JUDY WOODRUFF: Good evening.

I'm Judy Woodruff.

On the "NewsHour" tonight, I sit down with 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.

Then hundreds of former federal prosecutors, both Republican and Democrat, sign a letter stating that President Trump would have been indicted for obstruction of justice if he were not a sitting president.

Plus: from crib to college.

Pennsylvania will now open a college savings account for every newborn baby in the state automatically, and with $100 already invested.

JOE TORSELLA, Pennsylvania State Treasurer: That $100 grows to $400.

And if they deposit $25 a month from the time that child's born, they will have more than $10,000 by that time that child reaches 18.

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

(BREAK) JUDY WOODRUFF: Wall Street is feeling the pain tonight from a jolt of uncertainty over U.S. trade talks with China.

Talk of new tariffs starting this Friday sent the market into a day-long sell-off, the Dow Jones industrial average plunging 473 points to close at 25965.

That is its worst percentage decline since early January.

The Nasdaq fell 159 points and the S&P 500 shed 48.

The Trump White House today intensified its resistance to investigations by congressional Democrats.

Officials ordered former White House counsel Don McGahn to defy a subpoena from the U.S. House Judiciary Committee.

It seeks documents related to the Russia investigation.

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell joined the president's pushback against Democrats.

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): They told everyone there'd been a conspiracy between Russia and the Trump campaign.

Yet, on this central question, the special counsel's finding is clear.

Case closed.

Case closed.

This ought to be good news for everyone.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Democrats say the question of whether the president obstructed justice is anything but closed.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appeared today at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and said the president is making the case for impeachment.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): Trump is goading us to impeach him.

That's what he's doing.

Every single day, he's just like taunting, taunting, taunting, because he knows that it would be very divisive in the country.

But he doesn't really care.

Just wants to solidify his base.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Pelosi said again that Congress needs to follow the facts before deciding whether to pursue impeachment.

Also today, the House Judiciary Committee negotiated with the Justice Department over gaining access to the full Mueller report.

Staffers from both sides met in a bid to resolve the dispute.

So far, Attorney General William Barr has refused to release the complete unredacted report.

The committee is scheduled to vote tomorrow on holding him in contempt of Congress.

FBI Director Christopher Wray broke with the attorney general today, saying he has seen no evidence that the FBI spied on the Trump campaign in 2016.

Attorney General Barr asserted last month that the FBI had spied on the campaign.

But at a Senate hearing today, Wray distanced himself from that claim.

CHRISTOPHER WRAY, FBI Director: Well, that's not the term I would use.

Look, there are lots of people that have different colloquial phrases.

I believe that the FBI is engaged in investigative activity.

And part of investigative activity includes surveillance activity of different shapes and sizes.

And, to me, the key question is making sure that it's done by the book, consistent with our lawful authorities.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Attorney General Barr has ordered a review of whether the FBI had a proper basis for its investigation.

Wray declined today to discuss that issue, citing the ongoing review.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made a surprise visit to Iraq today, amid new tensions with Iran.

He met with Iraqi leaders and said intelligence indicates that Iran might take some action against American forces in the Middle East.

The visit came two days after news that a U.S. aircraft carrier group is being rushed - - or rushed back to the region.

U.S. health officials are voicing new concern about pregnancy-related deaths.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that the risk has risen 50 percent in the last generation.

In all, about 700 women a year die from pregnancy causes, and the victims are three times more likely to be black.

The CDC says that more than half of the deaths are preventable.

The governor of Georgia today signed a law that bars most abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected.

That is roughly six weeks into a pregnancy, before a woman may know she's expecting.

At the signing, Republican Governor Brian Kemp acknowledged weeks of protests against the law and the likelihood of a legal fight.

GOV.

BRIAN KEMP (R-GA): I realize that some may challenge it in the court of law.

But our job is to do what is right, not what is easy.

We are called to be strong and courageous, and we will not back down.

We will always continue to fight for life.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Georgia is now the fourth state this year to outlaw abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected.

President Trump has pardoned a former Army lieutenant convicted of murdering a prisoner in Iraq.

Michael Behenna had served five years in a military prison before being paroled in 2014.

He admitted to stripping, interrogating and then shooting a suspected al-Qaida militant.

Behenna said that he thought the man was going to try to take his gun.

And there will not be a Triple Crown winner in horse racing this year.

His handlers say that Kentucky Derby winner Country House has a cough, and will not run in the Preakness in two weeks.

The colt was declared the derby winner last Saturday, after the first-place finisher was disqualified.

Still to come on the "NewsHour": sitting down with 2020 presidential candidate Bernie Sanders; two journalists are released after over 500 days of imprisonment in Myanmar; hundreds of former federal prosecutors claim President Trump would have been indicted if he were not in office; and much more.

Independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont became a household name in 2016, when he ran a progressive campaign for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.

But much of that primary race was a one-on-one contest.

He is now vying for the Democratic nomination again, but, this time, he's up against at least 20 other candidates.

And Senator Sanders joins us now.

Senator Sanders, welcome back to the "NewsHour."

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), Presidential Candidate: Good to be with you, Judy.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So let's start with our lead story tonight.

And that is the stock market dropping over 470 points, fears, analysts say, of a trade war with China, the president -- President Trump's policies toward China.

It appears to many people that your approach to trade with China is very similar to the president.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: No, it is not.

What I recognize is that, for many years, our trade policies have been a disaster.

If you look at NAFTA and you look at PNTR with China, in fact, it's cost us about four million decent-paying American jobs and helped lead the race to the bottom, where wages were depressed in America.

