WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Good evening.

I'm William Brangham.

Geoff Bennett and Amna Nawaz are away.

On the "NewsHour" tonight: Congressional leaders meet with President Biden, but make little progress on a deal to raise the debt ceiling and avoid a catastrophic default.

Then: The head of the company behind ChatGPT tells lawmakers regulation is needed to keep rapidly developing artificial intelligence in check.

And a new biography of Martin Luther King Jr. finds the civil rights icon was misquoted when asked what he thought of Malcolm X. JONATHAN EIG, Author, "King: A Life": We have been telling the story of the relationship between Martin Luther King and Malcolm X for generations, based in part on that quote, the sense that Martin Luther King had this antagonism, and it just wasn't true.

(BREAK) WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Welcome to the "NewsHour."

President Biden is cutting short his upcoming trip to Asia to continue negotiations to avoid a historic default for the country.

Pressure is mounting because the government could run out of money to pay its bills by June 1 if an agreement is not struck by then.

Biden announced the change to his schedule hours after meeting with congressional leaders on raising the debt limit.

JOE BIDEN, President of the United States: I'm confident we're going to continue to make progress toward avoiding default and fulfilling America's responsibility as a leader on the world stage.

However, I'm cutting my trip short.

I'm postponing the Australia portion of the trip and my stop in Papua New Guinea in order to be back for the final negotiations with congressional leaders.

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): House Republicans passed a bill that raised the debt ceiling, limited our future spending, saved taxpayers money by being able to pull back unspent money and waste and actually grow our economy by making our economy stronger, and helping lifting people out of poverty into work.

And so those are the parameters we will talk about.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: That was House Speaker Kevin McCarthy speaking after their meeting with the president.

Following these negotiations closely are our congressional reporter Lisa Desjardins and White House reporter Laura Barron-Lopez.

Thank you both so much for being here.

Laura, first to you.

So, the president cut short his upcoming trip abroad.

Clearly, he seems to be feeling the pressure that he has got to deliver on these negotiations.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: That's right, William.

The president exited the meeting today saying that it was productive, but Treasury Department has stressed that X-date is June 1, and it is just around the corner.

Now, the president does not take the cutting short of this trip lightly.

The White House stressed that the president wants to reinvigorate the Quad.

That is a partnership meeting that was supposed to take place in Australia that he will be missing.

That's between the United States, Australia, Japan, and India.

And he will also be missing what would have been the first ever trip by a president to Papua New Guinea.

And the president wanted to focus there because of trying to pay more attention to the Pacific region.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: So, he's not going to make that part of the trip.

What is it, from your reporting, that you understand is the White House's current position?

What's on the table in these negotiations?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: So, exiting this meeting, the White House, be it the president or his senior staff, have said over and over again that the debt ceiling talks and the budget talks are on parallel tracks, but that they're separate.

But we can report that we know a bit of the details about what's on the negotiating table when it comes to the budget.

This is based off of what the president and Speaker McCarthy have publicly hinted, as well as what sources have told me and Lisa.

And those details, what's on the table are budget caps for at least two years, an ease in energy permitting processes, work requirements for certain government aid programs, as well as a return of some $30 billion in unused COVID money.

And in addition to that, one change today, William, that a White House official confirmed to me is that there will be three new White House officials, Steve Ricchetti, counselor to the president, Shalanda Young, head of the Office of Management and Budget, as well as Louisa Terrell, who is the head of legislative affairs for the White House.

They are going to be the three new leaders for -- designated by the president to negotiate directly with Speaker McCarthy's team.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And, Lisa, what is your understanding now about where the Republicans are after this meeting?

LISA DESJARDINS: Republicans walked away quite happy tonight, William, because one thing they wanted they got, which was direct talks with the Biden White House, no more negotiating with everyone else, including Senate Leader McConnell for the Republicans or Hakeem Jeffries from the House side, Democrats.

This will be between the two major sources of power in this -- in the city, House Republicans and the White House.

And there's something significant too about who House Republicans will be having negotiating on behalf.

One of their negotiators is Louisiana Republican Representative Garret Graves.

He's someone who was a longtime Hill staffer, importantly, on the Energy and Commerce Committee.

He's from Baton Rouge, William, and that's significant, because one of the top issues for Garret Graves, one of the things he's an expert at is that permitting reform that Laura just talked about So, and we look at what issues are going to be more important going down potentially the homestretch here, permitting reform.

That could affect energy drilling environment.

All of that, to me, I think is rising very quickly now.

House Republicans say they're unified.

And they do see this as debt ceiling and budget talks together.

And I think we're still going to face a stare-down, but they're happy today that now, from their point of view, the real negotiations are starting.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And, Lisa, one of the other things that Laura mentioned that Republicans seem to want is, they want to add more work requirements to people who are receiving federal aid or assistance.

Can you remind us the details of what they want there?

LISA DESJARDINS: Let me take you through that?

There are several different programs that could be affected here.

Here's what House Republicans are proposing.

First, they would like to take -- they would like to apply all of this to able-bodied adults who have no dependents at all.

Now, first, let's talk about the program.

Our viewers know SNAP used to be called food stamps.

Republicans would like to extend work requirements to older group, 50-to-55-year-olds in order to receive those food stamps.

TANF, that is a program for families, the poorest of the poor.

They want to tighten enforcement of that by the states, tighten the work force requirements there.

And then Medicaid, this is the most significant in a way.

Medicaid right now does not have any work requirements.

That is the health care program, largely for the poor in America.

Republicans would like 80 hours of work a month, and they would like that to apply to 18-to-55-year-olds.

That is something that progressives have an outcry on, but Republicans say that they think this would save money, and they like the idea of, they think, getting more people to work.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And, Laura, what is your sense?

