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Woodruff>
Stephen Hadley>
team. How will Cuba change following the death of Fidel Castro? Former
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former National Security Adviser
Stephen Hadley discuss the future of the Middle East under a Trump
presidency. One poor farming community in California is using technology
to revive its economy. A leading Republican senator talks how to bring a
divisive Congress together to work with Donald Trump. How can one cope
with parents who divorce later in life?>
Trump; Economy; Madeleine Albright; Stephen Hadley; Middle East; Farming;
Business; Government; Elections>
JUDY WOODRUFF: Good evening. I`m Judy Woodruff.
HARI SREENIVASAN: And I`m Hari Sreenivasan.
JUDY WOODRUFF: On the "NewsHour" tonight: President-elect Donald Trump appoints senior members of his economic team. We look at who the men he wants to run the Treasury and Commerce Departments are and what changes they may make.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Also ahead this Wednesday, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley are here to discuss the future of the Middle East under a Trump presidency.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And bringing Silicon Valley to Salinas Valley -- how a poor farming community in California is using technology to revive its economy.
PATRICK ZELAYA, Co-Founder, HeavyConnect: We believe that, when it comes to ag-tech, if you can make it in the Salinas Valley, you`re going to be able to have a product that will be adopted globally.
HARI SREENIVASAN: All that and more on tonight`s "PBS NewsHour."
(BREAK)
JUDY WOODRUFF: As the picture of the Cabinet president-elect Trump wants is filled in, we`re seeing more figures who reflect deep ties to Washington or Wall Street. It`s a contrast with his campaign, during which he disparaged the power centers as corrupt and out of touch with ordinary Americans.
Lisa Desjardins has our report.
LISA DESJARDINS: Two fronts for the transition of power today. In Washington, vice president-elect Mike Pence worked on alliances with Republican leaders on Capitol Hill, as, in New York, team Trump offered more Cabinet nominees for Congress to consider, including the highest ranking yet, financier Steven Mnuchin for treasury secretary.
STEVE MNUCHIN, Treasury Secretary Nominee: I couldn`t be more excited about the opportunity to work with him in the administration. And our number one priority is going to be the economy, get back to 3 to 4 percent growth. We believe that`s very sustainable. And focus on things for the American worker. That`s absolutely our priority.
LISA DESJARDINS: Mnuchin`s resume is full of Wall Street experience, including 17 years at Goldman Sachs. He has no government experience. During the election, he headed up fund-raising operations for the Trump campaign, and had a hand in shaping candidate Trump`s message on taxes. If confirmed, he`d be tasked with turning that rhetoric into reality.
Alongside him this morning on CNBC, billionaire investor Wilbur Ross, who is Mr. Trump`s pick to be the commerce secretary and a point person on trade policy.
WILBUR ROSS, Commerce Secretary Nominee: The real trick is going to be increase American exports. Get rid of some of the tariff and non-tariff barriers to American exports.
LISA DESJARDINS: Ross is known for turning around troubled companies, where he cuts costs and sometimes worker benefits to boost profits. He also owned the Sago coal mine in West Virginia, where a collapse killed 12 miners in 2006. He said, "It was the worst week of my entire life."
Mr. Trump also picked out a deputy for Ross, Chicago Cubs co-owner Todd Ricketts, a prominent Republican donor who, at one point in the campaign, spoke out against candidate Trump.
Mr. Trump made other jobs news today, too. Overnight, there was word that he had cut a deal with the air conditioner maker Carrier to keep 1,000 jobs in Indiana. That is most, but not all of the jobs that the company said it was going to eliminate.
Also today, there were questions about Mr. Trump`s own business future when he`s president. On Twitter, he said he would take himself -- quote -- "completely out of business operations," and indicated he will explain how in a news conference in two weeks.
Also still unknown, who will be Mr. Trump`s secretary of state. The president-elect met a second time with one candidate, Mitt Romney, last night in New York. Afterwards, Mr. Trump`s former critic had warm words.
MITT ROMNEY (R), Former Presidential Candidate: These discussions I have had with him have been enlightening, and interesting, and engaging. I have enjoyed them very, very much.
LISA DESJARDINS: All this as Green Party candidate Jill Stein officially filed a hand recount request in Michigan, the third of three states she has pledged to verify.
For the "PBS NewsHour," I`m Lisa Desjardins.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And we will have more on president-elect Trump`s picks right after our news summary.
HARI SREENIVASAN: In the day`s other news: The North Carolina police officer who fatally shot a black man in September will not face criminal charges. The shooting of Keith Lamont Scott, whose family at first insisted he wasn`t armed, sparked days of protests across Charlotte.
