newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening. i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight: president trump publicly urges china and ukraine to investigate the bidens, doubling down on actions at the heart of the impeachment inquiry.en tha return to flint. five years after lead contaminated their water supply, the people of the michigan city fight a difficult battle to keep hope from running dry. >> we need to get the help that we deserve, so we can have a full recovery. and for some, that full recovery, you know, we don't know if it will come. if you've lost a loved one,ou'v if you have a child that's been damaged, you're going to deal life.that for the rest of your >> woodruff: plus, an expanding as demand for origorks of chinese art skyrockets, artists and collectors reinvigorate china's fine arts market. >>pl translated ): peoe have

loved to collect art since thewh olden daysher it was royal collections or private trllections. china was a counwhich favored art, but we had a e eak in our history. we are restoring it, this respect for art and culture. woodruff: all that and more, on tight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> bnsf railway. >> consumer cellular. >> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. >> carnegie corporation of new york.

supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, and the advancement of iernational peace and security.gi at carorg. >> and with the ongoing support of tthse institutions: and individuals. >> this program was made possible by the corporation foro publiccasting. and by contrutions to your pbs statio thank you.rs like you. mp>> woodruff: pnt ts already under fire for alleged abuse of power, and now, he faces a new fireorm of his own making. it erupted today, in front of white house reporters and tv cameras. white house correspot yamiche alcindor begins our coverage.

now, china.: first, ukraine. on the white house lawn, roesident trump set off whole new corsy with these words: >> china should start an investigation into the bidens. because what happened in china is just about as bad a happened with ukraine. >> alcindor: without evidence, the president renewed his claim that china let hunter biden op a major equity fund in 2013, in return for a "sweetheart deal" on trade with the obama administration. >> you know what they call that? they call that a pay-off.lc >>dor: president trump to pursue an investigation into former vice president joe biden and his son. but moments earlier, he sa e believes he has the upper hand in trade nreotiations that me next week. >> i got a lot of btions on chinut if they don't do what weant, we have tremendous power. >> alcindor: the comments sparked new outrage from top democrats, including adam schiff, chairman of the

house intelligence cmittee. >> the president of the united states encouraging a foreign nation to interfere, again, to he his campaign by investigating a rival, is a fundamental breach of a president's oath of ofce. >> alcindor: a spokeswoman for vice president biden's presidenal campaign called president trump's statements "a grotesque choice of li." she also accused him of esperately clutching for conspiracy theories." st night in reno, nevada joe biden fired off his strongest denunciation yet of president trump. he's afraid.y bully in history, he's afraid of just how badly he may be beaten in november. i'm not going anywhere. you are not going to destroy me. you're not going to destroy my family. alcindor: but today, in scottsdale, arizona, vice president mike pence reinforced president trump's calls for a probe into the bidens. >> i think the american people

have a right to know if the vice or his family profited from his position as vice presint during the last administration. >> alcindor: meanwhile, on capitol hill, a first appearance from a key witness in thequ impeachment y. former envoy to ukraine, kurt volker, was interviewed of three house coms.by members he resigned last friday, after e release of a whistleblower's complaint. it accused president trump of pressuring ukraine's president n investigate the bidens, it is now the focus of the impeachment investiginion. the compsays volker "provided advice to the to 'navigate' presip about how trump's demands." it also says he mewith ukranian president volodymyr zelensky and other ukrainian political figures in kiev a day after thjuly phone call. volker is one of five current or former state department officials that democrats want to hear from. but republicans said his

appearance today did not advanch democrats' impeachment agenda. >> not one thing he has said comports with any of the democrat's impeachment narrative. not one thing. >> alcindor: congressman jim jordan, ranking member of the house oversight committee, also accused democrats of unfair investigation procedures. house republican leader kevin carthy raised the same concerns, in a letter to speaker nancy pelosi. he called for a suspension of impeachmt proceedings until the full house votes on ordering an impeachment inquiry. erlosi responded with a le of her own.a not requiruse vote before proceeding with an impeachment inquiry." tomorrow of the intelligence community,y, michael atkinson, is scheduled to go behind closed dos with the house intelligence committee to discuss the whistleblower's complaint. >> woodruff: for more on this, i'm joined by newshour white house correspondent yamiche alcindor. anby "washington pos investigative reporter michael thanish also joins us, fro

"post." thanks tyou both. yamiche, i'm going to start with you. now that out in the open the president is asking fo china asf well as ukraine to investigate joe biden, his son hunter biden, you have been talking to people inside and outside the saying are the impons of they all thmplis? >> well, the president was doubling down the idea that he thinks it's ethical and within his rights to have a foreignad investigate a political rival. mike pence is outng defenhe president and the esident saying i'm not going to face consequences because i believe that this is the right thing to do, i bevlieve that iestigating joe biden and his son hunter biden is essentially in the best intes.st of the united sta of course, there are political opponents of the president who say that's not exsactly what the president should be doing, thstead they assume that the president and sa the present is really trying to normalize this idea thagnfor leaders should be helping him in his political pursuits and they say thathat would illegal.

