geoff: good evening. i'm geoff bennett. amna: and i'm amna nawaz. on the newshour tonight. police forcefully break-up the ucla encampment as arrests and protests against the war in gaza spread to more colleges campuses. geoff: we hear from the niece of an israeli-american hostage

nearly 8 months after he was taken captive by hamas. amna: and. a closer look at this consequential supreme court term, the cases heard, and ideological divide on display. >> this appears, especially this term, to be a very confident court willing to step into some of the most divisive issues. ♪ >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by -- >> you don't need vision to do most things in life. it's exciting to be part of the team driving the technology forward. i think that's the most rewarding thing. people who know, know bdo. >> a law partner rediscovers her grandmother's artistry and

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♪ >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. amna: welcome to the newshour. police in riot gear broke up an encampment at ucla overnight and arrested protesters after another day of high tensions on campus. that followed earlier violence from counterprotesters. geoff: so far, more than 2000 people have been arrested in the last two weeks. while many protests have been peaceful and many of the arrested are not students, the past week has seen a series of escalating confrontations, occupations and shutdowns. that led president biden to condemn violence and disorder today following the latest

developments in los angeles. overnight hundreds of pro-palestinian protesters at ucla defied warnings to leave their encampment. and just before dawn, police tore down the tents and arrested more than people. 200 the police response was still underway, when president biden spoke at the white house and drew a line between dissent and disorder. pres. biden: so let me be clear, peaceful protest in america. violent protest is not protected. peaceful protest is. it is against the law when violence occurs. destroying property is not a peaceful protest. it's against the law, vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows, shutting down campuses, forcing the cancellation of classes and graduations. none of this is a peaceful protest. geoff: the president, when asked by a reporter, said the national guard should not be deployed to respond to the protests. when asked if the protests have made him reconsider his policies

in the region, the president said no. back in los angeles, police faced growing criticism for a delayed response to tuesday night's assault on the protesters' camp site at ucla. the city's mayor and california's governor have complained, and students today were still angry. >> i think it's especially galling for a lot of protesters because less than 24 hours ago, the protesters in this encampment were attacked by more than 200 unidentified counter-protesters who showed up in the middle of the night and assaulted the encampment for seven hours and the police didn't show up for the first three or four, and then when they did, they sat around and they watched for another hour and a half. >> there is no riot here, why are you in riot gear? geoff: elsewhere, police also broke up a protester encampment at dartmouth college in new hampshire last night and arrested 90 people. today, the school's president defended the action.

in a statement, sian beilock said, last night, people felt so strongly about their beliefs that they were willing to face disciplinary action and arrest. while there is bravery in that, part of choosing to engage in this way is not just acknowledging, but accepting, that actions have consequences. >> hands off palestine, hands off students. geoff: in oregon, protesters occupying a portland state university library were cleared out of the building by police. >> please stay behind police lines. geoff: once outside, protesters dismantled police barricades. but while some protests are intensifying, others are coming to an end. officials at the university of minnesota reached a deal with pro-palestinian demonstrators to disband their encampment today. as part of the agreement, organizations involved in the protest will get to meet with the university's board of regents next week to discuss how the school should divest from companies with ties to the israeli military. new york police also released body cam video from tuesday when

officers swept into hamilton hall at columbia university. they cut through chains and faced barricades of furniture before arresting protesters. more than 100 people were arrested. given the video of these clashes and the rising number of police called to campuses, it's easy to lose track of where protests have been generally peaceful. but wesleyan university in connecticut has largely had a peaceful encampment so far. there has been some vandalism and significant tensions on campus, but not at the level we've seen at some other schools. michael s. roth is the president of wesleyan university and joins us now. thank you for being with us. why hasn't wesley and seen the level of disruption, certainly not the level of violence we've seen on other campuses. what accounts for that, and how are you approaching this? >> it makes me nervous to hear you say that. it just takes a few bozos to turn a peaceful protest into something else many of these

