October 4, 2021 - PBS NewsHour full episode

JUDY WOODRUFF: Good evening.

I'm Judy Woodruff.

On the "NewsHour" tonight: digging in their heels.

The standoff deepens between President Biden and Senate Republicans over raising the debt ceiling.

Then: A major oil spill off the coast of California threatens wildlife as crews race to contain the damage.

And back in session.

The Supreme Court takes on abortion, gun rights and more divisive issues in the new term that starts today.

All that and more on tonight's "PBS NewsHour."

(BREAK) JUDY WOODRUFF: A high-stakes standoff between the president and Senate Republicans is unfolding in Washington over the country's debt limit.

It comes just two weeks before the United States is set to default on its debt, which could trigger damaging economic consequences for the entire country.

Today, President Biden called congressional Republicans' position -- quote -- "dangerous."

For more, I'm joined by our Yamiche Alcindor, our White House correspondent.

So Yamiche, we heard today both from the president and from the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell.

Where does everything stand?

YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Well, both sides are dug in as it relates to their stances on the debt ceiling.

And it's unclear which side will blink in this standoff.

Now, President Biden took to the White House podium today.

And he delivered pointed remarks.

He accused Republicans of playing -- quote - - "Russian roulette" with the U.S. economy.

He said that the debt ceiling is not about new spending.

He said that this is about whether or not the U.S. will be able to pay its bills.

Here's part of what the president had to say.

JOE BIDEN, President of the United States: Not only are Republicans refusing to do their job.

They're threatening to use the power, their power, to prevent us from doing our job, saving the economy from a catastrophic event.

I think, quite frankly, it's hypocritical, dangerous and disgraceful.

YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Now, President Biden also said that it is wrong for Republicans to link the debt ceiling limit and raising the debt limit with his infrastructure plans, though the GOP has said, if Democrats can pass the infrastructure plan, that $3.5 trillion plan, with only Democratic support, that they should also be able to raise the debt ceiling that way.

The president has pushed back on that, pushed back on the idea that it should be done through reconciliation.

He also said that Republicans essentially were in the wrong here because this has been a bipartisan endeavor to raise the debt ceiling.

But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell he took to the Senate floor after the president spoke.

Here's what McConnell had to say.

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): The majority doesn't need our votes.

They just want a partisan - - they just want a bipartisan shortcut around procedural hurdles they can actually clear on their own.

And they want that shortcut so they can pivot right back partisan spending as fast as possible.

YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Now, President Biden said that Republicans do not need to give their votes.

He said all they need to do is make sure not to filibuster.

But there is Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell saying that he is essentially going to stand in the way of Democrats trying to raise the debt ceiling.

It's also important that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, he wrote a letter to President Biden today saying that this is really the Democrats' problem to fix.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And just in a word, Yamiche, the last time we looked, there was also disagreement among Democrats over two huge pieces of legislation, reconciliation and this larger social spending.

Any movement on that?

YAMICHE ALCINDOR: The president is still trying to get his party on the same page.

The president today blamed essentially Senate - - Senators Manchin and Sinema, saying that they were the two Democrats that he couldn't get to really back his plans as of yet.

But the president did have a meeting with progressives today, saying that they need to come down on that $3.5 trillion price tag for the bipartisan infrastructure bill -- I should say, rather, for the Democratic-backed infrastructure bill.

So we will have to see where those numbers end up.

I'm hearing that it's going to be around $2 trillion.

But Senate minority leader - - Senate Majority Leader, rather, Chuck Schumer says he wants to get all of this done by the end of October.

So we will have to see where this ends.

But they're already eying the end of the month as trying to get this done.

JUDY WOODRUFF: All right, Yamiche Alcindor following these two major stories.

Thank you, Yamiche.

In the day's other news: Crews in Southern California worked to clean up an oil spill that fouled parts of the coastline over the weekend.

Huntington Beach was hit hard after an offshore pipeline leaked 126,000 gallons, closing beaches and killing wildlife.

Investigators are looking at whether a ship's anchor ruptured the pipeline.

We will return to this later in the program.

Today was the deadline for teachers and staff to get COVID vaccinations in New York City's public school system, the nation's largest.

Mayor Bill de Blasio says that 95 percent of school employees have now had at least one dose.

Thousands rushed to get inoculated in the past week to avoid being put on unpaid leave.

Refugee admissions to the U.S. hit a record low in the federal fiscal year that just ended.

The Associated Press reports just under 11, 500 refugees were admitted.

That does not include thousands of Afghans who came in recent weeks.

President Biden had pledged to reverse the sharp cuts of the Trump years.

U.N. humanitarian officials condemned Libya today for a violent crackdown on migrants trying to sail to Europe.

They say security forces rounded up more than 5, 100 people and killed at least one since Friday.

An estimated 215 children and more than 540 women were among those detained.

Other refugee advocates said it's Libya's largest crackdown in recent years.

ALEXANDRA SAIEH, Libya Advocacy Manager, Norwegian Refugee Council: We're hearing from migrants that we're in touch with that they're scared to leave their homes, we know that their Libyan neighbors have told them, don't leave your homes because it's just not safe.

So people are quite horrified.

JUDY WOODRUFF: The U.N.'s Human Rights Council also accused Libya's government today of possible crimes against humanity.

