judy woodruff: good evening. i'm judy woodruff. miles o'brien: and i'm miles o'brien. judy woodruff: on the "newshour" tonight:president trump takes to twitter to defend his immigration order amid upheaval that broughtthousands across the country to protest at airports and on the street. miles o'brien: also ahead this monday: whatis it's like to be caught up in the chaos, refugee reaction to the ban. ali abdi, green card holder: who are thesepeople who are now banned from entering the
country. there are students like me, graduate studentswho are doing their ph.d.s, doing their masters. judy woodruff: plus, madeleine albright, kansassecretary of state kris kobach and our politics monday team break down the legal, domesticand foreign implications of the tumultuous first days of the trump administration. miles o'brien: all that and more on tonight's"pbs newshour." (break) we're having guests join me here at the "newshour"anchor desk in the coming weeks. tonight, it's a familiar face, our sciencecorrespondent, miles o'brien.
welcome, miles. miles o'brien: judy, it's a pleasure to behere. judy woodruff: it's great to have you. so, now we begin with the ongoing uproar overpresident trump's order on refugees and immigrants. john yang reports on this day's events. john yang: after a weekend of mass protestsand chaos at airports, white house press secretary sean spicer insists it's all an overreaction. sean spicer, white house press secretary:we have got to keep this in proportion, folks. this was 109 people being stopped out of 325over a 24-hour period.
and i know that everyone likes to get wherethey want to get to as quick as possible, and i think the government did a phenomenaljob of making sure that we process people through. john yang: in any event, spicer said, it'sa small price to pay. sean spicer: we don't know when that individualcrosses into our border to do us harm. and so the idea of waiting when you don'tknow could it be that night, could it be the next day, could it be the next week, and thepresident's view is, i'm not going to wait. john yang: president trump sparked the uproarwith the stroke of a pen, signing an executive order banning people from seven muslim-majoritycountries from entering the united states
for 90 days, effective immediately. across the country, there were protests oncollege campuses and at airports. a federal judge in new york blocked the banfor people who were either already in transit or had arrived in the united states. in seattle today, washington state attorneygeneral bob ferguson announced a new lawsuit, and said he's got the support of amazon andexpedia. bob ferguson, washington state attorney general:in our view, the president is not adhering to the constitution when it comes to his executiveaction. it's my responsibility as attorney generalto defend the rule of law, the uphold the
constitution on behalf of the people of thisstate. john yang: state department employees circulateda dissent channel memo. it warned the policy will not achieve itsaim of making our country safer and that it runs counter to core american values. spicer said, if they oppose the policy, theycould quit. federal judges intervened to protect foreignholders of green cards, legal permanent residents of the united states. overnight, homeland security secretary johnkelly waived the travel ban for green card holders.
at breakfast with small business leaders today,president trump said his immigration order was a success. donald trump (r), president of the unitedstates: we actually had a very good day yesterday in terms of homeland security. and some day, we had to make the move, andwe decided to make the move. john yang: he blamed chaos at airports ona delta air lines' computer problem and on democrats. donald trump: i noticed that chuck schumeryesterday with fake tears. i'm going to ask him, who was his acting coachbecause i know him very well.
i don't see him as a crier. john yang: on twitter, the president saidhe didn't give advance notice of the order because he didn't want to tip off would-beterrorists. he said: "if the ban were announced with aone-week notice, the bad would rush into our country during that week." a number of republican senators, includingmarco rubio, susan collins, lindsey graham and john mccain, criticized the order andthe way it was rolled out. former president obama weighed in with a statementtoday, saying he "fundamentally disagrees with targeting people based on religion."
he also seemed to encourage the protests,saying, "it's exactly what we expect to see when american values are at stake." meanwhile, mr. trump signed a new executiveaction today significantly cutting federal regulations. donald trump: there will be regulation. there will be control, but it will be a normalizedcontrol, where you can open your business and expand your business very easily. and that is what our country has been allabout. john yang: the order requires that, for everynew regulation proposed, two regulations must
be repealed. and it says the net economic cost of new regulationsmust be zero. the president also announced that lockheedmartin has cut $600 million from its next batch of f-35 joint strike fighter planesafter he criticized the cost. that obama statement is not worthy. on his way out, aides suggested that the formerpresident would give the new president what he said he was grateful to former presidentbush for giving him, silence. but in his final press conference, he saidhe was tempted to speak out if he saw core american values being threatened.
turns out he didn't wait very long -- miles. miles o'brien: john, a couple of other interestingbits at the briefing. the reorganization of the national securitycouncil, the permanent or principal seats, putting a political strategist in one of those,steve bannon, did mr. spicer address that? john yang: today, a lot of eyebrows beingraised about that. spicer defended it, noted that bannon hadbeen a naval officer, even though that was more than four decades ago. he also pointed out that david axelrod, thepolitical adviser to president obama, occasionally sat in on some nsc meetings and said thatby putting bannon and giving him a seat permanently
on the nsc, it was their bow to transparency. miles o'brien: speaking of seats, empty seaton the supreme court, big announcement on that. tell us about it. john yang: tomorrow night in prime time, justlike "the apprentice," he is going to announce it live on television. you may remember he tweeted last week thatthe announcement would be coming on thursday. why the change? spicer said because he wanted to -- miles.