other schools, it has been non-students and people who are looking for fight or for confrontation to turn things toward mayhem or disorder. in the case of ucla, counter protests that were violent themselves. students are protesting our bearing witness to a disaster in gaza, wanting to engage in discussions with their fellow students, with their faculty and staff members. sometimes even with me, although they want me to do stuff i don't agree with. they want the university to divest from companies that do business with israel. i don't think that's a sensible idea, but i do think having more conversations about what we can do to bring peace to the middle east makes a lot of sense, and i'm proud the students aren't just worried about their finals, they're worried about a very important issue in world affairs. geoff: what's your reaction to what we've seen transpire at

ucla over the past 48 hours and at columbia university with the nypd clearing a campus building? >> i think when people break into a building and start destroying property, one has to get law enforcement to help. that's really unfortunate, but i do think is the president of dartmouth said, actions have consequences, and those actions demanded a response. ucla is complicated because of the rule that counter protesters played when they attacked the encampment. what we've tried to do it wesley and -- wesley and his to keep people talking to each other. after all, you only learn from talking to people who don't share your point of view. you're not going to learn a lot from talking with someone who agrees with you. geoff: how do you balance freedom of expression with student safety in a situation like this? >> i am a pragmatist.

i wrote a book called safe enough spaces, which is about how you make these judgments. you don't want to make the place too safe but you don't wanted to be so unsafe that you are afraid to learn. you want to find a middle ground where people can listen to ideas, even offensive ideas, and find out why someone else holds those ideas, and maybe in the and, learn from them. we have tried to do that by cultivating a culture of conversation across difference. and in these days in america, that is hard because people retreat to their own in-groups, but our faculty, staff and students have worked hard keep lines of communication open, because students at wesleyan do not stay in their own lane. they talk to each other. that habit makes it easier to prevent the outgrowth of violence. geoff: what do you make of this

argument we have heard from professors in some cases that institutions of higher learning are not so tolerant of demonstrations these days and that universities are so afraid of the political blowback from lawmakers that they are being overly aggressive in how they are responding to this? >> i think each case is a little different. as you pointed out, when we looked at the video, there are a lot of campuses where there is peace. they don't make it on the news. it's not as exciting to watch a peaceful demonstration. but i do think in some cases the pressure by lawmakers to do something, to show they are doing something or perhaps donors to show that they are tough, this is counterproductive. we need to show that we are educational and congress is not the institution to give lessons on how to cross difference or be educational.

professors and presidents have to have the courage to stand up to donors. we need to create safe enough spaces, peaceful campuses where people can agree and disagree across lots of differences. geoff: wesleyan university president michael roth, thank you for your time. >> thank you. ♪ stephanie: here are the latest headlines. hamas announced it is sending a delegation back to egypt, a possible sign of progress in talks of a cease-fire with israel. the group said the goal is to work to an agreement. a u.n. report said it will take until at least 2040 to repair all the destroyed homes in gaza. the report estimated that nearly

80,000 housing units have been flattened in the war. u.s. intelligence officials say iran's allies have paused attacks on american troops. at least for now. groups linked to tehran have carried out strikes against u.s. forces in the middle east after the war in gaza began but the director of national intelligence, avril haines, said the situation has calmed. >> iranian aligned militia groups broadly pause conducting such attacks though it is not clear how that will last. stephanie she says there is no : assessment yet on when militia attacks might resume. former president trump has stepped up his threats to reject novembers presidential election results if he does not win. he was asked specifically about wisconsin and told the milwaukee journal sentinel if everything is honest, i would gladly accept the results. if it is not, you have to fight for the right of the country. the former president made similar statements in 2016 and in 2020.