So, I think we do need new trade policies that are fair to the working people of this country, not just to the CEOs.

But, as usual, I think Trump gets it wrong in terms of implementation.

JUDY WOODRUFF: But you would be tough on China, as he is.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: I would be supportive of American workers.

I think it is wrong that, when large corporations are making huge profits, that they simply shut down in this country, throw American workers out on the street, then look for cheap labor abroad.

So, I believe that we have got to deal with that issue, but not the way Trump is dealing with it.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, let me turn to something that you spend a lot of time talking about in this campaign, and that is Medicare, health care, and, namely, a proposal for Medicare for all, guaranteed health care for every person, man, woman and child, in the country.

I think everybody agrees the current system needs fixing.

Everybody -- more people need to be covered.

But, right now, this is an economy that is spending, what, $3.5 trillion a year on health care.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Right.

JUDY WOODRUFF: It is a sixth of the American economy.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Right.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And even you acknowledge that doing something like Medicare for all would be a massive disruption, do away with private... (CROSSTALK) JUDY WOODRUFF: OK. All right.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: That wasn't my word, no.

JUDY WOODRUFF: All right.

Other people are saying it would be a massive disruption.

Do away with private insurance.

Why not move incrementally, rather than moving with what you propose?

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Because you have a dysfunctional system that is really rotten to the core.

And let me tell you something, Judy.

The people who are opposing Medicare for all in the insurance industry, in the pharmaceutical industry, these are people who are making huge compensation benefits.

And they are seeing their corporations make huge profits.

Six -- the 10 largest drug companies made $69 billion in profits last year.

Yes, they don't like the idea that I intend to lower drug prices by 50 percent.

But here is the bottom line.

Right now, you have got 34 million people, no health insurance, even more underinsured.

We pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs.

We end up spending twice as much per person on health care as do the people of any other country.

I live 50 miles away from the Canadian border.

How can anyone defend a dysfunctional system like that?

JUDY WOODRUFF: But when you have a -- as we said, such a huge part of the U.S. economy - - the Congressional Budget Office did a nonpartisan analysis of your plan, essentially, universal coverage.

They came away.

And they concluded many people employed in the health care system now would lose their jobs.

They concluded that employer-based health care service that most non-elderly Americans now use would be eliminated.

And they say fewer people would likely go into the medical profession because pay would be less.

(LAUGHTER) SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: That's exactly wrong.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So... SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Right now, because of all of the stress that the insurance companies put on doctors, you're finding many doctors demoralized.

Doctors are trained and nurses are trained to work with their patients and try to do well by their patients.

Right now, before they can do any procedure, they have got to call up three insurance company folks.

Here is the bottom line, all right?

The bottom line is, we are the only major country on Earth not to guarantee health care to all people.

We spend twice as much, and our health care outcomes are poor.

Medicare right now, Judy, is the most popular health insurance program in the country.

All that I want to do over a four-year period is expand Medicare to all of our people.

We will save the average American significant sums of money, give him or her freedom of choice regarding doctors and hospitals.

JUDY WOODRUFF: But you say it's freedom of choice, but you're doing away with private insurance.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Yes.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And we remember the reaction.

President -- remember, President Obama said, you can keep your health care plan.

You can keep your doctor.

It didn't work out that way.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Yes, because those were junk plans that he ended up doing away with.

Right now, do you think the average American has freedom of choice with regard to a doctor?

If a doctor is not in your network, you can't go to that doctor.

All that I want to say to the American people tonight is, we are taking on the insurance companies and the drug companies, who make huge profits off of dysfunctional system that is not working for the average American.

They are going to spend, Judy, in my view, hundreds of millions of dollars trying to preserve their profits and their outrageous compensation packages.

The guy who's head of Aetna created a merger with CVS.

He got $500 million in bonus.

I don't think that's where we should be spending health care dollars.

JUDY WOODRUFF: But your plan would call for some form of higher taxes, no question?

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Of course.

Look, if I'm going to do away with all of your premiums and your co-payments and your deductibles and we're expanding benefits, it has to be paid for.

But when you eliminate premiums and deductibles and co-payments and out-of-pocket expenses, the average American will be better off.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Let's talk about the cost of college.

One of your signature proposals, tuition-free college, you would impose a financial... SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Public colleges and universities, not every... JUDY WOODRUFF: Public.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Not Harvard.

Public colleges and universities.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Right.

You would impose a financial transactions tax, as it's called, to pay for it.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: On Wall Street.

JUDY WOODRUFF: But how much -- what would this mean for the, what, 45 million Americans who have college debt right now?

How would they benefit?

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Oh, they would benefit very substantially.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Because they have left college, and they're in debt.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: No, no, no.

This $900 billion that we're talking about - - look, here's the story.

Right now, Wall Street profits are very, very high.

They're charging you 17 percent interest rates on your credit card, real usury.

We bailed them out after their illegal activity nearly destroyed the economy.

So, what I believe is, at a time when hundreds - - hundreds of thousands of bright young kids can't afford to go to college, and millions of people are struggling with outrageous levels of student debt, this is an issue we have to deal with.

So I am proudly -- and I'm glad that more and more people are following my lead.

I believe that, in the 21st century, when you talk about public education, public colleges and universities should be tuition-free, and we substantially lower student debt.

People should not be punished for getting a higher education in a competitive global economy.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And just quickly, the second part of this is, right now, states would still have to pick up a... (CROSSTALK) JUDY WOODRUFF: ... bit of the cost.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: They would have to, yes.