It cited violence against migrants and civilians caught up in warfare between rival regimes and militias.

Back in this country, the Biden administration reversed a Trump era ban on abortion referrals by family planning clinics that receive federal funding.

The ban had prompted a mass exodus from the program by providers linked with Planned Parenthood.

The policy now reverts to what it was in the Obama years.

Two Americans are the winners of this year's Nobel Prize for medicine for work that could lead eventually to new non-opioid painkillers.

David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian made breakthroughs years ago working independently of each other.

Their work shows how receptors in the skin respond to heat and pressure.

On Wall Street today, the broader market fell as tech stocks dropped.

The Dow Jones industrial average lost 323 points, or 1 percent, to close back near 34000.

The Nasdaq fell 311 points.

That's 2 percent.

The S&P 500 slid 56, more than 1 percent.

And oil prices closed near $78 a barrel.

That is the highest since 2014.

And "Star Trek"'s Captain Kirk is finally heading to space for real.

William Shatner, who's now 90 years old, will be a passenger next week on a Blue Origin capsule, the company owned by Amazon's Jeff Bezos.

The space travel company invited him on a flight that will last 10 minutes before returning to Earth.

Two other passengers will be paying customers.

Still to come on the "NewsHour": a look at the cases on the Supreme Court docket this term; Tamara Keith and Amy Walter break down the latest political news; a Pakistani musician embraces tradition while charting a new path; and much more.

Today, the Biden administration unveiled its long-awaited approach to trade relations with China.

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said that she would restart trade talks with Beijing, but maintain most Trump era tariffs on China.

Nick Schifrin is here to explain.

So, Nick, hello.

Tell us, what exactly did the U.S. trade representative announce?

NICK SCHIFRIN: That Biden will not move away from Trump era tariffs, will not launch a full-scale negotiation with China, and will instead enforce President Trump's trade deal with China.

That trade deal is known as phase one, in which Beijing promised to buy about $200 billion of American goods.

But the Peterson Institute says that China has only bought 62 cents for every $1 it's promised.

Ambassador Tai said today that she would hold China accountable to its commitments.

But it was very restrained criticism and she took pains not to say that she supported a trade war.

KATHERINE TAI, U.S. Trade Representative: Our analysis indicates that, while commitments in certain areas have been met, that certain business interests have seen benefits, there have also been shortfalls in others.

Our objective is not to inflame trade tensions with China.

Durable coexistence requires accountability and respect for the enormous consequences of our actions.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Ambassador Tai said she would allow U.S. companies to appeal to remove tariffs.

The U.S. will try to work more with allies to confront China's trade practices and will try to be more resilient in the U.S., Judy, through its Build Back Better.

But, ultimately, today was about continuity, maintaining Trump era tariffs as a tool for economic strategies.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So many businesses watching this very closely.

What has been the response so far?

NICK SCHIFRIN: She has been criticized by multiple sides.

Some China experts I have spoken to say this is not a strategy; it's a holding pattern borne out of fear that any major steps on China is perilous domestically politically for the Biden administration.

Some of the more hawkish experts I have talked to say this doesn't go far enough, that there is no promised punishment for China not adhering to reduce promises, nor is there a road map to try and get China to make those fundamental changes.

But, on the other side, businesses have been pushing the Biden administration to say that tariffs don't work.

So, take a listen to Anna Ashton of the U.S.-China Business Council, who told me she was disappointed.

ANNA ASHTON, U.S.-China Business Council: It's a disappointment to see this focus on the value of tariffs.

I don't think that there's been a case made by the Biden administration either today during Ambassador Tai's speech or prior to today that the tariffs have been beneficial in any specific way.

And, at the same time, we have all of this evidence that's mounted over the course of the last few years that the tariffs have been detrimental to U.S. businesses.

NICK SCHIFRIN: So it seems that Ambassador Tai didn't please very many people, but she kept her cards close to the vest, held back her criticism, and that may give her room in those upcoming talks with Beijing.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And what about Beijing.

Have they said anything yet?

NICK SCHIFRIN: They have not said anything to her, but they have responded in the last few days in a very different way.

More Chinese planes have flown into Taiwan's self-declared Air Defense Identification Zone just outside of Taiwanese airspace than ever before.

This is three straight days of record military harassment of Taiwan.

Today, Taiwan's foreign minister said he was concerned that Beijing would launch a war, but did not think that war was imminent.

But, bottom line, Judy, Beijing is flexing its muscles militarily, warning the U.S. and its allies over support for Taiwan.

We will soon see whether Beijing will also flex its muscles in trade talks.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Connections between the economy and the military.

We will see.

Nick Schifrin, thank you.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Thank you.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Federal and state investigators are focusing on a 41-year-old pipeline as the cause of a massive oil spill off the coast of California.

The spill is threatening wildlife and prompting a robust cleanup effort in the Pacific.

But, as Stephanie Sy reports, the scale and scope of the damage remains unclear.

STEPHANIE SY: A calm day on the water betrays an unfolding catastrophe, some of the first victims, the California coast's ever-present seals, slicked in oil.

Booms and skimmers have been deployed to contain and clean up the some 126,000 gallons of oil spilled from an underwater pipeline into the Pacific Ocean on Saturday.

