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Brand, John Yang, William Brangham, Judy Woodruff>
Epshteyn, Philip Gordon>
issues after a town hall centered on what it takes to be commander in
chief. What could Donald Trump`s refusal to release his income tax returns
tell us about the candidate and the businessman? China`s rise in
manufacturing in California is leaving some American workers out to dry. A
poet tries to change the face of Scotland. A boy`s struggle to read
transforms into a passion for children`s picture books.>
Clinton; Elections; Taxes; China; Business; Employment and Unemployment>
Similarly, around the world, he`s had a number of successes, but he`s really changed his whole business model in recent years, so that he`s taking on less debt, less risk, because that had not been going well for him. And so he has really retreated and found a new avenue in recent years, where he essentially rents out his name and uses his name to allow others to take the risk, foreign investors and others.
So they take the risk on projects and he merely rents out his name and gets a guaranteed income stream from that.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Tim O`Brien, I would put this same question to thank. And I should say, for the record, you are one of the few journalists in the world who have actually seen some of Trump`s tax returns, but because of a court order of a suit brought that Trump brought against you for libel, you are not allowed to talk about them in too much detail.
But tell us what you can about them and whether or not they shed any light on whether he deserves this reputation for having a tremendous business acumen.
TIM O`BRIEN, Executive Editor, Bloomberg View: Well, I do think that the tax returns are important. I don`t think he will release them.
I think the reason he won`t release them is because I think they would go towards offering substantiation around a bunch of things that Trump has made central to his political campaign, his track record as a business person, how charitable he is as a philanthropist, his operations overseas, and the kinds of business and financial conflicts that would potentially come to bear on him should he end up in the Oval Office.
And I do think it does come back to yet another referendum on his business career. And I think what`s important to remember about him is that the Donald Trump of the `80s and the `90s was essentially a creature of debt. And the last time he really operated a large business that involved, you know, complex financial and managerial decisions was when he was running the Atlantic City casinos, which he essentially ended up running into the ground.
He put those through four separate corporate bankruptcies. And, as we all know, he almost went personally bankrupt in the early 1990s. And the Trump who emerged from that is essentially now a human shingle, as Marc said. He oversees a licensing operation where he puts his name on everything from mattresses and men`s underwear to vodka and buildings.
And then he`s got a golf course development operation, and then essentially a self-promotion publicity machine that made itself the most visible during "The Apprentice" years.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Marc, let`s talk a little more specifically about that business, one of those businesses that Tim just mentioned, the casino business.
As you know, the Clinton campaign has been making a lot of hay about Trump`s time as a casino operator. They say he enriched himself, left this trail of bankruptcies and really ruined a lot of small businesses. That`s been a big part of their argument against him. How true are those accusations?
MARC FISHER: They`re quite accurate.
I mean, he did have some early success in Atlantic City, but he had great trouble making the payments on the finance notes that he took out in order to build those casinos. He did have trouble paying and in many cases didn`t pay some of his vendors and contractors. There was a series of lawsuits about that.
We have a number of such vendors and contractors who we quote in the books saying that their small businesses were ruined by Trump`s failure to pay them for work that they did for his casinos. So there`s a huge gap between what Donald Trump was able to do for himself in Atlantic City and what he -- the people he ran roughshod over in order to get there.
We asked him about this. And he said: Look, I was looking out for myself and that other people took risks to come along with him and, if they failed, that`s their problem.
We asked him, well, how does that translate into someone who needs to do something for all the people as president of the United States? And he said: Look, it`s just a completely different phase of my life. I was doing this for Donald Trump, and I didn`t likely care what was happening to other people.
So there`s a large trail of destruction coming out of the Atlantic City experience. But he did at various points manage to make sure that he had a guaranteed income stream, and he did manage to negotiate with the banks in such a way that he was able to hold on to those properties or at least some portion of them even after they had essentially failed.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Tim O`Brien, you looked at this career for a long period of time. Are there any examples in Trump`s career that do support his contention that he is a strong, smart, successful businessman that might have some bearing on him being commander in chief?
