john: tonight on pbs news weekend, president biden drops out of the presidential race, amid growing concerns from those in his own party and beyond. sen. manchin: and i'm just very hopeful that this torch is passed to a new generation to allow president biden be the president i know he is and can

be. john: then as democrats look ahead to picking a new candidate, how will they navigate election laws? and judy woodruff reflects on this remarkable moment in american history. >> major funding for pbs news weekend has been provided by -- >> consumer cellular, this is sam, how may i help you? this is a pocket dial. well, somebody's pocket, thought i would let you know that with consumer cellular you get nationwide coverage with no contract. that's kind of our thing. have a nice day. >> and with the ongoing support of these individuals 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. john: good evening. i'm john yang. with support from democrats eroding by the day, president biden says he's dropping out of the presidential race and endorsing vice president kamala harris to be his party's nominee. in a letter posted on his account on x, he wrote, "while it has been my intention to seek reelection, i believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as president for the remainder of my term." vice president harris issued in

a statement saying, "my intention is to earn and win this nomination." mr. biden said he would address the nation later this week to more fully explain his decision. for now, he remains in isolation at his beach house in delaware with covid. now, laura barrón-lópez covers the white house, lisa desjardins covers congress and the trump campaign, and domenico montanaro is senior political editor and correspondent for npr. lisa -- laura, rather, i want to begin with you. how did we get from defiance to standing down? laura: ultimately as the weeks had gone on since the june 20 seven debate, president biden was losing support every single day. he was losing support from leaders in congress, from democrats in congress, losing donors. all of that combined ultimately made it untenable for the president to hold his position, even though his campaign aides, his campaign cochair, as well as president biden and those around him continued to say he was in it, he was not going to back

down from this race. but lawmakers and democrats across the board said they wanted a decision from him by this coming monday. sunday evening, today, he says that he is not going to run for reelection, endorses harris, and already i am told vice president kamala harris is making calls to governors, to other people across the party apparatus to make it clear she is trying to earn this. we also saw both bill and hillary clinton endorsed her. notably, barack obama the former president did not specifically endorse her, saying he thought the party would ultimately come to its own decision through a healthy process. john: what do we know about the circle of advisors around the president as this process went on? laura: we know as the president had become also isolated with covid and as the weeks had gone on since the debate, his circle of closest advisers also started to shrink. mainly the people that were constantly speaking to him and relaying what they were hearing

from other members of the party to him were steve ricchetti as well as mike tomlin, longtime senior advisers. steve ricchetti is also very close with members of congress, and he was being told by a lot of members of congress that this was not sustainable, that members of congress thought it was time for president biden to step aside. ulmately, at the end of the day, facing all that, fallout from his party and the pressure campaign, the president decided it was time to allow someone else to step forward. john: pressure from congress. lisa, what are you hearing from republicans in congress and the trump campaign? lisa: the trump campaign quickly came out with a statement on social media first, in which former president trump said that biden was and is not fit to serve. i raise that because we have seen these resignation calls from other top republicans, including house speaker mike johnson, saying if he is not able to campaign then president biden should also step aside because he may not be able to

run the country. democrats completely disagree with that but republicans have been preparing this message for a while, since the disastrous debate for president biden. essentially republicans are quickly turning to harris. they have been building files on her since she was nominated for vice president, but now as the potential nominee they are looking at where she does well and where they might do well against her. sources close to trump campaign world and trump campaign pacs tell me michigan, wisconsin, and pennsylvania are three states they think harris does at least as poorly or worse than biden. they would like to pick up those states. those are also states where they think perhaps new vice presidential nominee j.d. vance could do well. but you know, out of all of this, they are already launching an ad against harris. look at this one from a pac affiliated with donald trump. >> kamala was in on it. she covered up joe's obvious mental decline. vp harris: our president is in good shape, in good health, tireless, vibrant, and i have no doubt about the strength of the

work that we have done. lisa: something else important about this is i have sources in house republican leadership and elsewhere telling me wehould expect investigations in the house immediately into this topic, and also by the way they may extend the congressional session in the house, which may be a problem for front liners on both sides, including democrats. john: domenico, what does this do for the democrats? what is next for them? the convention is weeks away and a virtual roll call is even closer. domenico: politically it is a smart move to make this announcement, if president biden was going to, today. it helps potentially to blunt any possible bounce that donald trump might have had out of the republican nationaconvention when we always see a republican or democratic candidate get some kind of a bounce out of that. kamala harris has a lot to prove the next couple of weeks to be able to step up to the plate,