Today, officials said oil can be seen overhead from Orange County's Huntington Beach all the way down to Dana Point.

Local officials warned, some beaches would be closed for weeks or even months.

Orange County Supervisor Katrina Foley described the scene to reporters on Sunday.

KATRINA FOLEY, Orange County, California Supervisor: I was there for a few hours today, and even during that time, I started to feel a little bit of -- my throat hurt.

And you can feel the vapor in the air.

STEPHANIE SY: Orange County's Health Care Agency has asked residents to refrain from participating in recreational activities on the coastline such as swimming, surfing, biking, walking, exercising, and gathering.

The area known as Surf City is closed and mostly empty, but for volunteers picking up tar balls.

SCOTT WHITE, Cleanup Volunteer: I'm picking this up, and then I'm going to take it to a disposal center, as much as I can carry right now.

STEPHANIE SY: Amplify Energy says they are still trying to locate where on their pipeline the suspected leak occurred.

The pipeline began leaking roughly four miles off the shore and was shut down on Saturday night.

Martyn Willsher is the CEO of Amplify Energy.

MARTYN WILLSHER, CEO, Amplify Energy: We will do everything in our power to ensure that this is recovered as quickly as possible.

And we won't be done until this is concluded.

STEPHANIE SY: For Californians, the spill is just the latest environmental punch.

KIM CARR, Mayor of Huntington Beach, California: Preventing an ecological disaster.

STEPHANIE SY: Kim Carr is the mayor of Huntington Beach, where, by today, the oil had already infiltrated Talbert Marsh, a large ecological reserve.

KIM CARR: We are in the midst of a potential ecological disaster.

Our wetlands are being degraded, and portions of our coastline are now covered in oil.

STEPHANIE SY: Oil spills kill wildlife.

Heavy oil can smother animals.

And when seabirds get oil in their feathers, the birds can't stay warm.

They die of hypothermia.

It's one of the worst spills Southern California has seen in recent history.

The last major spill was in 2015 near Santa Barbara, when a ruptured pipeline dumped 2, 400 barrels onshore and into the ocean.

As the cause of this oil spill is investigated, people who live and work near Huntington Beach reported smelling oil as early as Friday, leaving many to ask whether officials responded quickly enough to contain the spill.

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Stephanie Sy.

JUDY WOODRUFF: A worldwide consortium of journalists has published what it calls the Pandora Papers, revealing a parallel financial universe in which world leaders and the mega-rich can hide billions of dollars in secretive offshore accounts.

Investigators say the accounts drain money from government treasuries and can undermine national security and democracy.

Nick Schifrin is back with that story.

NICK SCHIFRIN: The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists shared 12 million financial records with 150 news organizations to provide an unprecedented window into how billions are hidden from authorities, investigators, and country's citizens.

Jordan's King Abdullah's advisers created dozens of shell companies to buy homes worth $106 million, despite high poverty levels in Jordan and a corruption crackdown that targets citizens who use shell companies.

Today, Jordan's palace said the king's properties were -- quote -- "not unusual, nor improper.

These properties are not publicized out of security and privacy concerns."

In Russia, President Vladimir Putin's alleged girlfriend became the owner of a Monaco apartment through an offshore company.

And, in the U.S., states have passed secrecy laws that allow tens of millions to be sheltered from view.

Joining me to discuss this is Drew Sullivan, co-founder and editor of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.

Drew Sullivan, welcome to the welcome to the "NewsHour."

Your organization teamed up with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists to publish these stories.

Why do you think secretive offshore accounts are a threat to national security and democracy?

DREW SULLIVAN, Co-Founder and Editor, Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project: Well, really, opaque money is opaque power.

And what these offshore companies really are is, they're a device to move money around the world and to keep it secret.

And the problem with that is, it can be money that is stolen and it can be money that you are trying to move for some business somewhere.

But, a lot of time, it's really money people are trying to hide, people are trying to launder.

And once that money gets into your country, you don't know what it is going to do.

It could do something like create a real estate bubble, which is annoying, but not harmful.

But it could also fund things like terrorist groups, extremists, political parties, bad actors in your country, terrorists.

So it's just -- in this day and age, we should be able to control the monetization of money in our countries.

And we really can't because of this offshore industry.

NICK SCHIFRIN: And one of the more interesting parts of this investigation is that it's not only offshore, is it?

It's inside the United States.

DREW SULLIVAN: It's all over the world.

And in the United States, they're proliferating too.

So, you have places like South Dakota and Wyoming and Nevada and a lot of other states considering passing laws.

Lots of organized crime gangs that we follow and track are more often using the United States now than they are some place like Dubai or something like that.

And it is because the United States, a U.S. address seems to give an indication that that is a legitimate company.

And U.S. companies are respected for the transparency.

But, in fact, you are not getting the transparency.

It's being hidden.

NICK SCHIFRIN: As I mentioned before, offshore companies linked to King Abdullah of Jordan have purchased one of the hundred million dollars of homes in the U.S. and U.K. What does his story say to you?

DREW SULLIVAN: That is really a classic case of a ruler really not wanting their people to know what properties they have, because it will raise questions as to whether it is appropriate to have a $33 million mansion overlooking Malibu.

Is that really the image for the king of Jordan?

