♪ amna: good evening. i'm amna nawaz. geoff: president biden's press conference fails to ease doubters, but the new polls show his potential replacements might not fare better. amna: a look behind the curtain of the months long campaign to seize on his missteps. >> they are making the viral internet venues they have been turning out, they are all designed around joe biden.

amna: and the struggle to restore power to more than a million people sweltering in the texas heat after hurricane beryl. >> major funding for the pbs news hour has been provided by -- the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. and friends of the newshour, including jim and nancy b. the judy and peter w. foundation. strengthening democracies at home and abroad. >> fostering informed and engaged communities. more at k.f.org. ♪ >> and with the ongoing support

of these individuals and institutions -- ♪ and friends of the newshour. thank you. geoff: president biden is facing more calls from democratic lawmakers to step aside as the party's nominee since his thursday night press conference. amna: five have democrats -- house democrats of all issued statements asking for the president to step down. they joined 15 other congressional democrats who have made similar calls earlier this week. our white house correspondent

has the latest. >> thank you. please be seated. reporter: with all eyes on his high-stakes press conference -- >> i'm not in this for my legacy. i'm in this to complete the job i started. reporter: president biden played defense thursday night trying to prove that he is still fit to run for reelection. >> a lot can happen. but i think -- i believe i am the best qualified to govern. and i believe i am the best qualified to win. reporter: while there were slip-ups -- >> what concerns you have about vice president harris' ability to beat donald trump if she were at the top of the ticket? >> look, i would not have picked vice president trump to be vice president. reporter: he gave detailed answers on foreign-policy policy and national security. >> china has to understand that if they are supplying russia with information along with

working with north korea and others, to help russia in armament, that they are not going to benefit economically as a consequence of that. reporter: and went after donald trump over his plans for a second term. >> do you think he means when he says when he says he's going to do away with civil service, the department of education? we have never been here before and that is the other reason why i won't hand this off to another generation. i've got to finish the job. reporter: but it was not enough to stop democrats from urging him to step aside as the parties nominee. immediately after, represented jen himes, the top democrat on the house intelligence committee issued a statement calling on biden to step away from the presidential race. he urged democrats to act fast. >> this is not about one press

conference or one debate or one speech, this is about the presidency of the u.s., this needs to be resolved in the next five to seven days. because we just went 10 days where the story was not donald trump promising totalitarianism. it was, how does joe biden do in the big boy press conference? >> despite the growing number of congressional democrats calling for a to drop out of the race, longtime allies like congressman jim clyburn reaffirmed their support for the president. >> i would hope that we would focus on the substance of this man rather than these -- sometimes the miss spoken words and phrases. and how he has run this country. no matter what method he takes, i am with joe biden. if he were to change his mind, i will just answer the question, that i would be all in for the vice president.

reporter: as democrats figure out what to do about their nominee, house minority leader hakeem jeffries said he met with the president shortly after thursday's press conference. in the meeting, he said that he directly expressed the full breath of insight, heartfelt perspectives, and conclusions about the path forward that the caucus has shared. biden himself virtually met friday with some members of the congressional hispanic caucus and the congressional asian pacific american caucus and planned to speak with more hill democrats over the weekend. for now, the president has no plans to step aside. unless his advisers say otherwise. >> unless they say there's no way you can win, me, no one is saying that, no poll says that. >> members of the president's inner circle like ron klain say

yesterday's press conference are reason enough to end the freak out and unite behind biden. hitting the camp. -- hitting the campaign trail today, the president showed no signs of backing down. his next test, another interview on monday and campaign stops next week. amna: despite democratic concerns about biden's candidacy, new pulling out today shows the state of the race has not drastically changed since the debate. to walker's through these new numbers, i am joined by npr's domenico montanaro. the question has been how voters look at this, the latest numbers from pbs and poster that mr. biden is now leading former president trump 50-48 in a head-to-head matchup. when third parties are factored in, he slips slightly but it is

still trump at 43% and biden at 42%, what stands out to you about those numbers? >> it's been a marginal race the entire time, not much has changed nationally when it comes to trump versus biden. i also think we still have to take into consideration that there is humongous antipathy toward donald trump. you can easily see in all the numbers that more than half the country does not want donald trump to be president again. but it is really joe biden versus donald trump somewhat and joe biden versus the couch. geoff: amna: does it mean voters don't have the same concerns about biden's age or his mental acuity than those asking him to step down? >> the other question is what are their choices? two thirds of respondents said biden does not have the mental fitness to be president but character may matter more. 68% said that it's more concerning to have a president who doesn't tell the truth than