JUDY WOODRUFF: But these -- many of these are states that have been cutting spending for higher education.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Yes, right.

JUDY WOODRUFF: How do you get them to flip and spend more?

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Well, that's another issue.

Instead of giving tax breaks to billionaires - - you got Amazon and dozens of other corporations not paying a nickel in federal income tax last year.

So, my view is that large profitable corporations should start paying their fair share of taxes.

We will work with the states.

But the bottom line is, in a competitive global economy, every kid in this country, regardless of his or her income, deserves a higher education, if that is their goal.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Very quickly, a question on foreign policy.

You have been saying recently you wish you had spoken more about foreign policy four... SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Yes.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Two years ago, when you ran for president.

What would you do right now to punish Russia for what they did in 2016?

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: First of all, unlike Trump, you have to acknowledge the very seriousness of what they did.

To try to undermine democracy in America and other countries is simply not acceptable.

And they have got to pay a price.

So we have a president who doesn't even acknowledge that.

But I think we should be looking at very tough sanctions.

This is an act of aggression against American democracy.

It cannot be accepted.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Beyond what this administration... SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Yes, absolutely.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, and what would that do?

I mean, are the Russians going to stop -- are you saying that's going to stop them from... SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Well, I can't give you a blueprint.

JUDY WOODRUFF: ... hacking?

I mean... SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: But we have a president who doesn't even acknowledge -- virtually doesn't even acknowledge the reality of what they did.

Here is a -- Putin and his friends are trying to undermine American democracy and democracy in Europe.

They have got to know that's not acceptable.

And the world has got to tell them they're going to pay a very heavy price for it.

JUDY WOODRUFF: A question about polls.

Joe Biden, you and he were running roughly one-two in the polls.

And then he got into the race officially.

He has surged into the lead.

You have slipped.

What's going on?

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Well... JUDY WOODRUFF: Is he appealing to the moderates among Democrats?

What's going on?

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: I think you're going to see - - here's my prediction.

You're going to see polls that are very good for Joe and for Bernie and polls that are not so good.

All I can tell you is that we are working really, really hard.

I'm very proud that we have over a million people who have volunteered to work on our campaign.

I think, in our campaign, you're going to see an unprecedented grassroots effort, not only to help me win the primary and beat Trump, but really to take on the powerful special interests, who control so much of the economic and political life of our country.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Are you at all concerned he appeals more to the moderates in the Democratic Party?

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: No.

(CROSSTALK) SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: I think, at the end of the day, we're going to be fine, because I think our message will appeal to working people.

We had polls out there that showed us, by the way, winning in Pennsylvania, winning in Michigan, winning in Wisconsin.

And I think we're going to appeal to the heartland - - I was just in Iowa the other day -- because our message of standing up for the working class in this country, which has been ignored for so long, I think will resonate.

And I think people are seeing that Trump is a phony.

He told the American people he would guarantee health care to everybody.

Then he wanted to throw 32 million people off of health care.

He wouldn't cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

His budget did exactly that.

So, we are going to expose Trump for the fraud that he is.

We have a message that will appeal to working people, black and white and Latino, all over this country.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Senator Bernie Sanders, thank you very much.

We look forward to watching you on the trail.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Thank you very much, Judy.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Thank you.

And now to another Democratic contender.

Our Amna Nawaz has been on a reporting trip to Iowa.

Last night, she caught up with former Texas Congressman Beto O'Rourke.

And here is part of what he had to say.

AMNA NAWAZ: There's a comment you made early in an interview that has kind of stuck with you, is the idea of being born to be in this, born to do this.

People have said it about you, too.

BETO O'ROURKE (D), Presidential Candidate: Yes.

AMNA NAWAZ: And when it came across to a lot of people -- you are, in a diverse field of candidates, a straight white man.

It sounded little entitled.

So I wonder how you look back on that now.

How -- what do you explain to people... BETO O'ROURKE: Yes.

AMNA NAWAZ: ... who say that maybe wasn't the right thing to say?

BETO O'ROURKE: Yes.

Well, I hope that you read the entire article, because I didn't say that I was born to be president of the United States.

Whoever decides the headlines on the magazines made that choice.

What I said is that I feel like I was born to serve people, you know, a small business owner, creating jobs in El Paso, meeting a payroll week in, week out.

I'm not entitled to anything.

Every vote, every caucus-goer will be earned by showing up, showing profound respect, by listening to their concerns, learning from them, but also showing up with the courage of our convictions, talking about what this country needs to do at this pivotal, pivotal, defining moment.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And stay tuned for more of Amna's reporting from Iowa soon.

And join us tomorrow for a conversation with another 2020 contender, former Maryland Congressman John Delaney.

After nearly 18 months in captivity, two Reuters journalists walked out of prison today in Myanmar.

Their crime?

Reporting news the government there did not want known about its campaign of persecution against the Rohingya Muslim people.

Their reporting recently won the Pulitzer Prize, among other prestigious honors.

As John Yang tells us, their plight garnered worldwide attention, and their release brought relief and joy.

JOHN YANG: A thumbs up and a wave today, as Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo Kyaw walked to freedom.

They were swarmed by cameras after leaving Yangon's notorious Insein prison.

WA LONE, Released Reuters Journalist: I'm really happy, and excited to see my family and my colleagues.

And I can't wait to go to my newsroom now.

JOHN YANG: The two Reuters journalists were arrested in December 2017.

