wow, you get to watch all your favorite stuff. it's to die for. now you won't miss a thing. this is the way. xfinity internet. m. geoff: good evening. i'm geoff bennett. amna nawaz is away. on the news hour tonight, venezuela becomes embroiled in a political standoff after both nicolas maduro's ruling party and the opposition claim victory in that country's presidential election. president biden proposes major changes to the u.s. supreme court, including term limits. pres. biden: we need these reforms to restore trust in the

court, preserve the system of checks and balances that are vital to our democracy. geoff: and how the trump and harris campaign messages are resonating with voters fewer than 100 days before the election. ♪ >> major funding for the pbs news hour has been provided by the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions, and friends of the news hour, including leonard and norma klorfine and the judy and peter blum kovler foundation. >> two retiring executives turn their focus to greyhounds, giving these former race dogs a real chance to win. a raymondjames financial advisor gets to know you, your purpose, and the way you give back. life well planned.

>> the william and flora hewlett foundation, for more than 50 years advancing ideas and supporting instituations to promote a better world. at hewlett.org. 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. geoff: welcome to the news hour. the u.s. says it has serious concerns about the election results in venezuela.

that's after venezuela's authoritarian leader, nicolas maduro, declared a victory in a tumultuous presidential race. exit polls in yesterday's voting showed a blowout win for the opposition party. now, both maduro and the opposition have claimed a win, but most world leaders have held back from recognizing the results. even before the official results, the headlines were set and the papers went to print. venezuelan president nicolas maduro claimed another six years in office. >> [translated] this really caught my attention. it was not what you would expect, at least, i did not expect it. geoff: and there was good reason for that surprise on the otherwise quiet streets of caracas. last night's exit polls told a different story, showing that maduro's main challenger, edmundo gonzalez, would win by a large margin. opposition leader maria corina machado, who championed gonzalez after she was banned from running by venezuela's supreme

court, declared his victory. >> [translated] edmundo gonzalez urrutia got 70% of the votes in this election, and nicolas maduro received 30% of the votes. this is the truth and, my dear venezuelans, this is the venezuelan election with the largest margin of victory in history. geoff: as the polls closed on sunday night, opposition supporters tried to witness the count. but scuffles broke out as maduro supporters showed up to push them back. hours after voting ended, the maduro-controlled national election authority declared him the winner with 51% of the vote, and 44% for gonzalez, who vowed to continue his fight. >> what happened during today's polling day was a violation of all the rules, to the point that the majority of electoral registers have still not been handed over. geoff: the venezuelan electoral body made a maduro win official

today, but the opposition has argued for more transparency. >> maria corina machado and edmundo gonzalez have all the records and numbers. it's just a matter of reviewing them. that is why we are asking for a review of each record to uncover the truth. geoff: machado and gonzalez presented the biggest challenge to the united socialist party since the revolutionary hugo chavez took office more than 25 years ago. venezuela was once the most advanced economy in latin america, with the world's largest oil reserves. but since chavez died and his protege maduro took office in 2013, venezuela has spiraled amid devastating inflation, economic collapse, and alleged human rights abuses. 7.7 million venezuelans have left the country, almost a third of the population. many world leaders have denounced or discounted maduro's announced victory. >> the international community is watching this very closely and will respond accordingly.

geoff: u.s. secretary of state antony blinken negotiated with maduro to ease american sanctions on venezuela's state-owned oil and gas industries, in exchange for a commitment to free and fair elections. blinken addressed the results on a trip to asia today. >> we have serious concerns that the result announced does not reflect the will or the votes of the venezuelan people. geoff: but maduro appears undeterred. >> a triumph of the national independence, the dignity of the venezuelan people. the sanctions made weren't enough, aggressions against us weren't enough, threats weren't enough, not today, and those will never be enough against the dignity of the venezuelan people. geoff: we're joined now by ricardio zuniga, founding partner of dinamica americas, an international advisory group. he's also a former state department official who served

as president obama's principal adviser for the americas. i want to start the reaction to nicolas maduro's declaration of victory in venezuela. ricardio: maduro and everyone else knows that he lost in a landslide. at this point he's doing what he can to try to change the facts on the ground. he did that in 2018. i do not think he is stronger today than he was then and certainly not stronger than he was yesterday. he is trying to cement these facts, gather as many international allies as he can to support him, unsuccessfully for the most part, and essentially steal this election. geoff: what options are available to the u.s. as it weighs its response? because until now sanctions have been the main leverage point. ricardio: sanctions were one point of leverage and they were designed exactly as that, as one part of the option. diplomatic negotiations with the maduro team but also basically coalescing a larger group of

international actors, especially from the americas and europe, to try and pressure for democratic change and support democratic actors in venezuela, that is an important source of leverage for the united states. there is also the fact that conditions regionally have changed dramatically over time. there is very little support regionally for the government he is going to try to reimpose. geoff: how instrumental are those regional players like brazil, colombia, chile, all of whom demanded to see a total vote tally? ricardio: they have. what maduro is trying to do today is really eliminate that vote tally as a factor at all by establishing facts on the ground through the use of force and through the theft of ballot boxes, a very old style approach to election theft. with very little guile.