I mean, Lisa says that the progressives in the Democratic Party don't like those changes.

What is your understanding of what the White House thinks about adding these requirements to aid?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: That's right, William.

Progressives have been squeezing the president on this one front, in particular, on work requirements.

And after the president felt a bit of pressure from those within his party, he publicly made clear that, when it comes to work requirements, he's only open to those that cover cash assistance programs.

He is not open to work requirements for SNAP, for food assistance, and he's not open to work requirements for Medicaid.

So, this is something that the president has felt a bit of pressure on from his left flank.

But when it comes to moderate Democrats, they're relatively on board with this as a part of the larger piece of negotiations.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And, Lisa, lastly to you.

There's this looming calendar issue here.

June 1 is this coming deadline.

Do they have time to get this done?

LISA DESJARDINS: Let's just take a look at how little time there is left.

First of all, everyone knows, today, May 16, if you look at that on the calendar, here's the deadline, June 1.

That is the earliest that we could hit the debt ceiling, but it looks like it might be right around then.

Here's why that two weeks is even less than people think.

Look at that.

That next week is when the Senate is supposed to be gone.

The Senate needs a week, William, to pass any major legislation.

They have got to get going now.

I do think there's reason to believe the Senate will stick around next week for this.

Garret Graves, the man I mentioned earlier, he told me earlier today he thinks a deal can get done in three days' time if the talks are actually productive and even-handed.

We will watch, because that's basically about as much time as they have to get a real bill moving.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: That is a very big if looming on the calendar.

Lisa and Laura, it's so good to see you both.

Thank you very much.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: In the day's other headlines: Russia fired a missile barrage at Ukraine's capital overnight.

The Ukrainians said they shut down all 18 missiles, including six that were hypersonic.

The Russians denied that claim.

Midair explosions lit up the night sky over Kyiv.

Ukraine said its Western-supplied air defenses blunted Russia's bid to terrorize the city.

COL. YURII IHNAT, Ukrainian Air Force Spokesman (through translator): It is clear that the capital has always been and is such a priority target for the enemy, because there are central state objects and important infrastructure objects.

And there's a certain symbolism in this.

It is clear that the enemy wants to strike at the very heart of the country and thus keep the entire Ukrainian nation in tension.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: To the east, Ukraine claimed its troops have retaken territory on the outskirts of Bakhmut, where a savage battle has raged for months, but a spokeswoman conceded the Russians have made some gains inside the city.

In Sudan, airstrikes and explosions escalated across Khartoum today as the army defended key bases from a paramilitary group.

The fighting has intensified since peace talks began earlier this month.

The worst of it is focused in Khartoum, but combat has also flared in the war-ravaged region of Darfur in Western Sudan.

Amnesty International is reporting a surge in official executions to the highest level in five years.

The organization recorded 883 executions in 20 countries in 2022.

That's up 53 percent from the year before.

Iran led the list, carrying out 576 death sentences.

Saudi Arabia had 196.

Amnesty says it believes China executed thousands of people, but government secrecy makes an accurate count impossible.

The European Union today formally adopted rules to regulate products that fuel deforestation.

They include cattle, coffee, chocolate, and palm oil.

Companies trading with the 27-nation bloc will now be asked to prove that their products have not led to a decrease in forested areas.

Back in this country, U.S. bank executives were called to account over the salaries and bonuses they earned in the run-up to their own institutions collapsing.

At a hearing, senators pressed the former heads of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.

Maryland Democrat Chris Van Hollen challenged Silicon Valley's former CEO, Greg Becker.

SEN. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN (D-MD): Do you really think that taking -- getting a bonus of $1.5 million, given the showing in 2022 in just a short time before the total collapse of the bank, do you believe you deserve that?

GREG BECKER, Former CEO, Silicon Valley Bank: I believe the board did the best job they could in evaluating the performance that we had in 2022.

SEN. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: Well, this is -- this is why I think people watching this hearing are just going to be scratching their heads and get angrier and angrier, because this is clearly an example where bonus was not tied to performance.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Four senators on that committee have proposed legislation that would claw back executive pay within five years of a bank's failure.

And, on Wall Street, energy stocks sagged, helping to push the broader market lower.

The Dow Jones industrial average lost 336 points, 1 percent, to close at 33012.

The Nasdaq fell 22 points, and the S&P 500 slipped 26.

Still to come on the "NewsHour": apprenticeship programs aim to alleviate teacher shortages; how fatherhood has changed talk show host Andy Cohen; the science behind why the Northern Lights are venturing further south this year; plus much more.

Aside from debt ceiling negotiations, Capitol Hill was also focused today on what to do about artificial intelligence, the fast-evolving, remarkably powerful computer technologies that many believe could revolutionize and perhaps upend many aspects of our lives.

The metaphors used to describe A.I.

at a Senate hearing today reflected this spectrum.

Some said this could be as momentous as the Industrial Revolution.

Others warned it's akin to developing the atomic bomb.

SEN. JOSH HAWLEY (R-MO): We could be looking at one of the most significant technological innovations in human history.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Today, senators and experts weighed in on the gravity and growing risks of rapidly developing A.I.

GARY MARCUS, Co-Author, "Rebooting A.I.

": We have unprecedented opportunities here, but we are also facing a perfect storm.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Sam Altman is the CEO and founder of OpenAI, which is at the forefront of this new technology.

SAM ALTMAN, CEO, OpenAI: But as this technology advances, we understand that people are anxious about how it could change the way we live.

We are too.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Artificial intelligence gained prominence when his company's product ChatGPT was launched in November.

It can answer complex questions with humanlike responses at startling speeds.