it's also important to note that the head of the federal today, she said ittillweeted illegal for a u.s. national to solicit information or to get any sort of help for a u.s. election from a fortion feign so after the president -- as for the president saying this is within my right, we have federal officials saying this is actually not true or the way things should be done. >> woodruff: michael kranish, when it comes to hunter biden, you have been reporting a long time and looking r a long time into hunter biden's activities in china. we heard what the pident is alleging. what is at the source of this? how muchf it do we know to be true? >> president trump alleged hunter biden walked awayt wih $1.5 billion for an investment fund. the evidence o that isot there. what happened was, on deceer 4 of 2013, hunter biden went on air foe two with hi father joe biden who was ce president. joe biden led with the leader of

china, xi jinping, for about five hours, and during thisth two-day trip, joe biden was introduced by his sonunter to a gentleman who was involved with an investment matter tha bt hunten was involved with. hunter biden did become a member, unpai of an advisory group that was inviesing an investment group that wanted to raise $1.5 billion. so this day, hunter biden's lawyer has said hunter biden acally hasn't made money from an investment that took place in 2017. hunter biden owns a rcentage a company that has been involved here and a lawyer said no money has been maode. hunter biden has repeatedly declined to talk to us. there are questions about why he joined this board, what he did, why he did this in the wke of the trip by hi father to beijing. so some on all sides would say why would he do tanid

potentially put his father up for questioning later. d st as hunter biden joined a gas company in ukraine at a time when hisfather was shepherding policy in that country andga talking aboupolicy. so a pattern has caused issuesmb for even s of the ce president's staff. former staffers said they're concerned but didn't think laws were broken but let the matters pass but they were conedce about appearance. >> woodruff: michael kranish, you also reported president tried to git get the finance year steve schwarzman involved in thre allegationsund china. remind us who steve schwarzman is and what the president was asking himo do. >> well, president trump said last week at a meeting with the u.s. mi ssion at thenin remarks that later were observe stained by the post in the video, he said he talked to steve schwarzman head of eblackstone, one to have world's largest investment companies based here in the u.s., he talked to him abouti hunter bden.

steve schwarzman wrote in a recent book that he had spent al lot of timeping the administration on the trade talks. he made eight trips in 2018 alone. he wrote, on behalf of theh fadministtion, in our eorts to deal with trade matters in chin s hwartzman, i wrote a story about schwarzman last year when i talked to him about the he'serson closest to the heisperer. chinese leadership. for trump to say this, is significant. schwarzman's spokesman said scarzman never never talked to trump ant hunter biden so the so two disagree on wh the conversation took place. >> woodruff: fascinating. yamiche, we know the former envoy to ukraine kurt volcker was on the hill today having private briefings with the house members, waff we learned about what mr. volcker had to say? >> according to number of different sources and number of different reports, kurt volcker was eager to share information with lawmakers today.

he said a ber of things including he was not personally involved with presi tnt trump tryipressure ukraine to investigate joe biden. he also said he tried to warn rudy giliani, the president's personal attorney, against using any information coming from ukraine. he said none of that is us orth and you shouldn't be using that. he also said it was un-- wasn't unusual for ukraine's military aid to be held upven though eventual released. so it's interesting to follow and fook a whether or not kurt volcker's statements are geng towith what democrats are look for and how that will impa the impeachment inquiry. it's important as i was saying president trump talking about china, next week we'll have chinese negotiators meeting with the u.s. and the president isyi i'm going to use the military -- the economic might, rather, of the u.s pressure china possibly to looking into joe biden. so you have kurt volcker basically saying i was not a part of any of that and you have the president saying i'm actually looking at a new country to find more information

about joe biden. >> woodruff: so many strands to follow today and now and every day,ever virtually. yamiche alcindor, michaelha kranish, you both. >> thanks. >> woodruff: in the day's other news, security forces in iraq shot and killed at least 12 more protesters, raising the death toll there to 33 over three o e. the government at off internet access, in a bid to calm things down. still, crowds in baghdad defied a curfew, and troops opened fire with live rounds and tear gas. t but, protesters insisted they would not be cowed.ot >> ( translated ): even with the rfew, i swear to god we will not retreat.di we are deman our simplest rights. it is the simplest rights that we ask fs . i view this canister as if it had been given to me by a lady.