but those regional actors remain extreme and what brazil and columbia says is going to weigh a lot. these are important trading partners for venezuela. they share not just borders but a lot of interests in common. they are also the designation for millions of venezuelans who have left that collapsing state. geoff: meantime china and russia are rallying behind maduro. what are the implications there? ricardio: unfortunately that will continue this farce of an election that is going to provide some vital support. but they also have to look at maduro as a weakened leader. at the end of the day he allowed an election to demonstrate just how weak he is internally. his domestic allies will also be weighing. geoff: is there a path forward now for the opposition and what does this mean for the people of venezuela who are desperate for change? ricardio: there is certainly a path forward. everyone in venezuela knows that

edmundo gonzalez won this election, that there is massive support for change in venezuela ,, as there should be. almost 8 million venezuelans have left the country in recent years. so there will be increasing demand, not decreasing demand. there is a sense that the 2018 election, which was won under very questionable terms by maduro, that is not the way forward. i think that the pressure for change is only going to grow and there are different institutions in venezuela like the armed forces that will have to make some difficult decisions as to where they stand. geoff: thank you so much for your insights this evening, we appreciate it. ♪ stephanie: i am stephanie sy with news hour west. in the middle east, israel's prime minister has warned of severe consequence for a strike in the golan heights that killed 12 children.

israel says hezbollah fired the rocket from lebanon, but hezbollah denies responsibility. israel seized the golan heights from syria in 1967, during the six day war. since then, israeli troops have used it as a strategic position, given its high elevation and proximity to syria and lebanon. today, at the soccer field where the deadly attack took place, local protesters chanted "get out" as netanyahu paid a visit, . >> [translated] hezbollah, backed by iran, fired here an iranian missile that took the lives of 12 pure souls. these are our children, the children of all of us, and the state of israel will not and cannot ignore this. our response will come and it will be harsh. stephanie: the white house urged today that israel show restraint amid concerns of a broader regional war. in northwest england, two children were killed and 11 others injured in a knife attack at a dance class today. the rampage took place in the

seaside town of southport, outside of liverpool. police arrested a 17-year-old male on suspicion of murder and attempted murder. six children and two adults are in critical condition. the town's chief constable described it as a ferocious attack. >> it is understood that the children were attending a taylor swift event at a dance school when the offender, armed with a knife, walked into the premises and started to attack, inside, the children. we believe that the adults who were injured were bravely trying to protect the children who were being attacked. geoff: police have not yet identified a motive, but they are not reading it as a terrorist attack. here in the u.s., officials say the park fire has become the sixth largest blaze in state history. today authorities charged this man, ronnie dean stout ii, of arson. he is accused of pushing a

burning car into a gully last week, igniting the fire. firefighters reported some progress on containment over the weekend but the fire is still spreading. the inferno has burned more than 100 structures across an area of -- that's larger than the city of los angeles. among the communities warned to evacuate is the town of paradise, which was devastated by the camp fire in 2018. a judge in new york has decided not to appoint an outside monitor to oversee the finances and internal operations at the national rifle association. but judge joel cohen did ban former nra head, wayne lapierre, from working there for 10 years. the ruling came during the second phase of a civil case brought by new york attorney general letitia james. during the first phase earlier this year, a jury found that lapierre had mis-spent millions of nra dollars on personal expenses. he was ordered to repay more than $4 million. u.s. health regulators approved the first blood test for colon cancer today.

it's called shield, and it's intended for adults aged 45 and older. the test detected 83% of cancers, according to a study published earlier this year. but it's not a replacement for colonoscopies, which are still preferred by doctors. colorectal cancer is the second most common form of cancer deaths in the u.s., expected to kill more than 53,000 people this year alone. in olympics news, novak djokovic bested longtime rival rafael nadal in a showdown today. it was the 60th match between the two tennis legends and possibly their last. the outcome ends nadal's singles run in paris but he will still compete in doubles. in gymnastics, the american men ended a 16-year medal drought in the team competition, earning a bronze. but it's been a slow start for the triathletes in paris. organizers canceled their training session in the seine for a second day, citing pollution levels and current speeds.