TIM O`BRIEN: Well, I mean, this all comes back to, how do we want to define success and how do we want to define business?
I think he has not been a successful operator of large enterprises. The Trump Organization now is essentially a boutique operation. At times, when it`s mattered the most, he hasn`t demonstrated strong financial discipline.
On the campaign trail, already, we have seen a number of moments in which he`s actually been financially unsophisticated when he`s spoken about the debt markets, the federal debt, the Federal Reserve and monetary policy, fiscal policy.
There is a large degree of ignorance around someone who is saying that his experience as a businessperson qualifies him for the Oval Office.
And I think what he has been successful as, as a businessman, is self- promotion. He`s a very self-assured self-promoter. But that`s very different from being a great entrepreneur. He is not a John Rockefeller. He`s not a Henry Ford or a Steve Jobs or a Mark Zuckerberg.
He`s essentially a P.T. Barnum. And there`s a real skill and street- smart approach he has around keeping himself in the public eye, keeping a certain perception about who he is front and center with the media, with his political opponents, and with voters.
But the reality is, there is a -- there is a very "Wizard of Oz" truth about a lot of the things surrounding Donald Trump, that when you just look at the fact pattern around his track record as a businessperson and pull the curtain back, you know, there`s a guy there busily spinning the wheel and myth-making.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: All right, Tim O`Brien and Marc Fisher, thank you both very much for being here.
MARC FISHER: Thank you.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Stay with us.
Coming up on the "NewsHour": a poet trying to change the face of Scotland; and a boy`s struggle to read transformed into a passion for children`s picture books.
But, first: a different take on the fallout from trading, and particularly with China.
That issue has been, of course, one of the major ones we have heard about throughout this election season.
Our economics correspondent, Paul Solman, has the third in his series of stories reported from the waves of the California shore and beyond.
It`s all part of Making Sense, which airs on Thursdays.
PAUL SOLMAN: In San Clemente, California, Brad Parks and Shad Eischen, confined to wheelchairs since their teens, about to shred the surf.
SHAD EISCHEN, Surfer: I figured, if I`m still alive now, you know, this is the least thing that`s going to worry me.
PAUL SOLMAN: OK, sit-down surfing on a waveski, but plenty of challenge if you`re paraplegic.
BRAD PARKS, Surfer: I`m having just a blast out here just meeting new guys and being down here and surfing.
PAUL SOLMAN: The man who designed and shaped their waveskis is surfing legend Steve Boehne, who regular viewers might recall complaining about unfair trade here on the "NewsHour" three years ago.
STEVE BOEHNE, Infinity Surfboards: Ninety-five percent of the boards being sold in the world weren`t made by us in California, who started the surfboard industry. They`re being made in other countries. And so my workers are competing for a job against a guy in another country who`s making a 10th of his wages.
PAUL SOLMAN: This has become a main theme of this year`s presidential campaign. But it turns out Steve Boehne was ahead of the curve, or at least ahead of most economists, who have argued since Adam Smith that trade is the key to economic growth by spurring competition and thus lowering prices, and arguing that, in our era, technology replaces jobs, not cheap foreign labor.
GORDON HANSON, Economist: But as we went into the 2000s, with the rise of China, the situation changed.
PAUL SOLMAN: It`s what economist Gordon Hanson learned from a soon- to-be published academic study he co-authored: that Chinese imports really did hurt U.S. wages and employment, but selectively.
GORDON HANSON: What we were surprised by was that those effects were not distributed kind of broadly and evenly across blue-collar workers in the United States, but really concentrated on industries and workers and communities that produce goods that compete in the same arenas that China does.
PAUL SOLMAN: Clothes, furniture, low-end electronics, in blue-collar strongholds and key battleground states like Pennsylvania and Ohio.
GORDON HANSON: Those workers in those regions are the losers of globalization in the United States.
PAUL SOLMAN: You look as if you`re a painting from the 1950s or something on the floor.
