judy woodruff: good evening. i'm judy woodruff. hari sreenivasan: and i'm hari sreenivasan. judy woodruff: on the "newshour" tonight:from trump tower to twitter, the president-elect continues to shake up tradition by attackingthe boeing company's plans to build a new air force one. hari sreenivasan: also ahead this wednesday:the pentagon hides a study that exposes $125 billion in wasteful spending, fearing congresswould cut its defense budget. judy woodruff: plus: a passion for improvisation.
two jazz greats open up to jeffrey brown abouttheir new album and staying in the moment. joshua redman, saxophonist: it's an emotional,it's an intuitive process. i mean, of course it's happening in the brain,right, but if i'm thinking about responding in that way, then i'm overthinking it. hari sreenivasan: all that and more on tonight's"pbs newshour." (break) judy woodruff: he is spending most of histime out of public view, but, today, president-elect trump was suddenly much more visible. items on his agenda: the cost of new presidentialaircraft and prospects for new jobs in the
telecommunications industry. the day started with a surprise appearancein the lobby of trump tower in new york. mr. trump lit into the boeing company overits contract to build two new versions of donald trump (r), president-elect: it's goingto be over $4 billion for the air force one program. and i think it's ridiculous. i think boeing is doing a little bit of anumber. we want boeing to make a lot of money, butnot that much money. judy woodruff: earlier, on twitter, he hadgone further, saying the government should
cancel the order with boeing. boeing's initial contract was for roughly$3 billion, but costs have been rising. still, the white house said today it has noidea where the president-elect got his $4 billion figure. boeing said in a statement that it hopes todeliver the best planes for the president at the best value for the american taxpayer. later, another sudden appearance, this timewith japanese billionaire masayoshi son, ceo of softbank, a japanese tech and telecom company. donald trump: and he's just agreed to invest$50 billion in the united states and 50,000
jobs. and he's one of the great men of industry,so i just want to thank you very much. masayoshi son, ceo, softbank: thank you. thank you. donald trump: thank you very much. judy woodruff: there was also news that thepresident-elect has divested himself of his entire stock portfolio. his transition team said he sold it off backin june. the statement gave no details, amounts ordocumentation for the stock sales, all of
this as meetings with potential staff andcabinet nominees continued, including the ceo of exxonmobil, rex tillerson, said tobe a candidate for secretary of state, talk radio host laura ingraham, a possibility forwhite house press secretary, and iowa governor terry branstad, who could be up for a diplomaticpost. mr. trump will visit iowa later this weekas part of a thank you tour that began last week in ohio. the tour also carried him to fayetteville,north carolina, for a rally this evening. hari sreenivasan: in the day's other news:president obama defended his record fighting terrorism in his last major national securityspeech before leaving office.
mr. obama traveled to macdill air force basein tampa, florida, home to the special operations and central commands. the president told the troops that he's leda relentless assault on the islamic state, but he also warned against targeting muslimsin the name of battling extremism. barack obama, president of the united states:the united states of america is not a place where some citizens have to withstand greaterscrutiny or carry a special i.d. card or prove that they are not an enemy from within. we are a country that has bled and struggledand sacrificed against that kind of discrimination. hari sreenivasan: the president also denouncedany use of torture, defended drone strikes
and urged again that the u.s. prison at guantanamobay, cuba, be closed. judy woodruff: in iraq, army units made anew push toward the center of mosul today. islamic state fighters had tied up the iraqiforces on the southeastern side of the city for nearly a month. but, this morning, an armored division launcheda fresh assault. a senior commander says they moved withina mile of the tigris river, backed up by u.s. airstrikes. hari sreenivasan: a human rights group isaccusing china's communist party of systematically using torture and coerced confessions againstmembers accused of corruption.
it's part of president xi jinping's sweepinganti-graft campaign, now in its fourth year. human rights watch says it found widespreadabuse at interrogation and detention sites that are outside china's official criminaljustice system. judy woodruff: back in this country, crewshave now searched nearly all of the oakland, california, warehouse that went up in flamesduring a music party, leaving at least 36 people dead. officials say they do not expect to find morebodies. overnight, firefighters stabilized parts ofthe gutted building to continue the search today.
they say they hope to finish the job tonight. the cause of the fire is still under investigation. hari sreenivasan: the u.s. supreme court sidedtoday with samsung, in a high-profile patent fight with apple. all eight justices voted to throw out a $399million judgment against samsung for copying features of apple's iphone. the high court said the award was too large,and ordered a federal appeals panel to come up with a new amount. judy woodruff: wall street edged higher againtoday, with telecom companies leading the
way. the dow jones industrial average gained 35points to close at 19251. the nasdaq rose 24, and the s&p 500 addedseven. hari sreenivasan: still to come on the "newshour":the buried pentagon report showing $125 billion in waste; a bipartisan bill that funds joebiden's cancer moonshot; liberia experiments with privatizing its education system; andmuch more. judy woodruff: every few years, pentagon leadersconduct efficiency reviews, looking for ways to save money. two years ago, deputy defense secretary robertwork commissioned a study that looked at how
much the defense department spent on thingslike its supply chain, property management and health care. but according to the washington post, whenthe results came back that said an estimated $125 billion could be saved over five years,the report was buried by top pentagon officials. reporter craig whitlock broke the story forthe post, and he is here now to tell us more. craig whitlock, tell us how all this started. why did -- why was the study ordered in thefirst place? craig whitlock, the washington post: well,a couple years ago, the pentagon's budget, the defense budget, was under a lot of pressure.