one who might be too old to do the job. so pretty remarkable numbers. that really says something about these candidates and what people think is important. like we just showed, two thirds of people are saying that biden lacks a mental acuity, however at the same time if you think somebody is not telling the truth, doesn't have the character to serve, that's what we're seeing, biden has more points for character and honesty than donald trump. amna: so some of mr. biden's critics also argue another younger democratic candidate might inspire more doozy as him or could more easily beat donald trump. is not showing up in the polling? >> we tested for people, president trump and vice president harris, michigan governor gretchen whitmer and california governor gavin newsom. everybody fared exact with the same, maybe because they are generic, cat and they test that way, there are slight nuanced differences between the candidates. newsom does better with independents because he does

appear on fox news quite a bit and there's more exposure to those republican leaning independents. harris does better than biden with nonwhite voters and younger voters, jen zi yan millennials, she does 12 points better than biden and with nonwhite voters, 10 points better. something to consider. when these candidates start to actually run, if they were to run and replace president biden, they get to make the case for themselves or they also get a lot more media scrutiny. amna: let's add some context because amy walters of the political report walked us through some of their polling at the state level and she showed us voters in six states that were previously tossup's or likely democratic states moved closer to trump after the debate. the battleground states of arizona, georgia, and nevada. how do you square that at the

state level with what we are seeing in these poles at the national level? >> not that surprising, national polls reflect what the country feels at large. but we are not in a situation where you have the popular vote determining who the president is and because democratic votes are so concentrated on the coast, one in five democratic votes come from california and new york. that's it. if you have that kind of concentration and you don't have the democraticote spread out into those swing areas, those swing areas and states are slightly more conservative. frankly president biden has had this sort of lead with trump or within the margin, a two point lead for a democrat nationally is not really that good for somebody like biden. it needs to be probably a little bit bigger than that to translate to electoral vote success. amna: i want to get your take on what biden had to say about the polls himself last night. take a listen. >> how accurate does anybody think the polls are these days? i can give you a series of polls where you have likely voters.

me versus trump, where i win all the time. and the unlikely voters to vote, he wins sometimes. the bottom line is, all the polling data right now, which i think is premature because the campaign really hasn't even started. >> the campaign has been going on for two years. those who say that they are definitely voting are doing better for biden, but i will say politicians always say that the polls are wrong when they are not good for them. geoff: amna: always great to see you, thank you. ♪ geoff: let's shift our focus now to the trump campaign. a new piece in the atlantic offers a rare, behind-the-scenes look at donald trump's reelection effort. staff writer tim alberta embedded with the campaign this past spring and spoke with trump

campaign co-managers susie wiles and chris lacivita for a piece titled "trump is planning for a landslide win." tim alberta joins us now. thanks so much ribbing with us. >> thanks. my pleasure. geoff: when you write donald trump and his campaign are planning for a landslide, what accounts for that level of confidence? what is it rooted in? >> a couple of things. first the context matters quite a bit here, when you think about the past two presidential elections, 2016 won very narrowly by donald trump, we are talking about a difference of 77,000 744 votes spread across three states -- that was donald trump's margin of victory in 2016, and then into any 20 it was even tighter, joe biden won by a combined 42,918 votes spread across three states. we have had these consecutive nail-biters in the electoral college. the term campaign looks at 2024 in that context.

they are no running a campaign that is far more severe ticketed, far more efficient with his money, for more professional from the top down and they also believe they are running against the weakest candidate in any of those three elections, so to be clear, the confidence is really not rooted in donald trump, but rooted in joe biden. the trump campaign believes biden is a fundamentally flawed candidate and they are actually sort of building a campaign that is specifically designed to draw out and exacerbate his key weaknesses as an opponent. to be clear, all of this was well before the debate in late june that has the democrats now wondering whether biden should even be their no many. geoff: you are reporting that the campaign is optimized to run a specific race against a specific candidate, joe biden. how are they responding to this potential change of the ticket?