miles o'brien: john yang at the white house,thank you. judy woodruff: and in the day's other news:the president's immigration order provoked a growing backlash overseas. in iraq, members of parliament voted to demandretaliation. under the order, iraqis are now banned fromentering the u.s. and, in london, britain's foreign secretarysaid mr. trump's planned state visit will go ahead, despite the immigration order. boris johnson, british foreign minister: ihave said that it's divisive, i have said that it's wrong, and i have said that it stigmatizespeople on grounds of their nationality.
but what i will not do is disengage from conversationswith our american friends and partners in such a way as to do material damage to theinterests of u.k. citizens. judy woodruff: more than a million britishcitizens have petitioned against the trump visit set for later this year. miles o'brien: president trump's pick to besecretary of state survived a key procedural vote in the senate tonight. republicans resisted a democratic push todelay action on rex tillerson, a former exxonmobil ceo. that clears the way for a confirmation votethis week.
judy woodruff: in yemen, security officialssay a suspected u.s. drone strike killed two al-qaida militants today. it came a day after u.s. commandos killedthree alleged leaders of al-qaida's branch in yemen. thirty other people and one u.s. navy sealdied in the sunday raid. it was the first u.s. combat death under presidenttrump. miles o'brien: police in quebec city, canada,are looking for a motive after a shooting at a mosque left six dead last night. a suspect is in custody.
more than 50 people were in the mosque atthe time of the attack. officials say it was an act of terror, andthey're calling for unity. man: normal in times of crisis that everyonewill speak with the same voice of tolerance, integration and inclusion. the real challenge will be two weeks fromnow to continue saying this, to refuse any compromise towards intolerance or exclusion. miles o'brien: later in parliament, primeminister justin trudeau spoke directly to the more than one million in canada and hesaid to them, "we are with you." judy woodruff: the philippines' national policeforces will no longer take part in a sweeping
anti-drug campaign in that country. the crackdown began in july, when presidentrodrigo duterte took office. since then, about 7,000 people have been killed. but the national police chief said he's callinga halt after rogue officers kidnapped and killed a south korean businessman for money. miles o'brien: the man accused of killingfive people and wounding six at the fort lauderdale airport pleaded not guilty today. esteban santiago appeared in federal courton 22 charges from the shooting this month. authorities say he opened fire in the baggageclaim area with a handgun he'd stowed in a
checked bag. he'd flown in from anchorage, alaska. judy woodruff: wall street had a rough dayas the president's immigration order depressed airline stocks. the dow jones industrial average lost 122points to fall back below 20000. the nasdaq fell 47, and the s&p 500 gave up12. miles o'brien: and doctors in houston releasedformer president george h.w. bush from a houston hospital today. he'd been there for two weeks with pneumonia.
mr. bush is 92. his wife, barbara, now 91, was released lastweek from the same hospital. she was treated for bronchitis. still to come on the "newshour": we did into reactions to the travel ban, including from former secretary of state madeleine albrightand kansas secretary of state kris kobach; plus, are you addicted to your smartphone? a former google employee worries we all are. we will tell you how he's trying to changethat. judy woodruff: as we reported earlier, presidenttrump's executive order barring people coming
to the u.s. from certain countries sparkedwidespread protests and confusion over the weekend. the "newshour"'s william brangham spent muchof yesterday tracking that response, and talking with people who've been affected by the order. william brangham: the arrivals gate at anyairport, not just here at dulles outside of washington, is normally a quiet scene of warmgreetings and family reunions, but not this protests erupted within hours friday and continuedall weekend, after president trump issued his sweeping executive order temporarily barringall refugees and travelers from seven majority-muslim nations.
syrian refugees were blocked indefinitely. the president said it was crucial to keepingamerica safe. donald trump (r), president of the unitedstates: protection of the nation from foreign terrorist entry into the united states. we all know what that means. william brangham: the trump administrationinsisted again today that coverage of the problems has been overblown. but the orders did cause widespread confusionat the nation's airports. who was turned away?
who had been detained? did having a green card mean you could enter? according to media reports, customs and immigrationofficials had little advance warning of the order, a claim the white house denied. an army of volunteer lawyers gathered to helpfamilies of those detained. mariam masumi is an immigration attorney innorthern virginia. â®md-boâ¯mariam masumi, immigration attorney: there was no communication between any of the agencies. i think that this order was just issued withoutany cooperation, collaboration.
and it's caused a lot of confusion on thepart of so many agencies. without the knowledge and whether those peopleare back there, we can't help. william brangham: even members of congresssaid they were in the dark. representative don beyer, a virginia democrat,was at dulles trying to find out if people being detained had access to lawyers, as afederal judge had ordered. beyer said he couldn't even find out how manypeople were being held. so, you, as a member of congress, cannot getan answer as to how many people our government is holding here? rep.