president biden stopped in charlotte, north carolina today to speak with the relatives of four law enforcement officers killed this week. they were shot trying to serve a warrant. he met with the local police chief and others at the charlotte airport before seeing the families in private. the european union will send more than $1 billion in aid to lebanon to curtail the flow of migrants to cyprus and italy. lebanon hosts more than 785,000 syrian refugees plus hundreds of thousands of others. in beirut today, european union commission president ursula von der leyen appeared with the lebanese prime minister and president of cyprus on the aid deal. >> we are committed to maintain legal pathways open to europe, and resettle refugees from lebanon to the european union. at the same time, we count on your good cooperation to prevent

illegal migration and to combat migrant smuggling. stephanie: the eu has arranged similar funding deals with egypt, tunisia and mauritania in a bid to tighten border controls and human smuggling. in southeastern china, the death toll from a collapsed highway has risen to 48. on wednesday, state tv showed cranes lifting vehicles crushed after tumbling through the section of road that gave way in guangdong province. it followed a month of heavy rains. state officials in maryland announced today that rebuilding the francis scott key bridge and baltimore will take four years and nearly $2 billion. the span collapsed in late march, when a container ship rammed into a support column. six members of a road crew were killed. on wednesday, a fifth body was recovered. the sixth worker has not yet been found. part of interstate 95 in connecticut will be closed for days after a gasoline tanker truck crashed today on a bridge over the highway. the wreck shut down the main north-south highway linking new

england with new york. traffic was backed up for dozens of miles. the governor said the bridge will have to replaced. inner light, the county of maui is suing major cell phone carriers over widespread service outages caused by last year's wildfire. the lawsuit alleges the surface blackout left people unable to receive evacuation alerts. the lawsuit alleges 911 dispatchers were not notified about a service blackout that left officals unable to send evacuation alerts. maui county is a defendant in multiple lawsuits over its emergency response to the fire. and, a european court has sided with italy, against the getty museum in california, in a fight over an ancient greek statue. the victorious youth sculpture dates from 300 to 100 bc. it was pulled from the sea bottom, by italian fishermen, in 1964. italy argues it was illegally sold to the museum in 1977. getty officials say they're considering a further appeal. still to come on the newshour. after a second gag order hearing

the prosecution in former president trump's hush money trial continues case. young voters in michigan weigh in on president biden and the upcoming election author eddie glaude junior discusses his new book on how ordinary americans can be the heroes of our democracy. plus much more. >> this is the "pbs newshour" from weta studios in washington, and in the west, from the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. amna: more than 100 hostages are still held captive by hamas. among them, eight americans, including the bodies of three americans confirmed dead, and five believed to still be alive. israeli-american keith siegel was kidnapped from his home in southern israel during the hamas attack on october 7th. i spoke with his niece, hanna siegel, earlier today about the status of hostage negotiations

and her family's relentless work to bring her uncle home. hannah, welcome to the newshour. thank you for being here. >> thank you so much for having me. amna: so your uncle keith siegel was one of the hostages in a video that hamas released last week. you're wearing the number 208 to represent the number of days that he has now been held. as a policy, we don't show those videos, but i just wanted to ask what you thought when you saw him and when you heard his >> yeah. it was it was surreal. i mean, it's it's the first time that we've seen him or heard his voice in over 208 days. my aunt aviva, who is a hostage survivor and was held and released, in november in the ceasefire deal, they were held together. and so when she came out, she was able to tell us a little bit about how he's doing. but since then, we didn't know if he was alive or how he was. i think there was an immense sense of relief just to hear his voice and see his face.

and it's devastating. i don't know how to describe what it's like to look at a family member in that situation. he talks. the first thing he says is, i love you and i hope you're okay to our family. and he talks about passover, and he also talks about hearing bombs nearby. there are so many facets to this and so many ways in which we're worried about him. amna: there is a moment in the video where he does break down. i can't imagine how difficult this must be for you and your family to watch that. but how did he seem to you after all this time in captivity? >> i mean, his voice. it's him, it's him. and that was that was one thing that gave me a lot of comfort. but he's gaunt. he looks weak. he looks older. you know, he's being he's being held underground.