But it also makes big mistakes.

A.I.

technology can also generate remarkably realistic images or audio known as deepfakes in an instant, like this one of Pope Francis sporting a coat he never wore.

A.I.

can also imitate people's speech, as Senator Richard Blumenthal demonstrated today.

SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-CT): And now for some introductory remarks.

A.I.

SIMULATION: Too often, we have seen what happens when technology outpaces regulation.

SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL: You might have thought that voice was mine and the words from me.

But, in fact, that voice was not mine.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: In the hearing today, senators raised a series of concerns about this technology, among them, how this example of voice mimicry could be used to spread disinformation.

SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL: What if it had provided an endorsement of Ukraine surrendering or Vladimir Putin's leadership?

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Others raised concerns about everything from privacy, to copyright protections, to the potential elimination of people's jobs.

SEN. JOSH HAWLEY: So, loss of jobs, invasion of privacy, personal privacy, on a scale we have never before seen, manipulation of personal behavior, manipulation of personal opinions, and potentially the degradation of free elections in America.

Did I miss anything?

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: So, the question of the day, can A.I.

be successfully regulated?

Many agreed there should be some governmental body to establish global rules and norms, even issuing or revoking licenses to A.I.

systems.

SAM ALTMAN: I would form a new agency that licenses any effort above a certain scale of capabilities, and can take that license away and ensure compliance with safety standards.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: But some lawmakers doubt they have the knowledge to even handle it.

SEN. RICHARD DURBIN (D-IL): The magnitude of the challenge you're giving us is substantial.

I'm not sure that we respond quickly and with enough expertise to deal with it.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Gary Marcus, a leading voice in A.I., emphasized the need for an international body like those that regulate nuclear research.

GARY MARCUS: Ultimately, we may need something like CERN, global, international and neutral, but focused on A.I.

safety, rather than high-energy physics.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: While he supports regulation, Altman warns that it should not stunt the benefits of this new technology.

SAM ALTMAN: I think it's important that any - - any new approach, any new law does not stop the innovation from happening with smaller companies, open-source models, researchers that are doing work at a smaller scale.

That's a wonderful part of this ecosystem and of America.

We don't want to slow that down.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And joining me now is one of those who testified before the Senate today.

Gary Marcus is the co-author of "Rebooting A.I."

Gary, thank you so much for being here.

Before we get into the dangers of A.I.

that you laid out before the Senate today, I know that you have said that you have loved A.I.

since you were a little kid, and you see some remarkable potential for this technology for humanity.

Make that case for A.I.

first.

GARY MARCUS: Well, I love it as a cognitive scientist.

I have studied how children learn language for a lot of my career.

And it's just a fascinating intellectual question to solve it.

But, also, there's a potential, I think, to revolutionize science and medicine to help us solve things that we can't solve on our own., for example, molecular biology, has tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of molecules in the body.

No one human can understand that.

A.I.

might really revolutionize medicine.

It might also help us with climate change.

We might be able to build eldercare robots that help us with the upcoming demographic inversion, where we have more elderly people than young people, to take care of them.

So, there are lots of practical implications.

And it's also just cool.

It's just interesting for anybody who's grown up on science fiction books, written computer programs, and so forth.

So, I have always been interested in it, and I would like to see it succeed.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: So, as you mentioned, science fiction often has pointed to some of the potential downsides of that.

And you were warning about some of those today before the Senate.

What are the other major concerns that you have about this technology?

GARY MARCUS: I mean, it's actually a long list.

And I keep thinking of Donald Rumsfeld's quote about unknown unknowns.

We don't really know the scope of it.

But just to start with, we know that democracy is threatened because we're likely to enter a regime where bad actors can use these tools to make essentially infinite amounts of misinformation at zero cost.

That's incredibly plausible.

And so we're going to enter an era where nobody trusts anything.

That's obviously not good.

We're going to enter an era where everybody denies any evidence presented to them in court and says, well, that's just made up, even when it isn't.

We're going to have chatbots that encourage people perhaps to commit suicide or do other terrible things, giving bad medical advice, medical -- psychiatric advice.

We also have the potential for a lot of cyber crime.

So these new tools can be used to manipulate people, and to do so, again, at a scale we haven't seen before.

And, in the long term, we don't really know what would happen if machines got out of control and did things we don't want them to do.

We're not really prepared for any of this.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Are there any current examples of A.I.

doing some of these things that are the seeds for these future fears that you have?

GARY MARCUS: NewsGuard has are already just released a study showing like 40 or 50 different Web sites are generating their news automatically.

We have already had things like CNET generate automatic news that turned out to be flawed.

I guess those are the major first initial signs.

We have already seen at least one case of a suicide that seems to be associated with a chatbot, where the chatbot -- I don't even want to say on air, but gave bad advice and didn't refer somebody to a professional.

So those are just some examples we have already seen.

And we will see a lot more.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: So there is not a great track record when it comes to the government regulating effectively technologies.

But yet you were a part of the group that was arguing today that we have to do something to try to marshal the governmental powers to get around this technology.

What would you like to see done?

GARY MARCUS: Well, in fact, I argued in my TED Talk and a few weeks ago in an invited column for "The Economist" that what we need here is an international A.I.

agency that brings together scientists, government and companies to try to figure out what's best here, to try to align that global policy.

There was pretty strong agreement in the room that that might be a good idea, that at least we need to do that at a national level.

I don't think existing agencies are really up to the task of keeping up with the speed at which A.I.

is evolving and coordinating with each other.

I think we need some kind of central regulation around this.

There's lots of complicated political problems.

But there was a strong bipartisan sense in the room that we do need to do something along these lines.

