Tonight:
The killer new healthcare bill, revealed.
The library fighting the opioid crisis.
And…
— The London apartment fire that killed at least 79 people
has led authorities to examine at least 600 other buildings with similar exterior cladding.
Investigators haven't determined what caused the fire yet,
but it's suspected that the outside panels contributed to how quickly the fire spread.
Already, seven buildings have been found to have combustible cladding.
An independent report says senior members of the Church of England
colluded with disgraced former Bishop Peter Ball,
who sexually abused boys and men over a 20-year period.
The report says the former Archbishop of Canterbury was warned repeatedly about Ball's actions,
but failed to act.
Ball was released on probation in February,
after serving just over a year in prison.
The man who shot at a D.C. pizza restaurant because he was, quote, "self-investigating" a conspiracy theory,
has been sentenced to four years in prison.
The fake story known as "pizzagate"
connected the restaurant and the Democratic Party to a non-existent child sex-trafficking ring.
Edgar Maddison Welch stormed into the restaurant last December,
carrying a fully loaded AR-15 and revolver.
Prosecutors argued a strong sentence would deter violence by others inspired by fake stories.
President Trump has appointed Richard Hohlt, a registered lobbyist for Saudi Arabia,
to the Commission on White House Fellowships.
According to DOJ documents,
since January, the Saudi Arabian Foreign Ministry has paid Hohlt around $430,000 in exchange for,
quote, "advice on legislative and public affairs strategies."
Hohlt says he's never lobbied the Trump administration on behalf of Saudi Arabia.
Since Trump's taken office,
he's reportedly brought in more than 100 lobbyists to the administration.
After suggesting last month that he had tapes of his conversations
with former FBI Director James Comey,
President Trump finally conceded, in a tweet, that he didn't.
The revelation made for tough questions in today's off-camera White House briefing:
— Why the game?
Why… what, what was he doing?
— I don't think it was a game.
Again, he's answered the question.
He gave a timeline and the frame in which he would,
and he did that.
He said by the end of this week, and he's done that.
— Back to the original tweet,
did the President attempt to threaten James Comey with that tweet?
— Not that I'm aware of, I don't think so.
— The secret is officially out:
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
finally released the Senate version of the Obamacare replacement today—
after weeks of drafting without a hearing or public input.
The bill retains elements of the House version,
and has the same effect:
It gives wealthy people a massive tax cut,
and leaves everyone else with health insurance
that's more expensive, and harder to get, use and keep.
Where the Senate version differs from the House is that it ends the Medicaid expansion more slowly—
in six years instead of two—
and it keeps Obamacare subsidies more or less in place,
though with a different formula that takes into account age and income level.
But those tweaks weren't enough to stop protests from livid opponents of repeal—
including a disability rights group that staged a die-in outside of Senator McConnell's office.
— Don't cut Medicaid!
At least four Republican senators came out in opposition to the bill,
which is more than McConnell can afford to lose.
Whether waffling Republican senators ultimately get on board
will depend on how much political pressure they get to support, or oppose it.
— We cannot support the current bill.
— And right now,
the institutional players are lining up against the bill.
Shawna Thomas spoke today with representatives from three of them:
Planned Parenthood,
the National Council for Behavioral Health,
and the libertarian Cato Institute.
— We just wanna talk a little bit about first immediate reactions.
What's your first reaction to this bill?
— The bill was even worse than we feared,
for people who are living with mental illnesses and addictions in this country.
— Right, and my first reaction is it's not very different from the House bill,
and neither of them is all that different from the ACA.
— And the Cato Institute didn't like the House bill either.
— That's right.
— We do not like the latest version of Trumpcare.
It would be absolutely devastating for women in this country.
One in five women rely on Medicaid for their basic health care.
Medicaid is fundamentally gutted in this bill.
Secondly, of course, Planned Parenthood would be defunded under this bill,
which means that the 1.4 million men, women and young people who come to us under Medicaid
would no longer be able to access that basic care.
— Both the state and the federal government are overextended,
and they have to find more innovative ways to save money.
And in my view,
more and more government subsidy of everybody's health expenditures
is not the way to contain health care costs.