don beyer (d), virginia: that's exactly correctright now. this notion of cooperation between the executivebranch and the legislative branch seems to have totally broken down. william brangham: and it wasn't just democrats. congresswoman barbara comstock is a republicanwho's long advocated for stricter vetting of immigrants. but she said this move was too broad and poorlyexecuted. barbara comstock (r), virginia: we need togo back to the drawing board on this. as i have consistently said, we shouldn'thave a ban on people coming to this country
based on religion. william brangham: the executive order causedproblems outside the u.s. as well. with the policy issued so swiftly, ali abdididn't know what to do. abdi is a yale ph.d. student originally fromiran who was studying abroad. he lives in the u.s. and has a green card. and even though officials have clarified thatmeans he can come home, he was worried about trying. i spoke with him via skype from dubai thismorning. ali abdi, green card holder: there has beeneven changes in the way the order has been
interpreted over the last 48 hours. and i am very, very hopeful that the otherside of the u.s., which is not bigotry and racism, changes the status quo. william brangham: he says people like himare not the ones to be feared. ali abdi: let's see who are these people whoare now banned from entering the country. there are students like me, graduate studentswho are doing their ph.d.s, doing their master's. and they were later meant to serve the americanpublic by teaching there, by producing knowledge there. william brangham: another ph.d. student andgreen card holder tried her luck getting back
home on friday night. nisrin elamin is sudanese, but she's livedin the u.s. for 20 years. she's getting her ph.d. at stanford, but wasin sudan doing research. her return was a homecoming like no other. nisrin elamin, green card holder: i was takento a room and i was patted down, which was quite uncomfortable because i was touchedin my chest and groin area. and then i was handcuffed very briefly, atwhich point i started to cry, not so much because of the handcuffs, but because, atthat point, i felt like i was probably going to get deported.
william brangham: after more than five hoursat jfk airport in new york, elamin was released and told it would be best for her not to leavethe u.s. again, leaving her potentially separated from her family indefinitely. nisrin elamin: but the order, as it standsright now, my parents aren't green card holders, and they, at this point, will not be ableto apply for a visa to enter the united states if they wanted to visit me. similarly, my sister, who lives in australiaand is a dual citizen, cannot apply for a visa. so, at present, we're in three different continents,and we can't see each other because i'm also
not comfortable traveling. and that makes me very sad. it also scares me a little bit. zainab chaudry, council on american-islamicrelations: with just a stroke of a pen, people's lives have changed completely. william brangham: zainab chaudry is with thecouncil on american-islamic relations. she arranged for some speakers to come tothis muslim center in maryland to help answer people's questions. her group, cair, filed a federal lawsuit todaychallenging the constitutionality of the president's
order. zainab chaudry: i received a phone call froma man who's not a citizen. he's a legal permanent citizen, lpr, and hismother passed away in iran. and he was advised by his attorney to nottravel to iran to bury his mother because he wouldn't be able -- chances are he wouldn'tbe able to return to the united states. william brangham: last night at his mosquein washington, d.c., imam talib shareef said even american citizens in his congregationare afraid. talib shareef, imam: they're afraid becausethey don't know. obviously, there's a sense of anger rightnow that this is happening.
they're saying, how could this have been allowedto happen? they're contributing citizens. they haven't done anything wrong. they have no intentions of doing anythingwrong. william brangham: he's worried these fearscould fester into anger, and stir the pot of resentment. talib shareef: we're now going to create enemiesand we're going to divide the country further. they are hearing significant people from theadministration saying, we're just getting started.
so, what does that mean? what does that mean for the citizens who sharea religious label that has been targeted? what does that mean? william brangham: the trump administrationsays that, in time, people will see the value of this action and it will improve the nation'ssecurity. but, meanwhile, protesters, lawyers and religiousgroups alike continue to watch, warily. for the "pbs newshour" i'm william branghamin washington, d.c. judy woodruff: now, for more on the executiveorder on refugees and visa holders and changes the president to the makeup of the nationalsecurity council, we turn first to former
secretary of state madeleine albright. she served as the united states' top diplomatduring the clinton administration. when we spoke a short time ago, i began byasking her reaction to the trump white house ban on immigrants from seven countries. madeleine albright, former u.s. secretaryof state: judy, i'm appalled, because it's done everything except keep america safer. and let me just say, i kind of have lookedat things thinking that they made this executive action without really understanding what it'sall about. so, it was unprepared, i would say, becausethey didn't really see how the government
works. they didn't really contact the various departmentsthat are part of this homeland security, trying to figure out what would happen once you dosomething like this from the oval office. so, unprepared. and then i think, also, part of the problemwas, they didn't understand what i say the unintended consequences of this, because thetruth is that the countries that have been designated are now reacting, creating moreproblems for us, and then banning people -- our people from going there. for instance, in iraq, how do we protect ourtroops?