One of the specifics that I called for in the room was that we have something like an FDA procedure for large models that are deployed en masse.

So if you had something that was used by 1,000 people, that's a research project.

That's fine.

But if you want to release something to 100 million people, then you should do a safety analysis, and there should be someone outside of your company that evaluates that and make sure it's OK. And then, after the fact, there should be additional monitoring as new issues come up.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Because we haven't really seen that thus far.

What we have seen is basically the development of these tools, and then their relatively quick release into broad use in the public.

GARY MARCUS: That's right.

The ChatGPT, I don't think anybody was really prepared that it would go out to -- more than 100 million people would subscribe.

I think that took everybody in the field by surprise.

The technology is not that different from what we saw a couple years ago.

And so none of us in the field realized how much the public would resonate.

And there isn't really a culture now or a standard now about, when is it OK to release it to everybody?

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Isn't the horse already out of the barn in this regard?

I mean, let's just say you come up with some global governance strategy here, and Google and Microsoft and the Americans and the Chinese developers and the Indian developers all get on board.

Won't there always still be rogue actors who can use smaller versions of this technology to do all of the things that you're most worried about?

GARY MARCUS: Some of the horses are out of the barn and some aren't.

So we already, for example, have publicly available models that can be used to generate misinformation.

I believe that we can build new technologies, but it's going to be hard, to try to mitigate some of those risks.

There are other technologies that haven't even been built yet, like self-improving machines or self-aware machines that maybe we don't want to build at all.

And so I think is kind of a dress rehearsal for even more sophisticated technologies than the ones that we have now, which are flawed and unreliable.

And it's an opportunity to learn how to close at least some barn doors before all the horses have escaped.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: You and several other people who have been studying this for a long time have been raising these warnings of late.

Do you think we, as a society, are going to hear these warnings in time?

GARY MARCUS: I was really heartened by what I heard today in the Senate.

I saw a lot of bipartisan alignment and a lot of recognition that we hadn't really handled the Internet right.

I saw a lot of people with, I think, intellectual honesty and humility who were very much wanting to do the right thing here.

And so there's a long way to go from here, but I couldn't have been more satisfied with the meeting.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: All right, Gary Marcus host of the podcast "Humans vs. Machines," thank you so much for being here.

GARY MARCUS: Thanks for having me.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The first major biography of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in roughly 40 years is now out, and it has important new revelations about the civil rights leader and what he dealt with as a public activist and a private citizen.

Geoff Bennett spoke recently with the author for our "NewsHour" Bookshelf.

GEOFF BENNETT: In his new biography, "King: A Life," author Jonathan Eig sets out to president Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as more than a civil rights icon, but as a radical thinker with a rebellious side and, at the same time, paint a more human portrait.

Jonathan Eig joins us now to discuss his research and what else we can expect in his new comprehensive biography of Dr. King.

Jonathan Eig, thanks for being with us.

JONATHAN EIG, Author, "King: A Life": Thank you.

GEOFF BENNETT: And you have written books about Muhammad Ali, Al Capone, Jackie Robinson, some of the most consequential figures in American life.

In some ways, it makes sense that you would write a biography about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

But how did in the beginning that there would be anything new to say, anything new to add to the public's understanding of his life?

JONATHAN EIG: I began really simply.

I knew that there were lots of people around who knew Dr. King, people who were still alive.

I was interviewing some of them for my Muhammad Ali book.

And I just figured, my time would be really well spent traveling the country the next few years interviewing people who knew Martin Luther King Jr., because the time was running short.

And once I started doing that, I realized that there were also a lot of new archival documents that had come online since the last batch of books were written.

It had been a good 30, 40 years since the last big King biographies were written.

So I really hit the sweet spot.

I had people who knew King still around, and I had a ton of new archival material.

So I was off to the races.

GEOFF BENNETT: How did Dr. King's upbringing affect his later activism?

JONATHAN EIG: Martin Luther King Jr. was -- of course, he was born Mike King.

He was raised in the church, but not just in the church where religion was concerned, in the church where religion was seen as a tool to try to change society, that America needed to live up to the words in the Bible and the words in the Constitution.

And preachers were leading that charge.

At a time when a lot of Black people were afraid to speak out because they might lose their jobs, Black preachers had a level of independence.

So, King learned the Bible before he could read, and he learned the courage of Black preachers before he ever went to school.

GEOFF BENNETT: There's also the monumental revelation, based on your research in the book, that King's famous criticism of Malcolm X was just not true, that the interview that he gave Alex Haley, that Alex Haley misquoted his comments, and that forever changed the historical view of the relationship between Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.

Tell us about that and how you discovered it.

JONATHAN EIG: This was one of the most shocking discoveries that I made.

As a routine, when I'm writing a book, if someone does a good interview with my subject, I will look for the original tapes of that interview.

I will look for the transcripts of the tapes, the notes just to see if they left anything out.

And I went to look for the Alex Haley interview.

It's the longest interview ever published with Martin Luther King Jr. And the tapes were not available, but the transcripts were.

And they were at Duke University's Rubenstein Library.

And when I read through the transcripts, I was shocked, because the most famous criticism that Martin Luther King had of Malcolm X came from that interview in "Playboy," when he said that -- Martin Luther King said that Malcolm's fiery, demagogic oratory would bring nothing but grief, that his violence was doing nothing but harm to Black people in America.

King never said that.

And the quotes had been changed dramatically.

Some of them had been entirely invented.

And we have been telling the story of the relationship between Martin Luther King and Malcolm X for generations, based in part on that quote, the sense that Martin Luther King had this antagonism.

And it just wasn't true.

What King said in that interview was that: I don't know that I have all the answers.