— Well, interestingly,
the Affordable Care Act actually did save money,
and there's no way you can retract and restrict Medicaid
to the extent that the current Trumpcare version would,
without impacting what this is really all about,
which is the people who benefit from having access to basic coverage.
And in the reproductive health arena,
I would just point out that we are at the lowest rate of teen pregnancy,
the lowest rate of abortions since Roe v. Wade,
and a 30-year low in unintended pregnancies.
— All those good trends were happening before 2008.
So the ACA is there, and these trends are happening,
but they were happening before it.
— Do we think they got faster,
or they increased after the Affordable Care Act?
— Certainly, in the area of reproductive health care.
There is no way to compare the state of women's healthcare before Obamacare and post-Obamacare—
where women have access to birth control with no co-pay.
What this bill fundamentally would do for birth control
is really put millions of women in jeopardy.
— Does this bill go anywhere? Do you think this bill becomes law?
— No, probably not.
They have a couple of people who think this involves
too much regulation and too much spending.
I don't see it passing the Senate.
— It should not become law.
It should not even get out of the Senate,
if senators are listening to their constituents who will be devastated by this.
And in particular, we know that 80% of Americans oppose the defunding provision of this bill.
— I agree that this bill should not become law.
Slashing Medicaid coverage for people with mental illness and addictions
is not helping our country move forward.
— The opioid crisis has become a national emergency.
Overdose is now the leading cause of death for Americans under 50—
worse than car crashes or gun violence.
But the epidemic is more than just numbers.
And to understand it,
you have to go to the communities that it's tearing apart.
— I come out here because of the children and the animals.
I don't want them to get poked.
139 I got, that was the most I ever got…
…in one day.
And there's another one I see.
I just started.
Sometimes, you find them in socks.
Sometimes you find them in cigarette packs.
Find them in the walls.
In the trees.
They die in here, too.
But now I'm used to it.
— I didn't even know this place was called McPherson Library.
This is Needle Park.
— If you're not adding skills as a librarian,
especially because you're working with the public,
you're not fulfilling your role.
I was very adamant about getting the Narcan training,
when we had an overdose in the building, right by our public restroom…
there's something extremely horrifying and upsetting
about watching somebody slowly die and you can't do anything.
Narcan can come in a nasal spray,
or this, which turns into a nasal mist, as well.
So, this little thing saves lives.
— My freshman year in college, playing football,
I had an awesome year.
And, uh, the game before the playoffs,
I tore my knee.
I just had a fucking doctor that wanted to give me all these pills.
I kept going back to the dude,
and he was giving me, you know, whatever.
I said, "These 5's aren't working right.
"I need something stronger."
So he gives me 7.5s.
And some Dilaudid.
— About two weeks ago, one of the kids, one of the regulars who come in afterschool,
ran in and said, "Someone fell outside."
And I kinda knew what that meant.
I ran out, he was turning blue,
he was seizing up.
So we gave him a dose.
Luckily, as we were waiting for the ambulance,
a group of police officers were walking through the park.
So we waved them down.
The officers gave the gentleman two more doses of Narcan.
We were trained in March, and I've Narcan'ed…
six individuals now.
— I'd be dead if it wasn't for Narcan.
When I relapsed, I OD'd, like, the third time I got high and, um…
I almost didn't make it.
They hit me with Narcan four times, and, finally, the fourth time I woke up.
I don't want to live like this.
This is terrible."
— Where's your little brother going?
One of the reasons I chose this branch is due to personal history.
Both of my parents, um, are in recovery for over 20 years now.
They used heroin.
They had substance use disorder.
And they both were able to get clean.
It took a lot of support.
And time.
See you tomorrow, Sterling.
No one really gets clean in 30 days,
if you talk to anybody who is in recovery,
so until we radically change the way we treat addiction in this country,
this community, unfortunately, will not strive forward.
— Today, The Supreme Court upheld the convictions of seven men in a high-profile murder case,
even though the prosecution withheld crucial information during the trial.
There was no physical evidence
linking the men to the gruesome 1984 slaying of a 48-year-old mother in Washington, D.C.
Prosecutors relied solely on witness statements.
