SUMMARY: On Thursday, Joe Biden formally accepted the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. He slammed President Trump for his response to the coronavirus pandemic, saying the U.S. economy is “in tatters” and characterizing the election as a battle for America's soul. Meanwhile, President Trump and the Republicans fired back criticism as they prepared for their own convention. Amna Nawaz reports.
SUMMARY: As we are every Friday during this pandemic, we take a moment to honor individuals lost to the Coronavirus. Here are stories of five more, including a 22-year-old musician and a 48-year-old Marine Corps reservist.
SUMMARY: The water crisis in Flint, Michigan, exposed major health and environmental concerns for residents and prompted new scrutiny of access to clean drinking water in the U.S. But Flint is still grappling with the consequences of its crisis, including financial and legal liability. John Yang reports and talks to Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, a pediatrician who helped sound the alarm about Flint’s water.
SUMMARY: Thursday marks the final day of the 2020 Democratic National Convention, after a week of speakers, discussions and celebrations. To conclude the event, the party’s presidential candidate, Joe Biden, will formally accept his nomination. But President Trump is wasting no time in criticizing Biden's policies. Lisa Desjardins and Yamiche Alcindor join Judy Woodruff to discuss the latest campaign news.
SUMMARY: One of the goals of this year’s Democratic National Convention is to unite a divided party. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders was former Vice President Joe Biden’s biggest challenger during the Democratic primaries, and some of his supporters have vowed not to support Biden. Sanders joins Judy Woodruff to discuss working with Biden on policy proposals and progressive representation at the DNC.
SUMMARY: Former Vice President Joe Biden has spent decades in public office. On Thursday night, he will finally accept the Democratic Party’s nomination for President. We look back at Biden’s personal story, fraught with tragedy and resilience, and his long political career as he arrives at this professional milestone. Lisa Desjardins reports.
SUMMARY: The pressure on doctors, nurses and other health care professionals has been constant throughout the coronavirus pandemic. Tara Rynders, a registered nurse in Colorado, has created an arts-based workshop designed to alleviate the stress and compassion fatigue that many medical providers experience. Rynders shares her Brief But Spectacular take on caring for those who care for us.
SUMMARY: Donald Trump won the White House in 2016 by taking several key swing states that former President Barack Obama had won in 2008 and 2012, including Michigan, Ohio, and Florida. Each of these is expected to be a [political] battleground again this year. Democratic Reps. Debbie Dingell of Michigan, Tim Ryan of Ohio and Val Demings of Florida, join Judy Woodruff to discuss their states’ political landscapes.
SUMMARY: The Democratic National Convention will hear Wednesday night from two figures critically important to Joe Biden, the party’s newly minted presidential nominee. One chose Biden to be his Vice President, and the other is now Biden’s selection for that job. Amna Nawaz looks back at Tuesday’s DNC highlights and ahead to appearances by former President Barack Obama and Sen. Kamala Harris.
SUMMARY: Throughout the week, we have heard from a number of Joe Biden’s former rivals who have now come to support him in his bid for the White House. One of them, Sen. Amy Klobuchar [D] of Minnesota, joins Judy Woodruff to discuss how she thinks the Democratic National Convention is going so far, why this is a “personal” election, the challenges of virtual campaigning and Biden's chance of winning Minnesota.
SUMMARY: Tuesday marks a full century since the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which says that the right to vote “should not be denied or abridged” on the basis of sex. We look back to the path to that milestone, and Judy Woodruff talks to longtime activist and scholar Gloria Steinem about what challenges remain.
SUMMARY: A special international tribunal has found a Hezbollah agent guilty of assassinating former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri in a deadly blast 15 years ago. Although the decision doesn’t implicate Hezbollah explicitly, it comes at a tense moment for the U.S.-designated terror group, on whom political and financial pressure is growing. Special correspondent Jane Ferguson reports from Beirut.
SUMMARY: The opening night of the Democratic National Convention featured several Republicans who plan to vote for Joe Biden in the November election, including John Kasich, former governor of Ohio and a 2016 Republican presidential candidate himself. But some Republican groups, such as the Lincoln Project, are going farther to support a Democratic candidate in ways never before seen. John Yang reports.
SUMMARY: The Senate Intelligence Committee has released the fifth and final report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. It concludes that the 2016 Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia posed a grave national counterintelligence threat but offers no determination on whether the campaign deliberately worked with Russia to sway the election. Nick Schifrin joins Stephanie Sy to discuss.
SUMMARY: On Night 2 of the Democratic National Convention, delegates will officially nominate former Vice President Joe Biden as their 2020 presidential candidate. Meanwhile, new developments in the ongoing saga over the U.S. Postal Service, with the Postmaster General delaying some policy moves and President Trump saying he wants to add funding. Judy Woodruff talks to Lisa Desjardins and Yamiche Alcindor.
