PBS NewsHour; April 23, 2021, 3:00pm-4:00pm PDT

So students from low-income families can get the tools they need to be ready for anything. Oh, we're ready. Good evening. I'm Judy Woodruff on the NewsHour tonight, one-on-one. Dr. Anthony Fauci discusses the latest on the Johnson & Johnson vaccine cause and how to reopen public spaces. Then, charging ahead. We break down the roadblocks to the Biden administration's push for electric vehicles. Plus, the road ahead, a potential lifeline of federal funding for health care and infrastructure is within reach for tribal lands disproportionately affected by the pandemic. This is a pretty monumentous step forward. You know, this is one of the biggest single investments that the federal government has ever made in history directly to indigenous people. And it's Friday, David Brooks and Jonathan K. Hart addressed the meaning of the show in verdict.

Investigations into the Capitol riot and the president's ambitious climate goals. All that and more on tonight's PBS NewsHour. Major funding for the PBS NewsHour has been provided by... Moving our economy for 160 years, BNSF, the engine that connects us. Consumer Cellular.

Johnson & Johnson. The John S. and James O. Knight Foundation fostering informed and engaged communities, 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. A CDC panel is urging an end to the pause on using Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine. The group says the shots should include a warning about rare blood clots. It found 15 cases, three of them fatal, out of nearly 8 million vaccinations.

The CDC usually follows the committee's recommendations. Meanwhile, the agency's director warned of vaccination gaps in parts of the country. She also encouraged pregnant women to be immunized. No safety concerns were observed for people vaccinated in the third trimester or safety concerns for their babies. As such, CDC recommends that pregnant people receive the COVID-19 vaccine. We'll talk to infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, after the news summary. An explosion of COVID infections in India forced urgent action today. Officials reported nearly 333,000 new cases in just 24 hours and more than 2,200 deaths. The government shipped oxygen tanks on special express trains as hospitals appealed for help, some threatened to halt new admissions. President Biden's climate summit ended today with a focus on giving up fossil fuels.

The virtual session included world leaders, as well as billionaires, Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg and others. They talked of major spending on innovation and renewable energy. Mr. Biden cast it as a way to generate jobs. Today's final session is not about the threat of climate change poses. It's about the opportunity that addressing climate change provides. People working in the fields that we haven't even conceived of yet, on farms, on farms, on factories, and on laboratories and universities, but things we haven't even thought of so far. Summit nations will meet again for formal negotiations in November. California Governor Gavin Newsom says that he will halt all new permits for oil and gas fracking in 2024. The process involves hydraulic fracturing of underground rock and environmental groups oppose it. Newsom also ordered regulators today to plan for ending all oil production in California by 2045.

Some 130 migrants bound for Europe are feared dead after capsizing off Libya. It happened Wednesday in the Mediterranean Sea, northeast of Tripoli, the Libyan capital city. A French rescue ship found an overturned rubber boat on Thursday. Rescue groups say that 350 migrants have drowned off Libya since the year began. In Jerusalem, Israeli police arrested 44 people overnight in clashes with Palestinians and Jewish extremists. Security forces fired stun grenades and water cannon at crowds, protesting restrictions on their gathering during Ramadan. Nearby, far-right Jewish nationalists fought with police at an anti-Arab rally. Russian resident Alexei Navalny is ending a 24-day hunger strike in prison. In an online post today, he said that he has now received medical care from independent doctors, as he had demanded.

His own doctors had warned that his health was failing, and they urged him to stop the hunger strike. Back in this country, a Pentagon panel recommended that independent authorities take over decisions about prosecuting troops for sexual assault. Commenders have always made those decisions, and the military has opposed any change. A spokesman says that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will sound out service leaders on the proposals. He wants the services to have a chance to look at them and give him his feedback. He obviously will be taking all those inputs seriously as he weighs next steps. Reports of sexual assaults have risen steadily since 2006. President Biden has made plans for his first overseas trip since taking office. The White House says he will attend the Group of Seven Summit in England in June. From there, he will go to Brussels to meet with leaders of the European Union and NATO. And on Wall Street today, stocks made up some lost ground.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 227 points to close at 34,043. The Nasdaq rose 198 points, the S&P 500 added 45. Still to come on the NewsHour, Dr. Anthony Fauci discusses the latest on the vaccination effort. The Biden administration pushed toward electric vehicles. A major federal investment in tribal lands hopes to counteract longstanding inequities. And how soccer fans took down plans for a super-secret new league. Plus, much more. 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. The Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine appears to be on the verge of being given out once again.