>> there's been quite a lot of rain, including during the opening ceremony. >> we've done everything we could in relation with the international federation, but also with the public authorities to achieve the goal of having the swimming in the seine and it's going to be a fantastic legacy for later and we're still optimistic that we can hold the competition within the seine river. stephanie: as for where things stand on the overall olympic leaderboard, the u.s. tops the table in total medals, with 20. that includes three golds. host nation france has 16 medals, including five golds. and japan is currently third. but holds six gold medals, the most of any country. and a passing of note. civic leader alma powell, who was the widow of former secretary of state colin powell, has died. she was a devoted military spouse, who reportedly played a key role in convincing her husband not to run for president in 1996.

five years later, she stood by his side while he was sworn in as secretary of state. later on, mrs. powell served on many boards, including president obama's board of advisors on historically black colleges, and she was chair emeritus of america's promise alliance, a nonprofit founded by her husband that helps under-served youth. alma powell was 86 years old. still to come on the "news hour," donald trump's shifting stance on cryptocurrency. amy walter and tamara keith analyze the latest from the trump and harris campaigns. and olympic speed skater apolo ohno on prioritizing athletes' mental health. >> this is the pbs news hour from weta studios in washington and in the west from the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. geoff: it's only been a week since the 2024 race for the

white house was upended, but it's already entering the final countdown, now fewer than 100 days until election day. in the last couple of days, the republican ticket, donald trump and j.d. vance, hit the campaign trail together, while vice president kamala harris spent her first full weekend as the likely democratic nominee. here is lisa desjardins. i found because we have a lot to talk about. lisa: tonight, vice president kamala harris' campaign is basking in the glow of a colossal fundraising haul, and a new surge in the polls. her campaign announced yesterday that it had raised over $200 million in the first week of her candidacy, more than the trump campaign raised in the entire month of june. and team harris got a boost in manpower, saying more than 170,000 volunteers signed up. but even with that, at a massachusetts fundraiser this weekend, harris warned against overconfidence. vp harris: we are the underdogs

in this race. but this is a people power campaign. and we have momentum. lisa: those signs of energy are also showing up in the polls. a new abc news ipsos poll shows voters warming up to harris fast, with 43% favorability. that number was 35% just a week ago. the jump was especially pronounced among independents, now with 44% viewing harris favorably, up by 16 points. >> are you ready to elect kamala harris president of the united states of america? lisa: stumping for harris on the trail this weekend, a number of high-profile surrogates who are also among her potential running mates. the v.p. could pick her v.p. as soon as this week. the blitz of events and messaging, including what the campaign dubbed a weekend of action, include a new angle of attack against opponents donald trump and j.d. vance. >> we're not afraid of weird people.

we're a little bit creeped out, but we're not afraid. vp harris: donald trump has been resorting to some wild lies about my record. and some of what he and his running mate are saying, well, it's just plain weird. lisa: but team trump is also hitting the trail hard, with trump holding three major appearances since friday. starting with the former president and his number two appearing together in minnesota, that's a state that hasn't voted for a republican for president in over 50 years. but trump wants to redraw the map, even as he himself writes new attack lines. mr. trump: we have a brand new victim. and honestly, she's a radical left lunatic. she has no clue. she has no clue. she's evil. lisa: since the attempt on his life, trump has only had events at indoor venues, including this one in minnesota. but he has vowed to return to butler, pennsylvania, where the shooting happened, for a rally at a later date. and today, the fbi said the former president has agreed to be interviewed as part of their

investigation into the shooting. but over the weekend, many trump allies also had to explain these comments trump made to a gathering of christian conservatives on friday. mr. trump: christians, get out and vote, just this time. you won't have to do it anymore. four more years. you know what? it'll be fixed. it'll be fine. you won't have to vote anymore, my beautiful christians. i love you, christians. lisa: a spokesman said trump was talking about uniting the country. running mate j.d. vance gave an explanation sunday. >> i think he's saying, get out there, make sure this election matters, because if you don't, the next four years, we may not have a real election if the democrats give illegal aliens the right to vote. lisa: harris and trump will both campaign in battleground states in the next few days, and with just 99 days left in the race, every day counts. for the pbs news hour, i'm lisa desjardins. geoff: meantime, president biden is unveiling three proposed

reforms in response to legal, ethical, and political controversies swirling around the u.s. supreme court. namely, finding former presidents are largely immune from criminal prosecution, gifts received and initially unreported by justices, and the makeup of the court itself. president biden called for the changes at an event in austin, texas, this afternoon. pres. biden: we can and must be protected and expand our civil rights in america. we can and must prevent the abuse of presidential power and restore faith in the supreme court. we can and must strengthen the guardrails of democracy. geoff: white house correspondent laura barron-lopez joins us now to unpack all of this. good to see you. so what is president biden proposing and how does this all work? laura: this was a long time coming for president biden and today he endorsed major reforms to the supreme court including term limits for justices, a binding code of conduct for supreme court justices, and a constitutional amendment that would make it so there is no presidential immunity from prosecution for crimes committed