i should underscore the word potential because president biden says he is not stepping aside. >> i think they are pretty interest about it, to be clear, the term campaign will tell you -- trump campaign will tell you at least on the record that they are happy to run against anyone. that any democratic replacement would inherit joe biden's flaws and weaknesses. but that is not true and they know it is not true. they recognize this is a campaign as you just said that has been designed around beating one very specific opponent. everything they have been doing -- the targeting they have been doing a voters, the advertisements they are cutting, the fundraising ploys they are making, the viral internet videos they have been turning out -- churning out, they are all designed around joe biden. if suddenly he replaces the top of the ticket, in many ways it is back to square one for the trump campaign. they recognize this and they are deeply unnerved by the possibility of a switcheroo at the top of the democratic ticket.

geoff: trump's previous campaigns certainly well-funded, not as well organized or as well disciplined. what do susie and chris bring to this 2024 effort? >> i think that you have to realize that in politics, there are people who are sort of practioners, there are folks who will latch onto campaigns and maybe offer some advice on polling or on strategy or speechwriting or whatever else, but then there are sort of a select class of people who are truly the -- sort of the brains behind the operation, the people who can really run campaigns at a tactical, mechanical level in a way that few others can come and susie wiles in particular is somebody who has earned that reputation over a number of years. mostly i point to the fact that florida, which for decades had

been regarded as the nation's top electoral prize, is no longer even on the table, democrats have conceded the state of florida in this election. they are not even playing there. when you wonder why, the answer is susie wiles. she more than anyone had engineered campaigns on behalf of republican in florida that effectively made the state not competitive anymore for democrats because republicans were winning so many non-white voters in those elections. she has taken some of that same modeling and some of that same targeting approach and put it into practice in this trump 2024 campaign. i think her partner chris is best known as the ad maker who created the swift boat veterans for truth campaign that really devastated john kerry back in 2004, and he is best understood as a shrewd and ruthless operative who really understands how to target an opponent's

weaknesses, and that is the combination, these unique skill sets, they are two of really the most feared operators have ever been around in politics, and together, they have really streamlined the trump operation and also i think they have streamlined donald trump a little bit. i think they have been able to bring him into alignment with their goals as a campaign in ways that no one else has been able to. geoff: what is their preferred path to victory? i asked because the biden campaign put out a memo this past week that said are multiple pathways to 270 electoral votes, right now they write winning the blue allstates, michigan, wisconsin and pennsylvania is the clearest path which of that aim. does the trump team see a path that is equally as narrow? >> i think the one thing both campaigns would agree on at this point is that biden's path to 270 has gotten smaller and smaller and really what the

polling has shown, the polling that is publicly available and done by both parties suggests that michigan, wisconsin and pennsylvania, the three states that trump flipped in 2016 and biden flipped back in 2020, that those three states really are the pathway for joe biden to get reelected. and that if any one of those three states is taken off the board by trump, the math at that point becomes pretty much unworkable for the democrats. geoff: tim alberta, thanks so much, we appreciate it. ♪ the lingering impact of hurricane beryl starts the day's other headlines. more than 800,000 customers are still without power, that has left many hot and frustrated to

bring what's been a blistering heat wave this past week. reporter: with no power and no air conditioning and perhaps none before next week, many residents in and around houston are reaching their own boiling points. >> how in the world can it take almost a week? and then you're talking about maybe saturday, maybe sunday, maybe next week? how is that possible? reporter: centerpoint, the primary electric utility in the area which is working to restore power said more than 400,000 businesses and homes might not have electricity even by early next week. many are struggling to find refuge from the sweltering heat or have access to food and clean drinking water in some cases. >> i'm about to lose the resources that i have and i'm about to lose all the energy that i have trying to survive. >> i've been here since 2000 something. so i went through rita and ike, and imelda, harvey. and then this year, my complex has lost power twice. so i'm sort of used to it. it's really frustrating.

without hurricanes. reporter: many houston area hospitals and emergency rooms have been jam packed for days since many patients could not be released home safely. and some were treated at makeshift clinics at the nrg park sports complex. centerpoint says it has restored power to over 1.4 million customers, faster than other utilities have during similar storms. it also pledges to restore power to 80% of those who were affected by sunday night. >> i know it's hot, we're thankful for the rain. to cool things off. everyone is exhausted, but we will continue to work around the clock to get everyone restored as soon as possible. reporter: but the company is getting heavy criticism from residents, businesses and lawmakers who argue it should have been better prepared. lieutenant governor dan patrick, who is acting governor while governor greg abbott is away on a work trip, says he plans to hold centerpoint accountable for their mistakes. >> right now, i want every person at centerpoint to have