That is, after a CDC advisory panel recommended to do so and provide a warning. Before the panel's recommendation, I spoke today with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. He's also the Chief Medical Advisor to President Biden. And we should note that Johnson & Johnson is a funder of the NewsHour. Dr. Fauci, thank you very much for joining us. You and I are recording this interview before we know what the CDC is going to say today about whether to reauthorize the use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. But whatever their decision is, how much of a setback to the overall effort to get vaccine into as many arms as possible has this pause been? I don't think it has really been significant, Judy. Particularly since if they make the decision to go back out there and get this vaccine back and play, I think you're going to see people who wanting to get this particular vaccine will be lining up to get it.

I think that the pause, although for a period of time there, some people felt that maybe that's going to diminish the confidence in the vaccine. I think, on the other hand, it might have the opposite effect that given the fact that this is such a rare event, the fact that this was paused indicates how seriously we take safety when we're dealing with vaccines. So this should really encourage people and fortify the concept that safety is of critical importance. It now looks as if the average daily number of people getting vaccinations is plateauing. And given that, my question is, what are we at 140 million Americans have at least one dose of a vaccine? What does that say about how hard it's going to be to get everybody else so you want to have the vaccine? I mean, there have been a lot of pleas made to Americans to have the vaccine. But there are clearly many who are hesitant.

Yes, and that's what we're trying to address, Judy. I mean, there are people who clearly are in the weight and see atmosphere. But when you have 140 plus million people who have received at least one dose, I think the weight and see has gotten to the point where there's a very efficacious vaccine that in the real world is really doing very, very well in protecting people. The date of that we are getting and follow up indicate that the vaccines are at least as effective and maybe even more effective than what we saw with the clinical trial results. And we have situations now, you know, we've established a COVID-19 community core to get trusted messages, messengers in the community, be they professional athletes, be they entertainers, be they members of the clergy. To go out and to explain to people why it's so important for their own safety for that of their family and really for the community in general to get vaccinated. So we realize that we have to give an extra push as we get to that point where you have less and less proportion that's unvaccinated.

It's going to be more difficult to get people, but I think we're up for that challenge. And I think when the American people listen to the data of why it's so important to get vaccinated, I think you're going to see people get vaccinated at a greater rate than most people are expecting at this point. But as I'm sure you know, many people are still telling at least when they're asked, some of them are saying, I just don't want the vaccine. How hard, how far should the government be pushing with the cooperation, the private sector to get people to get this vaccine if they're resistant. Well, I think we have to keep trying to reach out and explain to people why it's so important. You know, there are a couple of aspects to it. And one of the things that we try to get across to people that they may not appreciate at first glance. And that is if you have a younger person who will say correctly and understandably that if you are young and healthy, the chances of you're getting a serious outcome are very low. That is a fact and true. However, there are now seeing a lot more young people getting infected, particularly with this variant, the 117 from the UK, which transmits clearly more efficiently than the original virus.

There's no doubt about that that you have a danger of getting infected and you also have a danger of getting a serious consequence. The other thing that we want to impress upon people is that even if you don't get any symptoms and you get infected, it doesn't end there, Judy. Ultimately, you may be responsible for someone getting seriously ill. You don't want to be part of the dynamics of the outbreak. You want to be part of the solution. You do raise something and mentioning the variants that I want to ask you because it wasn't that long ago. We were told this was a race in effect between the vaccine and the variant. Who's winning? You know, right now, you know, that is a good question. I think we really are at a turning point right now. And we're really at that point where we're just about seeing the crossing over. Because if you look at the curves, we're getting more and more people vaccinated. We're getting about 3 million people per day. And yet the cases are at that high level of about 60,000 per day on a seven day average.