Today, the county prosecutor said there was evidence Scott was holding a gun, and ignored repeated requests to drop it.
ANDREW MURRAY, District Attorney: The central issue is whether Officer Vinson was lawful in using deadly force against Mr. Scott. Anyone is justified in using deadly force if he reasonably believed, and, in fact, believed that he or someone else was in imminent danger of great bodily injury or death.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Scott`s family insisted today`s decision will not end their inquiry.
JUDY WOODRUFF: The death toll from the wildfires that swept through Tennessee`s Great Smoky Mountains rose to seven today. Dozens of people have been injured and more than 700 buildings were damaged or destroyed.
Heavy rain brought some relief today, but, at points, more than 200 firefighters were still fighting the flames.
GREG MILLER, Gatlinburg, Tennessee, Fire Chief: We have all seen how fires rekindle. And whatever rain we got, and these structures may dry out and they could start back. But we have crews that are monitoring those and going back in those areas. They are driving through and they`re checking and looking for hot spots.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Officials are still investigating what started the fires, but they believe they were likely caused by humans.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Powerful storms soaked the tinder-dry South overnight, spawning tornadoes that left five people dead. The twisters tore through Northeastern Alabama, damaging buildings and killing three people. Across the border in Southern Tennessee, two others died, and dozens more were injured. Some roads in the South were drenched with up to two feet of water, after two months without rain.
JUDY WOODRUFF: There is word today that the pilot of the charter plane that slammed into Colombia`s Andes Mountains told air traffic controllers that he ran out of fuel moments before the crash. That is according to a leaked recording of the flight`s final minutes. All but six of the 77 people on board died. Most were members of a Brazilian soccer team.
HARI SREENIVASAN: In Syria, opposition activists claimed nearly 50 civilians were killed by regime forces today as they fled rebel-held Eastern Aleppo. Most of the victims were women and children. Activists estimate more than 50,000 people have been displaced by the fighting in the past four days.
JUDY WOODRUFF: The director of the CIA has decried president-elect Donald Trump`s plan to scrap the nuclear deal with Iran. In a BBC interview, John Brennan said -- quote -- "I think it would be disastrous. I think it would be the height of folly if the next administration were to tear up that agreement." Brennan argued such a move would open the door for still other countries to pursue nuclear weapons.
HARI SREENIVASAN: The United Nations Security Council slapped new sanctions on North Korea today, in response to its fifth, and largest, nuclear test in September. The council unanimously approved the resolution, which will slash North Korea`s biggest export, coal, by at least 62 percent. It also bans the regime from exporting metals like copper, nickel, and silver.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives reelected California`s Nancy Pelosi as their leader today. The congresswoman has led the party in the House since 2002. Pelosi survived a challenge from Ohio Representative Tim Ryan in a 134-63 vote. Her win came despite disenchantment from some in her caucus after a disappointing showing in this month`s elections.
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), House Minority Leader: We have a responsibility, and we embrace the opportunity that is presented. We know how to win elections. We have done it in the past. We will do it again.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Maryland Congressman Steny Hoyer was also reelected as House Democratic whip.
HARI SREENIVASAN: The oil cartel OPEC is decreasing oil production for the first time in eight years. Member nations agreed to a deal that will cut production by more than a million barrels a day, from its current daily output of over 33 million barrels. It`s all part of an effort to boost lagging oil prices.
JUDY WOODRUFF: That news sent energy stocks soaring on Wall Street today, but markets ended the day mixed. The Dow Jones industrial average gained two points to close at 19123. The Nasdaq tumbled 56, and the S&P 500 slipped nearly six.
Still to come on the "NewsHour": the men who will shape Trump`s economic agenda; on the ground in a rapidly changing Cuba; Madeleine Albright and Stephen Hadley on what to do next in the Mideast; and much more.
Well, as we have been reporting, the president-elect began fleshing out his economic team today by announcing his choices to run the Departments of Treasury and Commerce.
In doing so, the candidate, who campaigned with a heavy dose of populism, elevated individuals mainly known for their connections to Wall Street and high finance.
David Wessel of the Brookings Institution and a contributing columnist to The Wall Street Journal joins me now.
And welcome back to the program.
DAVID WESSEL, The Wall Street Journal: Thank you.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, David, fill out this picture a little bit more of who - - let`s start with Steve Mnuchin. He`s the pick to head the Treasury Department. What more do we know about him?