DAVE NAYLOR, Surfboard Maker: It`s an abstract that`s created by accident.
PAUL SOLMAN: And while our surfboard makers are a long way from trade`s losers in the Rust Belt, they feel their pain. Dave Naylor, who coats the boards with fiberglass, told us back in 2013 that he was earning less, in real dollars, than he made 20 years before. Today, Naylor says he`s doing better, but:
DAVE NAYLOR: Only for the reason that, instead of just working one job, I got a little part-time job too. But it`s -- I`m still not making a lot more money, you know?
PAUL SOLMAN: And how much is that?
DAVE NAYLOR: I make about 40 a year. I have a tough time living on it. I mean, I have a tough time.
PAUL SOLMAN: What are you doing, David?
(LAUGHTER)
DAVE BOEHNE, Infinity Surfboards: I`m Snapchatting this monumental, historic moment.
PAUL SOLMAN: And while the boss` sassy son Dave is doing fine -- he`s Infinity`s marketing manager -- most of his friends are not.
DAVE BOEHNE: They have jobs now, but it`s not nearly as what they were making before. So, the future, I`m not sure. It has seemed to be that way for quite a while.
PAUL SOLMAN: So who did Dave Boehne favor for president?
DAVE BOEHNE: I was a Bernie guy.
PAUL SOLMAN: And that brings us to the second surprise of Gordon Hanson`s study.
GORDON HANSON: Areas that initially leaned Republican, when they were hit harder by import competition from China, moved hard to the right.
DONALD TRUMP (R), Presidential Candidate: Because China has our jobs.
GORDON HANSON: But areas that leaned initially Democratic leaned harder to the left.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I), Vermont: We have lost millions of decent- paying jobs. That has got to end.
GORDON HANSON: So we`re at this complicated moment in American history, where economic polarization and political polarization are interacting.
PAUL SOLMAN: Meanwhile, your economics correspondent was interacting with a wet suit, prepping for a surf session with Steve Boehne, a moderate Republican until the advent of Donald J. Trump.
STEVE BOEHNE: Finally, all the politicians are talking about the free trade agreements and getting jobs back in America. And Trump was the first guy. So, I was pretty gung-ho Trump. But on his social issues, I have a few problems. And so, you know, I voted for someone else in the primary.
PAUL SOLMAN: Who did you vote for in the primaries?
STEVE BOEHNE: I voted for Bernie.
PAUL SOLMAN: Well, you can`t vote for Bernie anymore.
STEVE BOEHNE: No, so I`m voting for Hillary.
PAUL SOLMAN: Seventy miles to the southeast, Bob Grande, founder and CEO of Quality Controlled Manufacturing in Santee, California, remains a Trump supporter.
BOB GRANDE, CEO, Quality Controlled Manufacturing: Absolutely. I don`t condone all the rhetoric and everything that goes along with it, but you know what? I think our country needs a little bit of a wakeup to where we can really start marching and being more competitive in the world. Fair trade is so important to being a healthy business nation.
PAUL SOLMAN: One casualty of unfair trade, says Grande, is the decline of the American work force. To find employees for his high-end machine shop, he has to train them, since so few young people have the skills or even think of manufacturing as a career option.
MICHAEL NIEMEYER, Quality Controlled Manufacturing: Well, to be honest, machining never came to mind.
PAUL SOLMAN: But Grande`s training academy, six months and then a job starting at $15 an hour, was better than Michael Niemeyer`s (ph) alternatives.
MICHAEL NIEMEYER: Before this, I was bouncing around minimum wage jobs, cooking food, deliveries, cleaning, maintenance type stuff.
PAUL SOLMAN: James Halladay worked in a rental yard.
JAMES HALLADAY, Quality Controlled Manufacturing: I was working from 7:30 in the morning until 2:00 in them morning, sometimes six days a week.
PAUL SOLMAN: Seven-thirty a.m. to 2:00 a.m.? How can you live like that?