i worry every single day. you know, i remember when aviva was released, she told me that they were starting to starve. and that was a long time ago. so i think about that a lot. amna: you know that a deal to release him remain stalled right now. and you said earlier this week something that stuck with me. you said you don't or you're not sure, rather that it's actually in prime minister netanyahu's political interest to make a deal. what did you mean by that? >> you know, there have been deals on the table in the past. there's a lot that happens in these negotiations. it's hard to keep track. i'm obviously not on the inside, but from what i do know and from what i've seen. he hasn't made those deals. it hasn't always been clear that he's ready to lean in and prioritize the hostages over anything else. and so i guess what i would say is, i hope that prime minister netanyahu prioritizes his own citizens, the hostages, before

any political considerations and gets this deal done. i think one thing that we've seen over the last six months

with hamas, is that the deals don't get better. you know, weeks ago we were talking about 40 hostages potentially in this next round. that number has gone down. every single day that goes by is another day that a hostage could die in captivity, or another day where our family members aren't coming home.

so to me, this is the moment, this this is our chance. do you want him to make that deal? >> i want him to bring my uncle home and everybody home. and i do think that bringing the and i do think that bringing the hostages home is the first step to ending this devastation overall, and that's really important. in geoff: william brangham joins us to break down the developments. this was a continuation about how he negotiated the payments. >> the prosecutors have more information about the new goshen he had to get his thin client stormy daniels to be paid 100 $30,000 so she would not go public with the story of an

alleged relationship she had with tromp right before the 2016 election, and it one point during his testimony, davidson acknowledged he knew that this payment to daniels and the other one to the playboy playmate karen mcdougal were somehow intended to help donald trump's campaign. they want you to save these payments as election interference and davison later in his testimony tell the story about how after the election he got this hour-long phone call from michael cohen who described as despairing and despondent because he hadn't been given a job in the fledgling trump administration. he said he worried that cohen might actually try to kill himself. he also mentioned that he was upset because trump had still not repaid him $130,000 that cohen used of his own money to pay daniels.

again, it is that eventual repayment and how those repayments were accounted for that are the center of the 34 allegations of falsifying business records that trump stands accused of. geoff: how did he try to undermine keith davidson's testimony? >> the try to put as much daylight between davidson and donald trump, acknowledging that he never met with him, never spoke to him, never was in a room with him before. they also try to portray davidson as a guy who get salacious information about celebrities and then tries to extort celebrities with that information. they mention all of these different cases that he had been involved with, with charlie sheen and hulk hogan and lindsay lohan, and they want the jury basically to see davidson as this sort of serial blackmailer/exporter of rich people for money.

geoff: a separate hearing today over allegations that donald trump has again violated the gag order placed on them. bring us up to speed. >> that's right. the morning started with this hearing, where prosecutors have alleged that donald trump has committed four more violations of this gag order. you will remember earlier this week that the judge found donald trump was guilty of nine violations of the gag order and fined him $9,000. prosecutors say they have coinued to do that four times, talking about witnesses and the jury, and they are arguing this makes it impossible for them to have a fair trial, that jurors might be nervous is, witnesses might not give full testimony. they are arguing that he needs to be sanctioned again. he might not go to jail yet but this hangs over this as well. his defense team argues the man is running for president.

he is repeating things a lot of his supporters are saying in public and he needs to have the right to say these things. the judge seems skeptical of that. we don't know when he will rule on it. geoff: william brangham reporting thank you so much. , >> thanks. ♪ amna: the supreme court wrapped up oral arguments last week and has turned to ruling out decisions. as john yang explains they could , be some of the most consequential cases of the year. john some of those decisions : will shape policies nationwide on divisive issues like homelessness and reproductive rights and some could even affect the presidential election. the passion surrounding these issues were reflected at protests outside the court on oral argument days. now, inside the court, the justices are spending the next two months or so searching for agreement among at least five of them in the 43 cases that remain

undecided. watching all of this are two supreme court analysts, newshour's marcia coyle and joan biskupic of cnn, author of nine black robes. joan, marcia, thanks for being here. 61 oral arguments this session. was there any common theme? >> there were a number of themes but i would step back for a moment and look at the court a little bit and say that this appears, especially this term, to be a very confident court, willing to step in to some of the most divisive issues, maybe even eager by some of them to take on these questions, and we see it in the arguments we listen to, everything from epa's good neighbor plan for the clean air act to abortion to, of course, what might very well defined the term, trumps litigation. >> talk about those. there were four cases involving the former president.