while in office. and for the term limits, it would make it so a president could appoint a justice every two years and they would spend 18 years on the court rather than receiving a lifetime appointment. when it comes to the code of ethics, justices would have to recuse themselves from cases in which they or their spouses have financial or other conflicts of interest, and of coursthe presidential immunity constitutional amendment is in response to the supreme court ruling that a president has broad immunity for official acts. geoff: the white house says these proposals are popular but are they politically feasible? laura: all these would have to be passed through congress and most republicans in congress have opposed reforms like this. house speaker mike johnson said today that these proposals would be dead on arrival in the house. so to pass these, any democratic president would need to have strong majorities in both chambers. specifically two of these would have to be passed through a constitutional amendment, the

term limits as well as the presidential immunity amendment, and that would require a two thirds majority of both chambers and three quarters of state legislators to ratify a constitutional amendment. geoff: so here is one question. why now? president biden had resisted supreme court reform for a long time. laura: this is an election year and so this is a big way for president biden to essentially rally the base to democrats. it is something progressives have pushed him on since the 2020 campaign for they have -- campaign. they have wanted to see him endorse some supreme court reforms. he faced a lot of pressure to expand the number of justices on the supreme court. i spoke to bob bauer who sat on the president's supreme court reform commission a few years ago and he said that court expansion would further erode the public's confidence in the supremcourt. >> i don't think that there is much of a future to the proposals for court expansion.

-- court packing, or court expansion. i think on the merits there are more negatives than positives. we saw support for term limits in a way we did not see for court expansion or court packing from left and right, democrats and republicans, quite wide support reflected in the record we created for the commission. that we created for the commission. laura: as bob bowers said, there is much more bipartisan support for term limits for justices it

. also recently justice kagan acknowledged that there should be a binding code of ethics for justices but the enforcement mechanism is the thing justice kagan said would be difficult, saying potentially it could be lower court judges that end up enforcing them. geoff: is this something vice president harris will champion? laura: it is. vice president harris quickly endorsed this after the president released the proposal. she said quote, these popular reforms will help restore confidence in the court, strengthen our democracy, and ensure no one is above the law. so she is squarely behind president biden on this. and again, her campaign feels this is a way to energize the base. democrats are trying to make supreme court a wedge issue the way republicans have in the past, and it is a good possibility of them for do this, especially after the fall of roe v. wade. geoff: laura barron-lopez, thank you as always. laura: thank you. geoff: this weekend, cryptocurrency's largest annual conference took place in nashville, tennessee. it was a gathering of leaders, celebrities, tech-industry insiders, and crypto-enthusiasts. both former president trump and independent presidential candidate robert f. kennedy, jr.

spoke in favor of boosting crypto during their remarks there. as william brangham tells us, those speeches may be aimed at getting support this fall from tech leaders and start-ups, who have a growing voice on these issues. william: that's right, geoff. the incredible rise of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have created a new bloc of mega-donors and voters that presidential candidates are now trying to win over. former president trump, who initially denounced cryptocurrency as quote, highly volatile and based on thin air, back in 2019, reversed himself in his speech to the conference last saturday, by promising to make the u.s. the crypto capital of the world. pres. trump: if crypto is going to define the future, i want to be mined, minted, and made in the usa. it's going to be. it's not going to be made anywhere else. and if bitcoin is going to the moon, as we say, is going to the moon, i want america to be the nation that leads the way, and that's what's going to happen . you're going to be very happy with me. william: joining me now to

discuss the ramifications of all this is david yaffe-bellany from "the new york times." thank you so much for being here. help set the table for us for people who have not been following this that closely. remind us of where crypto was after its big fall and now it has sort of resurged in the marketplace. david: the last time most ordinary people tuned into the crypto industry, top executives were going to prison, the market was in freefall, and a lot of these kind of risky investments had been widely dismissed as worthless or scams. but a lot has changed since then. in january the federal government approved a new investment product that's tied to the price of bitcoin and when that product started trading it sort of opened up access to the crypto market to a whole lot of people who had not invested in it before, and as a result the price of going surged and it reached its record high a few months ago. and the prices of some other big crypto tokens have followed suit. and so the industry is in a much

healthier state today than it has been for the last couple of years. william: so as we just heard, former president trump made this very explicit pitch to the crypto world, saying i might have been a skeptic before, but now i'm in full bore. what is his pitch and why is this happening now? david: look, the crypto industry is furious about the way that it's been treated by the federal government. the securities and exchange commission has embarked on a pretty aggressive crackdown on crypto companies, a crackdown so severe that it's essentially an existential threat. it could drive the industry out of the united states if it's successful. and so the embrace of trump is really a response to that, and you know, a cynical reading of this is that trump is kind of opportunistically seizing on what's happening under the current administration, you know, seeing an opportunity to attract donor dollars from the crypto industry and so that's why he's making this pitch, promising that he's going to turn the u.s. into a kind of inviting sort of capital for crypto companies, you know, rather than the sort