They had been investigating a brutal military campaign that forced some 700,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee to neighboring Bangladesh.

Authorities in mostly Buddhist Myanmar charged the journalists had secret government documents.

And, last September, they were convicted of breaking state secrecy laws and given seven-year sentences.

The two men argued they were targeted for their reporting, and their case sparked a global campaign for their release.

Myanmar's civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, was accused of not doing enough to stop the persecution of Rohingya or to free the journalists.

Today, without explanation, the pair were included in a mass pardon of more than 6,500 prisoners.

Reuters editor-in-chief Steve Adler: STEPHEN J. ADLER, Editor in Chief, Reuters: Since their arrest 511 days ago, they have become symbols of the importance of press freedom around the world.

We welcome their return.

JOHN YANG: On Twitter, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also welcomed their release.

As the journalists celebrated with their families today, there was no apology from Myanmar's military, which still controls much of the government.

Their release was part of an annual amnesty marking the nation's traditional new year, which began last month.

We are now joined by Priscilla Clapp, whose long career as a U.S. diplomat includes time as chief of mission in the embassy in Myanmar, which is also known as Burma.

She's now senior adviser to the U.S. Institute of Peace and the Asia Society.

Priscilla Clapp, thanks so much for joining us.

Help us understand what is -- what was going on here.

The defenders of these two journalists said they were set up.

Remind us of the circumstances of their arrest.

PRISCILLA CLAPP, Former State Department Official: They work for Reuters, as the news clip said.

And they are experienced investigative journalists.

They went out to the northern Rakhine State after the exodus of the Rohingya and the violence against them to do some investigative reporting, and they came upon a village called Inn Din.

And there were people there willing to talk about a massacre that had occurred at the hands of the army, the police, the security forces.

One of the local officials -- I don't know that he was an official.

He might have been a village chief, but he was actually a Rakhine Buddhist -- had taken pictures of it with his phone and shared the information with the reporters, showing the massacre of these young men, the Rohingya men.

They brought this back to Yangon.

And, of course, Reuters was going to do a report on it.

But the police and the military knew that they had picked it up, so they set them up.

They -- two police invited them to a restaurant or a tea shop to meet and handed them a sealed envelope.

Before they could open the envelope, as they were getting up to leave, they were quickly arrested by the police.

JOHN YANG: So they were arrested for having the documents that they were given.

PRISCILLA CLAPP: When they didn't know what they were.

JOHN YANG: Why -- they appealed this, their convictions.

The Supreme Court turned them down last month.

Why do you think they were released now?

PRISCILLA CLAPP: The process of -- the legal process had been fully exhausted.

And I think that the state counselor, Aung San Suu Kyi, is -- she's very concerned about restoring the rule of law to the country.

And so she is trying to make an example of the process, of the legal process, and she wanted the legal process to run its course, which it did with the final Supreme Court denial.

JOHN YANG: Her reputation has taken a beating in this.

PRISCILLA CLAPP: It has, yes.

(CROSSTALK) JOHN YANG: Nobel Peace Prize winner, former political prisoner herself.

Critics say that she should have done more to help these political prisoners.

But you seem to be saying it's a little more nuanced.

PRISCILLA CLAPP: It is quite a bit more nuanced, because she's not in charge of the courts.

The civilian leadership is not in charge of the legal process.

It is still under control of the military.

The military controls key parts of the government, under their constitution, the 2008 constitution which brought the transition.

And so this setup was impervious to civilian intervention.

And if she had tried to pardon them earlier or free them earlier, they probably would have resisted.

The military, the court system would have resisted.

But she's not the one who pardoned them.

It's the president.

Now, that's something that is guaranteed in the constitution.

The president has the right to pardon prisoners, but after they have been sentenced, so after the process has finished.

JOHN YANG: So, you're saying that, by waiting, she was trying -- she is trying to reestablish the legal process?

PRISCILLA CLAPP: I believe so.

That is my thinking about it, why it took so long.

I think that she wanted to guarantee that the legal process took its full course.

And she has to also probably make sure that the military is comfortable with the decision when it was finally taken.

It's not an easy situation that she's in.

She really is between a rock and a hard place.

JOHN YANG: Explain that.

Explain her position, I mean, her role.

And help us understand her role in the government, without getting too weedy here.

PRISCILLA CLAPP: Well, first of all, the constitution doesn't allow her to be president, because she has foreigners in her nuclear family.

Her two sons are foreigners.

So anyone with a foreigner in their nuclear family cannot be president, according to the constitution.

Many people think it was deliberately because of her.

But it existed even before.

At any rate, so, when her party won a great victory, she, as head of the party, should have been nominated as president, but she couldn't be because of the constitution.

So her lawyers found another position that had been inserted into the constitution to take care of the old military leaders, in case they still wanted to be in the government.

But they didn't.

So it was just sitting there, undefined.

Her lawyers defined it, state counselor.

And they made it really quite high, as she says, sort of above the president.

But it really depends upon her ability to make it that way.

JOHN YANG: Priscilla Clapp, former chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Burma, thank you so much for explaining this to us.

PRISCILLA CLAPP: Thank you.

It's my pleasure.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Stay with us.

Coming up on the "NewsHour": Pennsylvania's experiment to give every newborn baby in the state a college fund; and a new documentary sheds light on the Trump administration's trade war with China.

But first: The redacted Mueller report became public more than two weeks ago, but the discussion around it, and whether it incriminates the president, has not gone away.

William Brangham has the latest on the fallout.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: That's right, Judy.