But the prosecutors didn't disclose that they had identified another suspect in the crime—
even though they're required to share any material evidence with defense attorneys
that could prove their clients innocent.
The defendants appealed, but lost today.
In today's ruling,
the Supreme Court determined that the evidence prosecutors withheld
was "too little, too weak, or too distant" to have made a difference to the jury.
Justice Elena Kagan dissented from the Court's decision:
Prosecutorial misconduct is rampant.
Out of the 762 murder exonerations since 1989,
half were based on a prosecutor withholding evidence.
Today's ruling makes it even harder for the wrongfully convicted to get a new trial.
President Trump was in Cedar Rapids last night for a "Make America Great Again" rally.
And just like any veteran touring act, he played his greatest hits:
— We will never be intimidated
by the dishonest media corporations
who will say anything and do anything
to get people to watch their screens
or to get people to buy their failing papers.
— Trump supporters hate the media.
A PEW poll from May found that in the Trump era,
the partisan divide over the role of the press
is the largest it's been since they began asking this question.
Evan McMorris-Santoro went to Cedar Rapids to find out why.
— The fake news.
They tell you…
…it's fake news, it's fake.
— So what do you think?
— I don't hate the media, to be quite honest.
They think that we're more biased,
or we're haters or something to that effect,
because, I guess, we only have one way of looking at things,
even though I have multiple ways of looking at things.
I'm not a sexist, racist pig
that most media outlets call Trump supporters most of the time.
— You know, that's another thing I have a problem with the media on.
I thought Trump was talking about groupies.
All they said is he grabbed 'em by the pussy.
If you pull your panties down,
and wave 'em in a guy's face who's famous—
like, if you go backstage to KISS concert,
there's a lot of grabbin' 'em by the pussy.
You go to a Bruce Springsteen concert,
and a chick gets back there, drops her panties—
she may want to get grabbed by the pussy.
But is that a job environment?
Do you want that at the post office where you're working?
— So how should the media have covered that story, then?
The media should have said, "Women sometimes like to get their pussies grabbed"?
— A lot of voters understood he was talking about groupies.
It's like saying, "I gave her five bucks and she dropped her panties at a strip joint."
She was working at a strip joint.
That's what you do in sniffer's row, right?
— Okay.
— Well, I'm not saying that they say anything about him that's not true,
they just blow it out of proportion and make it bigger than it needs to be.
I want media to focus more on what's happening in America,
and not give a shit about what happens in other countries.
— Got it. Are you a Trump guy?
— I didn't vote, I can't vote.
I'm a felon, so.
I guess I don't really have an opinion on our President,
'cause I can't voice my vote.
As far as the media goes,
I just don't think they cover enough of the stuff that matters,
they cover more…
it's nonstop politic, politic, politic, politic.
— It's all about Russia, Russia, Russia.
There is not one shred of evidence that Russia hacked our election.
Okay? There's speculation.
— Well, there's a federal investigation into it.
— Right.
— So shouldn't we be covering that?
— A federal investigation into…
who hacked the DNC?
— Well, no, a federal investigation into Russian involvement in the Trump campaign.
That's the federal investigation that's ongoing right now.
— No.
— How's it going?
— How're you doing, what's your name?
— My name is Bill. — Nice to see you, Bill.
— It seems like you're a person who doesn't really believe the media that much.
— Uh, no I don't.
I will never believe the media until they get off the climate change kick.
I would like to know where some of these…
celebrities went to school,
and what was their major in college.
Mine happens to be environmental science.
Science has to be provable and repeatable.
Okay?
I would like to know where the ice went that was right here 10,000 years ago.
Did primitive man drive cars?
— Got it. Thanks, sir.
Nice to talk to you.
Thank you very much.
What should the media do differently?
Like, if you had a chance to tell them what you want to see them do, what would it be?
— Well, what what you're doing.
Listening to people like me.
I think you guys live in a bubble, you know?
And you see things from only your worldview.
And you don't think that, yeah,
there are people out here, you know,
in Minnesota and Iowa that aren't idiots.
We're not rednecks, we're not racists,
you know, we're not homophobes, xenophobes,
and all the other crap that we're called.