one job -- get the power back on. we'll talk about what happened before the storm later. just get the power back on. reporter: hurricane beryl is the latest in a number of storms that have wreaked havoc in the houston area in just a few weeks. a series of winter storms in 2021 also crippled texas's -- also crippled texas' energy grid and left millions of people without heat or power for several days. michael webber, a professor of energy resources at the university of texas at austin, says climate change is accelerating the problem in texas and for the national energy grid, too. >> a lot of our grid was built up decades or a century ago, when the weather was milder and the weather is becoming more intense and frequent with its storms, which includes wind and water and drought and freeze, the heat wave, and everything. and so we have to build that grid of the future. reporter: centerpoint is proposing a $2 billion resiliency plan to improve the grid. webber says steps like strengthening transmission poles with steel or concrete or moving some power lines underground may be necessary.

but to do that, he says, voters and politicians have to acknowledge and confront the realities of climate change in a state where that's not always popular. >> the investments to harden the grid are expensive. they cost billions of dollars, but they save lives and they avoid outages, and they save money in the long run. and we have to choose between paying money upfront to make this system better, or paying money later when the system fails. reporter: after thunderstorms this weekend, which could slow repairs, temperatures are expected to return to the 90s starting on sunday. the lasting effects of beryl are also being felt nearly 2000 miles away in vermont, where cleanup has started after devastating and deadly flash floods. beryl dumped a half-foot of rain on parts of the state this week. at least two people died when their vehicles were submerged in the floods. entire neighborhoods are still underwater. where the floods have receded, roadways had fallen into sinkholes, and communities were caked in mud. vermont was hit by flooding at exactly this time last year.

>> what i'd say is that anybody that denies climate change can get a dose of this and decide for themselves. geoff: vermont's governor says it will take several more days to know the extent of the damage. in the middle east, israeli forces have pulled back from gaza city, leaving behind scenes of destruction. fires were still burning today as palestinians returned home to check the damage. civil defense workers say that dozens of bodies were found on the streets and in collapsed buildings. earlier in the week, israel ordered all palestinians to leave the area, saying hamas militants had regrouped there. most of gaza city's population fled earlier in the war. but the u.n. estimates that some 300,000 people remain in the surrounding area. at&t said today that a security breach in 2022 affected nearly all of its cellular customers and many users of its landline and wireless networks. the company says roughly 109 million customers' accounts were affected.

their data was downloaded to a third-party platform over a five-month period in 2022. at&t says the compromised data includes records of phone calls and texts. but it does not involve the content of those calls or sensitive information like birthdays or social security numbers. in new mexico, the judge and alec baldwin's involuntary manslaughter trial has dismissed the case against him. baldwin's defense team argued that prosecutors hid evidence about ammunition that may be related to the 2021 death of the cinematographer on the movie, "rust." baldwin was holding the gun when it went off during rehearsals. the judge agreed with the defense saying the sanction of dismissal is the only warranted remedy. baldwin faced up to 18 months in prison if convicted. 66-year-old had pleaded not guilty saying he did not know the revolver contained a live round.

officials in tulsa, oklahoma have announced details of the first person to be identified from a mass grave stemming from the city's 1921 race massacre. c.l. daniel was a world war one veteran who was passing through tulsa at the time of the attack. forensic experts have collected dna from a total of 30 sets of remains. they're from the more than 120 graves that were found during searches that started in 2020. as many as 300 people were killed when a white mob destroyed what was then known as black wall street. city officials hope today's announcement will bring some comfort to his family. >> as a parent, i can't help but think about his mom, mrs. daniel. who knew her brave son had been killed, but never knew what became of his remains. today, i hope that this generation of tulsans can appreciate that you've helped this family find their relative

after he was missing for 103 years. geoff: the city of tulsa and field experts will start a fourth excavation at the oak lawn cemetery starting the week of july 22. on wall street today, stocks rose on bets the federal reserve will cut interest rates in september, the dow jones industrial average touched an all-time high during friday's session before closing just before the -- just above rather the 40,000 point level. the nasdaq jumped more than 100 points to close near an all-time high. the s&p 500 also posted gains to wrap up the week. and a passing of note, from the field of health care. gail wilensky has died. wilensky oversaw the medicare and medicaid programs during president george h.w. bush's administration and was a senior adviser to the president. she appeared many times on this program, including this clip from 2009 with judy woodruff. she would join us to discuss the affordable care act, medicaid