JAMES HALLADAY: You don`t. And the problem is, is a lot of the people I know are working like that. And that`s just their day-to-day life, get up, go to work, go home, go to bed. Get up the next morning, do the same thing.
PAUL SOLMAN: Grande`s machine shop is booming, but only, he says, by making high-end parts for airplanes, for example, that foreign competitors still can`t match.
BOB GRANDE: The reason that we`re here now, still in business, is because we do the most complex machining there is. And China isn`t there yet.
PAUL SOLMAN: Same story we heard from the king of custom surfdom, Steve Boehne.
STEVE BOEHNE: We do it by making the latest design. The good surfer, you know, this is his sport. He wants the best surfboard he can buy, just like the best golfer wants the best golf clubs.
PAUL SOLMAN: And it`s not just he, because I`m looking out there and there are an awful lot of she`s out there.
STEVE BOEHNE: That`s right. They`re all on boards made overseas. And they`re all beginners. Well, in a couple of years, they`re going to be getting boards from me, because they`re going to want a better board.
PAUL SOLMAN: Better boards, and new ones like the waveski, which work for the disabled and those of diminishing ability as well. It`s not for nothing this stretch of coast is called Old Man`s Beach.
But back to business. How long can Steve Boehne survive if trade deals don`t address supposedly unfair advantages, like cheap Chinese boards that glide into U.S. ports duty-free, while other countries try to block U.S.-made boards with tariffs?
The proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, a giant free trade deal with Pacific Rim countries, but not China, would actually kill those tariffs. But, for now, Boehne says he`s forced to import and sell cheap Chinese boards in his shop, and for export to Australia and Japan, make Infinity boards in Vietnam.
STEVE BOEHNE: I`m playing the game the way I`m given it, given the rules.
PAUL SOLMAN: So, I put the question to economist Gordon Hanson.
Trade barriers, tariffs against Chinese goods would preserve the jobs of American workers, wouldn`t it?
GORDON HANSON: That would bring manufacturing production back to the United States. There`s no guarantee it would bring manufacturing jobs back. As that production came back, it would be much more automated, much more capital-intensive.
PAUL SOLMAN: So we`re not going to get the jobs back, no matter what we do?
GORDON HANSON: Realistically, we`re not. Lower-end jobs in manufacturing, jobs that were part of the American middle class in the 1950s, and 1960s and 1970s, those jobs are gone. What we have got to be doing is looking forward.
PAUL SOLMAN: Riding the waves, gingerly, from Southern California.
If you turn me into a surfer, I will never forgive you.
Paul Solman for the "PBS NewsHour."
JUDY WOODRUFF: Now a Scottish literary talent whose work on identity and belonging, among other themes, has helped propel her to a unique role and a popular writer there.
Jeffrey Brown has our profile.
JACKIE KAY, Scottish National Poet: "And this is my country, says the fisherwoman from Jura. Mine, too, says the child from Canna and Iona. Mine, too, says the Brain family. And mine, says the man from the Polish deli."
JEFFREY BROWN: Jackie Kay wrote her poem "Threshold" for the Scottish Parliament and a special guest, Queen Elizabeth.
JACKIE KAY: Let`s blether some more about doors, revolving doors and sliding doors.
JEFFREY BROWN: In the wake to of the recent Brexit vote to leave the European Union, it was a plea to keep doors and the country open to the outside world. As Scotland`s new national poet, Kay made it personal.
JACKIE KAY: Scotland`s changing faces -- look at me!
I like the idea of trying to change the face of Scotland. But, traditionally, when somebody thinks of somebody Scottish, they see a white man with red hair in a kilt and a -- and they don`t see me.
JEFFREY BROWN: Jackie is the adopted daughter of John and Helen Kay. Her birth mother Scottish. Her father was then a Nigerian student studying in Scotland.
JACKIE KAY: I was an illegitimate child. And being picked to be a national poet is probably a pretty legitimate thing.