And you should respect our opinions
and come out and see what people want to see covered.
From our point of view.
— The Big Sick,
which is out in select theaters today,
is a feel-good summer rom-com about a guy who gets dumped
by a girl who spends most of her time in a medically-induced coma.
The love story is based on the real-life courtship
of Pakistani-born comedian Kumail Nanjiani and his wife Emily Gordon,
who Dexter Thomas sat down with at their favorite comic book store in Los Angeles.
— This is Meltdown Comics,
and it's the best comic book store in the entire world.
And we ran a stand up show here for six years,
from 2010 to 2016.
So every single week, we would do a show back in that back room.
— We just ended it at the end of last year.
— Partially because of this movie.
— Yeah, we used to be here all the time.
— Emily and Kumail's lives have changed a lot since they first met.
Kumail has a leading role in the HBO show "Silicon Valley,"
and Emily ditched her job as a couples and family therapist
to write and produce comedy shows.
Their first movie mirrors what happened in real life:
Kumail struggling with the expectations of his conservative Muslim parents…
— Oh! I wonder who that could be!
— I am betting it's a young, single Pakistani woman...
— ...and Emily, played by Zoe Kazan, too naive to understand what that's like.
— Are you judging Pakistan's Next Top Model?
— You know how we have arranged marriages in my culture?
— Oh my God, I am so stupid!
— A major illness shakes things up—
hence the title, The Big Sick.
— How much of the story is actually true?
— It's around 60 to 65 percent true.
We change stuff to up the drama and up the stakes of it.
— Yeah, cause Emily was, like, a rebellious kid,
and she was like, "Just tell your parents, man."
And I was like, "It's not how it works where I'm from."
There's no, like, rebellion narrative for kids.
So that's what I tried to explain to her.
That's the hard thing when you're talking to someone who's American.
— I do think what is universal is that feeling of,
"My parents want me to be this way and I don't know if I can do that,"
"and I don't know if I wanna do that."
Everybody has an experience of disappointing their parents,
or of being terrified to disappoint their parents.
That's universal.
— But some people might not be able to relate to Kumail's relationship with his family.
— I would say most people view arranged marriage
as sort of an outdated way of doing things.
— Within the movie, there are several people experiencing arranged marriage in differing ways.
And Kumail is one of them.
— Maybe arranged marriage isn't for me, but it does work for a lot of people.
So we wanted to show that, you know, my parents are an arranged marriage,
all my aunts and uncles are arranged marriages.
I mean, it works for a lot of people,
and that's the side that you rarely see portrayed or discussed in American pop culture.
— Do you think there's any danger that somebody might watch this
and come away thinking that Pakistanis are kind of messed up?
— I think that they'll walk out of the movie thinking that Muslims are more humanized.
— I have to tell you something.
I have been dating this girl.
She's white.
— A white girl?
— You can't look like you and yell, "White girl!"
It's okay! We hate terrorists.
— We're in a strange time right now,
because so much of my culture is a demonized,
so you can't really be completely open and frank,
because I think that is irresponsible—
at this point in time.
— Film critics say "The Big Sick" is a step in the right direction.
— Most of the people writing the reviews… white dudes.
They're really excited about the movie.
Does that weird you out at all?
— No.
But I am really curious to see,
because I also understand that there's a little bit of,
you know, white guilt that goes into reviewing stuff like this, too.
I do want to read reviews from many different groups.
— Yeah. "Dawn."
— The Pakistani newspaper that's, like, the biggest, oldest English newspaper,
it's called "Dawn."
They reviewed it and they gave it a really good review,
and that review just came out a couple of days ago.
— That meant a lot.
— There are a lot of people from my part of the world who are like,
"We want representation, but why this guy?"
"He's not funny, or a good actor, or smart, or good looking,"
"He doesn't deserve this!"
and I'm like, "You're right, I don't deserve this!"
I shouldn't be representing everyone.
But hopefully we can get more stories so that there's less pressure on each individual.
— To represent for so many people, yeah.
— That's VICE News Tonight for Thursday, June 22nd.
Tune in tomorrow night for the award-winning doumentary series, "VICE"
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