what about the people that are interpreting? and then i think all of it is based on untruefacts. and so i think it is a very serious problemin terms of how the whole system works. judy woodruff: well, let me take a coupleof those, one at a time. what they're saying is if -- they're saying,if they had let the rest of the government know what they were doing, that it would haveleaked, and they said there would have been a flood of people trying to get in. and they also say that they're basically onlyfollowing what the obama administration had done a few years ago in listing countriesthat were the most for the united states to
fear in terms of terrorism. madeleine albright: well, the latter is true. what was happened was, there was an incidentwhere something was coming out of iraq. they were concerned about what the facts reallywere. they wanted to re-vet some people. they didn't have enough manpower to do that,so things slowed down. so there is nothing like that that happenedin the obama administration. i think the excuse about not letting othersknow, first of all, they need to understand that the government, in fact, when peopletrust each other, doesn't leak out when it's
an important issue. but how can you not let the departments thathave something to do with executing the order not know? because i think that they were genuinely surprisedby, you know, how slow it was, what happened when they detained people, what happened thenwhen there were demonstrations against it. so i'm willing to say they were surprisedat the reaction to it, but that's a sign of the fact they didn't understand what theywere doing. judy woodruff: the other argument they make,secretary albright, is this will all settle out, it's just the hurly-burly of the firstfew days, that it's only 109 people, they
said, out of over 300,000 travelers over theweekend, and that we're all making too much of this. madeleine albright: no, we're not, becausewhat it's shown is that the united states is not prepared to deal with something thatthe president has decided he wants to do, so it puts real question as to how the systemworks. it also has undermined other countries' trustin what we do, trying to figure out who in the department is responsible for what. and then i actually think it's a gift to thosethat hate us, because now what has happened is isis is really kind of saying, yes, right,this is what america is like, you can't trust
us. and so i think they basically were completelyunprepared for what they kind of unwrapped, without really considering the unintendedconsequences, and i don't think it makes us any safer. judy woodruff: one of the other moves thetrump administration made over the weekend was to announce a reorganization of the nationalsecurity council, which, in effect, appears to downgrade the role of the director of nationalintelligence, and also the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. they had also downgraded the role of the ciadirector, but they now in the last -- today
have restored that. how do you read that move on the part of presidenttrump? madeleine albright: well, i teach about decision-making,so i have been thinking about this. and i think it also wasn't thought out, andpartially because -- we have heard a lot of stories about how the transition really wasn'tdone very well. i have been transitioned into and i have donethe transitioning. it's a fascinating process of turning overthe crown jewels when it's done properly. that didn't happen. and so i think they didn't understand howthe system works, and, in fact, downgrading
the role of the chairman of the joint chiefs. maybe they think they already have too manygenerals, but the bottom line is that it's important for that person to be in the meetingsno matter what. and what they have done is say only when it'sreally necessary, decided by the national security adviser, and the same for the directorof national intelligence. it's important to know the intelligence andthe response of the military. judy woodruff: the other change they madewas to add steve bannon, who is a senior adviser to the president, to the -- the campaign adviser-- add him to the national security council attendees, principals -- i guess you callit principals list.
their argument is, well, the obama administrationhad people like david axelrod and others who sat in on national security meeting. madeleine albright: that -- you know, frankly,that is the most outrageous thing that they have done, is to add somebody with an extremeideology to those that are supposed to be making decisions based on u.s. national interests,not on ideology. and it's one thing to have one of the adviserscome in on occasion when the issue is some combination of domestic and foreign policy,but not to have somebody with the views of bannon that we now hear to be there all thetime. and the troublesome part about all this is,what is the circle around the president?
who does he listen to? and the examples that we have had, whetherit's now with the immigration executive action or just generally, is the decision-makingprocess. we're not a new country. we have had a decision-making process. and they have, in fact, developed somethingdifferent. and, judy, i thought the following. disruption is not a bad thing for bureaucracy. destruction, however, is very dangerous.
and so what we have seen in the last week,i think, is dangerous. judy woodruff: very quickly, last question. impression of rex tillerson, who is the president'sdesignee to be the next secretary of state? madeleine albright: well, i have met him. i think he's a very fine person. he's been a very good ceo of exxon. the question is how he's going to operatewithin this particular setup, how he's going to work with the state department, where atop group of people have left who are some of the operational people, and then how ishe going to define what the roles of the state
department is? judy woodruff: madeleine albright, formersecretary of state, thank you very much for talking with us. madeleine albright: great to be with you. thank you. miles o'brien: and for a different point ofview, i spoke a short while ago to kansas secretary of state kris kobach, was a topadviser to mr. trump during his presidential campaign and transition process. i began by asking him whether the u.s. issafer now as a result of the white house ban.
kris kobach (r), kansas secretary of state:these seven countries are the hotbeds of terrorism. they include places where isis controls foreignterritory. and they are places where people are comingin to receive terrorist training and then being pushed out to carry out acts of terrorismacross europe, perhaps in the united states and elsewhere. and so, absolutely, it makes sense to puta temporary bar on people holding those passports from coming into the united states. also another really important part of thisexecutive order was the reviewing our refugee program, also putting that on hold, becausewe have huge problems with terrorists abusing
our refugee program. i might just give you a quick statistic there. since the 1990s, there have been 18 majorterrorists who have either committed acts of terror or names you would recognize whogot into our refugee program. the blind sheik, omar abdel-rahman, came inthrough the refugee program. the two boston marathon bombers originallycame into the united states through the refugee program. the bowling green, kentucky, terrorists, refugeeprogram. so, it makes sense to say, hey, we're a verygenerous nation.
we give out more asylum. we allow in more refugees than any other countryon the planet, but we are going to reassess how we screen people because way too manyterrorists are fraudulently coming into the united states as refugees. miles o'brien: the one problem with all thatargument is that, of the seven countries singled out, no refugees from those particular countriesare implicated in any attacks. were the wrong countries picked? kris kobach: no, i don't think so. the bowling green, kentucky, i believe thosewere from iraq.