Yesterday, a group of former federal prosecutors from all over the country published a statement online, saying that, in their professional opinion, Robert Mueller's report makes it crystal clear that President Trump obstructed justice.

It reads -- quote -- "Each of us believes that the conduct of President Trump described in special counsel Robert Mueller's report would, in the case of any other person, result in multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice."

Yesterday, the statement had more than 300 signatures.

That number has nearly doubled today.

And this is a bipartisan group of prosecutors.

They have served in both Democratic and Republican administrations going back decades.

One of the those people is here with me now.

Paul Rosenzweig was an associate independent counsel under Kenneth Starr, part of the Whitewater investigation into President Bill Clinton.

Welcome to the "NewsHour."

PAUL ROSENZWEIG, Former Associate Independent Counsel: Thanks for having me.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Help me understand what your intent was.

Why did you sign on to this letter?

PAUL ROSENZWEIG: Well, I can't speak for everybody else, but my personal intent was twofold.

The first was kind of a public policy desire to cut through the summaries and the cloud of misunderstanding and, at least for myself, do my best to make sure that the American public understand what was really in the letter, that it actually did describe acts of potentially criminal misconduct, so that they could appropriately evaluate President Trump and his conduct in their own minds.

So, that was the first part.

The second part was more personal, which was I which I feel the burden of intellectual consistency, if you will.

I said much the same thing about Bill Clinton 20 years ago, when I was working for Ken Starr, or thought much the same about it.

And I -- seems to me important, especially today, for lawyers to speak with consistency about the rule of law and apply it without consideration of party or partisan benefit.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: In the letter, you cite multiple instances -- you and your collective signatories cite multiple instances of what you allege is clear evidence of obstruction.

What are some of those examples that stick out to you?

PAUL ROSENZWEIG: Well, each of us, I'm sure, has his own favorite, if you will.

I could name a couple off the top of my head, first and most obviously, the president's apparent direction to the White House counsel to create a full record of an earlier conversation... WILLIAM BRANGHAM: This is Don McGahn.

PAUL ROSENZWEIG: Don McGahn -- in order to obscure and conceal the fact that he had ordered McGahn to see to Mueller's firing.

At least that's how McGahn tells it.

And then, when that became known in the press, he ordered McGahn to write a false memorandum saying that that had never happened.

McGahn refused.

That's an effort to obstruct justice.

It's an effort to tamper with a witness' memory in a way that, for me, meets the bar of obstruction of justice.

Other ones that we could name, for example, the apparent threat to Michael Cohen in advance of his testimony that bad things might happen to him, they might open up his parents', his family's history.

That's, again, an obstructive act intended, it looks quite clear to me, to cow Mr. Cohen and to dissuade him from testifying.

Those are two for starters.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: You and all of the signatories of this letter argue that this is pretty crystal-clear evidence, in your mind, as former prosecutors, that you could have brought a case on these.

Yet Robert Mueller didn't seem to say in his report that he thought these were crimes.

Why not?

PAUL ROSENZWEIG: You have to ask Mr. Mueller that.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: We have tried.

PAUL ROSENZWEIG: I mean, to be fair, he said, if they found evidence that exonerated the president, they would have so stated.

And they did not so state.

He alluded to difficult issues.

I assume that those are issues of legality, mostly relating both to the non-indictability of presidents under the Department of Justice's policy, and also probably relating to the fact that he knew that his boss, Bill Barr, had a different legal view of what constitutes obstruction of justice for a president.

And so he was not willing to throw a hand grenade in and have it swatted back at him by the attorney general.

I think he reposed a great deal of confidence in the attorney general to treat his report fairly.

And, as his own letter to the attorney general in the immediate aftermath makes clear, that confidence was not as well-founded as he thought it might be.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Do you think the attorney general treated Robert Mueller's work unfairly?

PAUL ROSENZWEIG: I think that the attorney general's conclusion, as a factual matter, that there was no proof obstruction of justice is not sustainable, is simply at odds with the evidence produced in the -- in volume two of this report.

I don't see how anybody who is a prosecutor, and not trying to be the president's defense lawyer, could look at that evidence and not say that this is sufficient evidence for which a prosecutor could -- and the quote is -- obtain and sustain a conviction.

And that's from the federal principle -- principles of federal prosecution.

And I think the evidence in at least three, four, some might say as many as eight of these instances would meet that standard.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Undergirding all of this has been this -- as you cited, this longstanding belief in the Department of Justice that a sitting president cannot be indicted, because it would so interfere with the president's ability to do his job.

Do you -- you disagree with that finding.

You think a president could be and should be indicted if the evidence warrants.

PAUL ROSENZWEIG: That's correct.

I think that that is a policy of the executive branch that quite naturally is defensive of the executive branch of government.

I'm not surprised that that's what DOJ's view is.

I think it is wrong.

It is certainly extraconstitutional, which is to say there's no such immunity in the Constitution.

And the framers knew how to write immunities in.

They wrote a speech and debate immunity for legislators, for example.

It is based on policy judgments alone, that it would be too distracting of the -- for the president to face a criminal charge.

And while I am happy to acknowledge that that's real, that a president would be... WILLIAM BRANGHAM: It's a real distraction.

PAUL ROSENZWEIG: Yes, it would be a real distraction.

It would be for any human being.

I also think that it ignores the countervailing value, which is that, in America at least, no man, no woman is above the law.

Everybody is subject to the same rule of law.

And that ought to include the president as well.

Otherwise, if the DOJ is right, then the president is a unique category of one, because they have already said the vice president can be indicted, governors indictable.