we sacrifice ourselves for our country. >> woodruff: the protests have spread to southern iraq, where at least ten people were killed overght. demonstrators are demanding jobs, better services and an end to corruption. a hong kong teenager who was shot by police otuesday is now charged with rioting and attacking officers. hes the first person wound by police gunfire in months ofic pro-democracy protests. new rallies tonight demanded accountability for the shooting. police fired tear gas and pepper fray to disperse the crowd. in paris, at lear people were stabbed tdeath today at the city's police headquarters by a civilian co-worker. the assailant was finally shot and killed by an officer. france's interior minister said the man had worked in computer support since 2003, with apparent problems. >> ( translated ): this man was known inside the computer department. he worked alongside his colleagues and never presented any behavioral difficulties,

veany warning signs. and this morning, he went on a deadly rampage >> woodruff: the attack came one day after thousands of esparis police staged a pr over working conditions and an increase in officer suicides. the european union's top court ruled today that facebook must remove or block unlawful content, worldwide, if e.u. courts order it. e case had begun with an ian who sued to move a news item that she considered libelous and insuing. facebook and industry groups warned that today's decision abraises critical questiont freedom of expression. back in this coury, m.g. resorts will pay up to $800 million to families of the , killed, and hundreds hu the las vegas mass shooting of 2017. the gunman openefire from his m.g.m. hotel room on an outdoor music festival. it was the deadliest mass

shooting in u.s. history. today's settlement resolves hundreds of lawsuits. the number of pe with severe lung conditions linked to vaping passed t 1,000 mark today, with 18 deaths. the u.s. centers for disease control and prevention reported a total of 1,080 confirmed and probable cases since march, in 48 states.ci ofs have not yet identified a definitive cause for the lung injuries. more than 45 million people across 14 southern states of the u.s. are now suffering through a so-called "fsh drought." government and university the dry conditions came on suddenly, and worsenedsu throughout september. the drought has parched farm land, dried up ponds and increased the danger of wildfires. on wl street, stocks bounced back from two days of losses. the dow jones industrial arage gained 122 points to close at 26,201.

the sdaq rose 87 points, and the s&p 500 added 23. still to come on the newour: did president trump violate his oath of office before tv cameras today? on the ground in flint, michigan, where residents still grapple with the water crisis five years on. and, much more. >> woodruff: returning now to our main story, the ent, urging anothent,oreign power, china, to start an investigation into a pottial political rival. what are the implications of this, as a matter of law and national security? michael mukasey was the u.s. attorney general under former president george w. bush. and, carrie cordero served in both republican and democratic administrations, in national security roles at the u.s.pa justice ment, and at the office of the director of national intelligence.

welcome to you both. thank you for joining us. i'm going to start with you, attorney general mukaseyr let me ask f, before we get to oath of office, and as okn't is what president is doing and asking another country to vestigate a potential political rival, does that break a law? >> no. i think the jutice department has already opponent on this in the -- opined on this in at requ the scene to ukrainek to investigate biden as if that was a sollicitation of vue, i think it is not. presidents have been conducted foreign relations, predent running and hoping for reelection have been conducting foreign relations for as long as country -- the country has been around to get elected. a hypothetical, if a president running for reelection asks a

foreign power to finance the construction of a hospital in a state wherhis nubers were not very good, that would not be aof thinalue. it would be -- it wouefld be the state. as to politically wise, that's something again. t i think the principle is essentially the same. >> wooe druff: carrdero, is this in any regard a violation of law what the president has done? >> w attorney general mukasey is getting at is respecto a thing of value has to do specific statutory provisions of perhaps campaign finance law. but thsituation that the country is in right now with president trump's activities as' revealed by the conversation that he had with the ukrainian president and thenven his public statements today goes far beyond technic violations of specific sttutory provisions and, instead, the problem has to do with whether or not he is in

violation of the coution and of constitutional principles of whether or t he is fulfilling his oath of ofice, whether or not he is abusing his constitutional authorities to conduct foreign affairs by using that access to foreign leaders to basically work in his on personal interests. and, so, the funntda question is the president, when he's conducting foreign affairs, acting in the united states' interests, or is he using that position to work in the tbint of his own -in the benefit of his own personal political ambition, and that's not an appropriate use of hisu athority. >> woodruff: michael mukasey, what abohat? >> that, it seems to me, is up to the voters. if they think he's using hisy author a way that hurts the country, they can express that at the polls. you dot simply take a difference of opinion with what somebody is doing in office and use its a ba remove him.