DAVID WESSEL: Well, it`s just wonderfully ironic that Donald Trump, who railed against the elite, lambasted Hillary Clinton for giving paid speeches to Goldman Sachs, turned to a guy who not only was at Goldman Sachs for 17 years, but is the son of a Goldman Sachs lifer and has a brother who is at Goldman Sachs.
And so he`s going -- he went to Yale. Wilbur Ross went to Yale. It seems to a very anti-populist kind of move to pick these financiers for these jobs.
(CROSSTALK)
JUDY WOODRUFF: Excuse me.
So, we`re seeing some comments from liberal Democrats today who put out statements saying this is somebody who made a lot of money at Goldman Sachs when the banks were bailed out by the federal government, and then he went on and there was another -- he left Goldman, went on and bought a bank, was involved in buying a bank in California. Tell us about that.
DAVID WESSEL: Right.
As you know, some of the Democrats, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, think anybody who has ever worked for a bank shouldn`t be the treasury secretary. I think other people feel -- I`m among them -- that really having some experience on Wall Street might be a good thing for treasury secretary.
I think the reason Mr. Mnuchin is controversial is not only that he comes from Goldman Sachs, which is kind of the -- has been the centerpiece of a lot of criticism, but he made a lot of money buying IndyMac when it was in trouble.
JUDY WOODRUFF: This is the bank in California.
DAVID WESSEL: The bank in California.
And then selling it, making a bundle. And in between, he got a lot of grief because the bank was accused by consumer groups of being very aggressive on foreclosures. So it looks like he is a guy who profited off of the financial crisis that caused so much harm elsewhere.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Is that clear that he did profit off the financial crisis?
DAVID WESSEL: No. But he profited because he bought a bank that was in trouble cheap, fixed it up and sold it.
So, to that extent, he did make money off of the financial crisis. But he didn`t -- he comes from the mortgage business, but he was not at Goldman during the worst of the abuses.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So in terms of the accusation that he was aggressively pushing foreclosures?
DAVID WESSEL: I don`t know enough about the detail. He`s accused of that.
There were a lot of protests. Clearly, the bank foreclosed on a lot of people. Lots of banks did that. Whether he did more than other people or his bank did more than other people, I really don`t know.
JUDY WOODRUFF: All right.
Well, let`s talk about the Commerce Department.
DAVID WESSEL: Right.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Wilbur Ross is the pick to be secretary of commerce.
DAVID WESSEL: Right.
So, I think Commerce is interesting, but much less important than Treasury in general. What makes Wilbur Ross so important is that he was close to President Trump for the whole campaign. Steve Mnuchin joined relatively late in the campaign, only six months before the election, raised a lot of money, kind of bought a lottery ticket by betting on Donald Trump, and won.
Wilbur Ross has been very influential in talking about Donald Trump and to Donald Trump and seems to have strong feelings, as does Donald Trump, about trade. And the Commerce Department does have some responsibilities for trade and tariffs, which Donald Trump has threatened to raise if our trading partners don`t play ball.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, Wilbur Ross, a billionaire, made his money how?
DAVID WESSEL: Correct.
By buying companies that were in bad shape, fixing them up, laying off workers, and selling them and making money, some of it overseas, and some of it here. He`s made a lot of money doing business in China, which is kind of ironic, since the Trump people seem to look at China as the enemy now.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And, as you say, talking about trade.
Now, number two at Commerce, Donald Trump named Todd Ricketts, co-owner of the Chicago Cubs.
(CROSSTALK)
DAVID WESSEL: Right.
Yes. So, I guess that means that Donald Trump will get good seats at Wrigley Field. So, at least he comes from the Middle West. He doesn`t come from New York. He didn`t go to Yale or Harvard. He went to Loyola.
His family money comes from Ameritrade and the finance business. He actually owns a high-end bike shop. And what is interesting about them, as I think you said earlier, is his family was very much against Donald Trump, and then jumped on the bandwagon and got in it.
So, these are all card-carrying capitalists. They`re from the elite of the American business community. They`re not who you would have expected a populist, run-against-the-elites president to appoint.
On the other hand, they do have some experience. And having somebody who knows something about business and finance in these jobs can be a plus.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, finally, David Wessel, I want to ask you about this deal that president-elect Trump talked about today with the Carrier Corporation. This is the air conditioning-making company, subsidiary of United Technologies.
They were saying -- they announced months ago they were going to ship, what, 2,100 jobs out of United States to Mexico from Indiana.
DAVID WESSEL: Twenty-one hundred jobs from Indiana.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Donald Trump immediately during the campaign said: I`m going to do something about this.
DAVID WESSEL: Right.