Every Cabinet minister, just fine.

But the president, he's super special, and he gets to -- essentially a free pass, at least while he's in office.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Paul Rosenzweig, thank you very much.

PAUL ROSENZWEIG: Thanks for having me.

JUDY WOODRUFF: As we discussed with Senator Bernie Sanders, college debt is a huge problem in our country.

Roughly two-thirds of students finish school owing nearly $30,000.

Sanders is not alone in his call for free public college.

Many of the 2020 presidential candidates have started laying out their own plans.

As those ideas take shape, a number of states and cities are creating their own plans to provide grants and money for the very youngest to ensure that they can eventually go to college.

Hari Sreenivasan has the story for tonight's Making the Grade.

And it's part of a special series on Tuesdays this month about Rethinking College.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Just days' old, this newborn has already started saving for college.

Under a new Pennsylvania program, every baby born or adopted in the state is given a college savings account with $100 in his or her name.

JOE TORSELLA, Pennsylvania State Treasurer: That $100 is invested in our 529 account, and will grow over time.

HARI SREENIVASAN: So 140,000 kids a year are born in Pennsylvania?

JOE TORSELLA: Yes.

HARI SREENIVASAN: The accounts are the brainchild of Pennsylvania State Treasurer Joe Torsella.

The new program, called Keystone Scholars, is an effort to help future students cope with skyrocketing costs of college.

JOE TORSELLA: Over roughly 30 years, the cost of higher ed has gone up in this country around 300 percent, while the median family income has basically not budged .

HARI SREENIVASAN: According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Americans owe $1.46 trillion in student debt.

Treasurer Torsella says Pennsylvania student debt burden is particularly troubling.

JOE TORSELLA: I love my state.

I'm a proud Pennsylvania.

And I love it when I can say we're number one, except when the thing we're number one in is college debt.

We currently lead the nation in that.

Our average graduate has about $36,000.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Born January 18, Charlie Ross (ph) was one of the first babies to benefit from the statewide program.

Kristin Dressler is Charlie's mom.

KRISTIN DRESSLER, Mother: It was something I wish my parents had done for me when I was, like, a baby.

And I think it's a really good idea.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Pennsylvania is betting that parents will be less likely to delay saving for college if accounts are automatically created at birth.

JOE TORSELLA: There is a time when a child is born you always remember for the sense of magic and possibility.

Life quickly takes over, with all kinds of demands.

We wanted to do something at that moment when people are looking at their newborn or their newly adopted child, and they had the widest horizon and the widest sense of those possibilities.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Dressler took out a loan to pay for her first two years of college and will take out more to complete her degree.

She wants an easier path for her son's education.

KRISTIN DRESSLER: I'm hoping that he doesn't have to worry about that.

HARI SREENIVASAN: But if the average debt load in Pennsylvania for college graduates is $33,000, can $100 really make a difference?

JOE TORSELLA: That $100 grows to $400.

And if they deposit $25 a month from the time that child's born in an account with it, they will have more than $10,000 by that time that child reaches 18.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Pennsylvania's new accounts are funded through surplus earnings from the state's existing 529 college program.

Like all 529 accounts, the money is earmarked for education.

If an individual wants to use the funds for other purposes, they face tax consequences, and any money the state contributed is returned to a general fund.

Pennsylvania is not alone.

Plans to help families save for college are popping up across the country.

In San Francisco, every child when they enter public school gets a new bank account with $50 in it.

So far, they have opened more than 33,000 accounts in their kindergarten-to-college program.

JOYCE MELOCOTON, Teacher: Are you guys excited for your field trip?

STUDENTS: Yes!

JOYCE MELOCOTON: Where are we going again?

STUDENTS: The bank.

HARI SREENIVASAN: At San Francisco's William Cobb Elementary School, teacher Joyce Melocoton prepares her kindergarten class for a field trip to the bank.

JOYCE MELOCOTON: We're going to the bank because you have to deposit money for what?

STUDENTS: College.

JOYCE MELOCOTON: College.

OK. And if you start saving now, then you will be ready for college.

HARI SREENIVASAN: On this day, kindergarten students were joined by San Francisco Treasurer Jose Cisneros at Citibank, a partner in the program.

JOSE CISNEROS, San Francisco Treasurer: We put $50 in your account.

You already have money saved for your college education.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Fifty dollars is not much, but Treasurer Cisneros says creating an early perception about going to college is just as important as creating actual wealth.

JOSE CISNEROS: What matters less is how much money is in the account and -- or what the income of the family is.

It's all about building aspirations in the student's mind and making sure they know this is an option that is available for them.

STUDENT: I would like to make a deposit.

JOSE CISNEROS: To my college savings account.

STUDENT: To my college savings account.

JOSE CISNEROS: You need to give her the money and the deposit ticket.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Half of San Francisco's public school students come from low-income families.

And while all students receive an account, Cisneros hopes to engage families less likely to attend college.

JOSE CISNEROS: Just engaging with that account, going to the bank, making deposits, talking about it at home, maybe talking about it with friends, sends a signal that says, oh, I have got a college savings account.

Why?

Because I'm going to college.

And for many kids who don't have that in their childhood, that kind of conversation, that kind of influence, it turns out not being something they think is available to them.

HARI SREENIVASAN: But so far, only 20 percent of families in San Francisco have made additional deposits in their child's kindergarten-to-college accounts.

Professor Brigitte Madrian is an expert on family savings and the dean of Brigham Young University Marriott School of Business.