that said, this is obviously political process, the standards are political, and the house is not barred from considering his statement today or statements during tht conversation, if they choose to do so, as a basis for impeachment. but that doesn't mean that it io properly ssidered. >> woodruff: let me quickly follow-up on that because what r hear carrie dero saying is it is not in the interest of the united states of america for president trump to be asking a foreign leader to assist in hisl tion campaign.l >> w the question is whether he's asking a foreign leader to do something that's in the interest of the united states, i.e., investigate potential dishonesty by a former vice president. the fact that that may serve his political interest is also true, but the question then becomes ing for he is as something that is in the interest of the united states or

not. again, i think that's up to the voters. >> woodruff: carrie cordero. yeah, prm frankly sured to hear the former attorney general make theesidt should noe using his authorityoig up political dirt on spurious claims against political opponents. that's the stuff of opposition research, perhaps appropriately conducted or at least lawfully conducte his politic operative team here in thea united ss. but by the president's statements and by this open admission that he thinks it's okay to use his position seek foreign assistance in elections, he just made the job of the u.se igence community and the national security community exponentially harder by them trying protect the country against foreign influence in our

selections, and it was jlast week that the acting director on na intelligence, mr. maguir said that, in his judgment, the most pressing national concerns today in the seat that he sits in now is the integry of our election. >> woodruff: so given that, michael mukasey,l how is this within tpurview of the president to do this, to, again, peating myself, but to ask a foreign leader to take steps thatould help s reelection and then, by the wio, as the president said today, to say i'm going to be meeting with the chinese next week and, he said, if they don't do what we want, we have tremendous power? >> that, as i said, is a matter for thvoters. presidents have been engaging with foreign leaders in aid of their election campaigns for decades. othey may be explicit ayut it, they may be implicit about it.

if he's saying he's going to use the power of his office against the interest of the united states in order to bring about a result, t's a wholly of his office.g, that's a misuse it may not be a violation of law, but it may be something to be considered by i peachment inquiry. but once again, simply using or asking for a foreign fountry to conduct an investigation that may be warranted is not unlawf unlawful. it may be som pethiople find distasteful but it is not unlawful. >> woodruff: are you saying president george w. bush did that when he was running for reeltion and if sow? >> oh, come on, i'm not saying anything of theort. when i say presidents conductepd foreign relations, i don't mean that they necessarily asked in this way for this kind of thing. that's why i said it may be distasteful. but the principle about

presidents being able to conduct foreign relationin their interest, as long as it serves the country's interest, is the same. >> woodruff: carrie cordero. yeah, i t fundamentally disagree with the position th the former attorney general i popositing that a legitimate exercise of the president's foreign afairs powers includeser asking a foreign government to interfere in our eections when it comes to china. i mean, it's basically an on invitation for foreign intelligence services now to do whatever activity they want to do if they think it will dig upu political information that donald trump wants, and that's not -- that's not an approiate use of the president's foreign affairs poly. it undermines national security. it means that, when foreign governments are dealing with the american president on issues ofi

s, on issues of foreign aid, on issues of defense, they are noweya position wheyre t have to calculate whether or not they should be providing information that assists the president in his political ambitions versus what is actually a legitimate exchange between so there is a difference between a public official acting in their personal interts and potentially holding out leverage of what the u.s. govternm might be able to provide to them versus an propriate exercise of constitutional presidential authority. >> woodruff: wel gl, we'ng to be -- a very qui response. >> yeah, there's a lot of syllables in tre, but not a lot of substance. the fact is, as i said, that presidents engage intivities that help thir reelection. if this activity is of,fensi

then the voters can reflect that at the ballot box. >> woodruff: a lot of questions here, and we're going to continue to report on all of it. michael mukasey, carrie cordero, >> thanks, judy.ery much. >> woodruff: since 2014, flint, usmichigan has been synony with tainted water. five years on, city officials are still struggling to make the water safe for all its residents. john yang went back to see n't.'s changed, and what >> yang: a typicalhursday morning on flint, michigan's north side. cars stretch for a full mile, some in line for more than five hours. the goal of this weekly qu bottled water. ray ducham comes once a month. is crisis started years ago. >> yeah. >> yang: did you think you'd still be doing this now? >> no.ou

i thybe they have the water clean by now.er >> yang: ahe state stopped distributing water last year, the greater holy temple church of god in christ stepped up. w latrece davis, coordinates t the effort, says they steach weeksith more than 1,700 case of water, and every week, the mand is greater than that supply. how many cs, how many families each thursday? >> we run probab about 1,500 to 1,700 cars. you're looking about 700, 600 to 800 families. >> yang: for five yes, wer has dominated the lives of many in this city, where more than 55% ty, esidents are black, and more than 40% live in poverty. in april 2014, state-appointed officials tried to save money by shifti the source from lake huron to the flint river. but, the river water was more corrosive than the lake water. the city failed to treat it properly, and it damaged flint's