SUMMARY: Memorial services spread over six days starting Saturday will honor and celebrate the life and legacy of civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis who died after a battle with pancreatic cancer. The stops, across five cities, include Troy, Alabama where he was born, and Selma where Lewis helped lead the voting rights march on “Bloody Sunday.” Alabama Public Radio news director Pat Duggins joins to discuss.
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week in politics, including how declining support for President Trump is shifting the momentum in several key Senate races toward Democrats, Trump’s decision to send federal forces into cities experiencing protests, Republican inaction on the pandemic and the legacy of John Lewis.
Judy Woodruff (NewsHour): And that brings us to the analysis of Shields and Brooks. That is syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.
It's so good to see both of you.
So, let's pick up, David, with what we were just hearing about these Senate races moving in the direction of the Democrats. What is going on here?
David Brooks, New York Times: Well, I would say, among Republicans, what had been concern has now turned into full-bore panic.
The President is behind by sometimes 12 or 13 points in the national polls, way behind in many of these states. And that was survivable if you were a Senate candidate maybe in 1980, when you had a lot of ticket-splitting, and you could — you could run well ahead of your — the head of your party.
That doesn't happen anymore. In 2016, there was basically no ticket-splitting. If the President won in that state, the Senate candidate won. And so it's just super hard to win when your President is losing.
I don't think there are any Republican candidates who have successfully found a posture, how to be loyal Republicans and not totally Trumpists. And so you're not only looking at Arizona and Colorado, which seem gone for the Republicans, but we're talking about states like Iowa and Georgia.
And if — those should be solid Republican seats. And it's just a — it's a just a complete collapse, it looks like, right now in the polls.
Judy Woodruff: And, Mark, as Lisa pointed out, the year started out with Democrats worried and thinking they might not be able to take the Senate.
Are you surprised at this turn of events?
Mark Shields, syndicated columnist: I am, Judy. I'm surprised at a couple of things.
David's right about Democrats being on the offensive and Republicans being on the defensive. But I guess what surprises me more than any — it should not surprise me — is that this has been the pattern.
When a President gets in trouble, his Senate colleagues face the same fate very often. In 2016, for example, every Republican — every senator who — won in a state that the Presidential candidate of that senator's party carried.
In 2008, when Barack Obama swept, only one Republican survived in a state that Obama had carried. That happened to be Susan Collins in Maine some three terms ago.
And we saw, in 1980 — David mentioned 1980 — 12 Senate seats switched in 1980, giants of the Senate. George McGovern, Warren Magnuson, Frank Church, John Culver all went down and that year, and the Republicans won the Senate for the first time in 26 years.
Why? Because the Presidential candidate, or the President at the top of the ticket, was just incredibly weak. Jimmy Carter was at 31 percent job approval in 1980. George W. Bush was at 25 percent job approval in 2008. Even though he wasn't on the ballot, we had the financial collapse. We had Iraq going absolutely south on him.
And so this is what Republicans face right now, is that same kind of climate. And that's why they're worried.
Judy Woodruff: And, David, it's interesting, because, as we just heard in Lisa's conversation, that these Democratic candidates are — they turn out to be candidates who are talented in an election year when people are paying attention to the challengers.
So often, it's the incumbent who's favored.
David Brooks: And, so often, it's the incumbent who has the money advantage, and that's often not the case right now.
Mark Kelly in Arizona has twice as much money as the incumbent. You're seeking big fund-raisers. The Democrat who is running against Lindsey Graham has — is raising huge amounts of money. So they're getting the money.
But I think it's not even the campaign. So, James Fallows once said that this year is like 1918 with the flu, 1932 with the Depression, and 1968 with a war. And so we have all of that all at once. And I think it's just not an election like any other.
It's just a much more intense political era, a much more revolutionary political climate. And it's, in this kind of climate, if ever — and it's unprecedented, so we don't know — I just think you're going to see something much vaster than we — than we think in a normal political year, even when there is a wave.
Judy Woodruff: And, Mark, at the same time, the Democrats who are running who are challenging these Republicans have to be in a position to take advantage of what comes their way.
Mark Shields: Oh, exactly, Judy.
And I thought the point in Lisa's piece that Jessica made that was so important is that nobody has been able to figure out how to distance themselves from Trump effectively.
I mean, two leading Republicans who did distance themselves from Trump, Jeff Flake and Bob Corker, both found themselves on the outs, Bob Corker of Tennessee, Jeff Flake of Arizona, and outside the Senate.
And so, how do you do that? How do you walk that line? Richard Nixon used to say, when — say anything you want to another Republican. Say anything you want for me or against me. Just win. There was a practicality about it.
Donald Trump doesn't have that same approach. I mean, it's total loyalty to him, and — which is coming with an increasing political price, as David mentioned, in the numbers that are currently in polls.
Judy Woodruff: And speaking of the President, David, what we're seeing from the President now, and just yesterday announcing the Republican Convention isn't going to happen anymore, at least in Jacksonville, the big event that they had planned.