the geographical locus -- focus of where theterrorists are active changes with time, right? so, al-qaida wasn't necessarily active inthe exact same countries now. somalia has become much more active as a placewhere terrorist training and terrorist activity occurs. so it only makes sense that the seven countriesor 10 countries or however many we're most interested in might change over time as thefacts on the ground change. miles o'brien: a practical question here. you mentioned somalia. if you're trying to do extreme vetting ofsomeone who comes from somalia, how on earth
do you do that? somalia doesn't even really have a functioninggovernment. what does extreme vetting look like when aperson comes out of a country like that? kris kobach: that's a great question, becausewhat happens when someone comes in, let's take, for example, someone coming in as arefugee. so, they say that they have a credible fearof persecution -- that's the legal standard -- in their home country. well, if the home country doesn't even havea functioning government, you don't have any police departments, you don't have any centralizeddatabase of records, you may not have any
way of verifying anything that this personis saying. and, right now, in the refugee program forthe past, you know, 10 years or so, there has been a sort of get-to-yes mentality, takethe refugee's, the intending refugee's word for it. i think we have to be much stricter. and we have to say, look, we need some proof,we need some evidence that your story is true, because there are so many cases that we learnabout after the fact where the refugee's story was completely untrue. miles o'brien: seems like that would be verydifficult to come up with any kind of documentation
in that situation. kris kobach: it would. it may be. miles o'brien: let's talk about politics forjust a -- yes. some republicans on the hill are even expressingconcerns about this, senator mccain among them, saying that it basically fits in -- i'mparaphrasing -- fits into the isis narrative, in essence, that their -- the propaganda thatthey spew out is that america is anti-muslim, and this fits into that narrative well. if the real concern, the real threat is homegrownterrorism, incited by the internet, by twitter,
by facebook, if that's the real threat, haven'twe made ourselves less safer by adding to this isis narrative? kris kobach: i don't think so at all. i mean, we as a nation can walk and chew gumat the same time. you're absolutely right. homegrown terrorism is a threat, but so isimported terrorism where the terrorists are trained overseas and they are sent to theunited states to kill americans. so we have to do both. and there's no reason why we can't do both.
but this is the best way to put enhanced screeningon people seeking entry to the united states, the best way to protect the american public. and, remember, that's the first and highestpurpose of the united states government is to protect american citizens. we are not facing an invasion from a conventionalarmy anytime soon, but we are facing individual acts of terrorism. and many of those individuals come in acrossour border through a port of entry. and we owe it to the american people. the u.s. government owes it to the americanpeople to be very cautious in allowing someone
in from these regions of the world where weknow isis is active and there is active terrorist activity and training going on. miles o'brien: is it possible, though, wehave given isis a case in point for their argument that the u.s. is anti-muslim? kris kobach: i don't think so. you know, i hear the argument made that thisexecutive order is anti-muslim, and it seems to me that that's clearly false. i mean, the -- it's based on the country oforigin. so, if you're an atheist, if you're a christian,if you're a jew coming from one of these countries,
you will be subject to the same bar on entryas a muslim coming from these countries. furthermore, you have got about 40 additionalcountries in the world that are majority muslim and they are not affected by this executiveorder. so, clearly, on its face, it is not anti-muslim. it is a geographic-based action to secureamerica from people coming from dangerous places in the world. it is a geographic ban. it's not in any way a religious ban. miles o'brien: ok, but there is a religiouscomponent to this.
christians, of course, are specifically singledout for priority. let me ask you this. you teach or have taught constitutional law. how does this square with the constitution? you know, i'm your student for a moment. teach me about the constitution and how thisjibes with what the founding fathers were thinking. kris kobach: ok. well, first of all, the -- no one who is outsideof the united states and is not a united states
citizen has a constitutional right to enterthe united states. i have heard some people who are critics ofthe president's executive order argue that it's unconstitutional. that's absolutely incorrect. there is no constitutional right to enterthe united states. even if you have already been in the unitedstates in the past, you have no constitutional right to come back in. second thing is, the congress has the authorityto -- it has what's called plenary authority to pass laws relating to immigration.
it has the first and highest authority topass those laws. and there's a statute, title 8, section 1182f,which gives the president a discretion that if he feels that the entry of any alien orclass of aliens would be detrimental to the national interests of the united states, hecan exclude those individuals. and there are similar statutes going all theway back to the beginning in 1789 with the alien acts. george washington, after they were passed,had authority to exclude or remove anyone who was a national security threat way backthen. so, legally speaking, the president is onabsolutely secure ground.
people may quibble about the politics of itall, but i think, in terms of the national security of the united states, these executiveorders are a win. and i think that you will find that, in theend, the vast majority of americans will be supportive. miles o'brien: kansas secretary of state andformer trump adviser kris kobach, thank you very much. kris kobach: my pleasure. miles o'brien: in iraq, the ban hit one groupof people particularly hard, interpreters and other staff who assisted american forcesover the last 14 years of conflict there.