I believe as we get more and more people vaccinated, you're going to start seeing a crossing of those curves where you're going to start seeing the number of cases coming down as the vaccine total number goes up. That's exactly what we saw in Israel. So we could be on the cusp of good news, but I have to ask you how concerned are you about these so-called breakthrough infections and infections showing up in people who have had two vaccinations. Yeah, you know, great point to bring up, Judy. The CDC just reported on a few thousand of these. That sounds like a lot. But when you put it next to the denominator, the breakthrough infections are a fraction of a fraction of the people who've gotten vaccinated. So although you don't like to see any breakthroughs, when you have a few thousand against the millions and millions of people who have been vaccinated, it is a very, very rare event to have a breakthrough for someone who has been vaccinated.

I do have a question about the United States and the rest of the world. We know that the U.S. is doing well as you've been describing overall, we're seeing a drop in cases. And yet the rest of the world, most of it not nearly as fortunate. We're seeing these horrible numbers in India, people running out of oxygen, hospitals overwhelmed. Next door, neighbor Canada, only 2.9 percent or rather 2.6 percent. I saw today of Canadians have been vaccinated worldwide. The number is something like 2.9 percent. Is it time now for the United States to do more to help the rest of the world? You know, Judy, we will be doing that. We know a number of things are ongoing right now. You know, we have rejoined covax. We've pledged or and or given 4 billion dollars to that. We are in a situation where it's very clear when we get our people vaccinated. We're right now in a situation where we really want to make sure that we have our people vaccinated. But if the surplus doses become available, which they very likely will, that clearly that's on the table to share that with individuals.

The other things that we're doing is that we want to be part of the situation when we will be helping countries to be able to produce the vaccine themselves. And that's something that we're right now talking to them about the possibility. There are a lot of people that want to see that rather than just giving doses to a company, excuse me, to a country to allow the country to be able to make doses themselves. We're working with the pharmaceutical companies to see if they can work out some sort of an arrangement where that will be allowed. And as long as there is viral dynamics and viral spread in countries, particularly if it's rather profound spread, you can't be completely safe. For people who are vaccinated, what is safe for them to do? People want to know, can I go to a restaurant indoors? Can I go to the movie theater? Is it safe to get on an airplane? What is safe and what isn't? Should people wear a mask outdoors? I mean, what's your advice?

The CDC is going to be coming out with official guidelines, you know, they already said about in the home setting, if you're vaccinated, even if you're with unvaccinated people, you can take the mask off. You could have physical contact. One thing people need to realize that being vaccinated, the risk of everything you do is considerably less than if you were not vaccinated. So going outside, you're going to be hearing a re-evaluation of whether you're going to have to wear a mask outside. That's being considered literally in real time now by the CDC. They've already said that travel is much, much safer when you have vaccination, when you've been vaccinated. The real critical issue is it's also dependent upon the level of infection in the community. So if the level of infection in the community is very low and you don't have new variants going on, there are so many more things that a person who is vaccinated can do even without a mask. And you're going to be seeing as the time goes by, hopefully is much sooner rather than later, when the CDC will be coming out with guidances that will be much less restrictive with regard to what people can do when they are vaccinated?

So this is the guidance as of today, April 23rd, 2021. Dr. Anthony Fauci, thank you as always. We appreciate it. Thank you. You're doing good to be with you. As part of his administration's broader climate change strategy, President Biden has made investing in electric vehicles, a major focus of his $2 trillion jobs and infrastructure proposal. In this week, he has promoted the importance of technological innovation at a climate summit. But as William Brangham reports, there are still many barriers to those vehicles becoming widespread.

Our story is part of an international journalism effort called covering climate now. There's a reason a lot of environmentalists focus on the future of electric cars, because today's cars emit a lot of planet warming gases. As a category, transportation is the number one source of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., even higher than electricity. And within transportation, light-duty vehicles, like cars and trucks, are the largest source of those emissions. So now, a president who adores his dad's gas guzzling Corvette, wants to see electric cars rule the road. But getting electric vehicles or EVs for short into widespread use has some obstacles. First among them, according to environmental economist Joshua Lynn, is consumer demand.