expansion, and more. gail wilensky was 81 years old. still to come on the news hour, the death of a black man killed by security guards in milwaukee draws comparisons to george floyd. david brooks and jonathan capehart weigh in president -- weigh in on president biden's campaign. and a concert celebrates nato's 75th anniversary with music from its member nations. ♪ >> this is the pbs newshour from weta studios in washington and from the west from the walter cronkite university. amna: police have referred felony murder charges in a case involving a black man who died last month after being held down by security guards outside a milwaukee hotel. according to the city's police department, 43-year-old d'vontaye mitchell entered the hyatt regency and "caused a disturbance," ending up in an altercation with security guards as they attempted to detain him.

a warning, this disturbing video taken by bystanders shows what happened next. four individuals restrained mitchell outside, while he was lying prone on the concrete and shouting repeatedly for help. at least one man can be seen with his knee on mitchell's back. police say he was unresponsive when they arrived and was later pronounced dead. this week, his widow, de'asia harmon, spoke at a rally outside the county courthouse. >> to see them beat him repeatedly over and over and over again, they did not stop, they could have stopped, they could have let him go, and they didn't. to treat him like that and embarrass him like that, to destroy his character, to just take away his dignity, that was so wrong of them to do. amna: for more, we're joined by attorney ben crump, who's representing the mitchell

family, and nayisha mitchell, who is d'vontaye's sister. let me just begin by saying how incredibly sorry we are for you and your families loss -- family's loss. i want to begin by asking, how are you doing? >> first i want to say thank you for that. it has been rough. it has been hard. it's been a long past weekend i have since it happened. -- week and a half since it happened. my brother is gone. we the -- we no longer have him in the family. their kids no longer have their father. it is rough. it's been an adjustment here for us all. we are just trying to get through this time. we are going to keep on moving forward and we are not going to rest and we are just going to be

tired until we get justice here for my brother. amna: i understand you and member's of the family have had a chance to review some security camera video from inside the hotel which is showing you more than has been publicly released so far, does any of that offer you any insight into how this incident began in the first place? >> it is a heartbreaking video from the security cameras inside the hotel. it starts with him being chased. and he is chased through the hotel, he runs into the gift shop, then he runs into the ladies' bathroom. two women were in the bathroom and said he was not trying to harm them or anything, it's as if he was afraid, he wasn't scared or trying to get away from somebody. we now know that was the security apparently that was chasing him. and then they went into the bathroom and they drug him out.

the video shows him being punched and kicked while he's on the ground, being dragged. it's just heartbreaking to have a metal baton that one of the security guards takes out that you see in the video. and he is hitting him, and it looks like he's hitting him in the head, and you ask yourself, why would you do that? it is just heartbreaking when you think about george floyd in that same position on his back, on his neck for nine minutes and 29 seconds. devante mitchell's was -- devante mitchell was in that position for what we believe was eight minutes and you had all the punching and kicking and the baton which makes his tragic video as

outrageous as george floyd's video. amna: mr. crump has said previously this raises so many questions about the use of force here and particularly in the case of people were having a mental health emergency of some kind. what should we understand about what you know about your late brother's mental health or his condition at the time? >> we really do not know what was happening or what was going on at that time that was done at the hyatt. what i am seeing here is as far as mental issues go, my brother did suffer from having depression. again, i'm not basically sure what was happening down at the hyatt when this all transpired. they are seeing if he was in there causing a disturbance. that is where i come in and say maybe he was having a breakdown. whatever he was running from, whatever caused this all to happen, we still do not know.

that is what we are trying to find out. we are trying to find out why he was running. we learned he was running from the security guard but why was he running from the security guards? as far as mental health, again, he for the most part was suffering from depression. amna: can i just get your reaction to this latest news now? we know that police have referred felony murder charges to the district attorney, the da's office is investigating mr. mitchell's death as a homicide, is that what you want to see happen at this point? >> we want the state attorney to go ahead and bring the charges but we are grateful that the milwaukee police department there refered murder charges to the state attorney. but we know this is only the beginning of the journey. we know from history that until they charge them and until they are convicted, african-americans can never take for granted that we are going to