And so it basically helps them avoid the kind of scrutiny and the kind of questions as to whether they're really acting in the interests of their country.

More importantly, increasingly, a lot of rulers -- and I'm not saying this is about King Abdullah, but a lot of this money and a lot of other rulers, and potentially the king, it's stolen money.

It is money that has been paid in bribes.

It's money that is paid in getting part of a business deal and those types of things.

And so they also want to keep those kind of interests and those kind of assets that they're purchasing from that outside of the public and the regulators' purview.

NICK SCHIFRIN: I also mentioned Vladimir Putin.

What does that story say?

And what does it say how the Russian authorities have responded to the journalists who have exposed this?

DREW SULLIVAN: Putin has probably stolen somewhere around $200.

And he's one of the most rapacious rulers in the world in terms of -- we have we have studied how he gets kickbacks and steals money for years.

And his system is simply he's going to take what he wants, and anybody who causes problems or raises these issues are crushed.

And, in fact, just in the last four months or so, most of the large respected investigative reporting organizations in Russia have had to stop publishing in Russia.

NICK SCHIFRIN: This is all out there.

Of course, it's being dismissed and denied by the various people in these stories.

What's the real-world effect, if any?

DREW SULLIVAN: Well, there will be some.

I mean, there will be people who ask for sanctions.

There will be people who will ask for Magnitsky filings, which will basically allow those properties to be taken away.

So, I mean, there's a large civil society world out there that is really trying to police this by using sanctions and seizures of properties to get the money back for the citizens of those countries.

And you will see that, especially in the most egregious cases, like Azerbaijan, where they had $700 million worth of property in London.

I mean, that's obscene.

And I think you will see a lot of people going after those public interest law firms trying to get these assets taken away.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Drew Sullivan, thank you very much.

DREW SULLIVAN: Great to be here, Nick.

Thanks.

JUDY WOODRUFF: The Supreme Court returned to the courtroom this morning to hear its first oral arguments of what looks to be an unusually consequential new term.

John Yang has more.

JOHN YANG: Judy, the Supreme Court term began this morning with familiar words from Chief Justice John Roberts.

JOHN ROBERTS, Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court: I have the honor to announce, on behalf of the court, that the October 2020 term of the Supreme Court of the United States is now closed.

And the October 2021 term is now convened.

JOHN YANG: But even though the justices, most of them, at least, were back in person, not much else seemed the same as when they were last in the courtroom in March 2020.

And the cases set for argument this term could make it one of the most contentious in many years.

Marcia Coyle, chief Washington correspondent for "The National Law Journal," was one of the two dozen of so reporters back in the courtroom this morning.

And she is back in the she is back in the studio now.

MARCIA COYLE, "The National Law Journal": John, yes.

(CROSSTALK) JOHN YANG: Marcia, what was it like?

What was it like this morning?

MARCIA COYLE: Well, you know, John, it was normal and it was abnormal.

It was normal in the fact that there are were justices actually on the bench and they were hearing oral arguments.

But it was abnormal.

First days at the Supreme Court, you usually have a court building that's full of tourists on the lower level, lines of people who are waiting to get seats in the courtroom, lines of lawyers in suits waiting to be sworn into the bar, and the whole floor seems to be humming with talk, but, today, silence, a few Supreme Court police officers, a few staff people going in and out of offices, everybody masked.

You go into the courtroom, and you see the press, those of us who attended, we were in the public seats, not in the usual press section, but in public seats, so that we could be spread out.

And we were masked.

And, also, the lawyers who were going to argue, they were limited to having only one other lawyer with them - - before, you could have that table full of a team of lawyers -- also masked.

In the guest section for the justices, there really was hardly anybody there, but Justice Kennedy, retired Justice Kennedy, showed up in mask.

Justin Breyer's wife was there in a mask.

And Justice Barrett's husband showed up masked, and they were appropriately distanced.

So it was strange.

And then, during the arguments, as you mentioned, they were all on the bench except for Justice Kavanaugh, who last week was positive for COVID and is staying out of the arguments this week.

But he was participated remotely.

So you had this disembodied voice echoing in the courtroom when he did ask questions.

The only justice who wore a mask was Justice Sotomayor, and I think because of being extra cautious, and since she is a diabetic.

So, it was strange, and then it wasn't strange.

JOHN YANG: And it is a big term for this court.

MARCIA COYLE: It is.

JOHN YANG: I mean, there is hardly a hot-button issue that they are not considering this term, including the most divisive of all, abortion.

MARCIA COYLE: That's right, John.

And who knows.

There may be two abortion cases getting to the court.

At least, the -- there is still action in the lower courts on the Texas ban at six weeks of pregnancy.

So, it is not only abortion.

It's guns.

They have taken up a case that could result in the expansion of gun rights under the Second Amendment.

They have also taken two religion-related cases, one that deals with separation of church and state, one involving a death row inmate who wants to have his minister president in the death chamber, but praying and laying on hands.

So, yes, you are absolutely right.

And they could add to that easily.

Pending is a big affirmative action case involving Harvard.

The court continues to accept cases until about mid-January, and then, usually, they have about 70 for arguments.

And, right now, I think the number is about 39.

So, this term could grow yet.

JOHN YANG: And in this first week, on Wednesday, there is a case involving state secrets.

(CROSSTALK) MARCIA COYLE: That's right, John.