BRIGITTE MADRIAN, Dean, Brigham Young University Marriott School of Business: Parents who are actually contributing money is pretty low, so it's going to take more than just automatic.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Madrian says automatic savings accounts, set up for things like retirement, have been hugely successful when tied to payroll deductions.

But she's less confident that automatic college accounts will be work when families are asked to make contributions on their own.

BRIGITTE MADRIAN: Households have a lot of things for which they probably should be saving, and short-term financial needs may be taking precedence over longer-term needs, like saving for your children's college.

MAN: Can anybody say safe deposit box?

HARI SREENIVASAN: The annual cost of San Francisco's program is three quarters of a million dollars.

BRIGITTE MADRIAN: Is it more cost-effective to direct those same financial resources that are coming from government to early kindergarten readiness programs, smaller class sizes in K-12?

Which one gives you more bang for the buck I think is still a very open question.

HARI SREENIVASAN: As for the William Cobb Elementary students, the most popular future career cited on this field trip, superhero.

WOMAN: So what do you want to be when you grow up?

STUDENT: A superhero.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Six-year-old Xavier Ochoa said he wants to be Batman when he grows up, but he also got the message of the day.

JOSE CISNEROS: I would like to make a deposit.

XAVIER OCHOA, Student: I would like to make a deposit.

JOSE CISNEROS: In my college savings account.

XAVIER OCHOA: In my college savings account.

JOSE CISNEROS: Here's your receipt.

OK. Say thank you.

XAVIER OCHOA: Thank you.

I want to get money for college, so I can learn more things, and so you can learn when you want to grow up.

HARI SREENIVASAN: For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Hari Sreenivasan.

JUDY WOODRUFF: It was yet another rocky day when it comes to the trade war between the U.S. and China.

As we reported, the markets reacted strongly.

Chinese and Trump administration officials are supposed to meet later this week to hammer out a trade agreement.

But getting a deal done looks even dicier than it did a week ago.

Over the weekend, the president unexpectedly threatened to raise more tariffs on Chinese goods.

This all fits right in line with President Trump's approach to China.

And that's the focus of tonight's "Frontline."

It's a joint investigation with NPR.

Laura Sullivan of NPR is the correspondent.

She will talk with Yamiche Alcindor in a moment.

But, first, here is an excerpt about how the president surprised the world with tariffs on China after the two sides had already made some progress.

®MD+I®MD-ILAURA SULLIVAN, National Public Radio: Their negotiators agreed on a plan for China to buy billions of dollars in U.S. products like beef and natural gas.

But behind the celebration, Trump's nationalists had devised a different plan.

STEVE BANNON, Former White House Chief Strategist: We had a couple of tricks up our sleeves.

(INAUDIBLE) and I started to dust off the secret weapon we had, to call a national security emergency, kind of what we're doing on the border right now, that you use the national security emergency powers that are invested in the Defense Department to go after steel, aluminum, maybe autos, but eventually technology.

It's time to get it on.

LAURA SULLIVAN: By March 2018, the president was ready to take action.

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: Thank you very much, everyone.

We have with us the biggest steel companies in the United States.

They used to be a lot bigger, but they're going to be a lot bigger again.

LAURA SULLIVAN: Executives from the steel and aluminum industry were hastily gathered in Washington.

MICHAEL WESSEL, U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission: They were all called to the White House, had the meeting.

And at that time, the president announced what he was going to do.

DONALD TRUMP: Next week, we will be imposing tariffs on steel imports and tariffs on aluminum imports.

LAURA SULLIVAN: What was the reaction?

MICHAEL WESSEL: The reaction was surprise.

DONALD TRUMP: It will be 25 percent for steel.

It will be 10 percent for aluminum.

MICHAEL WESSEL: This moment was a seminal moment in trade policy because it's the most aggressive use of this kind of trade law approach ever.

This is done under the theory of national security.

DONALD TRUMP: We need it.

We need it even for defense, if you think.

I mean, we need it for defense.

We need great steel manufacturers.

MICHAEL WESSEL: Steel was important to your national security broadly, military, critical infrastructure and the economy as a whole, and that had never been done before.

DONALD TRUMP: Thank you very much, everybody.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

LAURA SULLIVAN: The sweeping steel tariffs also surprised America's closest allies.

It turns out those tariffs hurt U.S. allies more than China.

That's because allies like Canada sell much more steel to the U.S. than China does.

At the State Department, the top China specialists quickly started getting complaints.

What were some of the United States' allies saying?

SUSAN THORNTON, Former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State: Well, certainly, the allies were very much taken aback that they were the target of the steel tariffs.

They don't understand the focus on tariffs.

They don't understand the focus on deficits.

They don't understand the rejection of the international trading, you know, norms and institutions.

They don't understand the U.S.' rejection of global free trade, since this is the system that we basically set up.

LAURA SULLIVAN: Trump had upended decades of U.S. trade policy, determined to start a fight he felt was his.

SUSAN THORNTON: In several meetings, even in high-level meetings with the president, some foreign leaders offered.

They said, we want to help with China, we want to do this together with you.

But he seemed to think that this was his fight alone and that he wanted to do it mano a mano.

LAURA SULLIVAN: At that point, were you disappointed, were you frustrated?

GARY COHN, Former Presidential Economic Adviser: If you adamantly believe that something doesn't make sense, you are personally disappointed, but, ultimately, it's not your decision to make.

LAURA SULLIVAN: Within a month, Cohn would leave the White House.

The nationalists had won.