have equal justice play out when it is a deadline person laying on the ground, we've got too many examples of them doing the bait and switch, so we have to keep vigilant and keep focused. before last week, they were not even investigating this matter as a criminal investigation, it was not until the family and activists started saying, no, did you see the video? how can you say that they should not be held accountable for how they killed her brother? and so, it is a first step but we have to continue to keep pressing forward. too many examples in the black community, the police and because a police getting away with unjustly killing our children. amna: to that point, i think one of the reasons this video has resonated so deeply is because of how hauntingly similar it is to george floyd. i know you were represented four years ago -- who i know you

represented four years ago. i wonder how it strikes you to have this conversation into such similar cases two years apart. >> obviously it is very personal because we watched the george floyd tragic torture video for 10,000 times and now we our having to break this video of the killing of devante mitchell frame by frame and it does remind you at times of george floyd and the inhumanity of the situation, a man begging until his very last breath, please, help me, and none of them would help him. that is what we have to learn, how many more times two black men in prone position's with breathing problems have to plead for their life before america hears them? how many more times? it was eric gardner.

it was george floyd. it was in virginia. it was frank thyssen in ohio. and now it is devante mitchell. when you look at all these videos, black men with lung enforcement of their backs with their knees on them and all of them died. how many more? amna: attorney ben crump and the sister of the late devante mitchell, thanks to you both for joining us. >> thanks for having us. ♪ geoff: on the week's major political stories, from president biden's struggles within his own party, to the republican national convention, we turn to the analysis of brooks and capehart. that's new york times columnist david brooks and jonathan capehart, associate editor for the washington post.

thank you both for being here. president biden's press conference last night might have reassured some democrats but it has not come close to ending this ongoing conversation about whether or not he should withdraw from the race. jonathan, how do you assess the current moment? [laughter] >> we don't have enough time for me to climb up on my soapbox and climb back down. look, ever since that disastrous debate performance two weeks ago last night, democrats have been tearing their hair out, saying what they need to see from the president to make them sure that he is up to the task is he needs to show some life and some vigor. he does a rally the very next day. he needs to sit down with the press and do an in-depth interview. he sits down with george stephanopoulos, sitting down with lester holt at nbc on monday. he needs to be extemporaneous

and you things like that. he goes to the afl cio and speaks with them, no teleprompter. he did it again today in michigan. he needs to talk to the press. to questions from the press, he's been ignoring us. 59 minutes last night, he answered questions, particularly an impressive question from your colleague at the new york times, which i thought -- i'm sure he did not do this on purpose but was devious in the question that he asked, a multi-part, very complex, foreign question that the president answered, to the point where the press conference got boring. because it got so deep in the weeds. i raise all these things because people keep putting up these goal posts, he meets them, and then they move them again. clearly people are -- they are not satisfied, they want someone else, as if they are living in some aaron sorkin

fantasyland that everything will work itself out in the end with one really good speech, one really great candidate at the end of the hour. this is real life and real life is scary. geoff: what about the democrats crackle of president biden are effectively saying what -- seeing what they want to see? should he stay in the race or is he on track to losing the white house with democrats potentially losing the house and the senate? >> first i look at the press conference, it reminded me of when i used to watch reagan back when i was a young reaganite, i would watch the press conferences with my hands up, what is he saying? i hope it is not bad. but when you look at the judgments he made about world history and historical events, i felt he is not what he was a year ago or certainly 10 years ago. the presser biden is the biden that is there. a little mentally slow, a little cumbersome in

articulation but with sound judgment. will this get him out of the woods? he's got to show some way to win this thing. and that is going to get harder and harder to see. when you have swing states going over to trump and states that should not be swing states being switched over to swing states like minnesota and democrats in new york state panicking? that is pretty bad. to me it is less about how he performs. but what is the plausible strategy to victory? i just don't see that out of the biden campaign right now. geoff: adding to the polling david mentioned, 54% are voters want joe biden out of the race in our new poll, the story of this election cycle, many don't want to see a trump/biden match up yet here we are, how does the white house turn the page and focus their attention on donald trump and his agenda, his vision for the country? >> talking about donald trump

and his agenda for the country. but the other thing is everyone is focused on the number that shows how many people want him out of the race, how many people think he is too old, doesn't have the mental acuity that he had 10 years ago, and not focus on the other numbersi the polls -- in the polls. the npr poll that we are talking about, biden is up 50%-40%. -- 50%-48%. after the disastrous debate performance, this poll was conducted after that. despite that, they are tied. if this race is lost, if it is so disastrous, why don't these two polls that i just talked about -- why haven't they cratered? that is the thing driving me absolutely crazy. these scaredycrats out there