I don't want to be so arrogant as to think that everything I say and do is right.

I'm interested in what Malcolm has to say.

I don't like his calls for violence.

But they seemed to agree on the call for Black dignity, on the call for Black equal rights.

They agreed on much more than they disagreed on.

GEOFF BENNETT: Do you have a sense of why Alex Haley would fabricate those comments?

JONATHAN EIG: Well, it's complicated.

I think there was a sense of, maybe he wanted to stir up controversy.

Maybe it was his editors pushing him.

We don't know.

But, unfortunately, he played into the hands of those, including the FBI, who were trying to stoke controversy and dissension between Black leaders in America.

There was a sense that if we could divide the important Black leaders in America, we could keep them from really moving the masses toward the kind of society that they sought with equality.

And the people who were destined -- who were intent on preserving the white power structure wanted to see Malcolm and Martin Luther King not getting along.

GEOFF BENNETT: You mentioned the FBI surveillance operation against Dr. King.

There's some new information that you uncovered that you include in the book.

How did that affect his relationship with President Johnson at the time, which was a critical moment in the civil rights movement?

JONATHAN EIG: This was one of the other really stunning revelations for me in my research for this book.

I found the private papers, the J. Edgar Hoover - - the private memos that he was sending directly to President Johnson.

These were not contained in President Johnson's regular archives.

He asked his secretary to store them in a safe, so I found them in his secretary's papers.

And what they showed was that Hoover was writing directly to the president sometimes three, four times a week with specific details, really sometimes very petty details, about Martin Luther King Jr. And it really seems to have done great damage to the relationship.

I think the relationship between Martin Luther King Jr. and President Johnson was the greatest single relationship between an activist and a president in our country's history.

But that relationship was slowly undermined and really destroyed by J. Edgar Hoover's leaks and, I should, say by LBJ's complicity in that.

Johnson was encouraging Hoover to keep it up.

GEOFF BENNETT: How do you approach navigating the challenges of presenting a balanced and comprehensive portrayal of Dr. King's life, considering both his remarkable achievements and his personal flaws?

JONATHAN EIG: I think it's very important to be honest about our heroes.

King was deeply flawed.

He knew it.

He talked about it in his sermons.

He was not perfect.

And I want to balance that so that readers of this book understand that our heroes don't have to be perfect.

If we expect perfection, A, we have a very boring story on our hands, but, B, we can't really hope to ever emulate the great men and women in our history, because none of us are perfect.

So I think readers are smart enough to see King, accept his flaws, wrestle with them, as he did, but still appreciate his greatness and all that he accomplished and how he continues to inspire us.

GEOFF BENNETT: You think so?

I think we have so few heroes that there are so many people who are invested in the mythology.

JONATHAN EIG: Well, part of our problem is that people are afraid to step into roles of leadership today, because they might be criticized for something in their background that might not be quite so honorable.

And that discourages people from taking chances.

You have to take a chance to be a leader.

Martin Luther King didn't look to be a leader.

He wasn't asked -- he wasn't asking to become the leader of the civil rights movement.

He was thrust into it.

And he had doubts about himself.

One of the things that's really painful, we have these FBI transcripts of his conversations.

His phones were being tapped.

His home phone, his office, his friends' phones were being tapped.

And we can hear him in these -- in these phone calls basically pleading for understanding: Why is everybody treating me so badly?

Why is -- why are the newspapers criticizing me so?

Even his friends, when they -- when they say to him, you should just stick to the voting rights in the South, you're -- you're making too many enemies, you're costing us support by speaking out on Northern racism by speaking out on the Vietnam War, King is begging them, don't you understand me?

Don't you understand that this comes from my religious beliefs?

I'm not a politician.

I'm not trying to do what's best for my approval ratings.

I'm trying to do what God commands us to do.

And you feel his pain.

So I think it's important that we accept -- and I think we can appreciate him more and respect him more when we accept his flaws.

GEOFF BENNETT: Well, the book presents a vivid portrait of Dr. King.

It is exceptional, Jonathan Eig.

The book is "King: A Life."

Thanks so much for being with us.

JONATHAN EIG: Thank you.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Apprentice apprenticeships are common in fields like welding and plumbing and carpentry.

But, until recently, the federal government didn't recognize teaching apprenticeships.

The Biden administration changed that, and educators are now hoping that new federal funding, combined with experience from college programs, will open the floodgates to a new class of qualified, diverse teachers for America's schools.

Stephanie Sy reports from Dallas for our series Rethinking College.

PRICILA CANO PADRON, Teacher Apprentice: And then we see that they have some right ones.

STEPHANIE SY: Twenty-two-year-old Pricila Cano Padron says she has always dreamed of becoming a teacher.

PRICILA CANO PADRON: I have always wanted to help people.

I have always wanted to help someone in need.

Just seeing the relationship I had with my teachers in elementary school and how they have helped me, it's always been my dream.

STEPHANIE SY: She is a first generation Mexican-American, just like many of the students in this classroom at Audelia Creek Elementary in Dallas, Texas.

PRICILA CANO PADRON: I see students that remind me of myself when I was in their third grade classroom.

STEPHANIE SY: Now, thanks to a teaching apprenticeship, Cano Padron is on her way to realizing her dream.

Teacher apprenticeships, at least those registered with the Department of Labor, are new, started last year by the Biden administration in response to the pandemic; 17 states have registered apprenticeship programs, with interest spreading.

SHAREEFAH NADIR-MASON, Dallas College: After COVID and losing so many teachers in our classrooms, we really had to come back to the table to figure out what new teaching models would look like.

And we knew we had to do something different.