In fact, it is one of two state secrets cases, which is really unusual.

The court hasn't looked at the state secrets doctrine for a long time.

The first case that is on Wednesday involves somebody who is now at Guantanamo Bay, but he is trying to get evidence, what we call discovery of evidence from former federal contractors who were involved in his interrogation when he was at a CIA black site in Poland.

This detainee was seriously interrogated.

In fact, they say he was suffered brain damage and the loss of one eye.

The government is saying, you can't have that evidence because it will expose national security to danger.

The court has got to take a look at that.

And there is another case that involves three Muslim men from California, I believe, who feel that they were -- that the FBI was surveilling them because of their religion.

And, again, they want information and.

The government has pleaded the state secrets doctrine.

So, yes.

And then there is also a very important death penalty -- the Boston Marathon bomber, his sentence was invalidated by a federal appellate court because of errors at trial.

And the justices have agreed to look at those trial errors and see if the lower court was correct in what it did.

So, yes, it is a huge term, huge.

JOHN YANG: In recent weeks, we have had a number of justices give public remarks, all sort of defending the court against a lot of criticism from the public.

What is going on here?

MARCIA COYLE: John, I think it's a reaction to the court's more recent rulings on emergency applications that come to it.

It is generally known as the court's shadow docket.

And those rulings have come in very controversial areas, such as the Texas abortion ban, the Biden administration's effort to extend the ban on evictions, as well as the remain-in-Mexico immigration policy of the Trump administration.

And so I think the justices -- some of the justices are voicing concerns about the court's - - the impact of this criticism of the court and maybe also have an eye on the fact that this is a very controversial term.

The public is going to be watching.

And so they're worried what the public is going to react to the decisions that may be coming forward.

JOHN YANG: Marcia Coyle of "The National Law Journal," who will be helping us keep an eye on the term ahead, thank you very much.

MARCIA COYLE: My pleasure, John.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Facebook and its group of apps and social media channels went down for most of this day.

William Brangham looks at the latest, all of it coming on the eve of another difficult congressional hearing for the social media giant.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: That's right, Judy.

Facebook's app, along with Instagram and WhatsApp, went dark for several hours today, and, at this moment, they appear to be slowly coming back up.

The cause of the outages still has not been explained, but for the more than three billion people in the United States and abroad who use these apps to communicate and to do business, these outages were a huge disruption and a reminder of these apps' influence.

Sheera Frenkel of The New York Times reports on Facebook extensively, and has been following this all day.

She's the co-author of "An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook's Battle for Domination."

Sheera, great to have you back on the "NewsHour."

Can you help us understand, what is it that happened today?

SHEERA FRENKEL, Co-Author, "An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook's Battle For Domination": So, starting at about 9:00 a.m. Pacific today out here in California, Facebook and its family of apps went down.

That includes Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus.

These are platforms that, as you said, impact over 3.5 billion people.

And, for several hours, no one, including the security engineers at Facebook knew what was going on.

This was amplified by the fact that Facebook's own internal communications were down.

So it wasn't just that we couldn't access Facebook.com.

Facebook engineers couldn't get into their own e-mails, and they couldn't even access their own buildings in many cases.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Is there any evidence -- I mean, this is what we always think of when these kinds of things happen nowadays -- that this was a hack of some kind?

SHEERA FRENKEL: At this point in time, we don't see evidence that this was a hack.

We spoke to nearly a dozen engineers that are working within Facebook, many of them directly to fix this.

And they said that it's extremely unlikely that a hacker would be able to have this kind of impact, that it would take down all these Facebook apps at the same time.

What was a lot more likely and what seems to have happened was that it was an internal update rolled out by Facebook that just went very badly, and which it took them many, many hours to try and fix.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: OK, for the skeptics out there who say, why are we even paying attention to this, can you just remind us of the stakes here?

That billions of people use these apps, and they're not just teenagers sharing pictures and videos of their friends.

SHEERA FRENKEL: Absolutely.

Well, we hope they're not just teenagers sharing pictures of them and their friends, given all the reporting The Wall Street Journal did last week on the effect of Instagram on teenagers.

Facebook is largely used by businesses all over the world.

We have to remember that in countries ranging from Sri Lanka to Myanmar to Indonesia, Facebook is the way people do business and WhatsApp is a way that people do business.

We spoke to shop owners all over the world today who said that their businesses were effectively shut down because people could not get to their Facebook pages and because they could not use WhatsApp to message people.

We also spoke to people who couldn't reach family members, who couldn't reach elderly family members in other parts of the world because WhatsApp was down.

So this is something that people use it is practically a utility in many parts of the world and in many people's lives.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And, as you say, that Facebook in many places is in some places a stand in for the Internet, is the vehicle by which people get onto the Internet.

This comes, for people who've been paying attention to this, at an incredibly in our opportune moment for Facebook.

We saw last night on "60 Minutes" a whistle-blower came forward who you referenced who's been arguing that Facebook has not been doing enough to tamp down on some of the what it knows to be damaging impact that its Web site has on teenagers.

This also comes after a year-plus its scrutiny about their behavior and whether they have cracked down on hate and misinformation that you reported in your book, and then a hearing coming tomorrow on Capitol Hill.