of, you know, aggressive cop on the beat that it's been over the last couple of years. william: let's talk about that cop on the beat, currently that's the biden administration's cop on the beat. what is it that they're doing and what is their argument about why they need to be such a tough cop? david: sure. the leader of this push is the chair of the sec, gary gensler, and the argument that he has made over and over is that most cryptocurrencies are essentially securities, which is to say that they're just like stocks and bonds that are traded on wall street and that they ought to be regulated as such, and that crypto companies should have to make all the sorts of disclosures and follow all the same rules as people who offer those traditional investment products. that is a legal argument that the crypto industry hates. they're fighting back against it, saying that if the sec beats them in the courts on this issue, then they'll be driven out of the united states. so that's sort of the crux of the debate, and trump went in front of a crowd of bitcoin supporters over the weekend and said, one of my first acts as

president will be to fire gary gensler, and it got probably the biggest cheer of the day. william: so, do we know what vice president kamala harris might do if she were elected? is it safe to say she would discontinue the biden administration's current approach? david: it's hard to say for sure. she hasn't said a ton publicly about her views on crypto, but obviously she's part of the current administration and so a lot of crypto insiders are kind of assuming that if she wins, it'll be more of the same that they saw under the biden administration. with that said, both the biden campaign and now the harris campaign have extended something of an olive branch to crypto companies, sort of invited them to come to the table and sort of talk about the policy changes they would like to see, but the reaction among crypto executives has been pretty skeptical. essentially it's been your talk means nothing to us, we've seen what you've done over the last four years and frankly we don't trust you. william: we're talking about crypto here, but there has been in the broader tech world as

well as in the vc world, the venture capital world, the seeming move towards trump and supporting republican candidates. is that all about this concern over too strict enforcement as they see it? david: that's really probably the key part of this. even tech people who aren't directly involved in the crypto industry see what's going on and say, this is an administration that's cracking down on innovation and you know, there's a fear that there might be a crackdown on the ai companies that are proliferating now, and so that's a lot of what's driving the kind of rightward shift of the silicon valley elite toward trump. but there are other factors as well. a lot of these top figures in the tech world have kind of bought into concerns about cancel culture and "wokeness" run amok, and so there are some of those kind of cultural issues at play here as well. william: and i'm sure it's also true that billionaires like tax cuts, which donald trump is promising more of as well. david: that's for sure. william: david yaffe-bellany of

"the new york times." thank you so much for being here. david: thank you. geoff: for some analysis of one of the busiest weeks of the 2024 presidential race so far, it's our politics monday team. that's amy walter of the cook political report with amy walter, and tamara keith of npr. hello. so, vice president harris's campaign launch was greeted with enthusiasm, energy, and a ton of money from democrats. the question is, how can her campaign sustain this momentum for 99 days until election day? tamara: the good news for them is there is only 99 days until election day. the campaign said they got -- [coughs] so sorry, you go. [laughter] geoff: almost $200 million.

amy: there has been -- we were talking about this before we went on air -- there has been pent up enthusiasm among democrats for somebody, anybody who could prosecute the case against donald trump. they have that now in kamala harris. i'm going to keep going. and they finally have that ability in kamala harris to make that case. now, look, i think that's not the part she has to be as concerned about right now, is keeping enthusiasm up among democrats. some of it is about her, but it is really, as it has long been, about not being donald trump and having someone who can make the case against donald trump. geoff: one more question for amy as tam, you recover. how are you doing? tamara: working on it. [laughter] geoff: we have seen a polling shift lately. vp harris is within one point of donald trump with likely voters. a major improvement when you

look at where president biden was. he was behind six points after the debate a month ago. is this national shift something we are seeing in battleground states as well? amy: not as dramatic as that, but what we are seeing in some of the state polls in the last week is a shift two to three points in harris's favor, which is good news if you are kamala harris. but as we discussed with this enthusiasm question, the real challenge i think going forward for harris is not that she got the base consolidated. well, actually, let me be fair. it was not always a given the base would be consolidated. so in one week to go from being the vice president who maybe, could be, we don't know if she is going to be able to do this, to she's now gotten the base behind her, is something i think was surprising to a lot of people, including a lot of republicans who were hoping for a more dramatic and less unifying experience. but now she has to go to the next step.