So right now, electric cars account for about 2% or 3% of the market, meaning 2% or 3% of new vehicles sold each year are electric cars. Tiny, tiny fraction. So it's tiny. It's been growing. It was at 010 years ago. According to a consumer report survey, Americans cite a few reasons for their reluctance. Worry about how far EVs can travel on one battery charge. Concern over the higher upfront cost of EVs, though studies show consumers save even more money over time because they never buy gas. And concern over having enough places to charge an EV's battery. Many consumers are just not familiar with the technology and haven't written in one. Don't know anybody who has. And also haven't really thought through how much their life changed if they had an electric car. But I'd show the car a little bit. Ronald Keltenbaugh is something of an EV evangelist. He's president of a Washington DC group that promotes them. He told me about the first time he test drove a Tesla Model S, a car famous for its lightning quick acceleration and $70,000 price tag.

The sales guy is co-pilot and we're to stop light and he says go ahead and cut it off the line. And the only thing I can compare it to is if you're on a roll coaster that accelerates really fast, it's kind of like that. I think that's one of the great misconceptions is people think you're going to get an electric car. It's only going to go as fast as a golf cart. It's only going to go five miles before it needs to get plugged in and then it's going to take three days to charge up the battery like an old cell phone. That is a big misconception. Once you get people to in the car driving they're seeing it and they're like, oh my gosh. Mr. President, where's the final assembly stop? To help the rest of the country feel that same enthusiasm. President Biden's American Jobs Plan includes a heavy emphasis on electric vehicles. It calls for $174 billion of investment, including rebates for people who purchase EVs, money for research into better battery technology, encouraging the government's vast fleet of cars and buses to become electric and money to build half a million public charging stations across the country for anyone to use.

We're going to provide tax incentives and point of sale rebates to help all American families afford clean vehicles of future. Some states like California have already established mandates to require that a certain percentage of vehicles sold in the state emit zero pollution. And now 12 governors, all Democrats, have sent a letter to the Biden administration urging it to, quote, ensure that all new passenger cars and light duty trucks sold are zero emission no later than 2035. Let's go, America. Adding to this momentum, several big automakers have announced they're already moving away from gas power. Did you know that Norway sells way more electric cars per capita than the U.S.? Norway. General Motors, one of the biggest automakers in the world, said in just four years it will have over 30 electric models for sale. And that it wants to phase out tailpipe emissions totally for cars, trucks, and SUVs by 2035.

Dean Parker is the company's chief sustainability officer. The current data we have says more than 80% of charging happens at home. And there's a large number of current consumers who are able to charge at home. And for them, this will be seamless because the range of these electric vehicles is going to be sufficient for the vast majority of use cases. But even as automakers introduce more electric vehicles, one estimate shows that even by 2050, when electric could be a majority of new car sales, most cars on the road will still be burning gas. For the true believers, like Ron Keltenbaugh, who's driven his electric car hundreds of miles to Vermont and Detroit, he says there are so many reasons to go electric that they ought to appeal to everyone. You can be an early adopter like tech. You can be a car enthusiast like fast cars. You can be an environmentalist because you're about climate change.

You can be a foreign policy, national security person and worry about, you know, nasty governments and oil funding terrorism. Anybody in the political spectrum, you can find a reason why they should love EVs and want to move to them as quick as possible. President Biden's infrastructure plan still has another main hurdle, passage by a divided Congress. Until that happens, the president's aspirations for a more electric future are still on hold. For the PBS NewsHour, I'm William Brangham. Last month, Congress approved a record amount of money for Native American tribes in the American Rescue Plan. Today, First Lady Jill Biden spent the second of two days in Indian country, meeting with Navajo officials and hearing about their needs after a devastating COVID-19 outbreak on the Navajo nation last year. Stephanie Sy reports on what the potential future looks like for indigenous Americans.

Judy, as we've been reporting throughout the pandemic, American Indians and Native Alaskans have been hit hard with a higher mortality rate than any other ethnic group in the United States. There are some positive signs now, a stretch of many days on the Navajo nation, where there has not been a single COVID-related death. More than half the residents are now vaccinated. Now, tribal communities look forward to an infusion of resources. The COVID stimulus bill allocates $31 billion to serve them, and includes $20 billion that goes directly to tribal governments. $6 billion to bolster health systems, and more than $1 billion for housing. To talk about why this money is needed, we're joined by Nick Tilsen from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. He is the founder and CEO of NDN Collective, and an activist for tribal rights overlands. Nick Tilsen, welcome back to the NewsHour. It's good to have you.