show that she has the vigor, the confidence, that's opposite from what they saw with joe biden. that was the biggest problem, was people saw how joe biden performed inhe debate on june 27 and democrats' hair was on fire because they thought this was somebody who could not carry the message forward. kamala harris as a candidate in 2019 struggled somewhat. she did not seem to have a core. she wanted to bill herself as a problem solver. but now she has a record to run on essentially, having served with president biden. now the party is going to look to her to take the democratic message forward if she is the nominee, and likely will be as we are hearing from sources. john: let me ask you about that. the democratic party has been split the last couple of years between derates and sort of more liberals. has the party fallen behind harris or is she likely to get a challenge? domenico: you have to get 300 signatures from other delegates to be able to get onto a ballot at the democratic convention.

joe biden has some 3900 delegates already on his side. certainly his endorsement matters quite a bit with those delegates. we are seeing already a lot of statements out from people backing harris. if she does get a serious challenge, it might actually be a good thing for her because she is likely to still win the nomination and it would show she has some insider political skills that would certainly help her on her way. of course if she doesn't get a serious challenge, it shows democratic party unity already. we will see what winds up happening. there are certainly a lot of people with their eyes set on 2028. there is a potential opportunity for democrats to potentially gain a geographic advantage. when you think about the people who might be a potential harris vp, there are some swing state candidates or swing state governors who might be a possibility, or senator. somebody like josh shapiro of pennsylvania, somebody like mark kelly, senator from arizona, both swing states, places where joe biden since the debate has

seen his poll numbers crater so mewhat. that is what really drove this decision by so many people, concerned about whether democrats could win in these swing states. john: the next nominee is going to have to choose a vice presidential nominee. laura, you have reporting on that. laura: the names i have been hearing most from democratic sources for who could be the vice presidential pick for kamala harris, should she win the nomination, are pennsylvania governor josh apiro as well as north carolina governor roy cooper and kentucky governor andy beshear. of course names like mark kelly have also come up, as well as governor gretchen whitmer, governor of michigan. those three i named are the ones i hear the most in terms of who they think would be best paired with kamala harris. also if you look at the first two, pennsylvania and north carolina, key swing states, people who could potentially help harris in those key states.

again, harris doesn't have the nomination yet. there are some democrats who want an open process, including former speaker nancy pelosi, who voiced that, i was told, in a meeting with california democrats a week ago. other names that have come up as potential nominees for president, again gretchen whitmer of michigan as well as shapiro of pennsylvania, gavin newsom occasionally comes up from california. right now it appears as though the majority of the party quickly is rallying behind harris. john: domenico, i want to ask you to wrap this up. the biden campaign wanted an early debate to change the direction of the campaign. they have done it in a way -- they have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams, changing the direction. give us your sense of the state of this race right now. domenico: certainly trump has the edge. he is ahead in a lot of the swing states, all seven when i did a review of the polls this morning. he is ahead two to seven points

in those states. can those numbers be made up? absolutely, and certainly this pic is going to inject a degree of enthusiasm with democrats when you have seen a president with probably the worst three week stretch of any president ial candidate possible with maybe the worst debate performance in history. a solid republican national convention where trump's party showed a heavy degree of unity and confidence. and three, biden getting covid this past week really played into the narrative that he is too frail to continue as a candidate for four years. i think this does change the narrative because you have a younger candidate, if it is kamala harris or anybody else. i already hear democrats saying, we can't have a candidate who is going to be 83 years old by the end of their second term, if donald trump ds win the presidency, so already sort of inverting the narrative on trump. john: thank you all very much. domenico: you're welcome. ♪

john: democratic party officials will now have to negotiate state election laws, and they are just six weeks away from the first mail in ballots being sent out to voters in north carolina. rick hasen teaches at ucla law school and is an expert on election law. rick, how hard or easy is it going to be for the democratic parties in these states across the country to change the ballots? rick: they don't need to change anything at this point, because remember joe biden was never the nominee officially, he was the presumptive nominee. his name was going to be submitted either after this virtual rollcall that was maybe going to take place in early august, or at the convention. the fact that joe biden is dropping out now is not the issue. the issue is more of timing and in terms of when the information from the party is going to be transmitted to the various state officials.