it had been flat for a few years, and militaryleaders were worried that, under sequestration and the budget control act, that they couldactually be forced to stomach some pretty substantial cuts in the coming years. so, deputy defense secretary bob work ordereda federal advisory panel of private sector executives to start collecting a lot of dataabout how much the pentagon spends on its back office functions as a way to find waysto save money. judy woodruff: and the work -- the study gotunder way. they asked them to do it in a relatively shortperiod of time, just a few months. it wasn't easy to do.
i gather there wasn't a great deal of cooperationacross the board. but they did come back with a report. and what did it find? craig whitlock: well, what they found waspretty striking. this is kind of hard, i think, for most folksto understand. but the pentagon actually up until then hadno idea how many contractors actually worked for it. so they were trying to figure out how manypeople worked in its business operations. and they found that more than one millionpeople worked in these core business operations,
like you said, health care management, humanresources, property management, things that any organization needs. but, you know, even for the pentagon, onemillion is a lot of people. these are essentially desk jobs. and that compares to only 1.3 million active-dutytroops. so the backing of the pentagon was almostas big as, you know, the tip of the spear, so to speak. judy woodruff: so, secretary work, numbertwo man at the pentagon, when he and others saw this report, what did they do?
craig whitlock: well, they had touted thisin advance, saying this was going to be really important, and that they had asked these privatesector executives to help them make sure that the report didn't gather dust and that theywould, you know, pass all these -- or adopt these recommendations. but when the numbers came back much biggerthan they thought, and the recommendation that they could save $125 billion over fiveyears, effectively, they buried and killed the study. the data that had been collected internallyfor the first time to pinpoint how many people worked in these jobs was kept secret.
it is still classified and confidential. we worked hard for months to get our handson it. we were unable to. and i was working with bob woodward, my colleaguehere at the post, who is pretty good at that stuff. to this day, they have kept that data confidential. judy woodruff: but the -- and you write thereason it seemed that they wanted this buried was that they were afraid that, if this informationcame out, that congress wouldn't appropriate what he and others thought the pentagon neededto get in terms of future appropriations.
craig whitlock: that's right. there's a political calculation. they were worried that members of congresswould say, look, you have been asking us for more money. you have been saying the troops need moremoney, you need more funds for ships and tanks and airplane, but, look, your own report,your own data show that you could save $125 billion. why are you asking us for more? so they were worried congress would cut thebudget, instead of them giving them more.
so that's when they decided this wasn't somethingthey wanted to act on and that they wanted to keep it quiet. judy woodruff: so, craig whitlock, what'sthe fallout from this today? how is the pentagon dealing with this disclosure? craig whitlock: well, i think the pentagonis -- it's very uncomfortable for them. they don't dispute the numbers here. they don't dispute that there's a millionpeople working in their back office jobs. they don't dispute that the study found theycould save that much money. they do say it would take more time, thatmaybe it wasn't practical to do this so quickly.
but what they're feeling today is some pressurefrom congress, members of congress, members of the armed services committees. they're saying at a minimum the pentagon owesit to the american public to release this data showing how all this money could be saved. and i think the pentagon's concerned. they want to see how president-elect trumpreacts. here's a guy who campaigned on a platformfor a major military buildup, and he said he would pay for it by cutting waste and abusein the military budget. he wasn't very specific about how he woulddo that, but, you know, here's a blueprint
for how they could save a substantial amountof money. judy woodruff: well, speaking of the president-electand speaking of pentagon spending, separately from all this, the president-elect today tweetedand then talked to the press -- and we showed this just a moment ago -- that he's upsetabout how much he says it's going to -- the boeing company is going to be charging tobuild two new air force ones. we know there are two of these airplanes thatcarry the president around. do we know for a fact from boeing that that'show much these planes are now supposed to cost? craig whitlock: well, you know, he's actuallypretty close on that, donald trump, when he
says $4 billion. now, that's over the whole program. that's the cost of developing and designingthese airplanes and to build and to buy them. boeing doesn't have all those contracts yet,but it really is the inside track. it's the only company the pentagon has beendealing with to work on this. but over the next several years, the pentagonhas projected or set aside $3.9 billion for these two airplanes. now, one reason it costs so much is that thesearen't just boeing 747 passenger planes. they have to be equipped as essentially anairborne command center for the commander
in chief. he has to be able to issue orders in caseof nuclear war. it has to have anti-missile defenses, electromagneticdefenses. so, these are pretty fancy essentially warplanesand command centers. that said, president-elect trump is saying,do we need to be spending that much on them? judy woodruff: and very quickly, craig whitlock,is it believed that boeing will now hold the costs down as a result of the president-elect'scomments? craig whitlock: well, i think it's fair tosay it's making a lot of people at boeing and the air force squirm a bit.
now they're going -- they have already hadsome scrutiny from congress on this program. but they know now there is going to be a newcommander in chief who, symbolically, one of the first things he's done to point outalleged pentagon waste is point at this program. so, you know, i think they're going to goback to the drawing board and they're going to have to justify the projections. judy woodruff: craig whitlock, great reportingby you and bob woodward at the washington post. we thank you. craig whitlock: thank you.