aging pipes, causing lead to leach into the system. the city switched ba to lake water in october 2015, but pipe replacement is still ongoing-- and so are concerns. >> it affects the way that we cook, the way that we brush our teeth, the way that we just use water in general.r in >> yang: in 2016, ariana hawk's second-oldest son, sincere, thee tws old, was on the cover of "time" magazine, after rashes.ing painful blisters and is thing was just the fear of tater. even him as a six-year-ost, he l says, like, the water is dangerous. like, he don't like it. he avoids it as much as possible. >> yang: despite officials' esurances back then that en t water was safe, hawk blames herself. >> i'm his mom. i should he been protective. i should've knew better. i should have i should have been educated more and is wouldn't have happened.g: >> ylthough she doesn't have symptoms, blood tests show

ur-year-oldr, aliana, has high lead levels. >> it's devastating. it's very hard to deal with on a daily basis. it's hard to even just deal with as a parent, because sometimes i elel like i can do better but it's not my fault that the water is like this.'s it not something that i asked for. it's not something that i chose for my kids. >> yang: across town, maxine onstott's seven-year-old son, max, was diagnosed with autism in the midst of the crisis. >> with max, i can't say that'sw what caused him to have the disability he has, but he wasse ex we drank it. we bathed in that. we used it every single day. we cooked with it. >> yang: max iamong the growing number of specia education students in flintls public sch since 2013, before the crisis, it's up 56%, according to state figures. a group of flint parents is suingthe school system, sayin it is not meeting thoseth students' needs. what would recovery mean for you?ov >> ry for me would be my city recovering. there's nothing more that anybody can do for me and my family at this point.

>> yang: flint pediatrmona hanna-attisha was among the first to sound the alarm about lead in the drinking water. >> we can't take it away. there's no magic pill. there's nontidote. we can't-- we can't press rewind and pretend that this didn't happen. >> yang: now she's deeply involved in the recovery effort. >> we've invested in the critical period of earlyit childhood,home visitingith programs and medicaid expansion, school health services, a massive expansion of early literacy programs. we've turned ts crisis into almost this model public health prorram of recovery and hope the people of t. >> yang: a project called the flint registry tracks the effects of lead exposure and nnects residents to thos programs. >> flint was a thriving city,g i and it can be a thriving city again. >> yang: flint mayor karen weaver beat the incumbent at the at the height of the crisis. >> we need to get the help that

recovery.e so we can have a ll and for some, that full recovery, you know, we don't know if it will come. if you've lost a loved one, if you have a child that's been damaged, you're going to deal with that for the rest of your life. hi yang: she expressed frustration thatsummer, criminal charges were dropped against officials, including ht mansla for at least a dozen deaths from legionnaires disease belied linked to the ter crisis. the new michigan attorney general said her ptcdecessor had d the investigation, so she was starting all over again. ng>> if it had been a shoo people would be locked up. well, had killings that took place here in the city of flint and no one has looked at it that way. >> yang: the city no longer takes its war from the flint river, a it's begun to replace its lead- and galvanized-sel water pipes. but rebuilding the shattered liblic trust is likely to take some time. it is a wound that seems to run deep. t trou're supposed to be able to

us>> yanesg:le are youpe angryoo >> oh yeah, of course i'm angry. i'm a-- i'm more upset and hurt than anger. it's hurting because these are people who we trust everyday, these are the people who say that this was okay. o of the things i did promise was that i would give them the information, whether it was good news or bad news, because we had bad news that people kept from us.s. and had they shared that bad news with us, we could have protected ourselves better. >> yang: for residents like ariana hawk and maxine onstott, it may be too late. i mean, it almost sounds like that there's some parts that yod ju't think you can recover. >> we wake up, we brush our teeth with bottled water. we drink bottled water.e wet of bottled water. it's "pack back up, len s get in the d go get some more bottled water." an we're still fighting for us to have a healthsafe life. like, things in flint are not better. nothing has changed for us. like, this is this has become ghr reality, which is not >> yang: a reality for them, that no amount of pipeat n

replacement reassuring words is likely to repair. for the pbs newshour, i'm john yang in flint, michigan. >> woodruf speaking of flint, it is one of many places around the country dealing with the impact of a national strike by the united auto workers. it is now the 18th day of the strike against general motors affecting more than 50 sites and 46,000 workers. william brangham takes a look at the big stakes for both sides. it's part of our regular reporting on businesand economics for "making sense." >> brangham: judy, the two sides were still talking today, and there have been reports of progress in recent days. but, as the strike continues, there are a number of key issueu still to be resolved. among them: wage increases. how much workers have to pay toward their health care costs. converting temporary workers wha are paa lower rate into permanent workers.us and, aove more g.m. production back to the u.s. micki maynard is a journalist who follows the automotive industry in detroit, and has written several books on the

