doubt Joe Biden's presidency will have major implications for the international alliance, but today the gross military race is ahead of the U.N.