>> four total, and three most people will know about. donald trump has loomed over the supreme court from the start. when he was president, he was saying just wait until my cases get to the supreme court. he named three of these nine justices and felt like he had a little bit of ownership there. we have already seen one of the trump cases, down. the justices ruled unanimously that an anti-insurrectionist provision of the 14th amendment could not be used to keep him off the ballot. that was the colorado case. we just had two more recent ones that could be consequential for him, most strikingly the test of whether he can be immune from criminal prosecution in the four charges brought by special counsel jack smith. >> donald trump did a lot to shape the current court. this is the fourth year you have the majority of six conservative justices. is there any sense, as the oral arguments went on this year, is there any sense that they are still evolving, coalescing, figuring out how to

dance together? >> definitely. you have the three liberals and six conservatives but they are not all created equal on both sides. for example, on the conservative side with the six, you have a great difference in terms of personality and urgency on the part of samuel alito, who is 74, and really wants the court to be moving fast to the right, but you hae amy coney barrett, who is only 52. she was the third appointee of donald trump and takes a more pragmatic approach. they are both conservatives but they are signaling in a different way about how far they want to go. same on the left side. you have someone who is strategic in justice elena kagan, and our newest justice, ketanji brown jackson, the only appointee of president joe biden at this point, who is more independent and consistently liberal as opposed to justice kagan, who is a little bit more

transactional. >> i want to talk more about justice barrett. as eager to go as a single alito -- as samuel alito is, she has said this term let's not move so fast. let's just decide what is in front of us. >> this term in particular. she did indicate in some earlier cases, for example, a case involving a catholic foster child agency, not willing to immediately overturn a religion precedent that some of the more conservative colleagues and the religious right would love to see, but she would not do that. she was cautious in the indian child welfare challenge not to go down the road of race. and then this term, as joan has pointed out, her questions, for example, in the trump immunity case, she was more focused on acts that could actually be tried and not a rule for the ages, as justice gorsuch wanted, and there have been other cases where she has shown more caution. but i would caution everybody

too that it is very early and we will have to see how she writes. not only how she votes but what she writes. and, you know, it's difficult labeling some of these conservatives as maybe moderate. she is being called now a moderate conservative like john roberts. yet you have to remember that she was put on the bench when she overturned roe v. wade. >> this term, there have been 18 decisions that have been handed down. all but three of them were unanimous and the other three were lopsided. are they getting the easy ones out now and fighting about the rest? >> yes, of course. and that has been their pattern for many terms. and it's a very human kind of pattern. get out what you can quickly so you have more time to focus on the complicated ones. although, you know, over the course of the roberts court, there has generally been a good degree of unanimity.

you say 61 cases. but there's really only a handful of cases that we tend to focus on that were going to end up being divisive. >> this is almost the 20th year of john roberts court. describe the roberts court as it is now. >> i think it is still very divided. the cases that we care about most come down to 6-3 or 5-4, and they are the ones that john roberts is constantly trying to bring if not unanimity a more lopsided ruling. on the trump immunity case, he has struggled in the past on trump cases. for example, in 2020, when he handled the documents cases. he worked hard behind the scenes to take 5-4 initial votes and make them 7-2. i could see him doing that here with the trump immunity one because as much as he himself is very conservative, remember, he cut his teeth in the reagan administration. he has been consistently conservative. he is also aware of the standing in the public eye of this court

and how much it's stature has diminished in recent years. so he is wanting to show in some of these more divisive cases, on trump claims, some regulatory matters, and maybe on some of the abortion lines -- ones they have heard, to come together. you will always have justices further to his right but i think he will try to win greater compromise because that is the stamp he is trying to put on this court. >> we have to remember that this is still a relatively young court. and i remember one justice telling me that when you get a new justice on the bench, it's a lot like a marriage, a new marriage, or getting a new family member. you have to get used to how that person wants to operate. that takes time. is it going to be someone like retired justice breyer, who

liked to sit down in other chambers and chat about cases, or is it somebody who wants to do otherwise? >> thank you both very much. >> a pleasure. >> thanks. ♪ geoff: young people between the ages of 18 and 29 make up roughly 20% of eligible voters in the u.s.. a majority of them voted for president joe biden back in 2020 and they are typically a reliable vote for democrats. laura baran lopez is here with a look at where things stand this election year. >> and the battleground state of michigan, newshour sat down with four young voters at a detroit coffee shop to talk about the 2024 election. most of them plan to vote in november but they are not enthusiastic about their options. how does this election cycle make you feel?