subject. she joins me now from ann arborh an. micky, thank you very much for being here. i laid out some of t details of the conflict between the union and the automakers. there?s the essential conflict >> there's two parts to it. one is that the auto industry is at another corner. the auto industry is looking at a future thas extremely uncertain. if you even think about ten years ago to the bailout, essentially, americans, they wanted to get somewhere, theyd buy a car. if you lived in a big city, you might have access to transit, but other than that, car ownership wa what you were looking at, and fast forward ten years, we have all nds of choices. even in a place like ann arbor, whe i liv i can coose from zip car, from lyft and uber, i coulget a scooter if i wanotted one, we ve rental bikes, we have a terrific public

transportation system and, oh, yes, i can own a car. ten years ago, we didn't have that. so that's the future facing th industry. then w t the u.a.w. is looking at is they would like a guarantee from general motors that the job levels right now will at least stay at this thvel. right nou.a.w. is abo one-tenth the size at geral motors that it was at its peak in 1978. there were about 550,000 workers then, there are about 50,000 hourly workers now. they don't want to lose anymore jobs and you can't blame them, a there has beenormous amount of shrinkage. >> reporter: a ten times decline of te number in that union. with regards to the strike, it his been going on a long time. why do you thinkhas been such a protracted fight?hi >> a couple ofs. i think that emotions and tempers got very high towards the end of the period before the strike deaoudline and,now, k sometimes you just get angry and

walk out of the room, but thei othesue that's facing g.m. is that they have an excess amount of cars. right about this time of the year, car dealers need about 65 days, so two-months' supply worth of cars. general motors went into the strike with at about 90 days' of cars so about 50% more than % ht they've needed. i looked at sales figures, they've only lost eight or nine days' worth of cars, so they could let the strike go ather couple of weeks without dealers really feeling the pinch, and this is a time of real uncertainty in the manufactujung sector, nost autos but a lot of companies are facing excess inventories and a decision must have been made that let's wind bewn some of these inventories and, you know, mhen we'll talk. >> reporter: you touched on this before about how the auto-buying population, the people who might be going into dealerships and dropping money

for cars has certainly charnged. you wrote a very interesting piece in "the washington post" that touched on some of the other ways that the indusy, the car-buying world, is shifting. ean you explain a little bit more about how world is changing under our feet that way? >> well, thanks for mentioning my "the washington post" story. i think that the focus on labor and the focus on general motors is simply different thait was over the past couple of decades. onme of the ajor issues that has come up time and again are suv's and pips. so if you think back to about 1990, most people still owned cars for their regular usage,ulr but right around 1990 was when people started to drive suv's, not just to go, you know, up in the mountains or anything, but drive them for everyday purposes. and we've had kind of three waves of these b's suvnd pickups, and we're in another one of them now. so wle the general motors, ford, chrysler have talked about

e future as electric cars, possibly self-driving cars, much more efficient cars,hatican public are big vehicles that arf very pritable for them. f e average price o car now is $37,000. that's not just a car, that's au and a pickup. and loans are just getting longer and longer, six years, seven years, eight years for people to afford to pay for them. so if you look at owning a vehicle, you're going to spend a lot of money, and you're going toave it for qui.te a whi so people are weighing that into the equation as they make decisions about whether they're going to buy a vehicle at all. the oting i wanted to mention was the focus on ausetric vehicles b general motors, one of the proposals it's made to the unio is that it wold take two plants it was planning to close, put batteries in onand put electric -- i think electric trucks in the other oe e. but, again, the union haswa

hed g.m. kind of lurch around on electrics. they had the little e.v.-1 that they killed. they had the volt whi the told congress was going to bees its future. the volt is gone. now they're talking electrics again. in a sense you can't blame the union for being a little skeptical about whether this is its future. >> reporter: such a thecinating backdrop to strike as its unfolding. micki maynard, thank you very much for beingere. >> my pleasure, thank you. >> woodruff: stay with us.uf coming up on the newshour: an insid president trump has been willing to go to keep migrants out of the country. and, chinese artists try to meet the growing demand for their work.er the an civil liberties union filed a federal lawsuit today on behalf of parents andep childrenated at the u.s.- mexico border under the trump administration's controversial "zero tolerance policy."