getting two to three points in -- or in the national poll moving four or five points gets her within the margin but it does not get her ahead. so now she has to make the sell to the swing voters. geoff: got it. we are expecting some time in the next week for vp harris to name her running mate. she has to do it before august 7 to get on the ticket in all 50 state ballots. who among the reported shortlist do you think boosts the democratic ticket in those battleground states? amy: it goes back to my previous point about what do you need to do with you or vp candidate? do you need to keep the base energized and excited? i don't really think so. remember donald trump's pick of mike pence was because he had a base problem. evangelicals were not sold on donald trump. they did not believe he was going to follow through on many of the prohe campaign trail, so pence was the person to bring in those voters.

harris i don't think has to worry about where democrats are going to be. instead she needs somebody to maybe soften the edges of her record. we are hearing president trump -- former president trump on the campaign trail, republicans who are running down ballot attacking her as someone who is way, way to the left. trump called her the most liberal person who has ever run for president. so getting someone who is more of a centrist is i think what becomes more critical, which puts a lot of those names like mark kelly and josh shapiro in the mix. geoff: let's talk about j.d. vance, because he is getting a lot of scrutiny for his controversial comments about men -- about women without children. he called them childless cat ladies who are miserable with their own lives. he said this years ago while running for the ohio senate seat, but he has not disavowed the comments and he said just the other day he stands by the substance of what he said. there are lots of democrats now who are now more than happy to

target j.d. vance, including the senate majority leader -- senate minority leader chuck schumer. sen. schumer: vance seems to be more erratic and extreme than president trump and i bet president trump is sitting there scratching his head wondering, why did i pick this guy? the choice may be one of the best things he ever did for democrats. geoff: chuck schumer, we should say, is the majority leader. i have a lot in my head at the moment. what year is this? how are you doing, tam? tamara: i think i am better. i had some warm water with the cold water and i'm going to make it. geoff: our viewers were concerned. has j.d. vance become a liability for republicans. tamara: he has had a terrible, no good week. he has somehow galvanized people who own cats. i went to -- i covered harris at a fundraiser she went to. there were people outside of her fundraiser holding signs that said cat ladies for kamala harris. this is after he -- you know,

essentially he has a long file of things he has said back when it didn't matter what he said because he was not going to be vice president. he was the author of a book and a guy running for senate in a republican primary. so at one point he had said -- i think he called harris a woman without children, a cat lady, and others who don't have children who should somehow have less political power than those who do. that just set people off. maybe those people were never going to vote for trump. but generally speaking with your vice presidential pick, either you wanted to be additive or you want it to be a wash. you don't want it to be negative. what trump now has is voters, everyone, the media, very focused on vice president harris and this huge amount of fundraising she has had. all the remaining oxygen is going to his vice presidential

pick and his very bad no good week and all the crazy things he said five years ago which have now become memes. geoff: it allows democrats to settle on this new messaging where it is not just offensive, it is also really weird. we keep hearing democrats like tim walz, brian schatz, even, harris has said on the stump that the things that trump and vance and republicans have said are just weird. dissect that as a strategy. tamara: we talked about this so much when we were at the convention together. his pick of j.d. vance was a sign of supreme confidence. like, we got this in the bag, we don't need to reach out to swing voters. i am not really worried about those because we are winning. and he was not put on the ticket to make up for some deficits that trump may have or win over new voters. he was put on as an additive onto trump. and so of course he has turned off swing voters because he was never brought on to appeal to swing voters, and he has never had to. remember, his race in ohio, this

is a race he did win pretty handily. and yet for a state as republican as that, he did not have to ever kind of attack -- tack to the middle, and he didn't win by as big a percentage as given where the state is as he could or should have. geoff: earlier we were talking about vice president harris's short list for running mate. mara: the shortlist is stillats quite long, is what my reporting tells me. we have two sources we have spoken to who are familiar with harris's thinking, and they say she has not narrowed the list down. it is about a dozen people. that decision will be made quite soon though. the qualities she is looking for among others is executive experience, and the ability to be a governing partner with her, as she sees herself as a governing partner with president biden. that could be a lot of people, but it certainly points in the

direction of governors with executive experience. geoff: tamara keith and amy walter, thanks as always. >> you're welcome. ♪ geoff: millions of people are closely watching the performance of olympic great simone biles as she competes for gold. biles' stunning athletic feats are the primary reason, of course. but she has also helped open the door wider to conversations around mental health and the incredible pressure to compete, as have other olympic greats like michael phelps, naomi osaka, and jaime anderson. amna had a conversation just before the games began with apolo ohno, the most decorated american olympian of the winter games. he's now an entrepreneur and motivational speaker. amna: apolo ohno, welcome and thanks for joining us. so, you are so respected and so

admired not only by so many fans, but also by so many athletes looking to follow in your footsteps. i am curious, have any of this year's olympians reached out to you looking for advice? and if so, what kind of questions do they ask you? apolo: first of all, i am honored you would say that. my competing days feel like a lifetime ago and i get probably as excited as anyone else who is watching this new or researching group of athletes go to compete in paris. i don't communicate with that many of this team. obviously i'm a winter olympic athlete, so a lot of my existing relationships go back into that realm. but i will be in paris cheering those athletes on. it will be interesting to see, given all of what has happened over the past four years globally, both in terms of what is in these athletes' minds, how they prepare, the entire landscape of the world, how much have people gone through in terms of resilience.