STEPHANIE SY: Shareefah Nadir-Mason administers the program at Dallas College, which offers a low-cost bachelors degree combined with paid on-the-job training.

PRICILA CANO PADRON: Number one should have how many?

STEPHANIE SY: That's what Pricila Cano Padron was doing at Audelia Creek Elementary.

SHAREEFAH NADIR-MASON: We don't simply want our students to be first-generation graduates.

We want them to be first-generation unimpoverished.

So we want them to walk into the field without the burden of student loan debt.

STEPHANIE SY: In nearly all 50 states, certified teachers are required to have at least a bachelor's degree, which comes with an average cost of over $35,000 per year.

The student teaching in the last year is typically unpaid.

It's a barrier for many would-be teachers.

The Labor Department's approval of registered teacher apprenticeships unlocks federal funding to cover tuition, books, and fees.

DAVID DONALDSON, Founder & Managing Partner, National Center for Grow Your Own: That is a game-changer and allows us to have a different conversation about who gets to become a teacher and how they get to become a teacher.

STEPHANIE SY: David Donaldson is founder of the National Center for Grow Your Own, a nonprofit working to expand the teaching work force.

DAVID DONALDSON: We help states and school districts across the country launch these registered apprenticeship programs, with the ultimate goal of creating pathways for folks to become a teacher for free and get paid to do so.

STEPHANIE SY: Donaldson challenges the notion that teaching is no longer a desirable profession.

He says there are teachers all around us.

DAVID DONALDSON: Whether parents, tutors, bus drivers, cafeteria workers, paraprofessionals, folks who have a heart for teaching, who, if simply given the opportunity -- and, usually, what this means is removing the financial barrier -- would make an excellent teacher if given the chance.

RAMIA DAWES, Teacher Apprentice: I wanted to be a teacher.

I just couldn't.

STEPHANIE SY: Ramia Dawes drove a school bus in Dallas for more than a decade.

RAMIA DAWES: I loved driving the school bus.

I drove the big old bus... (LAUGHTER) RAMIA DAWES: with about 50 kids in the back.

STEPHANIE SY: Getting a B.A.

while feeding and clothing her two kids seemed impossible not so long ago.

RAMIA DAWES: I was working with kids for 11 years, driving the school bus.

STEPHANIE SY: And that whole time, you were thinking, I wouldn't mind being a teacher.

RAMIA DAWES: Yes, I just didn't have the resources to do so.

STEPHANIE SY: The Dallas College apprenticeship program allowed her to continue her higher education.

RAMIA DAWES: It says carrying nine bags of marbles for a craft.

STEPHANIE SY: She made roughly $30,000 as a teacher apprentice in the Richardson Independent School District last year.

RAMIA DAWES: I'm working.

I'm getting a paycheck every two weeks, and I'm going to school.

I have always wanted to be able to still provide for my family, but also do something that I really had a passion for.

STEPHANIE SY: High-minority, high-poverty regions like Richardson ISD have been hit harder by the national teacher shortage.

Tabitha Branum is the district superintendent.

TABITHA BRANUM, Superintendent, Richardson Independent School District: If you would have told me 10 years ago that we would be a place in education where we start a year with anywhere between 50 and 100 vacancies, I would not have believed you.

But our surrounding districts, we are all faced with having to look at how we staff differently, because the shortage is real.

STEPHANIE SY: The shortage is a key reason why Branum decided to partner with Dallas College.

The apprentices help support the full-time teachers and also fill vital roles as substitutes.

TABITHA BRANUM: It's an extra set of hands in the classroom.

And then add to it -- we have talked about the teacher shortage.

Let's talk about the substitute shortage.

We have worked really hard to message to our educators, take care of yourself.

If you're sick, stay home.

So, the fact that these apprentices are now substitutes for us one day a week, the relief of those teachers in that building who know that I might be off this week, but that apprentice is going to be in my classroom, they can really take the day off and not worry.

STEPHANIE SY: Through the Dallas College program, apprentices spend significantly more time working in classrooms than they would in a traditional program, far better preparation for an aspiring educator, says Shareefah Nadir-Mason.

SHAREEFAH NADIR-MASON: We have a lot of smart people that graduate in education, but haven't had the opportunity to practice enough.

And so we built a program that is strictly built around practice.

STEPHANIE SY: The teacher apprentices are assigned to experienced mentors in the classroom, building their skills and confidence.

RAMIA DAWES: When I first came, I was like, I don't really know how to teach math.

And I'm really scared.

But I'm learning from people that are doing it in the classroom.

They know how to handle classroom management.

They know how to teach.

And I'm able to look at it and model it.

PRICILA CANO PADRON: Eighteen.

You have 42 little eyes looking at you.

And with the help of Ms. Gasper (ph) and all my other my team members, they helped me overcome that shyness, that fear that I had of teaching up there.

What do you guys see?

STEPHANIE SY: Grow Your Own's David Donaldson says the apprenticeships are the first step toward his ultimate vision, a free quality education for every teacher in America.

DAVID DONALDSON: Imagine a world with no teacher vacancies.

That is a really exciting thing to think about, every kid having not only the teacher they need, but deserve.

STEPHANIE SY: A teacher, one might say, like Pricila Cano Padron.

PRICILA CANO PADRON: OK, who can help me with number five?

STEPHANIE SY: She graduated this month, and has already accepted an offer to teach fourth grade reading at a local elementary school.

For the "PBS NewsHour," I am Stephanie Sy in Dallas.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Best known as a talk show host and the bright and shining face of Bravo TV, Andy Cohen is opening up in a new book about his latest adventure, life as the father of two kids.

Amna Nawaz has that conversation.