I mean, this is -- they are in the crosshairs as much as possible on the very day that their Web site goes down.

SHEERA FRENKEL: You couldn't really think of worse timing, as far as Facebook is concerned, for people to be going to Google and Twitter and putting in there, what is wrong with Facebook or what is the problem with Facebook?

Because they're going to come back with hundreds of articles that were written in the last week pointing to really deep systemic problems within Facebook.

You just touched on many of those in your question, the ways in which Instagram is bad for teenagers, the way in which Facebook as a platform has promoted hate speech and misinformation.

These are things that journalists have been writing about for year and, as you noted, which we covered in our book, which came out this summer.

But we now have a whistle-blower who's come forward with internal documents showing that Facebook was sitting on research showing -- showing -- sorry, just how bad the platform was, just how many harms the platform was causing.

And despite that research, they continued to make decisions which amplified hate speech, which increased the amount of misinformation people saw, and which marketed their product towards teenagers, which we know are incredibly sensitive to the harms of Instagram.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: I know that this is not air traffic control, this is not a missile defense, this is not a hospital, but, as you said, there are plenty of examples in which Facebook is a vital ability for people to get onto the Internet.

But it is a little bit alarming, I think it's fair to say, that something as simple as this glitch that you're describing that could be what happened here could take down such a central part of the Internet.

SHEERA FRENKEL: Absolutely.

And I think it shows us the danger of Facebook having such a large role to play in the infrastructure of the Internet.

I mean, one thing I hadn't said before which people should also consider is that many people use Facebook to log into other apps.

They use it to log into their smart home systems, like their smart TVs, or even their smart thermostats.

So when Facebook went down, people couldn't access basic things around their house.

I mean, this is a mega-Internet company that touches on so many different aspects of your lives.

And, in some way, it takes Facebook going down in this really sort of catastrophic and immense way for people to understand just how many parts of their lives this company touches on.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Indeed.

Sheera Frenkel, always good to see you from The New York Times.

Thank you very much for being here.

SHEERA FRENKEL: Thank you so much for having me.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Stare-downs in Washington on the debt ceiling and the Biden agenda have left President Biden working to keep the country from defaulting on its debt and to bring Democrats together over government spending priorities.

Here to talk about it all, our Politics Monday team, Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter and Tamara Keith of NPR.

Hello to both of you on this Monday.

Good to see you.

So, let's just dive right in.

Tam, it was our lead story tonight, this standoff between President Biden and the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, pointing fingers at each other over something that we know has to be raised.

The debt ceiling, it can't sit where it is.

It has to go up, so what is this all about?

TAMARA KEITH, National Public Radio: Every time there is a debt ceiling fight, there are fingers pointed everywhere, and it is all about spending that has already happened.

This isn't about spending that is coming in the future.

This is allowing us to pay our bills as a country.

But President Biden and Mitch McConnell have now exchanged letters and words.

And they are not seemingly looking for a path out of this.

They are both dug in.

The question is, does the public care?

Maybe not right now.

If the U.S. defaults on its debt, the public will suddenly care a lot.

And then they will start wondering whose fault it was.

And, right now, they're pointing in opposite directions, trying to make sure that the other one gets the blame.

AMY WALTER, The Cook Political Report: Right.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, some people look at this at political games, but there are real consequences.

AMY WALTER: There are real consequences for the stare-down if both of them refuse to blink.

But, to Tam's point, this has been going on for so long that even the markets have now sometimes -- although, today, I think there was a little blip.

But even they have sort of assumed that, look, this is just gamesmanship and eventually this is going to get worked out.

This is just a political process.

But there are real consequences.

And the real challenge right now is that -- the president himself and his party, they are the ones in charge.

And so, when it comes to the blame game, Democrats -- Tam is correct -- they will say to Republicans, hey, this is pretty hypocritical, you guys not allowing a vote on this, considering the fact that you voted on it when Donald Trump was president.

And, also, we're paying for a lot of the programs you all voted for.

That is what we are doing.

But Republicans will say you know, you know what?

And this is what they are saying.

We don't like the $3.5 trillion package you are putting together.

And if we give you a vote on the debt ceiling, it is basically saying we're OK with this amount of spending, which we're not.

And guess what?

Democrats, you have the votes.

You go ahead and do it.

You don't want to do it because you don't want to take the tough votes.

And, by the way, just one more quick thing.

It drags out this process for the president's agenda.

And Democrats are so eager to be done with this.

JUDY WOODRUFF: But, meanwhile, Tam, we remember it wasn't that many decades ago that Joe Biden and Mitch McConnell were actually able to work together on a few things.

TAMARA KEITH: It wasn't even decades ago.

In fact, they even worked together to settle a previous debt ceiling dispute.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Right.

TAMARA KEITH: And it's possible they will figure it out this time.

But McConnell is taking this hard line, essentially saying that Republicans are going to filibuster a clean debt ceiling increase.

He wants Democrats to have to completely own it, to do this procedural thing called reconciliation, which we have been talking about a lot for President Biden's Build Back Better agenda.

But they want them to use this thing that will draw more attention to the debt ceiling being raised, will take time, will take floor time in the Senate.

The White House is saying, oh, it's risky to do that because what if it takes too long?

But having it take too long, I think, is part of the goal for Mitch McConnell to really make Democrats own this and not just vote on it quickly late at night.