(LAUGHTER)
JEFFREY BROWN: I will say.
She grew up in Glasgow in a loving home, but very unaware of her difference in the outside society. She told her story in a bestselling memoir, "Red Dust Road."
JACKIE KAY: There weren`t many positive stories about adoption. And when I was growing up, we just saw negative stories about adoption. Every story that you heard was horrendous. And I wanted to try and tell a positive story about adoption.
So, I felt a bit like one of my favorite writers, Toni Morrison. She said she wrote the story she wanted to read. And I did that, too. I wrote the poems I wanted to read and I wrote about the experiences I wanted to find.
JEFFREY BROWN: She began to write as a student at the University of Stirling and, over the years, has authored volumes of poetry, novels, children`s books and more.
Often, the work speaks directly to her own experience, as in the poem "In My Country."
JACKIE KAY: "A woman passed by me in a full watchful circle, as if I were a superstition or the worst dregs of her imagination. So, when she finally spoke, her words spliced into bars of an old wheel, a segment of air. Where do you come from? Here, I said. Here, these parts."
JEFFREY BROWN: Kay now has a major public role in this poetry-loving country and she intends to use it to expand the voices of Scotland.
JACKIE KAY: You could have a real long, long, long poem with all of the different things that you come from, couldn`t you?
JEFFREY BROWN: We joined her recently on a return to Stirling, where she was working with local high school students, part of a project called Out of Bounds, giving a greater voice to black and Asian British poets.
JACKIE KAY: Want to have a mixture of images and metaphors as well.
JEFFREY BROWN: Kay encouraged the students to play with language in her poems, something she herself loves to do.
JACKIE KAY: I found the coin, and I found the (INAUDIBLE) in the sparking granite June, just as the (INAUDIBLE) was coming (INAUDIBLE) just as the coyotes (INAUDIBLE) at the moon.
JEFFREY BROWN: Her official title is one she clearly loves. She is Scotland`s Makar, rhymes with lacquer, she told me.
JACKIE KAY: It`s an old Scottish word. And it means maker, maker of words.
JEFFREY BROWN: I mean, it`s a great word because of this idea to make, right? And people -- I don`t know if people think about poetry, as something that`s made.
JACKIE KAY: Well, a poem -- we make a poem in the way other people might make a table. A poem is a physical thing that you make. And, for me, Makar fits perfectly.
And it seems to have kind of captured people`s imagination, because people keep stopping me and say, Makar, congratulations, even in other -- so, for some reason, it just sort of excited people. I think it`s maybe -- it`s because there`s not been a black national poet in this country before maybe. Or I don`t know.
But, for some reason, here you are. What are you doing here talking to me?
(CROSSTALK)
JEFFREY BROWN: I don`t know. I mean, I do know. Because I wanted to talk to you.
(LAUGHTER)
JACKIE KAY: Just as granite comes (INAUDIBLE) then there will be grown folks search in vain, tracking during the past in the rain, for as long as you would call a stain a stain.
JEFFREY BROWN: Jackie Kay will take her infectious love of poetry and country to every corner of Scotland.
JACKIE KAY: Come bend the living room. Come join our brilliant gathering.
JEFFREY BROWN: From Scotland, I`m Jeffrey Brown for the "PBS NewsHour."
JUDY WOODRUFF: Next, to another look at the joy of opening up literature to new audiences. It`s the latest in our Brief But Spectacular episodes, where we ask interesting people to describe their passions.
Tonight, we hear from illustrator Christian Robinson, so who works to ensure that picture books become more inclusive and empower all children. His new book is school`s first day of school.
CHRISTIAN ROBINSON, "School`s First Day of School": Growing up, I actually -- I didn`t have that close of a relationship with books.
I actually struggled to read. And so I was definitely drawn to books with pictures. I just loved that, you know, so much could be communicated with just an image.
I was raised by my grandmother. We didn`t have a lot growing up, but I at least always had a pencil, paper. I couldn`t control the circumstances around me, but I could at least decide what I wanted on that piece of paper, what sort of world I wanted to create.