You have often talked about indigenous power. How much does this funding mean to you and other Native leaders, especially after this year of tremendous loss? This is a pretty monumentous step forward. You know, this is one of the biggest single investments that the federal government has ever made in history directly to indigenous people. And so it's a step in the right direction, and it's a realization that our advocacy and our efforts to be seen in society today and our struggles to be realized are things that need to be invested into. And so we're happy about the big investments going directly to tribes who are happy about the investments to save the Native languages. We're happy about the $1 billion investment into broadband. And to some of really not just Native communities, but some of the most under invested communities in the whole country. You know, you take like this opportunity of $1 billion being invested into Navajo.

But you also have 65,000 people at Navajo who don't have power is broadband going to affect those people right out of the gate. I think that there's an opportunity here to address long-term, long-term, systematic things like renewable energy and rural isolated communities that help, you know, help work towards building a more resilient communities altogether. The federal government has held billions of dollars in trust to support tribal communities, but critics have often said they still do not get enough support. Does this funding, Nick Tilsen, help set up a future where Native communities might need to depend less on congressional appropriations? There's really no amount of money that Congress can appropriate to fix its relationship with indigenous people. It actually has to change its relationship because of this, the federal government changed its relationship to Native people and started focusing on a free and prior informed consent. What ended up happening is the entire relationship with tribal nations and sovereign nations would change because you would no longer see things like pipelines built through our lands or extractive industries built through our lands or our decisions made about indigenous people without our consent.

And so I hope that this actually, this investment begins to open a conversation about entering into a brand new policy era. It's about renewable energy and sustainability on Native lands. Like other communities in America, the oil, gas, and mining industries can mean jobs. And they also have those negative cultural and, in some cases, environmental impacts. What do you hear from other Native Americans about how they think about that issue? The realities, the fossil fuel industry and the extractive industries have held indigenous communities economic hostage for the past 100 years and have violated, you know, violated federal policy and have eroded indigenous people's rights. And so to be quite honest, the jobs that exist in fossil fuel industry is not the ones that we want in Indian country.

They have been few and far in between and had little to no economic impact on our communities. When you can envision thousands of indigenous people on the ground, you know, working to steward their land and fight climate change and create a new economy that is actually one that is just an equitable. That's what excites me about the future. You now have an insider. You have Deb Holland, who is a Native American, the first to serve as a cabinet secretary. She is secretary of the interior, which oversees federal lands. So what are your hopes for her now that she has a seat at the big table? When Indian country is rallying around Deb Holland, she is definitely from Indian country represents Indian country, and it's an opportunity to have a voice at the table. And so some of the messages that we're sending is, you know, we need to start thinking about turning returning public lands, returning indigenous lands into indigenous hands, and that's what we talk a lot about in our land back movement. On that, we also want to make sure that that in our dealings with the Department of Interior that we end up actually moving to this, this era of consent, this of consent.

And I think that Deb Holland is a big advocate for that. Nick Tillson joining us from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Thank you so much for sharing your perspective, Nick. Absolutely. Thanks for having me on. It is a week marked by a moment of reckoning for racial justice by new calls to hold accountable those behind the January 6th in correction, and by President Biden's ambitious push to combat climate change. To help make sense of it all, the analysis of Brooks and Cape Hart. That's New York Times columnist David Brooks and Jonathan Cape Hart, columnist for the Washington Post. Hello to both of you. It's so good to see you on this Friday night.

Hey, Judy. A lot to talk about. Let's start with the climate summit. David, President Biden, laying out some really ambitious goals saying the U.S. needs to deeply cut carbon emissions. Is it realistic? And is life going to have to change in this country to get there? Well, it's noble, and it's the right policy. I'm not sure how realistic it is. You know, it's a policy that's, it's going to introduce a lot of electric vehicles as we just saw. We're going to have a new power grid. If all these things go through, will we really cut emissions by 50%? Well, the height of COVID when we were totally shut down, we cut emissions like 21%. Well, I'm not totally optimistic. I think the experts that I've read have said you got to do more. There has to be a price on carbon. You'd have to pretty much get rid of natural gas evolved that out of existence, as well as oil burning cars. So that, that's pretty radical stuff. But that doesn't make the, the perfect the enemy, the good or whatever the expression I'm searching for is. So it's definitely a step in the right direction. I think the really hard thing is China. China is just still burning coal plants. They're still producing more energy. John Kerry, our envoy wants to keep our climate change policy toward China with China independent of all of our other policies with China.