hari sreenivasan: while most attention hasbeen focused on the action at trump tower in manhattan, lawmakers at the u.s. capitolare close to passing a major bill that would lead to big changes with drug approval, medicalresearch and much more. lisa desjardins kicks off our coverage withthis report. lisa desjardins: weeks from the end of itsterm, congress is on the verge of passing a whopper of a bipartisan bill. sen. mitch mcconnell (r-ky), majority leader: thislegislation promotes critical investments in research.
harry reid (d-nv), minority leader: we'regoing to pass the cures act. lisa desjardins: a godsend to supporters,a spending spree or corporate giveaway to critics, here's a look at the 21st centurymedical cures bill. it is a mammoth $6 billion measure, now fourmajor pieces of legislation packed in one, starting with a giant nearly $5 billion shotof funding to the national institutes of health for research. that includes almost $2 billion for the moonshoteffort led by vice president joe biden to find a cure for cancer praised in a whitehouse web video today. joseph biden, vice president of the unitedstates: a lot of lives will be affected by
this bill, god willing. lisa desjardins: that's one reason many democratsare on board. another? the bill now includes $1 billion to addressthe opioid epidemic. it's a national crisis that's been in fundinglimbo for months. a third major piece? mental health reform, including a new assistantsecretary position for mental health and substance use. republican tim murphy, a psychologist, haspushed for this for years.
rep. tim murphy (r), pennsylvania: this doesn'tend the scourge of mental illness, but this puts us on a path to really make some substantialchange and give people help. lisa desjardins: now for what republican leaderslove, the bill's core, reforming and speeding up the food and drug administration's drugapproval process. to some, that's modernization that cuts redtape, but to others it's a safety risk. and some lawmakers see it as a gift to drugcompanies. those voices are led by massachusetts senatorelizabeth warren. elizabeth warren (d), massachusetts: i cannotvote for this bill.
i will fight it, because i know the differencebetween compromise and extortion. lisa desjardins: but she is in the minority. the bill has received bipartisan support incongress so far, and the president plans to sign it into law. for the "pbs newshour," i'm lisa desjardins. hari sreenivasan: let's dive a little deepernow into this bill, what would change, and some of the criticisms around it. for that, we're joined by two reporters whohave covered this field extensively, sydney lupkin of kaiser health news, and ed silverman,senior writer with stat news, a site covering
medicine and health care. so, sydney lupkin, let's start with what doesor doesn't happen to the fda. there's been a lot about that. what's the biggest potential change? sydney lupkin, kaiser health news: sure. so, one of the things that happens for thefda is, it gets another $500 million over 10 years. it also has more hiring power to fill thehundreds of vacancies that it has as a result of new initiatives, new laws other over theyears.
so, that's one thing that does happen to it. but the big thing is that it really sort ofmakes the approval standards a bit more flexible for drug and device manufacturers. hari sreenivasan: ok. ed silverman, if this flexibility increases,is the fda stick on the hook if something goes wrong? ed silverman, stat news: yes, it's a double-edgedsword for the agency, because on the one hand there will be a new process that could bein place. the agency will have to come up with a guidance,as it's called, a program that will determine
whether or not it can use different data toevaluate the approval process for new indications or new uses for existing medicines. the catch with that could be that, if somethinggoes awry, the agency is still on the hook. let's say there's patient harm, for instance. so that's the downside, because, at the endof the day, it's the regulator who is typically blamed when something goes wrong. hari sreenivasan: and, ed, this has alreadygotten pushback from the likes of bernie sanders and elizabeth warren. ed silverman: right.
well, the concern is that, in making the approvalprocess more flexible for new uses for existing medicines, it's actually lowering the standards,because of instead of using what is considered the gold standard, randomized control trial,the new approach would allow the agency possibly to look at other sorts of data, somethinglike safety surveillance data, patient-reported outcomes, these observational studies. these are the sorts of things that are legitimatelyuseful and tell us real things, but they're not the same as having a full-blown trial. and that's the sort of tool that is used todetermine the safety and effectiveness of any medicine.
so, that's a big potential difference. hari sreenivasan: and, sydney lupkin, thatalso affects the bottom line of pharmaceutical companies, because while the clinically approveddouble blind is the gold standard, it's also pretty time- money-expensive. sydney lupkin: it's more expensive. so, this does stand to save them a lot ofmoney, which is why they lobbied for it. there was a lot of lobbying activity on thisbill, more than 1,400 registered lobbyists on it representing 400 different organizations,many of them pharma. yes, it stands to save them a lot of money.
hari sreenivasan: so, a lot of people, whetherit's people who are dealing with the impacts of opioid abuse or hospitals that are focusedon research, they have been for it. they stand to benefit from this. sydney lupkin: right, because of the nih fundingin the bill. the nih is the national institutes of health,and, basically, a lot of that money will wind up going into grants that go to hospitals,that go to universities, that go to different labs to do research. mostly -- you have all heard of joe biden'scancer moonshot. there's also a -- something called the braininitiative to sort of study the brain more,
alzheimer's, understand more about how itworks, that you can prevent things, and precision medicine, which is, to very much simplifyit, a lot of genetics research. hari sreenivasan: ed silverman, how aboutthe appropriations of this? if it's not the cancer moonshot or brain research,and if it's not one of those marquee things that people care about, what happens to therest of these huge amounts of dollars, and is it a guarantee that it will happen yearafter year? ed silverman: well, it all sounds wonderful,but the money has to be appropriated. so, from day one, we have that question hangingover the entire effort. will that money actually go as intended tothe right agencies, so it can do the work?