screaming the houses on fire, and yet we now have two national polls that don't reflect that reality -- i want those people who are saying that he should get out of the race, please tell me, what are the numbers you are using? what do you see that the rest of us don't see? tell us. if you can show me -- if you can backup your conjecture that we are going to lose the senate and the house, show me the numbers and maybe i will set my hair on fire, too. geoff: i to get your take on this, the national conversation and our coverage of it. i was talking to a top democrat this morning who said that there is too much focus on performance and not enough focus on substance. and that we in the media have basically failed to learn the lesson of 2016. and that one president biden was giving the press conference last night at nato, donald trump was in mar-a-lago alongside a hungarian president, victor

orbon, an icon of the far right and there is no focus on that but a focus on whether joe biden should have a neurological test. >> i think there is some credence to that. all of us in the media have one thing in common. we are all in the communication business. smoother to chelation is super important to all of us -- smooth articulation is super important to all of us. i think that is a little . -- a little overstretched. the biden that we saw at the press conference would make the right judgments as an adequate president and he would be an adequate president. but nobody is worried about when it when he for, they are worried about 2025 and 2026 and 2027 and we all have relatives and friends in decline and often the pattern is gradually, gradually, all at once. the decline is generally worrisome. i don't think we are paying

attention to nothing here, we are paying attention as to whether the president of the united states has the ability to do the hardest job in the world. i think that is legitimate. >> i'm worried about 2025-2027 as well but worried about it if donald trump is president of the u.s. if president biden is reelected with vice president, harris, and god for bid something were to happen to the president, the nation will be in good hands with vice president harris if she were to step in and become president of the u.s. that is the other thing that's driving me crazy about this conversation. people acting like there is no succession plan and there is no one out there -- they are right there. the president and the vice president. i have interviewed president biden in october of 2022, i interviewed him just this past march, that man that we saw at the needle press conference yesterday is the same person i spoke to both of those times over a spread of two years.

i am not worried about him, his abilities, performance, or mental acuity. geoff: let's look forward to the republican national convention next week. the big thing we are waiting for his who was donald trump going to pick as his vice presidential nominee -- the reported finalists include j.d. vance, north dakota governor doug burgum, and senator marco rubio of florida, who has the greatest shot? >> we had to alberta earlier -- tim alberta earlier on the show. the visual campaign has got to look pretty. he wants somebody to look the part. he picked jim matus to look the part. i think doug burgum looks the part of a business executive who is going to give you a strong economy. i'm going with the guy from the dakotas. >> he is looking at my notes. [laughter] i have said that.

i've even said it here. i think of the three it is governor burgum. the other thing he has that the other two do not have is seeming ambition for the job. senator rubio ran for the job himself, j.d. vance, senator vance i'm sure has aspirations, especially if he gets chosen. governor burgum is a wealthy man and he is doing this apparently out of public service, may be it -- maybe he will have ambition but david is right and courting me from a while back. [laughter] geoff: final question, nikki haley released her delegates to donald trump her she won't be at the convention because she was not invited. that could change, but she is not planning to go, was that a mistake, was that an unforced error not to invite her? >> that's kindergarten level politics as you try to reunite your party but donald trump is going to do what donald trump is going to do. i am mystified by how

republicans are sitting pretty and they are feeling it. god is good mission, omnipotent, and somehow he wants donald trump to be reelected because there's a string of events that have lined up for trump whether it is desantis being a bad candidate or the indictments or the democrats imploding in the middle of the republican convention, truck. -- trump. geoff: we will see you in milwaukee. >> thank you. ♪ geoff: last night, a symphony orchestra at the library of congress commemorated nato's 75th anniversary with an evening of music from its member countries. songs symbolizing hope and solidarity in a trying time. here's a look and a listen for our arts and culture series, "canvas." >> ♪ hallelujah

hallelujah hallelujah ♪ ♪ reporter: the concert by the american pops orchestra organized in part by the atlantic council featured professional members of the pops playing alongside student musicians, composers, and singers hailing from the 32 countries that make up the nato alliance. the founder and conductor of the american pops orchestra, luke frazier, conceived of the idea himself and shared with me earlier this week why he gathered these student artists. >> you know, i think all too often, we forget to include younger members of our culture in a discussion about foreign policy, and especially those that are not in government or policy spaces. and i think there's no better group to include the musicians who are used to bringing people together of many different backgrounds. so when you marry all those ideas together and my personal commitment to the next generation of musicians, it all came together into this nato symphony orchestra. reporter: tell me more about the students. what has this experience been like for them? >> they're getting an experience