think it should go, in almost every place, very smoothly and there should not be an issue based on the fact it's going to be a different nominee other than joe biden. john: before the president dropped out this morning, house speaker mike johnson said he was going to expect legal challenges from republican parties across the country to all of this. is there grounds -- are there grounds for a legal challenge and how long could that fight go on? rick: i don't think the legal challenges would be likely to be successful. i think they would be very unlikely to be successful. ohio for example had an early ballot deadline. they changed the deadline till later, but the change doesn't go into effect technically until september 1. but state officials have said we are going to stick with the new deadline, so democrats should be fine to put in a nominee after their convention. someone could try to challenge that. the courts have been very protective of the rights of major party candidates to be on

the ballot. there are a few other states where technical issues could be raisedlike washington state. i think these things are very unlikely to succeed and it is more smoke being thrown up to y to keep biden in the race and now to try to claim the democrats are doing something illegitimate. john: in your experience with all this, has there ever been a presidential candidate dropping out this late in the campaign? rick: this is very late. remember that democrats have a very late convention, so everything is later. i think maybe that's because of the olympics between the two conventions. it is very late but lots of other countries n entire elections in the period we would have between labor day and our election day. certainly there is enough time to ramp up campaigns and i think that's what we are going to see. john: we have been reminded that of short campaigns recently in britain and france. what happens to the money that the biden harris campaign has raised? rick: it depends on if harris is the nominee.

if harris is not the nominee, then biden would have to either give the money away to the democratic party or potentially set up a super pac, have his own pac that could support a candidate. those things would be not as good as if harris took over. most election lawyers think if harris takes over, she can keep using the funds. there are some people who claim she wouldn't be able to, at least not yet, so it's possible therwould be a challenge, but usually campaign-finance challenges come years later. we are still getting some resolutions from things that happened in 2016. i think if it is harris, she is very likely to be able to take over the use of that money. john: the process of choosing the next nominee, some republicans are criticizing it, saying it is anointing vice president harris, that it is anti-small d democratic, taking the decision away from the voters. what do you make of that? rick: remember that years ago the parties didn't have such a democratic process.

really the democracy comes mostly when it's the choice between the democrat and republican. since the late 1960's, the process has been democratized, but here you don't have the party leaders overcoming the will of someone who still wants to run for office. the person who was in the lead has said, i am stepping back. you need to have some process. if anything, if it is harris, remember she was on the ticket with biden, so she was getting those votes from the voters with biden all along the way. john: those saying the ballots will not have to be changed that much is not that much of a challenge. are there other legal hurdles you can foresee? rick: what's going to have to happen is they are going to have to have their chickens. i think you might still see the rollcall, virtual rollcall, take place so that the democrats lock this up by early august. that way, any of those longshot legal challenges would be gone and i think it would be smooth

sailing from the point of view of election law and will be about the politics of the situation. john: election law expert rick hasen of ucla law school, thank you very much. rick: thank you. ♪ john: president biden's decision to end his campaign for reelection is unprecedented in many ways, but the path from one president to another -- and from one nominee another -- has not always been a straight line. to talk about how this moment fits into this country's historical context, i'm joined by our very own judy woodruff. judy, we were just here a week ago. you and i were talking about an assassination attempt on a presidential candidate. you and i have seen a lot in presidential politics. judy: for sure, i know i have seen a lot.

john: and i have been there with you. can you ever remember a seven day period like this? rick: well, -- judy: well, and a 24 day period. on june 27, we were all gathered around our television set to watch the first debate of this presidential election. remember, that was a debate the biden team wanted. they wanted an early debate. they wanted to get out there and prove that president biden was up to this campaign, that he was vigorous, that he was going to go the distance. what happened? we still are trying to figure that out, but it was not a good night for joe biden. ever since then, the call for him to rethink whether he is a candidate has grown louder and louder. here we are three weeks and three days later and he has made this decision. it has been a painful process to watch. one can only imagine what's been going on with him personally, with his family, with his

closest advisors. with all the reporting we have seen. here we are, everything has changed. john: we have had presidents drop reelection bids before. harry truman in 1948, lyndon johnson in 1968. but back then he did it much earlier. he was being pressed by the vietnam war and other issues. this time the president decided against it because of physical questions or questions about his health. judy: that is what makes it unprecedented. you are right. harry truman, lbj, both faced opposition in their own party. they both made the announcement in march of election year that they were not seeking reelection. we are in late july, less than four weeks from the convention. and you are right, the president is citing -- he doesn't say that in this statement, but it's clear.