AMY WALTER: That's right.

That's right.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Can one side or another, Amy, get badly burned by this, or do they just - - does it just pass and we look back and there they go again?

AMY WALTER: And there they go again.

I do think the public is definitely frustrated and seeing both sides.

Nobody has a clean bill of health on the hypocrisy scale, right, or whatever.

I mixed a lot of metaphors there.

But I think you know where I'm going.

But, as I said, the party in power gets all the blame.

And so the president himself, we have been talking a lot these past few weeks about the fact that he's been struggling politically.

He needs a big win.

People don't understand what this is all about.

The president will take the blame when things go poorly.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, of course, this isn't the only headache the president is dealing with right now, Tam.

What we spent so many hours thinking about, talking about last week, the division among Democrats over infrastructure and over this bigger social spending bill, any -- I mean, what happens if this just drags on?

TAMARA KEITH: Well, this is going to just drag on.

They're talking about Halloween.

President Biden has previously talked about Christmas as sort of the informal deadline in his mind.

This was sort of a self-imposed deadline on Thursday that they missed a vote on the bipartisan infrastructure plan.

The reality, which has been sort of clear, but was crystallized by last week, is that Democrats have to figure out how to agree amongst themselves on the whole thing, the big bipartisan -- the Build Back Better and the bipartisan infrastructure plan.

They have to agree on all of it, and they don't yet.

But there have been past big bills that looked like they just weren't going to happen, the Republican tax cut under President Trump, the Affordable Care Act under President Obama.

And round about Christmastime, things that seemed impossible suddenly were like, oh, why did we think that wouldn't happen?

JUDY WOODRUFF: Right.

It's a mouthful.

But could it really, Amy, go on that long?

AMY WALTER: Yes.

And it probably will.

I think the end of October is way too optimistic.

So it is probably the end of the year.

And just to appreciate what Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer are dealing with here, going back to some of those votes, or I go all the way back to the '90s with Bill Clinton, you know, Clinton lost about 40 Democrats in the House on his big reconciliation bill.

Trump lost 13 Republicans on that tax bill that Tam was referring to.

Nancy Pelosi can afford three defections, three.

Oh, Obama lost 40-something votes on health care, on Obamacare.

So she does -- she has literally no room for error, which is where this started at the very beginning.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Different... (CROSSTALK) AMY WALTER: We have known all along, a 50/50 Senate, three-seat margin in the House.

This cannot just -- you can't sort of like just muscle this through.

This is precision legislating.

TAMARA KEITH: And Democrats hold all the control, all the levers of power, but they barely, barely have a grasp on any of them.

AMY WALTER: That's right.

That's right.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Very quickly, and not much time left, but I really want to ask you about what John Yang was talking to Marcia Coyle about.

And that is the Supreme Court term starting today.

They have got a number of high-profile cases coming up, including Mississippi abortion law that would allow -- it essentially tightens the restrictions around abortions.

And then we have, of course, just seen the Supreme Court uphold the Texas law that permits regular people to sue abortion providers.

We looked at a poll that -- this is the Marist poll that the "NewsHour" does with NPR.

Both of them are not liked by a majority of Americans look at this; 74 percent of Americans say they don't agree with the legal action by private citizens; 58 percent don't like this so-called cardiac activity law.

This is -- in other words, Tam, my question is, it's not just something that the courts have to worry about.

The public is invested in this politically.

TAMARA KEITH: And yet there is no political mechanism in America to have a referendum to have the will of the people.

And there's no such thing as settled law.

There's precedent.

There's super precedent.

But those things can change over time.

And that is what is potentially happening here.

AMY WALTER: Yes.

And the question too, is, does that translate into voting behavior?

In other words, how salient is that issue for voters, who may disapprove of many of these things, but they say, you know what?

Coronavirus, the COVID.

issue is my number one priority.

The economy is my number one priority.

I -- this is important to me, but not as important as those other things.

We're not going to really understand where the salience is until first we see the rulings, but then also understand where we are come next fall.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And which voters could get motivated by whatever happens.

AMY WALTER: Yes.

That's right.

That's right.

JUDY WOODRUFF: That's right.

Amy Walter, Tamara Keith, thank you both.

AMY WALTER: You're welcome.

TAMARA KEITH: You're welcome.

JUDY WOODRUFF: The South Asian art form known as Sufi music has a centuries-old tradition built on poetry and mysticism coupled with specific instruments, meters and repetition.

One Brooklyn-based Pakistani musician is steeped in that history, yet also going her own way, refusing to let others define her work.

Special correspondent Tom Casciato has our story.

It's part of our arts and culture series, Canvas.

TOM CASCIATO: Arooj Aftab recently debuted work from her latest album at a concert at Brooklyn's Pioneer Works.

Her compositions are personal, her performance intimate, but it was far from a solo effort.

AROOJ AFTAB, Musician: The way that I like to kind of produce this music is leaving space for the band.

We're all involved in telling a story from this moment the song starts until the very end.

TOM CASCIATO: Still, the band is executing a vision of which she is in command.

AROOJ AFTAB: To even actually conceptualize a band like that is a creative work.

Especially as a singer/composer who doesn't actively play an instrument, there is this sentiment in the industry of, like, kind of discrediting women for the work that they do.