>> nervous. >> kind of tired. >> overwhelmed. >> hopeless. laura: do you think a lot of your friends feel the same way or feel disillusioned? >> i think all of the words is exactly how my friends feel. nervous and also hopeless and all of those things. laura: what are the top issues for you? max attends oakland university just outside detroit. he voted for nikki haley in michigan's primary. >> the economy, the border, because i think it's a humanitarian crisis, and guns. i think the second amendment is extremely important and i don't like the language behind any sort of banning of weapons at all. >> 28-year-old melinda billingsley from the east side of detroit works at a voting rights nonprofit and is open to third-party candidate. >> lgbtq issues are impacted a lot by rhetoric, not even things

changing, just if you talk about them and demonize or invoke fear, people will get hurt. there are consequences to that especially in the right or wrong hands. it makes a big difference. >> alec hughes is a junior at the university of michigan and a cochair of his school's college democrats. >> the biggest thing is simply democracy. we saw on january 6 trump gradually eroding things away over the course of his term. and now he's admitting it flat out, i'm going to be a dictator on day one. i do not think that is just rhetoric. i think that's an admission. i think that's almost a boast. >> this 22-year-old was born in the west bank and moved to the u.s. 12 years ago. she's a senior at michigan state university. >> i worry a lot about, like, the economy. quality of life has, for the average person in the u.s., kind

of not been so good. everything is more priced. i don't think that housing is going to be affordable for a lot of people. inflation is crazy. people are being overworked and not getting paid enough. >> i work at a kroger. i bring people's groceries to them that they order online. i will be checking somebody out for $80 worth of groceries and it looks like $30. prices have gone through the roof on a lot of things. wages are up but some people still have not been able to adjust with that. >> how many of you are planning to vote in the november election? ok. so at least three out of four. who is planning on voting for joe biden in november? who is planning on voting for donald trump? and who is undecided? >> uncommitted, one might say. >> good answer. could president biden still earn

your vote between now and november? >> no. and i think that many people say, would you rather trump or whatever? trump was president. i am muslim. as bad as he is in many ways, i still have the privilege of being safe here, so out of respect to the 35,000 killed in gaza and were displaced, i cannot justify voting for the guy that authorized those checks. >> you are the joe biden voter. why are you voting for joe biden? >> looking back retrospectively, he made a lot of promises back in his run in 2020 that ultimately he has lived up to well. is there space for improvement? absolutely. but we have seen the inflation reduction act passed. we have seen the bipartisan infrastructure law pass. they make trillion dollar investments in infrastructure, green energy. i think he has worked

extraordinarily within the balance that are defined for him. laura: how about you? why are you undecided? >> even though i am committed to voting, i would personally say that joe biden is moderate for me, and i am not. i am so far to the left, where joe biden is like, we are going to make a reasonable transition to electric vehicles. i am like, no. let's get rid of all gas powered cars. we will go straight to electric and trains and mass transit and we will go hard into that. i want to vote for what i want, not, like you said, the lesser of two evils. >> why are you voting for donald trump? >> it boils down to policy. i am a conservative guy and he is the conservative candidate. even if i don't love his rhetoric, he wins me over with policy. >> what specific policy? >> immigration. we have a massive crisis at the border now and i would attribute a lot of that to biden opening the border up. i would say, diplomacy lies, he

was one of the best presidents to do it. i don't think we would have the situation in ukraine we have now if he was president. >> another issue at top of mind, the israel-hamas work. -- war. >> the first thing i think about is the power we have in shaping policy towards. at our respective schools, over the last week, we have had encampments popping up. it really is incredible, students exercising their voices in such a way because i think that's an effective tool for getting your voice across. the issue that i have with some demonstrations is that when people are automatically, voluntarily disqualifying themselves, saying no matter what i will not vote for president biden, democrats need young voters to win, but if you are saying from the outset that nothing you can do will make me vote for you, why do they have any incentive to listen to?