presumably, the fda will get funds, so theycan have more resources to take on things like different approval processes. but the money's got to be there. so, if it's not appropriated, well, then whereare we? the agency will end up having more work withoutthe added resources. and i think that's one of the struggles thathas made the process over the past few weeks and months difficult to sort out and reallyfeel comfortable that congress is going to do what it says it will do. hari sreenivasan: so, sydney lupkin, thereseems to be a shift away from preventative
measures in parts of the bill. sydney lupkin: what the bill does is, is takesaway, i believe, $3.5 billion in funding for preventative medicine, funds set up underobamacare to study things like alzheimer's, chronic conditions, hospital-acquired infection. and, of course, the goal of that fund is tostudy these things so that then it ultimately saves the health care system money. if you can prevent something, you don't haveto spend as much money treating it. and that had been mandatory funding. so now it will get about 30 percent less thanit had.
hari sreenivasan: ed silverman, when it comesto big pharma companies, drug prices are something that consumers care about, something thateven hospitals and different insurance companies are trying to figure out a way to decrease. does this tackle that at all? ed silverman: no, not really. and i think that that's one problem that congressis going to have to face up to, whether it likes it or not. it may not be in this legislation, given thatthe senate vote appears to be near, at this point anyway.
so the bill doesn't really address some ofthe fundamental challenges and issues that are inherently problematic right now in thepricing system in this country. hari sreenivasan: is this just the generalnature of such a large omnibus bill? ed silverman: yes. it's almost the kitchen sink approach, butnot quite, because congress is trying to pick and choose a little bit of what's easiestand what it's most ideologically comfortable pursuing. for all the detail -- and there are closeto 1,000 pages in this bill -- it really doesn't address everything.
and, unfortunately, we discuss pricing. that's not really mentioned here in a waythat's going to be meaningful for americans. and while there may be portions that are helpful,there are portions that are also problematic, as i mentioned before, with concerns aboutthe fda approval process and what that means down the road for patient safety. hari sreenivasan: all right, ed silvermanof stat news and sydney lupkin of kaiser health news, thanks so much. sydney lupkin: thank you. ed silverman: thank you.
judy woodruff: stay with us. coming up on the "newshour": when it's notjust children who are distracted by their devices; a guide to creating a presidentialadministration ready on day one; and two jazz greats improvise their live performance. but first: how one for-profit school modelis being tested to help revitalize a school system in west africa. our story is in liberia, a country foundedby freed american slaves with a history marked by suffering, including two recent civil warsand the ebola epidemic. today, the government is trying to rebuilda shattered nation, but a move to employ a
for-profit american education company hasdrawn controversy. special correspondent fred de sam lazaro reportsas part of our weekly education series on making the grade. fred de sam lazaro: it's friday morning, andthe children at this public elementary school are singing patriotic songs that honor theircountry's founding by freed american slaves. and as the u.s.-inspired flag is being raised,so too are hopes about how public education can be quickly and dramatically improved. these students are part of a grand experimentto see if a private for-profit u.s.-based company can turn things around in a nationutterly destroyed by a 14-year long civil
war and a recent battle with ebola. the president of liberia has called the country'seducation system a mess. what did she mean? consider this statistic: in 2013, not oneof 25,000 high school graduates in this country managed to pass the college entrance examfor the university of liberia. the experiment to bring in private partnerswas designed by education minister george werner, who took office 15 months ago, hiredby the president, he says, to act quickly. george werner, liberian education minister:if we stayed the course, followed the traditional ways of doing things, we wouldn't catch upwith our neighboring counterparts.
fred de sam lazaro: werner had been impressedduring a visit to kenya, where the u.s. company bridge international academies operates morethan 350 private schools. in liberia, where average annual householdincome is less than $500, werner knew most families could not afford the monthly $6 feethat bridge charges per child in those other countries. but he had an idea. george werner: what if we had a hybrid forpublic and private? there are certain things that the privatesector does better than the public sector. government can come up with the policies,but management systems and service delivery,
often, the private sector does better thanthe government. fred de sam lazaro: werner hired seven privateorganizations to run a total of 94 primary schools. bridge, the only for-profit, runs 24 of them. josh nathan is the company's academic director. josh nathan, academic director, bridge internationalacademies: what the government has done in liberia is quite courageous. they've said, we're struggling with providingchildren this basic right, so what we want to do is look around, look inside liberiaand outside liberia, at other people who are
succeeding in providing children with an excellenteducation. fred de sam lazaro: the government agreedto pay the companies directly, so education remains free for families. the companies also provide uniforms, whichare required at public schools and whose cost keeps many from attending. when we visited the bridge school in kendaja,the semester was only two weeks underway, and many of the uniforms had not yet arrived. magdalene brown, bridge school principal:today is a wonderful day for us too. fred de sam lazaro: principal magdalene brownsaid the improvements were already very apparent.
for one thing, there's a much longer schoolday. last year, it was just four hours a day. magdalene brown: bridge has us come to schoolmuch earlier, like we at 7:30, and then bridge have us stay on until 3:30 every day. and that means the children will learn better. fred de sam lazaro: even the students seemto like it more, including 15-year-old mercy freeman. mercy freeman, student: we come to schoolon time. we sit in class.