You have to kind of overstate that you're not just a singer.

You are also the composer.

You're also the producer.

You're also the arranger.

TOM CASCIATO: She's also unwilling to let others define her.

She sings mostly in Urdu, her lyrics drawn from poetry often centuries-old.

Her music draws from seemingly everywhere.

For example, she will bring non-traditional instruments like synthesizer and lever harp to a traditional South Asian poetic form like the ghazal.

She's even given her style its own name, neo-Sufi.

AROOJ AFTAB: It's not South Asian classical music with -- like fused with jazz.

It's like it's living in its own world of, like, a marriage of many roots and heritages.

So I was kind of like, I need to, like, name this right now, you know?

(LAUGHTER) TOM CASCIATO: Take ahold of it.

Writing of her recent album, "Vulture Prince," the music site Pitchfork said she has "as much a claim to the Western traditions of jazz and experimental electronica as to the folk and classical music of her homeland."

The album is dedicated to her younger brother, Maher, who passed away in 2018.

AROOJ AFTAB: When it's a younger sibling, it's almost like you're kind of -- if they're young enough, you kind of raised them too.

So it's like such a weird -- kind of weird sort of loss.

TOM CASCIATO: Her loss and her art converge in a composition called "Diya Haiti," its lyrics derived from a poem by the popular 19th century Indian poet Mirza Ghalib.

AROOJ AFTAB: And I loved the poem itself, but it took me a really long time to actually, like, make it mine.

When I was workshopping it and trying to figure it out, like, I was in Pakistan, and I was hanging out with Maher.

And so it's the last thing that I really sang to him.

And so that kind of felt important to me that I should really just, like, figure it out and put it in the record.

TOM CASCIATO: There was a time as a teenager in Lahore, Pakistan, when it looked like she would never make a record.

Were your parents OK with you wanting to be a musician?

AROOJ AFTAB: I think they were like, that's not going to work out for you.

Like, that - - you're not going to make any money.

What are you saying?

You want to be famous?

TOM CASCIATO: Still, she had the self-assurance to take on a poet of more recent vintage, Leonard Cohen, and his celebrated composition "Hallelujah."

AROOJ AFTAB: I think no one believed in me at the time.

And I really wanted to -- I wanted to -- I wanted people to believe that I'm good at music.

TOM CASCIATO: She was more than good.

Aftab's version of "Hallelujah" went viral in Pakistan.

It also helped fuel an ambition she revealed to her parents.

AROOJ AFTAB: And I was like, well, there's this college.

It's called Berklee.

And I will get a bachelor's degree, and I will study audio engineering and jazz.

And they were like, oh, OK.

So somebody has organized this for us.

Fine.

Let's do it.

TOM CASCIATO: Accepted to Boston's prestigious Berklee College of Music, Aftab moved to the states in 2005.

She kept at her goal of becoming a professional musician, but got her degree in music production and engineering.

AROOJ AFTAB: I felt that I needed some sort of, like, concrete industry skill.

I came out of Berklee in like 2008 or '09, moved to New York, super recession times.

All the music studios were kind of closing.

People were making all these products that you could record at home.

So it was just like, oh, great, no -- we don't - - they don't need audio engineers anymore.

TOM CASCIATO: Audio engineering's loss was composing's gain.

Where else would we get a song like "Last Night," with lyrics adapted from 13th century Sufi mystic and poet Rumi put to a beat like this one?

AROOJ AFTAB: I really liked the idea of juxtaposing Rumi with a reggae groove, but also kind of jazz, upright bass vibes, and then, like, adding this sort of Urdu meter in the middle.

TOM CASCIATO: There's just a whole world of things you just talked about in half-a-sentence.

(LAUGHTER) TOM CASCIATO: Let's just go back for a minute.

AROOJ AFTAB: I was reading a lot of Rumi.

I was also listening to a lot of reggae.

In a jam, like, those two things kind of came together.

TOM CASCIATO: I'm not sure they have ever come together before.

(LAUGHTER) TOM CASCIATO: It's not like, you know, those Rumi reggae tunes that everyone does.

(LAUGHTER) AROOJ AFTAB: Right.

TOM CASCIATO: Aftab says, for her next album, she'd like to explore the writings of a medieval Indian ruler and warrior called Chand Bibi.

AROOJ AFTAB: She was one of the only and first female feminist warrior politician bad-ass who, like, released an anthology of poems.

I liked the fact that her work has never been put to song.

TOM CASCIATO: And do you relate to feminist badass warriors?

(LAUGHTER) AROOJ AFTAB: I think so.

I think that we all probably came from her.

TOM CASCIATO: Maybe that's where Arooj Aftab came from, where she's taking her audience is somewhere new.

I'm Tom Casciato for the "PBS NewsHour" in Brooklyn, New York.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Such a wonderful story.

And on the "NewsHour" online right now: A family-owned Louisiana grocery store open for 107 years has weathered numerous storms.

But damage from Hurricane Ida has the community wondering whether this local staple can bounce back.

That's on our Web site, PBS.org/NewsHour.

And that's the "NewsHour" for tonight.

I'm Judy Woodruff.

Join us online and again here tomorrow evening.

For all of us at the "PBS NewsHour," thank you, please stay safe, and we'll see you soon.