>> how much has he moved to earn those boats that you said are not going to move? i want to know, in case i missed something, because i feel like for a while we have been calling for a cease-fire and that did not happen. i do not always have to vote democratic because you can change as a person. i don't think i should compromise my morals because i'm going with a certain direction in a specific party. >> did you vote for joe biden in 2020? >> yeah. and i changed my mind. >> president biden has been working over the months to push towards an immediate cease-fire, but unfortunately it's not his decision to make, because it's israel that's ultimately pushing the war. >> i am kind of a pessimist on this because even though the u.s. can call for a cease-fire -- and i understand there's other measures the u.s. could do -- what is actually going to stop israel at the end of the day?

i mean, it could. >> there was little agreement on president biden's ability to quickly negotiate an end to the war, but there was one issue most thought could tip the election in his favor. >> i have met several young women who are like i cannot stand joe biden but abortion. >> how big of an issue to you think abortion is going to be for young voters? >> massive. massive. because this is the issue that conservatives lose on. they are all about small government and your rights. well, now it's about creating restrictions. i think joe biden could muscle out a lot of votes by just standing on donald trump will take away abortion. >> for a lot of people, abortion is something that is front of mind. when they are thinking of policies that affect them every day, that is one that will come into play a lot more. >> in a battleground like michigan, voters like these

could ultimately swing the state. we asked them to sum up one thing they want national politicians to know about young voters. >> regardless of what party you are part of or are not a part of or if you are an independent, we don't like political division. there's a lot of solutions out there but i don't think we can reach them with all the tension in the country. >> party id is not there go to label. they are more likely to have their taylor swift bumper sticker than a democratic one. we are not going to just fall in line with a political party forever. they cannot count on that. >> for the sake of their careers, they need to listen what we are saying now, because we are going to be the ones getting a majority of their votes at some point. it may not happen now but in five or 10 years. so beware. that's what i would say to them. >> a strong threat.

we all mean that. ♪ amna: on our bookshelf tonight, a call to action for everyday americans to reclaim their political destinies from the heroes of our past and present. princeton university professor eddie glaude junior says that's what's needed to secure a just and democratic future for america. it's a case he makes in his new book we are the heroes we have been looking for. he joins us now. welcome back to the newshour. >> it's good to see you. it's a delight. amna: it's a beautiful book. it tackles some very big ideas. it's also fair to say there's an urgency to your writing in this book. tell me about that. what is driving that? >> i think we have outsourced our responsibilities to democracy for too long. we have outsourced it to politicians and so-called

community leaders when we need to take responsibility for it. if we do not take responsibility for democracy in this moment, we may well lose it. so instead of thinking -- looking to politicians, we need to look to ourselves. to do that, we have to examine who we take ourselves to be. >> we are the leaders we have been looking for, the profits we have been looking for, you write. this has been an absolute call to action. what is it you want to see everyday americans do differently? >> there's a through-line throughout the book, and it might sound a bit cliche, and that is to say, if we are going to be the leaders we have been looking for, we are going to have to be better people, and if we are going to be better people, we need to help make a more just and better world, because the world as its organized values selfishness, greed.

it gives license to hatred and grievance and fear. so part of what we have to do is do the hard work of becoming better people. and i get this from james baldwin. baldwin said, and i'm paraphrasing here, that the messiness of the world is in part a reflection of the messiness of our interior lives. we have to deal with our own wounds so we can open ourselves up to the beauty and brilliance of other people so we can be committed to justice. so i am making the claim that reaching for higher forms of excellence in pursuit of a more just world is a radical politics. amna: you write about who you call the heroes, the prophets, the leaders of democratic life, people like baldwin, people like dr. martin luther king, and is it not sort of human nature to turn people into heroes and heroines, to aspire to some kind of ideal? is there something that undermines our democratic life with that? >> absolutely. it is ordinary. it makes sense that people will find in the lives and witness of