fred de sam lazaro: and school actually runslike a school? mercy freeman: yes. fred de sam lazaro: there are also new rules,such as no more corporal punishment. and along with new textbooks, every teacheris given a computer tablet and is required to stick to pre-loaded lesson plans. critics of this so-called school-in-a-boxapproach say it encourages robotic teaching and has allowed bridge in other countriesto hire cheaper, less qualified instructors. that's less of an issue in liberia, wherebridge schools retrain teachers who are already working in the school system and where manyhad their own education disrupted by the civil
war. in this building, teachers seemed gratefulfor the guidance. amos jumanine has taught for seven years,but says he was a late bloomer. amos jumanine, teacher: i was 17 years wheni started abcs. fred de sam lazaro: you went to kindergartenlearning your abcs when you were 17? amos jumanine: yeah, 17. fred de sam lazaro: he is hopeful the newpartnership will be good for the students. but he is adamant on one thing that needsto change: teachers need to be paid more money, especially now that they're required to worklonger hours.
amos jumanine: i cannot afford to buy foodfor myself. fred de sam lazaro: financially, it's verydifficult? amos jumanine: yes, financially. fred de sam lazaro: very difficult. amos jumanine: very difficult. fred de sam lazaro: teachers in liberia earnabout $100 a month, and many say they take second jobs just to make ends meet. that contributes to one of the biggest problemsin liberian schools: chronic teacher absenteeism. not only are teachers routinely absent.
many really never existed, just their nameson paychecks issued by the schools. education minister werner says he's purgedabout 1,300 so-called ghost teachers, saving $2 million that was being siphoned away infraud. josh nathan: the president herself has acknowledgedthat this is a system that is really a mess. fred de sam lazaro: josh nathan says the bridgeschools use software in the teachers' tablets to track their daily attendance. josh nathan: we think this is incredibly importantto creating accountability and being able to watch every single day, where are our teachers,are they where they need to be? fred de sam lazaro: for their part, the teachersunion is strongly opposed to the partnership
it points out that these new schools havesmaller class size, around 45 to 55 pupils, and receive about $10 to $15 more per studentthan regular public schools. union leaders say their teachers could geteven better outcomes than bridge if they were given that extra money and smaller classes. if you had the right conditions and a bettersalary, a lot of the problem would be solved? mary mulbah, teachers union: yes. fred de sam lazaro: and when you argued this,what were you told? mary mulbah: the ministry, they're not evenlistening to the teachers. fred de sam lazaro: mary mulbah blames corruptionat the ministry for hiring the ghost teachers
and alleges the ministry is using its purgesto target union activists. immanuel morris, who was in a government programto train and hire new teachers, says his name was deleted. are you a ghost? immanuel morris, union activist: i'm not aghost, and i can prove that. fred de sam lazaro: they're calling you aghost. immanuel morris: that is what i'm saying. fred de sam lazaro: and you're not a ghost? immanuel morris: i'm not a ghost.
fred de sam lazaro: union leaders also questionwhether such programs could be scaled up to serve the 2,750 elementary schools acrossthe country. minister werner knows there are risks, butsays the government has a moral obligation to take drastic measures. george werner: it's not a panacea. and it may just not work. but we should not just fold our arms and donothing. fred de sam lazaro: sixty-one-year-old mariejaynes couldn't agree more. she herself had to drop out of school in fourthgrade.
she now sells water at the side of the roadto support her three grandchildren, their parents killed in the civil war. jaynes says the new school will give her grandchildrena better life than she has had. marie jaynes, grandmother: what hope for themis to go far in school, for them to know the importance of school. fred de sam lazaro: they are the first ofthree generations in her family that might enjoy the privileges of at least a primaryschool education. for the "pbs newshour," this is fred de samlazaro in kendaja, liberia. judy woodruff: a version of this story airedon the pbs program "religion & ethics newsweekly."
fred's reporting is a partnership with theunder-told stories project at university of st. thomas in minnesota. hari sreenivasan: we have spent our shareof time looking at how kids and teens spend time with their screens. now there's a new survey that finds theirparents have some of the same habits. the study, which asked for feedback from 1,700parents of children age 8 to 18, found adults spending more than nine hours a day themselveslooking at video screens. yet, even as they are worried about how muchtime their children spend watching screens, nearly 80 percent of parents felt they weregood role models for their kids when it came
to this. jim steyer is the founder and ceo of commonsense media, which conducted the survey. my jaw is still on the floor about the ninehours. that seems unbelievable. you have got to be counting stuff that i doat work and my laptop. james steyer, founder and ceo, common sensemedia: it's astounding to me, too. i thought it was going to be about four hours. right? i thought it would be four, four-and-a-half-hours.
the truth is, though, it's only an hour-and-a-halfof work time. so that means seven hours and 45 minutes perday, the average american parent is spending with screen media at home. it was shocking. and they think they're good role models. hari sreenivasan: so, that's the other part,that while they try to tell their kids, get off your phone and pay attention and talkto each other, under the table, they're checking their e-mail. james steyer: that's exactly right.
and, actually, i do think that's what thebottom line about this whole survey is. first of all, nobody ever asked parents. as you mentioned in the opening, we have lookedat how much time kids do, whether they're age 8 to 18 or zero to 8, but nobody everasked parents. and i thought parents were much more controlled. but the truth is, everybody is addicted totheir devices these days. hari sreenivasan: and you actually startedto break it down by income level and ethnicity. james steyer: right. hari sreenivasan: you started to see somepatterns emerged.