they are eligible to apply for a special visaprogram to emigrate here. but one former interpreter and his familyfind their plans to move here are now in doubt. special correspondent jane ferguson reportsfrom northern iraq. jane ferguson: after seven years working withthe u.s. military, abdul hamid abdul ghani has plenty of souvenirs. he proudly shows us military coins given tohim by u.s. commanders in iraq. abdul hamid, former iraqi interpreter: andthis was what i got from general petraeus. jane ferguson: as an iraqi fluent in english,he was thrilled to get a job working with american troops in 2003 as a translator.
he dreamt of living in the u.s. one day. after lengthy vetting, including backgroundchecks, fingerprinting and extensive interviews, that day was almost at hand. ghani, his wife and three children were supposedto start a new life in san diego next week. they would be admitted to the u.s. on a specialimmigrant visa, recognizing the work he had done for american soldiers. but, yesterday, he got an e-mail saying thoseplans had been canceled. abdul hamid: my bags are ready. they are all packed.
i almost have nothing here now. my life is destroyed. i can put it that way. it's totally destroyed. jane ferguson: president trump's executiveorder placed a 90-day block on visas for iraqis to visit the u.s. even if that changes thereafter, abdul hamid'svisa requires he enter the u.s. before the end of february. abdul hamid: how can the president of theunited states do such a thing?
jane ferguson: the work abdul hamid did forthe military has placed him in danger. in today's iraq, having helped americans chasedown suspected terrorists is a risky reputation to have. his wife is frightened. safa abdul ghani, iraq: we are not safe here,especially his work from -- with the americans, and he -- threatened... abdul hamid: threatened, yes. safa abdul ghani: threatened, yes, from terrorists. jane ferguson: she is also concerned for theireldest child.
tariq is 12 and has down syndrome. his parents had hoped to find better specialistcare for him in the u.s. it's not just ordinary iraqis who are devastatedby the news of a visa ban. parliamentarians in baghdad are angry, andcalling for a strong response, escalating the diplomatic crisis. iraqi lawmakers voted today to ban visas foramericans for 90 days. while the measure has not yet been approvedby the entire government, it would affect the large numbers of american contract supportstaff aiding the american military in iraq right now, who are fighting a crucial battleagainst isis.
the ghanis are still not sure whether theirplans to move to the u.s. are impossible now. have you told the kids? do they understand? abdul hamid: i haven't told them that we arenot going yet. i can't really look at them in the eye andtell them, hey, we are not going, because they have really high hopes, you know? jane ferguson: so, their bags remain packed,ready for a future that now seems much less certain. for the "pbs newshour," i'm jane fergusonin dohuk, iraq.
back in this country, president trump's immigrationorder has drawn deep divisions among lawmakers. elected officials have voiced both supportand condemnation, while a number are yet to weigh in. here to help us understand the lay of theland on this and other issues of the week, our politics monday team, amy walter of thecook political report and tamara keith of npr. welcome to both of you. it's been such a quiet week. (laughter)
judy woodruff: but i thought we would cometogether anyway. so, this immigration order we have been talkingabout all night, it's a policy move, serious consequences, but it also, amy, is somethingthat president trump talked about during the campaign. he said he was going to move on immigration. amy walter, the cook political report: right. judy woodruff: the public reaction is interesting. a pew poll out earlier this month showed,what, by 48 to 42 percent, people supported this.
amy walter: yes, this is actually -- thisis a quinnipiac poll that came out earlier this month. and they said very specifically support oroppose suspending immigration from terror-prone areas, right, sounds very familiar, even ifit means turning away refugees. so, they put that in there as well -- 48 percentapproved. but, as you know, judy, the world that welive in right now, not surprisingly, 72 percent of republicans supported it. only 24 percent of democrats said they supportedit, and independents closely divided. and such we have the world that we're goingto inhabit, it looks like, for the foreseeable
future. judy woodruff: and, tam, what we're watchingis a very divided political reaction, democrats almost universally saying this is a terribleidea, republicans divided. tamara keith, national public radio: yes,democrats rallying at the supreme court tonight, introducing legislation that will go nowhereor not even be able to be brought up on the floor, but democratic lawmakers are protesting. on the republican side, there are sort ofa range of reactions. there are people who strongly support whatpresident trump has signed and what he is doing.
there are others who are expressing concerns,and that sort of falls into two categories. there are people who express a moral concernor a concern that action like this could actually make us less safe, rather than more safe,could give a propaganda advantage to organizations like isis. that's john mccain, lindsey graham. not very many republican senators going thatfar. most of them are talking more about like logisticalchallenges, about the rollout could have been a better. well, the rollout could have been a lot better.
but one senator said, this extreme vettingproposal needed more extreme vetting itself. judy woodruff: amy, is there -- we're so earlyinto this next term. amy walter: that's right. judy woodruff: is there a political calculationfor these republicans? amy walter: right. i think a lot of them are still waiting tofind out how people are reacting to it. so, we pointed to the poll, which was theoretical. what do you think about the theory behindthis? -- 48 percent support.
now that we have seen it, the rollout clearlyvarying, not very good, once we see the sort of human cost of it, is this going to changepeople's minds, or are they going to get just even more hunkered down in this? and, as we all know, politicians like to waitand watch for where the folks are going. i think it's really important, to tam's point,that even those democrats who sit in red states, really red states, have come out unambiguouslyagainst donald trump. and even republicans who sit in sort of squishy,tentatively republican districts, most of them have held back and not said much. some have come out, but mostly they have heldback.