in "border wars," a new book out next week, we get a glimpse into hotthe administration put t controversial policy in place and looked for other ways to keep migrants out. amna nawaz h more. "new york times" rrsht, judy, michael shear and julie , rschfield davis co-wrote that explosive new boorder wars." and michael joins me now. welcome to the "newshour". >> happy to be here. >> reporter: family separation one of the more punitiv measures you detail in the book. it's when the idea was first floated by then secta john kelly, had a lot of heat and backlash. what did you find out about y the administration pushed forward with it, anyway? >> well, jo klly was, i think, cognizant of the policacal impons and the moral implications of what was ching to happen to the children, and i think he recognized when it was firloated that that was -- the damage to the administration early on at the

time. but inside the administration, allies of has always within theys president's architect of his immigration agenda, and allies of jeff sesssions who w the attorney general at the time, never let the idea go. they continued to believe, and i think still believe today, that it woulde the most effective, it wasoing to be and uld be the most effective deterrent. essentially their idea was if you mag ke comto the united states as miserable and horrible as possible, people will stop doing it, and it percolated in the administration for the better p of a year until the summer of last year, essentially, when they finally pushed it through first at justice, declaring a kind of zero tolerance policy that the attorney genderal announced, then what they needed to do was to have the department of homelansecurity decid we're going to push all families prosecuted, even if that means,v that they will be separated, and that's aftermuch kind of

deliberation, that's finally haat they did. >> reporter:was applied across the u.s. sonar border as we saw unfolded that summeyo ve reported here, though, there are actually pe in the administration arguing it should be spread even wider than that, into the interiou.s. >> right. e mean, there is a part of thrh administration that believed that just doing it at theo brder wasn't enough, that you had to apply a kind of zero tolerance interior as well. border in the that never carried the day and, in fact, what we'll never know i the president hadn't backed off after several weeks of doing it at th boroingder whether that would haveeen the next step. >> reporter: more than any othe issue, immigration has been central to this presie,nt's messight. what is it about this one issue that draws his siawngular foces. where hat come from? >> that's a really good ques on. theesident didn't -- you know, when he was campaigning for -- initially thnking about campaigning for the white house, it wasn't the first thing that

came to mind. trade was the first thng that came to mind. and when he talked about immigration, his advisors would see what the crowd -- what that would do to the crowd, and, ultimately, they kept trying to get him to coe back to immigration, they didn't wan him to forget about it. the wall and the idea of building a wall was a knewmonic device for him. they knew he was a builder and liked to build thand they figured if theyld get him talking about wanting to build a wall he wouldn't forget to talk about immigration. on ithe idea of runnin and pushing it through as president, there's a part of him that just instinctively kind of tends to the archie bunker like sort of bigoted view of who country, who thi should be part of this country and i think that's at root what drives him. >> reporter: thatwall has become sort of the physical embody meant of hiss policd view on immigration. you quote him in one of those meetings disssing what the wall should look like, what it

should have around it, saying i want these people to be in horrible shape if they climb upi you reported on and suggesting a mote around it, alligators, snakes, electrifying it. what is the obsession with the wall, and alo makg it as harmful and violent as possible. >> i think there are two things, part of it comes from his belief that the country shouldn't haveo moreple coming in, he really firmly believes that. but also the extreme mea that he kept reaching for were part of a growing frustration over the e last thars ina which each time he saw a polls polls -- policy not working, he would be told by his advisors you can't do this or that, it's either illegal, mr. pre sident,'s mmoral, it's practical, and each time he got told no, he got morend more frustrated. ord what we saw when he talked about 150 peoplehe book, inside and outside the administration, and what a lot of them lotd us, it wasn't like he would raise an idea once and

be convinced it wasn't possiblet he came bait again and again. so whether it was the idea of the wall ith pointy spikes or the mote or shooting miglerantsn thgs, you know, those were odeas that he would be told n and he would come back to again and again. those moments of fustration of inside of one of the white house meetings where he's being told no and he's got a list of theine numberront of him. he starts ticking down them and you and julie first reported this for the "new ymes" and broke the store back in december of last year and he basicalllaunches into a racist rant calling everyone from haiti saying theall have ais, saying nigerians go back to their huts, calling pple terrorists, when yoelook at the details of the book, what is it about the president and thinis adration when it comes to immigration, does he just not want black and brown people to come into the dismount. >> i don't think we could sort of come to a final conclusion on

this. a question a lot of people ask is is this president a racist, a xenophobic person? i don't know that even after writing this book, after a yearn of working this, i don't know that i'm qualified to sort of ok into his sul and know that. what you can say is trooper several times, that was one of them, calling them s-hole countries. another one, numerous times he expressed racist language as well as policies that essentially, in practice, do play out against, you know, brown, black people that are coming from other parts of the wo ad. and, so, ked him, we met with him in the oval office just this pst june. we asked him pointedly, do you worry that you are going to beme ered as a xenophobic president. his first answer was, no, i don't think so.he aid, i hope not but maybe you're right, maybe that's how i will be remembered. i hope that's not. and i think you could see in that both, you know, sort of a desire not to be called a bad

nameaut als recognition that understands the way people view him. >> michael shear is the co-author along with julie. the book is "border wars." it's out next week. thank you so much. >> thankou so much. >> woodruff: for the past week, ween reporting on china's explosive growth and development as a world power. astonight, we look at how chinese artists are recreating what they call the country's" cultural aristocracy" by producing original art. that is a shift from recent years, when china produced 75% of the world's art knockoffs. w the story is part of our ongoing arts and culture covage "canvas," and also part of our series "china: power and prosperity," produced with the support of the pulitzer center. special correspondent katrina yu begins her story in the village of dafen.