Early on, my drawings were sort of influenced by whatever was around me. So, like most kids, I watched "Aladdin" and then I drew Aladdin. I watched "Jurassic Park," and then I drew a dinosaur eating somebody.
I don`t know so much if I was motivated by people telling me that you`re talented or you`re good at what you do, as much as it was really just like a form of escape and just sort of a passion of mine.
When you look at a picture book, you might think story by the author and illustrations by the illustrator. The story is actually something that happens when the author and the illustrator come together. It`s what happens on the page.
On my books, I like to have written by or words by the author and pictures by the illustrator.
Illustrating an entire book can be overwhelming and scary. So, what I like to do is start small, tiny doodles, which are a storyboard, and I do them on really tiny little Post-it notes. And they sort of just help me figure out how I want to begin to tell the story.
I go on to design and color and figuring out what I want the color -- the characters to look like, what I want the backgrounds to look like. It`s important for me to tell stories that reflect the diverse world that we live in.
Children need to see themselves in books. They need to see their gender. They need to see their color, hair texture, their disability, themselves.
Picture books especially are like many children`s first introduction to the world. Seeing yourself is almost like a message. It`s saying, you matter, you are visible, and you`re valuable.
My name is Christian Robinson, and this is my Brief But Spectacular take on telling stories with pictures.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And you can watch additional Brief But Spectacular episodes on our Web site, PBS.org/NewsHour/Brief.
Now to our "NewsHour" shares, something that caught our eye that might be of interest to you, too.
Two military veterans stepped down from their duties this summer, but they weren`t your typical soldiers.
The "NewsHour"`s Julia Griffin reports on a pair of Army horses that were free to a good home.
JULIA GRIFFIN: Every morning, rain or shine, the Caisson horses of the Army`s Old Guard fall in line at Arlington National Cemetery.
Together, two teams of horses and their human counterparts execute eight expertly choreographed funeral processions a day for deceased military officers and service members killed in action.
It`s a precise job that requires a particular kind of horse.
1ST LT. AUSTIN HATCH, U.S. Army: We`re looking more for behavior. Teamwork is a big part and then being able to stay calm with the flags waving around or loud sounds in the background. We`re trying to keep them as calm as possible, so that the processions go smoothly.
JULIA GRIFFIN: Horses typically serve a 10-year tenure with the Caisson unit, but when one horse, Kennedy, began to act out and another named Quincy acquired a painful ailment in his hoof, the Army decided it was time the two be retired from service.
1ST LT. AUSTIN HATCH: They have worked extremely hard for this country and honoring its fallen, so we look for the best homes for them, retirement homes, where they will be well taken care of after their service.
CARROLL URZENDOWSKI, Former U.S. Army Soldier: They actually deserve the best home that can be provided for them. And I felt that my wife and children and myself, we could do that for them.
JULIA GRIFFIN: Carroll Urzendowski, a former platoon sergeant with the Caisson unit, was chosen to adopt Kennedy out of dozens of applicants from across the country.
The Standardbred horse, who had once served as the iconic riderless horse, will now live out his golden years at Urzendowski`s 85-acre ranch in Roganville, Texas.
CARROLL URZENDOWSKI: It`s a great honor to know that every day, the horse that I adopted, he provided that service to his country, and then I could teach my children as they get older what Kennedy actually provided for the nation.
KRISTEN WHITTAKER, Adopted Quincy: This was a big, big honor for us.
JULIA GRIFFIN: Kristen Whittaker and her husband, Sean Sutton, a former sergeant in the Army National Guard, were selected to adopt Quincy. Heated stables and a trained medical staff await the Quarter Horse at their farm just south of Boston.
KRISTEN WHITTAKER: We are lucky enough to be able to provide some medical intervention for him and some corrective shoeing.
It`s the same responsibility that I have to any of my own horses, give them a quality of life and hopefully keep them really happy through their elder years. And he will go to his forever home now.