questions were raised about whether he had the physical, mental, emotional, cognitive ability to carry out another four year term. we have seen nothing like it. i thought back to tom eagleton, who was george mcgovern's running mate. mcgovern was chosen by the democratic delegates in 1972. he picked tom eagleton, senator from missouri, to be his running mate. then all these storiesame out about his emotional health, mental health, shock treatment. he was soon off the ticket. and along came sarge driver. but nothing like this exactly. john: i misspoke when i said harry truman dropped out in 1948, it was 1952. you have been traveling the country for our series america at the crossroads, talking to a lot of people about the divisions in america. is this something that has the potential of bringing people together or further dividing people? judy: i would like to tell you it has the potential to resolve all our differences and bring us together. john: oh, please do. judy: i will say i think it has

the potential clearly at the very least to get people to rethink this race. we have a whole new -- we are not sure who the nominee is. we believe it's going to be kamala harris. we don't know who her running mate is. there are any number of scenarios. what if she chose a woman, what if she chose gretchen whitmer and it were two women? we don't know what she is going to do, we are not certain she is going to be the nominee. there are so many ifs. i think my point is that people who have been looking at this race and telling me and other reporters, joe biden is too old, he shouldn't be running, they are going to take another look at this race. i'not predicting that it's going to pull away the hard-core donald trump supporters, but those folks who are out there on decided or who were turned off by the whole process, thinking this is not even an election i can get excited about, they are going to be taking another look. it's really impossible to say right now what's going to happen.

i think it's fair to say all bets are off. john: for so long people have been complaining about how long the presidential cycles are, two years practically that the campaigning goes on. we are going to have a very compressed campaign this time. they are going to have the nominee picked around labor day and have the general campaign bd campaign. what do you think of that? judy: and then a race until november 5. i am thinking of england, great britain, the u.k., they have their campaigns six weeks or something. and we don't even -- the united states, we are used to these two year-long campaigns. i do think first of all just the unprecedented nature of it, the news coverage. remind us again, who is kamala harris, what does she stand for? tell us about her record. introduce us to her running mate. by the way, j.d. vance, trump's running mate, people are still getting to know him. there are a lot of stories to be told, reporting to be done. all of that is going to happen

, you are right, in a very condensed -- so much news is going to happen between today, july 21, and the start of the democratic convention on august 19. then you get past the convention and it's labor day and a sprint to the finish. you and i both know from having covered politics for so long, so much can happen in a week, in a month, and we have seen it in the last month with joe biden. john: judy woodruff, thanks so much for your perspective. judy: thank you. ♪ john: there is other news. new details are emerging about the assassination attempt against former president trump, as the house prepares to interrogate the head of the secret service. a week after denying it, the secret service acknowledged that it had turned down requests from the trump detail for extra federal resources over the past two years. now lawmakers in both parties are demanding answers, with many

republicans calling on secret service director kimberly cheatle to resign. rep. johnson: we need the secret service to do one simple thing, protect our presidents and former presidents in these cases. that's not happening. and the initial excuses that she has given for the lapses that happened last saturday are just unbelievable. i mean, the democrats are just as concerned as the republicans are about this, because the agency is not a partisan agency. john: speaker johnson said he also has questions for homeland security secretary alejandro mayorkas, whose department oversees the secret service. tensions in the middle east are escalating. the israeli military said it intercepted a missile fired today by houthi rebels in yemen. the houthis said they were trying to hit the israeli resort city of eilat on the red sea. in recent days, israeli fighter jets hit the yemeni port city of hodaydah in response to a drone attack that killed a man in tel

aviv. nearly two weeks after hurricane beryl made landfall in texas, more than a thousand people are still without power amid stifling heat. more than half of the 23 storm-related deaths are being blamed on heat. centerpoint energy, houston's power provider, faces two class action lawsuits, including from restaurant owners who say they have lost income and paid for food that's now spoiled. ♪ and that is pbs news weekend for this remarkable sunday. i'm john yang. for all of my colleagues, thanks for joining us. have a good week. >> major funding for pbs news weekend has been provided by -- and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. 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.]

>> hi, i'm rick steves. thanks for joining us. to showcase the beauties of public television, we've put together a little festival of clips showing europe at play. in the next half hour, we'll experience festive europe. from prancing horses to well-trained sheepdogs to street parties in paris, it's hands-on travel today as europe embraces life with gusto, inspiring us