So, Donald Trump clearly leaned on them. Carrier, like any company that has a consumer brand -- and this one is owned by United Technologies, which has a lot of defense contracts -- didn`t want to be crosswise with the new president of the United States.
It`s the state of Indiana, Mike Pence, still the governor, the vice president-elect, clearly put some money on the table. We don`t know what the deal was. They saved 1,000 jobs.
Ironically, in Indianapolis, there`s another company that you have never heard of called Rexnord, which makes ball bearings. They`re moving a plant to Mexico. They are laying off 300 people. And Donald Trump doesn`t seem to be able to save their jobs.
I think it`s hugely symbolically significant. He manages to say to his constituents: I did something, I accomplished something.
And I think it puts the business community on warning that this is not a conventional Republican. He is going to try to muscle companies that haven`t been muscled before.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Can he go individually from company to company that is thinking of shipping jobs out and say...
DAVID WESSEL: We create 180,000 jobs a month. We have something like 12 million people in manufacturing. This is a drop in the bucket.
I think the question -- no, he can`t do that. You`re not going to -- every company is going to threaten to move to Mexico, and he is going to put money on the table to keep them? No.
But I think it puts business on notice that this president is willing to use the bully pulpit to embarrass them. And, secondly, it suggests that he and some of his advisers may be more willing to restrict the freedom of companies to close plants and move than has been the case in the previous Democratic and Republican administrations.
JUDY WOODRUFF: David Wessel with the Brookings Institution, columnist with The Wall Street Journal, we thank you.
DAVID WESSEL: You`re welcome.
HARI SREENIVASAN: The ashes of the late Cuban dictator Fidel Castro began a long procession across the island nation today, from Havana to Santiago, where Castro declared victory in the revolution he led in 1959.
His funeral will be held there Sunday, ending nine days of mourning since his death last Friday.
"NewsHour" special correspondent Nick Schifrin is in Havana reporting for us this week, joins me now.
Nick, let`s talk a little bit about the route. Why is it so significant?
NICK SCHIFRIN: Yes, Hari, it`s the same route that he took in 1959, only in reverse.
And it`s really that trip that cemented Fidel Castro as a kind of heroic figure in Cuba, almost a destined savior of the country. That`s certainly the image that he tried to portray, came in on a boat, descended from the mountains, won battles and won over people with his speeches, tried to really portray himself as a messiah for the country. And at least along the route today, that image of him really survives.
HARI SREENIVASAN: There aren`t a lot of freedoms to speak out against the government, but what are people along the route saying?
NICK SCHIFRIN: Yes.
Along the route, people use the same exact words, my leader, my father. And even critics of Fidel Castro say that those sentiments are genuine after so many decades of his rule. For example, Hari, I talked to one family, three generations.
The uncle used to be a Castro bodyguard. The grandmother told me that Castro gave her more opportunities. An aunt told me that he really believed in human rights. And the granddaughter, 23-year-old Gizelle Gallego (ph), said that the revolution should go on, the ideals should go on, and that there shouldn`t be drastic change in Cuba, even though the father of the revolution has now died.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Did you hear any voices of dissent?
NICK SCHIFRIN: Yes. They are few and far between, but they are important to listen to.
And I spoke to one dissenter, as he calls himself, just a few hours ago. His name is Carlos Miraros Falcon (ph). He says there is no freedom of speech and no freedom of multiple parties.
And what that means, Hari, is that the criticism of the government remains rare and that the opposition remains fractured. And I asked him whether there is any chance of change now that Fidel Castro is dead. He said most likely not. That`s because Fidel`s younger brother Raul has been running the country as president since 2008.
But he did point to one date, 2018. That is the year that Raul Castro promises to step down. One of two things could happen there. He will step down, but he will remain head of the party. That means more status question.
Or it is possible, this dissident said, that Raul could step down and there could be an opposition leader who emerges.
HARI SREENIVASAN: When you talk to people on the route, they`re very quickly aware that you`re an American. Does the conversation walk into the territory of the new president-elect?
NICK SCHIFRIN: Look, I think that there have been changes over the last few years. And more Americans have been here, so they`re more used to us.
Certainly, there is some fear of president-elect Trump, most specifically because there is mostly unanimity over the deal that Raul Castro and President Obama struck in the last couple years, a kind of detente, and they don`t want president-elect Trump to take that away.
But critics do point out one thing, that there have been four times as many detentions this year already as in all of 2010. That`s according to the Cuban Human Rights and National Reconciliation Commission.