AMNA NAWAZ: Before he oversaw a reality TV empire, Andy Cohen grew up in St. Louis and worked as a producer at CBS News, later landing as a programming executive at Bravo TV, where he helped launch the popular "Real Housewives" franchise.

WOMAN: I don't have an issue with you.

I never had an issue with you.

AMNA NAWAZ: In its 17 years on the air, the brand stretched to more than 10 cities, reaching millions of fans.

Cohen first stepped in front of the camera in 2009, hosting the late-night talk "Watch What Happens Live," known for its celebrity guests, boozy moments, and spilling secrets.

ANDY COHEN, Author, "The Daddy Diaries: The Year I Grew Up": What is the hardest drug?

AMNA NAWAZ: His profile has only grown.

ANDY COHEN: That just seems like an odd thing to say.

AMNA NAWAZ: Hosting the network's reunion specials, launching his own radio channel on SiriusXM and writing a series of bestselling books.

His latest, "The Daddy Diaries: The Year I Grew Up," chronicles his day-to-day life and celebrity run-ins in the year he welcomed daughter Lucy to his family, joining his son, Ben.

We recently sat down to talk about family, work, and what made him want to write another book.. ANDY COHEN: I love writing.

It's my fifth book.

It's my third installment of the "Andy Cohen Diaries" series, which was inspired by Andy Warhol's diaries, which I absolutely loved, which are very name-droppy.

They're very celebrity-heavy, and they are very much New York stories.

And this is all that with the overlay of having two kids as a single dad.

AMNA NAWAZ: Anyone who follows you online has seen your beautiful family.

But tell us tell us about your kids.

ANDY COHEN: My kids are great.

They are 4 and 1.

The 4-year-old loves being an older brother.

I was writing the book during everyone says terrible 2's, but its really terrible 3's.

AMNA NAWAZ: Three is worse than 2?

ANDY COHEN: Terrible.

AMNA NAWAZ: Three is like a professional 2-year-old.

ANDY COHEN: Exactly.

AMNA NAWAZ: Yes.

ANDY COHEN: Very -- yes.

AMNA NAWAZ: Yes.

ANDY COHEN: So we have some knock-down drag-outs during the summer months of "The Daddy Diaries."

Vacation is over, OK?

I know my way around a group of real housewives, which can be infuriating and exhausting.

You can't get off the couch, OK?

Is that a deal?

So, you know what?

I jumped right into toddler fits.

AMNA NAWAZ: Not that dissimilar.

ANDY COHEN: Exactly.

You just let it play out.

AMNA NAWAZ: You write about the decision to have kids in the first place.

You talk -- you refer to this is the year that you grew up.

ANDY COHEN: Yes.

AMNA NAWAZ: How are you different now than you were before?

ANDY COHEN: Oh, my gosh.

Starting in the happy way, I mean, I'm just more grounded of a person.

When you publish your diaries, you really look at what you do every day and say, OK, this is my life, or this is my life that I'm putting out there for consumption.

And I got to the point where I thought, is this all there is?

It's fun.

Everything is really fun.

But I wanted to be grounded.

AMNA NAWAZ: You have also said your book is a bit of a statement on sort of pop culture in the year 2022... ANDY COHEN: Yes, I think so.

AMNA NAWAZ: ... and how much things have changed.

There's one line in the book where you say: "Housewives are often are offensive on some level, but the line has moved over 16 years."

ANDY COHEN: Yes.

AMNA NAWAZ: How has it moved?

ANDY COHEN: Well, producing a show about a group of politically incorrect, outspoken women... WOMAN: That's my opinion!

ANDY COHEN: ... in 2023, in the age of cancel culture and people being offended by things you didn't know you could be offended by is a challenge.

And so it has changed a lot.

AMNA NAWAZ: Just the brand itself, which is now very much an empire... ANDY COHEN: Yes.

AMNA NAWAZ: ... it has changed so much since the first season.

ANDY COHEN: Yes.

AMNA NAWAZ: They were living in town houses.

They were not their own celebrity brands.

Now they are full glam.

You have a huge convention with thousands of people.

They are their own celebrities because of the show.

ANDY COHEN: Yes.

Yes.

AMNA NAWAZ: Why do you think we have this fascination with this kind of television, these shows?

ANDY COHEN: I think it is the modern soap opera.

It is the soap opera of our time.

I know that people who don't watch it, it's very easy to look at the clips and have a judgment.

AMNA NAWAZ: Yes.

ANDY COHEN: But I think that the reason its still on the air is that it's about friendship and motherhood and being a wife and a sister and family, and a whole lot more.

And there are things that ground it in relatability.

It's also sometimes very aspirational.

If it was just a drink toss or an offensive comment, it would not still be on the air, I promise.

Like, there's no way.

AMNA NAWAZ: Would you let your kids watch the show one day?

ANDY COHEN: Eventually, absolutely.

AMNA NAWAZ: Yes?

ANDY COHEN: Yes.

AMNA NAWAZ: Would you ever let them star in their own reality show?

ANDY COHEN: I would prefer that they not.

(LAUGHTER) ANDY COHEN: And, by the way, the -- people always say to me, would you ever star on a reality show?

AMNA NAWAZ: Yes.

ANDY COHEN: This is as close as I would get.

AMNA NAWAZ: Yes.

ANDY COHEN: This is a year in my life, but I am in control of the edit.

AMNA NAWAZ: Did you edit yourself a lot in this?

ANDY COHEN: I edited myself, but I also pushed myself.

AMNA NAWAZ: Yes.

ANDY COHEN: This is my fifth book.

And I know -- and I learned in my first book you have to push yourself.

This is the most vulnerable I have ever been in a book.