As our, as our relations get a lot rockier, as I imagine they will. I don't think that'll be possible. And so how will we create a really a global accord when we're really in some sort of cold world with China? What do you think, Jonathan, are these things that can really happen? I think I'm with David here that I'm not sure whether these goals are the numbers that have been set are actually attainable. What I take from the climate summit this week is President Biden by holding this summit with the 40, 42 nations is sending a couple of signals. One, the United States is back in a leadership role in doing something about climate and doing something about climate change that it wants to lead the global effort, a recognition that without the United States is participation. China and India will most definitely not participate in any action to do something about climate. And so if we're going to do anything, achieve any goal we need to have the United States, China, India and the world united in at least doing something.

And I think that's what this that summit was about this week. Let me turn both of you to one of the, of course, big developments of the week. And that was the verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial accused in the murder of George Floyd. David, what do you take away from that? And what effect do you think we talked about this some last week? But what effect do you think it could have on policing in this country and on relations between the races? Well, you know, the most important news event that happened this week is something that didn't happen. We didn't get an acquittal. We didn't get civil unrest. We didn't get another occasion where people would lose faith in the system and really be disgusted by the system. That didn't happen. And so we can look with some satisfaction at a trial where I think most people agree justice was done. And we can look back on an episode in American life from the time of George Floyd's killing until the conviction when race was on the table in a way it hasn't been in my view since 19 mid 1960s. The problem, disparities, the injustices have now become a topic of constant conversation. And in my view, a constant gradual truth bearing.

And this has been an awkward set of circumstances for a lot of people, a lot of hard conversations. But to me, it's in a rough year. It's been an overall positive, really positive development in American life. And Jonathan, do you see these hard conversations leading to something meaningful? I hope so, Judy. The conviction of Chauvin, what's interesting is that as wonderful as the conviction is, it is just a drop in the bucket in terms of solving the overall problem. Just moments literally before the verdict came down, there was the shooting in Columbus. And while we can, you know, quibble over the details of that shooting, the main thing that animates African Americans is this question, why is it that when law enforcement and African Americans interact more often than not, African Americans are the ones who are injured, shot or killed. And that is the overall question that needs to be answered. And I think these tough conversations that David is talking about that have been reignited over the last year, they must continue.

This conversation cannot end the verdict. The Chauvin guilty verdict on all three counts cannot be the end of the conversation. It has to be the beginning or the continuation of a conversation that has been needed to be had in America for a very long time. And David, do you see it continuing? I do. And I think there's going to be progress on policing. I'm optimistic that the United States and the Tim Scott, the Republican and Cory Booker, the Democrat will reach a deal in that we will actually have a major police reform. I do think there has to be not just a change in procedures. There has to be a change in culture. The African Americans need to feel safe. And that means the police cannot have to be in the community working with the community. And police officers have to feel safe. And that means the community has to be working with the police officers. And so it's the relationship between people in the community and people in the police force. It's community policing in its real form. That is the solution more beyond changing some procedures or some communities.

And Jonathan, again, I know we talked about it last week, but is your sense that after this, we are going to see change? I do think so. And I think the passage of the George Floyd Justice and policing act would be a very good step. I am very optimistic about the bill's chances today. More so than I was a week ago today, the fact that Senator Cory Booker and Tim Scott and Congresswoman Karen Bass, who is the lead person in the House are all talking about ways to get this bill done, including a conversation about qualified immunity. That is making it possible for people to sue police departments or police officers individually. That's a huge sticking point for Republicans. But the fact that Senator Scott put out a compromise that is, well, maybe not the police officers individually, but police departments. Let's have that conversation. That was a very good signal that the George Floyd Justice and policing act actually stands a chance of passing and becoming law. And, David, there was a development this week around the attempt to come up with an independent commission to investigate what happened on January 6, the insurrection at the Capitol.