james steyer: the most interesting patternis that latino families are more than twice as concerned about and engaged in their kids'media consumption as white or african-american or asian american parents. so, there is a big cultural difference, andi think a very laudable one, in the latino community. they're more concerned about cyber-bullying,about pornography, about issues. and then they set tougher limits. and i actually think it shows a cultural tendencytoward family that's good, that we should all learn from.
hari sreenivasan: it also seems to be thatthe more they know about what their kids are doing, the less worried they are. james steyer: i think that's true in general. your kids are going to get older sooner thanyou think, hari. and when you do know more, i think you relaxand think, i can teach them judgment and values. but i think parents today are just blown awayby the surfeit of digital media platforms that we all live with. they don't understand snapchat or instagram,but they're using them themselves more than they were once.
i think the number, nine hours, is shocking. tv is still the number-one medium that parentslike, but they are spending time on the same platforms that their kids are. hari sreenivasan: and how do they feel aboutsocial media for their kids? james steyer: mixed. very mixed. and i actually think that's really true aboutmedia and technology in general. on the one hand, parents think their kidshave to learn technology for education, for jobs, for 21st century skills.
like, 94 percent of parents agree that technologyis really good. on the other hand, they're worried about techaddiction, lack of sleep, cyber-bullying, pornography, all the downsides. so, it's a nuanced picture. and i think it reflects the way i feel asa parent of four kids, too. they have got to be there. and actually they have to understand socialmedia. but i'm worried about what might happen tothem. hari sreenivasan: and in this day and age,you go to classrooms, so many of them are
wired or wireless, and kids are connectedto laptops. sometimes, they're bringing that softwarehome. it's necessary for homework. james steyer: that's right. and we believe strongly in that at commonsense. we now have 130,000 member schools. so, the vast majority of american schoolsare members of common sense media and use a curriculum we developed with harvard professorscalled digital literacy and citizenship. so, technology -- comma -- used wisely -- comma-- is an extraordinary educational tool.
but used inappropriately, it can cause allsorts of problems. and i actually think that's clearly now astrue for parents as it is for our kids. hari sreenivasan: were there any clear rulesof the road that these parents advocated for? james steyer: well, it's interesting. as you mentioned in the opening, nearly 80percent of parents say that they're good role models. but you would think, therefore, that they'redoing three or four hours a day. the truth is, the big thing that we have seenand we have promoted at common sense is what we call device-free dinner, meaning have familymeals, not just dinner, but all family meals.
get rid of the phones, get rid of your laptops,get rid of all those devices, and just be there with your kids, and create sacred spaces,what our colleague at mit sherry turkle refers to as sacred spaces, where there is just nodevice in between you and your children. so, parents say they do that, but the numberssort of belie that. hari sreenivasan: what about any kind of long-termeffects? relatively speaking, smartphones are stillpretty new in the long arc of technology. james steyer: yes. you know, i think it has an enormous impacton everything from empathy -- if you're constantly looking down at your phone, as opposed totalking to your kid, i think it has an effect
on your relationship with that child. i think, with younger kids, there's braindevelopment issues. at my age, i don't -- whatever little braini have is probably developed as much as it's going to be. but i think it has to do with long-term effectson family relationships, human interaction. and the positives are the educational opportunities,the chance to connect with people around the world. so, it's all about how you use it, and i actuallythink setting limits, too, and a healthy media diet.
hari sreenivasan: all right, jim steyer, commonsense media, thanks so much. james steyer: great to be here, hari. judy woodruff: with president-elect trumpfocused on preparing to take office in january, we return now to the transition process fromone president to the next. i sat down recently with max stier, no relationto the jim steyer we just heard from. max stier is president and ceo of the partnershipfor public service and an expert on presidential transitions. max stier, welcome to the "newshour." you have published this presidential transitionguide.
and you have also called the trump transitionthe biggest takeover in history of an organization. seriously? max stier, president and ceo, partnershipfor public service: seriously. you think about the united states government,you're talking about $4 trillion in spend, four million people, when you include themilitary, hundreds of different operating entities and the agencies. you have got 4,000 political appointees; 1,100of them have to go through senate confirmation. no other democracy has that kind of penetrationof political appointees in government. it's a phenomenally complex, important, andcritical process that is typically very ill-understood.
judy woodruff: so, what does a president-electcoming in and his or her team, what do they have to get right from the start? max stier: right from the start, they haveto understand how difficult this process is, and that history is not sufficient guidancefor what has to come going forward. transition is also the point of maximum vulnerabilityfor our country. in a post-9/11 world, getting this right isessential, not just for the president to be able to achieve their policy objectives, butalso to keep us safe. job number one is to get your team on thefield when the clock starts, and that means january 20 at noon.
and that's not going to be everybody, butour view is, you should have your full white house in place and at least your top 100 senateconfirmed positions that are leading the agencies that are critical to running government. judy woodruff: and we look at this and wehear some of the names that have been announced so far by donald trump. most of them either haven't served in governmentor, if they have, they haven't served in the executive branch. why does that matter? max stier: it matters because running theseagencies is a phenomenally difficult task.
and so when you think about running a largeorganization, and you want people who have done that before, it's harder in the governmentthan it is in the private sector. truth is that almost -- and i mean this -- almostnobody ever comes into the government at the senior levels with having the experience ofhaving done it before. it's new for everybody. the learning curve is very steep. one exception, obviously, is someone likeelaine chao, who's both at transportation and at labor. judy woodruff: right.