that's unlike any other, not only in their exposure to this diplomatic community, but also in the musical breadth and depth. and when you're pivoting all the way from dvorak to whitney houston in one concert, it's quite the experience for many of these students who will never get the chance to do that otherwise. ♪ geoff: what do you hope they take away from this experience? >> i hope that they know that they are playing a pivotal role in the future of our world. that by sitting in that orchestral section and telling a story through music, they're helping bridge the divides amongst so many of the people in this world, and they're helping to make this world a better place. geoff: well, as you mentioned, i mean, just looking at this repertoire, it's an incredible range of music, both in terms of style and origin, from chopin to the weekend. -- from chopin to the weeknd. what was the message you were trying to convey in choosing that selection of songs? >> well, what i wanted to make sure is that we're representing the breadth and depth of music

in our world. you know, so many students that are being a part of this process are used to a very strict conservatory training, which is mostly focused on classical music. and i must confess, my whole background was classical music and i love it. but i want to make sure that we are making classical music relevant to new generations. and we do that by pairing classical music with popular music. and what's fun is we're creating this interesting musical dialog -- interesting musical dialogue amongst the students and for the audience with this concert. geoff: that musical dialog was on full display during the orchestra's rendition of abba's 1970's hit, "dancing queen." ♪ >> ♪ you can dance having the time of your life oh ♪ ♪ geoff: which followed this

traditional slovenian folk song. ♪ i know from my own experience, having played in orchestras when i was a student, there's always one song that everyone loves to perform the most. what's that song for this group? >> you know, what's fascinating is one of the pieces that the students seem to be responding the most to. there are two in particular that i find them the most compelled by. one is a beautiful operatic piece, the intermezzo from the cavalleria rusticana. ♪ and the other is whitney houston's "greatest love of all." and what i love is that we have a group of students that are open and able to to cover so many styles of music and be excited and inspired by it. geoff: ♪ >> ♪ because the greatest

love of all is happening to me i have found the greatest love of all inside of me ♪ ♪ geoff: why is it important, in your view, for a momentous occasion like this? marking the 75th anniversary of the most successful alliance in history to have music at its core? >> i think one of the best examples that the diplomatic community can learn from is the musical community. you know, so many times we have to come together from many different walks of life, and particularly with this orchestra, they're coming from all over the world for just two days of rehearsals to bring themselves to a common purpose, a common musical purpose. and so, what i find so inspiring as the conductor is to bring all of these many different backgrounds together and say, look what we can do, even in our own musical space.

and if we can take the lesson from the students, that's how we can start bridging these divides. ♪ [applause] geoff: and our thanks to maestro luke frazier for spending some time with us. his american pops orchestra has been featured in thirty national broadcasts here on pbs. be sure to tune in to washington week with the atlantic tonight for a look at president biden's fight to stay at the top of his party's presidential ticket. amna: and on pbs news weekend, how extreme heat is warping train tracks and causing drawbridges to get stuck, causing major travel woes geoff: and as we mentioned earlier, next week, republicans are holding their national convention in milwaukee and we'll be there covering it all. >> the 2024 campaign heats up. >> we are going to fire crook a joe biden and we are going to make america great again.

>> former president trump -- >> can former president trump convince voters to send him back to the white house? >> this is a choice between strength and weakness. >> how will he take on the challenges facing america at home and abroad? coverage begins on monday, july 15 at 8 p.m. eastern. amna: we hope you will tune in and join us. that is the newshour. i'm amna nawaz geoff: and i'm geoff bennett. for all of us here at the pbs newshour, thanks for spending part of your evening with us. have a great weekend. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by -- and with the ongoing support of these individuals an institutions. and friends of the newshour, including kathy and paul anderson and the smiths. the walton family foundation. working on solutions to protect

water to bring climate change so people in nature can thrive together. the william and flora hewlett foundation, for more than 50 years, advancing ideas and supporting institutions to promote a better world, at hewlett.org. ♪ and with the ongoing support of these individuals an institutions. -- and institutions. ♪ and friends of the newshour. this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

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