other people examples, heroes, people they look up to, but the thing i'm worried about, and democracy should always be concerned about, is when prophets who are authorized by voices or authority outside of our form of life or heroes who become larger-than-life, we end up giving ourselves over to them. the moment we start following people and giving ourselves over to them, we stop working on ourselves. we stop doing the hard work of becoming better people. of course they are heroes. they are examples. ralph hall that emerson says great people come to us for greater -- ralph waldo emerson says great people come to us for greater people to follow. amna: you write about ella baker in particular, sometimes referred to as the mother of the civil rights movement. you refer to what you call her "democratic perfectionism." what does that mean? why is she an important person to highlight? >> is such an important figure.

without her, the 20th century black freedom movement would not make sense. she was the first executive director for the sclc, the christian leadership conference. there's a reason why the students who participated in the sit ins in the 1960's organize themselves at shaw university. that was ms. baker's alma mater. she had this orientation that she wanted to expand who mattered in the demos, so those sharecroppers, those who fell in the cracks and crevices of our democracy, she wanted to lift them up and created politics where they could understand their own power. she said a strong people do not need strong leaders. the objectives is to create an indigenous leadership, working to understand our own power, and that's what organizing is all about, to actually engage in the hard work on the ground of creating the conditions of building community with others.

amna: you re-examine some of your own views in this and some of your past essays and speeches as well. where does the election of america's first black president, the election of barack obama, fit into all of this? >> you know, i cannot deny the symbolic significance of president obama's election. my son grew up with a black family in the white house. i cannot begin to give an account of how meaningful that was for him and for me. but i was annoyed that obama's presidency was seen and often interpreted as the eventuates in, the outcome, of the civil rights movement -- the eventuation, the outcome, of the civil rights movement. the quest for justice goes beyond elections. it goes beyond mere representation. so i look back with some trepidation.

how did obama's presidency narrow what is considered legitimate forms of black dissent? how did it constrain black politics? i'm trying to open that up in my own individual way in this book. >> talk about the search and effort to become a better person. you turn that light on yourself as well. there are some intensely personal parts of this book, one in which you write about what you call your own primordial wound, one caused by your father. that moment stuck with me and i wonder why you felt compelled to include that in the book. >> often times we hide our own vulnerabilities. the idea of being a leader is that you don't show you are broken. dr. king would not smoke in public. we don't know the biographies of jesse jackson or only glimpses of sharpton. what i wanted to do is deal with my own wounds, you know, to understand how brokeness shakes me and my voice and my father is at the -- brokenness shapes me and my voice and my father's part of that. we have a wonderful relationship

today, but that is a journey. he scared the living daylights out of me as a kid. he could just look at me and i would cry at times. by virtue of my fear, the fear he deposited in my gut, i thought i was a coward. so i reached my hero, reached for malcolm x. i needed a form of masculinity in the face of what felt like being emasculated daily in some ways. you understand the beauty and brokenness. we are not reaching for wholeness. we have to understand the goal that fills the cracks and that's what i'm trying to do in that chapter. amna: there's a message of hope. you say that yours is an abiding faith in the capacity of everyday, ordinary people to be otherwise and in our ability no matter the evils that threaten to overwhelm to fight for a more just world. in the minute or so i have left, where do you derive that faith? >> in human beings, in us. i come out of a tradition where it did not seem possible for us to imagine ourselves in the grandest of terms.

we were nothing but slaves according to some. but we did make life swing duke ellington style. we gave the world the blues. we gave space and time a rhythm in so many ways. so human beings can be disastrous and cruel but we can also be miracles and we do need miracles today. amna: that's professor eddie glaude , author of the new book "we are the heroes we have been looking for." always a pleasure. thank you. >> thank you. appreciate. ♪ amna: remember there's a lot more online, including a look at why u.s. elections seem to stretch on longer than other countries. that is at pbs.org/newshour. geoff: join us again tomorrow night for a look at the terrorist threat posed by a resurgent isis in syria.

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