i think we need these games and we need them badly. amna: what do you mean by that? especially for these athletes who, as you say, have been coming out of these last few years when we know we have seen a worsening of the mental health crisis. i know this is something you talk about a lot and resilience. what are you looking for in these athletes? what do you want to see? apolo: we saw this conversation around de-stigmatization of the word mental health and people who suffer or are in a place where they feel they don't have the resources or access and that they are not ok. there is usually a long lag associated with that. i think that we are seeing all the effects with social pressure, of these different tribal extreme views. and subscriptions to whatever belief systems you have. it feels like a fractured time in society. a beautiful part about what the olympics is supposed to embody and stand for is a unification globally around providing a platform for these athletes to showcase their best physicality and their best mental component.

and as we saw some of the greatest athletes in the world bowing out of competition at the peak of their careers, and it took some by surprise. and so the games are required, i believe, because sport is a unifier. it brings the world together and at least gives us a two week period of time where we can breathe, we can cheer, we can see the amazing feats of these amazing men and women from around the world. amna: what was it like when you were coming up? could you have conversations around mental health? apolo: obviously with every athlete that is retired, i am 14 years retired now and i look back on my career and i say, back when i did it in my day, it was a very different conversation. but the reality is the resources were not at the priority of what the athletes needed, required, or to be completely frank, we didn't know what that even meant. the words mental health really was mental performance. that is what we focused a lot of our time on. that is why there is only three spots on a podium.

gold, silver, and bronze. we pay attention to that medal count more so ever today than we did in the past. we can never lose sight of the powerful form of the journey to get there. i can tell you almost 15 years retired, when i look back on my career, i don't really remember standing on top of the podium. the memories are there, they are ingrained, but the most powerful were the times when no one was watching, when it was behind the curtain, when it was me against myself, digging, striving, trying to find extra 1%. i think that is what people can derive from these experiences, that while we might not always be able to control these outcomes, in that process is where the true prize can be. amna: tell me more about your own personal experience. when you go all in, as you have to to compete at that level, what did it mean for you when you decided to change paths, as you did when you decided to retire and leave this sport which i defined so much of you for so long? what was that like?

apolo: if i can give you an example, i wrote a book called "hard pivot," and there is a chapter called the great divorce. imagine -- and everyone will go through some significant hard pivot, a loss of identity, or loss in general, a loved one, a situation, financial, some hardship. and that great divorce, i'm speaking from experience, was in the back of my head. i have to tell you, there have been hundreds of people who have said, apolo, prepare for what you will do after sport. in my head i could not wrap my head around what i wanted to do. there wasn't anything i wanted to do. i felt like my purpose, my being, my entire ethos on this planet was to go in circles on these speed skates. i didn't know how ridiculous that was back then. but when you retire, either by force or by choice, those guardrails go flat, and now you have an athlete swimming in this sea of unknown.

they don't know who they are, they don't know what skills that they have developed yet, there has been no coaching, and many put off many collegiate or academic studies in lieu of pursuing their dream of representing the u.s. at the olympic games. that comes with cost, like everything in life. for me there was no plan b. so for all of those athletes going into paris, into these olympic games, and preparing for retirement after, nothing i could say to them will resonate until those feelings of quiet, of solemn, when all the lights have dissipated, when the sponsors are no longer calling, when the agent has gone onto the next great athlete, the next great story, and you are left with yourself. they have to remember that within this is this untamed potential and reservoir of opportunity that they have to restart again. amna: apolo ohno, still out here leading and inspiring so many people in the ways that you do. thank you so much. it is always a pleasure speaking with you. apolo: thank you.

nice talking to you. ♪ geoff: one of the hollywood box office stars of the summer is a 94-year-old actress, a veteran of stage and screen, but now in her very first starring role. june squibb talks to jeffrey brown about aging on screen and in life for our arts and culture series, canvas. >> grandma! >> danny? you sound so strange. >> i'm in jail. >> oh my god! jeffrey: in the movie "thelma," 94-year-old june squibb plays 93-year-old thelma post, victim of an online scam that targets older people, who decides to take matters into her own hands. >> i'm going to get him back. i need a ride. jeffrey: when squibb first read the script, she says it was a no brainer to take it on. june: it had this wonderful