i think you are going to see those battlelines. as we saw in that poll, if you're a democrat,you are going to support trump -- you're going to oppose him. if you're a republican, you are going to supporthim. judy woodruff: and yet, tam, we see, lookingat a news organization, or at least an editorial page that normally is very friendly to donaldtrump, the wall street journal, writing today, very critical, saying the way -- criticalof the way it was done, saying he needlessly alienated people, but then goes on to say,"the danger is, he will alienate the friends and allies at home and abroad he needs tosucceed."
so, the journal taking a longer look at this. tamara keith: right. and that gets to some of the national securityconcerns, that national security experts and veterans of national security argue that thiscould actually put us in more danger, that there are -- the best allies that americahas in fighting organizations like isis are muslims themselves. and i think that that's getting at that, butit also gets at a little -- it's almost like a more liberal editorial board saying to theobama administration, oh, my gosh, you really could have done the rollout of obamacare betterseveral years ago.
judy woodruff: sure. well, it reminds us, amy, these issues arecomplicated. amy walter: they are. and i think i will go back to the point thatyou brought up earlier, which is, elections have consequences. donald trump the candidate said he was goingto do this. a lot of people voted. millions and millions of people voted fordonald trump the candidate. he's now the president, and he's going throughand he's doing this.
and so the sort of outrage that we're seeingaround the country, while it's not surprising, it's also has to -- you have to remember thatthis is something that he promised that he was going to do on the campaign trail andthat he's putting out in reality. what we need to do -- and we talked aboutthis last week -- is to wait and watch for the longer-term implications. judy woodruff: right. amy walter: is it going to have an impacton our national security? we don't know. there may be something linked to that.
is it going to have something to do with ourdiplomacy? is it going to have a detrimental impact onour diplomacy? maybe. we don't know yet. but it's clear that this is something he saidhe was going to do, and he's implementing it. judy woodruff: very quickly to both of you,another thing we saw is the influence of steve bannon, senior adviser to the president. we saw the president in the last few dayssay that he wants to add steve bannon, tam,
to the national security council principals,the people who sit in on these very important private sessions on what the country does. steve bannon is turning out to be a majorplayer there. tamara keith: and when the senior stuff wasannounced, he was announced at the same time as the chief of staff as sort of a co-equal. and it's very clear -- it was clear in theinaugural address. it's been clear in many of these memorandaand orders that his voice is there, his words are there. judy woodruff: and people watching becauseof this alt-right narrative around breitbart.
amy walter: right, and that he is going tobe a very influential voice. but, at the end of the day, it's donald trump'sname on all the legislation and all the executive orders, and the buck stops with him. judy woodruff: amy walter, tamara keith, politicsmonday, thank you both. tamara keith: you're welcome. amy walter: you're welcome. judy woodruff: appreciate it. and a postscript. i told you on friday that i would be interviewingvice president mike pence tomorrow, but i
will now be sitting down with him this wednesdayat the white house. tune in. miles o'brien: one billion of us own a smartphone,and we know how addicting it can be. one former google employee says this is noaccident. indeed, it is by design. and he became troubled by the relentless effortsof app developers to keep us glued to the gadgets. so, tristan harris founded an organizationcalled time well spent. he is asking the tech industry to bring whathe calls ethical design to its products.
"newshour" special correspondent cat wisehas more, part of our ongoing collaboration with "the atlantic." tristan harris, founder, time well spent:i noticed when i was at stanford, there was a class called the persuasive technology designclass, and it was a whole lab at stanford that teaches students how to apply persuasivepsychology principles into technology to persuade people to use products in a certain way. so, it's not about giving you all this freedom. it's about sucking you in to take your time. cat wise: so, the goal is to keep us on ourdevices longer.
why? tristan harris: for any company whose businessmodel is advertising, or engagement-based advertising, meaning they care about the amountof time someone spends on the product, they make more money the more time people spend. so, the game becomes, how can i throw differentpersuasive techniques to get people to stay, to spend as long as possible, and to comeback tomorrow? cat wise: and it's clearly working. today, wherever we go, we're inevitably surroundedby fellow citizens staring into their phones, as we usually are too.
what do you think about when you're out inpublic and see people on their cell phones? tristan harris: you know, have you ever beenin a moment where you're sitting there, and you just start using your phone to do somethingproductive? maybe you're in the back of a car, a taxi,or you're on public transportation. your phone is always giving you a way to spendtime that can be more productive, more entertaining, or more stimulating than reality. i often say that this puts a new choice onlife's menu that's sweeter than reality. and so we're turning to it more and more often. we check our phones about 150 times a day.
cat wise: and what are the costs of that sortof constant interaction with technology, both on an individual level and as a society? tristan harris: well, i think each of us haveto tune in for our own experience. what does it feel like when we check our phones150 times a day? or what does it feel like if we have beenscrolling, and had our face down, and not breathing very much when we're scrolling for,say, 20 minutes? and how do we feel on the inside? cat wise: how do you feel on the inside? tristan harris: i feel like i don't feel verygood after that.