Speaker Pelosi has now made at least two sets of proposals, concessions, if you will, compromise us to Republicans so far there's no agreement. How important is it that there being an independent investigation of what happened? Yeah, this was a classic Republican mom and Nancy Pelosi said she made these two concessions that sent a letter over to the Republicans. And the Republicans said, we got a letter. Where's the letter? We're pretending to talk. We're not really talking. You know, I think we should have a commission. It was a major event in American life. But be in here. I said a little with the Republicans who want to broaden the scope. I think we should not just investigate this as a one day crime that happened. I think we have a problem, an ongoing problem, a growing problem of violent extremism in this country, mostly on the right, mostly characterized by things like January 6, but also a bit on the left. I think we need a commission that would say, what is the map of violent extremism in this country?

How do these people communicate? Is there outside help? There are all sorts of fundamental questions that if you broaden the scope of the thing, would help us deal with whatever future Charlottesville or Portland is coming down the road. And I think that is the core problem we're facing here. Jonathan, do you think the scope should be broadened as Republicans are saying they want? Absolutely not. There is no comparison between the people, the insurrectionists, who storm the U.S. Capitol to subvert the will of the American people. There's no comparison between them and the loosely affiliated folks who are under the umbrella of, so-called, Antifa. What happened on January 6, needs to be investigated. The people who were involved in the planning, the people who unleashed violence on the U.S. Capitol, but on American democracy. We need to know what happened, why it happened, and how we can prevent that from happening. And what happened on the 6th is part of a larger problem in the country of the rise of far-right extremism, and we should spend our time focused on that.

Well, someone in connection with all this, David, your column today in The New York Times, you carried, frankly, a sobering warning about what's happened to Republican since President Trump left office. Spell out a little of what you're seeing and what your concern is. You know, some of us had hopes that when Trump was not spewing hate from the Oval Office life would come down. In fact, the Republican Party has grown more radical, more radical in a specific way. It's become more catastrophically pessimistic. In one poll, people were asked, do you think politics is for policies, or do you think it's for national survival? More than 50 percent of Trump voters think it's about national survival. Only 19 percent think government is about policies. In another survey question, people have said, which of these two comments do you more agree with? It's a big, beautiful world filled with people who are mostly good, or our lives are threatened by criminals, terrorists, and illegal aliens, immigrants. 75 percent of Biden voters supported big, beautiful world. 66 percent of Trump voters supported our lives are threatened.

And so here's a group of people who feel their very existence of the country they know is threatened and they have to armor up. They have to get violent. They have to prepare for the coming conflagration. And that's just a horribly pessimistic mentality in a country where democracy depends on us having faith in each other and having some sense of psychic security. And so that deep, deep pessimism is, I'm afraid, radicalizing the party in ongoing. Jonathan, thoughts on that? Well, I read David's column, and I thought it was terrific, and it is a sobering warning for the rest of the country. What has happened to the Republican Party, it's terrible for governance, but it's also terrible for the direction that the country is going in, especially a country that is changing demographically as quickly as the United States. We are not going to be able to hold the enterprise that is America together, as long as one of the two major parties in this country, one doesn't govern. And two, gives voice to and gives cover for domestic terrorist racism and the perpetuation of white supremacy. We will not survive if that is the way the Republican Party will remain.

So bring ending to this conversation. David, we thank you. And Jonathan, we thank you. Thanks, Judy. Thank you, Judy. Thank you, Judy. Thank you, Judy. Thank you, Judy.

Thank you, Judy. Thank you, Judy. Thank you, Judy.

Thank you, Judy. Thank you, Judy. Thank you, Judy.

Thank you, Judy. Thank you, Judy. Thank you, Judy. It turns out being the biggest and the richest does not always mean you win. This week, football fans united globally to block a secret super soccer league.

Judy, imagine in pro baseball that the Yankees, the Red Sox and the Cubs broke away with other profitable teams to set up their own league. That is what these European soccer clubs were trying to do. It just days after the so-called super league was unveiled, the architects of the scheme scuttled their plans and apologized facing enraged fans and governments. And why it matters, even outside the soccer world, were joined by Roger Bennett. He is the co-host of the men and blazers TV show and the author of the upcoming book Reborn in the USA and Englishman's love letter to his adopted home. Roger Bennett, welcome back to the news hour and help us understand how in the span of five days we went from super league to super fail. What exactly happened?