woman in her 90's, who was ready to gung ho all over l.a. to get her money back. and i just felt, oh, god, such grit, such determination. and showing age. >> how did you think this was real? >> mom, you thought it was real too. >> well, she was very convincing. jeffrey: the film, written and directed by josh margolin, is based on his real-life grandmother, who just turned 104. we see thelma, having lost her husband, with family, especially her somewhat lost but loving grandson, and other aging friends. most of all, ben, played by richard roundtree, best known as detective john shaft in the 1970's film series. >> why are we stopping? >> to get a gun. >> do you even know how to use it? >> how hard can it be? idiots use them all the time. jeffrey: the two take off across los angeles on the trail of the scammers. and the film gleefully riffs on tom cruise-like, mission impossible chase scenes, but now on a rather slow-moving

motorized scooter. squibb insisted on doing some of her own stunts, including driving the scooter. june: i live in a complex, an apartment complex, and there's a road around it, and the stunt coordinator, the director, the producers were all here with me on this scooter riding around this oval. and he, the stunt coordinator, was running beside me. they were scared to death i was going to kill myself. but i got pretty good on it. the stunt coordinator kept saying, june, you can stop it on a dime. so that became my sort of "stop on a dime, squibb." jeffrey: "stop on a dime" june squibb is having quite a summer. she's also the voice of nostalgia in the animated film, "inside out 2," a massive box office hit, the year's biggest so far. >> is this when we all finally came up to headquarters? >> nostalgia. that was like three seconds ago,

nostalgia. >> yeah, those were the days. jeffrey: she spent decades in a wide variety of stage roles, on and off broadway. her move to the screen came late, and then always in smaller, supporting roles, such as "scent of a woman" with al pacino. she played lena dunham's grandmother in the hbo series "girls." >> someday you will look at him, hating him with every fiber of your being. it will pass. jeffrey: her best-known role to date came in the film "nebraska" in 2013, as the wife of an increasingly delusional man played by bruce dern, which gained her an oscar nomination for best supporting actress. >> these boys grow up staring at the rear ends of cows and pigs. look at that? who created that? who thought it up? a plug for a car. electricity goes through, makes it run. jeffrey: "thelma," in fact, is her first starring role. does that surprise you to even

think about that, to contemplate that? june: it surprises me that it's become such a point of interest to people. because it's not a point of interest to me, basically. i always choose what i'm going to do. there are certain reasons why i want to do certain films. it's the material for me. it's not a leading role, supporting role, all those words. it's what the woman is as i'm reading it. >> we are old, diminished. the least we can do is take care of each other. jeffrey: playing this woman, squibb says, felt deeply personal. for all the comedy, this is also a film about aging and family ties and strains, about lost loved ones, about loneliness and holding onto purpose. squibb and her second husband were together for 30 years before his death in 1999. june: i recognized immediately some of the things that thelma was feeling and going through,

and i've already been through some of those. so, no, it became personal. it became very personal. jeffrey: what do you see with the movies generally? do the movies get aging right, do you think? june: i think we're doing it more and more. the studios, the people that make decisions, are seeing that people are interested in aging. jeffrey: but on the other hand, we always hear that older people can become invisible in our culture. june: well, i think they do. i think that it's easy to have a grandmother, an aunt or somebody in the family, and as they get older, i think that they're less listened to, you know, they're less important, perhaps. what they think is less important. but i think that that might be changing, too. i mean, we are breaking all the

rules with this film. and that's what it's all about, is if you can break rules, and make money at it. i mean, you know, we're doing beautifully at the box office. jeffrey: you've said that you felt in the past that you constantly had to prove yourself, and you no longer feel that anymore. june: well, the audition process that we all went through in our younger years, it's very difficult. you're constantly being said, prove to me, prove to me that you should do this role. i think that as we get older, we drop a lot of that. we don't really -- well, for one thing, i really care little what anybody thinks anymore. so, i have that sort of security within me that what i'm thinking, what my wishes are and what my wants are, are enough.

jeffrey: one poignant coda, after filming ended, co-star richard roundtree died of pancreatic cancer at age 81. as for june squibb, she's already wrapped filming her second starring role in "eleanor the great," the upcoming directorial debut by scarlett johansson. no sense of retiring or stopping? june: god knows i've slowed down, you know. but i have no idea -- if somebody comes to me with something and it looks like i can do it, and i want to do it, i will do it. jeffrey: june squibb is thelma, in theaters and streaming, this summer. for the pbs news hour, i'm jeffrey brown. >> what? >> i didn't say anything. >> oh. ♪ geoff: and that is the news hour for tonight. for all of us here at the pbs

news hour, thanks for spending part of your evening with us. have a good night. >> major funding for the pbs news hour has been provided by -- ♪ supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org. and with the ongoing support of these 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.] >> this is pbs news hour west from weta studios in washington

and from our bureau at the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university.

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