i feel like my anxiety goes up. i feel more concerned about what i'm missing,what i'm missing out on, who i haven't gotten back to. oh, people think i'm bad at getting back tothem. all of this sort of psychology emerges allbecause of this one thing in my pocket. and we have never had a media device thatliterally a billion people are kind of being programmed in the same way, where so muchinfluence is in the hands of a few technology designers. cat wise: at google, harris was a so-calledproduct philosopher and helped design the
gmail inbox app. tristan harris: first of all, there was noone in the gmail team who said, how can we addict people to e-mail? there was no one who said that. that was never a goal. but you did hear conversations like, shouldwe make it buzz your phone every single time you get an e-mail? it was a design question. but the outcome of that one choice would bea billion people getting buzzed at dinners
with their dates, and with their friends,and with their family. all of these billions of phones, by the productof this one choice, would be affected and interrupted all the time. cat wise: and that was a conversation thatyou weren't having? tristan harris: i was getting a little bitdisenchanted with whether or not we were having, i thought, the bigger conversation about whene-mail or any product that we make actually makes a positive impact on people's lives. and i made kind of a slide deck manifesto,and it basically said, never before in history have 50, mostly male, 20-to-35-year-old designers,living in california, working at three tech
companies, influenced how a billion peoplespend their time. cat wise: this is coffee bar in san francisco,a popular hangout for high-powered techies like harris, the ones whose choices can influenceso many. this idea of missing something, i think thatdrives a lot of us. tristan harris: tony robbins has a great quote. he says: i run eight companies, and i havethousands of employees. what do you think the chances are that, atany given moment, if i check my e-mail, something has gone wrong? cat wise: with his organization, time wellspent, harris is urging peers in the tech
world to have new conversations about thebest interests of consumers. tristan harris: we need to change the incentive. i mean, i think, so long as the business modelof technology companies is advertising, we are going to have a problem. and that's what we're trying to do with timewell spent, is to change the conversation from being about maximizing engagement andtime, to being about maximizing net positive improvements to people's lives. cat wise: what are some examples of, you know,apps that people use on a pretty regular basis, and the ways that these companies are drawingus in?
tristan harris: have you noticed, if you everlog into twitter, as an example, so there's an extra delay that you don't know how longit's going to take, between two and three seconds, where that -- the number of new notificationson twitter you have? so, why is that there? well, it makes that into -- it's called avariable schedule reward. it's like a slot machine. so you're playing the slot machine, and there'sa time delay. and you're -- in that time delay, your anticipationis building, and then you get to see how many notifications i get.
and so you become more addicted to checkingit again the next time. cat wise: it sounds like there's just a lotof sort of trickery going on here. tristan harris: i call it the race to thebottom of the brain stem, to get people's attention at all costs. let's say i'm youtube, and i have got a certainamount of people's attention. what's youtube's biggest competitor? probably facebook. or take -- the ceo of netflix recently saidthat the biggest competitors to netflix are probably youtube, facebook, and sleep, meaning...
cat wise: sleep? tristan harris: sleep, because, at the endof the day, there's a finite amount of time people have. and if you're not getting people's time, someoneelse, some other app, or some other part of someone's life is going to get it. so these services are in competition withwhere we would want to spend our time, whether that's our sleep or with our friends. there's this war going on to get as much attentionas possible. cat wise: tristan, tell me about how you useyour phone.
tristan harris: well, i mean, i try to useit as consciously as i can. one thing, for example, is, i set it up sothat i just have my in-and-out tools and my aspirational ways i want to spend my timeon my home screen. cat wise: what do you mean by in-and-out tools? tristan harris: a tool is something that youuse and you never use it longer or more than you want to, for example, google maps. like, if i need directions, i don't end upscrolling through google maps for half-an-hour randomly, right? i just go in, and i find where i need to go,and then i go out.
cat wise: and these are things that reallydon't draw you in for long periods of time? tristan harris: there's nothing on my homescreen that is -- explicitly makes money from or wants to maximize how much time i spendon it. and i put all those other things inside offolders that are hidden. cat wise: are people still texting you, orare sort of your friends and colleagues, maybe they're not texting you or trying to reachout in a way that would distract you so often? tristan harris: at the end of the day, thething that dictates what -- how someone reaches out to you, and whether they use facebookmessenger or whatsapp or imessage, isn't because they're thinking deeply about it.
it's because it's just the fastest and easiestthing to reach for. and so i think we have to recognize that,as human beings, there's just a certain set of things we're vulnerable to that do influenceus. and if it buzzes right now, i would probably,without even thinking about it, with you here, check it. and so, if i don't want that to happen, ijust have to put it away. in fact, my phone just buzzed right now. tristan harris: and i just looked. there you go.
cat wise: even knowing what you know, youstill picked it up. tristan harris: and this is the thing, thateven the people in the world of persuasion we were talking about earlier, you know allabout these tricks of how to get people to use products and to use a slot machine dynamic,whatever it is. they will tell you that they themselves areno less vulnerable than the regular person, because these techniques work on everybody. it's just part of being human. miles o'brien: and that's the "newshour" fortonight. i'm miles o'brien.
judy woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. join us online and again right here tomorrowevening. for all of us at the "pbs newshour," thankyou, and good night.
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