But you also have him being judged on an almost hourly basis by the way he's handling this pandemic. You have him sending federal agents into American cities and threatening to send them into more.
I mean, that's the at most — that's the political reality that this Presidential race is taking place in.
David Brooks: Well, the loss of the convention is bad news for Donald Trump, because he's behind, and he needs some events that can maybe shift the race, and he's down another one.
So, all that's left is the debates. And so we're — and he will give a speech, I assume, some sort of convention speech, but it'll just be another day at the news cycle.
The violence in Portland is something I'm curious about. I think most people — certainly, I'm appalled to have nameless random officers acting like this is not a democracy, acting like this is some sort of fascist state.
On the other hand, there is a lot of violence in Portland. And if you go on a Republican news feed on the right side of my Twitter feed, it's all the violence of the protesters.
And so Donald Trump has tried to recreate a 1968 law and order campaign. And maybe this will turn some minds about that. Maybe there will be a sense of panic. I tend not to think that. The violence is not widespread. It's in one place.
I think that the general trend, most people will look at that and say, are we turning into a police state? But that sense of, we need law and order, I think that's the only way I see Trump appealing to some people who are genuinely scared, if they are genuinely scared, which I'm not sure about.
Judy Woodruff: Mark, is that an attack that could be effective at this time, when the President is facing so much criticism for the way he's handled the pandemic?
Mark Shields: Judy, he's dealing with a pair of deuces right now, if this were a poker game. I mean, he's playing what he can play. And that seems to be — maybe he a night to — soul-to-soul meeting with Roger Stone after his pardon — or his commutation, I should say, and was reminded of the best scenes from 1968.
The reality, Judy, is crowding upon him; 39 states saw increases in coronavirus, in the COVID-19, this past week. We had four million cases for the first time.
And the one point where I have seen any Republican encouragement is that, for the first time, Donald Trump seems to be taking it seriously. He doesn't do it well. He reads it. He cannot read from a teleprompter. No one's ever taught him how to do it. And it's not very convincing.
But he had a week where he was at least addressing the gravity of the situation and acknowledging it, and acknowledging that, in spite of the record heat wave in Washington and elsewhere in the country this year, that it's not going to miraculously disappear in hot weather.
Judy Woodruff: And, Mark, I do want to turn both of you in our final seconds here to John Lewis, of course, the civil rights icon, someone who laid his body on the line for what he believed in, who fought in his quiet way for civil rights his entire life.
You had many occasions to be around him. What would you say about John Lewis?
Mark Shields: Well, one of the absolutely disarming qualities of Congressman Lewis was, whenever you ran into him, he would just grab you by the hand and said: "Hello, my brother. How are you?"
And I don't know. Being called your brother by John Lewis was sort of special, and no matter how many times it happened.
Judy, you put it best. He put his — he here is, the 10th child of poor sharecroppers at Alabama, born in the segregated South. And he put his life, he put his body on the line. At the age of 23, he was at the Lincoln Memorial. He was the firebrand that they were worried about speaking before Martin Luther King.
Twenty-five, he walks across Edmund Pettus Bridge, seeking the vote, the right to vote that was promised to Americans and denied systematically by state after state, including his own. And he had his skull fractured, his body broken, but never his spirit.
He was an incredible gentleman. He was an incredible leader, an incredible example. He left America so much better than he found it. And people talk about changing the name of the Edmund Pettus Bridge to John Lewis Bridge, which is fine.
What they ought to do is pass a Voting Rights Act, after the court decision in 2013, which naively thought this problem was over. We have seen the systematic denial of the right to vote, whether it's cutting polling places, cutting hours, purging of lists, I.D.s, voter I.D.s.
And that would be the testimony and memorial to John Lewis that would be appropriate, is a Voting Rights Act, a real Voting Rights Act.
Judy Woodruff: Well, he will lay — people will pay his — respects to him next week. His funeral is one week from today.
Mark Shields, David Brooks, thank you both.
Mark Shields: Thank you.
SUMMARY: The Democratic Republic of Congo is a massive country, with a land area the size of Alaska and Texas combined. It’s also home to a large part of the Congo Basin rainforest, a habitat for countless species and a crucial absorber of atmospheric carbon dioxide. But illegal and uncontrolled logging represent major threats to this critical ecosystem. Special correspondent Monica Villamizar reports.
SUMMARY: Both President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden have set records with their 2020 campaign fundraising. But the pandemic has drastically altered how that money is spent, with events moving from in-person to online. Guy Cecil political director for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential run, and John Brabender senior advisor for Rick Santorum’s 2016 bid, join Judy Woodruff to discuss.
SUMMARY: Weeks before George Floyd's death fueled national protests over racism and police violence, the killing of Breonna Taylor sparked outrage in Louisville, Kentucky. Her case has now become a national touch point for protesters, who often chant, “say her name.” As John Yang reports, the city of Louisville’s response to the incident, in which police shot Taylor to death, is a flashpoint all its own.