And those people who point that out point to president-elect Trump`s tweets saying that he would terminate the deal unless Cuba is willing to improve it. There are some people who are hoping he actually does that, but, in general, people want the trend of the last few years to continue.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Nick Schifrin joining us from Havana tonight, thank you.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Thanks, Hari.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Stay with us.
Coming up on the "NewsHour": a leading Republican senator on bringing a divisive Congress together to work with Donald Trump; high-tech innovations from the salad bowl of the world; and coping with parents who divorce later in life.
Now we are joined by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who served in the Clinton administration, and Stephen Hadley. He was a national security adviser to President George W. Bush.
Together, they have chaired an ambitious project called the Middle East Strategy Task Force that spent nearly two years looking at that troubled region`s problems and devising potential solutions.
From its base at the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank, the task force released its final report today.
And we welcome you both of you back to the "NewsHour."
Secretary Albright, to you first.
Ambitious goal, doing something about the Middle East. Remind us what you thought you were going to accomplish here.
MADELEINE ALBRIGHT, Former U.S. Secretary of State: Well, we were looking at region that we know is very important to the United States and obviously to the world, and trying to take a much deeper look at the Middle East, instead of kind of doing Band-Aids or fire drills, and looking at what can be done to make things less dangerous, to deal with America`s national interests, which have to do with our friends and allies, nuclear proliferation, how to deal with terrorism.
And I`m very proud of what we did, because we spent a lot of time looking at the local situation, instead of telling them what to do and doing kind of what Western powers have done for a hundred years, is to get a better sounding of what`s happening in the region itself.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Stephen Hadley, you`re calling it a new strategic approach. What`s different about it from what`s happening now?
STEPHEN HADLEY, Former U.S. National Security Adviser: Well, as Madeleine said, we have had a century where outside parties have tried to arrange things in the Middle East, and generally not very successfully.
What We have tried to do was listen to voices in the Middle East as to what their vision was for the future. And we found was, they had a vision that there are people, entrepreneurs, both social entrepreneurs, business entrepreneurs, that are making change from the bottom up.
And there are governments like the UAE and Tunisia and Saudi Arabia and Jordan that are actually trying to move in a direction and take initiative for themselves. So the new strategic approach is, let`s follow the lead of governments and people in the region and have a supporting role from the outside, rather than the reverse.
JUDY WOODRUFF: One of the first things you recommend, Secretary Albright, is a new security approach to the four countries that have civil wars under way right now, hot wars going on.
You call, among other things, for a stepped-up military presence on the part of the United States. Why do you think something like this can happen, given President Obama`s reluctance to do this over the last eight years?
MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: Well, I think it`s been evident that we can`t just do things diplomatically. We do want to have a political solution to many of the issues, obviously Syria.
But there has to be some way to resolve the civil wars. And some of it may take additional American, not ground forces, but, in fact, greater support for the rebel groups through special forces, maybe some standoff approach to it, working with the allies, with the coalition on some issues from the air, establishing a safe zone, and that you can`t just decide, at least we thought, working with our advisers, that the United States can just turn its back on the place, because the shorthand for it is, there is a crisis in the Middle East, but it`s also from the Middle East, that`s affecting us all.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Do you have reason to believe, Stephen Hadley, that the president-elect, Donald Trump, is going to be interested in an approach like this? I mean, given what he said on the campaign trail, that`s not at all clear, is it?
STEPHEN HADLEY: Well, one of the things he said was that we need to do more to defeat ISIS and al-Qaida, Da`esh and al-Qaida. He was critical of the past administration, thought they had not done enough.
We recommend expanding and accelerating what we`re doing against Da`esh and al-Qaida. He was very critical of what Iran has done in the region. We believe that, if we step up what we`re doing against Da`esh and al Qaeda in both Iraq and Syria, that will put some limitations on what the Iranians can, quite frankly, some limitations on what the Russians can do.
And with that new leverage, you may be in a situation to move over time to the kinds of political solutions that we`re looking for both in Iraq and in Syria.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Do you have reason to believe, Secretary Albright, that Donald Trump is going to be interested in an approach like this?
MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: Well, we have to see, frankly.
I think that my own view here is that we have to -- he is the president- elect. And I think that, as he sees what the issues are, I am hopeful that he will understand the value of this approach, which is that we can`t -- I mean, frankly, the suggestions that have been made during the campaign don`t make much sense, because it`s either having nothing to do with them or bombing them to -- he used an unspeakable word -- but that that`s not consistent.
And, therefore, what we`re advocating is that we can`t turn our back on the Middle East, that that is not good for American national interest, and that one does have to deal with Da`esh, but also to try to deal with the civil problems that are there, especially in Syria, given what Assad is doing to his own people.