WOMAN: President Trump turning tough trade talk into action.

LESTER HOLT, NBC: New tariffs announced by the Trump administration on $50 billion worth of Chinese exports.

WOMAN: China is now punching back with an equal amount of tariffs on American exports.

MAN: President Trump has just slapped tariffs on another $200 billion of Chinese exports.

MAN: Igniting the biggest trade war in economic history.

YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Of course, since those tariffs were first imposed, the trade war with China has accelerated.

But the president's latest threat to add tariffs to another $200 billion in Chinese goods caught many off-guard.

Some see the president's warning as his way of trying to get better leverage and more concessions from China.

Administration officials said President Trump's announcement came after the Chinese government dug in on some U.S. demands.

For further insight into all of this, Laura Sullivan joins me now.

Thanks, Laura, so much for being here.

LAURA SULLIVAN: Thank you.

YAMICHE ALCINDOR: So, in the documentary, and in what we know how, the president has said that he's planning to increase tariffs on China.

He said that the Chinese government had reneged on some of the policies and promises that they have made.

What's happening there?

LAURA SULLIVAN: This is part of a longstanding message that has come out of the sort of more hawky members of Trump's China team, that China has failed to live up to the promises that it's made for almost 20 years now, almost two decades now since joining the WTO in 2001.

They felt that China has promised to open its markets, promised to play fair, promised not to steal American technology, promised to not force companies into technology transfer agreements over and over again, and they have failed to do that.

The Trump administration's position is that this -- two successive administrations, the Bush administration and Obama, have allowed China to walk on these issues, and that they are not going to be the ones that do that.

There's a lot of backstory to this, though.

I mean, the United States business community didn't want the previous administration to take this hard line.

And now it's sort of coming push to shove.

The Obama administration did make a deal with President Xi Jinping of China in 2015 that they would -- that cyber-theft wasn't going to happen anymore, that it was going to be off the table.

Cyber-experts say that that lasted about a year-and-a-half, and that cyber-hacking is going on.

So there is reason to believe that some of the promises have not been lived up to.

YAMICHE ALCINDOR: We saw today how volatile the markets were.

How does that factor into President Trump's thinking when we think about trade and China?

LAURA SULLIVAN: The markets are absolutely important to the Trump administration.

I mean, it's a personally important to Trump.

I mean, this is -- he has talked about this issue of trade and trade deficits for -- especially with China -- for almost 20 years.

But the stock market to him reflects that idea, the health of the country.

So, he -- there's two sides to this coin, because, on the one hand, it's emboldened Trump and the Trump administration to be able to take on China with additional tariffs, because the economy is in a good place and the stock market has been high.

However, if this volatility continues, it's something that's definitely one of the few things that will hold the administration back.

YAMICHE ALCINDOR: In the documentary, you detail how China has used international and domestic tactics to try to grow its economy and compete with the United States.

Talk a little bit about what they have been doing, but also the reasoning that their leaders use.

LAURA SULLIVAN: So, the Chinese have something called the China model.

It's the -- the way that their economy is based, they can marshal the entire forces of their economic engine to drive forward in whatever the Chinese leadership wants to do.

If they want to move their country toward the high-tech sector, artificial intelligence, semiconductors, basically America's Holy Grail, they can do that swiftly and fiercely.

They can -- they have plans for 10, 20, 50 years out.

And they are moving their country forward.

They have done this.

They have been incredibly successful.

They have moved 300 million people out of poverty.

No country in the history of the world has been able to you that in 20 years.

At the same time, a number of people in the United States feel like the United States is falling behind.

YAMICHE ALCINDOR: In the documentary, you say that the nationalists won.

What impact is that going to have on the future of the Trump administration?

And how does that dovetail with the president's long-held beliefs on trade and China?

LAURA SULLIVAN: These fights in the Trump administration were some of the most vicious, nasty fights.

That's how people in the Trump administration describe them.

The reason they were so nasty is because what they were fighting about was such a passionate issue to these Trump administration advisers.

They were really deciding whether or not tariffs would destroy the economy of the United States or whether tariffs would have the ability to bring a country to heel that will challenge the United States as the next superpower.

When the nationalists won and the globalists lost -- and the globalists have now for the most part all left the White House -- there is now no counterbalancing force inside the White House to hold back any idea that tariffs might be dangerous to the economy.

At this point, only the nationalist agenda is on the table.

And there is very little suggesting to anybody inside the Trump administration that this could be dangerous.

YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Well, thank you so much, Laura Sullivan.

LAURA SULLIVAN: Thanks so much for having me.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And this "Frontline" and NPR joint investigation, "Trump's Trade War," will air tonight on PBS, and can be watched online at PBS.org/Frontline.

"NewsHour"s "That Moment When," our weekly show on Facebook Watch, today features comedian Patton Oswalt on love after loss.

Here's a preview.

PATTON OSWALT, Comedian: Michelle passed away on April 21, 2016.

I didn't know what else to do with myself.

I was so just functioning.

I was just a series of tasks that I completed every day.

That's all I was, no personality, nothing.

So, like, well, the thing that I do is I do stand-up.

So I started going on stage and started talking about it.

And there were nights when I was trying to talk about it and couldn't find what the humorous angle was, or how dare I even try to find a humorous angle, but then it went right back to the basics of being an open mic'er.

Go on stage over and over and over again, until you can make this make sense.

JUDY WOODRUFF: You may see all episodes of our Facebook Watch series at @thatmomentwhenshow.

And that is 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, and we'll see you soon.

END