AMNA NAWAZ: I got to ask this, too, because you, in the reunions you host with these housewives and your own show on "Watch What Happens Live," you are a very skilled interviewer.

ANDY COHEN: Thank you.

AMNA NAWAZ: Because you know how to get people to share things that they probably wouldn't share otherwise.

ANDY COHEN: Yes.

AMNA NAWAZ: What makes a good interview for you?

How do you do that?

ANDY COHEN: So, I was a producer at CBS News.

So I not only learned how to produce an interview, but I learned how much time four-and-a-half minutes of TV time is, when they're telling me in my ear.

That's actually a lot of time to get something out of someone.

So, that was important training for me.

But, also, I think a genuine curiosity is important.

AMNA NAWAZ: It does give you a platform to talk about other things that you really care about too.

ANDY COHEN: Yes.

AMNA NAWAZ: You talk about LGBTQ rights.

You talk about politics.

ANDY COHEN: This is one big dog whistle.

AMNA NAWAZ: Do you feel that's just something you want to do or do you feel like that's a responsibility right now?

ANDY COHEN: Well, as a gay American and as a Jewish American, two groups really under fire right now, I feel like if there are issues facing my community, I speak up about it.

Never did I think that people would be fighting drag queens.

AMNA NAWAZ: Why do you think we're seeing that right now?

ANDY COHEN: Well, I think it's a distraction from what's really going on, and it's a way to fire up on your base.

Let's hate on the trans community and drag queens, two marginalized groups of people.

And, I'm sorry, but the biggest issue facing the world is not whether drag queens are performing.

It's not an issue.

AMNA NAWAZ: You have talked about the heaviness too that comes with being a single father of the two.

ANDY COHEN: Yes.

Yes.

AMNA NAWAZ: What did you mean by that?

ANDY COHEN: I think that's why I called it "The Year I Grew Up."

I'm a happy-go-lucky guy.

AMNA NAWAZ: Yes.

That's clear.

ANDY COHEN: But my resting mood when I wake up is happiness.

The weight of being a single father really hit me this year.

I had been for three years before Lucy came.

Now, suddenly, there are two.

I just want to be everything to them.

AMNA NAWAZ: You did say: "I always felt light as a feather.

This year, my feet feel firmly planted.

I like how that feels."

It sounds like you're in a good place.

ANDY COHEN: Yes.

AMNA NAWAZ: Are you ready for a third kid?

ANDY COHEN: No.

Oh, my God.

(LAUGHTER) ANDY COHEN: You're going to scare me out of "PBS NewsHour."

(LAUGHTER) ANDY COHEN: Are you kidding me?

You are joking, right?

(LAUGHTER) AMNA NAWAZ: We can talk about it later.

ANDY COHEN: I'm dancing as fast as I can.

AMNA NAWAZ: Andy Cohen, author of "The Daddy Diaries: The Year I Grew Up," absolute pleasure.

Thanks for coming.

ANDY COHEN: Thank you so much.

How fun.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: You can hear more from Andy Cohen online with Amna's lightning round of questions, from his dream guest to his favorite president.

That's on our Instagram page.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Parts of the United States have recently been getting glimpses of the Northern Lights.

John Yang spoke with our science correspondent, Miles O'Brien, for a brief explanation of why the spectacle in the skies is now being seen further south.

JOHN YANG: Miles, every year, there is the Northern Lights, the aurora borealis.

But it is usually restricted to the northernmost areas of the Earth.

Now it is coming as far south as the United States.

Why is that happening?

MILES O'BRIEN: So, the sun has a cycle, John, of about 11 years.

It goes from solar minimum to solar maximum.

We're right at about at the maximum or we're approaching it.

And what that means is that the activity on the sun greatly increases.

And it blows particles from the sun in our direction that interact with the magnetic field in our atmosphere and, in so doing, excite them and make them colorful, and, in some cases, green and red colors.

And because we're at this point in time, where there's more of this activity headed our way, we're seeing wonderful aurora borealis, or Northern Lights.

And it is extending a little farther to lower latitudes.

So it's a great opportunity.

If you have never had the chance to see them, by all means, make an effort to do it.

You don't have to go to the Arctic or to Iceland anymore because of this solar maximum.

And what's great about it, too, is, when you go to see them, every time you see them, it's different.

It's a different kind of ethereal thing of green and red lights in the night.

And it's -- it's kind of a romantic thing, actually.

JOHN YANG: Give some advice to people who want to see it.

Obviously, you have to get away from the cities.

You want someplace that's really dark.

Where do you look in the sky?

MILES O'BRIEN: When it's there, it's everywhere.

Try to get as far north as you can.

Like I say, it's coming down into the northern parts of Europe and in places where you wouldn't normally see it in the United States as well.

The thing is to just get up in the middle of the night, and wait and enjoy the spectacle.

JOHN YANG: And how long is this greater activity going to go on?

MILES O'BRIEN: Well, I think solar maximum is going to peak out at about 2025.

And so then it'll start scaling back.

So, in that period of time, this will continue to be quite a light show.

It also has the potential to really cause some difficulties for communication satellites and the power grid, so we should be on guard for that as well.

The sun is a big player in our solar system, to be sure.

And when this solar maximum occurs, it's not just a spectacle.

It's a potential harm to some of our systems.

So we have to watch out for that.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Remember, there is plenty more online, including a look at why more than half-a-million Americans are on wait-lists for disability services and what some states are doing to clear those backlogs.

And that's the "NewsHour" for tonight.

I'm William Brangham.

Join us here tomorrow evening, when Judy Woodruff reports from her birthplace of Tulsa, Oklahoma, about the reckoning that city is having about its fraught history with race.

For all of us that the "PBS NewsHour," thank you.

We will see you soon.