max stier: but that truly is the exception. these are incredibly hard jobs to get right. and as much experience as you have is good,but you really need to contextualize that experience to specific issues you face ingovernment. and that requires a lot of learning fast. judy woodruff: how do you assess so far -- iknow we're still early in the process -- that the trump team is doing in terms of gettingits arms around what's coming? max stier: so, i think that they have a longdistance still to travel. they did some very, very good pre-electionplanning.
now they're at game time. they're obviously naming a punch of people. but naming them isn't the same thing as gettingthem into the seats. clearing conflicts have to happen. they have to go through the senate confirmationprocess. they have a background checks that the fbidoes. that's a very difficult process in the ordinarycourse. and for a number of these people, especiallywith high net worth, very complicated holdings, it makes it even harder.
they have got a long distance to travel. i think the key here is not to focus on singleindividuals, but, one, have they adopted the right goals? and, again, that means getting their leadersin place at the beginning, coming to the table with a management agenda, starting right withcongress and with other critical stakeholders, like the career work force, which they willhave to run. those are the things that they need to setup now. and then they need to demonstrate this inthe next couple of months, that they're ready to go when they own the place.
judy woodruff: and how are these skills thatare required right now different from the skills in the private sector? i mean, donald trump clearly comes out ofthe business world. many of the people he's named come out ofthe business world with these early names. max stier: right. judy woodruff: there are more to come. but what's different in the muscles that areneeded? max stier: it's a great question. and i would say one positive is that the governmentdoes need smart business principles.
and when you get someone who has run an organizationin the private sector in a good way, there are great principles that can be transferredover. they need the good principles, but governmentcannot be run like a business, so some differences. starts with congress. so, when you're in the private sector, youdon't have to worry about a board of directors that is in conflict with each other, thatdoesn't provide you with a budget, that doesn't have a capital budget. the working-with-congress piece is phenomenallydifferent and very complicated. you have a high degree of transparency.
you have multiple different stakeholders. and you have scale that you almost never seein the private sector that you have in government. judy woodruff: and just quickly, finally,max stier, to the public watching out there who doesn't know a lot or really isn't thatinterested in the inner workings of government, why should they care about this? well, fundamentally, this is -- it all beginsin the beginning. if you get the beginning wrong, you're playingcatchup for the rest of your administration. it starts with national security. that's the core function of our government.
again, transition is the point of maximumvulnerability for our government. we have a lot of enemies out there. they're looking to see whether or not thatbaton handoff is clean, that the new leadership is actually ready. so, that's where it begins. but it's also all the other things we getfrom our government. in order for that to happen right, we needthe new president to be ready on day one, people in place, right goals, a managementagenda, and understanding how the whole process works.
judy woodruff: max stier with the partnershipfor public service, thank you so much for coming by. max stier: thank you very much. hari sreenivasan: next: how a passion forimprovisation can make beautiful music. two jazz stalwarts rejoin forces for a newalbum and a series of concerts. jeffrey brown has the story. jeffrey brown: the song, hoagy carmichael's1938 ballad "the nearness of you," performed as a kind of conversation between two mastermusicians who happen to be peers and friends, saxophonist joshua redman, pianist brad mehldau.
brad mehldau, pianist: if you're going toplay a ballad with someone, and you want it to be anything deeper than this just sortof surface, you're going to have to be vulnerable for the other person. and that's what the audience wants to see,too. joshua redman, saxophonist: yes. jazz is all about vulnerability. brad mehldau: so, you got to... jeffrey brown: vulnerability? (crosstalk)
brad mehldau: yes. joshua redman: i think so, yes, because we'reimprovising, you know? and we're not coming to the bandstand witha preconceived notion of what we're going to play. we have to be open and available and vulnerableto really make that connection with ourselves and with the other musician. jeffrey brown: redman, 47, and mehldau, 46,have been filling concert halls and jazz clubs, on their own, as band leaders, and together,for more than 20 years. this fall, they have joined forces again ina recent performance at new york's jazz at
lincoln center, and on a newly-released albumtitled "nearness," a mix of original material and jazz standards recorded live on tour in2011. joshua redman: i feel so fortunate to be ableto make the music that i believe in, and to get up there every night and just play fromthe soul and go for it. brad mehldau: as an improvising musician,i really feel committed to not going out there and playing some nonsense for people, youknow? (laughter) brad mehldau: there's a bit of a script. we have some plan, but what they want to hearis, they really want to hear us try to be
creative. jeffrey brown: both men came to music early. redman, in california, was raised by his dancermother, and is the son of well-known saxophonist dewey redman, mehldau in florida and connecticutin a family home never without a piano. they arrived separately in new york in theearly 1990s, where each found his own early success. we spoke recently at the steinway piano showroomin manhattan just before a concert. brad mehldau: even when i'm ostensibly accompanyinghim, and he's ostensibly taking the solo, we're still having this conversation.