>> reporter: artist zeng muquane har set foot outside china, but he knows a lot about the streets of paris. from his studio in the country's he's painted tens of thousands of european scenes. the 44-yeaold earns a living duplicating paintings, and has copied works by some of thed' womost famous artists,ti including van gogh. >> ( translated ):ghou know van "starry night?" i used to paint three to five copies per d, . every yeari proded 3,000 to >> reporter: artise used to produce up to 75% of the brld's duplicates. these were ordera souvenir shop in amsterdam. each cvas earns him just $5, though he knows they're sold for much more. he often spends 14 hours a day, seven days a week painting duplicates. >> ( translated ): people say painters here in dafen village are no better than copy machines. we started before things became digital, and theuantity was huge.

every copy was almost the same, as if done by machine, but it's not. it's done by hand and there's a process. and by this process, we become better artists. >> repter: he lives in dafen village, and dreams of making his mark on china's art scene. his timing could bjust right. once notorious for forgeries and fakes, china's art market is now forging ahead.g this isn't a mad dash on black friday. it's the race to grab a seat at one of the country's most prestigious auction houses, china guardian. closed $822 million of sales.on third of all art global sales are now made in china. t an country's new wealthy cl here, ink paintings, paper fans and calligraphy can sell for millions. with traditional works commandi such high prices, chinese buyers are starting to

see art asore reliable investment than the stock market. chsa guardian is the countr with the mission oeatingunded china's "cultural aristocracy."n >> ( ated ): we are now living in a flourishing age. we see more people visg exhibitions, museums and collections. this shows that the level of people's artistic appreciation and cultural quality are improving.im >> ( translated ): in china, we say our nation has 5,000 years of history, and can understand chinese society and humanity through our art and culture. >> reporter: beijing-based artist hao liang says china is slowly restoring its artistic legacy, something lost during the cultural revution of the 1960s and '70s, when many artists were condemned as counter-revolutionaries. >> ( translated ): chinesed people have lo collect art since the olden days, whether it was royal collections or private collections. china was a country which

favored art, but we had a break in our history. we are restoring it, this >> reporter: the 36-year-old's e ink paintings have sold to the likes of new york's metropolitan museum of art, and the centre georges pompidou in paris. but, contemporary paintings, such as his, aren't as sought-ne after in a c market dominated by traditional art, where some csider more modern work heretical. >> ( translated ): i think it's fair and nmal for people to criticize. after all, i'm doing what i want and don't think too much about culturalradition or what popular according to the current climate. >> reporter: but that climate is changing, thanks to younger buyers. beijing gallery mwoodss popular with millennial art lovers, and often showcases collections by western artists including british artist david hockney. visitors to this gallery represent a new geration of chinese art enthusiasts, a educatoad and increasingly interested in western work.

but, they are the urban elite minority. the majority of chinese art buyers are middle-income, middle-aged, and buying theird,a art in places like dafen village. here, art dealer jack ye serves a man looking to decorate his home. ten years ago, most of his customers were foreigners looking to buy copies of european paintings. esday, he says they're mostly middle-income chlooking to buy original chinese art. large part to a government push to shed china's copycat label. >> ( tranpycaed ): a decade ago, artists here specialized in highly-skilled paior art school graduates were trained and encouraged to create original work. artistic taste and education is iproving, and in the futu will be even better. >> reporter: it's that future that zeng muquan looks forward to.

when his copies are complete, ho works on his own art, a fusion of western and chinese styles. nong says china's growing art market means it'more profitable for him to be original. ( translated ): these days when customers are interested in my work, they're more generoust in wey're wiing to pay. as an artist, i dream of producing excellent art of my own, and leaving behind influential work for the next generation. >> reporter: as china's art market develops, artists like zenguquan are producing art that's more reflective of themselves, and hoping for a life spent copying less, and creating more. for the pbs newshour, i'm katrina yu, in dafen village, guangdong.gd >> woodruff: wonderful report. and on theewshour online, china will soon surpass the u.s. as the number one film market in the world.yw but, unlike hod, its film industry is heavily controlled

by the communist party. we look at how the countrys leveras actors as a form when these stars find themselves in the crosshairs of chinese authorities. all that and more is on our website, www.pbs.org/newshour. and that is the newshour for toght. i'm judy woodruff. join us online, and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you, and we'll see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has beenrovided by: >> bnsf railway. >> consumer cellar. >> and with the ongoing support ofhese institutions public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewersike you. thank you.

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