It all began Sunday night when 12 of the biggest teams in Europe announced they'd signed off in secret to a breakaway pan-European league, the super league, backed by JP Morgan in which the six richest teams in England were joined three each for Italy in Spain and they played each other on an annual basis. It's like, as you say, if Duke, North Carolina and Kansas announced a breakaway from March madness in which they were guaranteed participation every single year. This would have transformed the complex European footballing pyramid, which has taken 140 years to build up and turn it really into a WrestleMania-style profit maximising blockbuster event. And he had oligarchs, European industrialists and four American sports investors making an Augustus glute level power grab and astonishingly it felt unstoppable Sunday night, but on Tuesday it had all fallen apart. And how did it fall apart when it came to the opposition? Where was the loudest, most most ciferous opposition coming from to this?

It did do something remarkable for a moment, the super league, it united fans, it united players, it united James Corden, even the royal family weighed in. And it turned out to be a rollout, which really was a sporting version of New Coke, a massive money plan put together by billionaires who hire cross continental PR specialist, lobbyists, whole troll farms. All the scenarios that they thought about and they really did plan for this, the possibility of their own fans turning on them clearly never cross their minds. They thought the only challenges would come from supporters of the lesser clubs that they'd left behind in the dust, which proved to be a historic mystery, perhaps the biggest in global football club history. Because above all, English football fans are tribal, they are passionate, the clubs are so deeply rooted in the community, such an expression of the fans identity, they're not afterthoughts, the fans are not customers, the teams are not franchises. And the American owners who drove the Premier League plan in England didn't realise just how much their own fans care, they didn't really understand the heart of football and in not recognising that, they stuck a dagger straight into that heart.

You mentioned some of those American owners, they are familiar names for folks in our audience, right? John Henry, who owns Liverpool football club, also owns the Boston Red Sox, the Glazer family, who own Manchester United, also own the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. I think it baffles people that they misread the fans so deeply. Help us understand, is there a sports culture divide there that the American and foreign owners just didn't get what was going on on the ground? It's truly remarkable to me that they own something that is so wildly popular and that they have no sense of exactly what they own. The American owners stand cranky of the LA Ramzones Arsenal football club, they are playing as we speak, the fans over a thousand of them surrounded the stadium footballs currently in a family state and demanded that he sell up immediately. There's not that many individuals who have $3 billion lying around who can replace these gentlemen and that is now the ensuing battle, what now for these Premier League teams?

So what now then, Raj, what happens now, not just for the sport, but for the business, it's been growing rapidly across Asia, certainly here in the US, with all this plotting and scheming and these leaders being called traders, how does this move forward? On Tuesday, when one of the teams Manchester City pulled out of their plans to join the Super League, UEFA, the governing body in Europe issued a statement welcoming Manchester City back into the European family, which was predictable but still incredibly shocking because 24 hours earlier, Manchester City were turncooked, defectors trying to destroy everything, but they will be welcome back, there's so much money at stake. And while this Super League mistake is staying the reputation of many in a way that won't be forgotten, the American owners have already started to undertake their versions of apology tours, Josh Kronke apologised to Arsenal fans that predictably didn't go well. The Liverpool's John Henry, the Boston Red Sox Hoda, released a video in which he apologised, accepted full blame, and it was kind of as effective as Fredo Callione apologising for betraying the family.

A fan outside of Arsenal stadium this afternoon held up a sign saying fans won, billionaires zero, but for now, it's important to recognise the bodies of football, UEFA, FIFA remain more corrupt than Tamini Hall. Arsenal racism still stains the game, there's going to be a world cup in Qatar, so there'll be a lot of talk about reform. But this is just one war that's been won like the battle for Endor and there are many battles to come. That was Star Wars reference, a Godfather reference, and Les Mis all wrapped up into one. We can't ask for much more from you. That's Roger Bennett, co-host of Men in Blazers, Joe Raj. Always good to see you, come back soon. I'm now sent my love to Judy Woodruff, courage. Thank you, Amna. We love any Godfather reference, and we need more Roger Bennett on the NewsHour. And that is 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.

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