so it may mean, for instance, that he playsa melodic idea, and then i respond to it sort of in real time, and i might even give himsomething back, that then he responds to again. joshua redman: i'm always looking for something. brad mehldau: and he's kind of waiting forit. he's like, come on, what do you got? jeffrey brown: what do you got? joshua redman: well, and often because i don'thave anything. joshua redman: i always feel like i'm -- asan improviser. i feel a little hamstrung by this instrumentand its role in jazz, because it's basically
a soloist instrument. i play melodies, maybe some accompanying harmoniesif there's another horn player, and then i will take a solo, and then i have to go standat the side of the stage. you know, i have rhythm section envy becausethey get to, like, be in there, and always -- you know, they're always listening, alwaysreacting. but i feel like my best ideas often don'tcome from me. they come from the other musicians that i'mplaying with, and especially when i'm playing with someone like brad. jeffrey brown: i asked for a demonstration,and the two launched into some blues.
brad mehldau: one thing that josh does that'svery exciting for me, as an accompanist, is that i throw him a curve in the middle ofhis phrase. so, he was starting to start a phrase thatwas a little more conventional. and he was going to kind of wrap it up, ok,we gave you an illustration, by returning to the melody. and then i -- in the middle of that phrase,i sort of went -- and i harmonically went off the chart of what would be the normalharmony there in this 12-bar blues we're playing. in real time, somehow, he heard me doing thatand adjusted his phrase in the middle of the phrase.
jeffrey brown: is that an intellectual processthat he just described, where he switches and you have to react quickly, or it justhappens? joshua redman: that's an excellent question. whatever it is, if i feel like it's an intellectualprocess, then i'm not successful. jeffrey brown: it's not going to work. joshua redman: it's an emotional, it's anintuitive process. in that way, then i'm overthinking it, andi probably won't do it well. brad mehldau: it's very exciting to reallyimprovise, and to have that moment. and it's also very social music.
a lot of times, you're with other people. and to have that white-heat kind of communicationbetween another musician, it's very -- it's pretty exciting. joshua redman: it's a great time to be a jazzmusician. jeffrey brown: after our talk, joshua redmanand brad mehldau set off on a european tour, and the two continue to perform their separategigs. from new york, i'm jeffrey brown for the "pbsnewshour." hari sreenivasan: after jeff's interview,redman and mehldau played a song from the new album just for us.
you can see that private performance in itsentirety on our web site, pbsnewshour.org. judy woodruff: and now to our "newshour" shares,something that caught our eye that might be of interest to you, too. rain showers and chilly temperatures did littleto dampen spirits at the annual lighting of the u.s. capitol christmas tree this evening. this year's tree is an 80-foot engelmann sprucefrom mccall, idaho. joan cartan-hansen of idaho public televisionhas been following the man tasked with finding that tree, and she sent us this profile. joan cartan-hansen: chris niccoli's day jobis fighting wildfires out of the smokejumpers
base in mccall, idaho. but for the last several months, he's hada new assignment. chris niccoli, u.s. forest service: i'm alsothe logistic section for the u.s. capitol christmas tree. joan cartan-hansen: that means niccoli isthe man responsible for finding, cutting, and supervising the shipping and deliveryof the u.s. capitol's christmas tree. since 1970, the u.s. forest service has providedthe christmas tree that stands on the capitol grounds. this year's tree comes from idaho's payettenational forest.
niccoli started seriously looking for thetree last spring. when he would find a contender, he'd markthe gps location and take a picture. chris niccoli: we're looking for a doug firor an engelmann spruce-type species. you know, those are the quintessential christmastrees look. joan cartan-hansen: niccoli narrowed downthe choices to about a dozen trees. then, last july, ted bechtol, the superintendentof the u.s. capitol grounds, came to idaho to make the final selection. deciding on the u.s. capitol christmas treeis a lot like picking your family tree, just on a much bigger scale.
ted bechtol, superintendent, u.s. capitolgrounds: sixty to 85 feet in height, a nice conical shape, because the tree is viewedfrom 360 degrees. i have think we have seen better, yes. chris niccoli: yes. we have better ones. ted bechtol: a nice looking tree. chris niccoli: it's a good looking tree. joan cartan-hansen: just as important as findingthe right tree is finding it in the right location.
access is important, because crews will haveto take this 11,000-pound tree and put it onto a 105-foot-long trailer. they found the right combination on the edgeof little ski hill just west of mccall. on november 4, hundreds gathered to watchniccoli and a fellow smokejumper cut the prized engelmann spruce. chris niccoli: one inch. one. one inch. there you have it.
it's just barely hanging on. joan cartan-hansen: with a few more cuts froman axe, and a little pressure... chris niccoli: here it comes, bill. and she's free. joan cartan-hansen: the tree, all tied upon the back of the tractor-trailer, toured idaho for several days, and then headed acrossthe country to its final home at the u.s. capitol. chris niccoli: it's once in a lifetime foranybody involved, right? and for me especially, i just feel reallygrateful.
it's great, yes. it's really fun. joan cartan-hansen: for the "pbs newshour,"i'm joan cartan-hansen in boise, idaho. judy woodruff: thanks to those folks. we don't think about all the work that goesinto finding this tree. hari sreenivasan: i had absolutely no idea. judy woodruff: and separate from that, onthe "newshour" online right now, find a poem about the standing rock dakota pipeline standoff. it's written by a member of the lakota siouxtribe.
that and more is on our web site, pbs.org/newshour. hari sreenivasan: tune in later tonight. on "charlie rose": the winner of this year'spulitzer prize for fiction, viet thanh nguyen. and that's the "newshour" for tonight. i'm hari sreenivasan. judy woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. join us online and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the "pbs newshour," thankyou, and good night.